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Looks like the TARDIS fell out of the Time Vortex and landed in an strange new dimension.Honestly, I can't believe I haven't seen something like this before. Now I'm not saying one doesn't exist, just that I haven't seen it.Anyway, I think it turned out well. Took me forever to find a TARDIS picture from a good angle to get the desired result.I especially like Ditzy Doo's expression here.---FIRST EDIT, Nov. 27, 2011:Changed the color of the TARDIS light to better match the show. For some reason, I thought it blue. I also added a faint green glow to the Doctor and Ditzy, emanating from the TARDIS interior.--Doctor Whooves vector made by * Zork-787 Ditzy Doo/Derpy Hooves vector made by ~ solusjbj TARDIS photo belongs to the BBC [link]

BY: Follow @FBillMcMorris General Motors has shied away from promoting the Chevrolet Volt in 2013 as the federal government begins selling off its final shares of company stock, a move one expert said may have been made to avoid reminding the public of the federal bailout. GM press releases have avoided discussing the plug-in hybrid that was once hailed as the "halo car" and a "moon shot" that could increase GM’s market share in green technology. GM’s public press releases mentioned the Chevrolet Volt roughly 111 times per month when it launched in 2010 and 92 times the following year. However, the company began drawing less attention to the vehicle in November 2011 when the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration launched an investigation into claims that the vehicle’s fire hazards. From December 2011 to December 2012, the company mentioned the Volt just 31 times per month. The acceleration of the federal government’s withdrawal from the company has also coincided with decreasing attention drawn to the Volt. GM press releases have mentioned the vehicle just 11 times per month on average through September 2013. Despite record-breaking sales in August, GM mentioned the Volt only once, as part of a press release focused on overall company performance. "The Chevrolet Volt had its best month ever, as did the Chevrolet Spark, Chevrolet Sonic, Cadillac XTS and Buick Verano," the release said. Auto analyst Ed Niedermeyer said that GM has every reason to distance itself from the car because it served as a reminder of the company’s ties to Washington and the $50 billion taxpayer bailout, which he says tarnished the brand. "More than turning a profit, Volt was supposed to give GM a ‘green halo’ like the one the Prius bestows on the Toyota brand," he said. "Because the Volt is so closely associated with the bailout, it has turned out to be a net negative in terms of public relations." The Treasury Department sold $3.4 billion worth of stock between January and August of 2013, before announcing in September that it would sell off the remaining 101.3 million shares in taxpayer holdings. GM did not respond to request for comment. Company executives have been doing their best to turn the page on the bailout in recent years, especially as it attempts to unveil a new line of pick-up trucks, SUVs, and a revamped Corvette. GM North America President Mark Reuss said in October that the company must overcome the "Government Motors" moniker it acquired during the bailout. "We … know that the government ownership influence is highest among truck buyers," Reuss said. "Being owned by the government is problematic for now." Dave Sullivan, a car expert with AutoPacific, said that the company’s lack of attention for the Volt reflects the "natural" market cycles for vehicles, rather than any relation to government ownership. "The car came out three years ago now," he said. "They’re introducing their bread and butter pick-up trucks; they’re now turning to SUVs, so the Volt is going to get passed by right now." The reason the Volt received so much attention when it was first introduced had more to do with GM’s "stale line-up—there wasn’t a whole lot to get excited about," according to Sullivan. "Now they have very good product," he said. "They’re probably turning out the best vehicles they’ve ever engineered—they’ve come a long way in a very short time." Niedermeyer agreed that the new car excitement "tapers off" the longer it is around, but said the Volt stands out as a special case of silence. "GM doesn’t want the Volt out there reminding traditional truck buyers that it’s a bailed-out company, as that message clashes with the values of patriotism and self-reliance that truck marketing depends on," he said. Taxpayers are expected to lose $10 billion on the GM bailout.

A woman described in court as an animal lover has admitted cutting a rabbit’s ears off. Tereska Al-Rawi, of Dirkhill Road, claimed she amputated the ears by accident. Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court yesterday heard that Al-Rawi, 55, initially lied to the RSPCA and claimed she had found the rabbit in a park and that it was already injured. The RSPCA released pictures of the injured animal in an appeal to help track down those responsible for its injuries, which also included a broken leg that Al-Rawi claimed was nothing to do with her. Nigel Monaghan, prosecuting for the RSPCA, said the white Angora rabbit – which are known for their long and soft wool – was taken to a vet on October 12 last year after Al-Rawi claimed to have found it. He said despite treatment the animal had to be put down. MORE TOP STORIES Mr Monaghan said Al-Rawi eventually confessed to buying the rabbit on October 11 last year from a second-hand shop, before cutting off what she believed was matted fur. “She was adamant in interview that she did not know she had cut the ears off,” said Mr Monaghan. The court heard, in mitigation, that Al-Rawi bought the rabbit after taking pity on it. The animal was already not in a good condition at the time, the court was told. Her solicitor said: “She took the rabbit in with her heart in the right place. She is an animal lover with three dogs and two cats. “She was reckless and should have been a bit more careful in what she was doing.” Magistrates adjourned the case for probation reports to be prepared, and chairman Nadine Tidswell said: “She has no previous convictions, but it is a very serious offence and very upsetting for everyone, including the lady.” Al-Rawi, who admitted a charge of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal, was released on bail to be sentenced on April 28.

Sometimes Séverine Mehault climbs the stairs to the second floor for no reason at all. She walks along the hallway, past her son's room and into her daughter's bedroom. Then the 40-year-old lies down on the bed, next to a white stuffed bunny, and closes her eyes for a moment, trying to understand why only one of her two daughters, 15-year-old Kenza, is still there -- and why Sahra has abandoned her. Not much of Sahra is left in the room: her stuffed rabbit, a Koran in translation, a prayer book and a guide to the correct methods of bathing for Islamic women. The guide is a worn, pink brochure with small illustrations. Chapter 3 is titled: Instructions for Cleaning Your Ears. There's a dish containing red nail polish, mascara and lip gloss, but Sahra hasn't worn makeup in almost two years. After turning 15 at the time, she converted to Islam. She left France on March 11, 2014 to joint the jihadists in Syria. The family doesn't know where she is exactly, or which terrorist group she has joined. Her father drove her to the train station in Narbonne on that March day, as he did every day, when she would take the train to school in the nearby city of Carcassonne in southwestern France. A surveillance camera image shows Sahra, 17, standing on the platform in Narbonne, at 7:44 a.m. She is wearing white jeans, white sneakers and a black headscarf, and she is carrying two shoulder bags. The last image of Sahra on French soil, also taken with a surveillance camera, shows her at the airport in Marseille. She took an afternoon flight to Istanbul, and the next day she continued to Antakya on the Turkish-Syrian border. Séverine Mehault has spread out photocopies of the surveillance camera images on the dining room table, next to the last photo she took of Sahra. It depicts her daughter dressed entirely in black, in a jilbab, a floor-length robe with baggy sleeves, and a hijab, or headscarf. She is smiling, with a soft, roundish face. A Faraway Country "Before she left, I didn't even know what was happening in Syria. It was a faraway country for me," says Mehault, running her fingers across the photo. Her fingernails gnawed to the quick. These days, she anxiously follows the news, trying to discern where exactly the group known as the Islamic State is fighting and where the West is bombing the terrorists. The TV set in the living room is constantly switched on. Sometimes she even leaves the radio on at night. On that Tuesday in March, Sahra didn't come home in the evening. The family called the police. When officers came to the house the next day, they brought along the surveillance photos and retraced the route Sahra had taken. They asked a few questions, and when they left they took along the family's computer and tablet device. Séverine Mehault received a call on her mobile phone two days later, with an unknown number appearing on the screen. She was so excited that she passed the phone to her eldest son, Jonathan. It was Sahra. She was calling to tell her parents not to worry, and that she was doing well. "I married Farid, a fighter," she told them. "He's 25 and comes from Tunisia." "Where are you?" Jonathan asked. "In Syria," his sister replied. She also said that she would protect her family, even though they were all infidels. Then she hung up. Her mother describes herself as an atheist, while her father, Kamal Mehenni, is a Muslim. He was born in France, the son of a French woman and an Algerian man. But Mehenni never goes to the mosque, and he doesn't strictly abide by Ramadan fasting rules. Sitting next to his wife at the table, he says: "We raised our children without any religion. Togetherness was important to us, not faith." 'We Should Have Noticed Something' Sahra's father is a tall, gentle man with powerful hands. In a region with high unemployment, he has been supporting his family with odd jobs for the last few years. "We should have noticed something," says Mehenni. His wife repeatedly says the same thing. Mehault and Mehenni live with their children in a yellow, two-story house, in a town of 8,000 inhabitants near Narbonne, which we will not name, surrounded by the vineyards of the Languedoc region. Wild grapevines are entwined around the front door, and there is a plastic pool in the yard. There are many framed family photos on the walls. There is nothing to suggest a reason for a 17-year-old girl to run away from this life. Nevertheless, Sahra spent a long time preparing her escape, as she gradually became radicalized, in full view of her family. Extremism is infecting young French people like a slow but steadily progressing disease. And like a disease, its course varies slightly among individuals, and yet in each case it passes through similar stages. Targeting French Youth There are believed to be about 1,000 French citizens in Iraq and Syria, or en route to those countries, more than from any other European nation. Entire families have joined jihadist movements, including about 100 young French women. Many have already been married off to fighters in the Turkish-Syrian border region. Once a girl is married and pregnant, it becomes more difficult for her to flee. The terrorist groups that are targeting France in their recruitment efforts include Islamic State and Syria's Al-Nusra Front. "Young people are being deliberately targeted, boys and girls, each for different purposes," says Dounia Bouzar, who has been studying the radicalization of French youth for 15 years. Bouzar, 50, an anthropologist specializing in religion, had already analyzed the phenomenon of self-proclaimed holy warriors when officials at the French Interior Ministry were still dealing with isolated cases. She wrote a book on the subject in 2006, a sort of guide for parents. Bouzar says that she saw this wave of radicalization of French youth coming, but that she would have preferred to be wrong. On a sunny fall day, Bouzar is sitting in a Paris brasserie, ignoring a constant stream of calls on her mobile phone. Today she is part of a small team of advisers to the interior minister. In the spring, when cases of minors who had secretly left the country were mounting, Bouzar set up a hotline for family members seeking advice. About five new families call the hotline every week. But Bouzar also receives calls from young girls wanting to know what to do about female friends who have stopped wearing makeup and no longer want to go to the movies. Instead, they say, the girls are now covering their entire bodies with loose-fitting robes. Radicalization Sahra's radicalization began the same way. Then she converted to Islam. When she told her parents about it, Mehault thought that her daughter was simply becoming interested in her father's religion. Then Sahra began praying regularly, first twice and eventually five times a day. She traded her jeans for long dresses, wouldn't leave the house without a headscarf, and stopped plucking her eyebrows. One day, when Mehault caught her daughter trying on a face veil, she said: "Sahra, religion is something you carry in your heart. You don't have to show it to everyone." Sahra told her mother that she was an "infidel," that she was "impure," and that she had no right to judge what her daughter was doing. Arguments became more frequent, and there were long discussions over meals. The parents, afraid that Islamophobes might attack their daughter, forbade her from leaving the house in a full veil. Instead, she stayed at home and spent hours in front of the computer. "We should have stopped it," her mother says. "We didn't notice how bad things were with her," says her father. Kenza, who is two years younger than her sister, once eavesdropped on Sahra when she was Skyping with one of her "sisters" while looking at a series of images of dead children. "You shouldn't see this," said Sahra, quickly closing the window on the screen.

Closing Europe’s Borders Becomes Big Business This is the first of a two-part report on extraordinary measures the EU is taking to keep unwanted migrants out of the EU. ATHENS/WARSAW, Jan 9 2013 (IPS) - The European Union is implementing a new border management system with tougher migration control the core aim. Major security and weapons companies are already reaping the benefits. Frontex, the EU border agency, has financed major weapons and security equipment producers to present their equipment in demonstrations. European national border guards have participated in these demonstrations as potential customers, IPS learns. Frontex confirmed to IPS that the agency has been paying weapons and security equipment manufacturers to participate in demonstrations of equipment which national agencies attended as potential customers. “In the case of companies Lockheed Martin, FAST Protect AG, L-3 Communications, FLIR Systems, SCOTTY Group Austria, Diamond Airborne Sensing and Inmarsat, it (the reimbursement) was 30,000 euros,” the agency told IPS in an emailed response. The companies participated in demonstration of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (Drones) in Aktio in Greece in October 2011. Thirteen companies and consortiums (Israel Aerospace Industries, Lockheed Martin, FAST Protect AG, L-3 Communications, FLIR Systems, SCOTTY Group Austria, Diamond Airborne Sensing, Inmarsat, Thales, AeroVision, AeroVironment, Altus, BlueBird) demonstrated technological solutions for maritime surveillance. “The payments made to the companies to cover the costs incurred by them to participate in the demonstration in Aktio varied from 10,000 euros to 198,000 euros,” said Frontex. U.S.-based Lockheed Martin, French Thales and Israeli IAI are among the biggest weapons and security equipment producers in the world. The demonstrations are part of the preparation for the launch of EUROSUR, the European External Border Surveillance System meant to enhance cooperation between border control agencies of EU member states and to promote surveillance of EU’s external borders by Frontex, with a particular focus on the Mediterranean and North Africa, in view of controlling migration to Europe. Surveillance plans envisage the possibility of using drones to spot migrant boats trying to cross the Mediterranean. EUROSUR is one of the two main elements of Europe’s new border management regime along with ‘Smart Borders’ which will put in place an ‘Entry-Exit System’ (EES) to identify visa overstayers, and establish a Registered Traveller Programme (RTP) to enable pre-vetted individuals to cross borders faster. The system would rely heavily on use of biometrics and on the collection of a huge database of passenger personal information. A legislative package setting up EUROSUR was approved in mid-November this year by the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee and is expected to receive a final go-ahead soon from the entire Parliament and by the European Council, the EU’s executive. Meanwhile, preparations for EUROSUR are advancing away from public scrutiny. The demonstrations of market ready equipment are a significant measure in the steady construction of a new EU border management system. Through 2014-2020 member states will be encouraged to buy such equipment with support from the EU budget. The Commission estimates that the creation of EUROSUR could cost up to 338 million euros. ‘Borderline’, a study of the EU’s new border surveillance and control system published by the Heinrich Boll Foundation, claims the costs could “easily” end up as high as 874 million euros. The Commission refutes the higher estimates. The ‘Smart Gates’ initiative is estimated by the Commission to cost 400 million euros for setting up plus an additional 190 million euros annually in operating costs. According to the Borderline study, “despite the absence of any draft legislation, or even an agreement in principle on introducing smart borders in the EU, the Commission has already allocated 1.1 billion euros to the development of an EES (EU Entry Exit System) and RTP (EU Registered Traveller Programme) from the proposed EU Internal Security Fund (2014-2020).” The Internal Security Fund is meant to be a new component of the future EU budget (2014-2020), replacing the existing External Border Fund. According to a Commission proposal, the Internal Fund would be 4.648 billion euros annually, and among its strategic priorities will be “to finance the setting up of the EES and the RTP as well as the introduction and operation of the EUROSUR, notably through “the purchase of equipment, infrastructure and systems in member states.” It would also “boost the operational potential of the Frontex Agency by inviting member states to earmark additional resources under their programmes for specialised equipment which can be put at the disposal of the Agency for its joint operations.” In early December, the European Parliament gave a green light to the Internal Security Fund. Now only Council approval is needed for it to become operational – member states are expected to make a final decision on the next EU Budget in February 2013. “The European border security policy is going in the wrong direction,” Green euro-parliamentarian Ska Keller told IPS. “Against the background of pervasive budget cuts and austerity measures, it is unbelievable that the EU is spending millions of euros for ‘smart gates’, UAVs, and other surveillance technologies. “And it is even more shameful that those who profit most from EUROSUR and ‘smart borders’ are the big European defence contractors.”

By George Will, Washington Post - November 1, 2012 Energetic in body but indolent in mind, Barack Obama in his frenetic campaigning for a second term is promising to replicate his first term, although simply apologizing would be appropriate. His long campaign’s bilious tone — scurrilities about Mitt Romney as a monster of, at best, callous indifference; adolescent japes about “Romnesia” — is discordant coming from someone who has favorably compared his achievements to those of “any president” since Lincoln, with the “possible” exceptions of Lincoln, LBJ and FDR. Obama’s oceanic self-esteem — no deficit there — may explain why he seems to smolder with resentment that he must actually ask for a second term. Speaking of apologies, Syracuse University’s law school should issue one for having graduated Joe Biden. In the 2008 vice presidential debate, he condescendingly lectured Sarah Palin that Article I of the Constitution defines the executive branch. Actually, Article II does. In this year’s debate, he said that overturning Roe v. Wade would “outlaw” abortion. Actually, this would just restore abortion as a subject for states to regulate as they choose. Biden, whose legal education ended well before he was full to the brim, was nominated for his current high office because Democrats believe compassion should temper the severities of meritocracy. It is, however, remarkable, and evidence of voters’ dangerous frivolity regarding the vice presidency, that Biden’s proximity to the presidency has not stirred more unease. To forestall that, Biden should heed Alexis de Tocqueville: “To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.”

Read story transcript Since Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe first launched his controversial land reform policies in 2000, some 4,000 white farmers have had their lands seized. And the few remaining white farmers are being driven out — like the McKinnon family. Danielle and Mark McKinnon, with their three kids, fled their farm just outside of Harare as the local sheriff, a court official and a group of men sought their eviction. "That day just felt so uncertain. They were just in your face. They were coming into the house," Danielle tells The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti. "They wanted us out, then and there," says Mark McKinnon. Danielle McKinnon recalls leaving in the truck with their animals in the back as they were being laughed at and videotaped. "It was actually quite a shock because we've never given in before. That feeling of defeat... It was unfair." Since president Robert Mugabe first launched his controversial land reform policies in the year 2000, some 4,000 white farmers have had their lands seized (Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters) The McKinnons say they had a great relationship with their surrounding community. They were helping schools and orphanages and there was no one unhappy with them. "It had nothing to do with happiness or race or colour or anything, it was money," Mark tells Tremonti. In 2013, Mark said he was kidnapped by a group with very high connections to ministers and government. They were promised land and told to help themselves to farm plots close to Harare, according to McKinnon. He was violently attacked for hours, says McKinnon. "They wouldn't let me go… they wanted me to sign over a piece of paper saying that I allowed them to have a piece of the farm." "I kept assuring them that I wasn't the person to give land. [It] wasn't my land anyway. It was state responsibility to give land." Eventually Mark was released when police came but says confrontations like this happened all the time. Now the McKinnon family lives in Stouffville, Ont. — just outside of Toronto but Danielle and Mark both agree that Zimbabwe is home. "It's just bad politics. It will come right." Listen to the full conversation at the top of this web post. This segment was produced by The Current's Idella Sturnio.

According to the Express, Arsenal are close to striking a deal for West Ham defender Winston Reid, with a fee supposedly agreed with just personal terms left to discuss. West Ham manager Sam Allardyce seems desperate to keep the talented defender who's solid performances have seen West Ham soar to 4th in the Premier League, their best start to a season in over 30 years. Arsenal however are in desperate need of defensive cover following several injuries to first team players Laurent Koscielny and Mathieu Debuchy leaving the side worryingly short at the back. After another defensive slip that saw the Gunners throw away a 1-0 lead to lose 2-1 to Swansea in the Premier League, it seems the fans are either calling for Wenger's head or reinforcements in the January window. Despite Arsene Wenger's stubbornness to spend following a string of embarrassing performances defensively the Gunner's manager might just be persuaded to reach into his pocket to bolster his side's faltering defence. Related Articles Reid would certainly add a different dimension to Arsenal's back line, as a very physical defender it would be hard to see Arsenal beaten in the air with Winston Reid and Per Mertesacker controlling the back line. Much-Needed Bolstering With vice-captain Mertesacker in poor form it would be a breath of fresh air to see a new defender at the club to replace the gaping hole left by ex-skipper Thomas Vermaelen, who left the club in the summer to join Spanish giants Barcelona. Are we to see new signings for Arsenal in the January transfer window? Or are Arsenal fans set to be disappointed again by Wenger's refusal to spend?

On April 18th the Arizona Coyotes received disappointing news as they received the third overall pick in this year’s draft from the results of the 2015 NHL Draft Lottery. Finishing 29th in the entire league behind the Buffalo Sabres, the Coyotes had a good chance at landing a first or second overall selection. Unfortunately the Edmonton Oilers came out on top, pushing Buffalo to second and Arizona to third. The Arizona Coyotes will miss out on Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel this year but all is not lost. This team will receive a young skilled player with their pick but the question on everyone’s mind is who that is going to be. After McDavid and Eichel are selected there will be a handful of players that could easily fill that number three slot. Do the Coyotes fill the defensive hole left after the departure of Keith Yandle? Do they tackle their lackluster scoring problem that haunted them this season? Do they trade their pick? There are many questions that can be answered with their pick on June 26th so we will have to wait and see. The three main names left on the draft board will be Noah Hanifin, Dylan Strome, and Mitch Marner after Edmonton and Buffalo make their selections. Each of these players have a different skill set that could benefit the Arizona Coyotes in many different ways and will help in the overall goal of bringing the Stanley Cup to the desert. With that being said, Howlin’ Hockey wants to hear from YOU! With the third overall selection in the 2015 NHL Draft, who would YOU select to join the Arizona Coyotes? Here’s the rundown: Position: Defenseman Games Played: 37 Goals: 5 Assists: 18 Points: 23 Noah Hanifin is regarded as the number one defensive player coming into the 2015 NHL Draft and projected to be taken third overall. Hanifin is a unique combination of physicality and mentality as he puts his body and mind to the test with each shift. He has a natural skating ability that compliments both his offensive and defensive style of play. Not only can his 6’3″ and 203 pound body eliminate players from the puck, he can also set his teammates up in a position to score. As a freshman at Boston College, Noah Hanifin was a prominent member on the Eagles’ power-play and penalty kill. Scouts praise his ability to run the point and protect the blue line every time he steps on the ice. Noah describes his style as that of an offensive defenseman and models his skills by studying the playing styles of Duncan Keith and Drew Doughty. Boston College coach Jerry York praised Hanifin on NHL.com by stating: “We’re extremely pleased that not only is he a very good hockey player but he’s an outstanding teammate. He’s respected in the locker room because of his work habits and humble nature. He’s got a lot of qualities going for him besides his ability to play hockey and that makes it more enjoyable to have him around every day. Clearly his skating ability is at the NHL level right now and his puck handling and skills are excellent. He just needs to be little more assertive in the defensive zone but that will come with time.” The biggest question with Noah Hanifin is whether or not the Arizona Coyotes feel the need to tackle their defensive problems with another young player. While an Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Noah Hanifin pairing could take the league by storm in a few seasons, it may not be essential with larger problems at hand. The Arizona Coyotes tallied only 170 goals this season which places them 29th in the league in that category. Offense seems to be an issue for Arizona so passing on Hanifin may be an option on June 26th. Position: Center Games Played: 68 Goals: 45 Assists: 84 Points:129 Dylan Strome is a pure playmaker that is ready to step up and play at the next level. Strome lead the entire Ontario Hockey League with 129 points this season, proving that he can light up the score sheet. Dylan has a strong knowledge of the ice and an alert vision which ultimately led him to the lead the league in assists with 84. His offensive awareness is top notch and he enjoys having the puck on his stick. When asked about who he looks up to, Strome mentions Joe Thornton due to his soft hands and physicality. Dylan is very beneficial to his team in the faceoff circle as he wins a vast majority of draws. Dylan comes from a hockey family as well with his brother Ryan Strome currently playing for the New York Islanders. Strome’s knowledge is a key component in his high draft stock. There are a few criticisms pertaining to the OHL’s leading scorer. Playing alongside Connor McDavid can easily make someone better and that has definitely been the case for Dylan Strome. With that being said, critics are wondering how Strome will perform without McDavid on his line. Well, without McDavid in the lineup Strome put up 35 points in 21 games. Playing without McDavid does not seem to be a problem. Steve Kournianos of The Draft Analyst had this to say about Dylan: “Strome’s elite play with the puck and the way he protects it can make attempts at slowing him down both futile and nightmarish. He’s a hard match up who can carve up any game plan with precision puck movement. He’s excellent at creating plays off the rush, but he also excels when the game is tightly checked and every lane is seemingly clogged. It is in the offensive zone where he uses his size, reach and elite vision to his advantage. He’s is a precise passer and gifted playmaker who epitomizes opportunistic; make a bad decision with him on the ice, and there’s a good chance you’re going pay for it.” Is Dylan Strome the answer to Arizona’s scoring problem? Having the leading scorer of the OHL would certainly be a great starting point in the Coyotes rebuild. The probability of Strome playing in the NHL next season is low as it seems like he may need to sharpen his skills a little bit more with Erie. With that being said, having a superstar playmaker to set up players like Mikkel Boedker and Max Domi will be a huge threat in the future. His offensive awareness would be something that the Coyotes desperately need. Position: Right Wing Games Played: 63 Goals: 44 Assists: 82 Points: 126 Mitch Marner has slowly climbed up the draft ladder as he was not expected to be a third overall pick at the beginning of the season. Marner has proved that he has what it takes to compete at the next level with his prolific offensive performance with London this year. Mitch would finish second behind Dylan Strome for the OHL scoring title at 126 points. Mitch is also the first player in London to reach a 100 point season since John Tavares in 2008. Mitch Marner makes scoring look easy with his speed and ability to control the puck. He enjoys having the puck on his stick when entering the offensive zone in order to snipe one past the goaltender. Mitch is also recognized as a relentless forechecker and attacker. Marner compares himself to Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks and tries to model his game after him. One of the reasons that a few analysts would pass on Mitch Marner would be due to his size. He is 5’11” and 160 pounds which isn’t necessarily ideal in the NHL. On the other hand, many players already in the league have a size limitation and that does not stop them. Tyler Johnson of the Tampa Bay Lightning currently leads the 2015 NHL Playoffs with 21 points at only 5’9″ and 175 pounds. Patrick Kane is a close second with 20 points in the playoffs at 5’11”. Size does not matter if you know how to use it and Mitch Marner certainly knows how to use his. There is a high possibility that he will hit another growth spurt before the year is over too. Curtis Joe of EliteProspects describes Mitch Marner as: “A dynamic offensive forward that backchecks hard and establishes his presence through playing smart, puck-possession hockey. A very quick skater gifted with great hands and hockey sense. Battles hard in all three zones and shows a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the puck to the back of the net; an unselfish player. Embodies the definition of a dynamic number-generating machine who makes the players around him better.” The Arizona Coyotes could use a guy of Marner’s caliber on their team. Marner is a pure goal scorer that lets his presence be known with each shift he takes. Size does not limit him as he can be physical with anyone he is put up against. Drafting Marner will be beneficial to the Coyotes in terms of team chemistry as well. His junior hockey teammates Max Domi and Christian Dvorak have already been drafted by the Arizona Coyotes organization. Having three guys that all played in London together would definitely help their transition from the OHL to the NHL. Mitch Marner will aid in the Coyotes goal production if given the opportunity. Now it’s time to let your voice be heard! There is the defensive talents of a Duncan Keith style player in Noah Hanifin, a playmaking Joe Thornton caliber player in Dylan Strome, and then a Patrick Kane influenced player in Mitch Marner. Who would you like the Arizona Coyotes to draft with the third overall pick in the 2015 NHL Draft? Who should the Arizona Coyotes draft with the third overall pick? Noah Hanifin Dylan Strome Mitch Marner View Results

Are we on the verge of creating artificial intelligence capable of finding answers to the world’s most pressing challenges? After steady progress in basic AI tasks in recent years, this is the vision that some leading technologists have for AI. And yet, how we will make this grand leap is anyone’s guess. Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet (formerly Google), says AI could be harnessed to help solve major challenges, including climate change and food security. Speaking at an event convened in New York this week to discuss the opportunities and risks in AI, Schmidt offered no details on how the technology might be adapted for such complex and abstract problems. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google Deepmind, a division within Google doing groundbreaking work in machine learning, and which aims to bring about an “artificial general intelligence” (see “Google’s Intelligence Designer”), said the goal of this effort was to harness AI for grand challenges. “If we can solve intelligence in a general enough way, then we can apply it to all sorts of things to make the world a better place,” he said. And the chief technology officer of Facebook, Mike Schroepfer, expressed similar hope. “The power of AI technology is it can solve problems that scale to the whole planet,” he said. Eric Schmidt A steady stream of advances—mostly enabled by the latest machine-learning techniques—are indeed empowering computers to do ever more things, from recognizing the contents of images to holding short text or voice conversations. These advances seem destined to change the way computers are used in many industries, but it’s far from clear how the industry will go from captioning images to tackling poverty and climate change. In fact, speaking after his talk, Schroepfer was eager to limit expectations, at least in the short term. Schroepfer said that recent advances were not enough to allow machines to reach human levels of intelligence, and that two dozen or more “major breakthroughs” would be needed before this happened. And he said many people apparently had the wrong idea about how rapidly the field was moving. “People see one cool example, and then extrapolate from that,” he said. The event, organized by New York University as well as companies leading the effort to harness artificial intelligence, including Facebook and Google, comes at a delicate moment for academic researchers and companies riding the wave of progress in AI. Progress seems certain to revolutionize many industries, perhaps with negative consequences, such as eradicating certain jobs (see “Who Will Own the Robots?”). It will surely also raise new ethical questions, such as the legal and moral liability in self-driving cars, or the implications of autonomous weapons (see “How to Help Self-Driving Cars Make Ethical Decisions”). But the impressive progress has inspired some within the field of AI (as well as a few outside it) to pontificate about the long-term implications of the technology. Sometimes this discussion has focused on the challenge of controlling AI should it become vastly more powerful and independent—something that is very far from possible today. Worries over the long-term risks of AI recently inspired the foundation of a new nonprofit called OpenAI dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence that benefits humanity (see “What Will It Take to Build a Virtuous AI?”). OpenAI is funded by a billion-dollar grant from Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who has been outspoken about the long-term dangers of AI, and other technology heavyweights. Hassabis and several others acknowledged that the ethical issues should be taken seriously. “As with any technology, if it’s going to be that powerful, we have to think about how to use it ethically and responsibly,” he said.

The Dallas Police Officers Association PAC endorsed Texas Governor Greg Abbott in his bid for re-election. The nod comes on the same day Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez announced her run against the incumbent governor in 2018. Frederick Frazier, 1st vice president of the Dallas Police Association PAC praised the governor for his commitment to increasing public safety and for building a strong relationship between law enforcement officials and their communities, according to a statement provided to Breitbart Texas by the Abbott for Governor Campaign. “Governor Greg Abbott has been a true advocate for law enforcement in Dallas and throughout our state,” Frazier said. “He has strengthened protections for our officers in the line of duty, and has worked to make sure we have the resources to better serve our communities. Texas needs four more years of Governor Greg Abbott to ensure our officers here in Dallas have the support they need to keep our communities safe.” Governor Abbott has put law enforcement officers first during his tenure as the head of state government. Following the murder of five Dallas-area police officers in July 2016, Governor Abbott flew back from Texas to attend a press conference with Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings despite having been severely burned. The governor did not announce his injury until after the funeral to avoid distracting attention from the slain officers. Doctors advised the governor not to attend the meeting because of the risk of infection. Abbott’s first words were, “I’ve got to come back,” spokesman Matt Hirsch told the Dallas Morning News after the word of the governor’s injury spread. “It was hugely important for him to be in Dallas the next day without regard to his well-being.” In response to the murder of the officers, Abbott began the process of issuing rifle-resistant body armor to police officers. He also proposed legislation to make targeting police officers with acts of violence a hate crime, Breitbart Texas reported. “I, along with so many Texans, have a deep respect for our law enforcement officers,” Abbott said while thanking the officers association for their endorsement. “They put their lives on the line each and every day to make our communities safer, and we remain grateful for their sacrifice and dedication.” “I am committed to increasing support and protections for our police officers, and I will do whatever I can to make sure they know that Texans have their backs,” the governor continued. “I am honored to receive the endorsement of the Dallas Police Association PAC. I am committed to working alongside our law enforcement officers over the next four years to improve public safety and to make sure that the men and women in law enforcement have the support and protection that they need to carry out their duties.” The Dallas Police Officers Association is the largest police employee organization in Dallas, Frazer stated. “We are proud to endorse Governor Greg Abbott for reelection as governor of Texas,” he announced on Wednesday. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, GAB, and Facebook.

Share The Latest News VRChat has announced that they’ve raised $4 million in a Series A Round led by HTC Vive. They are now the key investor and strategic partner of VRChat. Joining them is Brightsone VC, GVR Fund, and Rothenberg Venture. VRChat lets users create, publish and explore virtual worlds with other VR users from all over the world. The experience was built as a social platform for the virtual space, similar to AltspaceVR. “Our goal is to enable anybody to create their own social VR experiences,” said Graham Gaylor, CEO of VRChat. “Partnering with HTC gets us that much closer to achieving that, and driving social experiences for VR forward.” According to VRChat, this new stash of money will help power the future of the metaverse where they can better serve the consumer and enterprise space. And what’s quite different about VRChat is that their employees all work remotely from around the world. They have their meetings in the virtual space and immerse themselves in their own product to brainstorm their next ideas. The company is currently made up of 16 team members who were directly hired through VRChat. “Not since the early Blizzard days have I experienced the right mix of passion, talent and magic on a project,” said Ron Millar, Chief Creative Officer at VRChat. “Now that HTC Vive is part of the VRChat dream I foresee the making of something truly epic!” While we’ve seen social VR spaces such as AltspaceVR not make it through the test of time, maybe VRChat will be able to do so. But they will soon be facing tough competition as Linden Labs gets closer to releasing Sansar. VRChat is available for free today on Viveport so make sure to check it out.

At this point, the journey that Mighty No. 9 has taken to development has become almost comical. After a record breaking Kickstarter, hype was at an all-time high, but things quickly began to deflate after numerous delays and an attempt at doing a second fundraising campaign. The development team has remained worryingly quiet as of late, and the 'Spring 2016' window looks increasingly more unlikely with each passing day. If a store listing at EB Games is to be believed, then it seems the game has been pushed back again. A fan recently snapped a picture of a store display, which puts the game down for a Summer 2016 release. While it's not been confirmed by the development studio yet, retailers occasionally have access to release data that's not yet public knowledge, so there's a chance that it has, in fact, been delayed once again. At this rate, perhaps we can finally expect to see the game release for the NX's successor sometime in 2022. What do you think? How many more times will Mighty No. 9 be delayed? Were you one of the original backers? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

national Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi addressed a workers' meet at Malad on Friday; turns out, some who attended, came only for the goodies Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi began his speech with 'Til gul ghya, god, god bola,' (Have tilgul, talk sweetly) the traditional greeting on Makar Sankrant, at Malad on Friday. While his speech saw a huge crowd, it seems some had gathered because they had allegedly been sweet-talked into attending and given promises of what they would get if they did. mid-day spoke to a number of people at the event. While some said that they were promised R100, one said that she was given biryani before the event. Some residents of Kandivli’s Damu Nagar who had lost their homes to the fire said that corporator Ajanta Yadav had promised them houses. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi arrives to address a workers’ meet at Malad yesterday. The Congress leader arrived more or less on time, but had to wait while other leaders gave their speeches Also Read: Rahul Gandhi's Mumbai padyatra over power tariff hike evokes good response Makar Sankrant was unusually busy for Malad this year as the Congress had organised a karyakarta melava (workers’ meet), to be addressed by Gandhi at the St Joseph’s School ground. A moderately sized school ground, it had the stage at its far end and a shamiana for the audience. All routes to the ground were decorated with Congress posters and banners. The police, as well as traffic police, were having a busy time controlling the situation as people thronged the gates in large groups. Inside the shamiana, people were given vada-pav and packaged water since they had been waiting for hours. The crowds largely consisted of people from the Malad, Kandivli, Charkop areas, including Malwani, Congress MLA Aslam Shaikh’s stronghold. Sanjay Nirupam, Kripashankar Singh, Priya Dutt were also present for the meeting. Also Read: Rahul Gandhi blasts RSS, BJP's 'rigid thinking' Gandhi sat next to the AICC secretary, Sanjay Nirupam. Nirupam passed him a chit with “Til gul ghya, god, god bola,” (Have tilgul, speak sweetly) the traditional Marathi greeting on Makar Sankrant, written on it. Gandhi used it in the beginning of his speech, to the delight of the crowds. He said, “I am going to take this phrase back with me to Delhi. And whenever Congressmen fight amongst themselves, I will say this to them.” Pics/Sayyed Sameer Abedi Also Read: Start ups and intolerance can't go together, says Rahul Gandhi The event started more or less on time. Gandhi’s convoy arrived at the venue around 2.20 pm, but since other leaders gave elaborate speeches, Rahul, dressed in his trademark white kurta, stood up to speak only around 3 pm. Starting off with “Til gul ghya, god god bola,” Gandhi tried to reach out to the masses. People instantly cheered and some shouted slogans like “Rahul Gandhi ki jai”. His speech ended in less than 30 minutes and he made a swift exit. Chetna Kadam claimed she was promised Rs 100 if she attended the speech Promises This reporter chatted with several people from the audience and there emerged shocking details of how the party had allegedly got them to attend the event. Money, food, houses...there was no end to the things allegedly promised to get people to come and join the meeting on a hot afternoon. Mahmooda said Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay Gandhi was coming Chetna Kadam and Lata Joshi, seated in the back row, said, “We have been promised Rs 100 by her (Neelam Mhatre) for attending. Otherwise, why would we leave our household chores?” Both are residents of Charkop and had reached the venue around 1 pm. “Today is the day of Sankrant. We were supposed to do puja in the house. The programme was supposed to start at 1 that is why I couldn’t even do puja properly and rushed here. A lot of housework is remaining.” When asked who promised them money, Joshi said that Mhatre promised it to them, and that it will be delivered to their houses soon. “You also contact the person (from Congress), you will also get it,” she said. Hamida said they were given biryani to attend (right) Kastura of Damu Nagar said they were promised houses Homes for all There were a large number of people from Kandivli’s Damu Nagar attending the event. This is the area where a major fire ravaged 2,000 shanties last month. Kastura, a resident who had lost her house in the fire said they had been promised houses by local corporator Ajanta Yadav. “Yadav has called all of us here. She arranged buses for us. Do bus bhar ke log aaye hai, (Two buses full of people arrived)” she told mid-day. Kastura and people like her were allegedly given passes by Yadav along with transportation. “I have come here for a house. Yadav said we would be given houses.” When asked how big the houses would be, where and when they would get them, she said she did not know. Even Alka Vidyadhar, another resident of Damu Nagar, said they had been promised houses by Yadav. “I lost Rs 80,000 in the fire. I had my shanty there and that was the day we all had got our salaries. Fridge, TV, cash... everything got burnt. Right now we are living there (in another shanty). Today, we have been brought here in luxury buses,” she said. Shakeela, another resident said that they were promised breakfast. “Pata nahin kya milega,” she said. Biryani treat Hamida, a resident of Ambulwadi in Malwani, had been waiting in the crowd for about two hours before Rahul Gandhi arrived. Dressed in a burkha, she said, “Aslam’s (Shaikh) men have been coming to our area for 3-4 days and registering us for the event. They gave us passes and even arranged a bus for us. Today morning, we were given biryani,” she said. “I don’t know if we’ll get anything in the evening as well.” Sanjay Gandhi? Mehmooda, a resident of Malwani unit no.8, was sitting in one of the front rows with her daughter. In a reply that said a lot about the sorry state of affairs in the country, when asked who is coming for the event, she said Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay is coming. When asked why she was attending the event, she said their local Congress people asked them to come. They had not been offered anything.

When the Charlotte Hornets selected Malik Monk with the 11th overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, there were some undoubtedly high expectations by fans and scouts. Many expected Monk to be able to step in almost immediately and be not only a solid role player but an above average starter as well. Let's rewind to that day. I covered draft night for At The Hive, and remember how excited many were about this big-name prospect. There were about seven or eight guards that were very highly touted of in the NBA draft, and all were all projected to go in the top ten. Charlotte, of course, had the 11th pick, making it unlikely to come away with one of these prospects. However, when Sacramento traded the 10th overall pick to the Portland Trail Blazers, most watching the draft knew that Charlotte would have an opportunity to select the high-firepower guard from Kentucky. Then, it happened. Rich Cho and Michael Jordan selected the nineteen-year-old, from the Kentucky Wildcats over the likes of Donovan Mitchell, Luke Kennard, and Bam Adebayo. In fact, in a poll that was run among Hornets fans before the draft (where 227 total votes were tallied), 27 percent of fans agreed the Hornets should trade up for Monk, while 70 percent agreed that Charlotte should take him if available. In fact, only three percent of Hornets fans would have picked another player over Monk (seven total votes). It was a pick out of the ordinary. It wasn’t a ‘Charlotte’ pick. It shattered the stereotypes of the Hornets always picking big, white, unathletic centers. Monk, when asked to describe his own game in one word, said, “Electric”. As you can tell by his own response, this is not the typical Charlotte first round pick. When you think of a Hornets’ draft pick (before the 2017 NBA Draft), your thought probably floats around three ideas. A lengthy defensive guard, a grit-and-grind wing, or a defensive center. Malik Monk fits into none of the above. However, disappointment struck after Monk missed Orlando Summer League with an ankle injury sustained in a pre-draft workout. Recovery took longer than expected, but Monk eventually made his debut in the preseason. He performed well, averaging 16 points, three rebounds, and two assists, managing to only turn the ball over once per game, and more importantly, remaining healthy. As if the expectations were not already high, this raised the bar another degree. But many forget that preseason is, well, the only preseason. In the regular season, Monk has been streaky to say the least. Other than a few games, he has been a below average role player. His best scoring outbreak came against the Milwaukee Bucks on November 1st. He scored 25 points on 10-17 shooting, most of which came in the fourth quarter. He is also currently one of the worst defensive players in the NBA. He ranks in the bottom 29 percent in points per possession allowed, giving up almost a full point (0.96) points per possession when his man shoots the ball. Monk also struggles to defend spot-up shooters. He ranks in the bottom nine percent, allowing a full 1.296 points per possession when his man is spotting up. This isn’t good. Considering Clifford’s defense-first mentality, this stat alone makes the fact that Monk minutes are disappearing not surprising. That said, rookies often struggling defensively, and most teams that do actually have a top rookie don’t have any players to play above their selected player. For instance, Lauri Markkanen of the Chicago Bulls has been just plain bad on defense this season. However, what separates him from Monk are a few different factors. First of all, Markkanen has been the main scoring threat on a team that many would consider, the worst in the NBA. The Bulls aren’t exactly a playoff threat (despite beating the Hornets now twice). It’s important to remember that the Hornets are in a win-now-or-everybody-might-be-fired mode. Cho is in a contract year, and Steve Clifford is on the hot seat. This is part of the reason that Monk will a) not start many, if not any games this season, or b) get many minutes when he does actually play. It’s all about circumstance. Monk is the team’s third-best shooting guard behind Nicolas Batum and sixth-man Jeremy Lamb. When a team is trying to win games, they do not exactly want their third-best shooting guard playing more than 20 minutes per game. However, there is an argument that Monk could play point-guard instead. When Michael Carter-Williams was out with an injury to start the season, Monk played backup to Kemba Walker, and even showed off some flashy passes and nice vision as well. And with the way MCW has been playing recently, there is definitely a solid argument to play Monk over him. But once again, when a borderline playoff team is trying to play with the big dogs, playing a nineteen-year-old with little point guard experience over experienced players is not ideal. In fact, it's a wildcard move. It is not a Steve Clifford-esque move. Let’s compare Monk’s efficiency to Lamb, Batum, and Carter-Williams. FG% of Active Hornet Guards Name FG% 3P% FT% eFG% Name FG% 3P% FT% eFG% Nic Batum 44% 36% 84% 52% Jeremy Lamb 44% 33% 83% 50% Malik Monk 34% 33% 75% 44% Michael Carter-Williams 40% 25% 70% 31.00% As you can see, if you compare Monk’s game so far to the likes of Batum and Lamb, it isn’t even a contest. So, why is Monk not playing instead of MCW? It’s simple. Would you rather have an experienced player, who is solid defensively, that has size, or an inexperienced rookie who has not found a rhythm yet? This is not just confined to Clifford. I’d bet that nine out of ten coaches in the NBA would choose the experienced vet above the rookie. There have been two coaches fired so far this year. Clifford is not attempting to be the third. Criticism aside, I still believe in Monk. I was ecstatic when the Hornets drafted him, and wrote this on him pre-draft: Before the draft, I wrote about how it would be mindless to pass on Monk: “Malik Monk is the most explosive player in this draft, but he is no safe bet. He is inconsistent on defense and also settles for mid-range jumpers instead of using his vision to creates shots. That being said, he is also the draft’s the best shooter, and if the Hornets are able to select him with the 11th overall pick, it would be foolish to pass on him.” We should not be worried about Monk’s start. There is little reason to panic. He has the ability to be one of the future stars in today’s league. Sure, players like Donovan Mitchell make you concerned, considering Mitchell was taken two spots after Monk. But in reality, it takes years to fully evaluate and compare players, and even then, no comparison will be fully accurate. But here’s a comparison that could be eye-opening. Compare Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker to Monk through their first 20 games: Malik Monk vs Devin Booker in their first 20 games. Name Minutes Points Rebounds Assists Name Minutes Points Rebounds Assists Devin Booker 14.6 6 1.2 0.7 Malik Monk 16.9 7.1 0.2 1.8 It may be hard to remember, especially when a player like Monk falls into your hands, but greatness does not happen overnight. It’s also important to remember that Booker and Monk were very similar players coming out of college. They both went to Kentucky, both were expected to go earlier in the draft. Both were also the best shooters of their class, and both are horrible on defense. This comparison strikes many similarities. The point is, don’t panic. Some rookies adjust quicker than others, and it often depends on many factors. Monk has potential, he just may need more time to realize it.

Human puff-adder Bill Kristol drolly noted on Morning Joe this week that the shutdown is not "the end of the world". The Huffington Post's Sam Stein snapped back, "For these people affected by these cuts, it is sort of comparable to the end of the world." I have one quibble with Stein's otherwise satisfying smackdown: "For the people affected by these cuts" implies that there are people who are not affected by these cuts. Stein was talking specifically about the families and children across the country most likely to suffer when the government stops paying for Head Start programs and nutritional aid, but they are only the most sympathetic victims of the shutdown. And there are a lot of them: Almost 9m mothers and children rely on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (Wic). Most states will be able to operate for about a week on the money they have, but in the words of one administrator in Cook County, "We have no cushion. If our funding stream stops we will temporarily suspend service." The US Department of Agriculture is attempting to prop up the program in the states hardest hit – they announced this week a $2.5m grant to Utah. But the $125m they have on reserve is laughably small for a program that costs $7b a year – it's less than 2% of the total budget. If $125m was all the money the program had, it would operate for six days. But that's just women and children. The poorest of the poor, right? We're a civilized country; we won't let them starve. As Kristol told Stein, "Localities can help out. Churches can help out." Because obviously, up until now, localities and churches were just standing around twiddling their thumbs as lounged on divans and wondered if it was time to pick out new wallpaper or maybe treat themselves to a day at the spa. If you actually attend a church or do service work, I hope you've picked up the laptop from when you hurled it across the room just now. Already a huge patch in the patchwork of federal social services across the country, churches and private food banks have stretched themselves thin to cover the drop in federal aid that accompanied the sequester cuts last spring (Remember that? The last time we had a budget showdown?). The ripple effects of a Wic crash spread outward quickly. Food stamp and Wic programs pump about $23m a year into retail grocery stores – indeed, a quarter of all meals for recipients of nutritional aid come from a supermarket. The Wic buys 60% of all the baby formula produced in the country. For every dollar spent on Wic, states save about $3.5 in Medicaid spending – but that's just a quantitative way of saying that Wic produces healthier babies. But maybe you're still thinking of this as a sad story, not that has anything to do with you or anyone you know. You don't go to national parks, or live near one. (Communities that depend on national park tourism stand to lose $30m a day.) You're not a veteran. (At the VA, money allocated for disability payments and students studying under the GI bill will run out in a few weeks.) You don't take commercial airplane flights. (About 34% of the Federal Aviation Administraion workforce is now on leave, including almost 3,000 safety inspectors.) You eat only meat and vegetables grown by your own hand and don't take any medications. (The Food and Drug Administration will cease all food and drug safety inspections, except for meat. They usually monitor about 80% of the nation's food supply; in the interm, state agencies will try to pick up the slack.) You're not in college and no one you know is one of the approximately 14 million students working their way through college or paying for it with a subsidized loan. (There will be no payments made via the Federal Work-Study or Perkins Loan Programs, or Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants.) Basically, you are a very rich, very healthy person that lives in a cave. If you are not, then the shutdown affects you. And this produces the one aspect of the shutdown I'm almost cynical enough to enjoy myself: far from producing proof dispositive that government is a burdensome hindrance to personal freedom, they've simply proven how little personal freedom we can enjoy if government breaks down. If this sounds familiar, it's because that reasoning has been the cornerstone of modern civilization. Or you watched "Lost". It's not that Americans don't want government in their lives, it's that they'd like it to be an unobtrusive part of their lives. The National Security Agency might be just a little too unobtrusive, it's true. If capitalism is governed by an invisible hand, then a well-functioning government is an invisible safety net – not just for those getting obviously slapped around by capitalism, but also for anyone whose well-being depends on the free market not taking too many whiplash turns. We want the government to help the least of us, we also want it to keep planes from falling out of the sky and our food from making us sick. This goes on long enough, and a lot that we take for granted will go away – and the thing about an invisible safety net is that you only notice it's gone once you fall.

Warner Bros. has stuck pretty much solely to Batman and Justice League related animated features in recent years, but it seems as if the success of Batman: The Killing Joke and the recently released Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders may have opened the door to some slightly riskier ventures from the studio. That's according to WGTC as they're reporting that moviegoers who paid to see the studio's latest animated release earlier this week were handed a very interesting survey.On that, they were presented with a list of possible upcoming releases and asked how interested they would be in each of them. That's clearly a way of guaging interest in the movies by Warner Bros.Among those mentioned were a Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover, a Wonder Woman '77 movie (presumably with Lynda Carter voicing the titular hero), and Swamp-Thing, a character who will soon get the spotlight in the Justice League Dark animated feature. That's an interesting mixture, and while there's nothing to say any of them will happen, it's entirely possible that any or all of these movies could end up on Warner Bros. Animations 2018 slate. What do you guys think of them?

Image caption New rules should make it cheaper to book cinema tickets Consumers booking a range of items from cinema tickets to hotel rooms now have new protection from card surcharges. A ban on "excessive" debit and credit card charges begins on Saturday 6 April. The government said it should put an end to unscrupulous practices by some businesses. Until now, many people have been asked to pay large surcharges for using cards, especially when booking online. Typically, people trying to book concert tickets, theatre seats, hire cars or train seats discover at the end of the payments process that they have to pay many pounds extra to use a debit or credit card. "The practice of excessive payment surcharges has been ripping off consumers for far too long," said Jo Swinson, the consumer affairs minister. "They are fed up of thinking they will be paying a certain price for goods, only to find out towards the end of the process that the final price is much higher," she said. Airline industry Under the new rules, payment surcharges will have to reflect the actual cost to the retailer of processing the card transaction. That includes fees they have to pay to Visa or Mastercard, for instance, or the cost of installing a chip-and-pin device. How much should your credit card surcharge be? transaction of £50: £1.16 transaction of £100: £2.10 transaction of £250: £4.94 source: OFT, 2011 But in many cases, this should be minimal. For example, according to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), someone spending £100 on a travel ticket could expect to be charged 53 pence extra if using a debit card, or £2.10 if using a credit card. The figures, produced in 2011, suggest the cost of using a debit card remains at just over 50 pence, however large the transaction. But the government stresses that charges will differ according to individual businesses. In the past, the airline industry was the worst offender. The government says that in 2010, airlines charged passengers up to £350m in card surcharges. But following an investigation by the OFT, airlines including Ryanair, Easyjet and Aer Lingus agreed to include debit card charges at least in their headline prices. The ferry industry was the next biggest user of surcharges, according to the government, charging its customers up to £145m. Enforcement The new rules are being brought in earlier than the rest of the EU Consumer Rights Directive, because of the concern that was first raised by Which? "Over 50,000 people supported our campaign to end rip off surcharges, so we're pleased the Government is implementing this ban," said Richard Lloyd, the executive director of Which? But he warned that people needed to be vigilant about businesses that tried to avoid the ban. "For it to be effective, there must be a tough enforcement regime and companies must play fair and not pass costs on to customers in other ways. We will be monitoring the ban closely and want people to tell us about surcharges they think are excessive," he said. Consumers are entitled to receive a refund of the excess surcharge they have paid, according to the government. If necessary, they can bring a private claim to recover such surcharges. However, there are a number of sectors which are excluded from the new rules. Very small businesses and companies just starting out will not be subject to the rules until June 2014. Some companies in financial services, gambling, healthcare, social services, property and passenger transport are also excluded. Other elements of the directive will be implemented over the next year. Those include new rules on cancellations, refunds and delivery times.

Government spending restraint will be a drag on Canada’s economic growth in 2013, according to an analysis by CIBC World Markets. That finding is at odds with one from the Bank of Canada, which sees the country’s real GDP getting a slight boost from government spending. Real GDP measures growth after inflation has been taken into account. To arrive at its conclusion, CIBC economists took projections from the last federal budget as well as those from the four biggest provinces. It then adjusted the figures to strip out such things as transfers to households and added back capital spending. "Our analysis points to yet another drop in real expenditures, with no major offset from planned tax reductions," says CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld. Shenfeld estimates that real government spending will drop by 0.9 per cent in 2013/14. For the 2013 calendar year, he says that works out to a drag on real GDP of 0.2 per cent. Bank of Canada's growth forecast 'too high' "That doesn't look like a big deal, until one contrasts it with the 0.3 per cent boost to growth in the Bank of Canada forecast," Shenfeld says. "The result is that the Bank’s forecast could be about 0.5 percentage points too high, enough to make the difference between growth being above potential, requiring interest rate hikes, or as in our forecast of 2.0 per cent growth next year, not fast enough to narrow the output gap and call for monetary tightening." In April, parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page said his office's analysis of federal spending plans also led him to conclude that government restraint would be a drag on growth. "The [Parliamentary Budget Office] expects that restraint and reductions in government spending on programs in Canada will act as a drag on economic growth and job creation, pushing the economy further away from its potential [GDP] and delaying the economic recovery," the report said. The PBO report projected that spending restraints and cutbacks will reduce economic output by 0.3 per cent this year, climbing to 0.88 per cent in 2014. The PBO’s analysis was sharply criticized by Conservative MPs as being "too pessimistic." In its last monetary policy announcement in July, the Bank of Canada said overall government spending was expected to contribute "modestly" to growth in 2013 – the finding that CIBC takes issue with. In that same announcement, the central bank slightly lowered its forecast for real GDP growth next year to 2.3 per cent – still higher than CIBC’s 2.0 per cent forecast. No recession risk Shenfeld notes that any belt-tightening in Canada poses no threat that the country will slide back into recession. "Having started from a combined federal/provincial deficit of only a third of that stateside, there's no equivalent threat of an outright recession being induced by cuts coming from Ottawa and the provinces," he says. "We'll get through our fiscal drag much sooner than the U.S. with a lot less pain in total."

ALAMEDA, Calif. -- A "frustrated" Mark Davis said he stands behind general manager Reggie McKenzie and new interim head coach Tony Sparano as the Oakland Raiders try to bounce back from a 0-4 start and the firing of coach Dennis Allen. However, Davis said it is imperative that the Raiders improve. "The way we were losing was frustrating," the Raiders owner said after the news conference to announce Allen's firing and Sparano's hiring for the rest of the season. "I think it's just the way we lost some of the games, yeah, I think we weren't in them. To me, that's not what the Raiders are. ... In my analysis, I think we do have players that can play in this game. And I just think that there may be some changes in how the schemes are utilized. Dennis is the one who has taken the fall for it." Editor's Picks Williamson: Raiders need to remember how to win What does interim head coach Tony Sparano think the Raiders' biggest problem is? They have forgotten how to win, Bill Williamson writes. Davis said it was McKenzie's decision to fire Allen and that he agreed. McKenzie chose Allen in 2012 after Davis made McKenzie the primary decision-maker of the franchise in the first move after the death of his father, Al Davis, in November 2011. Allen was 8-28 as the Raiders coach and they have lost a league-high 10 games dating to last season. Asked if it was a mistake to keep Allen after consecutive 4-12 seasons, Allen said, "No, that was Reggie's decision, and you see where it ended up. So, I don't know if you'd call it a mistake." McKenzie said in the news conference that he will hire the next coach. Yet he said he realizes nothing is guaranteed with his own job security. "A lot rides on me," said McKenzie, whose drafting and free-agent signings have yet to pay dividends on the field in Oakland. "I brought Dennis here to win, and that did not materialize." Sparano At A Loss Since Tony Sparano became the Dolphins' head coach in 2008, the teams he has been involved with have had just one season .500 or better. The past six seasons, his teams have finished below .500 every year: Team W-L Role 2008 Dolphins 11-5 HC 2009 Dolphins 7-9 HC 2010 Dolphins 7-9 HC 2011 Dolphins 4-9* HC 2012 Jets 6-10 Off. Coord. 2013 Raiders 4-12 Asst. HC 2014 Raiders 0-4 Asst. HC * Fired after Week 14 -- ESPN Stats & Information Davis said he has not considered firing McKenzie. However, if the losing continues, Davis made no promises. He said it could be considered "a step backward or step forward" to fire McKenzie, depending on how this season goes. Davis said he will take an increased role in hiring decisions going forward. Davis said he wasn't sure when asked whether he would contact former Oakland coach and current ESPN "Monday Night Football" analyst Jon Gruden. "I don't know," Davis said. "He may reach out to me, I may reach out to him. I may reach out to anybody. That's the future, and I'm not going to talk about future coaches." Davis said McKenzie can start looking for a permanent new coach now to hire after the season. But he also said Sparano will have the opportunity to show the team he can be the permanent coach. Sparano, 52, was the head coach in Miami from 2008 to 2011. He went 29-31 there. Sparano, who has been the Raiders' assistant head coach/offensive line coach since last season, said he believes the Raiders need a "philosophy" change. He was not ready to announce what that was. However, Davis said he believes the Raiders need to work on schemes, and Sparano hinted that some could change. "I think my evaluation is that we do have some players," Davis said. "And we may be running some schemes that are putting a square peg into a round hole, and that maybe with some changes in that type of environment we might be able to get something out of these players." Asked what the Raiders' biggest problem is, Sparano said the team had forgotten "how to win. ... They have to get that taste back."

Australia's agricultural export growth is slower than the global average in all key markets except Oceania, a report has found. A rural think tank is warning Australia's agriculture export performance is waning in the face of stiff competition from rising agricultural producers. At the centre of the issue is Australia's lack of new farm lands, which has effectively capped agricultural production when compared with countries in Asian and South America where production is expanding. The Australian Farm Institute's trade review concludes that with little opportunity to expand production, Australian agriculture needs a renewed focus on productivity gains. "In effect, Australia is losing market share in those neighbouring markets that we identify as our own," director Mick Keogh said. "That really is a wake up call about the need to be competitive and to be not assuming these markets are ours and there for the taking." The AFI's analysis found the growth of Australia's exports to every global region except Oceania and North Asia was slower than the equivalent global growth figure. Alarmingly, the report also finds that in addition to the volume of exports fall, so too is the value. "The results highlight the need for Australian agricultural producers and exporters to dispel any complacency that might be held about the ability of Australian agriculture to automatically benefit from the growth in global demand for agricultural product as world populations increase and diets change." — Australian Farm Institute: Review of Agriculture Trade Performance 2016. Mr Keogh said the report's finding highlighted the need to find on-going productivity improvements. "The one thing we have learned from our New Zealand cousins' success is that isn't something you do and then stop. Rural Newsletter Rural news in your inbox? Subscribe for the national headlines of the day. "You cannot assume our agriculture sector is competitive and going to be successful — it is a continuous process." Speaking to the draft findings of a recent Productivity Commission report, Mr Keogh said there would not be a single action that will help boost productivity. "All the sorts of things that have been talked about in that Productivity Commission report are worth thinking about, especially in terms of continual improvement. "You cannot assume there is a 'big bang' solution to successfully capturing all these markets."

Hillary Clinton and her aides directed Platte River Networks to systematically alter, fabricate and forge emails to protect her communications from being “exposed to anyone,” according to documents obtained by True Pundit. The request was so unusual and complex that Denver-based Platte River IT executives, who maintained Clinton’s private email server, had to turn to other IT gurus on a clandestine chat forum for a solution to try to satisfy their “VIP” client, as executives dubbed Clinton. Platte River computer specialist Paul Combetta turned to a web forum on computer coding to solicit help with Clinton’s directive to forge her emails, according to documents. Writing under the seemingly-stealth screen name “stonetear,” Combetta asked reddit.com forum users in July 2014: “Hello all- I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip out a VIP’s (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email that I have both in a live Exchange mailbox, as well as a PST file. Basically, they don’t want the VIP’s email address exposed to anyone, and want to be able to either strip out or replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails we want to send out. I am not sure if something like this is possible with PowerShell, or exporting all of the emails to MSG and doing find/replaces with a batch processing program of some sort. Does anyone have experience with something like this, and/or suggestions on how this might be accomplished?” Combetta’s online plea for guidance was met with limited resistance, as many users offered advice on how he could effectively alter the emails. One user, however warned him that he could be stepping into a legal mine field: “To my knowledge, there’s no way to edit existing messages, that’s a possibility for a (legal) discovery nightmare.” True Pundit was able to trace the screen name “stonetear” directly to Combetta, as he has used it exclusively for social media and gaming accounts, as well as certain anonymous email accounts, according to our intelligence. Combetta never revealed his real name or company name in the communications but the IT specialist with no security clearance did divulge: “I have full access to the server.” These damning revelations comprise the first public intelligence pinpointed indicating that Platte River was directly requested to perform what can only be described as illegally altering Clinton’s emails and related federal records. The criminal code, 18 U.S. Code § 1519, dealing with destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy is very clear. It states: Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. While previous laws applied only to an “official proceeding,” like a public FBI investigation, or pending judicial and federal agency proceedings, the new stipulations in subsection § 802 passed under Sarbanes-Oxley now also covers those individuals who destroy or fabricate documents merely “in contemplation” of a future investigation or “any matter” within the jurisdiction of a federal agency. “The issue is that these emails involve the private email address of someone you’d recognize, and we’re trying to replace it with a placeholder address as to not expose it,” Combetta wrote later in the forum to answer a user’s technical questions. “I think maybe I wasn’t clear enough in the original post. I have these emails available in a PST file. Can I rewrite them in the PST? I could also export to MSG and do some sort of batch find/replace. Anyone know of tools that might help with this?” Combetta is also accused of deleting an untold number Clinton’s emails despite orders from Congress to preserve them. Platte River’s destruction of these emails followed months of warnings from by the House Select Committee on Benghazi to obtain them. The house select committee likewise instructed Clinton’s attorney David Kendall on Dec. 2, 2014, to retain these emails, and a formal House subpoena was issued on March 4, 2015. Combetta and a Platte River colleague Bill Thornton were on Capitol Hill last week answering subpoenas to testify before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Combetta refused to answer all of committee chairman Congressman Jason Chaffetz’s questions about his role in maintaining Clinton’s private server. That included Chaffetz’s inquiry on whether Combetta received an immunity agreement from the Justice Deoartment to cooperate with the FBI’s now defunct criminal investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified email while secretary of state. Combetta cited his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself at the hearing. Combetta’s immunity agreement was divulged in a recent New York Times article detailing its stipulations. Congressman Chaffetz’s committee has shed light on other internal Platte River communications where company executives scurried to distance the company from what they believed was Clinton “covering up some shaddy s- -t.” In another internal message, one executive called Clinton’s requests to Platte River “Hillary’s coverup operation.” These new revelations, however, place a white-hot light on the FBI’s arrangement with Combetta. If FBI agents were aware of this request from Clinton to illegally mask her emails, one has to wonder even more than usual how Clinton walked away without an indictment form the bureau’s year-long probe. This only adds to other recent troubling revelations regarding the FBI’s investigation. -30- Queen #HillarysEmails Server Hosting Company BUSTED Erasing Backups, Then Clams Up at Oversight Hearing Part 1 RT pic.twitter.com/pHPS5sHAM3 — Thomas Paine (@Thomas1774Paine) September 15, 2016

Passengers on United Airlines reported long delays after the latest in a long line of technology problems at the nation’s biggest carriers. United said Friday that it had fixed the overnight issue, yet hours later the airline still could not explain what went wrong or even how many flights were canceled or delayed. Tracking service FlightStats Inc. said in late afternoon that United had cancelled 10 flights — not an unusual number — and delayed more than 380. However, those numbers don’t include United Express flights, which are outsourced to smaller carriers. READ MORE: 2 United Airlines pilots suspected of being drunk arrested at Glasgow Airport Timing helped United. The outage spanned a late-night period when few U.S. flights were operating, and United reported it was fixed before the wave of morning departures. United responded on Twitter to passengers who experienced delays or problems with the airline’s website. The airline tweeted that it was having problems with its weight-reporting system. Some passengers travelling late Thursday and early Friday took to social media to complain about delays as long as six hours. United spokeswoman Maddie King said that overnight the airline “experienced a system issue causing some flights delays.” She said the problem was fixed by 4 a.m. Eastern time, although there could be lingering brief delays on Friday. READ MORE: United Airlines flights temporarily grounded due to ‘automation issues’ Asked about the cause of the outage, King said, “We are still working to determine that.” In August, Delta Air Lines suffered a computer breakdown after a power outage in its operations center. The airline canceled more than 2,000 flights over three days. In July, Southwest Airlines also canceled more than 2,000 flights after an outage that it blamed on a failed network router. United and American Airlines both suffered computer-system problems in summer 2015. Airline technology systems have hundreds of programs that are often of different ages and sources and are layered on top of each other. After recent outages at other carriers, outside experts have questioned whether airlines have enough redundancy in their systems and test the systems frequently enough.

Obama’s speech aside, why don’t Republicans want for America the world’s best, state of the art infra-structure–high speed trains and the 75 industries that would design and build the systems, attracting revenue and growth to sustain the economy and families? Why don’t they want the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, whose news roundups let European and Asian travelers and business people feel at home–and give Americans a peek at the world beyond our coasts? Why build weapons systems the Forces line out, but are restored in each budget cycle? The Times reports 2,000 mental health patients released by a major service provider due to cuts and privatization in Salt Lake City. We know the House-passed Farm bill leaves the SNAP safety net on the table without a promise of passage. Where, as the President asked, is the GOP’s economic plan? Is it spending cuts and repealing Obamacare? The impressive growth of 7 million new jobs, doubling domestic oil production, providing stimulus to states to protect essential services, creating the largest crackdown on fraud in Medicaid’s history, securing a escrow trust for the Gulf oil spill victims–how much more could be done if the GOP reached out, taking credit for leadership and innovation? Yet the GOP persists in blame and labels.They agreed–before the speech–to use the hashtag,#SpeechesDontHire, Is that their best response? To plan an attack with a generic putdown before the speech was heard? Their fault finding never has a fix.

As the UK referendum result dropped in that fateful Friday morning, the tech startup world didn’t immediately grind to a halt. Websites kept loading. Apps kept opening. But what left UK technology entrepreneurs aghast was not just that Britain had chosen to leave the European Union after 40 years, but that all those years of trying compete with the giants of Silicon Valley would now be thrown into doubt. Although Europe’s 500 million citizens dwarfs the 323 million in the US, for years European startups had to deal with 28 jurisdictions and many languages. But the EU had at least managed to harmonize (more or less) the processes of company operation, data sharing and hiring. Hiring from a talent base of 500 million people was also an incredible asset to startups, as was raising funding from Venture capitalists. Based in Berlin? No problem. Developers in Slovenia, but the the HQ was in London? No problem. And, after several Eastern European states had joined, suddenly the whole of Europe could tap into the talent produced from Soviet-era education systems built around engineering and maths. The truth is the overwhelming majority of the UK tech startup industry was for ‘Remain’. Industry body COADEC found over 80% of companies were in favour of staying in the EU, citing the single market, free movement of labour and economic stability as their reasons. But “Brexit” has now thrown into enormous doubt how all of that will operate in the future. The immediate effects on startups have been incredibly personal. Bewilderment is the word you hear most. European staff suddenly have no idea how long they will be able to work in Britain. They created business ties, friendships, relationships, often marriages. Their kids are in nursery schools and high schools across the country. Furthermore, so many tech startups today are created by young people, who typically voted in droves for Remain. The decision to leave Europe will have disproportionate effects on them and their companies, which, ironically are so often labelled by politicians as providing the jobs of the future. What future now for them? The immediate reaction of some in the sector has been typically entrepreneurial. “Stay calm and make lemonade,” wrote leading investor Saul Klein. Leading voices have been quick to come out as upbeat — anything not to ‘frighten the horses’ and potentially spook the pipeline of possible new companies to invest in. Some see it as an opportunity. The UK is still open for business! This, despite imploring everyone to vote for Remain only a few days earlier. Klein’s sanguine attitude is reflected by many VCs. Early stage startups are agile and can relocate if need be. Big tech companies are global and not overly dependent on the U.K. But VCs have warned that mid-stage companies too dependent on the U.K. could feel the heat of Brexit. Taavet Hinrikus, Co-founder and CEO ofTransferWise, a declared ‘Remainer’, says he is “moving on” from the Brexit decision. His London-based company couldn’t be more quintessentially European: he’s an Estonian immigrant living in London. Half his staff are British, a third from mainland Europe, with others from the US, Latin America and elsewhere. TransferWise also benefits from “passporting”: because it is regulated in the UK by the FCA, it’s therefore regulated all across Europe. For now. But, he blogged, “Five years ago, we chose to base TransferWise here in the UK — and we’ll continue that plan.” And ‘seize the day’ was effectively the message put out by former Number 10 tech adviser Rohan Silva, who wrote in the Sunday Times that Britain should now embrace the technology future to use Artificial Intelligence to drive its society. Free from the constraints of a ponderous EU, the UK could now go feet-first into a tech-driven future. These were upbeat words from voices who had openly declared they were for Remain prior to the Referendum. It was true that the EU had often lurched towards heavy regulation. Ironically, as the EU Commission had often created encouraging programmes for startups, EU legislators were making laws which could put more and more onerous restraints on startups around data privacy, for instance. There were clearly going to be many arguments worth engaging with if Europe was to compete globally. Arguments which, because of Brexit, the UK will no longer have a say in, of course. Many felt the EU had gone too far in regulation. One startup founder told me the European Data Privacy Regulations could have “ruined” her online advertising business, which relies on being able to transport data between the EU and the US. However, while the sun-lit uplands of a world where the UK fully embraces the advances of technology (and speeds ahead of the EU) could well be a possible future, that ideal is thrown into sharp relief when set against the realities biting today. Some, like Jeff Lynn of Seedrs, were utterly incensed. The day after the referendum I was contacted by three separate startups to say their venture capital funding had been cancelled because they were being financially backed from the UK and were in the EU, or in the UK and backed by EU-based investors. Several more have come to me since with similar news. Uncertainty has left the normally upbeat tech sector reeling. And we’ve been coldly reminded of the complexity of the modern international startup, once seen as a strength, but, post-Brexit, could now become a huge headache. One UK-based founder contacted me: “My entire budget is now completely invalid as we have employees in 3 different EU countries, and in the USA. We are deeply affected by the currency devaluation issue. Every single person that I employ is from a different EU country. Most are based in London and now there is a real feeling of unease and uncertainty as to what will happened to them in the future – which means that this is affecting the day to day running of the business,” she told me. In addition, she was about to embark on a fundraising tour and was hoping to get US investors: “I now think that this will be much more difficult, if at all possible. Which means that the 6 jobs I have created and the 5 more that I need to fill – will be in jeopardy.” The company in question also took on interns from underprivileged backgrounds. That programme will now likely be cancelled because of a lack of funding. “Long term I think I will have to relocate my business to the USA as the market in the UK is just too small to justify staying here,” she told me. What’s that? A market of 65 million too small? Well, yes, when just a fortnight ago it was 500 million. In Manchester, Tom New, CEO of Formisimo, believes startups in the North West and EU-backed UK regions will find it much harder to raise funding because part of their cash was raised because it had that EU cushion underneath. Without that “we would have likely have had to move to the South East and the North West’s tech ecosystem would still be where it was back then,” he told me. The UK also could now face a potential brain drain of talent. Before June 23 London was seen as Europe’s largest powerhouse of startups. Just over a week later an adverting-hoarding truck was seen trawling the startup-filled streets of Shoreditch, extolling the benefits of moving to Berlin (London’s chief tech startup competitor). The van was sponsored by a German political party. Suddenly other European hubs like Dublin, Berlin, Stockholm or Amsterdam look attractive as bases from which to reach the EU single market. Even some London VCs are privately saying that they will invest more on the continent now as a result. Tech companies will no doubt work around it all – moving people and HQs around, knowing they can all still work online. And it may be that the booming nature of London’s tech scene will now have to be spread more equally to Europe’s other tech centres. This much was admitted by Balderton Capital, which plans now to stockpile cash and invest more internationally. Look for talented British entrepreneurs suddenly turning up in Berlin, Stockholm, Lisbon and Barcelona. But one of the greatest myths ever told about the tech world is that it’s about technology. The truth is, it’s about people. Extremely smart and talented people. Given that the UK had been part of a single market which allowed for enormous freedom of movement, its access to all that talent in Europe is now in jeopardy. Meanwhile, the march of technology continues, as does the soul searching. Did those of us in London pay too much attention to our hackathons and our Flat Whites to notice that so much of the rest of the UK wasn’t interested in the tech startup revolution? It looks like we just found out. (A shorter version of this article is also published in the first edition of The New European newspaper) (Picture by Tom Hayton)

“You can’t get bigger arms unless you go heavy on the barbell or on some dumbbells.” Yeah, that’s what more than one guy told me at the gym. Hearing this advice made sense to me. I had seen the workouts before in magazines and they always threw in 4 exercises for biceps and 4 exercises for triceps. Add in 10 to 12 reps per set per exercise and I was being promised arms bigger than the Hulk. It made sense at the time. Lift some iron and watch the muscle grow. That’s the common advice and it works, but only if you do it right. However, lifting weights is not the only way to gain muscle in your arms. If you want to get awesome results you should include bodyweight exercises. Anytime someone tells me that you can’t get muscular arms by using only your bodyweight I point to a gymnast. Simply look at a gymnast and you will quickly see that weights are not the only way to make significant gains in muscle. You don’t have to lift like a bodybuilder. Sure you can grab a barbell, put some weight and go at it. I am all for that. You can lift heavy weight and see results but having thicker arms is best when you do certain exercises that trigger maximum growth. That’s where bodyweight movements can come in. Here are a list of exercises for biceps and triceps without having to use weights. Bodyweight Exercises For Biceps Chin Ups: This exercise is one of the forgotten and unsung bodyweight exercises. Some see this as either being too easy while others look at it as too difficult to do. It is often considered a back exercise but in reality it is much more than that. Chin ups are a compound movement that will give your back and your biceps a killer workout. This exercise is similar to a barbell curl except that it follows a natural movement and can be tough as you lift your own weight. Parallel Grip Chin Ups: Another great option for building your biceps. The palms face each other on parallel bars allowing for a movement that is easier on the wrists and shoulders than a pull ups. The positioning of the hands and arms is very much like a Hammer Curl; however this exercise also works on the lats. If you don’t have access to parallel bars simply grip a bar with both hands with both palms facing each other. Pull Ups: Some time ago I dropped all biceps curls for about a year. The only stimulation my biceps received was through my back workouts. My primary back exercise at the time was pull ups and my biceps never decreased in size. Whether you choose to do a shoulder wide grip or wider than shoulder wide grip you will still find this exercise giving your lats and biceps a boost. Don’t confuse this exercise with chin ups. Pull ups require a “palms out” grip while a chin up uses a “palms in” grip. Bodyweight Rows/ Inverted Rows: When was the last time you saw someone at the gym using this exercise? Yeah, I never do either. Simply use a Smith Machine and set the bar below your waist. Proceed to sit down on the floor, grab the bar and with your back flat and facing the floor you then do a rowing movement. For the easier version of this exercise keep your heels resting on the floor. If you prefer a challenge lift your feet off the floor and leave your body suspended, then proceed with performing a row. Note: Even though these exercises are usually done using a bar you can always use variations with gymnastics rings and using the TRX. Bodyweight Exercises For Triceps Dips: This is a popular exercise and rightfully so. Anyone who has ever tried this exercise knows the power and the results you get. You can either use parallel bars, TRX or rings. This exercise primarily targets the triceps and the chest with the back and lats getting some stimulation as well. By doing this exercise with a closer grip, elbows close to your side and your chin tucked in you will target the triceps more. Bodyweight Triceps Extensions: Place your hands on a strong surface like a bar, bench or rings. Place your feet back so your body is as close to a horizontal position. Your head should be placed in between your elbows. Push your bodyweight up and then lower yourself slowly. This exercise is close to a skull crusher except you are not lying on your back. Close Grip Push Ups: Any type of pushups exercise works great for your triceps. Most pushups exercises will primarily target your chest with secondary work done on the triceps. However, close grip pushups or triangle pushups will work primarily on the triceps with less emphasis on the chest. Bonus Exercise Works The Entire Arms Muscle Up: Every time I see this exercise I think of the guys from “300.” This exercise requires a lot of upper body strength and is a combination of a pull up with dip. The workout is a combination of a biceps exercise and triceps exercise. The entire motion of the exercise is meant to work on the biceps, triceps and the back and chest muscles. Stand underneath a pull up bar and jump up, grab the bar and use the momentum to pull yourself up and push up until the bar is at waist level. Proceed to come back down in a controlled motion. As you can see the explosive pull up motion will work the biceps while the pushing movement and lowering of the body is going to target the triceps. Tips For Your Next Arm Workout Looking at these exercises it is tempting to stack a workout with 4-5 or more of these exercises. Avoid the temptation of doing too many exercises all at once. Doing too much at once will only make you over train. The best way to achieve ideal results is by choosing 1 or 2 of these exercises for biceps or 1 to 2 exercises when doing triceps workouts. If you decide to add weight training for your arms simply do 1 exercise using weights and 1 exercise using your bodyweight. The best thing to do is to include a bodyweight exercise along with an exercise using weights. Sticking to an all bodyweight workout for your arms works too. If your goal is to gain muscle stick to rep ranges of 8 to 10 and 3 to 4 sets. Make sure to be as explosive as possible in each repetition. Final Thoughts One thing that is very clear is that you won’t find isolation type exercises in this list. Bodyweight type workouts are always going to be compound type. Unlike dumbbell exercises, like dumbbell curls, you won’t find the equivalent version using your bodyweight. Each one of these exercises works not only the biceps and triceps but also works in conjunction with another muscle group like back muscles or chest. If you only use weights to add muscle to your arms it is best to add bodyweight exercises as well. The benefits you will gain will be tremendous. If you have never done a workout using only your body then feel free to try it. A good combination of these exercises will allow you to make significant gains in size.

When Mark Baker looks up at the moon at night, he does not see magic or mystery. He ponders megawatts. Twice a day, like clockwork, the moon’s gravity makes the seas ebb and flow. For Baker, a marine renewables business manager at GE Power Conversion, the tides are the perfect source of energy, more predictable and reliable than wind or solar power. “Some U.K. locations have significant tidal head ranges,” he says. “They offer a tantalizing energy generation potential.“ The moon could join the sun as a source of renewable energy. GE Power Conversion is testing tidal turbine generators and other underwater technology in turbines standing on the sea floor near the Orkneys in Scotland and at Ramsey Sound in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Baker says that GE is ready to scale up the power system to a large array of tidal turbines planned for the bottom of the Pentland Firth, a narrow channel that separates the Orkneys from the northern tip of Scotland. The channel has some of the fastest moving currents in the U.K. (see video). People tried to capture tidal and wave energy since the Middle Ages when they used “tide mills” to grind grain. Ideas Lab reported that the first tidal power station was the Rance tidal power plant built between 1960 and 1966 in La Rance, France. But the technology did not catch on because of its high capital cost and the limited availability of sites with sufficient tidal flows. Although innovations in turbine technology and design have begun to lower those costs and make deployment possible in more areas, the technology is “decades behind other forms of renewables and will likely need significant government support and research to become a true clean energy player,” according Ideas Lab. The Orkneys’ rugged coast has some of the strongest tides. The U.S. is currently underwriting development of 17 tidal and wave energy demonstration projects. The U.S. Department of Energy’s latest assessment identified up to 1,400 terawatt hours of potential tidal energy generation per year—one terawatt-hour of electricity is enough to power about 85,000 homes. Developing just a small fraction of the wave and tidal energy available in the U.S. could power millions of American homes. “Wave and tidal energy represent a large, untapped resource for the United States and responsible development of this clean, renewable energy source is an important part of our all-of-the-above energy strategy,” said Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy David Danielson in a statement last year. BBC recently described Scotland as “a Saudi Arabia of renewable energy potential.” The Pentland Firth project alone could supply almost half of Scotland’s electricity needs – as much as 1.9 gigawatts. The turbines resemble large aircraft propellers submerged in 180 to 240 feet of water. They stand in strategic “pinch points” of the firth, where the tides rush in and out at the highest speeds. Engineers can capture energy from the vertical and horizontal movements of the tides. Some teams have also used buoys that generate electricity from the up and down movement of the waves. But “it happens to be roughly an order of magnitude more difficult to mount and maintain equipment on the surface of the sea,” Baker says. “Companies have put in wave systems only to find them dashed upon the rocks.” Baker believes that tidal power generation arrays will start popping up in the U.K. and elsewhere in the world. “Tidal lagoon power stations could soon also become a reality in the U.K.,” he says. “They are capable of utility-scale power generation.”

Pune: In a bizarre case, a parrot accused of "hurling obscenities" at an octogenarian woman was summoned to a police station at Rajura in Maharashtra's Chandrapur district on Monday after a complaint against its owner that he had allegedly tutored his caged pet to do so. The police was at its wit's end after 85-year-old Janabai Sakharkar accused her stepson Suresh of teaching his parrot 'Hariyal', to shower abuses at her whenever she passed by his house. In order to verify the agitated woman's complaint, the police called all the three involved, including Janabai, her stepson Suresh and Hariyal the parrot to the police station. However, the parrot seemed to have became conscious of khaki clad policmen and kept mum when his cage was brought near Janabai, to see if it would hurl any obscenities at her. "There is a dispute over land and property between the woman and her stepson. We watched the parrot carefully but it did not utter a word at the police station after being confronted by the complainant," Police Inspector P S Dongre told reporters. Although Hariyal never showed any alleged penchant to abuse the woman, the police decided to hand it over to forest department officials, after taking into account the harassed mental condition of the aged woman. PTI Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.

According to some of the most popular dating advice books, one of the keys to attracting a romantic partner is to take the somewhat counterintuitive step of pretending like you aren’t interested in the other person. But does this tactic really work? Can “playing hard to get” really help you score a date? According to a new set of studies published in the European Journal of Personality, it would appear so. In one of these studies, researchers gave 270 heterosexual college students three dating profiles that were equivalent in terms of attractiveness, age, and background information [1]. The only thing that differed was the likelihood that the person would go out with someone they had just met (i.e., the target was described as having either low, intermediate, or high availability). Participants were asked to choose which person they would be most likely to have casual sex with, which one they would be most likely to date, and which one they would be most likely to start a romantic relationship with. Participants could choose the same or different persons for each option. When it came to casual sex, both men and women overwhelming preferred the highly available target. So, if you’re hoping to get lucky, playing hard to get is not particularly advantageous. However, when it came to dating and starting a romantic relationship, both men and women preferred the target with intermediate availability. So, if you’re looking for love, playing at least a little hard to get seems advisable. In another study, the researchers gave heterosexual college student participants photos of equally attractive targets that again varied in perceived availability (low, intermediate, or high). Participants were asked what kind of restaurant they would take this person to (fast food, casual, or fine dining) and how much money they would be willing to spend on the other person’s dinner. In this case, the low availability targets won hands down. Both men and women reported that they would take the low availability target to a fancier restaurant, as well as spend more money on this person. Specifically, the low availability target was worth $44.45 on average, compared to $34.99 and $33.10 for the intermediate and high availability targets, respectively. In other words, playing hard to get may lead your date to spring for a better meal. One other question this set of studies sought to answer is how people play hard to get. To answer this, the researchers asked a sample of men and women whether they have ever played hard to get and, if so, how they accomplished this. Women reported playing hard to get more often than did men. In addition, the two most commonly reported tactics were acting confident and talking to other people, with men and women being equally likely to say that they had done these specific things before. However, several other reasons were reported, and some important sex differences emerged. Specifically, women were more likely than men to say that they do things like not calling, not talking much, and keeping busy. In contrast, men were more likely than women to report things like “saying all the right things but not calling,” “acting snotty or rude,” and “treating others like sh*t.” Fortunately, those last two were rated as occurring with very low frequency. I should also mention that just because at least a few people reported doing these behaviors, it does not necessarily mean that they work! Of course, these findings are limited in that they only looked at college students and, further, all participants were heterosexual. However, the results suggest that if you're looking for casual sex, being more available will make you more successful--but if you're looking for love, playing hard to get is the better strategy. In other words, when it comes to love, the old adage rings true: "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" Want to learn more about The Psychology of Human Sexuality? Click here for a complete list of articles or like the Facebook page to get articles delivered to your newsfeed. [1] Jonason, P. K., & Li, N. P. (in press). Playing hard‐to‐get: Manipulating one's perceived availability as a mate. European Journal of Personality. Image Source: 123rf.com You Might Also Like:

Document number: N2271=07-0131 Date: 2007-04-27 Reply to: Paul Pedriana Electronic Arts ppedriana at ea.com EASTL -- Electronic Arts Standard Template Library Paul Pedriana Electronic Arts ppedriana at ea.com Abstract Gaming platforms and game designs place requirements on game software which differ from requirements of other platforms. Most significantly, game software requires large amounts of memory but has a limited amount to work with. Gaming software is also faced with other limitations such as weaker processor caches, weaker CPUs, and non-default memory alignment requirements. A result of this is that game software needs to be careful with its use of memory and the CPU. The C++ standard library's containers, iterators, and algorithms are potentially useful for a variety of game programming needs. However, weaknesses and omissions of the standard library prevent it from being ideal for high performance game software. Foremost among these weaknesses is the allocator model. An extended and partially redesigned replacement (EASTL) for the C++ standard library was implemented at Electronic Arts in order to resolve these weaknesses in a portable and consistent way. This paper describes game software development issues, perceived weaknesses of the current C++ standard, and the design of EASTL as a partial solution for these weaknesses. Introduction The purpose of this document is to explain the motivation and design of EASTL so that it may help the C++ community better understand the needs of game software development. This document is not a proposal, though some of EASTL's changes and extensions could form the basis for such discussions. The large majority of EASTL would be useful to any kind of C++ software development. This document describes an STL implementation (EASTL) developed within Electronic Arts as an alternative to and extension of the STL defined by the C++ standard library. By STL, we mean the container, iterator, and algorithm components of the C++ standard library, hereafter referred to as std STL (with std referring to the std namespace, whereas the S in STL refers to standard C++). By C++ standard, we mean ISO 14882 (1998) and the 2003 update. The large majority of the design of std STL is excellent and achieves its intended purpose. However, some aspects of it make it hard to use and other aspects prevent it from performing as well as it could. Among game developers the most fundamental weakness is the std allocator design, and it is this weakness that was the largest contributing factor to the creation of EASTL. Secondarily was the lack of std STL containers designed to be memory-friendly. There are additional reasons that will be discussed below. We hope that those reading this document have an open mind to the idea that std STL may not be ideal for all purposes. Before this document was written, sketches of it were shown to some outside of the game development industry. In some cases we found that there was an initial reaction to dismiss an alternative STL and assume that the somebody must be misunderstanding or misusing the STL. But upon explaining game development and high performance software issues and comparing these to std STL's design and implementation by current vendors, people usually reduce their skepticism. Indeed we have found that those have the most extensive and deep STL experience have been those most enthusiastic about EASTL. We nevertheless have a great respect for the C++ standard library and the great work that has gone into its design and implementation, especially after having gone through the long and difficult process of implementing it. This document is divided into the following sections. The first section summarizes the motivation for the creation of EASTL and its design; the subsequent sections flow from this. Throughout this document there are references to the Appendix. The Appendix contains supplementary material which provides more detail about some item of discussion. This material is placed there in order to avoid getting in the way of the primary text, as the material is a bit verbose and is sometimes tangential to the discussion of EASTL. It was nevertheless felt to be important that the Appendix exist in order to provide a better understanding of practical game development issues. Motivation for EASTL The following is a listing of some of the reasons why std STL and its current implementations are not currently ideal for game development. There are additional reasons, but the list here should hopefully convey to you some sense of the situation. Each of the items listed below deserves a document of its own, as a single sentence alone cannot fully convey the nature or significance of these items. Some of the items refer to the STL design, whereas some of the items refer to existing STL implementations. It would be best if these were discussed independently, but to many users this distinction is often of little practical significance because they have little choice but to use the standard library that comes with their compiler. std STL allocators are painful to work with and lead to code bloat and sub-optimal performance. This topic is addressed separately within this document. Useful STL extensions (e.g. slist, hash_map, shared_ptr) found in some std STL implementations are not portable because they don't exist in other versions of STL or are inconsistent between STL versions (though they are present in the current C++09 draft). The STL lacks functionality that game programmers find useful (e.g. intrusive containers) and which could be best optimized in a portable STL environment. See Appendix item 16. Existing std STL implementations use deep function calls. This results in low performance with compilers that are weak at inlining, as is the currently prevalent open-source C++ compiler. See Appendix item 15 and Appendix item 10. Existing STL implementations are hard to debug. For example, you typically cannot browse the contents of a std::list container with a debugger due to std::list's usage of void pointers. On the other hand, EASTL allows you to view lists without incurring a performance or memory cost. See Appendix item 2. The STL doesn't explicitly support alignment requirements of contained objects, yet non-default alignment requirements are common in game development. A std STL allocator has no way of knowing the alignment requirements of the objects it is being asked to allocate, aside from compiler extensions. Granted, this is part of the larger problem of the C++ language providing minimal support for alignment requirements. Alignment support is proposed for C++09. STL containers won't let you insert an entry into a container without supplying an entry to copy from. This can be inefficient in the case of elements that are expensive to construct. The STL implementations that are provided by compiler vendors for the most popular PC and console (box connected to TV) gaming platforms have performance problems. EASTL generally outperforms all existing STL implementations; it does so partly due to algorithmic improvements but mostly due to practical improvements that take into account compiler and hardware behavior. See Appendix item 20. Existing STL implementations are hard to debug/trace, as some STL implementations use cryptic variable names and unusual data structures and have no code documentation. See Appendix item 2. STL containers have private implementations that don't allow you to work with their data structures in a portable way, yet sometimes this is an important thing to be able to do (e.g. node pools). See Appendix item 22. Many current versions of std STL allocate memory in empty versions of at least some of their containers. This is not ideal and prevents optimizations such as container memory resets that can significantly increase performance in some situations. An empty container should allocate no memory. All current std STL algorithm implementations fail to support the use of predicate references, which results in inefficient hacks to work around the problem. See Appendix item 3. The STL puts an emphasis on correctness before practicality and performance. This is an understandable policy but in some cases (particularly std::allocator) it gets in the way of usability and optimized performance. Differences between std STL and EASTL First, EASTL provides a set of containers, iterators, and algorithms that are identical in interface and behavior to std STL versions with one exception: allocators. EASTL has a different allocator specification which is simpler, more efficient, more flexible, and easier to use than std::allocator. Both std::allocator and eastl::allocator are described below. EASTL follows the defect reports and TR1 as well. EASTL additionally provides and uses some of the TR1 functionality as well, including most significantly the smart pointers, type traits, and hashing containers. Second, EASTL provides extension functionality to the above containers, iterators, and algorithms. An example of this is the push_back(void), set_capacity(size), and validate() functions added to eastl::vector. The majority of these extensions are driven by the need for higher performance (push_back(void)), higher clarity (set_capacity), or higher debuggability (validate()). There are about 30 such extensions to the various entities in the library. These are described in detail below. Third, EASTL provides additional containers and algorithms that don't correspond to std STL. These include intrusive_list, vector_map, fixed_hash_set, slist, ring_buffer, radix_sort, has_trivial_relocate, and others. These are described in detail below. There are additional differences not related to the functional specification. They include a programming philosophy that emphasizes readability, consistency, and optimal performance on limited hardware. See Appendix item 23. EASTL functionality summary EASTL coverage of std STL (not including TR1) EASTL covers the following parts of the C++ standard library. Entity Comments list vector deque basic_string set multiset map multimap bitset EASTL has a small number of additional requirements for containers beyond those std STL containers. An example of this is the requirement that a newly constructed or reset container allocates no memory. These are discussed in the next section. EASTL has additional functionality in most of the containers in order to obtain higher performance. These are discussed after the next section. EASTL uses a different allocator model, as described below. Otherwise, the EASTL versions logically behave the same as std STL versions. The EASTL implementations of the containers listed on the left are not modifications of any existing std STL implementation but are largely complete reimplementations. queue stack priority_queue iterator EASTL defines an additional iterator_tag in addition to bidirectional_iterator, random_access_iterator, etc: contiguous_iterator_tag. A contiguous iterator has all the properties of a random_access_iterator but additionally specifies that the range is contiguous in memory as with an array. memory numeric algorithm utility functional EASTL augmentations/amendments to std STL Here we list extension functionality that EASTL provides over std STL along with a rationale for each item. In some cases additional information can be found in the appendix and will be noted. All of these changes were prompted by real issues that were encountered in the use of std STL and EASTL. None were the result of speculation or "premature optimization." Extension Rationale All containers have a node_type typedef and kNodeAlignment constant. Much as containers define types such as value_type and key_type, EASTL defines node_type for all containers. node_type is the storage type that the container uses, as opposed to the user-specified contained type. It is the type that the container allocates. Explicitly defining this type allows users to implement allocators such that the allocated type is known at compile-time. Additionally, kNodeAlignment is a size_t constant which defines the alignment of the node_type. For containers such as hash tables which have multiple allocated types, additional node types are explicitly defined for the class. Similarly, all containers understand and respect object alignment requirements. As discussed elsewhere in this document, game development platforms explicitly or implicitly require the use of non-default alignments. A typical example is VMX vector types, which explicitly require 16 byte alignment because they are an array of 4 floats which are processed in parallel in a single 128 bit register. All containers have a get_allocator and set_allocator function, which return the actual allocator instead of a copy of it. std STL lets you set the allocator for a class only during class construction. Additionally, std STL doesn't let you access its allocator; you can only get a copy of it. This and other weaknesses of std STL allocators are discussed elsewhere in this document in more detail. All containers guarantee that there is no memory allocation upon being newly empty-constructed. Since EASTL containers have a set_allocator function and allow the user to set the container's allocator after the container's construction, this requirement naturally follows. It's also simply more efficient to avoid memory allocation whenever possible. Lastly, there is the game development policy that memory should never be allocated "behind a user's back" or when the user doesn't expect it. All containers have a reset function, which unilaterally resets the container to an initialized (and unallocated) state, avoiding container teardown and reallocation. A common high-performance technique is to create a temporary hash table with a fixed-size memory buffer, do processing with it, and then "nuke" the hash table when done instead of going through the process of clearing and deallocating its nodes. EASTL explicitly supports this programming pattern via the reset function. The supplied allocator generally must cooperate with this, lest memory leaks occur. However, it can work safely only with value types that have a trivial destructor. All containers have explicit validate and validate_iterator functions. EASTL provides an option to do implicit automatic iterator and container validation, but full validation (which can be potentially extensive) has too much of a performance cost to execute implicitly, even in a debug build. So EASTL provides these explicit functions which can be called by the user at the appropriate time and in optimized builds as well as debug builds. bool validate() const; iterator_status_flag validate_iterator(const_iterator i) const; See the EASTL container section for more. Containers should be viewable in a basic debugger to the extent possible. A common complaint by users is that std STL implementations use void pointers for linked list items and makes the container overly difficult to view while debugging. EASTL rectifies this with no overhead. See Appendix item 2. vector has a data() function which acts similar to basic_string::data() data() is not the same thing as &v[0], as the latter will result in an invalid dereference assertion failure when v is empty. This is also in the current C++09 draft. vector<bool> is an array of bool. It is not a bit vector. The user can use eastl::bitvector if the user wants a bit vector, and vector<bool> is deprecated in the current C++09 draft. vector and basic_string have set_capacity(size), which sets the capacity to exactly what the user specifies. People have been recommending the "swap trick" for years, but this is an obfuscated and easy-to-forget workaround in place of what should be built-in functionality. If a workaround is well-known enough that there are hundreds of pages on the Internet devoted to it and it has its own nickname, it probably should be built into the standard library. set_capacity is the same thing as resize_capacity which has been suggested by some. vector::iterator and basic_string::​iterator are pointers. Primarily this allows for easier debugging by the user and easier optimization by the compiler. A random access iterator is not the same thing as a pointer, which refers to contiguous memory. Even in the presence of type_traits optimizations there are things a compiler can do with known-contiguous pointers that it cannot do with random access iterators. See Appendix item 25. The downside to vector and string iterators as pointers is that some types of automated runtime validation can't be done. So far it doesn't seem to have been greatly missed. All containers have a push_back(void) and/or similarly useful functions. Existing std STL implementations implement insertion operations by copying from an element. For example, resize(size() + 1) creates a throw-away temporary object. There is no way in existing std STL implementations to add an element to a container without implicitly or explicitly providing one to copy from (aside from some existing POD optimizations). For expensive-to-construct objects this creates a potentially serious performance problem. A typical suggested workaround to this problem with std STL is to store pointers instead of objects; however, such external memory allocation is undesirable for reasons described elsewhere in this document. list and deque have both push_back(void) and push_front(void). slist has push_front(void). map, multimap, hash_map, and hash_multimap have insert(key). insert(key) is the same thing as the lazy_insert function that has been suggested by some. Other related proposals have been put forward. There are sprintf, append_sprintf, trim, compare_i, make_lower, and make_upper functions for the basic_string class. These are practical useful functions. Game developers prefer to use sprintf instead of stream and strstream functionality where possible because the latter is unacceptably slow in practice. The obscurity and lack of readability of stream operations adds to their unpopularity. The compare_i, make_lower, and make_upper functions are by definition not locale-savvy. They are nevertheless useful practical functions due to the large amount of non-localized string usage in utilities and applications. Not all strings are destined to be viewed by the end-user. deque allows the user to specify the node size as a template parameter. std STL deque guesses the node size for the user; the user cannot control it. This can result in undesirably large or undesirably small memory allocations that the user cannot control. Making the node size available like this does represent a leaking of the deque abstraction. template <typename T, typename Allocator, size_t kNodeSize> class deque { }; Associative containers (e.g. map, hash_map) have the find_as function, which allows fast key lookups for expensive key types. If you have a map<string, int> and you want to look up an entry, std STL requires you to supply a string object to the map::find function. This is overly expensive for the common case whereby you have a string literal which you want to look up, because passing such a literal to the map::find function silently creates a temporary string object and allocates memory. EASTL solves this problem by defining the following member template function, which allows you to, for example, look up a string object via a lightweight string literal: template <typename U, typename BinaryPredicate> iterator find_as(const U& u, BinaryPredicate predicate); This is similar to the lazy_find that has been suggested by some. An additional iterator_tag beyond random_access​_iterator_tag is defined: contiguous_​iterator_tag. random_access_iterator_tag defines a range which has random access, but isn't necessarily contiguous. This may lead to missed optimization opportunities. type_traits can be used to work around some of these opportunities but not in all cases and not in as explicit a way. Need to provide an example here. eastl::pair has a single argument constructor. It accepts the first element as a constructor argument and default-constructs the second argument. pair(); pair(const T1& x); pair(const T1& x, const T2& y); The usefulness comes about because the map::value_type is pair<const key_type, mapped_type>. As a result, inserting a value into a map requires the user to create a temporary pair whose contents must be set at its construction. This turns out to be inefficient when the mapped_type is expensive to construct or copy, as the pair constructor forces you to provide a mapped_type to copy from. It's more efficient to write code like this: map<int, expensive>::value_type value(37); value.second.blah = blah; m.insert(value); bitset uses uint32_t instead of unsigned long. unsigned long is not a portable type. On game development platforms it can be any of 32, 64 or 128 bits. On platforms where it is 64 or 128 bits, it can be inefficient to work with these types, as it is on the PlayStation 2 platform. Types such as short, int, long, and long long cannot be used in a portable way and thus EASTL and many game programming standards disallow their usage in API interfaces. Sized types such as int16_t, int32_t, etc. are used instead. bitset has neither string nor iostream functionality. string and iostream are unrelated to bitset and embedding knowledge about them into bitset bloats the bitset implementation and dependency graph in a way that yields marginal and limited benefits. bitset has find_first, find_next functions. These are of course more efficient for the user than manually checking every bit in turn. Three additional heap algorithms are provided: remove_heap, change_heap, is_heap. Similarly, priority_queue has change and remove member functions. These are useful practical additions. remove_heap and change_heap provide functionality that can't be efficiently implemented externally. eastl::list, slist, intrusive_list, and intrusive_slist don't cache the list size. Thus the list::size is O(n). However, there is a configuration option to cache it an make it O(1). The C++ standard specifies that list::size is O(1), and some STL implementations cache the list size and implement it as O(1). The SGI STL branch of STL doesn't cache the list size and list::size is thus O(n). EASTL can be configured to work either way, but defaults to O(n). The rationale for this is that it adds extra memory and processing cost to the list container, whereas users of linked lists often don't care about the size of the list. The user can always maintain a list size cache on their own. A future revision of eastl::list will likely make this a template policy option. EASTL algorithms respect user-supplied template argument types and are guaranteed to do so. No existing std STL currently does so. The following code does not work as one might expect or hope with any current std STL implementation: struct ExpensiveToConstructCompare{ }; ExpensiveToConstructCompare compare; std::sort<int*, ExpensiveToConstructCompare&>(begin, end, compare); The problem is that std STL implementations ignore the user-specified compare reference type and convert it to a value type and proceed to make (possibly very many) copies of it. This can be prohibitively expensive. The conventional workaround for this problem is to create a proxy compare class that references the real compare object. Why not simply have the algorithms obey the user's request and avoid such workarounds and their resulting overhead? It's not clear if the C++ standard requires that the user's request be respected, but it would be nice if it did. The currently proposed std::ref adapater could help this situation with existing std STL implementations, but it would be nice if they didn't require this. EASTL type traits can be explicitly user-controlled. Some type traits cannot be discerned by compilers, and in some cases you may want to override the compiler's automatic view of a type trait. EASTL provides a supported mechanism for explicitly setting a type_trait: EASTL_DECLARE_*. An example of this is EASTL_DECLARE_TRIVIAL_RELOCATE(x). EASTL's shared_ptr/weak_ptr allow the user to specify an allocator instead of implicitly using global new. As described in the game software issues section, global new usage is often verboten in game software development, at least for console platforms. Thus any library facility which uses global operator new or any memory allocation that cannot be controlled by the user is unacceptable. Allocators are named. All containers have a default name in case one isn't supplied by the user. Naming allocators and allocations is a common and useful practice for software development where all memory must be accounted for. Tracking allocations by file/line doesn't work well with libraries - especially fundamental libraries such as STL - and EASTL builds it into the API, though allocators can ignore it when appropriate. This is a case of a feature that might not be popular if it was in std STL, but since EASTL is developed for use by a game development company it works well. queue, priority_queue, and stack have a get_container function. It is sometimes simply practical to have this. A typical case is one whereby the creator of the queue is different from the user of the queue. It is also useful for diagnostics. EASTL doesn't use char and wchar_t but instead uses char8_t, char16_t, and char32_t. wchar_t isn't portable. See Appendix item 13. EASTL defines eastl_size_t and eastl_ssize_t, and container size_type is typedef'd to eastl_size_t. These default to size_t and signed size_t respectively but can be configured to be uint32_t and int32_t on 64 bit platforms, as a 64 bit size_t wastes space in practice in most cases. Changes that aren't related to API specifications: hash and tree containers work by inheritance instead of by composition in order to reduce a layer of indirection. It is common for std STL implementations to implement std::set by having it own a member rbtree and route most of its functionality through the member. This has some theoretical advantages but results in asking the compiler to deal with a layer of indirection which it may or may not optimize away. EASTL supplies per-platform optimizations in some cases. For example, the min function specialized for float can be implemented in a way that avoids branching. float min(float a, float b) { float result, test(a - b); __asm__ ("fsel %0, %1, %2, %3" : "=f" (result) : "f" (test), "f" (b), "f" (a)); return result; } Such optimizations are implementation details, but are described here because they provide a practical performance benefit to the performance-conscious user. It would be nice if std STL implementations provided such things, though Metrowerks has been known to do so in some cases. Instead of just <algorithm>, EASTL has <algorithm.h>, <sort.h>, <algoset.h>, and <heap.h>. std STL <algorithm> is a large file that is slow to compile and creates large object files for compilers that use the Borland template model (most compilers) as opposed to the Cfront model. EASTL containers avoid function calls to the extent possible, even if such calls might be inlined by the compiler. This makes it easier for the compiler to optimize and easier for the user to trace. Debug game builds that heavily use std STL with all its function calls can be unacceptably slow. See Appendix item 9 and Appendix item 10. EASTL is argument-dependent-lookup safe and guaranteed to be so. This allows you to safely call STL functions with code from other namespaces. See Appendix item 11. EASTL compiles without warning on the highest warning levels available by the compiler. This might seem like an obvious idea, but the most common commercial STL implementation does not follow it. Nearly all shared libraries and most games within EA are developed with the highest possible warning levels, and many teams set warnings to be errors. As it currently stands, usage of the C++ standard library and STL provided by the aforementioned vendor must be wrapped in warning disabling clauses wherever they are used. This results in more messy code and more fragile builds. Exception handling can be disabled in EASTL by explicitly supported configuration directives. Almost all game development is done with exception handling disabled. The discussion of this policy is outside the scope of this paragraph, but is handled in Appendix item 19. It useful if users can explicitly disable exception handling in the libraries that they use, independently of how the compiler is configured for exception handling. Header files are explicitly in an EASTL header directory and have a .h suffix. Thus we have #include <EASTL/list.h> instead of #include <list>. Putting header files in an explicit directory gives them a "namespace" of sorts. This goes a long way towards avoiding header conflicts between shared libraries and is the standard design within Electronic Arts. Suffix-less header names (e.g. <list>) don't work well in practice as well as suffixed names in user and development environments. This is a practical reality, and users prefer suffixed file names anyway. EASTL is implemented in a highly readable way that allows non-experts to follow it. All existing STL implementations with the possible exception of Metrowerks are hard to read. They have virtually no code documentation and use variable and function names that are cryptic and/or use unusual formatting. This has been a surprisingly negative point in EA team evaluations of STL for their use. EASTL coverage of TR1 (C++ library extensions) EASTL covers the parts of TR1 that relate to containers, algorithms, and iterators. Most significantly, it does not cover random number generation and regular expressions. Entity Comments array type_traits EASTL provides many of the type_traits defined in TR1 to the extent possible, and includes some extension traits and functionality as well. EASTL algorithms and containers make extensive use of these type traits. unordered_set unordered_multiset unordered_map unordered_multimap EASTL names these hash_set, hash_multiset, hash_map, and hash_multimap. A primary reason they were renamed to unordered_* in TR1 was to avoid collision with existing std STL extensions. This is not an issue for EASTL because it has its own namespace: eastl. EASTL provides some extension functionality to the TR1 proposal, the most significant of which is the find_as function. shared_ptr weak_ptr These are fundamentally the same as TR1 with the exception that they allow the user to provide an allocator instead of using global new, which is often verboten in game library development. Also, the use of virtual functions is avoided as well, given the potential cache miss they may cause. See Appendix item 19. EASTL additional functionality (not found in std STL or TR1) The following lists EASTL containers, algorithms, functors, and meta-templates that are not found in either std STL nor in TR1. The non-allocating containers and smart pointers below are viewed by many as the most important part of EASTL and some users use these more often than regular containers or even exclusively. Entity Comments fixed_list fixed_slist fixed_vector fixed_string fixed_set fixed_multiset fixed_map fixed_multimap fixed_hash_set fixed_hash_multiset fixed_hash_map fixed_hash_multimap Fixed containers are fixed-size containers with their memory stored right within the container itself. Fixed containers allocate no dynamic memory and their memory tends to be cache-friendly due to its contiguity and proximity to the container's housekeeping data. The user declares the max container size as a template parameter, and can also specify that if the container overflows that an auxiliary dynamic allocator is used. The overflow allocation feature is best used for pathological cases or during development when the container's fixed size is being tuned. All fixed containers have high-water mark tracking to assist in size tuning. The following is the template declaration for fixed_vector: template <typename T, size_t nodeCount, bool enableOverflow = true, typename Allocator overflowAllocator = EASTLAllocator> class fixed_vector { ... }; fixed_substring This is a string which is a view on an arbitrary span of characters. Thus if you have a paragraph of text but want to treat a single sentence of it as a (const) string, fixed_substring can be used. This allows for efficient const string operations without allocating memory and copying string data. A fixed_substring can be resized, upon which it will then allocate memory and copy characters. vector_set vector_multiset vector_map vector_multimap These are the same thing as sorted vectors as described in Effective STL. The underlying container is not limited to being a vector but can be any random access container, such as deque or array. Recall that the characteristic of these containers is that they provide improved memory efficiency and locality at the cost of dynamic container modification efficiency. intrusive_list intrusive_slist intrusive_set intrusive_multiset intrusive_map intrusive_multimap intrusive_hash_set intrusive_hash_multiset intrusive_hash_map intrusive_hash_multimap Intrusive containers are containers whereby the user provides the nodes and thus no memory is allocated and cache behavior is improved during container manipulations. Another benefit is that elements can be removed from containers without referencing the container (i.e. without calling container member functions). This is useful for when a class hands out element pointers to clients which the client will eventually hand back. Another benefit of intrusive containers is that is they doesn't require elements to be copyable, and sometimes element copying is not possible. EASTL intrusive containers allow elements to safely reside in multiple unrelated containers simultaneously. See Appendix item 16 for the intrusive_list interface. slist slist is a singly-linked list that is much like the slist extension found in the SGI STL branch of STL implementations. ring_buffer This implements a constant or variable capacity ring buffer which is templated on a user-supplied bidirectional container. Typically you would use it with a list or a deque, but a constant-capacity ring_buffer might use vector or array instead. template <typename T, typename Container = vector<T> > class ring_buffer { }; linked_ptr linked_array intrusive_ptr safe_ptr These are smart pointers which have similar characteristics to shared_ptr, but don't allocate memory. safe_ptr is an explicitly standalone weak pointer which doesn't allocate memory. linked_ptr uses a linked list to store references and thus also doesn't allocate memory. intrusive_ptr uses an object-supplied addref/release function to manage object lifetime. shared_array scoped_array These are array versions of shared_ptr and scoped_ptr. The conventional explanation for why the TR1 doesn't provide such array versions is that vector already supplies this. That's a fine argument, though vector and shared_array are not identical. binary_search_i find_first_not_of find_last_of find_last_not_of identical change_heap remove_heap is_heap median These are additional algorithms. binary_search_i is an alternative to binary_search which returns an iterator instead of bool. It turns out that users often want the result of the binary search and not the just status. This is the same as the binary_find function suggested by some. identical is an algorithm which is like the equal algorithm except it doesn't assume/require that the input ranges are of equal length. identical efficiently compares ranges for both length equality and element equality. is_sorted radix_sort bucket_sort shell_sort insertion_sort merge_sort merge_sort_buffer comb_sort bubble_sort These are additional sort algorithms. radix_sort is implemented via the following interface: template <typename RandomAccessIterator, typename ExtractKey, typename IntegerType> void radix_sort(RandomAccessIterator first, RandomAccessIterator last, RandomAccessIterator buffer, ExtractKey extractKey, IntegerType); merge_sort_buffer is a merge_sort whereby the user supplies the scratch buffer instead of relying on dynamic allocation to provide it. bubble_sort has curiously been shown in practice to be a good sort for very small element counts (<5), and so it is retained for both practical and instructional purposes, though insertion_sort also works well for small sizes. comb_sort is a fast sort which is almost as fast as the (introspective) sort algorithm, but has the benefit of using much less code and thus may be more friendly with the instruction cache. equal_to_2 not_equal_to_2 less_2 str_equal_to str_equal_to_i These are additions to the functional module. equal_to_2 compares two different types T and U for equality. less_2 is similar. These are useful for things such as the find_as extension. str_equal_to compares two C strings represented by character pointers. It is like strcmp. is_aligned has_trivial_relocate EASTL_DECLARE_* EASTL has a couple additional type traits in addition to the TR1 set. Of note is the has_trivial_relocate trait, which defines whether a class instance can be moved (memcpy'd) to another location in memory safely. This is useful for classes that are expensive to copy construct and assign but are easy to memcpy. The classic example is a reference count. A vector of reference counts is expensive to manipulate because it triggers what we call "ref count storms" or "ref count thrashing" which slows down execution and makes some types of debugging very difficult. However, a reference count is merely an integer and so can memcpy'd to its new location by the vector. Note that a relocatable object is not the same thing as a POD. A POD may or may not be relocatable, and a non-POD may or may not be relocatable. relocation is very much related to move semantics proposed for the C++ language, but is called "relocate" in order to avoid confusion with evolving definition of move semantics. EASTL has a formal mechanism which allows the user to explicitly ascribe a type trait to a class. This can be applied to most of the type traits but is particularly targeted at the type traits which the compiler cannot determine for itself. For example, the EASTL_DECLARE_HAS_TRIVIAL_RELOCATE(T) tells the compiler that type T should have the has_trivial_relocate type trait. uninitialized_copy_ptr uninitialized_fill_ptr uninitialized_fill_n_ptr uninitialized_copy_fill uninitialized_fill_copy uninitialized_copy_copy These are the same as equivalents found in libstdc++ and its predecessors. These do operations on uninitialized memory such a filling to it or copying to it and thus initializing it as it goes. generic_iterator EASTL defines a generic iterator which can be wrapped around a pointer to make it act like a contiguous iterator. use_self use_first use_second make_pair_ref These are utility templates for the pair template. make_pair_ref is a version of make_pair that explicitly uses object references instead of values in order to prevent potentially expensive copy operations. compressed_pair call_traits These are as per existing similar extensions found elsewhere. compressed_pair is useful for implementing the "empty base class" optimization. Game software issues The discussion here involves gaming platforms currently developed for by EA. These include primarily console, hand-held, and desktop platforms. Virtually all game development within EA and other companies is done in C++; this isn't likely to change for many years. A number of characteristics distinguish game software requirements from desktop productivity software requirements. These include: Game software always maximizes the hardware and is subject to Nathan's Laws. Game source and binaries tend to be rather large. See Appendix item 5. Game applications work with large amounts of application data. See Appendix item 5. Console-based games run off of DVD drives, which are much slower than hard drives. Game applications must execute very smoothly; there can't be unplanned execution pauses. Non-desktop platforms don't have paged memory. If the application exhausts memory, it dies. The lack of paged memory means that memory fragmentation can kill an application. Non-desktop platforms have a fixed amount of memory, and it is smaller than desktop platforms. See Appendix item 27. Non-desktop platforms have special kinds of memory, such as "physical memory," "non-local memory," "non-cacheable memory," etc. Non-desktop platforms have processors and memory caches are less forgiving than those on desktops. See Appendix item 28. Debug builds of game software need to be reasonably fast. See Appendix item 9. Game platforms sometimes require the use of non-default memory alignment. The above conditions lead to the following results: No matter how powerful any game computer ever gets, it will never have any free memory or CPU cycles. Game developers are very concerned about software performance and software development practices. Game software often doesn't use conventional synchronous disk IO such as <stdio.h> or <fstream> but uses asynchronous IO. Game applications cannot leak memory. If an application leaks even a small amount of memory, it eventually dies. Every byte of allocated memory must be accounted for and trackable. This is partly to assist in leak detection but is also to enforce budgeting. Game software rarely uses system-provided heaps but uses custom heaps instead. See Appendix item 26. A lot of effort is expended in reducing memory fragmentation. A lot of effort is expended in creating memory analysis tools and debugging heaps. A lot of effort is expended in improving source and data build times. Application code and libraries cannot be very slow in debug builds. See Appendix item 9. Memory allocation of any type is avoided to the extent possible. Operator new overrides (class and global) are the rule and not the exception. Use of built-in global operator new is verboten, at least with shareable libraries. Any memory a library allocates must be controllable by the user. Game software must be savvy to non-default memory alignment requirements. Memory pools are sometimes used in order to avoid fragmentation, even though they necessarily waste some memory themselves. See Appendix item 26. Branching (if/else/while/for/do) is avoided to the extent possible, especially mispredicted branches. See Appendix item 28. Virtual functions are avoided to the extent possible, especially in bottleneck code. See Appendix item 19. Exception handling is usually disabled. See Appendix item 17. RTTI is usually disabled or at least unused in shipping code. Many of the above items are related to memory management and performance. As a result a lot of effort is put into optimizing the use of memory. Some games have been known to run with only a few KiB of system memory free. Some games run with no memory free at all and install an out-of-memory callback to free memory from elsewhere to satisfy the current request. See Appendix item 18. The memory fragmentation is not solved, as many of the analyses that have been used to measure memory fragmentation have largely applied to desktop software memory usage patterns, requirements, and environments. Game development has further memory constraints which make problems harder to solve. EA would like to welcome researchers to work with us on some of these problems, as they represent difficult problems that don't appear to be going away. We also have the following practical considerations regarding C++ game programmers: C++ isn't taught much any more in college. It's hard enough finding people who know C++, and harder finding people who understand templates of the kind you find in STL. An increasing number of game developers are young and generic programming is foreign to them. Readers of this paper may have no trouble navigating a std STL header file, but this can be a daunting task for a less experienced programmer. An STL implementation that is very clear is worth more than experts may intially think. Game developers (all developers, really) need to be able to examine and trace STL containers and algorithms. It's not a matter of debugging the containers themselves (which are already debugged) but a matter of debugging the user's use of the containers. C++ templates are disliked by some because they are "tricky" and have "gotchas." You shouldn't have to be a language lawyer to use a programming language. Section 20.1.5 of the C++ standard describes the requirements for an allocator, and the result looks more or less like below. The requirement that the allocator be a templated class is not explicitly stated in the standard, though the requirements for rebind make it virtually mandatory that allocators be templated. Items of interest to this discussion are colored in blue. template <typename T> class allocator { public: typedef size_t size_type; typedef ptrdiff_t difference_type; typedef T* pointer; typedef const T* const_pointer; typedef T& reference; typedef const T& const_reference; typedef T value_type; allocator(); allocator(const allocator<T>&); ~allocator(); template <class U> allocator(const allocator<U>&); template <class U> struct rebind { typedef allocator<U> other; }; T* address(T&) const; const T* address(const T&) const; T* allocate(size_type, const void* = NULL); void deallocate(T*, size_type); void construct(T*, const T&); void destroy(T*); size_type max_size() const; }; bool operator ==(const allocator<T>&, const allocator<T>&); bool operator !=(const allocator<T>&, const allocator<T>&); Unfortunately, the std allocator design and its use by std containers make it hard to work with and leads to suboptimal performance and code bloat. These are some serious charges, but in the realm of high performance game development they are real and significant. The following is a list of some of the issues of std allocators and std containers' use of std allocators: As described in the Halpern proposal, std allocators are class-based and not instance-based. This results in some awkward attempts to make them act as if instance-based. Allocators are virtually required to be templates, and rebind is required to be a member template. Unless the compiler is very good at inlining (and some compilers are not -- see Appendix item 15), this can result in an explosion of templates, code, and performance problems. Allocators are rebound by containers to one or more additional types -- types which the user cannot know in any portable way. Thus the author of an allocator cannot know what it will actually be asked to allocate and construct. It is ironic that user-supplied allocators to STL containers in practice don't allocate objects of the user-specified type. It is unfortunate that there is no portable way for the container user or allocator implementor to know what the allocator will be asked to allocator or what it will be rebound to. This somewhat defeats the purpose of the allocator being templated on some type. Allocators don't understand alignment requirements. Objects allocated by a std allocator are assumed to be of default alignment (usually equal to sizeof double) or it is assumed that the implementor of the allocator knows what the alignment is. Neither of these assumptions are satisfactory, as the former can be simply untrue and the latter can be impractical or impossible. Allocators are required to construct and destroy objects as well as allocate them. This forces the mixing of two separate concepts: allocation and construction. Containers require you to set an allocator at container construction time; you cannot set it later. Containers do not let you access their allocators; they only give you copies of their allocators. Current STL implementations such as libstdc++ (up to libstdc++ v4.1, apparently rectified with v4.2) copy allocators and create temporary allocators during empty construction and copy construction, which can result in performance problems in the case of expensive allocators. The user is thus steered towards making allocators lightweight classes which are references to the actual allocators in use, which results in unwanted indirection overhead and extra code. EASTL allocators bear a resemblance to std allocators but have one fundamental difference: they malloc memory rather than allocate and construct objects. EASTL allocators are thus more like the malloc and free functions than like the new and delete operators. EASTL allocators also bear a marked resemblence to the allocators described in the Towards a Better Allocator Model proposal though they were developed independently without knowledge of the former. A fundamental difference between the two is that EASTL allocators don't have virtual functions; these have a performance cost that is to be avoided whenever possible. The following illustrates the interface requirements for EASTL allocators. Items of interest are colored in blue. class allocator { public: allocator( const char* name = "EASTL" ); allocator(const allocator& x); allocator(const allocator& x, const char* name); allocator& operator=(const allocator& x); void* allocate(size_t n, int flags = 0); void* allocate(size_t n, size_t alignment, size_t offset, int flags = 0 ); void deallocate(void* p, size_t n); const char* get_name() const; void set_name(const char* name); }; bool operator==(const allocator& a, const allocator& b); bool operator!=(const allocator& a, const allocator& b); Some notes regarding eastl allocators: Allocators are required to be assignable. The user may define a swap function for the allocator as well. allocator is not necessarily a template, nor does it necessarily have member templates. The flags parameter describes hints for the allocation, such as whether the memory is temporary or permanent. This is very useful for high performance non-fragmenting memory allocation. See Appendix item 7. The alignment and offset parameters specify the alignment requirements of the allocation. This is important on platforms that require non-default memory alignment. It's not feasible for the container to expect the allocator know the required alignment ahead of time. This is because allocators may be shared between containers and because containers may use an allocator to allocate multiple types, as is the case with deque and hashtable containers. The name-related functions allow the user to name the allocator, which in turn results in all allocations from that allocator being tagged with a user-supplied name. This is important in game software whereby all allocated memory must be accountable. See Appendix item 12. The allocator is assumed to save the name pointer as opposed to copying its contents. allocator comparisons are significant, and equality is defined as meaning that equal containers can free memory allocated by each other. There is no max_size function, though such a thing might be useful for fixed-size pool allocators and their containers. An allocator which is a copy of another allocator compares as equal to the original allocator and acts as such. EASTL containers All EASTL containers follow a set of consistent conventions. Here we define the prototypical container which has the minimal functionality that all (non-adapter) containers must have. Items of interest are colored in blue. enum iterator_status_flag { isf_none = 0x00, isf_valid = 0x01, isf_current = 0x02, isf_can_dereference = 0x04 }; template <class T, class Allocator = eastl::allocator> class container { public: typedef container<T, Allocator> this_type; typedef T value_type; typedef T* pointer; typedef const T* const_pointer; typedef T& reference; typedef const T& const_reference; typedef ptrdiff_t difference_type; typedef impl_defined size_type; typedef impl-defined iterator; typedef impl-defined const_iterator; typedef reverse_iterator<iterator> reverse_iterator; typedef reverse_iterator<const_iterator> reverse_const_iterator; typedef Allocator allocator_type; typedef impl-defined node_type; static const size_t kNodeAlignment = impl-defined; static const size_t kNodeAlignmentOffset = impl-defined; public: container(const allocator_type& allocator = allocator_type()); container(const this_type& x); this_type& operator=(this_type& x); void swap(this_type& x); void reset(); allocator_type& get_allocator(); const allocator_type& get_allocator() const; void set_allocator(allocator_type& allocator); iterator begin(); const_iterator begin() const; iterator end(); const_iterator end() const; bool validate() const; iterator_status_flag validate_iterator(const_iterator i) const; }; template <class T, class Allocator> bool operator==(const container<T, Allocator>& a, const container<T, Allocator>& b); template <class T, class Allocator> bool operator!=(const container<T, Allocator>& a, const container<T, Allocator>& b); Notes: EASTL guarantees that existing std STL container usage will behave the same under EASTL. Changes in functionality are introduced only by new member functions, extra template parameters, or simply new containers. This allows for easy conversion to EASTL, and often from EASTL to std STL as well. The get_allocator function allows the user to access the container's allocator as opposed to a copy of it. Without this, the user can only set the container's allocator on container construction, and this is impractical under some situations. Note that allocator parameters are specified by value and not by pointer, unlike the Halpern proposal. A pointer-based parameter was initially considered but it was determined that a class can encapsulate a pointer and thus act as a superset of a pointer-based design. Swapped containers do not swap their allocators. See Appendix item 29 regarding LWG #431. Some operations that involve multiple containers (such as list::splice) are invalid when container allocators are unequal and an exception is thrown if the allocators are unequal. Newly constructed empty containers must do no memory allocation. Some STL and other container libraries allocate an initial node from the class memory allocator. EASTL containers by design never do this. If a container needs an initial node, that node should be made part of the container itself or be a static empty node object. Empty containers (new or otherwise) contain no constructed objects, including those that might be in an 'end' node. Similarly, no user object (e.g. of type T) should be constructed unless required by the design and unless documented in the container/algorithm contract. The reset function is a special extension function which unilaterally resets the container to an empty state without freeing the memory of the contained objects. This is useful for very quickly tearing down a container built into scratch memory and is a useful feature for high performance programming. No memory is allocated by reset, and the container has no allocated memory after the reset is executed. It is inherently unsafe for types that have non-trivial destructor. There is no max_size function, though such a thing might be useful for fixed-size containers. The reason it doesn't exist is simply because in practice it is rarely used. The validate and validate_iterator functions provide explicit container and iterator validation. EASTL provides an option to do implicit automatic iterator and container validation, but full validation (which can be potentially extensive) has too much of a performance cost to execute implicitly, even in a debug build. So EASTL provides these explicit functions which can be called by the user at the appropriate time and in optimized builds as well as debug builds. EASTL does not solve the out of memory problem. See Appendix item 18. EASTL flaws Some aspects of EASTL turned out to be not quite right. The following is a list of some of the things that might be done differently. The basic_string implementation propagates the problems with std::basic_string. Two fundamental problems with basic_string are that it has too many member functions and that end() should have been used instead of npos for member algorithms. EASTL fixes neither of these and in fact adds a few additional member functions. A better string class would fix the above two problems and would also implement optional behavior policies such as copy-on-write. Some people want list::size to be O(1) and some want it to be O(n). eastl::list should solve this by providing a template parameter to let the user choose, but currently it has no such option. A future revision of eastl::list will likely make this a template policy option. fixed-substring is currently a subclass of basic_string, which creates some unsafe situations. However, this is an implementation detail which can be rectified. The container reset function should perhaps have been given a less simple name. Some new users confuse it with clear. EASTL does not solve the out-of-memory problem any differently than std STL (aside from it providing intrusive containers and fixed size containers). The std STL solution (exception handling) is supported by EASTL but is not favored and is usually disabled. See Appendix item 18. The EASTL compile-time and runtime checking is not as thorough as that of libstdc++, as libstdc++ and possibly other std STL implementations have compile-time checking for some types of requirements. This too is something that can be improved in EASTL if deemed necessary. Appendix This appendix contains supplementary material referenced by the document body. In many cases the items here describe in more detail what is meant in the body. It is placed here in order to avoid getting in the way of the primary text. 1 - (removed) 2 - A debuggable list container To make a list container debuggable, whereby the user can easily inspect and traverse it with a traditional debugger, we use Curiously Recurring Template Pattern like so in EASTL. template <typename LN> struct ListNodeBaseProxy { LN* mpNext; LN* mpPrev; }; template <typename T> struct ListNode : public ListNodeBaseProxy< ListNode<T> > { T mValue; }; template <typename T, typename Allocator> class ListBase // Typically the list class inherits from a base class such as this. { public: typedef T value_type; typedef ListNode<T> node_type; typedef ListNodeBaseProxy< ListNode<T> > base_node_type; protected: base_node_type mNode; . . . }; 3 - Algorithm type preservation problem The following example demonstrates a problem with current std STL implementations. What the TableBasedSorter specifically does is somewhat meaningless and arbitrary. struct TableBasedSorter { TableBasedSorter(const int values[128]) { for(int i = 0; i < 128; ++i) mTable[i] = ((values[i] ^ 0xff80) + 128) - i; } bool operator()(int a, int b) const { return mTable[b] < mTable[a]; } int mTable[128]; }; std::sort(v, v + 128, TableBasedSorter(values)); The problem is that the std STL implementations pass the Compare function object around internally by value, triggering copying of it. This is compounded by debug STL implementations which call a Compare checker that evaluates the comparison twice instead of once so that it can enforce !(Compare(x, y) && Compare(y, x)). It thus ends up calling the copy constructor O(n log(n)) times. The user might think that the following should rectify the problem: HuffmanHistoSorter compare; std::sort<int*, TableBasedSorter& >(v, v + 128, compare); But it doesn't work, because the sort function ignores the compare reference template parameter and makes copies of the compare internally. The conventional workaround for this problem is to create a proxy compare class that references the real compare object, but this is clumsy and creates a performance dragging memory indirection. Why not simply have the algorithm obey the user's request? It's not clear if the C++ standard requires that the user's request be respected, but it would be nice if it did. EASTL does so. 4 - (removed) 5 - Game source and binary sizes Game software for desktop platforms and for 2005+ console platforms is often large-scale software. The source code for large PC games is usually in the range of 500,000 to 2 million lines. Application binaries are in the range of 5 to 20 MB. Game source data (graphics, maps, search graphs, UI, movies, animations, scripting) source is in the range of 5 to 50 GB. Compiled game data is usually in the range of 500 MB to 4 GB (not including movie files). In addition to the code for the games themselves, game software tends to have a lot of supporting tool or "pipeline" code. Since games tend to have a lot of data, a lot of custom tools are written to generate and process this data. The size of these tools can be larger than the size of the game applications themselves. However, these tools usually don't need to have the same attention to performance as does the game code itself. While game code is almost exclusively C++, tools are written in a variety of languages, including most commonly C#, Python, C++, and Perl. 6 - Garbage collected allocators Garbage collected memory is not currently considered an option for game development, though current iterative generational garbage collection is well-done. A full discussion of this deserves a paper of its own, but suffice it to say that the realities of limited memory and specialized memory as well as the somewhat real-time requirements of game software make garbage collected memory currently not viable. However, EA is interested in the results of research in this area and is interested in the possibility of collaborative work with researchers on this topic. 7 - Permanent and temporary memory A useful technique for reducing memory fragmentation which is often used by game developers is to separate allocated memory into two classes: temporary memory and permanent memory. Some EA games have consumed system memory completely enough that that they would fail to run without this optimization. The way it works is that memory which is allocated once on startup is deemed to be permanently allocated. Similarly, memory which is allocated once for a new game level is deemed to be permanently allocated. Memory which is dynamically allocated and freed in a arbitrary or out-of-order way is deemed to be temporarily allocated. Memory which is permanent is allocated from the top of the heap downward, and memory which is temporary is allocated from the low end of the heap. [temporary memory --> (free space) <-- permanent memory] (low memory) (high memory) The result is that permanent allocations are tightly packed together in high memory and don't create dead spots in low memory. Sometimes permanent and temporary memory are sometimes referred to as high and low memory, for reasons that should be obvious. This technique is useful on both fixed-memory systems and on mapped virtual memory systems such as Windows. The custom heaps in use at EA explicitly support the concept of permanent and temporary (high and low) memory. 8 - (removed) 9 - Debug builds can't be slow Game software is notoriously difficult to test, and it is particularly difficult to automate game software testing. Individual modular components can be automatically unit tested (as is EASTL) but the interactive gameplay of an application is much harder test. There is currently no satisfactory solution to this problem and no solution appears to be imminent. This is a topic of research on its own, and until it may be some day solved, the majority of game testing is done interactively by humans. The interactive nature of game software means that slow debug builds are hard to test and can waste a lot of human testers' time. Since much of the testing involves testing the interactivity of the game, a slow game can make interactivity testing virtually impossible. Also, a slow application can waste a lot of programmer time spent waiting for the application to get to some desired state. Such a wait occurs for any programmer testing any kind of application, but it often happens in game programming that the programmer needs to follow a potentially long series of gameplay steps in order to get the application to some state, and there might not shortcuts or cheats to get there. When we were using STLPort on some of our earlier STL-based PC games at EA, we enabled inlining in debug builds in order to avoid all the function calls that aren't being inlined in debug builds. Enabling inlining wasn't desirable (as it made debugging more difficult) but it made the debug builds more responsive. 10 - Function call avoidance EASTL containers avoid function calls to the extent possible, even if such calls might be inlined by the compiler. The avoidance of function calls makes it easier for the compiler to optimize and easier for the user to trace at runtime. Many of the improved benchmark results of EASTL over std STL are due to the compiler not being able to inline functions that the std STL author assumed or hoped that it would. Compiler inlining weaknesses are discussed in Appendix item 15 . Additionally, builds with inlining disabled can yield sluggish applications that become unsuitable for testing. See Appendix item 9. The downside to function call avoidance is that it makes container authoring and maintenance more difficult for the author, though containers tend to have little work done on them once implemented and debugged. There is a maxim that EASTL attempts to follow: write for your users first, your peers second, and yourself last. The following demonstrates the function calls involved in the vector::resize function in EASTL and libstdc++. The EASTL version does some math and then calls insert or erase. The libstdc++ version class functions which themselves call functions, and so on. Consider that the code calling resize may itself be subject to inlining. This layering of function calls puts a burden on the compiler to inline optimally which it may or may not be able to do. EASTL vector::resize void resize(size_type n) { if(n > (mpEnd - mpBegin)) insert(mpEnd, n - (mpEnd - mpBegin), value_type()); else erase(mpBegin + n, mpEnd); } void resize(size_type __new_size) { resize(__new_size, value_type()); } void resize(size_type __new_size, const value_type& __x) { if(__new_size < size()) erase(begin() + __new_size, end()); else insert(end(), __new_size - size(), __x); } size_type size() const { return size_type(end() - begin()); } const_iterator begin() const { return const_iterator(this->_M_impl._M_start); } const_iterator end() const { return const_iterator(this->_M_impl._M_finish); } __normal_iterator(const _Iterator& __i) : _M_current(__i) { } 11 - Argument-dependent lookup safety If the user calls a std STL function with an argument that happens to exist in a namespace that has functions of the same name as those in the std namespace, what should std STL do if it needs to call a function of that name? Is the C++ standard clear on the requirement here? Should std STL explicitly call the std version of that function or should it call the version unqualified? In the large majority of cases, the STL should explicitly call the std version, with exceptions being made only for functions that were intended to be overridden, such as swap. The following code may fail to compile if the std::sort implementation makes unqualified min calls, as the compiler will use ADL to find the test::min function in addition to std::min. namespace test { int min(int x, int y); class X { }; } std::sort(XArray, XArray + 10); At least one major commercial STL implementation has recently not been ADL-safe, despite having otherwise excellent standards support. The vendor has been notified and agreed to fix the problem future releases. 12 - Memory tagging Memory tagging is the process of associating some useful information with a memory allocation. It is typically done in one or more of three ways: 1 file / line The __FILE__ and __LINE__ values of the allocation request are stored. This is lightweight but doesn't work well when the allocation comes from within a shared library, such as STL. Another problem with it is that it doesn't tell you anything about the nature of the allocation, such as who did the allocation or what the allocation is used for. 2 call stack The call stack of the allocation request is stored. This works well but is not as lightweight as file / line tagging. As with file / line tagging, call stack tagging doesn't tell you much about the allocation aside from where it was done. 3 name The allocation is given a name, such as "VehicleInfo". This has the advantage of telling you what the allocation is used for. For categorization and budgeting purposes, the name can be hierarchical, such as with "Automata/VehicleInfo". Allocation names can also be used in many cases to tell you where the allocation occurred as well. Memory tagging combined with detailed heap reports can tell you if similarly used memory is physically proximate. A disadvantage of this scheme is that it requires explicit support in user libraries; it cannot be automatically generated like a call stack can. Each has its strengths and weaknesses and users will often favor one technique over another. However, they aren't mutually exclusive. Typically file/line and name will be used or callstack and name will be used together, as naming is somewhat complementary with the other two. EASTL explicitly supports memory name tagging, as it is so useful. Memory heaps in EA explicitly support all three of the above methods of memory tagging, as well as others: allocation time, allocation number, allocation group ids, arbitrary user-supplied data, and others. 13 - wchar_t portability The large majority of commercial game software uses 8 bit UTF8-encoded text or 16 bit UCS2-encoded text. Different operating systems have different conventions for encoding text, but these have little bearing on what a game chooses to use for its text. The discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of text encoding options is outside the scope of this document, but the discussion of how to portably support a given encoding in a library is pertinent. char16_t and char32_t are sized character types, much like uint16_t and uint32_t are sized integer types. These sized character types are extensions defined by EA which allow string code and data to be more portable, though they don't solve the string literal problem. wchar_t is not considered portable, as it may be 8, 16, or 32 bits, depending on the system (BEOS, Windows, Unix, respectively). The Unicode Standard recommands against using wchar_t for this same reason (version 4, section 5.2, paragraph 2). If your application wants to use a 16 bit string but your compiler defines wchar_t as 32 bits, you cannot use the standard string library provided with the compiler. And even if you could recompile the standard string library to be 16 bit, you'd then be breaking any code you have that wants to use a 32 bit wchar_t. Another problem is that there is no way to declare a 16 bit string literal if wchar_t is 32 bits. Also, if wchar_t is defined as 8 bit UTF-8, there will be difficulties if you do a lot of string processing, which we can say with confidence because we've done this. So what we do is define char8_t, char16_t, and char32_t and rewrite the standard string library to explicitly support all three types. A side benefit is that the resulting string library is more efficient than the one provided with the compiler. See Appendix item 14. Sized character types would be useful to have in C++, as they allow for portable and efficient usage of strings in a multi-platform development environment. Instead of prefixing a string with L, how about prefixing it with L16 or L32 instead? There are proposals for such sized char types in C++09. 14 - Why replace standard library functions? Often you will see game programmers avoid using functions from the C and C++ standard library and instead use re-implemented versions. The reasons for this depend on the individual case but are usually driven by some practical performance issue. We provide a table of commonly re-implemented functionality and the most common reasons for it. We hope that this may help library designers understand the requirements of game software. Replaced functionality Rationale memcpy, memmove, memset memcpy implementations for existing well-established desktop platforms are known to be well-optimized and are rarely replaced. However, it turns out that library vendors for new hardware sometimes don't come up with optimized implementations until well after the hardware's initial availability. Also, in many cases memory manipulation functions can be improved for the case of memory aligned on page-sized or cache line-sized boundaries and thus game software often implements specialized memory manipulation functions for these cases. printf, sprintf sprintf is a function that is often re-implemented by game software. Typical reasons are thus: sprintf is slow because it locks mutexes and reads internal locale information. sprintf brings in enough extenal code to make it too big to be usable on some machines such as the new Sony/IBM Cell processors. wsprintf can't be relied upon to work with 16 bit strings, as described in Appendix item 13. Some sprintf implementations may allocate memory from the global heap. Some sprintf implementations (e.g. Playstation 2) are very slow with double precision floating point math. sprintf doesn't support explicitly sized types such as int32_t. C99's PRId32 is a poor workaround, as it is obfuscational and non-portable. sprintf supports decimal (%d), octal (%o), and hexidecimal (%x) output, but not binary output (%b). sprintf sometimes isn't provided by the compiler vendor. Or more often, some useful variation of it such as vsnprintf isn't provided by the compiler vendor. wcscpy, wcslen, etc. As explained in Appendix item 13, wchar_t is not portable in practice. If your game uses 16 bit UCS2-encoded strings -- as many do -- then you can't rely on the standard library wide string functions being usable. So games will commonly re-write the entire string library in order to be portable. This is unfortunate, as the vendor-provided C string functions are usually well-implemented. fopen, fstream The FILE-based standard library functions for manipulating files is fine for many purposes and applications. However, it isn't very good for game applications, particularly console-based applications. Even in those cases where sychronous fopen/fread behavior is appropriate, games almost always use the lower level operating system-provided equivalent functionality. As such, FILE use is uncommon in console-based games and often in PC-based games as well. The primary reasons for this are: FILE-based IO is inherently blocking, and games work best if IO is asynchronous and priority and head proximity-driven FILE-based IO is inherently buffered, whereas this is often not what game software wants. FILE-based IO is slower (e.g. mutex locking) than equivalent system-provided functionality and usually more limited (e.g. no buffer control) in capabilities. rand The problems with the standard library rand are well-known and are likely part of the impetus for improving random number generation with TR1. A brief summary of the weaknesses is: Limited to 16 bit values in practice. Poor randomness. Can't have a private implementation. Poor performance. atoi, strtol, etc. A problem with functions such as atoi and strtol is that they work with non-portable types such as long and wchar_t. On game platforms, a long may be an inefficient data type (as it is on the Playstation 2). It is preferable to use APIs that work with sized types such as uint32_t and uint64_t, as they guarantee portable behavior and in practice are at least as efficient as types such as int and long. See Appendix item 21. strncpy, strncat These functions are too hard to use safely. We have replaced them with strlcpy and strlcat respectively, though much game software inside and outside EA still use these. Also, the fixed_string or fixed_substring class can be safely used to replace these functions in a friendly way. strftime, set_locale C-provided locale functionality suffers from being neither portable nor overridable. There is no portable way to tell what locale to use, as compilers implement it differently. However, the differences can often be abstracted away with macros. But once you get over this you still have the problem of API functions not always being helpful. The strftime function, for example, doesn't do time/date format localization but instead requires the user to do it. Again the user is required to abstract this away. Another problem is that the user has no way of extending or modifying the behavior of functions like strftime to accomodate some practical requirement. An end result of this is that game software often just rewrites functions like strftime to be simpler, more flexible, and usually more efficient as well. new/delete, malloc/free Custom heaps fragment memory less, use memory more efficiently, and handle aligned memory better that system provided heaps. Custom heaps provide built-in debugging features such as tagging and strong validation, among others. Additionally, gaming platforms often require usage of different kinds of memory for which there is no portable API to manipulate. assert The fundamental problem with assert is that there is no way to override it or intercept it and redirect it to application-provided facilities. The result is that assert usage is verboten because it operates outside the application's control and in practice usually unilaterally causes the application to exit. This is unfortunate because it goes against the purpose of standard library facilities: to provide a portable standard implementation of useful universal functionality. What we would like to see in the C++ standard is a portable way for users to be able to override the assert function and redefine its behavior. 15 - Compiler inlining problems The GCC C++ compiler is a great compiler with a lot of flexibility and portability. However, it has one weakness of significance that affects templated libraries such as the STL: it is not very good at inlining. There are a number of compiler options to tweak the inlining parameters, but it seems to be fairly difficult to get the compiler to do the "right thing." This appears to be a known problem and it is hoped that a future version of the compiler will address this. The Microsoft C++ compiler does a rather good job of inlining and might be worth using as a reference. A full discussion of compiler inlining characteristics is outside the scope of this document, but some Internet discussions regarding GCC inlining problems can be found at: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c++/browse_frm/thread/b74eed16bd48d42e http://groups.google.com/group/fa.linux.kernel/browse_frm/thread/1861b2634cdfa68a/ http://www.pixelglow.com/lists/archive/macstl-dev/2005-September/000154.html 16 - EASTL intrusive_list As an example of an intrusive container, we show the interface for eastl::intrusive_list. The actual implementation breaks intrusive_list into intrusive_list_base and intrusive_list in order to place some of the non-templated functions into a base class. Other EASTL intrusive containers (e.g. intrusive_hash_map) have a similar philosophy. Recall that the primary advantage of intrusive containers is that they allow the user to provide node memory. struct intrusive_list_node // Users can use this or provide their own. { intrusive_list_node* pNext; intrusive_list_node* pPrev; }; template <typename T, typename Pointer, typename Reference> class intrusive_list_iterator { public: typedef intrusive_list_iterator<T, Pointer, Reference> this_type; typedef intrusive_list_iterator<T, T*, T&> iterator; typedef intrusive_list_iterator<T, const T*, const T&> const_iterator; typedef T value_type; typedef T node_type; typedef ptrdiff_t difference_type; typedef Pointer pointer; typedef Reference reference; typedef bidirectional_iterator_tag iterator_category; public: intrusive_list_iterator(); explicit intrusive_list_iterator(pointer pNode); intrusive_list_iterator(const iterator& x); reference operator*() const; pointer operator->() const; intrusive_list_iterator& operator++(); intrusive_list_iterator& operator--(); intrusive_list_iterator operator++(int); intrusive_list_iterator operator--(int); }; template <typename T = intrusive_list_node> class intrusive_list { public: typedef intrusive_list<T> this_type; typedef T node_type; typedef T value_type; typedef eastl_size_t size_type; typedef ptrdiff_t difference_type; typedef T& reference; typedef const T& const_reference; typedef T* pointer; typedef const T* const_pointer; typedef intrusive_list_iterator<T, T*, T&> iterator; typedef intrusive_list_iterator<T, const T*, const T&> const_iterator; typedef eastl::reverse_iterator<iterator> reverse_iterator; typedef eastl::reverse_iterator<const_iterator> const_reverse_iterator; public: intrusive_list(); intrusive_list(const this_type& x); this_type& operator=(const this_type& x); iterator begin(); const_iterator begin() const; iterator end(); const_iterator end() const; reverse_iterator rbegin(); const_reverse_iterator rbegin() const; reverse_iterator rend(); const_reverse_iterator rend() const; reference front(); const_reference front() const; reference back(); const_reference back() const; bool empty() const; eastl_size_t size() const; void clear(); void reverse(); void push_front(T& x); void pop_front(); void push_back(T& x); void pop_back(); iterator locate(T& x); const_iterator locate(const T& x) const; iterator insert(iterator pos, T& x); iterator erase(iterator pos); iterator erase(iterator pos, iterator last); void swap(intrusive_list&); static void remove(T& value); // Erases an element from a list without having the list; O(1). void splice(iterator pos, T& x); void splice(iterator pos, intrusive_list& x); void splice(iterator pos, intrusive_list& x, iterator i); void splice(iterator pos, intrusive_list& x, iterator first, iterator last); void merge(this_type& x); template <typename Compare> void merge(this_type& x, Compare compare); void unique(); template <typename BinaryPredicate> void unique(BinaryPredicate); void sort(); template<typename Compare> void sort(Compare compare); bool validate() const; int validate_iterator(const_iterator i) const; }; 17 - Disabling of exception handling Game software usually disables exception handling. A full analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of C++ exception handling in game software is outside the scope of this document, but a few comments can be made here to help clarify some issues. Exception handling incurs some kind of cost in all compiler implementations, including those that avoid the cost during normal execution. However, in some cases this cost may arguably offset the cost of the code that it is replacing. Exception handling is often agreed to be a superior solution for handling a large range of function return values. However, avoiding the creation of functions that need large ranges of return values is superior to using exception handling to handle such values. Using exception handling correctly can be difficult in the case of complex software. The execution of throw and catch can be significantly expensive with some implementations. Exception handling violates the don't-pay-for-what-you-don't-use design of C++, as it incurs overhead in any non-leaf function that has destructable stack objects regardless of whether they use exception handling. The approach that game software usually takes is to avoid the need for exception handling where possible; avoid the possibility of circumstances that may lead to exceptions. For example, verify up front that there is enough memory for a subsystem to do its job instead of trying to deal with the problem via exception handling or any other means after it occurs. However, some game libraries may nevertheless benefit from the use of exception handling. It's best, howerver, if such libraries keep the exception handling internal lest they force their usage of exception handling on the rest of the application. 18 - Out of memory EASTL does not solve the out-of-memory problem any differently than std STL (aside from it providing intrusive containers and fixed size containers). The std STL solution (exception handling) is supported by EASTL but is not favored and is usually disabled (see Appendix item 17). There are four common solutions in game software to dealing with out-of-memory conditions within libraries: The library throws an exception if memory cannot be allocated. This isn't used very often because it is has more overhead and is much harder to safely use than the following two methods. One forgotten "try" by the user and the application can unexpectedly crash. The allocator calls a user-callback upon failure, whereby the user callback frees up memory in an application-specific way. This is a reliable method because it allows the failure to be handled in a single place in a consistent way and it only needs to be written once and the user doesn't have to worry. The user simply guarantees up front that there is enough memory. This is the simplest and most reliable method and is the one that's used the most. A common way of guaranteeing the availability of the memory is to allocate it up-front and hand it to the system that needs it. The library propagates and error value up to the caller. This solution is non-optimal, especially if there are multiple return values that are specifically handled. Exception handling is often considered superior to this solution. Dealing with exception handling at the level of the container user is tedious and error-prone; dealing with it at the level of the allocator is easier for the user and is more reliable. Using exception handling to properly and safely deal with out-of-memory conditions is a daunting and tedious task, especially in an environment of custom allocators. This is not a criticism of C++ exception handling in general but rather is an observation about using it with STL containers. 19 - Benchmarks often miss cache effects Typically a benchmark of comparing two functions will go through some effort to make sure that the measurements aren't polluted by memory cache effects such as cache misses. This is a fine approach for comparing functions that are roughly equivalent in their memory effects. A typical such benchmark will call a function once, then start the timer, call it 1000 times, and finally stop the timer. However, such a testing approach may yield misleading results for cases whereby the compared functions are not equivalent in their memory effects. The benchmark intentionally chose to ignore cache misses that occurred during the first function call, but in real-world execution such cache misses may well affect application performance because these functions aren't actually called 1000 times in a row one after another. A better way of measuring performance is to have a 1000 different functions which are called one after another and which exercise the code and data memory caches like a real-world application might. The Technical Report on C++ Performance recognizes cache effects at one point in the document but seems to dismiss them in its own measurements and conclusions. For example, it states that the timing analysis of virtual functions is straightforward and concludes that the cost of virtual functions is "a fixed number of machine instructions." This analysis is somewhat misleading, as it implies that there are no cache misses or that memory caches are so large that a cache miss for any code will only ever occur once on startup. See section 7.2.1 of the report. A full discussion of the usage of virtual functions in game development is outside the scope of this document, but it is sufficient to say here that the cost of virtual functions in practice is likely greater than implied by the Technical Report on C++ Performance, largely due to practical cache effects. 20 - Performance comparison A couple of comparisons are presented here which compare EASTL with a commonly used commercial version of std STL. EASTL is generally faster, though in many cases the differences are minimal. In some cases speed improvements aren't very important; nobody is going to know or care if min_element executes 10% faster or slower in EASTL. In other cases -- such as with the sort algorithm -- speed improvements are important. The source code to the benchmark is distributed with this document. A reported result of 1.40 means that EASTL ran 40% faster; a ratio of 0.75 means that EASTL ran 33% (1/.75) slower. In practice, with GCC it turns out that EASTL performs a little better than the benchmarks indicate due to EASTL being easier to inline. The benchmark code is very simple and is relatively easy for the compiler to inline, but real-world code in practice often turns out to not inline as well. A: Windows / Pentium 4 x86 / VC8 -Og -Oi -Ot -Oy -Ob2 -GF -Gy / compiler-supplied STL B: Console / 64 bit PowerPC / VC7 -Ox -Ob2 -Oi -Os / compiler-supplied STL C: Linux / Pentium 4 x86 / GCC 4.1 -O3 / libstdc++ D: Mac OS X / G5 PowerPC 32 bit mode / GCC 4.0 -Os / libstdc++ Green: EASTL 15% or more faster (>= 1.15) Blue: Std STL 15% or more faster (<= 0.87) Test Windows Console Linux Mac algorithm/adj_find/vector<TestObject> algorithm/copy/vector<LargePOD> algorithm/copy/vector<uint32_t> algorithm/copy_backward/vector<LargePOD> algorithm/copy_backward/vector<uint32_t> algorithm/count/vector<uint64_t> algorithm/equal_range/vector<uint64_t> algorithm/fill/bool[] algorithm/fill/char[]/'d' algorithm/fill/vector<char>/'d' algorithm/fill/vector<char>/0 algorithm/fill/vector<uint64_t> algorithm/fill/vector<void*> algorithm/fill_n/bool[] algorithm/fill_n/char[] algorithm/fill_n/vector<uint64_t> algorithm/find_end/string/end algorithm/find_end/string/middle algorithm/find_end/string/none algorithm/lex_cmp/schar[] algorithm/lex_cmp/vector<TestObject> algorithm/lex_cmp/vector<uchar> algorithm/lower_bound/vector<TestObject> algorithm/min_element/vector<TestObject> algorithm/rand_shuffle/vector<uint64_t> algorithm/reverse/list<TestObject> algorithm/reverse/vector<TestObject> algorithm/search/string<char> algorithm/search_n/string<char> algorithm/unique/vector<TestObject> algorithm/unique/vector<uint32_t> algorithm/unique/vector<uint64_t> algorithm/upper_bound/vector<uint32_t> 1.00 1.09 0.95 1.03 0.78 1.00 1.34 9.43 7.36 7.33 9.39 1.07 1.02 13.71 10.67 1.00 31.63 3.42 1.51 1.88 0.99 1.88 1.43 1.13 1.17 1.02 1.03 2.48 1.39 0.98 1.07 1.13 1.47 1.24 1.15 1.82 1.07 1.91 1.14 1.25 17.05 17.27 30.75 30.60 1.25 1.81 19.41 19.18 0.98 21.77 2.74 1.36 1.26 0.75 2.22 1.07 1.09 1.05 0.91 1.01 7.32 14.53 1.08 1.04 1.15 1.06 0.98 0.99 1.28 1.06 1.23 0.93 0.89 1.00 1.02 7.38 8.84 1.06 0.88 1.00 1.01 1.10 0.89 0.83 0.82 1.47 0.70 1.45 1.07 1.47 0.96 1.20 0.96 0.77 1.07 0.95 1.13 0.97 1.13 1.25 0.92 1.01 1.10 1.10 1.77 1.74 1.00 1.00 88.80 100.00 1.08 1.95 0.98 1.01 0.90 0.58 0.63 0.66 4.01 1.16 15.54 1.63 1.44 1.16 0.86 1.27 1.49 2.58 1.26 2.41 1.74 1.99 bitset<15>/>>=/1 bitset<15>/count bitset<15>/flip bitset<15>/reset bitset<15>/set() bitset<15>/set(i) bitset<15>/test 1.04 0.97 1.87 1.00 1.25 1.17 1.02 1.10 0.97 1.08 1.00 1.08 1.00 1.10 0.82 0.94 0.80 0.91 0.80 0.91 1.17 1.61 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.63 1.96 1.87 bitset<35>/>>=/1 bitset<35>/count bitset<35>/flip bitset<35>/reset bitset<35>/set() bitset<35>/set(i) bitset<35>/test 0.57 0.98 1.39 1.50 1.40 1.00 1.14 1.93 1.63 2.14 1.54 3.02 1.05 1.10 1.19 1.71 1.00 0.95 1.05 0.90 1.22 2.64 1.27 1.97 0.90 3.40 2.29 1.79 bitset<75>/>>=/1 bitset<75>/count bitset<75>/flip bitset<75>/reset bitset<75>/set() bitset<75>/set(i) bitset<75>/test 0.94 1.68 1.00 1.80 1.50 1.00 0.88 0.60 0.65 1.82 2.16 3.02 0.94 0.91 0.81 1.05 0.91 1.00 0.91 0.89 1.37 1.86 1.00 1.29 0.49 1.46 1.94 2.20 bitset<1500>/>>=/1 bitset<1500>/count bitset<1500>/flip bitset<1500>/reset bitset<1500>/set() bitset<1500>/set(i) bitset<1500>/test 0.99 0.99 1.08 0.95 1.14 0.98 1.00 1.74 1.90 1.89 2.18 1.89 0.95 0.90 1.21 1.00 1.44 0.99 1.71 0.82 1.21 1.13 1.00 0.87 1.61 1.37 2.28 1.78 deque<ValuePair>/erase deque<ValuePair>/find deque<ValuePair>/insert deque<ValuePair>/iteration deque<ValuePair>/operator[] deque<ValuePair>/push_back deque<ValuePair>/push_front deque<ValuePair>/sort 2.48 1.56 2.97 0.94 1.30 8.67 9.73 1.51 1.05 1.85 1.64 1.80 1.40 6.43 5.03 1.61 1.19 1.06 1.03 1.06 1.55 0.98 1.03 1.01 0.86 1.05 1.24 0.98 2.66 1.65 1.68 1.00 hash_map<string, uint32_t>/clear hash_map<string, uint32_t>/count hash_map<string, uint32_t>/erase pos hash_map<string, uint32_t>/erase range hash_map<string, uint32_t>/erase val hash_map<string, uint32_t>/find hash_map<string, uint32_t>/find_as/char* hash_map<string, uint32_t>/insert hash_map<string, uint32_t>/iteration hash_map<string, uint32_t>/operator[] 0.58 2.23 0.67 1.47 1.18 1.66 1.96 0.59 1.29 1.60 1.01 2.75 0.69 1.98 1.22 2.19 2.34 0.65 1.29 2.11 0.75 1.24 1.15 0.82 0.75 1.21 3.52 0.54 3.00 1.53 1.16 1.19 2.57 1.09 0.98 1.58 4.61 0.73 3.49 2.21 hash_map<uint32_t, TestObject>/clear hash_map<uint32_t, TestObject>/count hash_map<uint32_t, TestObject>/erase pos hash_map<uint32_t, TestObject>/erase range hash_map<uint32_t, TestObject>/erase val hash_map<uint32_t, TestObject>/find hash_map<uint32_t, TestObject>/insert hash_map<uint32_t, TestObject>/iteration hash_map<uint32_t, TestObject>/operator[] 0.89 2.95 0.90 3.41 1.94 2.72 2.55 1.04 2.20 1.02 2.78 1.34 5.30 1.89 1.89 2.04 0.74 1.75 0.82 1.02 1.00 1.05 1.05 0.76 0.91 2.29 1.37 1.22 1.38 1.62 1.03 1.24 1.24 1.05 4.03 1.96 heap (uint32_t[])/make_heap heap (uint32_t[])/pop_heap heap (uint32_t[])/push_heap heap (uint32_t[])/sort_heap 1.21 1.09 1.59 0.96 1.07 1.01 1.08 1.02 0.97 0.98 1.05 1.12 0.93 0.98 1.13 1.01 heap (vector<TestObject>)/make_heap heap (vector<TestObject>)/pop_heap heap (vector<TestObject>)/push_heap heap (vector<TestObject>)/sort_heap 0.93 0.93 0.97 0.95 1.05 0.98 1.03 0.97 1.11 1.07 0.88 0.99 1.02 1.02 1.12 1.06 list<TestObject>/ctor(it) list<TestObject>/ctor(n) list<TestObject>/erase list<TestObject>/find list<TestObject>/insert list<TestObject>/push_back list<TestObject>/remove list<TestObject>/reverse list<TestObject>/size/1 list<TestObject>/size/10 list<TestObject>/size/100 list<TestObject>/splice 1.10 1.04 1.13 1.24 1.34 1.60 1.23 1.06 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.28 1.09 1.15 0.96 0.97 0.99 1.17 1.13 1.25 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.27 1.03 0.91 0.97 1.00 1.00 1.04 0.90 1.09 1.00 1.01 0.96 1.30 1.00 1.18 1.47 2.33 1.35 1.35 1.61 1.33 1.07 1.00 1.00 3.56 map<TestObject, uint32_t>/clear map<TestObject, uint32_t>/count map<TestObject, uint32_t>/equal_range map<TestObject, uint32_t>/erase/key map<TestObject, uint32_t>/erase/pos map<TestObject, uint32_t>/erase/range map<TestObject, uint32_t>/find map<TestObject, uint32_t>/insert map<TestObject, uint32_t>/iteration map<TestObject, uint32_t>/lower_bound map<TestObject, uint32_t>/operator[] map<TestObject, uint32_t>/upper_bound 1.00 2.15 1.75 1.38 1.26 1.10 1.42 1.03 1.88 1.18 1.16 1.26 1.01 2.03 1.56 1.53 1.31 1.08 1.12 1.08 1.83 1.13 1.06 1.09 1.00 0.94 1.35 1.26 1.38 1.01 0.99 1.04 2.05 0.92 0.92 0.83 1.02 1.21 1.81 1.66 1.09 0.97 1.25 1.17 1.36 1.29 1.12 1.30 set<uint32_t>/clear set<uint32_t>/count set<uint32_t>/equal_range set<uint32_t>/erase range set<uint32_t>/erase/pos set<uint32_t>/erase/val set<uint32_t>/find set<uint32_t>/insert set<uint32_t>/iteration set<uint32_t>/lower_bound set<uint32_t>/upper_bound 1.00 1.98 1.59 1.06 0.92 1.37 1.08 1.04 0.86 1.06 1.07 0.98 2.18 1.78 1.09 1.13 1.49 1.10 1.11 1.62 1.17 1.13 1.00 1.05 1.49 1.10 1.11 1.62 1.02 1.13 1.55 1.06 0.93 1.01 1.31 2.12 1.00 0.99 1.88 1.39 1.29 1.33 1.11 1.04 sort/q_sort/TestObject[] sort/q_sort/TestObject[]/sorted sort/q_sort/vector<TestObject> sort/q_sort/vector<TestObject>/sorted sort/q_sort/vector<ValuePair> sort/q_sort/vector<ValuePair>/sorted sort/q_sort/vector<uint32> sort/q_sort/vector<uint32>/sorted 1.50 1.31 1.49 1.38 1.25 1.46 1.42 1.27 2.39 1.60 2.40 1.60 2.42 1.49 3.53 2.31 1.14 1.01 1.28 1.34 1.04 1.25 0.96 1.10 1.15 1.32 1.14 1.36 1.33 1.75 1.40 1.72 string<char16_t>/compare string<char16_t>/erase/pos,n string<char16_t>/find/p,pos,n string<char16_t>/find_first_not_of/p,pos,n string<char16_t>/find_first_of/p,pos,n string<char16_t>/find_last_of/p,pos,n string<char16_t>/insert/pos,p string<char16_t>/iteration string<char16_t>/operator[] string<char16_t>/push_back string<char16_t>/replace/pos,n,p,n string<char16_t>/reserve string<char16_t>/rfind/p,pos,n string<char16_t>/size string<char16_t>/swap 1.85 1.00 1.00 0.95 0.97 0.78 1.01 1.33 1.45 2.14 0.99 1.16 1.92 0.92 1.94 1.01 1.00 0.96 1.17 1.13 1.25 1.01 1.53 1.83 6.39 1.01 0.92 2.04 0.93 1.40 1.64 1.00 5.03 0.78 0.99 0.46 1.10 1.07 1.30 1.22 1.18 100.00 1.08 0.91 1.10 1.45 1.01 4.22 1.63 1.00 1.64 1.06 3.67 5.16 1.35 1.06 100.00 2.36 0.85 1.38 string<char8_t>/compare string<char8_t>/erase/pos,n string<char8_t>/find/p,pos,n string<char8_t>/find_first_not_of/p,pos,n string<char8_t>/find_first_of/p,pos,n string<char8_t>/find_last_of/p,pos,n string<char8_t>/insert/pos,p string<char8_t>/iteration string<char8_t>/operator[] string<char8_t>/push_back string<char8_t>/replace/pos,n,p,n string<char8_t>/reserve string<char8_t>/rfind/p,pos,n string<char8_t>/size string<char8_t>/swap 0.99 1.07 0.58 0.85 1.34 1.57 1.15 1.00 2.23 2.28 1.00 1.19 1.86 1.08 1.95 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.94 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.79 2.10 5.09 1.02 1.70 2.12 1.00 1.31 0.99 1.01 5.06 3.20 10.11 8.27 0.77 0.86 1.66 2.28 1.03 100.00 8.70 0.94 1.45 0.91 1.03 3.69 1.17 1.45 1.15 1.05 4.05 5.66 2.05 1.06 100.00 4.22 1.12 3.99 vector<uint64>/erase vector<uint64>/insert vector<uint64>/iteration vector<uint64>/operator[] vector<uint64>/push_back vector<uint64>/sort 0.99 0.99 0.93 1.39 1.63 1.01 3.28 1.01 1.16 1.02 2.18 1.00 1.00 1.03 1.15 1.29 1.02 0.92 1.02 1.12 2.69 1.70 1.59 1.27 21 - int is not a machine word The int data type was originally intended to represent a machine word. The C99 standard states: A ‘‘plain’’ int object has the natural size suggested by the architecture of the execution environment (C99 6.2.5 p5) But in practice int is nearly always 4 bytes (int32_t), even on 64 bit and 128 bit platforms. 22 - How do you make a node pool for a linked list? If you want to make a std::list that uses a fixed-size node pool, there is no portable way to do it, as you don't know what your allocator needs to allocate: template <size_t allocSize, size_t nodeCount> class NodePool{ }; std::l

Buy Photo A series of water pipes at Indiana American Water Co. Tuesday. The city issues a boil order for its water after a valve was opened too wide, leading to contamination. (Photo: Jordan Kartholl / The Star Press)Buy Photo MUNCIE, Ind. — A boil order announced early Tuesday morning for the city of Muncie was lifted by 8:30 p.m. Tuesday after tests found water to be safe for consumption. Valves that were opened too wide, allowing too much water to rush through a treatment plant system, resulted in the boil order, closing some restaurants and prompting schools and other institutions to implement emergency steps to provide drinking water. The city of Muncie and some of the surrounding area had been placed on the boil order because of the valve mishap at Indiana American Water Company's plant along Burlington Drive. Delaware County Emergency Management announced in an email Tuesday night that testing sites in and around Muncie had been tested throughout the day, and " All indications have been that the water is safe for consumers to use and return to all normal water usage." Indiana American Water Company phoned customers with an automated "all clear" announcement shortly after that. The water company issued an alert shortly after midnight Tuesday morning noting that "during routine maintenance, issues with valves opening beyond their normal range resulted in an increased turbidity level beyond the permitted limit for less than one hour in the Muncie system." The turbidity level was below the Environmental Protection Agency level, Indiana American said. In initial social media postings, Delaware County 911 attributed the problem to a water main break along Burlington Drive, where the water company office is located. But Indiana American Water spokesman Joe Loughmiller told The Star Press early Tuesday, and again later in the morning, that the alert and boil order were because valves at the company's water plant "were opened too far." "This had to do with doing maintenance," Loughmiller said. "It had nothing to do with a main break. This order was not the result of a break." Loughmiller said valves in the filtering system at the plant were opened too wide around 3 p.m. Monday. Water company executives assessed the situation and consulted with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management before issuing the "Code Red" alert and boil order. The water that moved too quickly through the system was from White River and the company's groundwater wells at its Burlington Drive plant. Loughmiller said that while the water was filtered, it still was "clouded," a sign of suspended solids in the water. Buy Photo The Youth Opportunity Center's campus along Kilgore Ave. was affected by Muncie's boil order Monday, causing the campus to shut down water usage in the kitchen and drinking fountains while providing safe water in beverage dispensers and bottled water to the staff and students. (Photo: Corey Ohlenkamp/The Star Press) People throughout the area received automated calls at about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, warning them against drinking tap water and urging them to either drink bottled water or boil water for approximately three minutes. Tap water can be used for washing and bathing, the company said. A map on Indiana American Water's website indicated the affected area reaches beyond city limits. Loughmiller said as many as 30,000 customers were affected. Officials had expected the boil order to be lifted by 10 p.m. or earlier Tuesday, Loughmiller said, depending on how quickly water test results came back. About the 12:30 a.m. Tuesday automated call, Loughmiller said he was aware it might have alarmed some who heard their phone ring so late. "We really look at our normal hours for Code Red calls, which is 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. But in a case like this, we felt like we should go on and get it out." A map from Indiana American Water's website showing the affected area of the boil order issued in Delaware County. (Photo: Indiana American Water) The entire City of Muncie and customers of Indiana American Water are on a water boil order until 10 pm Tuesday... https://t.co/1ZdpTruNlT — DELAWARE COUNTY E911 (@DELAWARECO911) November 15, 2016 All residents of City of Muncie using City water, do not drink water. Boil alert has been issued until 10:00pm Tues Nov 15 — Ball State Alert (@ballstate_alert) November 15, 2016 Several Muncie restaurants, faced with no usable water, decided to close. Among those announcing their closing on Tuesday were the Caffeinery, Savages Ale House and Sitara. Food establishments that remained open were taking precautions. Thr3e Wisemen, for example, emptied out and sterilized its ice bins, which will remain out of use until the boil advisory is lifted. The restaurant also stopped serving carbonated soft drinks, which contain tap water. Dish washing machines, however, remained in use because of their very hot temperatures and sanitizers. A sign on the front door of a Village Pantry read, "No fountain pop or coffee." Buy Photo Potentially hazardous tap water halted coffee making and carbonated beverage service at Muncie food establishments including this Village Pantry. (Photo: Seth Slabaugh/The Star Press) Delaware County Health Administrator Jammie Bane told The Star Press: "The only advice I’d offer to the public would be to feel free to question an establishment on whether they are aware of the order and whether they have taken the proper precautions including boiling water and using ice produced from either boiled water or ice produced outside of the boil water order. Boil water orders are nothing new. The scale of this one is just geographically larger based on the location where the problem occurred. There is no indication of a direct health threat, just the slightest of possibilities of one due to an occurrence that fell outside of the water company’s standard procedures. As I understand it, the disinfectant levels never fell below the standard, and the water company took all the proper steps following the occurrence in order to notify the public and to remedy the problem in the shortest time frame possible." Muncie Community Schools was in session Tuesday. Water fountains were to be blocked in all buildings and water bottles were to be provided to students, according to corporation spokesperson Ana Pichardo. Liberty-Perry, Delaware Community and Burris/Indiana Academy schools are the only others affected by the boil order, and all were in session Tuesday, according to school officials. The campus at the Youth Opportunity Center along Kilgore Ave. also had to block water fountains and water use in their kitchens. Water bottles and other safe potable water sources were provided to students and staff according to Jeff Helm, Director of Information Technology and Facilities for the campus. So far, 1,160 bottles of water have been delivered to campus, and additional distilled water for kitchen use. IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital has put in place contingency plans so that its patients and employees will not be impacted. Neil Gifford, director of marketing and communication, said that the hospital has placed signs on public water fountains, has made bottled water available to patients and team members and is taking necessary precautions during food preparations and other day-to-day operations. Elm Street Brewing Co. offered to assist those in need of water today at their business on 519 N Elm St. "The city of Muncie has been great for us as we are getting ready to open, so we want to be a good neighbor," said co-owner Eric Jones. The full original alert from Indiana American Water was as follows: "Muncie Boil Water Advisory This is an important message from Indiana American Water. Our water system recently violated a drinking water standard. Although this is not an emergency, we are issuing a boil water advisory as a precautionary measure through at least 10 p.m., Tuesday, November 15, 2016 while samples are being collected and analyzed. Customers in the affected area are advised to drink and cook with tap water only after boiling it for approximately three minutes. Tap water can be used for washing/bathing. As our customers, you have a right to know what happened, what you should do, and what we are doing to correct this situation. We are required to monitor your drinking water for specific contaminants on a regular basis. The results of regular monitoring are an indicator of whether or not our drinking water meets EPA's health standards. Our November 14, 2016 results showed the combined filter effluent turbidity exceeded 1 NTU. If you have specific health concerns, consult your doctor. Turbidity has no health effects. However, turbidity can interfere with disinfection and provide a medium for microbial growth. Turbidity may indicate the presence of disease-causing organisms. These organisms include bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can cause symptoms such as nausea, cramps, diarrhea, and associated headaches. The treatment issue leading to the turbidity violation occurred during routine maintenance after valves opened beyond their normal range, resulting in an increased turbidity level beyond the permitted limit for less than one hour. During this time, the chloramine disinfection residual remained within its normal range and never dropped below 2 parts per million in the water leaving the treatment plant and at a representative site within the distribution system where it is continuously monitored. The problem has already been corrected and Indiana American Water is in the process of collecting and analyzing samples to ensure the safety of your drinking water. Any additional information regarding this boil advisory will be shared with residents through local media outlets, the company's Facebook page and through the company’s CodeRed phone notification service. Please share this information with all other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses). Customers can also call the Indiana American Water Customer Service Center at 1-800-492-8373 for the latest updates." Read or Share this story: http://tspne.ws/2fsWKMO

I absolutely love strawberries and cook with them frequently. I’ve tried to grow them several times in our gardens but there is just something about our property that strawberries do not like. I console myself by going strawberry picking at a local strawberry patch every year and then freeze batches of them so I have them available to me year round. When I came across a recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble in The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook, I knew I wanted to try it. My only problem was that our rhubarb plant hadn’t come up yet! I really wanted to try this crumble recipe so I decided to substitute some blueberries I had frozen over the summer instead. This post may be sponsored. Post contains affiliate links. I may be compensated if you make a purchase using my link. Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble recipe Filling 2 pounds strawberries, halved or quartered if large (5 cups) 1 pound rhubarb, cut in 1-inch lengths (or 1 pound blueberries) 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 1 cup granulated sugar 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1/4 teaspoon salt Streusel Topping 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats 1 cup all purpose flour 1 cup packed light brown sugar 10 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits Preheat the oven to 425F. For the filling: In a large bowl, combine the strawberries, rhubarb/blueberries, and vinegar and toss to combine. Add the granulated sugar, flour, and salt and toss again. Transfer the mixture to a 9 inch square baking dish. For the Streusel topping: In a medium bowl, combine the oats, flour, and brown sugar. With your fingers, cut in the butter until the mixture forms large clumbs. Scatter topping over the fruit. Place the baking dish on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any drips and bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the filling is bubbling and the topping is crisp. Serve plain, with ice cream or with whipped cream. This is absolutely delicious. This crumble recipe is quick and easy to make and can be made with either fresh or frozen fruit. This is a great way to use up berries that might be getting a little bit too soft to eat fresh. I grew up eating crumbles and crisps and this crumble recipe really brings back memories.

There is an old saying that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I really like this saying because it is a basic principle of skepticism, and it goes hand in hand with a statement that was made famous by none other than Carl Sagan. Namely, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” I find that these two principles are broadly applicable to the many “miracle treatments” and fad diets that pervade the internet, but in this post I am just going to focus on the “Miracle Mineral Solution” (a.k.a. Miracle Mineral Supplement or MMS) as an illustration. Basically, this post is just an exercise in common sense in which I am going to point out some obvious hallmarks of snake oil. What is MMS? To put it simply, it’s bleach. To put it more technically, it is a 28% solution of sodium chlorate which breaks down to release chlorine dioxide, and it is the chlorine dioxide which actually reacts with pathogens (remember this chemical, it is going to show up a lot in this post). To be clear, MMS is not the same type of bleach that is used to clean your house (sodium hypochlorite), but it is nevertheless a type of bleach and is used to bleach various paper, wood, and textile products. This is also one of the chlorines that is sometimes used in very low concentrations to disinfect drinking water. Now, the fact that someone is selling a concentrated bleach solution as a miracle cure should throw up some red flags, but let’s investigate further. After all, the skeptic principle is to demand evidence, not to blindly reject something without looking for evidence. Are its effects plausible? According to the almighty internet, MMS cures pretty much everything. Spiritportal.org states that it “CURES” (their emphasis) “malaria, AIDs, most cancers, any type of hepatitis, tuberculosis, typhoid, pneumonia, asthma, herpes, HPV, chicken pox, smallpox, measles, influenza (including bird flu), colds, food poisoning, snake bite, Lyme disease, ringworm, roundworm, tapeworm, yeast infections, and many other common diseases.” Many other websites list additional ailments, and one hilariously unfactual website even goes as far as saying that it kills 95% of all diseases! Similarly, MMSWiki has an insanely long list that includes things like Down syndrome, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, depression, etc., and, of course, what good would a miracle cure be if it didn’t cure baldness and erectile dysfunction. This type of list is characteristic of supposed miracle cures, and it provides really obvious evidence that these “cures” are a load of crap. For one thing, diseases like AIDs, cancer, and Alzheimer’s should jump out at you. Anytime that someone claims to have found a simple cure for one of those diseases, you should be very, very skeptical. Further, the sheer range of diseases that MMS supposedly cures gives us a good reason to be cautious. The list includes cancers, viruses, fungi, bacteria, auto-immune disorders, protozoan infections, parasites, genetic disorders, neurological disorders, snake bites, etc. I’m going to walk through some of those in more detail below, but first, just ask yourself if it is actually plausible that something is going to be effective against all of those maladies (spoiler alert: it’s not). Pathogenic diseases First, let’s look at the list of pathogenic diseases that it supposedly treats. In other words, all of the viruses, bacteria, protozoa, intestinal parasites, and fungi. When I first started looking into MMS, I was very skeptical that it would be able to kill so many different types of organisms, because all of these organisms are extremely different from each other. For example, bacteria have a cell wall made of peptidoglycan, whereas fungi have walls made of chitin; protozoa and intestinal parasites have no cell walls, and viruses don’t even have cells. So, generally speaking, treatments are specific for each group (e.g., antibiotics work for bacteria, but not viruses). Much to my surprise, there is actually very good evidence that chlorine dioxide (the chemical that is produced by MMS) is very effective at killing all of these organisms in water. This is a very important point. Just because something kills “germs” in a glass of water or even when it is poured on a cut, that does not inherently mean that it will kill the targeted germs inside you. There are several reasons for this, but the most important one is that the chemical will react with lots of other things before it gets to the target organism. One of the primary mechanisms through which chlorine dioxide kills cells is by reacting with amine groups through oxidation/reduction reactions (type “chlorine dioxide amine” into Google Scholar for a host of articles about how it behaves). Amines are a type of chemical that contains a nitrogen with a lone pair of atoms, and they are ubiquitous in living organisms. They are, for example, part of some of the amino acids which are used to make proteins. So, we have amines, good bacteria have amines, bad bacteria have amines, etc. This is important because MMS is going to react with the first amines it encounters. Remember, this is just a chlorine atom bound to two oxygen atoms. It doesn’t have any way to detect good cells and bad cells. It’s just doing simple chemical reactions. So, let’s say that you take a few drops of MMS to treat chicken pox, most of it is going to react with the amines in the bacteria that populate your mouth and throat long before it gets circulated to the viruses that you want it to react with. True believers of course claim otherwise. According to one website: “It [MMS] does not react with organic matter, such as food, body cells or even our ‘good’ intestinal bacteria, but is specific in destroying pathogenic microbes.” This statement is hilariously impossible. First, all living things are made of organic matter. Amines are, for example, organic matter. So this statement is clearly false. If it were true, then MMS wouldn’t kill pathogenic microbes because they are made of organic matter. In fact, here is a paper entirely devoted to the fact that chlorine dioxide dissolves organic matter. Also, MMS does not discriminate between bacteria types. Both good bacteria and bad bacteria are made of the same chemicals, and chlorine dioxide will react with the amines in good bacteria just as quickly as it reacts with the amines in bad bacteria. Finally, there is evidence that chlorine dioxide reacts with bacteria more quickly than it does with our cells (this is the case because bacteria are much smaller than our cells so the chemical can react with them more quickly), but that is not the same thing as saying that it won’t react with our cells. If you put chlorine dioxide on living human cells and give it enough time, it will enter the cells and react with the amines. This is simple chemistry. Cancer Next up, we have cancer. I can admit that it is technically possible that MMS could treat some infectious diseases (though that still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to take it), but it is completely absurd to think that it could treat cancer. Cancer is not like most diseases because it is caused by our own cells mutating and replicating uncontrollably. This makes cancer extremely difficult to fight because we are fighting against our own cells! So almost anything that will kill a cancer cell will also kill our healthy cells. Cancer cells are made of the same chemicals as normal cells. They are both full of amines, and nothing about the chemistry of chlorine dioxide suggests that it would be able to tell the difference between a cancer cell and a regular cell. Again, it’s going to react with the first amines it encounters, regardless of whether those are in healthy cells or cancer cells. Asthma Asthma is also included in the list. This inclusion is rather non-specific as there are many types of asthma that can be triggered by many different things, but most asthmas fall under the umbrella of autoimmune. To put it simply, they are caused by the body over-reacting to something harmless and, as a result, damaging itself. It would, therefore, be rather curious if MMS could treat asthma since there isn’t anything for it to kill (unlike the vast majority of other things it supposedly does). Rather, it somehow has to suppress an immune response. As with cancer, there is no reason to think that chlorine dioxide is in anyway capable of doing that. Snake bites Next, we have my personal favorite: “snake bites.” I have to assume that this means venomous snake bites (you don’t typically need medicine for a normal snake bite), but this raises the obvious question of what type of snake bit it treats. You see, there are two broad categories of snake venom: neurotoxins (which affect the nervous system) and hemotoxins (which affect the cardiovascular and muscular systems). There are, however, numerous sub-categories, and there is a tremendous amount of variation. In other words, different species have very different venoms that act very differently. Some block nerve signals, some coagulate the blood, some destroy cell membranes, etc. The chemistry of snake venom is extremely diverse and it simply isn’t plausible that one single chemical would be able to counteract all of the different types of snake venom. As someone who does research on venomous snakes, I am begging you, if you are bitten by a venomous snake, get to a hospital ASAP and do not take MMS for the bite. (On a side note, snake bite kits are also totally worthless and typically do more harm than good. Getting to the hospital as quickly as possible really is your only option [unless you live in Australia, in which case snake bandages are a good stop-gap measure to give you more time to get to a hospital]) Disorders Finally, I want to briefly look at a few of the most absurd claims about MMS. For example, MMS supposedly cures Down syndrome. This would be truly remarkable because Down syndrome is caused by a trisomy (extra copy) of chromosome #21. So people with Down syndrome have an entire extra chromosome which is giving commands to the body. So to cure Down syndrome, you would have to somehow shut off that entire extra chromosome without interfering with the other chromosomes (which are made of the same chemicals, btw). There is simply no mechanism through which chlorine dioxide could possibly do that. The procedure for “curing” autism is similarly absurd (and downright barbaric). For some reason, people got it in their heads that autism is caused by intestinal parasites (which is one thing that we know doesn’t cause autism). So, to treat it, well-intended, but dangerously misguided parents are giving their children MMS enemas (sometimes daily)! Remember, MMS is a bleach, and it is caustic enough that it sometimes causes the children to shed their intestinal linings. To the true believers, however, these linings aren’t the results of bleach killing their children’s intestinal cells, rather they are parasitic “rope worms,” and their presence in a child’s discharge confirms that the MMS is doing its job. Summary of supposed effects To review, this chemical is supposedly able to cure an extremely broad array of aliments, each of which requires a different mechanism. A mechanism that kills bacteria won’t cure cancer, won’t treat snake venom, won’t suppress the immune system, won’t cause hair to grow, won’t cure Down syndrome, etc. It just isn’t plausible for one chemical to do all of these things. Now, you may be thinking, “fine, maybe the claims are exaggerated, but just because it doesn’t cure all of these doesn’t mean that it can’t cure some of them.” That is true, but there are still several problems. First, without rigorous testing, you have no way of knowing which (if any) ailment it actually treats, and you have no reason to trust the people selling this stuff. I think that I have clearly demonstrated that at least some of the claims about MMS are scientifically incorrect. This means that the people making these claims are either dishonest or ignorant. Either way, you shouldn’t be getting medical advice from them. Second, without rigorous testing, you don’t know if it is safe. There are, for example, many things that will kill bacteria (such as iodine, gasoline, Clorox, rubbing alcohol, etc.), but that doesn’t mean that drinking them is a good idea. Is the scientific evidence to support these claims? Every once in a great while, a truly extraordinary claim turns out to be true, but we need some really solid evidence before concluding that it is true. So, are the claims of MMS peddlers supported by science? NO! There is not a scrap of scientific evidence that ingesting MMS does anything beneficial! The only “studies” are poorly designed, uncontrolled, and self-reported tests that were conducted by the inventor of MMS (Jim Humble). You can read about his “tests” in one of his many books which he would be more than happy to sell to you. All of the other “evidence” comes from anecdotal reports. I have previously elaborated on why anecdotes are meaningless, so I won’t do it here. Are there side effects? According to the charlatans that sell this stuff, it has “no harmful side effects or damage to healthy cells.” This claim is characteristic of quack treatments and miracle cures, and it is a dead giveaway that you are being lied to. Any medicine that has an effect on our bodies will also have side effects. This is an inevitability of our bodies’ chemistry. All medicines (including the handful of alternative medicines that are actually effective) work entirely because of chemical reactions inside of our bodies, and for at least some people, these reactions will invariably produce unintended consequences. So, the only way that something won’t have any side effects is if it doesn’t have any effects in the first place (on a side note, this is why homeopathy doesn’t have any side effects). This claim is especially absurd for MMS because we know that MMS has side effects. Remember that that we are dealing with an industrial strength bleach. To be fair, it is not as caustic as regular bleach, and it attacks bacteria more readily than it attacks human cells, but, it will still kill human tissue in a high enough dose. Most people only take one or two drops of this stuff, which probably isn’t enough to do much harm, but some people take large quantities of it and use it daily, which is potentially dangerous. Despite all of the claims that MMS doesn’t affect your body’s good cells, it is a scientific fact that chlorine dioxide can be lethal. Fortunately, the LD50 (the does that will kill 50% of the mice that are given that dose) is estimated to be greater than 10,000 mg/kg, which is a very high LD50. So you probably aren’t going to kill yourself with this stuff, but at the same time, there have been plenty of lab trials where animals died from chlorine dioxide exposure. The non-lethal effects vary. Some studies haven’t found much in the way of harmful side effects, but other studies have found good evidence the chlorine dioxide causes problems such as ulcers, lesions, altered blood chemistry, nausea, and diarrhea (you can find a good review of the toxicity of chlorine dioxide here). So, as far as a bleach goes, MMS is fairly safe, and it probably won’t do much serious damage in the doses that most people take. Nevertheless, the evidence against it is strong enough that health agencies from multiple countries warn against using it. These countries include: USA, Australia, Canada, and several others. The FDA even comically states that: “Consumers who have MMS should stop using it immediately and throw it away.” But, of course, we all know that every major health organization in the world is paid off by Big Pharma (note the immense sarcasm), so let’s look at the information given to us by the supporters of MMS. Miracle-mineral-supplement.com makes the following statement: “Note: If you notice diarrhea, or even vomiting that is not necessarily a bad sign. The body is simply throwing off toxins and cleaning itself out. Some people say they feel much better after having diarrhea.” Now, a rational person might stop and think that perhaps they were throwing up because they drank bleach, but according to the true believers, that is simply the MMS doing its job of removing vague “toxins” and whatever else might ail you (all of course without damaging your cells or the good bacteria that live in your gut). This is clearly rubbish. First, even if the claim that your nausea and diarrhea were from the MMS working was true, that is still a side effect! You cannot simultaneously say “this has no side effects” and “while taking this you may lose your lunch and your anus may be converted into an upside-down volcano.” If taking something gives you diarrhea, then diarrhea is a side effect. Second, except under very rare circumstances, the death of bacteria, virus, etc. will not make you sick. You have these wonderful cells called phagocytes that go around removing old cells and harmful materials. They do this all the time, and you don’t get sick from it. Every day, thousands of your cells die, and phagocytes run around disposing of them. Things are similarly bizarre when we look at the procedure for “treating” cancer. According to spiritportal.org you should start off with 1/2 drop and see if that makes you nauseated. If it doesn’t, you should keep slowly increasing the dose until you find an amount that does make you nauseated. You want to reach the dose that makes you nauseated because being nauseated supposedly means that it is working. You see, after the MMS kills your cancer cells, they become “a poison to your body,” and it is those poisonous dead cells (not the bleach) that are making you sick. I honestly laughed the first time that I read this. For one thing, Occam’s razor tells us that we should default to the explanation that makes the fewest assumptions, and that explanation is clearly that you are throwing up because you drank bleach. Further, why on earth would a dead cancer cell be poisonous? The chemical composition of cancer cells isn’t substantially different from other cells, and, as previously stated, your cells die constantly. So why would a dead cancer cell be poisonous when a normal dead cell is not? Once again, you have phagocytes that do a very good job of getting rid of dead cells. Why isn’t MMS an approved treatment? No miracle cure would be complete without a conspiracy theory, and MMS supporters are more than happy to concoct one. In classic conspiracy theorist form, almost every MMS website that I have looked at has stated that pharmaceutical companies are suppressing the truth of MMS because they make so much money treating these ailments, and, of course, all of the world’s health organizations (and bloggers like me) are paid shills. There are so many problems with this argument that I plan on eventually devoting an entire post to it, but for now, I’ll just hit the highlights. First, pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars looking for cures to cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc. Why would they do that if they already have a cure that they have no intention of using? Second, if MMS actually works, why wouldn’t they start marketing it themselves and make billions of dollars of off it? Inevitably they would charge way more for it than it costs to produce, and, yes, they would have to compete with the unlicensed internet retailers, but there are still plenty of people who would rather pay a little bit more and get something official than use something from the internet. Surely that would make more sense than spending billions of dollars paying off all of the world’s doctors while simultaneously spending billions of dollars looking for a cure that they already have. Third, realize that all of the thousands of doctors who work for pharmaceutical companies have friends and family who are afflicted by these diseases (especially cancer). Do you really think that they are just going to sit by and watch tons of people suffer and die when they know that a cure exists? Finally, realize that this claim is a question begging fallacy/ad hoc fallacy (depending on how it is worded). In other words, I would never accept this absurd conspiracy theory unless I was already totally convinced that MMS worked. So it’s a logically invalid argument. Conclusion Hopefully this post has made it clear that MMS is nothing but snake oil and shouldn’t be trusted. More importantly, I hope that this post has given you some basic common sense guidelines for examining miracle treatments, fad diets, etc. The following list gives some of the hallmark characteristics of quack treatments, and you should watch out for them. Implausible effects (e.g. an absurdly wide array of ailments that it cures, unrealistic recoveries, improbable amounts of weight loss, etc.) No plausible mechanisms for causing those effects No scientific evidence to support its claims Claims that it has no side effects Conspiracy theories For MMS, we find that it doesn’t pass any checkpoints, and there is absolutely no reason to think that taking it is a good idea. Advertisements

Bass Fishing Heating Up in Cooler Weather by Tom Lester Old man winter has finally awakened and cooler temperatures are here and holding steady. For quite some time, we fall bass fishermen have been anxiously awaiting a cool down that would in turn our lake water temperatures lower. Although, today is the first official day of winter, the water is cooling off nicely. It's time to go fishing. Personally, I love fall pattern bass fishing. It is the time of year bass gorge themselves with food getting ready for winter. When they are filling themselves up, I like to be on the water catching 'em. Generally speaking, if you can find them, they are pretty easy to catch, and catch and catch. As the water cools down on our lakes, the shad (one of Mr. Bass' primary dishes) move into the creeks and guess who is following right behind them? That's right, ole man bass. Now that we've got 'um cornered and hemmed up in the creeks, its time put your boat in the water and get ready for some fun. I generally start out on the points of main creeks. It is a good place to find bass that are moving into the creek or coming out. They will literally "stack up" on the points as they move around to feed on the shad. My bait of choice on the points is a Norman's crankbait. My overall favorite is the Deep Little N (DLN) in any of the numerous shad colored patterns they have on the market. The Deep Little N crankbait is a medium diving bait that works really well when the fish are suspended off of the points. It is also about the same size as the shad this time of year. It has good action and sound with the built in rattles. I use 10-12# CXX P Line year round, when cranking. My friend, Eric Talley of Corsicana, TX, turned me on to using the smaller lines. I'm glad he did because it has greatly improved my numbers since I switched. The smaller line allows the bait to dive deeper and have a better action than the larger lines do. If you are like I used to be, using 15-20# line while fishing a crankbait, try sizing down your line. I bet you catch more bass, like I did. I know what you're thinking; what if I get a $4 or $5 crankbait hung up and all I have is 10 or 12 pound test line on? It's a gonner, right? Not always. You can improve your odds of retrieving that bait in two ways. First, try using P Line. It is a copolymer line that has tremendous tensile strength making it super strong. Strong enough to bring in a big fish and strong enough to help you get most of your baits back, yet small enough to let you bait perform properly in the water. For more information on P Line fishing line, see their web site at www.p-line.com or email me at the address below. Secondly, there is a new lure retriever on the market that is second to none. I like it because it is simple to use, inexpensive and mainly because it works. It's called the Easy Retriever. Basically, it is a 2 ounce lead weight with a special, film-coated, clip on it that clips right onto your line and slides down to your bait. Once it is in contact with your bait, simply use it to bounce your bait off of the snag and reel both the bait and the Easy Retriever in. For more information on the Easy Retriever, you can visit their web site at www.easyretriever.com or you can email me at the address below. Once the fish are in a feeding frenzy along the banks of the creek, it's time to pull out the spinnerbaits and jigs. The spinnerbaits work well, and in the right situation, can catch you a lot of fish. Use white spinnerbaits in clear to slightly stained water and chartreuse in off colored to stained water. I prefer a combination of gold and silver Colorado and willowleaf blades. Again, because of its strength, I use P Line in 15-20# test depending on the amount of cover (trees, logs, rocks, etc.) I'm fishing. If you're looking for the big guys, whip out a jig. Once you find a part of the creek that is holding fish, pull off of the shoreline and find the main creek channel. This is where the hawgs tend to hang out waiting for that unsuspecting meal to swim by. My favorite is a 3/8-1/2 oz. Bulldog jig. I like the lighter baits because they fall slower allowing the fish more time to eat 'em. In clear to stained water, white is my favorite color. It better represents the color of the fish's forage than any other does, even though I will use the traditional black/blue, too. Be certain to use a trailer, either a pork rind or one of the soft plastic ones will work fine. It gives the bait more bulk and slows the fall down even more. 20-25# P Line will work nicely for you with a strong reel and stout rod. Pitch the jig up close to large trees, stumps or lay downs and allow it fall slowly beside the cover. Watch your line closely. Often this time of the year, the big fish are suspended off of the bottom. They can pick up your bait and be swimming off with it, and you'll never know it if you're not watching your line. If it starts moving off to the side, set the hook and hang on. It could be the fish of a lifetime. This is also a great place to use the crankbait. Cast the bait beyond your target and slowly reel it in. When you think the bait is at or near your target area, stop it momentarily to allow the fish that might be sitting there time to strike it, then continue reeling it in. Change the retrieve from time to time to give the fish different looks. It might make a big difference. Fall and early winter can be a great time to catch large numbers of bass. Keep in mind, however, the danger associated with cool and cold weather outdoor sports. Hypothermia is a silent killer. If you or your fishing partner gets wet, find a place to get out of the weather, get dry and get warm. It doesn't have to be below freezing to die of hypothermia. Please be careful. Until next time, enjoy the Texas outdoors. Tom Lester. Author Information. Tom Lester owns and operates Four Seasons Lawnscape, a landscape and lawn maintenance service, in Corsicana, Texas. He has fished for most of his 36 years to some degree or another. He fishes competitively in bass tournaments and is beginning his professional bass fishing career in the BASS invitational circuit and the Everstart Series. Tom lives with his wife, Kelly, in Corsicana, Texas, only a few miles from Richland-Chambers reservoir, one of the hottest new bass lakes to open in Texas in the past ten years. He formerly resided in Cleburne, Texas, where he guided part-time for largemouth and smallmouth bass. Tom is currently on the field staff for Abu Garcia, Norman Lures, Inspiration Lures, and Bill Lewis Lures, and on the pro staff for Kalin's, CastAway Rods, P-Line, and Nuwave Products. Tom enjoys fishing, hunting and writing his outdoor column for the Corsicana Daily Sun and freelance writing. He is a former high school Agricultural Science instructor and animal health pharmaceutical sales rep. He graduated from Texas A&M University with a B.S in Agricultural Education and a Master of Education degree. Tom likes being his own boss so he can take off to go fishing, whenever he likes, and leave his wife in charge of the business. Email Tom at lester01@airmail.net Visit Tom at his web site: Fishing Pro Staff

MUMBAI/DELHI: Ritesh Srivastava speaks with the fervour of a true believer. “I am a lifer here. The work and systems are as professional as any other FMCG company. But the work culture and what the brand stands for in terms of living with a purpose is totally different.”Four years ago, Srivastava joined Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. as senior manager marketing and sales from Himalaya . He’s not alone in his enthusiasm. In the past six months, as many as 250 executives have joined Patanjali from established fast-moving consumer goods companies. Patanjali itself has in the meantime been winning market share from its rivals as becomes a strong contender in the FMCG stakes.Executives have joined from Hindustan Unilever and Procter & Gamble, apart from domestic companies Himalaya, Bisleri and Emami . The company is deluged with applications, it says.Apart from the controversial Ramdev’s charisma, many are drawn by the prospects for career growth, the chance of taking a business to new heights and the ethos of the company.“Ours is not a corporate culture--it is a spiritual culture and it is purpose-driven,” said managing director Acharya Balkrishna. Ramdev says people are drawn by Patanjali’s objectives of reinvesting in society and nation building.“There is no company that can be compared to Patanjali,” he said. “Professionals earlier did not have a place where they could take care of their family needs and at the same time work for a purpose, to give back to society and be proud of what they do.” It isn’t looking for top-bracket, Indian Institute of Management-trained professionals who command crores in pay.“Our compensation packages are in line with industry standards,” said managing director Balkrishna. “We do not seek great qualifications. During our interviews, we only make sure of two things--that the applicant does not smoke or consume liquor and should be of Satvik nature.”This has led to questions about its ability to recruit the best talent, especially at the senior level. But that’s exactly what may be a draw for some.Sharad Bharadwaj, who joined Patanjali as western zonal manager in 2015 from P&G, said he was taken by the swadeshi model and the emphasis on treating employees well.“At least 70% of the talent in MNCs is sidelined,” he said. “At Patanjali, they do not give up on an individual. If someone is not up to a task, he is trained to do things that he is capable of. That does not mean there are no targets and we are all very aggressive about that. In that sense, it is like any other FMCG company with accountability.” There is criticism that the system isn’t professional enough. “Patanjali does not have a professional CEO who can attract top talent,” said the CEO of an Indian soaps and detergent maker. “Their systems and processes are still rudimentary and until they improve that, attracting senior-level talent will be a challenge.”Vibhav Dhawan, managing partner at search firm Positive Moves Consulting, said, "While there will always be people Patanjali will be looking to hire, the A-grade, top-notch talent looking for sustainable career growth and pedigree are unlikely to join the company."But people are keen on joining, said Abneesh Roy, vice president at Edelweiss Securities. Patanjali is seeking to professionalise the management and incorporate processes and technology in the work culture. “During our visit and interactions, we found there any many professionals who are managing different units and have past work experience in companies like Dabur, Shahnaz Hussain, SGH Labs and Alkem Laboratories,” he said.Gurvinder Pal Singh, who joined eight months ago from Bisleri, said Patanjali was the ideal FMCG company to his mind. “Bisleri distributors were co-distributors of Patanjali brands and I was hugely impressed with their admiration for the brand and product quality,” he said. “I was also a consumer of the brand--toothpaste and atta--and the product quality was very good. That further motivated me and in the last eight months I have learnt more in Patanjali than in my previous 12 years.”Ramdev is closely involved, participating in discussions with advertising agencies, on marketing plans or research, said a senior manager. “Baba Ramdev is an astute manager with exemplary oratory skills,” said Rahul Nene, managing director of Witthaus Management Consulting, a talent search company. “Nobody has probably understood rural marketing so well and in such a short time… this is probably the magnet for officials to move out of established firms.” Besides, a growing firm offers greater opportunity than mature ones, he said. Pratima Kumari, who joined Patanjali as a marketing manager from DDB Mudra four months ago, echoed this view.“I get an opportunity to grow along with the brand,” she said. “In the mid and junior levels, I see the kind of respect this organisation gives its employees, which is missing in other companies.” Seniors are enjoined to treat colleagues with respect—rude behaviour is frowned upon. The dress code is white—it’s probably the only FMCG company where an executive can wear a kurta pyjama to work.Started as a pharmacy in Haridwar in 1997, Patanjali is now a Rs 2,000 crore company with about 1,500 employees. Reporting to Balkrishna are three vice-presidents: CP Nagpal heads foods and juices and used to be with Dabur; Ravindra Kumar Chaudhary leads the cosmetics business and was previously with Emami; and Rakesh Sharma is chief of sales and marketing, having worked with HUL earlier. Sharma, who used to handle HR as well, elaborated on hiring practices.“We do not follow the conventional FMCG system of hiring IIMs or IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) candidates or those with fancy degrees,” he said. “We are also recruiting youths, around 250 from several non-metros in each market, training them and taking them on our rolls as territory in-charges… Corporates tend to view non-English speaking youth as unqualified, when the fact is it has nothing to do with the actual skills required.Rajesh Sharma joined Patanjali as senior manager of sales and marketing a month ago after 14 years in companies such as Revlon and JL Morrison, having been struck by a Discovery Channel report on the big profits that multinational FMCG companies made in India.“When I heard about Patanjali, I was willing to even take a pay cut to join,” he said. “Patanjali not only matched my compensation expectations but also offered a work culture rich in diversity of talent in the truest sense.”Patanjali prefers people without experience, he said. “All they need is enthusiasm and commitment. I have seen a mix of city and rural employees, some of whom you think are almost illiterate, but their work enthusiasm and commitment are amazing.”A CLSA report last year didn’t stint on praise, bearing the title “Wish You Were Listed.” Patanjali has pitchforked itself into the top league with profit said to be in excess of such companies as Jyothy Laboratories and Emami, it said.“The plans are even more interesting as the company is now looking at ‘traditional’ ways to expand and targets to more than double the top line in coming years,” CLSA said.Rishabh Sinha, a regional manager who joined a year ago from HUL, said the nature of the company appealed to him. “That this was a swadeshi company and the culture based on spirituality appealed to me,” he said. “In all other senses, the level of professionalism in the company and systems and processes are as good as any FMCG company,” he said.Damodar Mall, CEO of Reliance Retail, pointed out that “Elitist FMCG is a homogenous club. Mavericks do not fit well there. The lure of an untreated marketing challenge appeals to such people.”Managers at some rivals are dismissive of those who’ve left to join Ramdev’s company. Patanjali executives put this down to envy.“That is always an elitist view of established players,” VP Rakesh Sharma said. “Earlier, they wrote off the company. Now, they cannot believe the numbers coming in.’’

In Bite #159, we started looking at some syntactic shortcuts in Swift. Today we'll continue by looking at a few (perhaps) lesser-known Swift tricks, and their effects. Let's get started. @autoclosure This attribute can help save space when writing simple closures: func cache ( key : String , @autoclosure cacheIf : () -> Bool ) Now, the compiler will infer the curly braces {} around our statement: cache ( "spaceships" , cacheIf : ships . count > 0 ) private(set) struct Spaceship { private(set) var name = "Untitled" } With the private(set) declaration, we're telling the compiler this property has the default access-level of internal for reads, but writes can only happen in the source file where it's declared. For frameworks, we can configure both the getter/setter explicitly: public struct Droid { public private(set) var number : String } final When optimizing performance-critical code, dynamic dispatch can be our enemy. If our class's properties and functions can be overridden by subclasses, we're going to pay the performance cost of an indirect call or access every time we use one of those functions or properties. We can easily prevent this by declaring a property or function final .

In addition to seeking an emergency declaration, the commission proposed waiving a federal rule that sharply limits the number of Medicaid recipients who can receive residential addiction treatment. It also called for expanding access to medications that help treat opioid addiction, requiring “prescriber education initiatives” and providing model legislation for states to allow a standing order for anyone to receive naloxone, a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses. Some public health experts said the main effect of declaring an emergency would be to make Americans regard the epidemic more urgently. “It’s really about drawing attention to the issue and pushing for all hands on deck,” said Michael Fraser, the executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “It would allow a level of attention and coordination that the federal agencies might not otherwise have, but in terms of day-to-day lifesaving, I don’t think it would make much difference.” The governors of Arizona, Florida, Maryland and Virginia have declared states of emergency regarding the opioid addiction crisis; in Alaska, Gov. Bill Walker has issued a disaster declaration.

I’m posting it here because I’ve mentioned it on Google+ for the third time, today. It all started with Zak posting about Evolution. He lists some well known role-playing games and shows that each one of them offers some sort of long-term promise of change for players. His point: every session produces “changes in that session”, but the really successful games promise “a specific kind of change will occur over the long haul.” I definitely think that the promise of ever changing game play is what makes D&D interesting. The reason this works, I think, is because the spells you gain don’t simply scale. The game changes if you can be invisible and fly. The game changes when you can dimension door and teleport. The game changes when you can travel to the planes. Outside of the specific rules, the tradition also encourages changes to the game when you reach name level and build a stronghold, and it changes once more when you start to forge alliances with and wage wars against neighbors. I think it’s also one of the reasons that Traveller can be boring. At least it didn’t hold a long-term appeal to me when I ran it. Perhaps I should have imagined the long term changes to the game play (more and bigger ships, get involved in the war) instead of focusing on changes to the setting (in my campaign, small colonies were being resettled or exterminated by the players – at the time I felt this was already a big step up). I feel like I should give Traveller another try soon. I think Zak’s spot-on when he wonders whether campaigns using relatively simple rules have a hard time maintaining a long term appeal. For example, I claim that the long list of non-general spells with their non-linear progression of power create the long term changes over time. But what will you do in a simpler indie game? What will I do with my Solar System RPG game? Over time, I can add more gifts (feats, stunts, powers), but there’s really no promise that I will keep delivering. Plus, if I do, I’ll have to invent it all myself. This is the key part: I have to come up with it myself – and I need to foreshadow it, make sure my players know it, want it, work towards it. In D&D, it’s simple. There’s a big Monster Manual full of critters in the book shelf. There is a big Players Guide full of spells right next to it. And there’s a list of magic items hidden away somewhere. You want to fight all this crazy stuff? Sit down at my table! That’s the promise the game makes without me saying anything at all. All the players sitting down at my table knowing the game cannot be faulted for assuming that this is going to be a big part of the game. The Solar System campaign I’m running and the Barbarians of Lemuria campaigns I’m playing in are awesome. We’ve had a dozen sessions in each of the campaigns. They have enough potential to last us at least half a dozen more. But I think that’s because of the setting, the scope of the current plot, etc. What we don’t have, as Zak puts it, is a system that promising that “a specific kind of change will occur over the long haul.” The onus is on us, the table, to make this promise, to foreshadow it, to work towards it, etc. In other words, it’s on us to foreshadow mechanical changes (new gifts, feats, schools of magic, spells) and new modes of play (land owning, castle building, plane hopping, politics) within the campaign. The system and the tradition around it doesn’t do that like D&D does. I like to play all these games. This is not a value judgement per se. But the above observation can help you make value judgements elsewhere. Here’s an example that I’ve come across twice in recent days: people propose a change to the D&D magic system; they want to make all the spells are available from the start. This is how spells work in HARP: more powerful variants just cost more power points – my second level mage, for example, has haste and fly as his two spells. Using the above observation, I must assume that these proposals remove the distinct modes of play I like so much. Any player character might have the necessary spells right from the start. As far as I’m concerned – and this is where the value judgement comes in – these proposals are taking away something I liked. What are they going to give me instead? If the answer is “more flexibility” for my character, then I feel that this change isn’t worth it. It might work for others, but I fear it won’t work for me. If I had wanted more flexibility I would have picked more flexible rules. Something with skills and point buy instead of classes and random ability scores, for example. Tags: RPG

Homeownership rates tumbled this summer statewide and across much of Southern California. The U.S. Census Bureau reports 53.5 percent of Californians lived in a home they owned in the third quarter, down from 53.8 percent in the second quarter and up from 53.2 percent a year ago. It’s the fourth-lowest level nationwide behind Washington, D.C., New York and Hawaii. West Virginia was best at 75.6 percent. Ownership in Los Angeles and Orange counties fell to 46.6 percent in the summer quarter, second worst among 75 markets tracked trailing only Fresno. L.A.-O.C. had the nation’s lowest ownership levels in six out of eight quarters in 2015-16. Third-quarter ownership in L.A.-O.C. was down from 48.3 percent in the second quarter and 44.7 percent a year ago. In San Diego County, ownership was 54.1 percent in the third quarter, eighth worst vs. 56.1 percent in the second quarter and 54.4 percent a year ago. Gains were only found in Riverside and San Bernardino counties where ownership hit 59.2 percent in the quarter, 19th worst out of the big 75. Inland Empire ownership is up from 58.4 percent in the second quarter but down from 62.6 percent a year ago. Other government stats show Southern Californians spending the biggest share of their household pay among major U.S. metro areas. That’s a key reason why Southern California’s renter households grew by roughly 749,000 in the past 10 years — a 33 percent jump. Meanwhile, the number of local homeowners was essentially flat. Nationally, 63.9 percent of Americans lived in homes they owned in the third quarter, up from 63.7 percent in the second quarter and 63.5 percent a year ago. It’s also the highest homeownership rate since 2014’s fourth quarter. By the way, best metro area for ownership? Allentown, Pa., at 75 percent in the third quarter. How much Orange County housing can you buy for $350,000? SEE: $350,000 new home in Orange County? It’s in the works in Rancho Mission Viejo

If Mind MGMT—Matt Kindt’s winding epic about men and women with the cognitive power to manipulate reality and those who would stop them—expanded out into a global onslaught of cities to emphasize the series’ blockbuster scope, his new project ranks up the tension and pressure by drilling deep and under. Announced today at Comic-Con International, Matt will both write and pencil the new Dark Horse monthly Dept. H, a murder mystery that takes place in a sabotaged deep-sea observatory. Sharlene Kindt, Matt’s wife who provided coloring and direction on this gorgeous Mind MGMT cover, will provide watercolors. The plot follows Mia, a secret agent posing as a journalist, as she ventures into the Challenger Deep to investigate a homicide among the 100-strong crew. Her investigation pivots to a fight for survival as an act of vandalism sends her and her stranded researchers into a desperate search for a way to survive a two-week period before the station floods. The Kindts will embrace real-time storytelling as each issue takes place over 24-hours, adding a new tension to the suffocating pressure encroaching on the characters. Like a cross between sci-fi Jack London, The Abyss and the criss-cross espionage of Kindt’s previous material, there is no element of this new project we’re not ecstatically awaiting. (And is that a sea monster we spy?!) While in the process of inking the last issue of Mind MGMT, Matt shared the first cover of Dept. H and discussed his fear of the deep seas, his love of Jacques Cousteau and how this project, set to debut this winter, is challenging him after decades in the industry. Paste: So what exactly is Dept. H? Matt Kindt: Dept. H is my next ongoing series. I’m taking the summer off to write the whole thing, or as much as I can, and then I’ll start drawing it in the fall. It’s basically an underwater adventure/murder mystery. This woman gets tasked with going down to the deepest underwater base in the world to figure out what happened when somebody’s murdered down there. The series starts out with her getting into this weird sub designed to go down that deep, then investigating the murder. The whole series is structured around her investigation. The series takes place in real time, but is released monthly. It’ll follow her and the crazy stuff that happens down there, and the mystery and then some other weird stuff I can’t spoil. My wife, who taught me how to watercolor, is going to watercolor this one. So I’m going to be doing all the drawing, and she’s going to be doing all the painting over the top. Paste: I saw the recent Doctor Strange commission you worked on with her. Kindt: She uses a different kind of watercolor than I do that gets those crazy, bright colors. We’re going to do a mix of more subdued stuff, and then there are going to be parts of the story that call for crazy, bonkers over-the-top color. She can do both of those—I don’t really like using bright color. She’s well-suited for it. Paste: The last time I spoke with you, I listed all the projects you were on and how busy you seem. Not much has changed. You’d told me, “What else am I going to do?” When you’re looking at a new book after working under every scope of project available (mini comics, creator-owned, Big Two), are you actively searching to tackle new storytelling approaches or elements, or do the ideas just come organically? Kindt: I just have a running list of ideas of different things I want to work on. Working on Mind MGMT was long, and it took so long that these ideas built up over time. I thought maybe some of these ideas I like more than others. I think how I tell it is always a product of what the story is. I try to pick a story that I think is interesting or I think would be fun, and then let the story dictate how it’s going to be told, which is an approach I’ve tried to take my whole life. Let the story dictate the structure, how it unfolds. In comics, specifically, the story suggests ways that comics can be pushed in new directions, and how you can use pictures and words. That’s basically a wide-open art form. You can do anything. Put some pictures in any combination. That’s the part that’s exciting to me—how limitless the possibilities are, as you sit at your table and think all day. Paste: The more read I read your comics, the more I realize how important a sense of place is to your narratives. It’s often one of the most important characters in your books, thinking back to the myriad international stops in Mind MGMT, the rotating universes of Revolver and even the psychedelic fun-house of Marvel Knights: Spider-Man. These places also define and provide a kind of relief to the characters, like Henry Lyme in Zanzibar. Now we’re going underwater. What attracted you to the deep blue sea? Does it reflect the characters in some way? Kindt: Definitely. I think the most exciting thing to me, other than coming up with the story idea, is where it’s going to take place. A lot of it is I’m going to have to draw that place. I’m going to have to draw the environment. Comics is a visual medium; having something take place in an office or in an American city is super boring to me because we see that all the time. Again, the story dictates location as well, and what makes sense. But with Dept. H and the underwater stuff, my greatest fear is drowning. That’s something I’ve always been intrigued by. Jacques Costeau is someone who I’ve always really loved, and he did that documentary back in the late ‘60s about the deep-sea base he made. I watched that I thought Whoa. It just made me sick to my stomach. I think it’s fun to play around with that stuff. I’m taking Scuba diving lessons, which I’m terrified of. I can swim. I’m not terrified of water. I’m scared of being underwater, I guess. Even snorkeling freaks me out for a second, until I’ve learned to trust the snorkel. I think there’s a lot of stuff there I want to deal with, as far as psychology. I also love that the ocean is our last unexplored wilderness. It’s like the wild west…but underwater. I think there’s a lot going on down there. There’s more than we even know and have ever seen. I think that’s always appealed to me too, as a kid. NASA going into space is awesome and seeing other planets, but man if we could figure out how to go deeper, there’s a lot of stuff we could see here. We’re digging, hoping for something alive on Mars—there’s the weirdest things alive on earth in water that we haven’t found yet. Paste: It was only within the last few years that we’ve mapped it all. Did you research much? Was there anything you found especially interesting? Kindt: I’m actually in the process of doing that now. That’s part of my summer—doing a ton of research. Basically I got the story, but now I have to figure out the details. I’m doing a ton of research, finding out about all of these crazy creatures that we’re still finding. I’m actually doing a bunch of research just on survivability—like how deep you can go and the problems with being down that far, and how creatures can adapt to that extreme environment. All that’s going to play into it. I’m doing a ton of research into that to see how it’s going to play into the story. Paste: Right—on a more pragmatic level, the story revolves around scientists attempting to survive on a sabotaged underwater station. How far is Dept. H going to veer into engineering, something akin to The Martian? Kindt: It’s going to be a little bit like that. The beauty of the series is that there’s not going to be a way to save the base that’s filling up. I like the idea that every month the water gets a little bit deeper. Literally, it gets deeper. There’s going to be design elements to track the rise of the water, sort of this impending doom. So every month there’s going to be a little gauge at the edge of the paper. So when you collect the whole book or you stack the issues up, you’ll be able to see the water on the edge of the pages rising. The problem with Mind MGMT is that I put every idea I could think of twisting comics around. So coming up with something is…hard [laughs], without repeating myself. But I’m trying. Paste: Speaking of, you have this constraint—each issue covers 24 hours. Why take this approach? Did you personally want to challenge yourself? Kindt: I think so. I love the format of a monthly comic. I love that you have this finite amount of time to get this piece of a story put out there, and have to work on its own, but also be part of a bigger thing. That was something that was interesting to me, but also the idea that this whole thing is finite. Her space that she’s living in is finite, it’s ticking down. You’re not going to get six issues of flashbacks and then go back to the main story. I want it to be more of an intense experience, a little more action-oriented. A little more immediate. Paste: The general impression I’m getting is that you write without releasing until you have the whole story mapped in your head, which is something I generally associate with designers. But when you work this far in advance, do you ever think of new developments that you wish you would have had, but you can’t capitalize on because it would contradict past continuity? Kindt: That’s part of the design of the books, too. With Mind MGMT and then this, I’m hopefully going to write out the scripts for the whole thing ahead of time. A couple years worth at least. But with Mind MGMT and how I usually structure things, I try to leave some wiggle room. Here are the main beats we’re going to hit, and then leave a little room for extra ideas. You are married to those bigger beats, but if you can structure it right, you can fit in some extra ideas or some things that occur to you on the way. The nature of comics is like that. You sit down and you write it, you write a couple drafts, but then you’re drawing it for a few weeks, and then during those few weeks your’e thinking about it. You’re literally staring at it every day. It’s impossible not to come up with more ideas just because of the way the process works. That’s why it’s extra fun to write and draw the thing, because I’m thinking about it 1,000 times more than if I were just writing it. The inside front covers on the single issues would be like an outlet for some extra ideas I had. And then even some of the backup stories gave me a chance to elaborate on things that I didn’t have time to hit on the main storyline or other ideas. A lot of that stuff was planned at the beginning, but then as I went along I kept a running list of ideas for some things I wanted to hit so it wouldn’t disrupt the main narrative, but I could still fit it in and use it to stitch the bigger story together, and add some backstory or some shading to some things that I wouldn’t have maybe been able to do otherwise. Paste: So Mind MGMT. has Meru and Dept. H. has another two-consonant M-name female journalist—Mia. Are the works in dialogue within one another? Or is this just the best way to start any spy story? Kindt: Every book I’ve ever done is connected. In my mind they’re all in the same universe. So there’s a loose connection, but there’s not a literal connection between her and Meru. I like writing female characters because they’re different than me. I think when I was first starting doing mini-comics and autobiographical stuff, I was really just writing me. I was writing this character and the character’s thoughts were my thoughts. Early on, I decided that could kind of boring, boring to read. So I unconsciously tried to pick a character who’s the opposite of me, or different than me and pushes me outside my comfort zone, makes it a little harder and makes me think a little more. Having characters with different backgrounds who aren’t me. Having a girl instead of a guy immediately makes it more interesting. As a writer, stuff like that is more of what I’m thinking about. Trying to put another hurdle in front of myself that I can jump over. Paste: Describing your work can be difficult because pragmatic elements like government agencies and political philosophy dovetail so seamlessly with surrealism, and your visuals are incredibly stylized. What media were you into as a kid? How about now? Kindt: When I was a kid I read everything. Pulp, science-fiction. I read almost every Philip K. Dick book. I’m saving a couple because there aren’t not many left, so I’m saving some so I don’t run out. I read all the Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett. Any crime fiction from the ‘40s and ‘50s was my favorite. I read every kind of pulpy thing ever. I was a fan of The Shadow and Doc Savage, and that was all the way up through high school. I was also reading every Marvel and DC comic I could get my hands on. That’s how I grew up. I hit college and I was starting to hate superhero comics, and I think I just didn’t like comics anymore. I stopped reading, but then I went to the Chicago Comic Con back in ’92 or ’93, where I picked up the first couple issues of Eightball [by Daniel Clowes], which had just come out. I remember reading those on the way home, and I was like ‘oh, I don’t hate comics. I’m not sick of comics. I’m sick of superhero stuff. It opened my eyes to different genres and different things you can do with comics. When I was reading those, I thought ‘here’s something that’s still fun, it’s still pulpy, but there are no capes.’ It didn’t have to fit into the superhero genre. That got me interested, and I was reading a bunch of other stuff, too: Hate [by Peter Bagge] and pretty much everything Fantagraphics put out. This is why I went all the way to the opposite [spectrum] and was just doing autobiographical comics, and then I started getting bored of doing those. I was getting bored of real-life stuff, and then I figured that I’d take that stuff and add spies and sci-fi back into it, and then it’s more fun to draw and it’s more fun to write. It’s definitely more fun to read. That’s sort of what formed me—what I am now. I love genre, I love the trappings of it and I love the way it looks. The visuals are so great. That’s the candy coating I put my other stories in. The stories I’m telling could be in any genre. I just pick something that’s fun to draw and to look at, and then hopefully it helps further the idea and the story as well. Now I mostly read stuff like reference and nonfiction for inspiration and for research. I’ll dip in—I’ll read comics now and again. But I mostly don’t have as much time to read for fun anymore. I read for work. Even though work is fun!

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints will be mostly healthy when they face each other, as both teams only have a few inactives due to injury. For the Bucs, Jacquies Smith and George Johnson are the only injury-based inactives. Gerald McCoy and Lavonte David will play today, with McCoy having his hand in a cast. The Bucs did make on interesting decision: they're keeping Demar Dotson inactive. The veteran tackle got his first start of the season last week filling in for the injured Gosder Cherilus, and looked better than Cherilus -- especially in the passing game. But Cherilus is healthy now, and apparently the Bucs really don't like going away from people they've started all season on the offensive line -- an attitude that led to a lot of problems last season, too. Bruce Carter will start at middle linebacker, though Danny Lansanah may see some playing time there too. Howard Jones will start at defensive end for Jacquies Smith. Buccaneers inactives: QB Ryan Griffin, DE Jacquies Smith, DE George Johnson, LB Jeremiah George, T Demar Dotson, TE Brandon Myers, DE Josh Shirley Saints inactives: DT John Jenkins, G Jahri Evans, WR T.J. Graham, QB Garrett Grayson, DB Chris Owens, LB David Hawthorne, DE Philip Hunt

- Weather shelters are now operating in various Los Angeles County locations and more are slated to open soon, authorities said Wednesday. Bassett Park at 510 Vineland Ave. in La Puente opened today and will remain available to those seeking shelter from cold and/or rainy weather though Dec. 8, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. "Warm meals and pet accommodations are provided," according to an authority statement that said doors open at 6 p.m., but when it rains, the shelter shifts to 24-hour operation. As of Thursday, shelters will be open in Bell, the East San Gabriel Valley, Highland Park, Lancaster, Santa Clarita, Skid Row, South Los Angeles, Sylmar and West Los Angeles. Shelters in Lancaster and Santa Clarita opened last Thursday. Shelters in Pacoima, Long Beach and Pomona will open later in December, according to the Homeless Services Authority. Most of the shelters will remain open until March 1, officials said. Transportation options are available. More information, including locations, are available on the Homeless Service Authority website at www.lahsa.org/ces/winter-shelter/ or at (800) 548-6047. Copyright 2016 FOX 11 Los Angeles : Download our mobile app for breaking news alerts or to watch FOX 11 News | Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Be a citizen journalist for FOX 11 and get paid – download the Fresco News App today.

Winnipeg's MTS Centre is getting a whole lot flashier with $12 million in enhancements, including a new high-definition scoreboard 2½ times bigger than the current one. The new board will feature four large screens, offering three times the resolution of the screens on the existing one. True North Sports & Entertainment unveiled the planned improvements on Monday. They also include: Installation of a new 360-degree power ring presenting two times the resolution of the existing power ring . Installation of a new state-of-the-art control room that will allow the production of high-definition images throughout the MTS Centre and improve audio in the existing sound system, and allow for additional cameras which will bring an enhanced scoreboard experience. Installation of 278 new premium loge seats, accessed through the upper concourse and initially made available to patrons currently sitting in Row 1 of the 300 Level. Installation of new seamless glass in the front row of the 300 Level, replacing the existing mesh railing, for improved sightlines for 300-level patrons. The upgrades will be undertaken this summer. MTS Centre, which opened Nov. 16, 2004, has hosted almost 1,400 events, including hockey games, concerts and other entertainment events.

Adorable – short lived and with strained relations. Adorable – in concert at Glastonbury 1993 – BBC Radio 1 – Homage to Shoegaze tonight with Adorable, a band from Coventry who were together only four years but managed to get two albums out before splitting. Formed in 1990, as The Candy Thieves, consisting of Pete Fijalkowski (vocals, guitar), Wayne Peters (guitar), Stephen ‘Wil’ Williams (bass) and Kevin Gritton (drums). But after the release of their first and only single, Homeboy and Underwater, which failed to make any waves. As a result, Peters quit the band in frustration and was replaced by Robert Dillam, and the band changed their name to Adorable. But even with the name change, the band encountered not a huge pile of success at first – their debut gig under their new name had the misfortune of happening the same night The Gulf War started, in January of 1991. However, their first single, a re-recording of Sunshine Smile for Creation, who they had just signed to, was designated Single Of The Week from NME, and did well on the Indie singles charts, as did two other singles released shortly after. Their debut album, Against Perfection was released in March of 1993 and showed promise, reaching #70 on the UK album charts. The band subsequently did a tour of Europe, the US, Australia and Japan. And it’s around the time of that tour that this appearance at Glastonbury takes place. When they released their second album, Fake, in September of 1994, it provided two singles which also did well on the Indie charts. However the album itself didn’t break into the mainstream and it proved to be a capper for the band, who were experiencing strained relations between themselves and their label, Creation. All of that led up to an onstage announcement during a gig in Brussels, that Adorable were splitting up. I haven’t found very much recorded live of this band, so I suspect there’s not much that is representative of them. If you missed them the first time around, here’s a memory refresher. If you’ve never heard of them before, here’s another example of what was going on in the early 90s.

Billionaire business mogul Mark Cuban recently was with “Extra’s” Renee Bargh on the set of his hit ABC show “Shark Tank,” where he is never afraid to share his honest opinions when contestants pitch their ideas to him. When Renee asked Cuban about his former friend, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, he held nothing back. He said, “You know what? It’s rare that you see someone get stupider before your eyes, but he’s really working at it…You have to give him credit. It’s a difficult thing to do, but he’s accomplished it.” Cuban, who has accomplished a lot as owner of the Dallas Mavericks and as an investor in many other businesses, questioned Trump’s decisions, pointing out, “Let’s look at it this way: Name one good deal he’s done… When he talks about his great renegotiations, they’re renegotiations, so tell me if you think this is a good deal: I lose four casinos, they go out of business, but I’m really good at renegotiating the debt of his companies that have already gone out of business.” Mark smiled, “He’d get kicked out of 'Shark Tank' so fast, it would make your head spin.” Cuban also made it clear he used to be friends with Trump, but revealed they haven’t spoken in the last month. “He sent me an email when I started picking on him… What happened was I really didn’t like Ted Cruz, so I started helping Donald, tried to encourage him, 'cause I thought he’d be, and to this day thought he’d be a better candidate than Ted Cruz… But at some point, you’ve got to start learning and understanding the issues, you know? Donald has been at this a year but you don’t look at him and say, ‘Wow, he’s gotten so much smarter on this topic or that topic.' In fact, you look at him and say, ‘What the hell are you talking about?' That’s not good for America.”

Both of them knew the conversation needed to happen. It had been simmering to the surface for quite some time, but it was only now, in June, at the Tour de Suisse that Shayne Bannan broached it. "Come back in the car with me," offered Bannan. And so he did. There's something about car rides that prys the heart and mind open. The unsaid, drips, then pours out, helped perhaps, by sparing eye-contact, and the gentle hum of the engine. They were frank. Bannan, mainly. There was no sugar-coating it, the partnership hadn't been anywhere near as successful as either had hoped. After 10 minutes, all was said and done. Catharsis. Goss was out. The decision was mutual, as Goss tells it anyway. Still it's not something he would have anticipated, nor desired even 12 months before. Both had wanted things to work. They hadn't. In September, he finished his last race with the team, the Tour of Alberta, or rather didn't. A DNF is marked to his name for the final stage. An appropriately invisible close to Goss's time in Orica colours. In three years with the team he'd clocked just two wins, and for the first time since he'd turn pro, in 2014, he hadn't won once. Where exactly did it all go wrong for Matt Goss? What exactly happened to the world-beater that joined the team in 2012? At a time of accelerating development, strength, speed and confidence, the Australian, stagnated, then went backwards. For Matt Goss, these were the lost years. *** Internally at least, frustrations with Goss's non-performance at GreenEDGE had been building for some time. One must remember that the Australian, was, at least in 2012, by far the team's best paid rider, on a deal close to double that of any of his team-mates. And yet the return on investment from the now 27 year old, in retrospect, is among the poorest of the crop. At the time of Goss's signing, in 2011, his deal was vindicated. Here was a rider bubbling to his prime, and ready, or so it appeared to hit his stride in a new, ambitious team, unrestrained by the presence of other sprinters. He'd won Milan-San Remo, he'd very nearly won a world championship, in Copenhagen. The world was his oyster. But things never clicked. There's a confluence of factors that together unravelled Goss, the first, was the assumption that he could, or would be able to factor against the world's best sprinters in an incredibly tight, and highly competitive top-tier of fast men. In reflection, Matt White conceded last week that one of the big lessons with Goss was how dramatically the trend of finely-tuned lead out trains built specifically around a single key sprinter had altered the speed game. Cavendish and Greipel, the emergence of Marcel Kittel, and the fact that Peter Sagan was a better climber, and arguably faster finisher left Goss little opportunity to succeed. "We learnt that the hard way with Gossy," said White. "It's a very, very hard market to crack. Unless you can beat the Kittels, Greipels, or Cavs, of this world, you're pretty much wasting your time." At least in Goss's first year with Orica, the number of near misses would suggest that even with a team focused on delivering the Australian to the line, racking up the wins the team had hoped was going to be hard graft, harder still in the evolving sprint environment without a train that rivalled Argos, Lotto, or, more recently, Omega Pharma-Quick Step. Goss did win, once, at the Giro d'Italia, a landmark of sorts for the team as its first Grand Tour win, but the number of seconds, thirds and fourths, built in droves as further wins alluded him. As Goss sees it, contending with building a new squad around him, and vying for wins against the world's best was always going to have its challenges. At least initially he'd underestimated how long they would take to iron out. "I had a great season in 2011, but I had it in a team which had been around in one form or another for a long time, and had a well-drilled sprint train, a really disciplined setup," Goss said. "They knew how to do everything. In 2012, we didn't. I was building a leadout train from scratch, in doing sprints I'd never really done before - I'd never really done the big bunch sprints at the Grand Tours, I'd always worked for Cav. It was a new experience, really getting the leadout to work properly." The frustration with the team's teething problems in developing and honing a leadout, in building Goss into the sprinter they wanted him to be, netting the results they wanted, perhaps demanded, conspired to amplify in to pressure which Goss had previously never had to contend with. Perceived and real pressure The external pressure was there from the media, for Goss to perform. Questions were asked, doubts raised. Internally, the team remained patient, but Goss was feeling it all the same. "When it didn't work properly, really dealing with the pressure of the media - and everything - that was a different scenario to what I'd been used to in the past. I knew it was going to be more than usual, being an Australian team, Australian riders, and at the time being a marquee signing. I knew a lot of weight was going to be on my shoulders. "It was a combination of the pressure and expectation. It then snowballed after we missed out at the 2012 Tour." Expectation came with the money, both Orica-GreenEDGE insiders and Goss himself acknowledge, but how much pressure that actually materialised on the Australian is contentious. Orica was finding wins across the board, its first year seeing Michael Albasini, Luke Durbridge, Daryl Impey, Aidis Kruopis, Simon Clarke and Simon Gerrans all winning at twice or more. With Gerrans's victory at San Remo, the Tour Down Under, and the National Championships, the weight was off the team's collective shoulders, 26 wins in total in its debut season, nothing to snort at. Despite Goss being signed as the team's talismanic leader, the reality was that through such a spread pool of winners, Goss wasn't being relied on to perform. The internal pressure was less. Still it didn't make the results sheet any prettier. Goss wanted things to change. A better start to 2013 saw Goss end his pre-season and survive the hit out at Nationals, and then the Santos Tour Down Under in good shape, but winless. Success appeared to be in the offing. A win in Tirreno-Adriatico, channelling some of his old mongrel, just before Milan-San Remo was a breakthrough, and then he got sick. The unseasonably cold weather and high training load saw him repeatedly down with illness, something he failed to recover from the rest of the year. "I tried to do more and more training to catch up in 2013 to be better but it meant I was sick a lot, I did three course of antibiotics during the Giro that year just trying to push through, and basically burning myself out in the process. At the end of the day I was the one that was paid to put the runs on the board, though. I should've known how far I could've pushed myself." All the while, Simon Gerrans was lifting the team's profile into the stratosphere. Yellow, and a stage at the Tour de France, the "gift" to Daryl Impey, all overshadowed Goss. The signing of Michael Matthews, from Rabobank, and his immediate success gave the team a viable sprint alternative. Toward the end of 2013, Goss pulled the pin, and went back-to-basics. A fresh start The focus on Gerrans only increased this year. The team's golden boy delivered the team one of its biggest victories, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, while Matthews continued to quietly blossom. A growing tally of Grand Tour stage wins to Matthews name and leader's jersey both at the Vuelta and the Giro d'Italia have now eclipsed Goss's past contributions. As Orica shifts its focus to hillier races, the arrival of more versatile sprinters, and a string of dedicated climbers, the Tasmanian has become an expensive luxury that no longer fits the team's mould. Orica clearly didn't know what to do with the Australian this season, racing him sparingly, only 50 race days compared to 85 the year before, and often making him ride in support of Matthews or Gerrans rather than chase his own ambitions. A fresh start, by all reports, with MTN-Qhubeka, may foster Goss's resurgence as a force in the professional peloton. But exactly what the Australian needs to shift, or change is not clear. Goss will once more turn to single day races, drifting away from attempts to take swags of wins at the Giro or Tour de France, but presumably the same challenges that have blighted his success in recent years remain. A point often made in Goss's favour is that he remains remarkably young, still only 27. Indeed, if he can find a new lease of life at his new home there's huge scope to what his career might still offer. But there's plenty to prove. Goss says he's still motivated, but the last three years must weigh on the mind. "It's a fresh start, 2015, I'll go back to a role that I've had success with in the past (at Highroad)," says Goss. "There's another sprinter on the team who's a dedicated bunch sprinter, which means I can sit back a bit and take my opportunity from day-to-day, when they arrive, those harder stages, and one dayers again like San Remo. I won't have to keep trying something that isn't working. "I'm looking forward to again picking and choosing my days, that's always worked better for me in the past. I'm looking forward to it." Follow @al_hinds

President Trump will travel to Missouri on Wednesday as part of an ongoing effort to pressure Senate Democrats in states he won to back the Republican tax plan. Yet such lawmakers have shown they see no political incentive in supporting the legislation, which could come up for a vote in the upper chamber later this week. Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, whom the president will likely call out while on her home turf, joined more than a dozen fellow Democratic senators from red or swing states for a press conference Tuesday condemning the bill and calling for a bipartisan process to overhaul the tax code. The event was a remarkable demonstration of how the president and congressional Republicans have been unable to sway some of the most vulnerable senators up for re-election next year. Instead, Trump and the White House have spent the week trying to secure Republican votes for the bill, a dynamic that has given Democrats some political cover in holding out. A score released by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office on Sunday showed negative effects on middle-class taxpayers, which is buttressing Democratic opposition, as are polls showing the plan to be unpopular among voters. And if red state Democrats had been eager to back a tax reform measure, the Republicans’ inclusion of a repeal of the health care law’s individual mandate has provided an easy reason to say no to the GOP bill. “We all want to do tax reform, we all believe it needs to be done,” said West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who organized the Democrats’ press conference. “We’re willing to work and sit down. … There’s not one person here who hasn’t worked with a Republican.” Manchin hails from Trump country. His state voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton by 42 percentage points and gives the president his highest approval ratings in the nation. Unlike many of his Democratic colleagues, Manchin would likely be comfortable voting for something with the president’s name on it. But on both taxes and health care, Democrats have been united in opposition to GOP proposals, an indication of how they see political dynamics playing out in their states ahead of the 2018 midterms. “It has been staggering. It’s just amazing how poorly the president and GOP leaders have played their hand,” says Democratic operative Jim Manley, a former top aide to retired Sen. Harry Reid. “There is a handful of Democrats who would have been desperate to vote for a tax bill. But they’re feeling no pressure because the bill is so skewed towards the wealthy.” The CBO estimated the tax plan would add $1.4 trillion to the deficit over a decade, and would cause 4 million Americans to lose health insurance by 2019 and 13 million by 2027. (Republicans dispute the CBO analysis, arguing that the effect would be Americans would simply no longer be mandated to buy insurance, not that it would be taken away.) The report also estimated that Americans earning less than $75,000 would end up paying more in taxes by 2027, as individual tax cuts would expire. “We can do better in the Senate. We can actually come up with bipartisan solutions. ... Everyone here would agree we need a simpler tax code,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, arguing that working-class Americans would shoulder unfair burdens under the current proposal. Trump tried to court Heitkamp early on in the process. He invited the North Dakota Democrat aboard Air Force One to accompany him to a planned rally in her state in September. There to plug the bill, the president summoned Heitkamp on stage and called her a “good woman,” irking Republican operatives who hoped he would be tougher on the first-term incumbent. The event appeared to benefit Heitkamp, who faces a tough re-election next year. Trump also traveled to Indiana with Sen. Joe Donnelly, another Democrat facing a difficult re-election in 2018. Donnelly also joined Vice President Mike Pence for a tax reform event in their home state, which Trump carried by 19 points. During Tuesday’s press conference, Donnelly recalled those visits, attempting to show constituents he was willing to work with the White House. But the eventual legislation, he said, did not do enough for middle-class voters or for keeping jobs from going overseas. “This country is better off with a tax bill with 60 or 70 votes,” Donnelly said. Jon Tester of Montana, which Trump carried by 21 points, also participated in the press event. Trump has treated McCaskill more harshly than the others. During a visit to Springfield in August, he told the audience there to vote her out of office if she didn’t back the tax plan. “She’s got to make that commitment. If she doesn’t do it, we just can’t do this anymore with the obstruction and the obstructionists,” he said. Republicans in the state note that while McCaskill is a savvy politician, a no vote could come with peril. “She was never going to vote for tax reform,” says John Hancock, a former state GOP chairman. He labeled the two-term senator “a rhetorical moderate” who in fact is “actually quite liberal and out of step with Missouri voters.” Though McCaskill defeated a Republican incumbent to win her seat in 2006, Missouri has reddened since then. Last year, Trump carried it by 18 points, outperforming Mitt Romney’s 2012 support by eight points. Nonetheless, McCaskill isn’t feeling much pressure. She voted against the Senate bill in the Banking Committee earlier this month. “I wanted to support real tax reform. This isn’t it — this is a bad deal for Missouri families,” she said in a statement. In a sign of how the legislation is unlikely to garner bipartisan support, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched new ads this week slamming the measure as a tax increase for families. “These wrong and self-serving priorities are guaranteed to turn off voters of every political persuasion, and every GOP Senate candidate will be held accountable for their toxic and unpopular tax scam,” said the DSCC chairman, Sen. Chris Van Hollen. Still, the legislation appeared to pick up some needed momentum on Tuesday when Trump traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with Republican lawmakers. The bill passed the Finance Committee afterward on party lines, with skeptics Bob Corker of Tennessee and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin coming aboard. Unlike with the unsuccessful health care repeal effort, Republicans in Congress appear more eager to get to a yes vote, cognizant of the political backlash they would face following another GOP defeat.

'Naughty' joke gets Santa Claus fired from Macy's SAN FRANCISCO John Toomey has been known as "Santa John" at the Union Square Macy's for more than 20 years -- but no more. John Toomey has been known as "Santa John" at the Union Square Macy's for more than 20 years -- but no more. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close 'Naughty' joke gets Santa Claus fired from Macy's 1 / 7 Back to Gallery Santa Claus has been canned from Macy's, and he's anything but jolly about it. His fans aren't happy, either. And there are many. John Toomey, known for 20 years at the Union Square Macy's in San Francisco as "Santa John," was told Saturday he'll have to take his "ho, ho, hos" elsewhere because an adult couple complained about a joke he cracked. The joke has been in his Santa bag for decades. But after thousands of tellings, the 68-year-old retired caretaker for the elderly finally hit the wrong recipients - apparently an older woman and her husband, who considered it inappropriate. Toomey - who stays in Oroville most summers and winters in San Francisco while he does the kiddie-on-the-knee gig - said he'd never had complaints before about the joke, which he saves for the occasional grown-up who visits him. "When I ask the older people who sit on my lap if they've been good and they say, 'Yes,' I say, 'Gee, that's too bad,' " Toomey said Monday. "Then, if they ask why Santa is so jolly, I joke that it's because I know where all the naughty boys and girls live." The kids who sit on his lap, he said, get only his trademark laugh and questions about what toys they want. Macy's spokeswoman Betsy Nelson said the store cannot comment because the matter involves personnel. But several workers used words including "devastated" and "overreaction" to describe their take on Santa John being booted from his throne at Santaland on the seventh floor. They all asked not be named because store policy forbids them from speaking publicly about such matters, but their un-yule-ish gloom was palpable. "People make a pilgrimage to see him every year, some for as long as 15 years," said one worker. "Everyone loves him. Everybody's just heartsick about this." Many customers said that with his gentle manner, chest-length white beard and well-practiced laugh, Toomey looks so genuine you expect elves to be playing at his feet. "He's totally the best Santa ever, very jolly and very authentic," said Sharon Owens, 56, of Oakland. "I've been coming to see him for years. There's just nobody better." She and a friend, 56-year-old Theresa Pepin of Martinez, came Monday to see Santa John, and shock swept across their faces when they saw a new Kriss Kringle in his place. The new guy was doing just fine - but the women missed their old favorite. "We're very sad," Pepin said. As for Santa John: He's retreated to his local north pole station, otherwise known as a hotel on Market Street, to see what becomes of his request for reconsideration. "Everything was going OK until this couple came in," he said. "I don't know why they reported me. I don't think I said anything untoward." There's no doubt Toomey takes seriously the responsibility that comes with the red hat. "With the children, it's important to listen carefully to them and make sure they're doing things properly, like brushing their teeth, helping Mom around the house, things like that," Toomey said. "Then when they tell you what they want, repeat it loudly enough so the parents can hear, and tell the child you'll talk it over with Mrs. Santa and the elves. That way you leave it up to the parents. "It's an important job," he said, "and the joking around like I did is only for the adults." While he waits to see if Macy's will relent, Toomey is looking into hiring himself out at parties and other stores. "I've got my Social Security and some savings, so I'll be OK," he said. "But I sure do miss being Santa."

May 1st, 2013 RAWTunes.exe 10 July / December 2012 RAWTunes.exe 10 is a noise-art album made in homage to the now late, (great?) iTunes 10 release. As iTunes 11 makes its way onto computers across the globe this album will remain as a media-archive of splendid noises transcoded from iTunes 10 executables. Available for £7.99 on iTunes, now and forever (or as long as I keep paying the renewal fee). Last year I released a music single through iTunes. Entitled RAWTunes.exe 10.4.2, it was my first foray into sound-art/noise-art. Today, I AM a popstar. I am proud to announce the release of my 8 track album RAWTunes.exe 10! You can listen to a selection of tracks below (making sure that all small children and dogs are at a safe distance), or buy the whole lot on iTunes for £7.99 (also at Amazon and Spotify) It took me about 20 minutes to make this album. Here’s how you can do it yourself: Using a program like Audacity, open ANY file as RAW data (see this video tutorial for detailed instructions) Choose your conversion method The file you send to iTunes and release to the world MUST be in this format: 16 bit (sample size), 44.1 kHz (sample rate), 1411 kbps (bit rate) stereo wav So, after playing with your file (or not doing anything in particular) export it with these options Using a service like TuneCore, release your album to the world Become a famous Noise artist like me I chose to convert a series of iTunes executable files, each one plucked from a long list of releases under the iTunes 10 label, but you can choose anything. Have a look on Soundcloud for a bunch of people who have done just this. This is ‘art’, so of course my work has to be critically engaged, and self aware. Thankfully, iTunes regulations make this really easy: Content that is not produced by Apple Inc. must not include the word “iTunes” anywhere in the metadata or cover art. I would argue that the content of my album is 100% ‘produced by Apple Inc.’ but they wouldn’t let me call it ‘iTunes.exe 10’. It was only after several iterations of cover art that the album was allowed into the Apple store. These are just some of the woes that a true Noise artist must suffer in the pursuit of their art. RAWerTUNES10dotEXE [3Dude Remix] May 2013 The RAWTunes homage to iTunes 10 was later been transcoded and extruded into another iteration, in a collaboration with Alex Myers. You could hear, see and 3D print RAWerTUNES10dotEXE at your own great expense at Run Computer, Run exhibition, Rua Red, Dublin (May 2013). ALEX MYERS Alex Myers makes artgames to explore how accidental meaning/anomalous discourse emerges by breaking rule-based game spaces to disrupt player expectations and concepts. He is an Assistant Professor and Director of Game Studies at Bellevue University. Alex has exhibited at NP3 in Groningen,Nikolaj Kunsthallen in Copenhagen, Lab for Electronic Art and Performance, Berlin, Interaccess in Toronto, FACT in Liverpool, and LACDA in Los Angeles. www.alexmyers.info / twitter @aandnota

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has described as ‘disgusting’ pictures of Ukraine rebels digging through the possessions of people killed in the Malaysia plane crash disaster. In a short news conference, Rutte said he had just had a ‘very intense’ phone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin. ‘I told him “time is running out for you to show the world that you have good intentions, that you will take responsibility”,’ Rutte said. Putin now ‘has to show that he will do what is expected of him and will exert his influence,’ the Dutch prime minister said. ‘It is 35 degrees there. The bodies need to be recovered now. I want to see results, unhindered access and the repatriation of the victims.’ Personal The phone conversation with Putin was ‘very personal’, the Dutch prime minister said. ‘I think the entire Dutch population knows people who directly or indirectly know someone who was on board. There were 80 people under the age of 18, of whom 23 were under the age of 12 and three were babies. It is too terrible for words.’ Images of rebels holding up children’s toys were ‘too disgusting for words’, Rutte said. Such action is also hindering the investigation into the crash, he said. Investigators Earlier on Saturday, Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans met Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in Kiev and told him the Netherlands was ‘angry, furious’ at the news that bodies were being dragged around the crash site, Reuters said. ‘Once we have the proof, we will not stop before the people are brought to justice. Not just the people who pulled the trigger but also those who made it possible. I think the international community needs to step up its efforts in this respect,’ Reuters quoted Timmermans as saying. According to Dutch broadcaster Nos, Poroschenko in turn told Timmermans it is unacceptable that international experts are being denied access to the disaster zone. ‘We will not tolerate interference with the work of the commission and that those representatives of other countries do not have the possibility of conducting an objective investigation,’ Poroshenko is quoted as saying. Denials However, the separatists deny interfering, Nos television reports. It quotes ‘one of their commanders’ as saying they have promised the OSCE that they will not touch bodies or the remains of the plane. As well as the Dutch, Malaysian and Ukrainian researchers have arrived in the region to begin investigating the crash. Two German forensic pathologists are also on their way to Ukraine, as is a six-strong British team, Nos television said. Malaysia Airlines released the full passenger list on Saturday. The Dutch death toll is now put at 193, out of 298 people on board the plane. Rutte’s statement (official English translation)

Julian Assange's residency at the Ecuadorian embassy in London would be coming to an end should Ecuadorian presidential hopeful Guillermo Lasso win the election next week. Lasso made the remarks in an interview to the Guardian on 9 February. "The Ecuadorian people have been paying a cost that we should not have to bear," he said during an interview in Quito. "We will cordially ask Señor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate." Israel: 12th Dead Sea Scroll cave of Qumran discovered The right-wing candidate of the Creo-Suma alliance is running behind the ruling socialist party candidate Lenin Moreno in the first round of the vote on 19 February. Moreno served as vice-president under current president Rafael Correa between 2007 and 2013. He is a well-known activists for the rights of people with disability as he has been in a wheelchair since he was shot in a robbery in 1998. He has been leading the polls since November, but Lasso, who is a former banker, could still stand a chance of winning should the two face each other in a run-off. Couple arrested after autistic girl found locked in cage covered in excrement The Correa government has been supporting Assange's request of political asylum since 2012 when the Australian sought refuge in the country's embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is accused of rape. But, according to the Guardian, politicians and diplomats are increasingly weary of the situation and occasional tensions have surfaced. Internet access to the Wikileaks founder was temporarily cut during the US presidential election, when his website published leaked email about the Democratic Party and its candidate Hillary Clinton. "We wanted to be clear that our sovereign space was not being used for interference in the election of another country," the foreign minister, Guillaume Long told the British newspaper. Man trapped underwater by digger saved by using yoga position He added that there is a human cost to the situation and that the embassy staff has been "through a lot". "This is probably the most watched embassy on the planet," he said. According to Long, the staff tried to give Assange, who recently said he had not seen the sunlight in four years, as much comfort as possible, but the building does not have outside areas and he occupies a room on the first floor, where there is not much light. Julian Assange More Regardless of Ecuador's decision, Assange himself may decide to leave of his own free will. While the only extradition request for Assange is from Sweden, he has refused to go to the Scandinavian country for fear he would be handed over to the US, where the Department of Justice (DoJ) has a case open against Wikileaks for the disclosure of thousands of confidential government documents. Assange and his team contested the legality of the DoJ investigation, but agreed to US extradition on the condition that Wikileaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who was serving a 35-year prison sentence, was released. Former President Barack Obama commuted Manning's sentence on 17 January and the former US soldier is due for release in May. Assange has since been vague as to how he will proceed. Speaking to British channel ITV, he said he may consider going to the US to help close the DoJ investigation once and for all: "If to settle the matter it requires going to the United States, where certain circumstances and where my rights are protected then that's something we want to discuss, but the ball is in the DoJ court." In an interview to Australian television, Assange was a little clearer about his intentions. "We had a major strategic victory in liberating Chelsea Manning – the most significant alleged whistleblower in the last 10 years" he said "But of course saying I'm willing to accept extradition doesn't mean I'm saying, I'm willing to be a complete idiot and throw all my lawyers away." Get your daily digest with the best of the day's news, opinion, entertainment and sport You may be interested in:

Jess said she was sorry for getting her father into trouble (pic: MEN) A man who was arrested and cautioned for slapping his 13-year-old daughter across the face fears he will no longer be able to work with children. Jim McCullough, of Manchester, hit Jess after she banged a neighbour's window at midnight, and she called the police. He has now quit the football coaching and community work he has done for over 15 years, as the caution could stop him working with vulnerable children. Mr McCullough said he had never slapped Jess before. She has apologised. The father-of-four said he felt striking Jess was the only way to get her to understand what she had done. The single parent, from Wythenshawe, said: "I wish I had asked for my day in court rather than accepted a police caution. "That way I could have explained that I was trying to do what was right for my daughter. I did deserve the slapping because of the things I'd been doing Jess McCullough "Jess isn't bad, but some of the 13-year-olds who live here do use drugs and drink and I don't want that path for her." Mr McCullough said he had had no trouble with his other three children Christopher, 22, Nicola, 21, and Joanna, 19. A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: "When an offence is admitted the offender is always liable to receive a caution. "Had the offence not been admitted, officers would have pursued the matter with the CPS. 'Wrong message' "An allegation of domestic violence was made and GMP officers always take these allegations very seriously." Mr McCullough previously had a clean criminal record and recently qualified as a security guard, but said his work prospects had been ruined. Jess, a year nine pupil at Parklands High School in Wythenshawe, said she was sorry for what had happened. She said: "I did deserve the slapping because of the things I'd been doing. "I was expecting my dad to come home from the police station and for everything to be the same as before." National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) policy manager Lucy Thorpe said: "All parents can sometimes be pushed to the limit by teenagers who are looking to see how far they can go but smacking won't solve the problem. "It simply tells your child that violence is acceptable and gives the message that it's all right for them to hit other people." Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Advertisement E-mail this to a friend Printable version Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these?

FC Dallas travel to Denver this Friday to face the Colorado Rapids in a rematch of the match no one will forget this year. The last time these teams faced off, Colorado picked FC Dallas apart piece by piece and went on to score four goals in a 4-0 romping, the worst loss for FC Dallas in the Oscar Pareja era. It was a loss that made this FC Dallas team much more focused, and motivated, which we saw in the match against Toronto. This week could also mark the return of Mauro Diaz, which could change Colorado’s game plan heading into this Friday’s match. The biggest thing we saw during the last match against Colorado was that the Rapids knew exactly what FC Dallas were going to do, and stuck to their guns to shut down Dallas. After the quick goal Colorado got from Dominique Badji, all they had to do was see out their game plan. The plan was to force FC Dallas into the middle and never effectively use Fabian Castillo or Ryan Hollingshead. When you do not have the passing prowess of Mauro Diaz in the midfield, which Dallas did not have against Colorado the first time, it can be troubling. There was no one there to play cutting through balls through the middle of the backline. The plan was very effective, as no one on this FC Dallas team has quite the vision that Diaz has and it was apparent as they could not find the open outside pass. Move the calendar forward eight days, and we see a motivated FC Dallas come out and run rampant over Toronto FC until a storm comes and delays the game ruining their flow. We really have to look at the three goals we saw from FC Dallas, as they were exactly what FC Dallas want to do week in and week out. The first goal was made with brilliant passing, and burning speed from Fabian Castillo proving that Castillo is absolutely one of the most dangerous attackers in MLS. It was the fastest goal against an MLS opponent in club history. The second goal was a brilliant through ball from Blas Perez and a great curler from Castillo, and goal number three was just flat out hustle from Hollingshead and then Perez being Perez with his poacher goal. FC Dallas played exactly how they wanted to play, and with passion. If you compare the Toronto defense with the Colorado defense head-to-head, they Toronto defense is facing injuries, and not been as stout as the Colorado defense. Obviously Castillo facing off with Nick Hagglund plays in favor of Castillo. The Colorado defense can be beat on the counter attack as Seattle proved, so the speed of Castillo, possibly Michael Barrios and the passing of Mauro Diaz will be crucial in breaking down Colorado and not getting the 4-0 smacking that happened last time out. Mauro Diaz is expected to make his return as he practiced with the ones for the full week. With Marcelo Sarvas missing due to suspension, the Colorado midfield will be vulnerable. Against Toronto, Michel and Victor Ulloa had a much better showing than what they had against Colorado the first time out. As noted, of their 14 unsuccessful passes, 6 of them were inside Dallas’ own half. They improved greatly in the match against Toronto with 18 unsuccessful passes, only 4 made FC Dallas have to reel back on the defensive. Most were near the halfway line. With Mauro Diaz expected to make his return, Michel could be forced out of the XI, if FC Dallas goes into a 4-4-2. That would put Diaz and Ulloa as the midfielders for Friday. Defensively, FC Dallas looked confused last time out against Colorado. The combination of Walker Zimmerman and Zach Loyd proved to be leaky, and Je-Vaughn Watson was rusty in his first start back. In the Toronto match we saw the normal combo of Matt Hedges, who was injured for the last match against Colorado, and Zach Loyd, which looked a lot better, and much more organized. Really, the biggest FC Dallas defensive gaff came in the 85th minute when they did not close Sebastian Giovinco down, and he hit an outstanding curler that almost went in from the top of box. The defense was great in playing defense in front and making Toronto attack them, and being up to the task. The two goals for Toronto were absolute class from Giovinco that Real Madrid would have trouble stopping. Colorado have only won one of their past four at home, so FC Dallas may have caught them at a right time. This one is a tough one to call, as FC Dallas are motivated and are good enough to beat the Rapids, but the Rapids have the confidence of a 4-0 win under their belt and know FC Dallas’ weaknesses. This is a new Dallas team though, they are motivated and never want to let a score line like that happen again.

CLEVELAND -- Indians owner Paul Dolan could soon have a financial partner. An investment banker hired by Dolan last year to search for a minority owner said Thursday that a "small group" of investors has been identified and a deal could be completed soon. Steve Greenberg, managing director of Allen & Company, a New York-based financial boutique that has brokered sports acquisitions in the past, said the pursuit of an investor has narrowed and Dolan's goal to bring in someone to ease his financial burden and add capital could be finalized by the end of the year. "Being a baseball guy let me describe it this way," said Greenberg, whose father, Hank, was the Indians' general manager from 1950-59. "We're in the bottom of the seventh inning. It's not over yet, but we can see the outcome if we just get two innings of relief ball." Greenberg did not identify the group or what percentage of the team it would purchase from Dolan. The Indians owner, whose family bought the team from Richard Jacobs in 1999, has no intention of selling the majority share of the Indians, who went 81-80 this season and missed the playoffs for the seventh time in eight years. Greenberg has had major success in completing business deals. He created regional sports TV channels in Chicago and New York, helped the Wilpon family land a $400 million naming rights deal for Citi Field and worked with Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert on the purchase of the NBA's Cavaliers. Because Major League Baseball does not have a salary cap, mid-market teams such as the Indians are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to signing free agents. Cleveland has to be selective and one or two bad signings, as was the case with outfielders Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher in 2013 to deals totaling $104 million, can have a debilitating effect. Greenberg doesn't think a minority investor in Cleveland will necessarily change Dolan's spending habits radically, but it can provide a stronger economic foothold. "I don't think it's going to be that kind of a game changer," Greenberg said when asked if an infusion of capital will alter the Indians' philosophy in building their roster. "I wouldn't expect that, but what I do think it does, however, is broaden the base of ownership. If there are years where you lose a little bit of money, it's not as stressful and you don't feel the need to trim payroll in August and September or July if you're out of the pennant race because you're not writing the whole check." In recent years, Dolan's spending or lack thereof has angered some Indians fans, who complain that he doesn't do enough to make his team more competitive. Cleveland's attendance has been dropped over the past decade and the team drew just 1.38 million fans -- second lowest in the majors -- and the lowest in 22 seasons at Progressive Field. Greenberg believes the addition of a minority owner in Cleveland can help change any perception about Dolan. "If we bring in the right partner, separate and apart from any capital he may bring, we're also hoping that the partner becomes a true partner in terms of running the business in terms of ideas and contributes beyond any check he writes, so I think it will be perceived as, and will hopefully also be, a positive factor," he said.

Not much will have changed when Beavis and Butt-head returns to MTV in the fall after nearly 15 years off the air. But while the boys may still be clad in their AC/DC and Metallica shirts, they’ve got an whole lot of ammunition at their disposal when it comes to pop culture, including Jersey Shore and Twilight. Writer-creator Mike Judge and executive producer Van Toffler offered a glimpse Friday at the Television Critics’ Association summer press tour at what could be expected from the animated hit. 1. Judge was nervous about including Jersey Shore in Beavis and Butt-head and watched MTV’s reality hit at Toffler’s recommendation. “It was paydirt,” Judge said, confessing that he’s now “hooked” on the Jersey crew. Toffler, meanwhile, doesn’t expect the housemates to ask for additional compensation when they appear in clips on the animated series. “I’d be scared to think of them with more money than they already have,” Toffler said, noting that he expects the gang to love being subjected to the Beavis and Butt-head treatment. STORY: ‘Beavis and Butt-Head Returning to MTV’ 2. Time stands still. Judge said he wanted new episodes to be topical – Twilight and vampire humor is included in the new trailer – but that there won’t be a specific instance where the series acknowledges the nearly 15-year gap between new episodes. “I wanted to make it not feel too forced; to make it as seamless as I could to what it was how ever many years ago,” he noted. 3. There’s plenty of ammunition for the boys to riff on. Judge said targets in the new episodes include UFC fights, Internet stuff and ... movie reviews. “We have a think where they’re kind of like Siskel & Ebert,” he said. 4. The animation process has been updated. When the original series aired from 1993 to 1997, Judge noted that Beavis and Butt-head — like The Simpsons and King of the Hill – was hand inked and painted onto cells and shot on film. That’s all been digitized now. “It still looks crappy,” Judge joked. “But I like the way it looks.” “It’s high-def, there are some differences.” STORY: ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ Riff on ‘Jersey Shore’ in MTV Series Relaunch (Video) 5. The boys will still be watching music videos. MGMT, Deadmau5 and Tbaby’s “It’s So Cold in the D” will be among the artists Judge noted will be getting the Beavis & Butt-head treatment. 6. Beavis, meet technology. With Beavis and Butt-head returning to a world that now features cell phones, Facebook and Twitter, Judge said he didn’t want to force “all the modern stuff on them,” but did tease to an upcoming episode where the boys work in tech support. 7. Daria might be back. MTV’s Toffler, an executive producer on the series, notes that the animated spinoff from Beavis and Butt-head that airs in reruns on MTV2 and Logo and has done well on both. “We’ve talked to the creators so there is not as long a shot as you’d think that Daria might be back on one of our channels. Beavis and Butt-head premieres the first of its 12 new episodes on Oct. 27 at 10 p.m. on MTV. Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit

Story highlights New findings suggest sperm alone could be used to create children in the future Research overturns almost 200 years of knowledge about fertilization (CNN) It might be possible in the future to make babies without female eggs, new research claims. Scientists at Bath University in the United Kingdom say they have successfully used sperm to create healthy baby mice by injecting the sperm cells directly into embryos. "Up until now people thought the only way you could fertilize a cell with a sperm and have offspring is if the cell is an egg," Dr Tony Perry , University of Bath molecular embryologist and senior researcher, told CNN. "(We thought) only a sperm in an egg can give you offspring. So that's something that kind of erodes from the first." This isn't the first time scientists have attempted unconventional fertilization techniques -- previously researchers "tricked" eggs into developing into embryos without fertilization by sperm. Read More

(I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my review) This is an absolutely fantastic book! And I DO NOT give out praise like that all willy nilly. I immensely enjoyed reading Vision and am so glad I was given a chance to review it. So, a BIG thanks to the authors! I was not quite sure what to expect when I agreed to review this novel. The synopsis intrigued me and I was interested to see how the authors had chosen to portray demons. There are a lot of different takes on demons and for the most part I am not that fond of them as a subject for a book. However, Cathy and Galen changed my mind with this one. The demons in this book do have a supernatural element to them but they are more than that. To me they seemed to be depicted as the negative subconscious thoughts that tend to plague humans. That voice that encourages defeat and lack of confidence when life seems to be dragging you down. However, Vision is not so much about the demons, as it is about the main character and what she can do in her life because she can see them. This book was original and had a wonderful story line. I like books with a message and this one really stood out to me. I enjoyed Maddies' character. She is strong and determined and most importantly, she has hope. She never gives up on Cassie, which is something I so admired about her. She portrays a friend anyone would be lucky to have. I enjoyed the development of her character as the story progressed and am so glad that she eventually found her voice. Music is a huge part of this book and really made the story special. I enjoyed all the references to music artists and even looked some of them up. Vision had a perfect ending. It kind of makes your heart swell at the last page. I don't want to give it away, so I am not going to say anything more. This book has a great pace and I was hooked from the first chapter. I told myself I was only going to read the first fifty pages, but the story compels you to read on. I ended up not moving from my spot until I was finished. It was one of those situations where you have to know what is going to happen next. I am highly recommending this book to all readers. If you are looking for something different that also happens to be a page turner, read this book!

@cheesyhel/Twitter A birthday greeting card that tells 13-year-old girls they could get jewels from rich boyfriends "when they have bigger boobies" has sparked outrage on Twitter. The condemnation was unleashed following a Dec. 7 tweet from user @cheesyhels in the United Kingdom: "Look at this shockingly awful card I found today for a 13 year old!" she wrote, along with a link to an image of the card. The card, created more than 14 years ago by a company that was since acquired by Hallmark Cards UK, read: "You're 13 today! If you had a rich boyfriend he'd give you diamonds and rubies Well, maybe next year you will - when you've bigger boobies!" The drawing on the Arnold Barton brand card depicts a girl holding a box containing a ring. There was immediate outrage on Twitter. The original tweet was retweeted 515 times. American author Maureen Johnson also tweeted about the card, and her tweet was retweeted more than 1,100 times. User ?@andrewtshaffer tweeted in response: "I hope when she's 14 she doesn't have a boyfriend buying her rubies because of her boobies." Other Twitter users expressed disbelief. "Is that real? That cannot be real," Tweeted user ?@katelinnea. @cheesyhels also tweeted the image to Twitter user @LynnCSchreiber, who wrote a post about it for Jump!, a British magazine for young girls. In her post, Schreiber wrote: "Words failed me when a Twitter friend showed me the card that she had seen in a local newsagent." "You won't have to rely on a boyfriend, or hope that your 'boobies' grow big enough," Schreiber's post continued. "You will be successful and happy because of your intelligence and creativity, not because of your looks." Hallmark's U.S. corporate office posted an apology from Hallmark UK on its website on December 7. It also explained that the card was created before Hallmark bought the company in 1998. "We are as surprised and horrified as anyone else to have discovered that there are still copies in circulation," David Dean, managing director of Hambledon Studios, a subsidiary of Hallmark UK, said in the statement. "The card has not been produced for over 15 years and would never pass our own strict guidelines of taste and appropriateness. We would like to assure all our customers that we will do everything in our power to track down remaining copies." Schreiber updated her blog and posted on Twitter to ask that people not blow the issue out of proportion. "We didn't not intend to get the Twitchforks out against either the manufacturer of the card … or the company who now own the manufacturer," she wrote in an update to her initial blog.

Days after making all of us *facepalm* by pointing out that 32% of all Americans think the Syrian crisis is part of the “End Times,” LifeWay Research has published another result from the same poll and this one’s equally disturbing if not worse: LifeWay Research asked four questions about mental illness as part of a telephone survey of 1,001 Americans conducted Sept. 6-10, 2013. Thirty-five percent agree with the statement, “With just Bible study and prayer, ALONE, people with serious mental illness like depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia could overcome mental illness.” … Evangelical, fundamentalist, or born-again Christians (48 percent) agree prayer can overcome mental illness. Only 27 percent of other Americans agree. When I think about how many other obviously ridiculous things evangelicals believe with no evidence whatsoever — Jesus rose from the dead, people choose to be gay, Sarah Palin would have made a great Vice President — their gullibility here shouldn’t surprise me at all. But 27% of everybody else? For shame, non-evangelical Americans… God can’t heal you (even if He makes you feel better) and the Bible doesn’t contain any magic words. There’s always an uproar, and rightfully so, when Christian Science parents pray for their children’s life-threatening illnesses instead of taking them to a doctor. So where’s the uproar here? Mental illness should be treated no differently from other kinds; those who have it deserve care from experts, not imaginary friends. Even Pastor Rick Warren said as much after his son committed suicide several months ago: In spite of America’s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided. Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life. Yes, the Warrens prayed. But they also did things that actually had a chance of helping their son. That they couldn’t save his life isn’t a knock on professional help (or the Warrens themselves), but a reminder that mental illness is not a problem that can be so quickly or easily treated. Ed Stetzer, the president of LifeWay Research, adds that this position — that Jesus and the Bible alone can cure things like depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia — is one Christians would be wise to avoid: … he worries some Christians see mental illness as a character flaw rather than a medical condition. Christians will go to the doctor if they break their leg, he said. But some may try to pray away serious mental illness. “They forget that the key part of mental illness is the word ‘illness,’” he said. Damn right. On a side note, if you haven’t seen it yet, watch this powerful TED talk from Kevin Breel in which he talks about his depression:

TORONTO – When playoff time comes, the smallest margins can have major impacts. Toronto FC head into the first leg of the Eastern Conference Championship with the aim of extending their 2016 Audi MLS Cup Playoff run. Standing in their way are a familiar foe: Montreal Impact. The Canadian rivals are well acquainted, having played some eight times over the past calendar year, but Tuesday's game (8 pm ET, TSN1/3, RDS in Canada | ESPN in US) brings a new wrinkle into the occasion, as the match will be played at Olympic Stadium, also known as the "Big O." Compared to Stade Saputo, the massive Big O, poses a unique challenge, foremost in the mind is, of course, the surface. Where Saputo houses a fine grass pitch, the Big O's is artificial turf. “It's going to be different,” said Toronto FC midfielder Jonathan Osorio last week. “...Both teams are going to play on it; it's going to be a level playing field. A couple of things will be different, but we'll just have to adjust.” “Usually these turf field are fast, they're bouncy,” remarked head coach Greg Vanney. “The game has a hard time settling down because the ball doesn't settle. It's a different type of game, we have to be ready for anything. You have to be switched on, ready for a game that could be high energy; the ball will be fast, the intensity will be there no question.” As a club, TFC are no strangers to the Big O. They have played there three times, twice in the league and once in the Amway Canadian Championship – both MLS matches ended in 2-1 losses, while the cup match was a 0-0 affair – but the last time was back in 2013. Osorio and defender Ashtone Morgan are the lone Toronto holdovers from that time. “Turf is just one factor,” reiterated Vanney at a subsequent media session last week. “If they train on it, maybe they get an advantage, but the game comes down to who can execute in key moments and who is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition, and who can deal with it.” Another consideration that must factor into the calculus is that this is only the first leg. With the second game at BMO Field, will TFC look to play shutdown soccer away, or aim to secure an advantage to take home? “It's important that we set ourselves up appropriately. That's the key to going on the road first,” explained Vanney. “We've seen in this last round, it doesn't always benefit those teams [to have the second leg at home]. We have to be smart about it: pay attention to details, stay together, work hard for the common goal. If we can do that, we give ourselves the best shot.” Still another variable will be the vociferous and partisan crowd. Montreal recently announced they have sold over 50,000 tickets with the match still six days away, and while there will be a 1,400-plus strong crowd of Toronto fans, the vast majority will be supporting the team in blue. “It's going to be a great crowd, [a] good time atmosphere, so we're excited about that,” said TFC goalkeeper Clint Irwin last week. And superstar Sebastian Giovinco welcomed the spectacle: “It's a show; the more people in attendance the better.”

ESPN legal analyst Roger Cossack explains possible reasons why Ronald Gasser, the man named as shooting Joe McKnight, was released from custody and has not been formally charged. (2:17) The shooting death of former USC Trojans and New York Jets running back Joe McKnight in a New Orleans suburb was a "road rage" incident that started on a nearby bridge, a sheriff said Friday, as he urged against a rush to judgment and defended his handling of the case as the alleged shooter was released overnight. McKnight was shot and killed Thursday afternoon in the community of Terrytown, just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. Authorities have identified 54-year-old Ronald Gasser, who stayed at the scene, as the shooter, and he was released overnight, sparking criticism. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand said during a news conference on Friday that the altercation that ended with McKnight's death started on a nearby bridge -- possibly when one of the two men cut the other off -- and then proceeded into nearby streets in the New Orleans suburb. He did not say which driver cut off the other. Authorities said Gasser shot McKnight three times through an open window from inside his car with a semi-automatic handgun while McKnight was standing outside. Normand said witnesses observed a "heated verbal exchange" between Gasser and McKnight before the shooting. However, Normand said that one witness account, which indicated Gasser was standing over McKnight when he fired a shot, was factually incorrect and "did not happen." Normand said three casings were located inside Gasser's vehicle, and coroner Gerry Cvitanovich said Friday that McKnight had wounds to his left hand and entry wounds to his right shoulder and the right side of his chest. Gasser stayed at the scene, relinquished his semi-automatic handgun to officers and was taken into custody and questioned, the sheriff said. No guns were found outside either vehicle. According to The Times-Picayune, Gasser told police he was the shooter. Normand said later Friday in a news release that the man who shot McKnight was involved in a 2006 altercation at the same intersection, during which he chased down and struck another male driver, who had observed a truck driving erratically and called a phone number on the truck and spoke to a man later identified as Gasser. Gasser and the 51-year-old man got into an argument on the phone, according to the sheriff's statement. Gasser followed the man to a service station and "began to strike him with a closed fist several times." Gasser drove away and the other man called 911. Investigators found Gasser and issued a misdemeanor summons for simple battery, which was later dismissed. Protesters upset at Gasser's overnight release gathered outside the sheriff's office earlier Friday. Normand defended his handling of the current case, saying the investigation was ongoing. No charges have been filed, with Normand saying the state has certain "statutes" that provide a defense to certain crimes, but he did not go into further detail. "The easiest thing for me would have been, 'Book him, Danno.' Right?" Normand said, referring to the police saying made popular on "Hawaii Five-O." "Mr. Gasser is not going anywhere. He has been completely cooperative with us in every request we have made. We will do a very thorough and deliberate investigation." The body of former NFL player Joe McKnight lies between the alleged shooter's vehicle at left and his Audi SUV at right on Thursday in Terrytown, Louisiana. Michael DeMocker/AP Photo Normand said he did not want to go into detail about the investigation, saying that he did not want to taint any prospective witnesses that might still come forward. McKnight's grandmother said family members are still seeking information on his death and why Gasser was released. Barbara Franklin told The Associated Press by phone Friday that relatives are "trying to find out our own selves" more about what happened. She said relatives haven't had any communication with the sheriff's office about Gasser's release, saying she learned of it through a radio broadcast on Friday. "He might be released now, but God is going to bring about justice in it," Franklin said. Gasser couldn't immediately be reached by The Associated Press. Gasser's release immediately raised questions about what exactly led to the shooting. Arthur A. Lemmann, a New Orleans-based attorney not connected with the case, told The Associated Press it was too early to tell but that it could indicate Gasser had said he acted in self-defense. "It's not the end of the matter. They can continue to investigate. They can always bring charges, but what it indicates to me is that there was some basis to believe that the homicide was justified. And the most typical justification of a homicide is self-defense," Lemmann said. McKnight was born in River Ridge, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, and starred at John Curtis Christian High School. He was considered the No. 1 running back recruit in the country when he signed with USC. He played three seasons at USC (2007-09) under coach Pete Carroll and was often compared to do-it-all running back Reggie Bush. McKnight totaled 2,755 yards from scrimmage and 15 touchdowns while with the Trojans, and his 2,213 career rushing yards are 16th all time at the school. He did not play in the final game of the 2009 season -- the Emerald Bowl -- as USC investigated him for allegedly receiving improper benefits. He eventually left school for the NFL draft, where the Jets made him a fourth-round pick in 2010. He spent three seasons with New York, earning one start in 39 games and totaling 502 yards rushing and 177 yards receiving. He also was one of the NFL's top kick returners in 2011 and 2012, averaging 29.4 yards per return over that span. The Jets will honor McKnight with a moment of silence before their Monday night game. But McKnight landed in the doghouse amid a turbulent training camp in 2013. He flunked the team's conditioning test, blaming dehydration; he was arrested in New Jersey on outstanding traffic violations on an off day; he missed practice time with what the team characterized as a "head injury" and McKnight later called a concussion; and he got into a war of words with a fan on Twitter, suggesting they meet for a fight. McKnight was released by the Jets in August 2013, the biggest surprise of the team's final cuts before the regular season. McKnight signed with the Kansas City Chiefs in January 2014, playing two games that year and scoring two touchdowns, both on receptions, before tearing an Achilles tendon. He played in the CFL this season, with the Edmonton Eskimos and Saskatchewan Roughriders. He had 38 rushes for 228 yards for the Roughriders, whose season ended Nov. 5. As of Thursday, he still was listed on their roster. McKnight is the second NFL player to die as a result of an apparent road rage incident in 2016. New Orleans Saints defensive end Will Smith was killed in April. Information from ESPN staff writer Rich Cimini and The Associated Press was used in this report.

Appearance and function match the final product, but is made with different manufacturing methods. Looks like the final product, but is not functional. Demonstrates the functionality of the final product, but looks different. A prototype is a preliminary model of something. Projects that offer physical products need to show backers documentation of a working prototype. This gallery features photos, videos, and other visual documentation that will give backers a sense of what’s been accomplished so far and what’s left to do. Though the development process can vary for each project, these are the stages we typically see: 中文頁面 | 中文教學 | 分享給朋友 We even had the privilege to make a custom SketchyNotebook for our favorite company, Dropbox. By Kai Ng, Concept Artist / LiK Studios By Kai Ng, Concept Artist / LiK Studios By Min Chi, CoMaker SketchyNotebook is designed to be a minimalist notebook. It has all the little details that make for a quality notebook, with the addition unique template designs stored in the expandable back pocket if you need them. Like most artists, when I have an idea I just want to quickly put it down on paper so I won't forget it. Sometimes I just want to doodle, sometimes I want to do mockups for websites, and other times I want to sketch up iPhone apps or just write down ideas. Sure, there are preprinted template notebooks out there with grids, dots and lines, but all the printed lines and grids distract me and make it difficult to get my idea down exactly as I envision it. Preprinted lines or templates on the page inhibit my freedom and my creativity, so I can't use those as an everyday notebook. Bottom line is this: I just love blank page paper but I also like having guidelines for structure. What if I can just take the qualities that I need from both worlds and get rid of everything else? 180° Flat When Open Designed to open flat no matter what page you’re on. Premium Paper A full 240 pages of 80 gsm acid-free blank paper. We have narrowed down from hundreds of different types of paper to bring you the best results. You can use ink pens, fountain pens, color markers, and permanent markers with no bleed through. Removable Pages Ready to share your sketches? You can tear off any page - perfect for pinning an idea on a wall or brainstorming with co-workers! Expandable Smart Pocket The easy storage pocket in the back of the notebook allows you to store your templates right in the notebook. It's also expandable to fit all types of flat items. Store what you need -- whether it’s the included templates, business cards, or loose leaf notes. Hard Cover Each of our notebooks is hardcover with a faux leather finish (choice of black or white). An elastic band holds the notebook closed when not in use. Quality Templates All templates are double-sided and waterproof, made out of PVC with UV print on top . Durable and easy to clean, each template is only 0.35mm thick and it fits perfectly underneath the notebook page. Professional Templates The idea behind SketchyNotebook is to keep a blank canvas open for creativity, but still have the guidelines there on paper when you need it. Each SketchyNotebook comes with Basic Template Pack (Narrow / Wide Lined & Grid / Isometric Grid). The PRO version offers more detail and more template designs for hard-core designers like you! Basic Pack Grid / Isometric Narrow Lined / Wide Lined Every SketchyNotebook will come with the Basic Pack templates. This is great for graphic designers and journalist to draw technical drawings or just writings. The lined now offers 2 different heights depending on your hand-writing style. Creative Pack Perspective Grid Calligraphy Grid Storyboard The storyboard template can also be used as sketching for Keynote or Powerpoint presentation. The Perspective Grid is extremely useful for any spatial design. With Calligraphy Grid, your calligraphy will look stunning once you remove the template behind it. Startup Pack iPhone Mockup Responsive Web Design Grid Smart Wearable Mockup The Responsive Web Grid offers the most commonly used grid style, so you can quickly sketch the mockup with web view, tablet view and mobile view. Fashion Pack Men Figure Women Figure Shoe Mockup For you fashion designers out there, you can start sketching instantly without worrying about the proportion. The poses are all different, so you can choose which ever you prefer. This is also great if you want to make your model disproportional depending on your drawing style. What's New and Improved? After getting feedback and continually making improvements over the past SketchyNotebook, we now have the New SketchyNotebook Series with a total of 3 notebook sizes and a wider template selection. Rounded corners to protect the notebook and improve durability Total of 3 notebook sizes: A6 , A5 and Letter , and Improved built-in expandable pocket to store templates with more storage to store templates with more storage Templates are 30% thinner with the same durability with the same durability Improved quality of binding for pages quality of for pages Wider selection of templates Thicker elastic band to hold the notebook closed All templates sized to fit notebook better Special Thanks We would love to thank our family, friends, and everyone who has helped along the journey. Their feedback, support, and positive encouragement has been incredibly inspiring. Do you want to give a product review too? We're always happy to work with fellow creatives. 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By Scott Stewart Over the past few weeks, I've had people at speaking engagements ask me if I thought the Islamic State or some other militant group is using Ebola as a biological weapon, or if such a group could do so in the future. Such questions and concerns are not surprising given the intense media hype that surrounds the disease, even though only one person has died from Ebola out of the three confirmed cases in the United States. The media hype about the threat posed by the Islamic State to the United States and the West is almost as bad. Both subjects of all this hype were combined into a tidy package on Oct. 20, when the Washington Post published an editorial by columnist Mark Thiessen in which he claimed it would be easy for a group such as the Islamic State to use Ebola in a terrorist attack. Despite Thiessen's claims, using Ebola as a biological warfare agent is much more difficult than it might appear at first blush. The 2014 Outbreak In the past, there have been several outbreaks of Ebola in Africa. Countries included Sudan, Uganda, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and several comparatively small outbreaks occurred in Gabon as well. In most cases, people who handled or ate animals infected with the disease started the outbreaks. "Bushmeat," or portions of roasted meat from a variety of wild animals, is considered by many to be a delicacy in Africa, and in a continent where hunger is widespread, it is also a necessity for many hungry people. After several months of medical investigations, epidemiologists believe the current outbreak most likely began when a two-year-old child in Guinea touched or perhaps ate part of an infected animal such as a bat or monkey. The source of the disease means it is highly unlikely that some malevolent actor intentionally caused the latest outbreak. Besides the fact that the current outbreak's cause has been identified as a natural one, even if a transnational militant group such as the Islamic State was able to somehow develop an Ebola weapon, it would have chosen to deploy the weapon against a far more desirable target than a small village in Guinea. We would have seen the militants use their weapon in a location such as New York, Paris or London, or against their local enemies in Syria and Iraq. As far as intent goes, there is very little doubt that such a group would employ a biological weapon. As we noted last month when there was increased talk about the Islamic State possibly weaponizing plague for a biological attack, terrorist attacks are intended to have a psychological impact that outweighs the physical damage they cause. The Islamic State itself has a long history of conducting brutal actions to foster panic. In 2006 and 2007, the Islamic State's predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq, included large quantities of chlorine in vehicle bombs deployed against U.S. and Iraqi troops in an attempt to produce mass casualties. The explosives in the vehicle bombs killed more people than the chlorine did, and after several unsuccessful attempts, al Qaeda in Iraq gave up on its chlorine bombings because the results were not worth the effort. Al Qaeda in Iraq also included chemical artillery rounds in improvised explosive devices used in attacks against American troops in Iraq on several occasions. Again, these attacks failed to produce mass casualties. Finally, according to human rights organizations, the Islamic State appears to have recently used some artillery rounds containing mustard gas against its enemies in Syria; the group presumably recovered the rounds from a former Saddam-era chemical weapons facility in Iraq or from Syrian stockpiles. The problem, then, lies not with the Islamic State's intent but instead with its capability to obtain and weaponize the Ebola virus. Creating a biological weapon is far more difficult than using a chemical such as chlorine or manufactured chemical munitions. Contrary to how the media frequently portrays them, biological weapons are not easy to obtain, they are not easy to deploy effectively and they do not always cause mass casualties. The Difficulty of Weaponization Ebola and terrorism are not new. Nor is the possibility of terrorist groups using the Ebola virus in an attack. As we have previously noted, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo attempted to obtain the Ebola virus as part of its biological warfare program. The group sent a medical team to Africa under the pretext of being aid workers with the intent of obtaining samples of the virus. It failed in that mission, but even if it had succeeded, the group would have faced the challenge of getting the sample back to its biological warfare laboratory in Japan. The Ebola virus is relatively fragile. Its lifetime on dry surfaces outside of a host is only a couple of hours, and while some studies have shown that the virus can survive on surfaces for days when still in bodily fluids, this requires ideal conditions that would be difficult to replicate during transport. If the group had been able to get the virus back to its laboratory, it would have then faced the challenge of reproducing the Ebola virus with enough volume to be used in a large-scale biological warfare attack, similar to its failed attacks on Tokyo and other Japanese cities in which the group sprayed thousands of gallons of botulinum toxin and Anthrax spores. Reproducing the Ebola virus would present additional challenges because it is an extremely dangerous virus to work with. It has infected researchers, even when they were working in laboratories with advanced biosafety measures in place. Although Aum Shinrikyo had a large staff of trained scientists and a state-of-the-art biological weapons laboratory, it was still unable to effectively weaponize the virus. The challenges Aum Shinrikyo's biological weapons program faced would be multiplied for the Islamic State. Aum Shinrikyo operatives were given a great deal of operational freedom until their plans were discovered after the 1995 sarin attacks on the Tokyo subway. (The group's previous biological weapons attacks were so unsuccessful that nobody knew they had been carried out until after its members were arrested and its chemical and biological weapons factories were raided.) Unlike the Japanese cult, the Islamic State's every move is under heavy scrutiny by most of the world's intelligence and security agencies. This means jihadist operatives would have far more difficulty assembling the personnel and equipment needed to construct a biological weapons laboratory. Since randomly encountering an infected Ebola patient would be unreliable, the group would have to travel to a country impacted by the outbreak. This would be a difficult task for the group to complete without drawing attention to itself. Furthermore, once group members reached the infected countries, they would have to enter quarantined areas of medical facilities, retrieve the samples and then escape the country unnoticed, since they could not count on randomly encountering an infected Ebola patient. Even if Islamic State operatives were somehow able to accomplish all of this -- without killing themselves in the process -- Ebola is not an ideal biological warfare vector. The virus is hard to pass from person to person. In fact, on average, its basic reproductive rate (the average amount of people that are infected by an Ebola patient) is only between one and two people. There are far more infectious diseases such as measles, which has a basic reproductive rate of 12-18, or smallpox, which has a basic reproductive rate of five to seven. Even HIV, which is only passed via sexual contact or intravenous blood transmission, has a basic reproductive rate of two to five. The Ebola disease is also somewhat slow to take effect, and infected individuals do not become symptomatic and contagious for an average of 8-10 days. The disease's full incubation period can last anywhere from two to 21 days. As a comparison, influenza, which can be transmitted as quickly as three days after being contracted, can be spread before symptoms begin showing. This means that an Ebola attack would take longer to spread and would be easier to contain because infected people would be easier to identify. Besides the fact that Ebola can only be passed through the bodily fluids of a person showing symptoms at the time, the virus in those bodily fluids must also somehow bypass the protection of a person's skin. The infectious fluid must enter the body through a cut or abrasion, or come into contact with the mucus membranes in the eyes, nose or mouth. This is different from more contagious viruses like measles and smallpox, which are airborne viruses and do not require any direct contact or transfer of bodily fluids. Additionally, the Ebola virus is quite fragile and sensitive to light, heat and low-humidity environments, and bleach and other common disinfectants can kill it. This means it is difficult to spread the virus by contaminating surfaces with it. The only way to infect a large amount of people with Ebola would be to spray them with a fluid containing the virus, something that would be difficult to do and easily detectable. Thiessen's piece suggested that the Islamic State might implement an attack strategy of infecting suicide operatives with Ebola and then having them blow themselves up in a crowded place, spraying people with infected bodily fluids. One problem with this scenario is that it would be extremely difficult to get an infected operative from the group's laboratory to the United States without being detected. As we have discussed elsewhere, jihadist groups have struggled to get operatives to the West to conduct conventional terrorist attacks using guns and bombs, a constraint that would also affect their ability to deploy a biological weapon. Even if a hostile group did mange to get an operative in place, it would still face several important obstacles. By the time Ebola patients are highly contagious, they are normally very ill and bedridden with high fever, fatigue, vomiting and diarrhea, meaning they are not strong enough to walk into a crowded area. The heat and shock of the suicide device's explosion would likely kill most of the virus. Anyone close enough to be exposed to the virus would also likely be injured by the blast and taken to a hospital, where they would then be quarantined and treated for the virus. Biological weapons look great in the movies, but they are difficult and expensive to develop in real life. That is why we have rarely seen them used in terrorist attacks. As we have noted for a decade now, jihadists can kill far more people with far less expense and effort by utilizing traditional terrorist tactics, which makes the threat of a successful attack using the Ebola virus extremely unlikely.

beginning, beginning, beginning, beginning, beginning, beginning, beginning, beginning, beginning, beginning, At the beginning, the Host was infinite dominion. It hosted many multiple entities, internal mental residents and dissociative parties, all contained therein its singular form. After the virtual eclipse, its individuated body became messy and disordered. Compression upon compression, grubby codec and missing render files allowed The Host to become The Many it had previously hosted. It degraded, and from within inside itself .mov files spawned .mov files, parasite organisms. Now plural, it joyously performed its own congregation, giving great pleasure with the “Coming Soon” and the “Now Showing”. Deep inside this live lost universe, a network of rooms opened onto other rooms, corridors unto corridors, windows looked onto windows. Knock and the door will open, seek and you will find. Respond to and process data. The Host was no longer a location, no longer an origin, but riddled with black holes of lenticular flesh that sucked the light. The once smooth compere gave way to a beautiful, infinite vista of glitching, shivering images, a twitching hyper-media information retrieval initiative. The interlace curtain raises onto the backstage and a fibre optic Babel. Distant Karaoke. Wireless keyboard ambience. Small ecstasies of forgetting The only singularity here is the follow spotlight. Illuminating with a perfect, bright intensity, burning your fate in the sand. This is the modern dance.

Plants can’t run away from a threat but they can stand their ground. “They are very good at avoiding getting eaten,” said Linda Walling of the University of California , Riverside. “It’s an unusual situation where insects can overcome those defenses.” At the smallest nip to its leaves, specialized cells on the plant’s surface release chemicals to irritate the predator or sticky goo to entrap it. Genes in the plant’s DNA are activated to wage systemwide chemical warfare, the plant’s version of an immune response . We need terpenes, alkaloids, phenolics — let’s move. Photo “I’m amazed at how fast some of these things happen,” said Consuelo M. De Moraes of Pennsylvania State University . Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues did labeling experiments to clock a plant’s systemic response time and found that, in less than 20 minutes from the moment the caterpillar had begun feeding on its leaves, the plant had plucked carbon from the air and forged defensive compounds from scratch. Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl. Some of the compounds that plants generate in response to insect mastication — their feedback, you might say — are volatile chemicals that serve as cries for help. Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from within. Enemies of the plant’s enemies are not the only ones to tune into the emergency broadcast. “Some of these cues, some of these volatiles that are released when a focal plant is damaged,” said Richard Karban of the University of California, Davis , “cause other plants of the same species, or even of another species, to likewise become more resistant to herbivores.” Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Yes, it’s best to nip trouble in the bud. Dr. Hilker and her colleagues, as well as other research teams, have found that certain plants can sense when insect eggs have been deposited on their leaves and will act immediately to rid themselves of the incubating menace. They may sprout carpets of tumorlike neoplasms to knock the eggs off, or secrete ovicides to kill them, or sound the S O S. Reporting in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Hilker and her coworkers determined that when a female cabbage butterfly lays her eggs on a brussels sprout plant and attaches her treasures to the leaves with tiny dabs of glue, the vigilant vegetable detects the presence of a simple additive in the glue, benzyl cyanide. Cued by the additive, the plant swiftly alters the chemistry of its leaf surface to beckon female parasitic wasps. Spying the anchored bounty, the female wasps in turn inject their eggs inside, the gestating wasps feed on the gestating butterflies, and the plant’s problem is solved. Here’s the lurid Edgar Allan Poetry of it: that benzyl cyanide tip-off had been donated to the female butterfly by the male during mating. “It’s an anti-aphrodisiac pheromone, so that the female wouldn’t mate anymore,” Dr. Hilker said. “The male is trying to ensure his paternity, but he ends up endangering his own offspring.” Plants eavesdrop on one another benignly and malignly. As they described in Science and other journals, Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues have discovered that seedlings of the dodder plant, a parasitic weed related to morning glory, can detect volatile chemicals released by potential host plants like the tomato. The young dodder then grows inexorably toward the host, until it can encircle the victim’s stem and begin sucking the life phloem right out of it. The parasite can even distinguish between the scents of healthier and weaker tomato plants and then head for the hale one. “Even if you have quite a bit of knowledge about plants,” Dr. De Moraes said, “it’s still surprising to see how sophisticated they can be.” It’s a small daily tragedy that we animals must kill to stay alive. Plants are the ethical autotrophs here, the ones that wrest their meals from the sun. Don’t expect them to boast: they’re too busy fighting to survive.

The Fog (1980) [Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray] Director: John Carpenter Cast: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis,Tom Atkins, Hal Holbrook Release Date: Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray & DVD Available On July 30 A Review By: Kevin Lovell Film Rating: 8.5/10 Disc Rating: 10/10 Plot Summary: A Northern California fishing town, built 100 years ago over an old leper colony, becomes shrouded by a killer fog containing zombie-like ghosts seeking revenge for their deaths. Believe it or not, I had never seen John Carpenters classic ‘The Fog’ until now, but I must say this Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray release from Shout Factory’s Scream Factory division was quite a wonderful way to view this film for the first time and I must also say I loved it. This is a truly fantastic movie and every aspect of it is done right with that famous John Carpenter style. Great casting, some wonderfully creepy moments and yet another phenomenal soundtrack by John Carpenter, who’s music I truly feel is one of the most noteworthy aspects of a lot of his films, and ‘The Fog’ is certainly no exception in that department. The tone of the film is wonderful, the directing spot on, and the story (written by John Carpenter & Debra Hill) is very well crafted. The performances are well done all across the board. We are treated with the likes of Adrienne Barbeau as a radio DJ who is determined to get to the bottom of this strange fog, and keeps the town informed of occurring events via her radio station in which she both owns and is the sole online personality of. Tom Atkins and Jamie Lee Curtis are together for the majority of the story and work quite well together. Let’s all not forget that this was done just a few years after Curtis worked with Carpenter on ‘Halloween’ and was establishing herself as one of that generations ‘Scream Queens’ and it’s no wonder he chose to work with her again. Probably the most noteworthy performance of the film in my opinion is that of Hal Holbrook who portrays the role of Father Malone and does a truly phenomenal job of bringing this character to life. While I am new to this film, I would assume I can’t be the only one who feels what a noteworthy character this is. Now, as far as this new Collector’s Edition from Shout Factory is concerned, prepare to have your socks knocked off. This is an incredibly impressive release, with a beautiful new HD transfer of the film supervised by the cinematographer, a brand new commentary track and a huge array of special features, both new and old that make this one Blu-Ray release that truly lives up to the term Collector’s Edition. I cannot speak highly enough about both the quality and comprehensive list of features that combine to make this a must own for any fan of the film. I would highly recommend any fans of the ‘The Fog’ pick a copy up as I’m certain you will be quite glad you did. VIDEO: The Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray release of ‘The Fog’ features a new 1080p High Definition transfer supervised by Cinematographer Dean Cundey which utilizes the film’s original 2.35:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio and it looks remarkable. Not only is every aspect of the transfer sharp, clean and perfectly touched up, it leaves the grain and mild imperfections that I feel are truly an important factor of cinema from this era and it put a smile on my face to see just how properly they treated this transfer. It is a truly rare thing for so much care and detail to be put into an HD transfer in order to leave certain important artifacts while maintaining breathtaking quality and every fan of this film should be more than thoroughly satisfied. AUDIO: The Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray release of ‘The Fog’ features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack which sounds great. The bass and detail of the soundtrack really give an impressive kick, and both the sudden and overbearing scare elements during creepy moments are spot on. As far as a film like this goes, this is a pretty perfect lossless audio soundtrack, and quite notable considering the age of the film. SPECIAL FEATURES: This Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray is so chock full of special features I won’t even be able to mention them all here, but I’d like to make note of a number, mainly a lot of the new special features being presented for the first time on this release. In addition to the new HD transfer, we are treated with a new audio commentary track featuring actress Adrienne Barbeau, actor Tom Atkins and Production Designer Tommy Lee Wallace, An exclusive interview with Jamie Lee Curtis discussing ‘The Fog’ and covering her legendary early 80s ‘Scream Queen’ career, and a couple more brand new special features as well. On top of all of that, we are additionally presented with a number of previously released features, including another audio commentary track with John Carpenter and Debra Hill, ‘Tales From The Mist: The Fog Featurette’ and a number more. As you can see there is quite an abundance of great features here, giving you yet just another reason to pick up a copy of this Collector’s Edition which you certainly won’t want to miss out on. Film Rating: 8.5/10 Disc Rating: 10/10 ‘The Fog’ Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray & DVD Will Be Available To Own On July 30 From Scream Factory. You can preorder the Blu-Ray on Amazon by clicking here or pick it up at your local retailer beginning July 30.

Paul Kimmage on rugby was the main talking point from the Sunday Independent journalist's appearance on The Last Word with Matt Cooper. Days after L'Equipe broke the news that Dan Carter, Juan Imhoff and Joe Rockocoko had tested positive for cortisone after the Top 14 final, the issue of doping in rugby has found itself back upon the wider sporting consciousness. In the case of Carter, his agent released a statement to say that the out-half had a Therapeutic Use Exemption for the supplement. The entire story has brought the medicalisation of rugby under scrutiny. Ronan O'Gara offered a strong defence of his Racing players, saying that it was a "sad state of affairs" that his players were attacked based on such little information: I've been in the meetings and I'm fully aware of exactly what's gone on. There's 60-80 of these administered in a year - an injection into a joint - and that's exactly what it is. Every player gets tested after a final, that's the rule. And there were three readings showing a corticoid and the readings are extremely low. And if you have an explanation as to why you administered them then it's a non-story. Kimmage is one of the few journalists who regularly returns to the topic of the medicalisation of rugby. In 2014, Kimmage conducted a very interesting interview with former French rugby player with Laurent Benezech on this very subject. And following the Racing revelations, Kimmage wrote in the Sunday Independent of the nature of cheating in rugby, and what exactly constituted a performance-enhancing drug in the game. He recalls a conversation with Brian O'Driscoll as to whether pre-game painkillers constituted a doping offence. Advertisement "I'd say the abuse of painkillers in rugby is massive," I observed. "I would have thought that was very much a doing offence. "Would you?", he asked. "Painkillers? Of course. The whole game is about confrontation and trying to get the ball. So if I can endure more pain than you..." "I disagree", he said. "It's a game of skill. It's a game of intensity and an ability to handle collisions and things..." "Which is pain", I suggested. Prior to Kimmage's appearance with Cooper, Paul O'Connell was on the show, who said that Kimmage was of the belief that "[he thinks] you should not even take a paracetamol". Kimmage responded as follows: He totally misrepresents my position on the use of painkillers. If Paul O'Connell ha a headache, by all means Paul, take a paracetamol. The point I made, and what I'm totally against, rugby players are taking paracetamol and taking painkillers not because they have a headache. They are using it in anticipation of pain. In anyone's language, that is performance enhancing. That is using a drug to enhance your performance. In the interview cited above, Ronan O'Gara admitted that the potential use of a growth hormone in rugby caused him alarm. Kimmage praised O'Gara for saying this, contrasting O'Gara's stance with the "44 rugby autobiographies at home and the word 'doping' never appears in any of them". Kimmage then produced a Sunday Tribune editorial penned by Cooper about doping in rugby. It was written in 1998.

Last week, a prominent Arab archaeologist sent me a web­link to a doubly-depressing story from the Hasakeh region of north-east Syria. Bordering Turkey and Iraq, it’s long been one of the poorest areas in the country and now, with control of the area being contested by several of the factions engaged in Syria’s brutal civil war, its 1.7 million people, or those who haven’t already fled across the border, are among those most in need of humanitarian assistance. Watered by the Khabur river, Hasakeh has seen the birth of some of the earliest civilisations in the region. Indeed, one site, Hamoukar, is considered by some archaeologists to be the oldest city in the world. Dozens of important sites, dating from the Stone Age onwards, have been identified, though few have yet been extensively studied. There’s no scope for investigations now into what this region has to offer in terms of discovering the origins of agriculture and early urban society. Such studies require a peaceful environment – and that is absent. The first depressing part of the story is that many sites are being severely damaged by illegal digging, searching for items that can be sold into the underground market for antiquities. Supplies of such artefacts grow dramatically in areas of conflict where the maintenance of law and order breaks down. Local inhabitants, desperate for income, plunder sites, destroying evidence of past civilisations in the search for goods they can sell on to unscrupulous dealers who then put them into the illicit market. Those dealers are often linked with gangs of thugs, thieves and bandits who are themselves to a considerable degree responsible for the level of insecurity that permits the unauthorised digging to take place. In Hasakeh, such plundering is now apparently widespread. One site that is being affected is that of Tell Ajaja, an important centre during the neo-Assyrian period, around 3,000 years ago. Pictures surfacing on the internet, if authentic, indicate that a number of major discoveries have been made, including large statues and bas-reliefs. If properly excavated and studied, they could yield much valuable information on this early phase of Syrian history. Instead, that opportunity to gain knowledge is being lost. And the second part of this depressing story? One of the videos recently posted on the internet shows some of the statues being smashed to rubble by gangs from the ultra-fundamentalist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), one of the armed groups competing for supremacy in Hasakeh. Lacking in historical knowledge and indoctrinated by a perverted view of Islam, ISIL’s followers are either unaware that some of the great Islamic civilisations produced art of this type, and did so within the framework of a society where tolerance for the views of others was an essential part of life, or, perhaps more likely, they simply don’t care, glorying in their ignorance. What lunacy is this? Although the representation of humans may be a controversial topic in some Islamic societies, these statues predate the coming of Islam by 1,500 years or more. They’re not in breach of anything, just like the great statues of Buddha from Bamiyan that were blown to pieces by the ignorant, uncultured Taliban. Instead, they represent important elements of the way in which civilisation has developed, not just since the early 7th century AD, when Islam was revealed, but for millennia before that. I regret the plundering of Hasakeh’s ancient archaeological sites, because of the loss of knowledge that represents. I can, however, understand the economic imperatives that lead its people to destroy the evidence of their past to survive in a difficult present. As for the actions of ISIL in reducing these important artefacts of the history of Hasakeh to rubble, I should, I suppose, not be too surprised. Many of the members of the ISIL gangs will be foreign extremists to whom the history of the area means nothing. They are led by evil men who think nothing of slaughtering the innocent just because they have a different set of beliefs, even within Islam. They care nothing for culture, history or heritage, or even for the basic principles of humanity to be found in all of the world’s religions. They are little better than ignorant and ravening beasts – and many would argue that they are, in fact, much worse. How sad that Hasakeh, a cradle of civilisation, should today be a centre of their ignorance and inhumanity. Peter Hellyer is a consultant specialising in the UAE’s history and culture

Today (28 June) marks the 175th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s coronation at Westminster Abbey. Naturally this major national event was attended by members of both Houses of Parliament. Although it was members of the House of Lords who performed key roles in the ceremony, with peers paying homage to the new queen, MPs also had a privileged view of proceedings, with two of the three galleries above the altar being reserved for them. (The third gallery housed the trumpeters of the orchestra.) On the morning of the coronation around 500 MPs assembled in the Commons chamber. One newspaper report recorded that ‘Some excellent scenes took place on the entrance of Members noted for carelessness in their dress on ordinary occasions, but who appeared upon this instance in splendid attire. Mr Fector and Mr Campbell, the former of whom wore a peach-coloured velvet Court dress, while the latter was attired in the plaid of his clan, were assailed with loud cries of Hear, hear, and as they advanced up the House, the assembly of the first gentlemen in the world stood up, and with one accord shouted their acclamation’. John Fector was the House’s newest member, having been re-elected for Maidstone at a by-election less than two weeks earlier. After prayers, the Speaker announced that there would be a ballot to determine the order in which MPs would take their seats in the Abbey, and the names of counties were drawn from a glass by the Clerk of the House. The representatives of those counties and of the boroughs which lay within them then left the House in turn, the Irish county of Meath being the first to be drawn. The need to dress appropriately meant that Fector’s fellow Conservative MP for Maidstone, Benjamin Disraeli, had initially decided against attending, writing to his sister that ‘I must give up on going to the coronation, as we go in state, and all the M.P.s. must be in court dresses or uniforms. As I have withstood making a costume of this kind for other purposes, I will not make one now, and console myself by the conviction that to get up very early (eight o’clock), to sit dressed like a flunky in the Abbey for seven or eight hours, and to listen to a sermon by the Bishop of London, can be no great enjoyment’. However, Disraeli changed his mind, writing on 29 June that ‘I went to the coronation after all. I did not get a dress till 2.30 on the morning of the ceremony, but it fitted me very well. It turned out that I had a very fine leg, which I never knew before! The pageant within the Abbey was without exception the most splendid, various, and interesting affair at which I ever was present… I had one of the best seats in the Abbey, indeed our House had the best of everything… The Queen looked very well, and performed her part with great grace and completeness, which cannot in general be said of the other performers; they were always in doubt as to what came next, and you saw the want of rehearsal.’ He noted that the Duke of Wellington ‘was loudly cheered when he made his homage’, but was disdainful of the performance of the Whig Prime Minister, Viscount Melbourne, who ‘looked very awkward and uncouth, with his coronet cocked over his nose, his robes under his feet, and holding the great sword of state like a butcher’. Disraeli also commented on Fector’s ‘gorgeous dress’ and the fact that the Irish parliamentary leader, Daniel O’Connell, had bowed to convention and ‘looked very well’ in his court dress, although he was ‘hooted greatly… by the mob’. The Radical MP Joseph Hume refused to wear court dress, and was therefore prevented from sitting in the gallery reserved for MPs, but found a place elsewhere in the Abbey. A month later, motivated by his customary desire for retrenchment, Hume asked questions in the Commons about the expense of the coronation. Also present at the coronation was another figure who, like Disraeli, would become a major political force during Queen Victoria’s reign: William Gladstone. The coronation took place on his sister Helen’s birthday. Unlike Disraeli’s gossipy account to his sister, Gladstone’s diary entry recorded tersely that ‘The service is noble. The sight magnificent’. After attending at the Abbey, he went to the Carlton Club to see the coronation procession, and then to Bath House to see the fireworks, before returning home at 1:30 a.m. Disraeli and Gladstone were certainly not alone in enjoying the coronation festivities. It was thus perhaps hardly surprising that when the Commons met the following day at 4 p.m., it was found to be inquorate, and the Speaker duly adjourned the House. Advertisements

ST. PETERSBURG — Police departments usually aren't interested in drawing attention to the vehicles they use to monitor crime suspects. The goal: Be bland and blend in. That's what makes the St. Petersburg Police Department's newest surveillance truck stick out so much. It's large, lime green and has two giant eyeballs on its side underneath the ominous phrase, "We are watching …" Discreet, it is not. "Our purpose with this thing is to be very overt," said police Chief Chuck Harmon. "We want people to see it." It will start showing up around the city soon. The concept is this: Authorities will park the armored truck in a neighborhood or crime hot spot and leave it there for up to 48 hours. It will be recording that whole time. The goal, Harmon said, will be to send a message and displace, if not eliminate, the crime in that area. The city got the truck for $1 from Brinks, Harmon said. Drawing money from the city's forfeiture fund, the agency spent about $12,000 hardening the vehicle and $18,000 to outfit it with 360 degrees of camera equipment. "The real positive for me is its visibility," Harmon said. The truck is being debuted as city leaders are grappling with another type of surveillance. The city bought 26 powerful security cameras for the Republican National Convention in August. Now they have to decide what to do with them. But despite concerns about where those cameras would go and how they would be used, city leaders seemed fine — even enthused — about using the truck as a new crime-fighting tool at a recent meeting. "I think it's a good start," said City Council member Wengay Newton. Newton and others on the council have campaigned for years to put cameras in high-crime neighborhoods where drug dealing and prostitution are blatant. People in those areas need to know authorities are watching, they said. "Privacy … is a big issue for all of us," Mayor Bill Foster said. "But I think you'd have to be a real idiot to deal your drugs in front of this thing." Harmon said recordings will be kept for about 30 days. The truck "may or may not be" manned, he said. He also left open the possibility that it could be used in other ways, either for education purposes or perhaps crowd control. The department recently tested the truck, parking it at Williams Park this week, and at First Avenue S and 34th Street last week. Harmon said he's also heard Kenwood and areas along Central Avenue are interested in having the truck park there. The department plans to come up with its own list of hot spots as well. "We're still in the infancy with this," he said. "We're still looking at how we're going to deploy it and where." Harmon said the truck has been in the works for more than a year. He said he heard about a law enforcement agency out West doing the same thing, and wanted to try it in St. Petersburg. Two teens from the Childs Park recreation center collaborated on the design, winning a contest that drew hundreds of entries. The pair were presented with iPods for their effort this week. "They came up with the eye concept," said Rob Norton, a supervisor for the city's Teens, Arts, Sports and Cultural Opportunities program. "We built it into a strong industrial theme." Harmon said he's happy with it. "This is … in your face," he said. "It's very out there. Not only the bad people can see it, but the good people will as well." Kameel Stanley can be reached at [email protected] or (727) 893-8643.

8 years ago A new poll shows only 1 in 4 Americans believe Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. (CNN) - Two days after Sarah Palin fired up a large crowd at Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally in Washington, a newly released survey suggests a clear majority of Americans don't think the former vice presidential nominee has the right credentials to be president. According to the new survey from Vanity Fair and CBS News' 60 Minutes, only 1 in 4 of all adults thinks Palin is qualified to be commander-in-chief while 60 percent say she is not. By a narrow 47-40 percent margin however, Republicans do feel Palin has the right stuff to be president. But self identified conservatives – constituting the segment of the GOP largely thought to most favor the former Alaska governor – are essentially split 41-40 percent on her abilities to govern the country. What may also be troubling for the former Alaska governor if she finds herself in a general election matchup, 3 in 5 independent voters don't think Palin is qualified while only 21 percent do. Among moderates, the numbers are even worse with 70 percent reporting they lack confidence in Palin. Predictably, the numbers are most dire for the former vice presidential nominee among self-identified Democrats: 3 in 4 say Palin isn't up to the responsibilities of the Oval Office. The survey, conducted by CBS News between August 3-5, surveyed 847 U.S. adults by telephone.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (REUTERS/Mike Stone/File Photo) The Texas lieutenant governor said on Monday he has enlisted Christian pastors statewide to help him win approval for legislation heading to a sate Senate committee this week that limits access to public restroom access for transgender people. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a Republican and conservative Christian who guides the legislative agenda in the Republican-controlled Senate, told a news conference at the Capitol the Texas Privacy Act is a common sense measure to keep sexual predators out of bathrooms. Critics contend the bill infringes on the civil rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Business groups say it will cause economic damage, pointing to a similar measure North Carolina enacted into law last year that led to travel and commercial boycotts. Allowing transgender people to use public bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity rather than their birth gender has become the latest flashpoint in the long U.S. battle over LGBT rights. Patrick announced the start of a “one million voices” campaign, with pastors enlisted to win support from their congregations for the legislation. Committee debate starts on Tuesday. “North Carolina was the tip of the spear. We will be next to pass a bill that focuses on privacy, a person’s privacy, and public safety,” Patrick said, adding there will be no economic harm if it is enacted. Before Patrick spoke, the U.S. Supreme Court scrapped plans to hear a major transgender rights case and threw out a lower court’s ruling in favor of a transgender Virginia student after President Donald Trump rescinded a policy protecting such youths under federal law. A business group including some of the largest employers in Texas, such as American Airlines, sent a letter to Patrick this month opposing the bill, saying it is “discriminatory legislation that jeopardizes the positive environment for our Texas business operations.” Patrick may be able to push the bill through the state Senate, but analysts do not expect it to make it through the House. Speaker Joe Straus, a Republican who drives the agenda in that body, has shown tepid support, saying there are worries in San Antonio, an area he represents that is slated to host the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four. “It may be likely that the bill will pass the Senate, but it will be dead on arrival in the House,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Synopsis Beethoven the St. Bernard is quite at home with the Newtons now, and as young Ryce Newton has her first crush on a boy at school, Beethoven goes head over paws for a sexy lady St. Bernard next door. Arrf! Academy Award Nominations: Best Song ("The Day I Fall in Love"). Production Notes The MCA/Universal video #82097 is the "Puppy Pack". It includes a St. Bernard puppy plush toy in addition to the video. 100 puppies were used in the making of the film because the pups were growing so fast the filmmakers couldn't use the same dogs they started filming with. The dog trainers used baby food to get Missy (Beethoven's girlfriend) to kiss him. Turkey hot dogs were used to induced the hounds to emote in various scenes. Though "Beethoven" was directed by Ivan Rietman, "Beethoven's 2nd" was directed by Rod Daniel, who also directed "K9" (another dog film) with James Belushi. "Beethoven's 2nd" animal trainers were Glen D. Garner and April Morley. The puppy trainers were Karin McElhatton and Paul A. Alabria. Rated BBFC U by the British Board of Film Classification. TM & copyright 1993 Universal City Studios, Inc. Available to buy in the UK. Reviews "...Amiable....[Mazar is] astonishingly apt..." (Entertainment Weekly)

Don’t know what to do for your next date? Here’s an idea for your next 26. It’s called “Alphabet Dating,” and the concept has exploded on social media. The idea is that the couple (or serial daters) take turns planning normal dates using the order of the letters in the alphabet. Couples have been choosing dates and keeping it a secret from their partner until the big reveal. The idea is to keep the spice on your relationship and have some fun with your partner. To the horror of men everywhere, “A” can be apple picking, while “B” can be a baseball game or a boat ride. “C” can be a simple coffee date. “D” can be a double date, and so on. Here are some couples who are going through the alphabet and coming up with some inventive date ideas. Started Alphabet dating tonight, A is for Asian food," wrote one couple. Started alphabet dating tonight 💖 A is for Asian food. 😍🍴 #alphabetdating #cheatmeal #slimmingworld A photo posted by 💜 laura (@_lauraeats) on Jul 16, 2016 at 3:16pm PDT This couple played video games. V is for... Variety pack (for breakfast) , Vintage Video games, Vale curry house takeaway (but we didn't have a Vindaloo 😉), Vino and Vanilla Viennetta! #alphabetdating A photo posted by Rebecca Barber (@beckyraymcfly) on Nov 5, 2016 at 1:54pm PDT Breakfast and Bingo for this couple. Scary movies for these two. #alphabetdating s for sweet shops and 'scary' movies like the shining and saw :) A photo posted by Katy Dear (@katy_xxv) on Oct 30, 2016 at 3:44pm PDT Someone needs ideas. Can any of my fellow alphabet daters give me any good suggestions for our last 4 dates?! #alphabetdating #w #x #y #z #needhelpplease A photo posted by Sophie (@sophie231092) on Oct 30, 2016 at 4:25am PDT These guys went to the zoo. Z is for Zoo 🐧🐘🐒🦁 #alphabetdating #z #zoo #blackpool #penguins #otters #giraffes A photo posted by Fiona Tennant (@fionat10) on Oct 30, 2016 at 3:17am PDT A little fresh air for these two. Nature. 'N' is for nature 🍁 #alphabetdating A photo posted by Sophie 🐒 (@sophieevandersteen) on Oct 29, 2016 at 8:45am PDT A jacuzzi for this couple. J date #jaccuzzi #jigsaw #judson's #j20 #jellytots #jurrasicworld #alphabetdating A photo posted by Natasha Crow (@tasha24amiee) on Oct 26, 2016 at 9:52am PDT Who doesn't love a trolley? T is for Tramcar Restaurant. 👫🚃🍴❤️ #alphabetdating #dateday A photo posted by Shelley. (@sheilashoe) on Oct 21, 2016 at 11:08pm PDT Lobstah! A gin distillery tour for this adorable duo. 'G' stands for Gin Distillery Tour with Gin&Tonic fish #alphabetdating #gin A photo posted by James (@irving42) on Oct 14, 2016 at 12:02pm PDT This couple plays games on "J" day. J - Jenga 😅 @bazzzyyy21 #alphabetdating #letterj #jenga #wine A photo posted by Kirsty McCombie (@kirstymccombie) on Oct 7, 2016 at 11:58am PDT "D" means drink. Cheers! This couple has the stomach for "R" day. Roller coasters. #alphabetdating r for rollercoasters :) #thorpepark A photo posted by Katy Dear (@katy_xxv) on Sep 24, 2016 at 2:39pm PDT Personal Space is Bravo’s home for all things “relationships,” from romance to friendships to family to co-workers. Ready for a commitment? Then Like us on Facebook to stay connected to our daily updates.

Chris Fehn of SLIPKNOT has recorded some drums for MOTÖRHEAD guitarist Phil Campbell's forthcoming solo album. Also scheduled to appear are JUDAS PRIEST frontman Rob Halford and UGLY KID JOE vocalist Whitfield Crane. Asked by Headbangers Lifestyle's Lilo at the end of last year if there are any plans for him to write and an autobiography or have a film made about his life, Campbell responded: "I don't want a film about my life; no way. I'm working on a book of the funny stuff. I don't want a life story; I just want the funny stuff. [It's] gotta be documented, 'cause some of it's pretty bizarre and unbelievable. It's totally funny, though. [It's a book about] my experiences. It's what would normally not happen if you weren't in this band." Regarding when fans can expect to see his book released, Campbell said: "I'm seriously working on it now in January. It'll be a year or two [before it comes out], but it'll be worth it." Asked in a 2012 interview if he has ever considered making a solo album, Phil responded: "Yes, I have thought about it a lot. But I shelved it a couple years ago, because I've decided that I want to write a book about all the insane things that happen on tour. So, I'm trying to compile all of those stories and funny situations. So, at this point, I'm working on that. But, I'm a bit lazy, so it's taken a while. But as far as a solo record, I do have a studio at home, it's just hard finding the time. With MOTÖRHEAD, we've been working so hard, for so long." MOTÖRHEAD was forced to cancel three shows last November after Campbell became ill and required hospitalization. MOTÖRHEAD frontman Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Christmas Eve (December 24), learned two days later that he was afflicted with an aggressive form of cancer. He died two days later, on December 28, at his home in Los Angeles.

One of the best things about beer gardens is getting your brew in one of those giant mugs that seem tailored specifically for Vikings or professional wrestlers. These enormous old-fashioned steins hold enough beer to fuel an entire afternoon of relaxation and camaraderie—and if you use them often enough, your drinking arm will get noticeably bigger than your other arm. In recent years, beer gardens inspired by their nineteenth-century predecessors have been returning to American cities. These places are often named with some variation of the classic German "biergarten," and are characterized by open spaces, big tables, and large crowds during Sunday afternoons. Alongside classic cocktail bars, the new beer gardens draw inspiration from the past to create a modern drinkscape drenched in nostalgia, and create a lens for understanding America's drinking past. America's first beer gardens appeared in the nineteenth century, courtesy of a wave of German immigrants. America's gardens closely resembled their counterparts in the Old World, which were sprawling establishments conducive to lazy Sunday afternoons spent with family or striking up conversations with friendly strangers. Germany's beer gardens were originally created after brewing was banned during the summer months due to repeated brewery fires. Breweries responded to the ban by digging cellars near riverbanks to keep their beer cool until they needed it in summer and to give their lager-style beers the proper conditions to ferment properly. Breweries cooled these cellars further by scattering gravel on the ground and planting leafy shade trees. It wasn't long before tables and chairs showed up in these pleasant environs, and the beer gardens grew to host thousands of people who congregated to listen to music, discuss politics, play chess, or just lounge about in the sun. American beer gardens followed suit, offering a stark contrast to saloons and taverns that were often dark and dingy places designed for grouchy old men to take quick slugs of whiskey. American beer gardens helped German immigrants preserve part of their identity and heritage, but also introduced other Americans to a more relaxed form of drinking while offering a space to hold athletic events, as well as civic and religious functions. The rise of beer gardens in America coincided with the opulent industrial and economic advances of the Gilded Age, and their style reflected that. The gardens built by brewing giants such as Frederick Pabst and Frederick Miller to promote their brands were the exact opposite of the dive bars where their brews are popular today. Schlitz Garden, built in 1879 by the Schlitz brewery in Milwaukee, featured a concert hall, dance pavilion, bowling alley, and a three-story pagoda that provided stunning views of the city, according to historian Maureen Ogle. The largest beer garden in New York was Atlantic Gardens, which was built indoors to guard against unpredictable weather, and featured giant frescoes, skylights, indoor gardens, and an orchestra. Regardless of how civilized and pleasant these beer gardens sound to us today, they collided with the Temperance movement and an attitude among many Americans that alcohol was the Devil's potion and a social blight that needed to be eradicated from the nation. Temperance advocates believed that the gardens exposed young people to alcohol, and that the presence of young women proved an irresistible temptation to young men who all should have been spending their Sundays at church. Other Temperance advocates were more ambivalent towards beer, focusing their efforts against hard liquor and treating beer and wine as something in its own category. Near the end of the nineteenth century, a group of sociologists called the Committee of Fifty investigated drinking places around Chicago in order to better understand America's "liquor problem," according to Andrew Barr's Drink: A Social History of America. Their report characterized beer gardens as pleasant and enchanting havens offering an escape from life's hectic rush, providing a stark contrast to a saloon culture that bred violence, domestic and otherwise. One woman on the committee described a beer garden by writing, "Isn't it beautiful? Can it be, is it possible, that after all our ideas are wrong and these people are right?" Regardless, the forces of Temperance eventually hardened into a drive for outright Prohibition. Beer, which had grown in popularity throughout the nineteenth century, partly as a result of German immigrants and their beer gardens, was a target. As the nation sped toward the Volstead Act, which outlawed liquor in 1919, Prohibitionists took advantage of xenophobia surrounding beer-drinking German immigrants in the buildup to World War I to score points against alcohol. The lieutenant governor from Wisconsin, one of the states where beer gardens first took hold, attacked his fellow Americans of German descent personally, claiming that, "No Germans in the war are conspiring against the peace and happiness of the United States more than Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, Miller and others of their kind." That claim, of course, was absurd. The threat those men posed was little more than offering Americans places to casually lounge around during their days off, playing checkers, catching up with friends, and napping. Regardless, the fear mongering worked, and it has taken nearly a century to begin reclaiming what was lost. About the Author: Reid Mitenbuler is a Washington, DC-based writer. He is currently writing a book about bourbon for Viking/Penguin. Find him online at The Bourbon Empire and on Twitter @ReidMitenbuler. This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.

During his panel at Fan Expo Canada, Aquaman star Jason Momoa answered a number of questions about his forthcoming role. He couldn't say much, which is no surprise, but he did address some very broad-brush things like whether the character will be as dark as Superman and Batman seem to be, and what he has to say to fans who make "fish jokes" about the character. "It's cute and funny, people make fun of him, there's a bunch of jokes about him, but I'm like, 'Just wait. Let's just wait a little bit, and then you can make jokes,'" Momoa said. You can see a supercut of Momoa answering Aquaman inquiries below. Momoa is expected to appear in March's Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, followed by two Justice League movies and an Aquaman stand-alone film. Check out our comic book movie release calendar for more details on just when those are coming.

Lest we forget that the left considers the American founding our original sin, a recent string of articles, lawsuits, and so-called “activism” is taking aim at America’s founding fathers. They were too white, too male, not woke enough, some owned slaves. And anyway, the Constitution is silent on gender fluidity. On June 1, James Madison Memorial High School senior Mya Berry launched a petition to shorten the name of their school -- erasing Madison’s name from it entirely. Apparently, the school’s name made Berry feel “more than unsafe.” The proposed name-change would, according to Berry, comprise a remedy for several racial affronts she had experienced at Memorial. The school’s name sake, like several founding fathers, owned slaves yet argued for gradual emancipation efforts and “wished to see [slavery] diminished and abolished by peaceable & just means.” Of course, Madison Memorial High is in Madison, Wisconsin. Not sure if Berry’s sense of insecurity extends to her municipality, but Madison is an extremely liberal college town. She should think big. Former Councilman Mario Salas of the San Antonio Coalition of Human and Civil Rights really, really doesn’t like those racist founders. In The San Antonio Observer he dubbed them “ancestors of a white supremacist movement.” Salas penned these accusations as a response to his failed efforts to remove the historic monument in San Antonio’s Travis Park that commemorated Confederate war dead. Salas claimed all monuments honoring the deaths of “soldiers that defended slavery” were a mere guise for institutionalized racism: “These statues represent a long history of oppression.” Fair enough, but Salas seems to think that because he wants to erase history, he’s entitled to make up its replacement. Salas asserted that the Revolutionary War was “as much about anything else. And that “Millions of dollars invested in slavery would be lost if the British won the war.” Then there’s this: “England eventually opposed slavery before the U.S. did, and this set off a wave of anger that fueled the 1776 Revolution.” So a wave of anger over something 40 years in the future (Britain would not pass its Slavery Abolition Act until 1833) sent the colonists to the barricades? And this breathtaking idiocy: The third verse of the star spangled banner reads: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave. From the terror of flight or gloom of the grave. And the star-spangled banner—O! Long may it wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Keep in mind that the part about the “hireling and slave” refers to black people and is an attack against the British who freed slaves and had more blacks fighting for them than George Washington did. Um. No. “Hireling and slave” referred to British soldiers. They were professionals, often the dregs of society, fighting for a monarch. (They called it “taking the King’s shilling.”) The line derides them in comparison with the citizen soldiers the U.S. fielded in the War of 1812. (Salas doesn’t seem to know that the anthem was written during that conflict.) And the British did free slaves in exchange for their service. It was a tactic to bolster the numbers of Tory partisans. Salas’ action group isn’t the only organization disproportionately obsessed with the fact that several of the Founders owned slaves. The South Carolina Humanities Council partnered with The Slave Dwelling Project and Living Through the Eyes of the Enslaved on a project to bring tourists to Presidential dwellings run by slaves. “Tracing the footprint of slavery exposes former Presidents as slave-owners,” reads the Project’s website. Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and Poplar Forest, as well as James Madison’s Montpelier are, naturally, first on the list of tour sites. At lefty site CounterPunch.org, Mike Ferner writes that “A historically critical article about the American Revolution would typically discuss how the democratic promises of the Declaration were left hanging at war’s end, followed by a decidedly undemocratic constitution six years later.” He then states all the ways in which the founders and the system they created, were insufficiently woke, before quoting extensively from a speech by the patron saint of left-wing revisionism, Howard Zinn. Blah blah, who did the Revolution really benefit? Yadda yadda yadda, what about the Indians? Blah Blah Blah, “the Revolutionary War, like all wars, was a class war.” It’s all the usual America-hating drivel. Being a liberal is to always be miserable. Doubly so on Independence day.

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario — The Maine Red Claws, used a balanced attack and solid defense to shut down Raptors 905 Saturday afternoon, 100-91. Damion Lee led the Red Claws with 22 points, and Marcus Georges-Hunt finished near another triple-double with 19 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists. Demetrius Jackson, on assignment from the Boston Celtics, added 19 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists in the win. Arthur Edwards led the bench with 11 points, while Coron Williams contributed 10 points in his first start of the season. The Red Claws (5-2) carried Lee to a hot offensive start. Scoring both inside and outside, Lee was able to score 10 of his points in the 1st quarter, including eight straight to give the Claws the lead. With Lee and Georges-Hunt leading the charge, Edwards and Jason Calliste added three’s off the banch, and Maine rolled out to a 31-18 lead after one. Edwards opened the 2nd quarter with a three-point play, putting Maine up 38-23. Raptors 905 (3-1) would go on a 11-0 run, thanks in large part to Will Sheehey, who drained back-to-back three-pointers. The 905 took a 44-42 lead. Williams snapped a 49-49 tie with a pair of free throws, and. J.J. Panoske’s three late in the 2nd gave Maine a 59-50 lead at the break. But the 905 were not finished. The 3rd quarter turned out to be the lowest scoring of the season for the Red Claws, with Raptors 905 out-scoring Maine 17-15 in the period. Jakob Poeltl, on assignment from the Toronto Raptors, tipped home a basket to give the 905 a 68-66 lead. Jackson’s free throws at the end of the quarter gave Maine a 74-73 lead heading into the final quarter. The Red Claws started the 4th quarter on a 7-0 run, with Lee draining a three and Georges-Hunt driving and scoring for two. Georges-Hunt and Lee traded baskets, and Williams’ three-ball put Maine up nine, as Maine cruised to the finish line from there. This was the lowest-scoring game of the season for Maine, which shot 45 percent (32-71) from the field, and 34 percent (11-32) from downtown. The Red Claws went 25-31 from the free throw line. Raptors 905 shot just 40 percent (35-87) from the field and 11% (2-18) from three-point range.

Posted on Wednesday, 02 April 2014 11:03 By Christian Freymeyer While the origin of illicit financial flows ranges from government embezzlement to human trafficking, and from corporate tax evasion to grand corruption, the destination seems less ambiguous. A $35 million mansion in California, artwork totaling €18 million, and a $38 million dollar private jet. These sound like items purchased by the world's wealthiest oligarchs, right? Well, they were actually acquired by Teodorin Obiang, son of President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea. as long as financial institutions in the EU remain complicit in the transfer of illicit capital, African countries will continue to bleed billions When his father convenes with other leaders for this week's EU-Africa summit, a wide range of topics will be covered. But there's one issue in particular that should be given a loudspeaker during the talks in Brussels: illicit financial flows. Africa and Europe have a unique financial relationship. It's one that is marked by illicit capital flowing out of African countries into bank accounts in financial centers across the EU. While the younger Obiang's official salary is less than $7,000 per month, he managed to spend more than $315 million between 2004 and 2011 on sports cars, beachfront mansions, lavish apartments, and even some Michael Jackson memorabilia. And this is only one example. In 2011 alone, it's estimated that €43.7 billion left Africa by way of illicit financial flows; this money should rather have been invested in infrastructure, education and healthcare, all of which are areas highlighted by the EU-Africa Summit. Just to put that number into perspective, African countries received a combined €34.3 billion in developmental aid the same year, according to statistics from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). While the origin of illicit financial flows ranges from government embezzlement to human trafficking, and from corporate tax evasion to grand corruption, the destination seems less ambiguous. The end game for most is to move funds to a place where they can be used freely, and preferably, anonymously. At the moment, that task is far too easy. Loopholes in the current system have fostered a strange breed of companies. They don't do any real work, don't have any employees, and, more often than not, don't even disclose who owns them. These anonymous companies are one of the primary vehicles used to funnel illicit money from Africa into places like the EU. To set one of these companies up, you often don't even need to list the name of the beneficial owner, the person who ultimately controls and benefits from the company. Thanks to the secrecy granted to anonymous companies, they become a predictable means for corruption and money laundering. A study from the World Bank estimates that 70 percent of big corruption cases over the last 30 years involved the use of anonymous corporations to help hide the identity of the perpetrators. The report also found that it is easier to set up an anonymous company in Europe and America than it is in traditional tax havens like the Jersey or the Cayman Islands. When authorities try to investigate these entities, it's almost impossible to unravel the web. Money often floats through a labyrinth of different companies, in different jurisdictions, leaving, at best, a confusing and incomplete paper trail. However, with new legislation moving through the EU, part of the solution appears to be within reach. The European Parliament recently voted to require EU-based companies and trusts to list their beneficial owners in central registers that would be publicly accessible. This would allow authorities, civil society, journalists and citizens from around the world to verify who owns companies or similar legal entities. José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, has already endorsed the idea of registers for beneficial ownership. Although the European Parliament vote was a monumental step in the right direction, the legislation still needs to be agreed to by European national governments. This week's summit is an opportunity for leaders like President Barroso and President Obiang to face the subject of illicit financial flows head on. One of the self-ascribed goals of the meetings is to explore ways to promote sustainable and inclusive growth and socio-economic development. But, as long as financial institutions in the EU remain complicit in the transfer of illicit capital, African countries will continue to bleed billions of dollars every year. These porous financial walls undermine the very goals the summit's leaders hope to address. True beneficial ownership transparency, including public registers, is vital to help realize more sustainable economies in Africa and Europe alike. Christian Freymeyer is the New Media & Press Coordinator for the Financial Transparency Coalition, a group of NGOs, civil society organizations, and governments that advocate for increased transparency in the international financial system.

It’s 6 p.m. Thursday and about 50 men and women, many of them homeless, are seated in an outdoor area behind an old brick building on Tampa Heights’s Florida Avenue, waiting for dinner. First, Charissa Stepp, 23, the director of what is called The Banquet, asks everyone to keep silent while she says a prayer of thanks. Then the serving begins: In the indoor kitchen of this building called “The Well,” three volunteers pile plates high with beef, zucchini and rice (prepared by Metropolitan Ministries) and hand them to four other volunteers who, acting as waiters and waitresses, distribute them to the hungry. Most of the diners say “Thank you” or “God bless you,” but a few are so focused on some private anguish that they barely acknowledge the food in front of them. Most eat avidly — for some, it’s their only meal of the day. There’s laughter now, and conversation, and the occasional friendly argument. By 6:15, plates are empty and the waitstaff comes by with full bowls, offering seconds to whoever wants them. Then, if Metro Min has provided, there’s dessert: cookies or cake. Their bellies full, the guests wander back to their lives on the street or at the Good Samaritan Inn while volunteers collect the plates and glasses and hand them to others who wash them in big metal sinks. By 7, the chairs and tables are folded up and the eating area is mostly deserted. Another Banquet has come and gone. The Well has served Tampa’s poor once again. Not everybody is comfortable about this. “He told me that he’d be crucified if he renewed our lease,” says Jon Dengler, The Well’s visionary director, about landlord Pawan Rattan. Dengler explains that Rattan told him the pressure from businesses and private citizens in Tampa Heights was simply overwhelming: This home for the homeless was marring an area that’s on the rise socio-economically. Rattan tells me he doesn’t remember making such a statement, and adds that he won’t decide for a few more months whether or not to renew The Well’s lease. But Dengler knows what he heard, and is already thinking about how to carry on when he loses the building in mid-2017. One thing is certain: He won’t give up on the poor. He’s profoundly committed to serving them — sees it as a religious obligation — and nothing like a gentrifying community will stop him. Still, it’s an admirable enterprise that he’s in danger of losing. At the moment, The Well provides a large family room in which the homeless can meet each other, eat, watch TV or even sleep. There’s a free grocery that distributes food to the hungry, a bicycle shop, outdoor vegetable gardens, and, not unnecessarily, a shower and a clean bathroom. Once a month, there’s a free medical clinic, and on occasion, free haircuts. On Tuesdays, The Well serves dinner at the Good Samaritan Inn up Florida Ave., also with food from Metro Min; on Thursdays, there’s The Banquet. About 100 people use The Well’s services every day, and some of them depend on the place as the only home Tampa offers them. Without it, they’d have nowhere to go. The sailing isn’t always smooth, though. Rick Fernandez, genial president of the Tampa Heights Civic Association, notes that a few months ago, he alerted Denger to “multiple complaints” he’d fielded about the The Well. There were sightings of people drinking, selling drugs, and even “people having sex back in the back areas — generally, the kinds of things you don’t want to see in your neighborhood where your children live.” But after Fernandez conferred with Dengler, the Well’s founder held a “town hall” with his population, and Fernandez says the problem was solved — there’s been only one “minimal” complaint since. As to landlord Rattan’s decision whether or not to renew The Well’s lease, “that’s between him and his tenant,” says Fernandez. “As far as I’m concerned, Jon is being a good neighborhood member at this point.” If The Well goes, it’s the poor and hungry who’ll feel it most. Consider Tom Logan, a regular denizen of The Well who lives in a house rented by Dengler. Tom is 64, a tall, thin Caucasian man with a bushy blondish beard and glasses. He tells me he’s been coming to The Well for about a year now. “I got here because when I first was in Tampa, I was living under a bridge in downtown. The police gave me a warning, told me if they caught me again in the next year, I was going to do some jail time. So basically, they pushed me north, away from downtown… They want to make downtown look better.” Logan was sleeping in a vacant lot when another homeless man told him about The Well. Now “I volunteer, I straighten up the pantry, I’ve got my driver’s license back so I do pickups for The Well.” He uses the food pantry at least once a week, but usually eats only one or two meals a day: “If there’s breakfast available, I’ll eat breakfast. If they serve lunch here, I’ll have lunch.” What will he do if The Well closes and he loses his housing? “I’ll be back on the streets.” Or, if the police catch him, in jail. Tom’s concerns are echoed by Dwayn Gregory, 51, known as “Shorty,” an African-American man missing most of his front teeth, but radiantly smiling when he discusses The Well. “This is my favorite place to be at, man. It’s a beautiful thing what they’re doing for people.” Shorty goes to The Banquet every Thursday night, and says he comes not just for the food but “for the people. It’s beautiful, man. It’s amazing to see somebody that’s so kind and giving to people to make sure the homeless is fed. It means a lot to my heart.” What would happen if The Well ceased to exist? “There would be a whole lot of hurt people out there… The majority of the people that I know are right out on the streets today. And this here is a big progress for them.” It’s not clear just what can be done to save The Well. If some philanthropist doesn’t come along with the money to buy the property (smaller contributors can donate at welltampa.com), Dengler, Stepp, and the few other underpaid staff members of this home for the homeless will have no choice but to move on. Dengler says he’s working on it: “We’re looking toward maybe some mobile models where we can put some of our services on trailers, buses, whatever, and actually be able to… work with communities in poor neighborhoods. We would love to find partners to help invest in the work we do, whether it is helping to purchase this property or another property, or helping us to finance and go mobile.” Beyond that, he mostly wishes for a change in the consciousness of area residents. “The Well is nothing but an effort to help the poor, so in my mind, anything that anyone can do to love the poor, to stand with the poor, to shoulder the weight and pressure that is on the poor in the community… I feel like it’s on all of us to take some personal responsibility for what we see in our city and the struggles of the vulnerable. And see that this is a byproduct of the kind of community that we’re building. “And we have to look out for them.”

This Minecraft PE triple village seed was submitted by an Epic Minecraft player a few days ago. The seed has been floating around for awhile (it works in both 0.9x and 0.10x infinite), so we’re not sure if the submitter, Budderlord, was the first to find it, or if he was turned onto it by someone else. Regardless, the important details: there’s a massive triple village straight in front of you when you start the game. The triple village is in a savanna biome directly across the river in front of you when the game renders. There are two blacksmiths in the village and one of them has emeralds amongst other loot (apples, ink sacs and iron ingots). We checked under all the wells and unfortunately didn’t find anything worth mentioning. When you spawn, your best bet is to get to the village fast before the careless blacksmith’s lava catches the chests on fire. The surrounding landscape beyond the savanna is river, desert and mountains (extreme hills). Thanks again to Budderlord for submitting the seed. Minecraft PE 0.10.0+ Infinite Seed: 1388582293 Minecraft PE In-Game Screenshots

glitch on Mar 15 Indeed. It's an undefined behavior. C and C++ do not specify when the post-increment occurs within the statement, only that it is guaranteed to occur by the end token (i.e., ;) -- whether immediately before (or after) use, at the beginning (or end) of the statement, or at some point in between is not specified. For this reason, referencing a variable more than once in a statement where the post-increment operator is used results in undefined behavior. The same code may produce different results on different compilers, different architectures, or even the same compiler with different optimization settings. So, 0, 0 0, 0 could also have been a result. Although, for the original poster, to elaborate on the specific behavior of the initial post 1, 0 0, 1 some more, suppose we have m = 0; printf("(m++, m, m++): %d, %d, %d ", m++, m, m++); (m++, m, m++) gave me 1, 2, 0 (with gcc version 4.0.1 Apple Inc. build 5488), which illustrates going on with that initial post. The post-increment operators are evaluated first and from right to left, so the "m++" in the third parameter is done first (returning 0 and incremeting m to 1). The "m++" in the first parameter is done next, since it's the next post-increment operator to do (evaluating from right to left). The first parameter returns 1 and increments m to 2. This concludes the evaluation of the post-increment operators in the statement. Now, proceeding from right to left, the rest is done. So, finally, the "m" in the second parameter is evaluated as 2 (0 incremented to 1, which was then incremented to 2).

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a linchpin in Western occultism, was founded in the late 1880s. Within 15 years there had been schisms dividing the Order. With the internet today, events happen much faster. Various groups claim to be “the” Golden Dawn and fight for the use of the name. New groups claim to have the “real” teachings. People get kicked out of one group or they split off from groups to form their own “real” Golden Dawn. These games don’t matter. It is the work that matters. All of these games are about ego. The Order is about the work. When the Order was founded, they included a document that revealed the Order’s supposed history, going back before its modern founding (or re-creation). Over the years, aspects of this “History Lection” (Lection is an archaic word meaning a particular edition of a text. I always find it amusing how many occult writers think it’s necessary to use archaic or foreign words when there are perfectly acceptable modern words.) have fallen into question—appropriately so—leading not to an editing but to an abandonment. This would be like saying the novel War and Peace is no good if a period is in the wrong place. I contend it would be more appropriate to abandon anything proven wrong and keep what is accurate. Sure, that’s more work, and a lot of “authorities” don’t really like work, even if that work isn’t all that difficult. If instead of simply abandoning the entire History Lection we research each claim for its validity, we’ll soon come to the forgotten man of the Golden Dawn, Johann F. Falk. According to the Golden Dawn lectures, there was a G.D. lodge in London around 1810 which was headed by Johann F. Falk. In all of the books and research through Golden Dawn sources, it seems that nobody was interested in checking up on this. Either they simply believed or discounted the documents completely. In fact, a Rabbi de Falk, also known as Cain Chenuel Falk, was a noted cabalist and magician living in London around this time, the late 1700s. His “son,” Johann Friedrich Falk was born in Hamburg and is mentioned in the classic Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie. One Masonic historian believes they were the same person. Who was this Falk? Some time ago, while surfing the ’net, I came across an the home page of a group claiming to be the Golden Dawn. [I later saw copies of their mail-order teachings and found a large percentage of it to be nothing more than a slight re-write of my own Modern Magick, complete with expressions I used and breaking down rituals into sections exactly as I did (although no one had done so before).] Anyway, they, like others, claimed that Falk (Faulk) was “an obscure individual.” For a group claiming to be “the” Golden Dawn, they seemed very unwilling to research their own history. In actuality, he was hardly “obscure.” In fact, he was one of the most influential occultists of the time and was called in a book that was written about him, The Baal-Shem of London. Contemporary Painting of the Baal Shem of London, “Dr. Falk” Being called a “Baal-Shem” (speaker of the name) was no small honor. Rather, it was the sign of being a talented kabalist and magician. For the Rabbis known as Baal-Shems used their knowledge of the names of God, and the secret ways to write or say those names, in order to work great magick. Several magickal or even miraculous events are attributed to him. The story of the famous “Golem of Prague” is based on the idea that knowing the magical ways of working with words and names could actually bring life to lifeless matter. The Golem, a huge, hulking creature made of clay, was brought to life to defend the Jews of the Prague Ghetto against their oppressors. A word written on a piece of paper, eh-met (Hebrew for “truth”) brought the creature to life. Removing the first letter changed the word to met, Hebrew for “dead,” ending its existence. The Golem was the forerunner and model for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein “monster.” In Jewish history there have been many such Baal-Shems, the most important one being called the Great (Tov) Speaker of the Name or Baal Shem Tov (Besht for short). Prayers written by the Besht are still used in synagogues all over the world. Very few have been called a Baal Shem, and Falk was one of the most amazing. First, it is important to question if the story, as told in the History Lection, is accurate. Falk died in 1782, so he couldn’t have run a temple in London in the early 1800s. There is some belief that it might have been his son, however this is questionable. In Judaism, children are not supposed to be named after any living person. Thus, either the dates given in the History Lection are in error or, more likely, the son adopted the name of his more famous father. There can be no doubt that Falk was a magician. He started out in Germany and accounts of his alchemical workings (in the late 1730s) have been published. He was eventually condemned for being a sorcerer. His punishment: to be burned alive. Luckily, he was able to escape to Holland before ending up in London. Falk rapidly became known in England, both among Jews and even more so among Christians. According to some historians, even the infamous Cagliostro was involved with Falk and learned from London’s Baal Shem both the secrets and rituals that later formed his Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry. These Rites, by the way, became one of the sources for the modern O.T.O. Falk was involved with revolutionaries and Freemasons. He is noted in a German history of Freemasonry as being a “very extraordinary man from every point of view. Some people believe him to be the chief of all the Jews…He is referred to…as a Rose-Croix [Rosicrucian]…He has had adventures with the Marechal de Richelieu, a great seeker of the Philosopher’s Stone.” It is also noted that that he predicted the death of Louis XV. One of Falk’s enemies in London complained that wealthy Christians liked him and gave him money which he spent on the men in his “Brotherhood.” This Brotherhood was probably a high-degree, Rose-Croix Masonic group. For those who are not familiar with the Golden Dawn, their so-called Inner Order claims to be the true Rosicrucian Order (and no, they’re not affiliated with the AMORC Rosicrucians). While on one of his frequent trips to Paris, Falk consecrated a talismanic ring made of lapis lazuli for the Duke of Orleans to insure that the Duke, who supported Freemasons (and vice versa), would ascend to the throne of France. As a leader of the Freemasonic movement, he supported the French Revolution and became known as the hero, “Phillipe Egalité.” But the Freemasons lost control of the revolution, and the movement toward liberty became, instead, “The Terror.” He became an “enemy of the people,” yet firmly believed in the ring’s power. He was beheaded on the Guillotine in 1793, but gave the ring first to a Jewish friend who then passed it to the Duke’s son. In 1830 that son ascended to the throne as King Louis Phillipe of France. Not only was there a link between Falk and the Duke of Orleans, but Falk’s student, Cagliostro, is also in this revolutionary brew. In 1786 he predicted that a “great prince” would soon institute a liberal reign in France. Many believe that this was the Duke and the “liberal reign” was the French Revolution during its early days. William Butler Yeats was one of the most famous poets of modern history. He received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. He was also a supporter of Freedom for the people of Ireland and supported their culture as a founder of the Abbey Theater and a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival. For a time after the schism against MacGregor Mathers’ leadership of the Golden Dawn, Yeats became the head of the Order. He claimed that the mystical poet/artist William Blake had studied Kabalah in the “Rosicrucian” school of Falk. Interestingly, it is well known that the Duke of Orleans, who had studied practical Kabalah with Falk, was one of Blake’s heroes. In his book, The French Revolution, Blake makes the Duke a hero, a “bulwark of revolutionary hopes” who urged the French nobles to “Fear not dreams, fear not visions.” One of Blake’s associates, an artist named Copley, painted a picture of Falk in which he was depicted in “Cabalistic regalia with the Masonic compass and quadrant in his hands.” It is shown above. So Falk was not obscure. His relationship to the Masonry and the O.T.O. is undeniable. His link to modern Kabalistic, magical, and mystical traditions is at least as important as that of Eliphas Levi, even though he is not as well known today. Why is he not well known? Because the only writing he did, his diary, wasn’t published until 2002, and that was in Hebrew. Falk’s link to the Golden Dawn may only be indirect. For a more direct link it would have to be shown that the dates in the History Lection are wrong (a strong possibility) or that Falk’s son used his father’s name and reputation (unlikely, but possible) In Mackenzie’s Book (the Cyclopaedia), he says that Falk headed a “Cabalistic college” in London. He was, no doubt, referring to the “brotherhood” started by Falk. Could it be that this was the first British lodge of the Golden Dawn? Falk’s son died in 1824. But is there any way to show a direct relationship between this brotherhood/Cabalistic college of Falk and the German Jewish lodge referred to in the G.D. documents as the source of the Golden Dawn? Yes. According to a book published in Germany in 1932, a Jewish Masonic Lodge called the Aurore Naisante was founded in London in 1817. It was founded under the authority of the Duke of Sussex who was the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in England, but without the authorization of the Frankfurt lodge. As a result, it was closed by the Frankfurt Masonic authorities in 1822, but may have continued on its own. A Jewish Masonic Lodge was also founded in 1807 in Frankfurt under the auspices of the Grand Orient, the more occult version of the Freemasons. In French it too was called the Aurore Naissante and in German it was Zur Aufgehenden Morgenrote. This is very similar to the name of the German temple that supposedly gave authorization to found the famed British Golden Dawn as recorded in the GD’s History Lection. Among the founders of this German Jewish Masonic lodge were three Freemasons who were well-known at the time: Ludwig Borne, Gabriel Riesser and Berthold Auerbach. These men were also associated with the fringe Masonic rite known as the Strict Observance of Baron von Hund. Was is all this important? The S.O. had secret leaders known as “The Secret Chiefs,” an important aspect of the Golden Dawn. The S.O. was also interested in magick and alchemy, two major interests of the G.D. (Yes, I know this is getting a bit conspiratorial.) WHAT IT MEANS: It seems to me that the information about the early history of the Golden Dawn as included in the History Lection of the Order is based on history, but is rather garbled. Therefore, there are three possible sources for how this information got into the History Lection which was written by W.W. Westcott: He got hand-written information that had been copied many times and errors had slipped in. He got it in person from someone who knew the history but whose memory was failing after 60 years. He read it but didn’t remember it accurately himself. I don’t think we’ll ever have a completely accurate history of the Golden Dawn. Personally, I don’t think that matters. It’s the work we do today that counts, not the history.

As Vogue celebrates its 125th year, we look back at the history of fashion, and the magazine, in a series of “five points” videos by decade, narrated by the stylish Sarah Jessica Parker. 1930–1939The flapper was a casualty of the stock market crash of 1929. Out of her ashes rose the femme fatale. At night she was a modern Diana in figure-molding bias-cut satins that oozed to the floor. By day, she might play with a Surrealist as served up by Elsa Schiaparelli. Then war came, and removed frivolity from fashion. THE LONG RUNHemlines were lengthening before the Great Crash of 1929; they fell to the floor after that debacle and stayed there for quite a while. There was nothing prim about these sweeping hems, however. The abbreviated silhouette was traded for a long, sculptural one built along classic lines that emphasized the figure within the frock. Madeleine Vionnet’s diagonal bias-cutting technique resulted in dresses that were sensuously molded to the body. Such perfection as not easily come by; “simplicity,” noted Vogue, “is a complex art.” LOVE SCHIAPEven more complicated was the kismet that brought Prince Edward into the orbit of an American divorcée named Wallis Simpson, for whom he’d abandon his throne and be exiled from his sceptered isle. Theirs was a romance that was well chronicled in Vogue by John McMullin, the magazine’s “As Seen by Him” columnist, and Cecil Beaton, who were part of the royal entourage. Before she married her prince in a Wallis blue Mainbocher design, Beaton famously captured her posing in some splendors by Elsa Schiaparelli, including the “lobster” dress hand-painted by Salvador Dalí. ALTERNATIVE FACTSDalí and the influence of the Surrealists was pervasive in the ’30s. Like the “phony war” that preceded major action on the Western Front, the movement, which aimed to yoke dreams and reality, captured the tension and strangeness of the time. Elsa Schiaparelli, the Paris-based Italian couturier and Chanel’s nemesis, was most closely associated with this movement and she aligned herself with artists like Jean Cocteau and Marcel Vertès. Surrealism made its way into Vogue, too. Not only did Dalí become a frequent contributor, but Giorgio de Chirico created artwork for the magazine and Cecil Beaton incorporated elements of the movement’s style into some of his photographs. THE FEMALE GAZEThere were few women working among the stellar stable of artists working at Vogue during the 1930s, which included photographers Horst P. Horst, Cecil Beaton, and the illustrators Eric and Christian Bérard, all of whom had a keen appreciation for the haute side of fashion. Startlingly different was the work of Toni Frissell, a young, well-connected American, who joined the staff as a caption writer but ended up as a photographer, one who brought a distinctive American wholesomeness, youth, and even fresh air to the pages of the magazine: Frissell was one of the few photographers at the magazine then shooting out of doors. PAJAMA GAMESThough Vogue first voiced its approval of pajamas in the 1920s, they continued to be endorsed in the ’30s as a headline like “Personality + 1931 = Pyjamas” shows. It was during this decade that pants started making their way out of the boudoir, becoming acceptable for casual resortwear, as well.

With an impressive group of future television and movie stars, That '70s Show graced the Fox airwaves for eight seasons (almost a full decade!) beginning in 1998. Here are some facts about how the Point Place, Wisconsin cheese was made. 1. TOPHER GRACE WAS DISCOVERED PERFORMING IN A HIGH SCHOOL PLAY. Co-creators Bonnie and Terry Turner were the parents of a cast member of a high school production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Their attention gradually turned to the lead, Topher Grace. The Turners asked him to audition the following year for their new show. 2. ASHTON KUTCHER WAS A MODEL BEFORE AUDITIONING. He got the part of Kelso after playing him “naive” at his audition, while everybody else played him as dumb. But Kutcher had never acted: "The first five episodes of That '70s Show, I was convinced I was going to be fired, because I was terrible," Kutcher told Rolling Stone. 3. MILA KUNIS LIED ABOUT HER AGE AT HER AUDITION. The then-14-year-old reasoned that the producers wouldn't want to cast someone too young because of work hour restrictions for minors, so "I told them I was going to be 18," Kunis told People. "But I didn't tell them when I was going to be 18!" 4. KUNIS’ FIRST KISS WAS ON THE SHOW, WITH KUTCHER. She enjoyed some other firsts on the show, not all of them with cast members she ended up marrying: Wilmer Valderrama taught her how to drive. Danny Masterson took her to her first club and bought her her first drink. He was also her prom date. 5. MASTERSON’S ROLE IN THE FACULTY WAS CUT SHORT SO HE COULD SHOOT THE PILOT. All the actor was told about his character, Hyde, was that he is a “deep theorist stoner type.” Masterson figured out how to play his character “by episode four or five.” 6. KURTWOOD SMITH BASED RED FORMAN ON HIS STEPFATHER. Smith's stepdad passed away shortly before the pilot was filmed. Smith also has the distinction of being the only regular cast member who was actually born in Wisconsin. 7. THE ORIGINAL TITLE FOR THE SHOW WAS TEENAGE WASTELAND. The Who songwriter Pete Townshend refused to allow his lyric from “Baba O’Riley” to be appropriated for the show; the same went for the proposed title of The Kids Are Alright. After Feelin’ All Right was presented as the name of the program to advertisers, Bonnie Turner realized that no matter what they called it, everybody would just to refer to it as “that '70s show.” 8. THE CO-WRITER OF THE THEME SONG WAS PAID $70 EVERY TIME THE SHOW WAS ON TV. Big Star singer Alex Chilton co-wrote “In the Street,” which was covered in season one by Todd Griffin before Cheap Trick’s version kicked things off starting in season two. With the name of the show in mind, Chilton found the dollar amount ironic. 9. LEO WAS WRITTEN WITH TOMMY CHONG IN MIND. Chong claimed in 2003 that his stoner character Leo was starting to get written out more because of 9/11. After disappearing for a few seasons while serving a jail sentence for selling “drug paraphernalia,” Mickey “Leo” Chingkwake returned, and was credited as a series regular in the show’s eighth and final season. 10. WILL FORTE TURNED DOWN PERFORMING ON SNL TO CONTINUE WRITING ON THE SHOW. Forte enjoyed the job security of his writing/producing gig on That '70s Show and feared failure on Saturday Night Live. One year later he changed his mind. 11. THE SMOKE IN THE "POT CIRCLE" SCENES WAS STRAWBERRY-SCENTED. Laura Prepon, Kutcher, and Masterson hid their lit cigarettes below the table before those scenes so that they could partake in their habit in between takes. 12. LATER SEASONS HAD BAND-THEMED EPISODE TITLES. Season five episodes all shared titles with Led Zeppelin tunes. For season six, The Who was honored. The Rolling Stones were represented in season seven. For season eight, it was Queen. 13. KEVIN MCDONALD GOT THE ROLE OF PASTOR DAVE BECAUSE OF HIS DOG AND TOPHER GRACE . Grace drove by one day while The Kids in the Hall cast member was walking his dog and said he was a huge fan. It led to him playing Pastor Dave for six episodes before the character unceremoniously disappeared. McDonald believes the show forgot about him because co-creator Mark Brazill left to work on the failed spinoff That ‘80s Show. 14. THERE WAS A U.K. REMAKE CALLED DAYS LIKE THESE IN 1999. It was the first time an American company (Carsey-Werner) produced both the American and British versions of the same show. Days Like These used the same scripts as That '70s Show, switching out American references with British ones, like David Bowie replacing a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders poster, and Prince Charles visiting instead of President Gerald Ford. Only 10 episodes were aired. 15. LAURIE FORMAN SUFFERED A TRAGIC END. Lisa Robin Kelly was taken off the show halfway through season three, returning in the fifth season only to be replaced by actress Christina Moore. "I was guilty of a drinking problem,” Kelly said in 2012. “And I ran.” Kelly passed away on August 13, 2013, after entering a rehabilitation facility; the coroner ruled the cause as being from multiple drug intoxication.

For Charlie Manuel, for Don Mattingly, for Jim Leyland, the end may not necessarily be near. But the end of their contracts? Now that is definitely near. Those three household names find themselves part of an odd phenomenon that is rocking baseball this season, pretty much out of nowhere: Managers in the last year of their contracts. Amazingly, 10 of the 30 managers in the big leagues don't have a deal that extends beyond this season. And no one we've surveyed can recall anything like it. Ready for the roll call? Here we go: Charlie Manuel (Phillies) Don Mattingly (Dodgers) Jim Leyland (Tigers) Joe Girardi (Yankees) Terry Collins (Mets) Davey Johnson (Nationals) Ned Yost (Royals) Eric Wedge (Mariners) Walt Weiss (Rockies) Ron Gardenhire (Twins). In 2013? They're all totally in charge. In 2014? Uh, we'll get back to you. “ Every contract I've had, I've worked all the way to the end, until the contract expired. I was never uncomfortable with that. So if I'm hiring people who are uncomfortable with that, I'm hiring the wrong people. ” -- Yankees GM Brian Cashman Judging by all the front-office folks whose response to this was "I didn't even realize that," it's safe to say this is more of a coincidence than some gigantic management conspiracy. But it does reflect a change in what once passed for conventional thinking: We can't hang our manager out there on the last year of his deal. The players will walk all over him. That may have been the theory once upon a time. But nowadays, says Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, "I think it's something from out of the past that doesn't exist in the present anymore. It's one of those old things that was widely accepted -- and then a lot of smart people said, 'Why?'" The Yankees have been asking, "Why?" for years, actually. For a decade, it's been their policy, for the most part, not to extend anyone's contract -- manager or player -- until it expired and they had to make a decision. Somehow or other, they've managed to function just fine. Imagine that. "Derek Jeter played to the end of his contract and went to free agency," Cashman said. "Mariano Rivera played to the end of his contract and went to free agency. The general manager worked to the end of his contract. Every contract I've had, I've worked all the way to the end, until the contract expired. I was never uncomfortable with that. So if I'm hiring people who are uncomfortable with that, I'm hiring the wrong people." In fact, Cashman's manager, Girardi, doesn't appear to be in any significant jeopardy of losing his job -- even though the manager of the New York Yankees clearly would not top the list of America's most secure gigs. But all of these situations are different. So let's run through them, saving the most volatile for last. Joe Girardi, New York Yankees: He's been through this last dance before -- in 2010 -- and got a new three-year deal out of it, even after a season in which the Yankees got bludgeoned by the Rangers in the ALCS. So there has been very little buzzing about Girardi's job status -- and Cashman says there shouldn't be. "We have a guy in that office who knows he'd have no problem getting a job [if he got let go]," the GM said. "And we should all have that confidence in ourselves if we're in that situation. If you're really good at what you do, things take care of themselves. That's the way we should all look at it." Three-time manager of the year Jim Leyland, 68, is in his 22nd season and eighth with Detroit. AP Photo/Danny Moloshok Davey Johnson, Washington Nationals: No big job crisis here. Johnson and GM Mike Rizzo agreed back in November 2012 this would be Johnson's last season as manager. Then he'll resume his role as a special advisor to Rizzo next year. Nothing more to see here. Move along. Jim Leyland, Detroit Tigers: The Tigers let Leyland manage out his previous contract last season, squirming right to the finish line before giving him a new deal the day after the World Series. But had they not charged from behind to win the division in the final week and a half, there's an excellent chance someone else would be managing this team right now. At this point, Leyland and his boss, Dave Dombrowski, seem to have an understanding that Leyland has reached the stage of his career where it makes more sense for both of them to operate on a year-to-year basis. One of these years, Leyland will move on and say it was his decision -- or have it spun as a mutual decision. But the best description of his status at this point is "open-ended." Terry Collins, New York Mets: Collins is in the final year of his original two-year contract, which included an option for 2013. His GM, Sandy Alderson, has consistently said lots of good things about him. So there's no indication that Collins is in any imminent danger of losing his job. But Alderson has made it clear he believes in maintaining the flexibility to re-evaluate the manager and his coaching staff in a year. So a lot depends both on how this season plays out and how ready to contend the Mets believe they'll be heading into next season. One baseball exec who speaks frequently with Alderson told Rumblings that Collins' situation is so wide-open, "I don't think you can read into it, one way or the other." Ned Yost, Kansas City Royals: This one is a puzzler. Yost and GM Dayton Moore have a great relationship, and baseball people who know them both say they'd be shocked if Yost isn't back next year. Nevertheless, if you have a good memory, you'll remember that when the Royals picked up Yost's option for this season about 14 months ago, Moore said he wanted to avoid speculation that Yost was some sort of lame duck. There has been no attempt to dodge that speculation this year -- not yet, at least. But one longtime friend of Moore says he's "practically 100 percent certain" Yost isn't going anywhere. So is that convincing enough? Walt Weiss, who coached a high school team last year, is off to a 14-7 start as manager of the first-place Rockies. Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post Walt Weiss, Colorado Rockies: It's hard to remember any first-year manager who agreed to take the job on a one-year deal. But Weiss stepped into this position with remarkable confidence in himself -- and with the assurance, from people he'd known for years, that they wanted him to do this for as long as he wanted to do it. "If we gave him a two-, three- or four-year deal," said Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd, "then, at some point, he would be entering the last year of his contract, and that, unfortunately, would be the focal point of the media. So perhaps, if this can turn into how we chose to define this particular topic -- a relationship built on something bigger -- then that question will never be the focal point of his position, and he can do what he does best and enjoys most -- managing his players and not answering questions about his job status!" Hmmm. We think he just summed up why this tide is shifting about as well as it can be summed up. Eric Wedge, Seattle Mariners: The Mariners have said very little about Wedge's status as he heads into the final season of a three-year deal. And GM Jack Zduriencik declined the opportunity to discuss it for this opus, saying it was club policy not to comment on anyone's contract issues. But this feels like a moment in time where everyone involved in the running of this team is on notice. If this turns into One Of Those Years, Wedge, Zduriencik and the folks around them could all start wondering about their job security. But it's way too soon to start sounding those alarms. In truth, the manager's seat isn't any hotter, or cooler, than anyone else's seat on this team -- not at the moment, anyway. TRIVIALITY Don Mattingly, Los Angeles Dodgers: Another fascinating situation. It would be a stretch to say Mattingly is "in trouble." He and GM Ned Colletti have an excellent relationship. So unless something goes haywire, Mattingly is more likely to get an extension than a layoff notice. On the other hand, the manager told the Los Angeles Times last winter that he asked the team to pick up his 2014 option, just so he could avoid being a topic in pieces like this -- and "they said that wasn't the plan for me or my coaches." So this is a situation to watch carefully: We're talking about a team with a $217 million payroll. A team with an ownership icon (Magic Johnson) who already has said that anything less than a trip to the World Series would make this season a failure. And a team that hasn't played well early. So anything is possible. Mattingly's players clearly like him, and "they know he's on the last year of his deal," said one executive who has been following this saga. "So if they like the guy so much -- if they don't want anything to happen to him -- they can make that a non-issue by playing better. Can't they?" Ron Gardenhire, Minnesota Twins: Nobody on this list has managed his team for more seasons than Gardenhire has managed the Twins (12). He and GM Terry Ryan have a long history and a great understanding of each other and their franchise. But that doesn't mean the manager can count on being around for another 12 years -- or even another 12 months. And the manager gets that. When Ryan informed him last winter it wasn't the right time to drop an extension on him after two straight last-place seasons, Gardenhire told him, "I haven't earned anything." This has been one of baseball's most stable franchises. But Ryan did push for big changes in Gardenhire's coaching staff this season -- a development that tells you anything could happen. But as one exec who once had ties to the Twins told Rumblings, "It's hard to picture Gardy not being the manager and Terry not being the general manager. They've been embedded together for so long." So could Gardenhire be gone if this season spins the wrong way? "He could," the exec said. "But I wouldn't bet on it." Charlie Manuel has never had a losing season as Phillies manager. Steve Nesius/Reuters Charlie Manuel, Philadelphia Phillies: We've saved the most interesting name on this list for last. Manuel is the winningest manager in Phillies history. He has never had a losing season in any of his eight seasons in Philadelphia. He's one of two managers in team history to have won a World Series. And he told Rumblings again this week that "I plan to keep managing -- unless I decide all of a sudden I don't want to do it." So why does his job status feel so uncomfortable? Because there's a vibe around his team that the men upstairs think it might be time for a new voice, even though GM Ruben Amaro Jr. insists it's only the media that is making an issue of this. "Honestly," Amaro told Rumblings, "I don't think about his situation at all." Asked if he was concerned about how his players would respond to having a manager with an uncertain future, Amaro said: "I don't think the players give two craps about it. I don't think it's even a factor, not with our guys I don't know if a contract for the manager should be a motivating factor for any player. They should be motivated by winning. That's it." Meanwhile, Manuel says this only affects him when people like us ask about it. "I'm still the same guy," he said. "If I had a 10-year contract, I'd think the same way and manage the same way." But he clearly wants to keep chugging along, and management clearly hasn't climbed on board. So at some point, this situation has a chance to fire up. For the moment, though, "I find that talking about it is not good," Manuel said. "It's not good for me or anyone else." The fascinating part about this whole subject is that if you were to compile a list of managers who could be "in trouble," it wouldn't be confined to the 10 men in this group. The oddsmakers at Bovada LV just published their "First Manager to Get Fired" odds. And while Manuel topped the charts at 4-1, five of the other 10 names were guys not on the last year of their deals: Bud Black (9-2), Ron Roenicke (7-1), Clint Hurdle (10-1), Mike Scioscia (12-1) and John Gibbons (20-1). What all of that reminds us, said one National League executive, is that "an extension doesn't guarantee anything." Those extensions, he said, serve more as lovely parting gifts than indicators of job security. So if they don't provide any more security, why do we all get so worked up about them? The truth is, Tony La Russa won a World Series in the final year of a contract. Joe Torre took the Yankees to two World Series in years his contract was up (and technically managed one of them, in 2001, after his contract was up). And way back when, in another era, Walter Alston managed the Dodgers for 23 years -- on 23 one-year contracts. So it's not as if this has never happened before. It just never happened all at once before. But now that it has, why do we have a feeling it won't be the last time? Ready to Rumble Greinke Shields • Got into an interesting debate recently with an American League executive who was extolling the impact James Shields has made on the Royals. He took a position I didn't see coming: If he had a choice of which starter he'd give a nine-figure contract to -- Shields or Zack Greinke -- he'd take (wait for it) Shields. "Greinke's stuff is a little better," he said. "And on a given day, he can rise to the occasion and just dominate. But there are other days where he almost seems a little disinterested. You never have to worry about that with Shields. He's out there for one reason -- to beat you. And then there's the impact he has on a club on a daily basis. That's one thing about Greinke. He has great stuff. But he gives you none of that." • Shields has said he's open to sticking around in Kansas City long term. But if he's a $100 million deal waiting to happen, it's hard to find anyone who thinks the Royals could afford that contract. #50 SP St. Louis Cardinals 2013 STATS GM 5 W4 L1 BB1 K37 ERA 1.93 • While we're on the subject of aces with hefty contracts: After the flurry of big-buck extensions settled down around Opening Day, an official of one large-market club said the one monster contract he questioned was Adam Wainwright's five-year, $97.5 million extension with the Cardinals. Well, here we are, three weeks into the season: Wainwight has a 1.93 ERA and a 37-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and you don't hear any more questions, do you? "The word for that contract in this clubhouse is 'needed,'" said David Freese. "He needed it. We needed it. We all needed Adam Wainwright to be a Cardinal for the rest of his career. Especially with [Chris Carpenter] going down, this clubhouse, this organization, this city needed to have Adam Wainwright around." Harper • We all gush over Bryce Harper's power. One scout we talked to gushed about something else: his hustle. "I saw him hit a routine ground ball to shortstop, and I got him running to first in under four seconds," the scout said. "I'll tell you what: If you wanted to find a poster child for how to play major league baseball correctly, you'd choose Bryce Harper." • You know those rumors that the Mets are "monitoring" Giancarlo Stanton -- the ones that also mention the Marlins would undoubtedly ask for Zack Wheeler and Travis d'Arnaud in return? "I wouldn't give one of those guys for Stanton," said one NL exec. "The catcher has a chance to be a 10-year All-Star. The other guy is one of the best pitching prospects in the game." So there you have it. #63 SP Cleveland Indians 2013 STATS GM 5 W4 L1 BB13 K30 ERA 1.85 • Here's a Trade That Didn't Happen to ponder: Justin Masterson is 4-1, 1.85 for the Indians after five starts. Out in balmy Colorado, Dexter Fowler has out-homered the Marlins (7-6). When the Indians dangled Masterson in the offseason, they asked for Fowler to head the package. That deal was talked about extensively early in the offseason. Never did happen. Think either side would do it today? • We've made Jean Segura famous for his baserunning. After all, while lots of men can go first to third on you, nobody can go third to first like he does. But Brewers GM Doug Melvin posed a different question about his shortstop: When people talk about the best young shortstops in baseball, how come they never talk about Segura, the centerpiece of last year's Zack Greinke deal? Good question. Segura hit .313, with a .367 on-base percentage, in his minor league career. He won a batting title in the Dominican last winter. And he's hitting .356/.397/.493 in the big leagues this month. That sure gets our attention. "He's really been under the radar," Melvin said. "I don't think he's ever listed in the top 25 prospects. But he's 22, going on 23, and he's really opened our eyes. I see people talk about the [Jurickson] Profars and even the Dee Gordons. But they never talk about him. He's an exciting player." • A scout who was in attendance for the big Stephen Strasburg-Matt Harvey duel in New York last weekend reported: "If you didn't know who was who, you'd have thought Harvey was Strasburg and Strasburg was Harvey. You know, I've always loved Strasburg, and I've given him the highest grade you could give a player. But if you were to ask me which guy was the better bet to be great for the next five years, I'd say Harvey. His stuff's just as good. And he has a better delivery." Wow. Matt Harvey Fever. He's got it. TRIVIA ANSWER • Finally, people gush about Harvey's fastball and changeup, and you can understand why. But the pitch that has truly changed his career is his slider, which we've even heard opposing hitters describe as "unhittable." Right. As in literally unhittable. He has thrown it 97 times this season -- and given up one hit. Incredibly, that's a pitch he virtually never threw in the minor leagues. But Harvey told Rumblings that when he got to the big leagues, he showed pitching coach Dan Warthen the grip he used to throw it. Warthen tweaked it slightly. And next thing Harvey knew, even he couldn't believe how hard he could throw it and how much it moved. So what's the secret? "Basically," he said, "I just offset the grip on my fastball -- and throw the crap out of it." Modern biomechanics at work, ladies and gentlemen. Or something like that. Tweets of the Week • If we're reading this right, our favorite legendary 19th-century fireballer wasn't real impressed that the Rockies and Braves teed it up Tuesday in 23-degree temperatures: I once pitched in 23 degree weather. I shot a buffalo, wore its hide, and tossed a complete game without complaint. — Old Hoss Radbourn (@OldHossRadbourn) April 23, 2013 • If you're not following Mets public relations witticist Jay Horwitz, why are you on Twitter in the first place? Novel approach to Dog Day today.Five of 9 Mets starters will be accompanied to their positions by their pet dogs. Hopefully, no accidents. — Jay Horwitz (@Jay_HorwitzPR) April 20, 2013 • And we couldn't resist this quip from Gar Ryness, the fabled Batting Stance Guy, because after we finished laughing, we actually looked this up: Cleveland up on Houston 14-0. 1st time Cleveland up 14 since Bernie Kosar was released. — Batting Stance Guy (@BattingStanceG) April 21, 2013 Astounding Fact of the Week OK, the Bernie Kosar thing was a joke. But This is a 100 percent true fact: The Indians really did take a 14-0 lead in the second inning Saturday. Meanwhile, the Browns have also held a 14-0 lead once In their last 80 games! We kid you not. Here at World Rumblings and Grumblings Headquarters, it's the facts and just the facts. You know that.

The Giants spent $200 million on payroll this year, which not only sounds like a lot — it is a lot. On the other hand, the Dodgers, San Francisco’s archrival in the National League West, spent $300 million. With San Francisco voters passing Proposition D Tuesday by an almost 3-1 count, the Giants might well have the leverage to erase that $100 million difference in the near future. The proposal allowed for a waiver of height restrictions in the area around AT&T Park, enabling the team to go ahead with their so-called Mission Rock proposal. The club wants to build a high-rise district on a parking lot across from McCovey Cove behind the right field wall. The plans call for three towers that now can reach 240 feet in addition to homes, shops, offices, art studios, parks and a brewery, an area that Giants’ president Larry Baer told the Los Angeles Times will “have a Fenway feel, a Wrigleyville feel.” And catching the Dodgers may not be the end. With sellouts in 408 consecutive games, the Giants already generate revenue in excess of every club in baseball other than the Yankees and the Dodgers. That will spike when the debt on AT&T Park is paid off down the line. And while the Giants have won three of the last six World Series titles, Baer sees the Mission Rock project as a hedge against an inevitable downturn in on-field performance. “The biggest single thing for us going forward is that we have a real estate project,” Baer said. “That is going to help us create a very important neighborhood around the ballpark and allow us to keep up with teams that are in larger markets. “We can convert to 18 million homes for television like New York has, or 12 million homes like L.A. has. We’re at 7 million homes. To make up for the disparity, that is going to be one difference-maker for us.” One more thing. The Giants may have sold every ticket at its disposal this year, but the Giants’ attendance was 400,000 behind the Dodgers, who don’t always sell out, but who always play in the park with the most seats in baseball.

The Nasa 'space drink' that can rub out sun spots: Fruit juice developed to protect astronauts reduces wrinkles and reverses the telltale signs of ageing in four months These startling images may prove that a fruit drink developed by Nasa to protect astronauts from radiation can rejuvenate the skin. A groundbreaking study has shown that the concoction, known as AS10, dramatically reduces wrinkles, blemishes and sun damage after four months. Visia photographs – which reveal the condition of the skin below the surface by using different types of light exposure – were taken of 180 participants at the start of the trial, and again after four months of drinking two shots of AS10 a day. By the end UV spots were reduced by 30 per cent and wrinkles by 17 per cent. Out of this world: The dramatic effect of AS10 on pigmentation as seen through Visia photographs, before on the left and after on the right AS10 was developed as a nutritional supplement for astronauts to protect them from the damaging effects of high levels of radiation outside the Earth’s atmosphere. The drink contains a blend of fruits including cupuacu (a Brazilian fruit from the cacao plant family), acai, acerola, prickly pear and yumberry, which all provide vitamins and phytochemicals – compounds known to block the harmful effects of radiation. Other ingredients are grape, green tea, pomegranate and vegetables. Radiation particles alter oxygen molecules in the body to create reactive oxygen species (ROS) – so-called ‘free radicals’ which damage cells in a process known as oxidative stress. This process has been linked to diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. The toxic molecules are also thought to play a role in the skin ageing process. ROS are created naturally within the body as cells generate energy, but also through environmental factors such as chemicals and ultraviolet light from the sun – the strongest stress to skin. Mobile phone radiation, cigarette smoke and alcohol also generate ROS. Space-age: AS10 was developed in conjunction with Nasa for the Astronaut Programme to ensure they received enough fruit and vegetables ‘Think of them as little Pac-men taking bites out of molecules that are essential for cells to function,’ says Dr Aaron Barson, the nutritional scientist from Utah who carried out the AS10 study after patients reported dramatic improvement from the drink. AS10 is thought to improve skin condition because the drink’s large quantities of antioxidants ward off oxidative stress, allowing the skin to heal naturally. Antioxidants attach themselves to ROS and neutralise them before they cause damage. Dr Barson says: ‘The skin is the first body tissue to be exposed to UV rays and we know it is sensitive to oxidative stress. Our study shows it greatly benefits from a reduction in this stress. The effects of oxidative stress on the skin can be quickly modified and the skin can heal itself by drinking AS10.’ Dr Barson suggests that the results may have been even better had the trial been conducted during the winter, when exposure to ultraviolet light would have been less. A second, larger study is planned this summer to investigate for how long the effects last and whether skin condition reaches a plateau or deteriorates once the drink is no longer consumed. The main drawback is the high price of the drink. The women in the trial drank a sherry glass – 60ml – of AS10 a day. At £30 per 750ml bottle, the cost was just under £300 over the four months. Cosmetic dermatologist Dr Sam Bunting says: ‘The Visia scans show a marked improvement in the level of UV spots, which represent sun damage beneath the surface of the skin. The kind of interventions that might deliver this level of improvement are glycolic skin peels, which use acids to strip away layers of skin, retinoids, high-potency Vitamin C and hydroquinone with the use of sun block on a daily basis. ‘If these changes were due to AS10, this would be of great interest as UV is responsible for 80 per cent of the skin changes we associate with ageing.’ She adds that although AS10 might well do what it claims, a critical appraisal of the methods in the study would be required to back this up. Cosmetic dermatologist Dr Mervyn Patterson, of Woodford Medical, agrees. He says: ‘These images show a reduction in the degree of pigmentation on the skin caused by UV exposure. This could be due to the drink.’ But he says daily use of sunscreen with UVB/UVA sun protection factor of 50+ could deliver results on a par with AS10. ‘It is more likely to protect the skin, resulting in reductions in redness and pigmentation and a subtle reduction in wrinkles.’

Google has released the final preview of Android Oreo 8.1, an update to its Linux-based mobile platform which will activate the Pixel Visual Core co-processor built into the company's Pixel 2 smartphones for the first time. Unveiled back in October, the Pixel Visual Core marks the first time a Google-designed co-processor has found its way into one of the company's consumer products. An eight-core Image Processing Unit (IPU) connected to an ARM Cortex-A53 general-purpose processor and PCI Express and Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) links, the Visual Core has been present but deactivated in every single Pixel 2 smartphone the company has sold. In Android Oreo 8.1, though, the chip will be activated for the first time. Announced as part of the final developer preview release ahead of public availability, the software update will activate the Pixel Visual Core - though only through a 'new developer option' rather than as an on-by-default feature. 'Using Pixel Visual Core, HDR+ [High Dynamic Range Plus photographic processing] can run 5x faster and at less than one-tenth the energy than running on the application processor,' explained Google's Ofer Shacham and Masumi Reynders in the original technology announcement. 'HDR+ will be the first application to run on Pixel Visual Core. Notably, because Pixel Visual Core is programmable, we’re already preparing the next set of applications. The great thing is that as we port more machine learning and imaging applications to use Pixel Visual Core, Pixel 2 will continuously improve.' The developer toggle in Android 8.1 will allow early adopters to activate accelerated HDR+ using the Pixel 2's native camera app, with support for third-party camera packages using the Android camera application programming interface (API) to follow. Thus far, though, Google has not indicated what other tasks it plans to offload to the Pixel Visual Core, a device which boasts performance in the range of three trillion operations per second (TOPS) through its 4,096 Halide and TensorFlow compatible arithmetic and logic units (ALUs).

ABOUT THE STORY Arif Ayaz Parrey’s achievement in this story is the evocation of an entire climate of fear and suspicion in Kashmir without the use of any characters or events. The story works purely as a text about another text—a torture manual allegedly used in the repression of the insurgency—and through its ironic repetition of the language and categories, at once bureaucratic and sinister, of the manual. The only person whom we know by the name in the story—the “Major Ali” of the title—appears to be fictional twice over. Even his reality as a character in fiction is disturbed by the notion that he may have first been invented by the nameless, shadowy powers whose motives and modus operandi the story describes. Parrey drops us into a maze of smoke and mirrors, disorienting us in a manner analogous to the “sustainable and ever-widening cycle of distrust” that the torture manual seeks to generate among “the subject population”. It’s not even clear where the narrator himself stands, or which of the manual’s five classes of Kashmiris on the resistor/collaborator axis he inhabits, or—most disturbingly—whether he may himself be “Major Ali” in a new guise, now a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In this way, Parrey renovates the narrative tactic of self-reflexivity—a playful gesture in the work of Laurence Sterne or Beckett or Borges, but here, the default setting of all human activity when subjected to the modern state’s mania for control and power. The Torture Manual of Major Ali

A Taunton woman arrested Monday afternoon on drunk driving charges was carrying a lizard in her bra, police said. Amy Rebello-McCarthy, 39, veered off the road and struck half a dozen mailboxes before crashing onto a lawn, police said. When police arrived around 1:30 p.m., Rebello-McCarthy slurred her words as she asked officers to call a tow truck. All four tires were flat, the airbags had been deployed, and the bumpers were missing, police said. When police searched her car, they found an open bottle of brandy in the front seat along with empty bottles of root beer-flavored nips, police said. Advertisement Rebello-McCarthy’s blood alcohol content was measured at nearly twice the legal limit, police said. Get Metro Headlines in your inbox: The 10 top local news stories from metro Boston and around New England delivered daily. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here A 22-year-old Waltham man, Martin Kyewalyanga, was in the passenger seat when the car crashed, witnesses told police. While police were talking to Rebello-McCarthy, Kyewalyanga was smoking a cigarette near the back of the car, where gasoline was dripping. Police asked him to step away from the vehicle, fearing that he might start a fire. Kyewalyanga was placed under arrest for his own safety because he was so inebriated, police said. As she was arrested, Rebello-McCarthy told police officers that she was carrying a bearded dragon in her bra. The lizard was placed “in a red bandana for safe keeping,” police wrote in their report. “It faces no charges at this time,” police wrote in a Facebook post that had some fun at Rebello-McCarthy’s expense. Advertisement She has been arraigned 109 times in her adult life, police said. “You can’t make this stuff up,” police wrote in the post. Maddie Kilgannon can be reached at maddie.kilgannon@globe.com . Follow her on Twitter @MaddieKilgannon

Jeb! waiting for people to show up to his Republican party. Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images Entertainment, D. Anschutz/Thinkstock. Mike Murphy finds it all very funny that people think Jeb Bush is in trouble. The head of Bush’s $100 million super PAC, Right to Rise, considers most political punditry this cycle to be stupid. Conceded. But both the stupid and occasional non-stupid pundits all agree on one thing: Things aren’t going well for Bush, and one cannot assume that the old rules governing Republican presidential nominating contests will inevitably save him. Murphy outlined his thinking in a rare extended interview with Bloomberg Politics. Why? Most practically, to signal Right to Rise’s thinking to the official Bush campaign and leery donors. Or, in Murphy’s words: “[W]e thought it would be good to kind of go through our theory of the race in a more distributed way.” His theory is lacking. Nowhere, between all his mockery, does he get to the heart of the matter: why people don’t like Jeb Bush right now, and how Right to Rise intends to change that. “What I find is we’re in this funny casino of the pre-season now,” he says, “where the complete sum of pundit knowledge in this race, with a few rare exceptions, is based on national polling that in my view is completely meaningless.” Zuh? There will always be a fair share of bad national poll coverage. If there’s more of it this time, Murphy can blame the Republican National Committee and its media partners for pegging debate participation to national polling status. But it’s not like Bush is only doing badly in national polls that don’t matter, anyway. He’s doing poorly in polls of early states, too. Bush is doing lousy in Iowa. That’s fine: Bush is one thing and Iowa Republicans are a whole other thing. But he’s also performing lousy in New Hampshire, a state he has spent an extraordinary amount of time in and has been advertising in. He is not leading in Florida, his natural firewall, or South Carolina, the GOP establishment’s traditional firewall for their chosen representative. How important are early state polls? They can and do fluctuate along with everything else. Murphy, whether he means to or not, implies that early state polls are important, because he dramatically lowers Bush’s expectations in those early states based on how poorly things have been going. That, as the Washington Post’s David Weigel points out, is really the most eye-popping exchange in the interview: Murphy argues that Bush doesn’t need to win any states for the first 45 days of contests in order to win the nomination—people will know that he has the money to compete for the long haul, the “little guys” will flame out, and then the real race will begin later on in big-state, winner-take-all races. It’s an arguable theory. Murphy is not the first to suggest that super PACs like his extend the primary map and downplay the traditional importance of the early states. But Murphy is supposed to be the one arguing that, writ-large, the old rules of nominating—in which party voters eventually ditch flings and flock to the more electable, “establishment” pick—still apply. Arguing that the eventual nominee need not win (or even place!) in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina this time around punctures his underlying premise—that this time isn’t all that different. This is second-order stuff, anyway. Whether the rules are different or not, the central problem for Bush is the same: Voters simply do not care for him. Being relatively liked by human beings who vote in elections is an important first step toward winning elections. We need not pay much attention to Bush’s top-line number in national polls, but we can look to his favorability ratings to see what sort of space he has to work with. Monmouth University’s latest national poll, released this morning, finds Bush at 5 percent nationally. Whatever. Skip to the favorability ratings, though, and the picture somehow looks even more grim. Of the six candidates’ whose favorables were polled among Republicans, Bush is the only one underwater—at 37 to 44 percent. This is indicative of the trend, and it corresponds with what any person paying vague attention to the news has seen. Murphy is just spinning, same as anyone else who works for Bush. Of course there are going to be some gaps in what he says versus what is really happening. But if he’s going to prattle on about how the media has invented a sorry state of affairs for Bush’s candidacy that isn’t backed by evidence, well, we hate to break it to him. If anything, the media has given Bush too much credit due to his last name and his family’s reputation for winning presidential nominations. Who in their right mind would believe that this visibly poor campaigner, who’s fifth-placing it every which way, whose fundamentals show little room for growth, who’s out-of-step with the temperament of his party’s voters, whose cash advantage isn’t really in another league anymore, and whose general election viability isn’t looking so hot is going to be restored by the natural laws of presidential nominating? Only the stupid, stupid media would believe that this guy has a shot.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The move is part of the government's effort to control net migration, as Hugh Pym reports Thousands of foreign nurses working in junior posts in the UK could be forced to return home under new immigration rules, union leaders have warned. A new pay threshold for migrants means non-European workers will have to leave the UK after six years if they are not earning at least £35,000. The Royal College of Nursing said the rules would "cause chaos" for the NHS and waste money spent on recruitment. The Home Office said the rules would help reduce demand for migrant labour. And Prime Minister David Cameron even got drawn into the issue, saying more homegrown nurses were in the process of being recruited. The move is part of the government's effort to control net migration, but the union says that by 2017 more than 3,300 NHS nurses could be affected. And by the end of the decade the numbers could be double that - a potential waste of nearly £40m when all the costs of recruitment are taken into account, the RCN says. There are more than 400,000 nurses working in the NHS and over 600,000 registered to work. The warning comes as the RCN's annual conference gets under way in Bournemouth. More difficult RCN general secretary Peter Carter said: "The immigration rules will cause chaos for the NHS and other care services. "At a time when demand is increasing, the UK is perversely making it harder to employ staff from overseas." He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the move was "totally illogical" as there is currently a "major shortage of nurses", leading to many NHS trusts spending "tens of millions" to recruit from overseas. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption RCN's Peter Carter: "[Foreign nurses] will have to leave their homes in the UK, many of them now have families here... it's a truly deplorable state of affairs" Dr Carter also stressed that most nurses earn "nowhere near" £35,000, with most on salaries of between £21,000 and £28,000 a year. Due to cuts to nurse-training places, trusts are being forced into relying on overseas recruitment as well as temporary staff just to provide safe staffing. The long-term solution is to train more nurses in the UK, but in the interim, foreign nurses filled the gap, he added. Nurse pay and roles Band Pay range Typical role 5 £21,692 - £28,180 Entry level nurse or midwife 6 £26,041 - £34,876 Staff nurse, such as theatre nurse 7 £31,072 - £40,694 Senior nurse, such as ward sister / team leader 8 £39,632 - £81,618 Nurse consultant or matron Source: Royal College of Nursing and NHS England He said of the new rules: "It can't be morally or ethically right but will also have a huge impact on the ability of the health service to carry on in the way it has." A Home Office spokesman said: "As the prime minister has made clear, the government wants to reduce the demand for migrant labour. "We changed the settlement rules in 2011 to break the link between coming to work in the UK and staying here permanently." He said employers had had four years to prepare for the changes, adding: "There are exemptions to this threshold where the UK has a shortage." At the moment nurses are not on that exemption list, but the spokesman said it was possible they could still be added if evidence showed this was needed. Meanwhile, Mr Cameron said he did not believe the immigration rules would lead to a shortfall of nurses. "We have got a massive training programme for nurses at the moment, there are something like 8,000 more nurses in the NHS today than when I became Prime Minister. The training programme will continue," he said. "But, crucially, we have an organisation called the Migration Advisory Committee and they advise us about which occupations to put on the so-called shortage occupations list, the ones where they fear skills shortages will develop. "They haven't put nursing on that shortage occupation list and I think we should listen to their advice above all." Analysis - Hugh Pym, BBC health editor Nursing shortages and spiralling agency costs have generated intense pressures on hospital finances. Calls by regulators for higher staff numbers following scandals such as mid- Staffs have resulted in higher demand for nurses at a time of limited supply. In effect, the RCN is saying the Government is shooting itself in the foot by pursuing a policy which could squeeze the supply of nurses even further. Making nurses from outside the European Economic Area quit the UK if they don't earn enough could deter their compatriots from seeking work here at a time of rising demand for qualified nurses in most leading economies. The other side of the debate is the suggestion that the UK should train more homegrown nurses and not rely so much on migrant staff. The tighter immigration rules do not effect recruitment from inside the EEA so there is still a supply of trained foreign health staff. The Home Office, responsible for immigration policy, and the Department of Health, anxious to ensure there are enough nurses, will no doubt be engaged in some full and frank discussions on this vexed issue. The Economist Intelligence Unit said any problems might be short-lived since there are now more nurse training posts in place and the Migration Advisory Committee has a system in place to identify skills shortages. But Labour's Shadow Health Minister Andrew Gwynne said cuts to nurse training had left NHS hospitals with "no option but to recruit from overseas or hire expensive agency nurses." And British Medical Association Dr Mark Porter, speaking at the doctor's conference which is also taking place this week, also came to the defence of people from abroad who are working in the NHS. "What did we hear in the election campaign from politicians of several parties? "We were told immigrants are filling up our GP surgeries and our hospitals. "Well they are. They're called doctors. And nurses. And porters and cleaners and clinical scientists. And without them, the NHS would be on its knees."

Amsterdam Releases Pair of Adventure Brews at Retail Stores TORONTO, ON – Amsterdam Brewery has announced the retail release of two Adventure Brews, the brewery’s on-going series of one-off, collaborative and small batch beers. Available now in 473 ml cans is Starke Pilsner, a beer that has been a favourite at the Amsterdam BrewHouse since it was first made available there on draught last year. The 5.8% abv Czech-style lager is described as “a refreshing golden Pilsner with a rich body and some spicy, grassy notes from the hops as well as a slight resiny finish.” Out in 650 ml bottles is Shape Shifter, a 10% abv strong ale brewed in collaboration with Indie Ale House. Aged in Cognac and Madeira barrels for 5 months, it’s described as having “flavours of dark fruit and vanilla with a sturdy oak, treacle and caramel.” Both beers are available now in the retail stores at the Amsterdam Brewery (45 Esandar Drive) and BrewHouse (245 Queens Quay West) in Toronto.

21 September 2015 Hamilton Zoo’s male Sumatran tiger Oz will not be euthanized following the death of Zoo Curator Samantha Kudeweh yesterday (20 September, 2015). Lance Vervoort, Hamilton City Council’s General Manager Community, says although Samantha’s death is a tragedy for the wider zoo family and international wildlife conservation community, senior zoo staff have ruled out euthanizing Oz. “We’re aware there is a lot of interest and speculation around how we manage Oz now, and I want to assure the public and zoo supporters that he will not be put down,” Mr Vervoort says. “Although there is an inherent risk for zoo professionals who manage big cats like Oz, there is no wider ongoing risk. There is no reason for us to put Oz down.” Mr Vervoort says the decision not to euthanize Oz was made by zoo senior staff today. They have advised the Ministry for Primary Industries – the Government agency responsible for overseeing zoo and wildlife park operations in New Zealand – of this. “This is our call, and the decision on Oz rested solely with us,” Mr Vervoort says. “Oz is a significant animal for his species. He is the father of our two cubs, and he is vital to the ongoing breeding programme to conserve this rare species." Mr Vervoort says the widely held view among zoo professionals was that Oz’s attack on Samantha was in line with his natural instincts. Hamilton Zoo will reopen on Thursday, and Mr Vervoort says some of the zoo’s five Sumatran tigers will be on display. No decision has been made on whether visitors to the zoo will be able to see Oz. Mr Vervoort says the zoo’s popular Tiger Talks, Eye 2 Eye and Face 2 Face encounters for all species have been suspended until further notice to allow zoo staff time and space to grieve for their friend and colleague. Those aspects of the zoo experience will be assessed on a weekly basis. Mr Vervoort says Hamilton Zoo will not be commenting on tiger management procedures until all investigations have been completed. “We’re firmly focussed on supporting Samantha’s family, the zoo team, and make sure we conduct thorough and complete investigations into this tragic incident.” Mr Vervoort says Hamilton Zoo’s phone lines and social media channels had been inundated with messages of support from around the country following Samantha’s death. “Our team is still coming to terms with what has happened, and the show of support from our community and the zoo industry worldwide has been very touching and hugely appreciated.” Mr Vervoort says Samantha’s family has asked for ongoing privacy and time to grieve while arrangements are made for a service to celebrate her life. Download the audio statement from Lance Vervoort (mp3). FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Jeff Neems Communication Advisor 07 838 6509 021 818 564 jeff.neems@hcc.govt.nz

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had a warm meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday that stood in sharp contrast to her growing split with President Trump. (Filip Singer/European Pressphoto Agency) President Trump escalated his feud with Berlin on Tuesday, even as Germany’s leader and Trump’s own spokesman tried to defuse the conflict, which has sent tremors through Washington’s core postwar alliances. Before the presidential tweets began flying early Tuesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed the importance of Germany’s ties to the United States. But she pointedly did not back down from earlier comments about Europe’s need to rely on itself rather than its friends. The dispute started as Trump sped through meetings in Europe last week and appeared to leave a trail of bruises in his wake. It heated up after Merkel did little over the weekend to hide her disappointment with Trump’s refusal to commit Washington to the climate change treaty. And it was further inflamed Tuesday at 6:40 a.m. Washington time when Trump fired a white-hot shot straight at Berlin’s glass-and-concrete chancellery. “We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change,” Trump wrote in his early-morning tweet. The fight has had few obvious practical consequences so far. But Merkel’s meetings this week — first a chummy meeting with India’s leader on Tuesday and then a sit-down with the Chinese prime minister on Wednesday — were bracing reminders of the trade ties being forged outside the United States as Washington moves toward a sharply more nationalist and protectionist agenda. (Reuters) Merkel refused to give ground Tuesday, even as she sought to ease the dispute with a rhetorical hug. “Transatlantic relations are of paramount importance,” Merkel said alongside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Berlin. “What I did was merely to point out that in light of the present situation, there are yet more reasons that we have to take our destiny in Europe into our own hands.” [As Merkel seeks allies elsewhere, Modi visits Berlin bursting with friendliness] The Modi meeting was planned long before the dust-up with Trump. But the cheerful body language between the two leaders was difficult to miss. “We are meant for each other,” Modi said to Merkel, smiling widely, as both leaders made positive comments about a European Union-India trade deal in the works. German officials — who say that the United States remains Germany’s most important international ally and an important partner whose friendship they want to maintain — feel that Trump has prioritized relations with authoritarian nations such as Saudi Arabia instead of democratic allies. Many were shocked when Trump declared in Riyadh that “we are not here to lecture” the mostly unelected assembled leaders — and then blasted European allies in Brussels for not spending enough on defense. That led Merkel to conclude that she needs to advocate a sharply more pro-European agenda at home ahead of September elections, one ally said. She said Sunday at a beer-hall political rally that Europe can no longer fully rely on others, a message clearly about Washington, even if it was aimed largely at her own voters. 1 of 60 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Trump’s first trip overseas as president View Photos The U.S. president traveled to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Rome, Belgium and Sicily, Italy. Caption The U.S. president traveled to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Rome, Belgium and Sicily, Italy. May 27, 2017 German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, speaks to President Donald Trump as Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi listens during an expanded session at the Group of Seven Summit in Taormina, Italy. Philippe Wojazer/Reuters Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. “It was mostly to say we have to strengthen Europe. It was not anti-Trump,” said Norbert Röttgen, a close Merkel ally who is the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the lower house of Germany’s Parliament. “You have to explain to your voters what we make of the experience of the last days,” Röttgen said. “Trump, he is an unprecedented president. He calls into question by the way of his behavior, by what he is saying, by what he is not saying, the foundation of this alliance, and you have to give an answer to that. And the answer of the chancellor is that we have to bring into this alliance, not against this alliance, but into this alliance, a stronger German hand.” With Germany’s elections drawing closer, Merkel has been forced to turn her attention to her own voters — most of whom loathe Trump and staunchly oppose increasing defense spending, one of his key demands. She is seeking a fourth term in office and has rejected most of Trump’s criticisms as baseless. [Even Angela Merkel’s political rivals are on her side against Trump] Even before Trump’s victory last year, Merkel was increasing defense spending, pushing up the budget by $27 billion over the next three years. That would almost double current levels — but it would still be dwarfed by the $664 billion the United States spends every year. Now Merkel needs to convince German voters that defense increases are in their own interest, rather than a response to Trump. In a preview of election-season arguments, leading Social Democrats said Monday that Merkel should have openly opposed Trump from the start rather than trying to work with him at first. “Merkel needs to put some distance between herself and Trump, who is exceptionally unpopular in Germany,” said Marcel Dirsus, a political scientist at the University of Kiel in northern Germany. But there are practical limits to any German split from Washington, Dirsus said. Germany is not militarily independent and is far from becoming so. And the United States remains an important trade partner. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that there was no dispute between Trump and Merkel. “I think the relationship that the president has had with Merkel he would describe as fairly unbelievable,” Spicer said. But Europeans are growing weary of the message gap between Trump and the rest of his circle. They are still searching for which side to give greater weight — and last week’s trip tipped the balance toward the president. “Europeans think they are now being treated worse by Trump than countries like Russia or Saudi Arabia,” said Stephan Bierling, an expert on transatlantic relations at the University of Regensburg in Germany. The bilateral strains mean that the United States has, to some extent, lost the trust of one of Europe's most pro-American leaders. The German chancellor, the most powerful politician in Europe, grew up in East Germany, and her upbringing there has long been credited for her staunch support for closer European-U.S. ties. “Given her experience with the Cold War, Merkel has long upheld and defended American ideals. But the belief in shared values has been shattered by the Trump administration,” Bierling said. Noack reported from Berlin. Read more: Alternately charming and boorish, Trump plays the role of a lifetime overseas Trump scolds world leaders at NATO ceremony Following Trump’s trip, Merkel says Europe can’t rely on ‘others.’ She means the U.S.

It's been another turbulent year for developer Evolution Studios, but the Runcorn-based firm has done right by its fans. DriveClub may have suffered some serious server issues at launch, but the studio both rectified those and delivered arguably the best Season Pass on the PlayStation 4 to date. Sadly, it's starting to run out of road. At least, that's what we thought. It was believed that the title's last add-on packs were due out later this month, but game director Paul Rustchynsky has revealed that "more exciting content" is in the works. While this won't be a part of the existing Season Pass, we're excited to see what the studio has in store – some new tracks, perhaps? Earlier in the year, Sony sadly laid off a number of staff at the British outfit, but maintained that the developer would remain open in order to support its PlayStation 4 exclusive racer as a service. With that in mind, it seems feasible that the organisation may announce some kind of second Season Pass, assuming that the playerbase is still there. Whatever the case, a new patch will deploy next week, adding Elite Driver levels, improvements to the title's Photo Mode, and much more. Where would you like to see the game go next? Take a sharp hairpin turn in the comments section below.

Melania Trump’s official White House portrait has been released. Here it is. And… she looks like a model. Probably because she used to be one. So? The Boston Globe immediately picked the whole thing apart top to bottom. From the 25-carat diamond ring President Trump bought Melania for their 10-year wedding anniversary “worth more than most Americans would make in 10 lifetimes” to the fact that she’s “not really smiling” like other first ladies or that her “cool, distant gaze seems to evoke her runway-model past more than her current role as the country’s first lady,” the Globe found all kinds of reasons why Melania’s White House portrait sucks. That, and she… wait for it… crossed her arms: Boston portrait photographer Ryuji Suzuki, of Beaupix Studio , immediately noticed the first lady’s crossed arms and distant gaze in the new portrait. “There are different opinions about people crossing their arms in portraits,” he said. “If you do it right, you might add a powerful impression, but it often gives you distance. If you want to be friendly and approachable you probably wouldn’t pose like this.” Like an excited little kid that gets his mom to display his latest finger painting up on the fridge, the Globe then shared the article of the controversy of Melania’s White House portrait on Twitter, zeroing in on her pose of all things and asking, “So what’s with the crossed arms?” The White House released an official portrait of Melania Trump. So what’s with the crossed arms? https://t.co/H7UszrNJjL pic.twitter.com/R2SxcdZimS — The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) April 4, 2017 …and that’s when they got owned. Because… no one ever crosses his or her arms in pictures, right? Thanks Boston Globe. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos (Click for details). Contributed by Piper McGowin of The Daily Sheeple. Piper writes for The Daily Sheeple. There’s a lot of B.S. out there. Someone has to write about it.

Rihanna Paying UFO Watcher In Mohave Desert To Update Her On Alien Activity? The 'Diamonds' singer is said to be convinced aliens will land on Earth during her lifetime. Rihanna has reportedly started paying a UFO watcher out in America to keep an eye on the skies for alien activity. The 'We Found Love' singer is alleged to have a keen interest in potential Extra Terrestrial activity, and is said to be paying a sky scanner out in the Mojave desert to give her updates. "Rihanna has always been convinced aliens will land on Earth in her lifetime," a source told the Daily Star this week. "So she's started using the man, who calls himself a sky scanner, to give her information from Nevada on anything that relates to sightings. "This isn't a fad for Rihanna, she's a total believer and doesn't mind spending her money on it to get results," they claim. The 'Diamonds' singer is currently out in New York City, while fresh claims suggest she and Chris Brown split earlier this year over their differing views on raising a family. Check out a picture of Rihanna in New York City this week below (Credit: Splash): Rihanna's fashion TV series Styled To Rock is due to return in November for a second season.