Holy Cross Magazine featured notable alumni, Dr. Jennifer Schneider, and discussed how her liberal arts education has shaped her professional life. Schneider's mission to care for the whole person, a concept she applies every day at Livongo, is rooted in her well-rounded educational experience.
Schneider, Chief Medical Officer of the health care tech startup Livongo in Mountain View, Calif., majored in biology, but she spent her junior year abroad at Oxford, studying architecture, philosophy and literature. That's something she felt not many science majors would choose to do, though it worked for her. She was prepared in science, and the liberal arts enabled her to see people's social, as well as medical, needs.
"In many ways, because of liberal arts, I think I've been successful in medicine," she says. "To succeed in medicine, you need work ethic and principles and structure,'' all things she began developing in her undergraduate days.
Schneider describes herself as being a "pretty geeky student-athlete" at Holy Cross, someone who ran track and cross-country, studied late into the night and often went to 11 p.m. Mass — her time to reflect at the end of the day.
Schneider says technology has yet to revolutionize the health care industry as it has others. Her company develops products to empower all people living with chronic conditions, like diabetes and hypertension, and she oversees trials and outcomes.
Schneider has had Type 1 diabetes for 30 years and says Livongo uses technology to combine testing, real-time information, support and behavior tracking to make managing the disease easier.
Hospitals are not effective at taking care of people with chronic conditions, according to Schneider, because they traditionally treat people with acute problems — heart attacks and broken legs. So-called disruptive technologies like those at Livongo are changing the model, putting the patient at the center of his or her care, she says.


HCG stands for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, the hormone produced by pregnant women in the early stages of pregnancy. Top research and medical sources suggests a minute, painless daily HCG Injection (approx. 125 IU to 200 IU) may result in a weight loss of 1 to 2 lbs per day, and often more.
This program must be accompanied by the VLCD (very low calorie diet, of approximately 500 calories/day).
Many doctors and weight loss clinics are cashing in extremely on this popular diet by imposing high consultation, prescription, monitoring and admin fees. It is common for a month of HCG Injections to cost anywhere from $399 to $799 a month or more!
Realize instant savings right now by getting the same quality HCG products offered by doctors and clinics at a fraction of the price!
HCG is a hormone (human chorionic gonadotropin) is produced by a woman during pregnancy. Besides other functions it supports the developing fetus by making sure there are enough resources for healthy development of the fetus. HCG ensures that nutrition is extracted properly from the food intake of the pregnant woman.
Here is the magic of HCG –> If a shortage of food intake is detected, HCG will utilize the mother's fat reserves to feed the growing baby. This simple, and yet very effective emergency measure, developed by mother nature is the substantial benefit to those who use the HCG diet.
After HCG is administered, the body is tricked into an emergency situation by starting the VLCD (very low calorie diet). The body will start rapidly burning fat reserves as much as 1-2 punds per day without burning or losing lean muscle mass..
You do not have to be pregnant to take advantage of this process. HCG can be used by women and men. It is perfectly safe as the fetus is subjected to this hormone for 9 1/2 months and in much higher concentrations than what is actually needed for the HCG Diet.
The internet is full of success stories and postings by dieters that achieved stunning long term results with this system. The HCG Diet is truly the most effective system to shed weight.
It all started when the late British Physician, Dr. A. T. W. Simeons discovered the HCG weight loss protocol over fifty years ago. He devoted years to researching various patients suffering from obesity. During this time, Simeons noticed several important factors including the lack of symptoms one would expect from a patient on a very low calorie diet. For example, his patients had no headaches, hunger pains, weakness, or irritability as long as the low calorie diet was combined with HCG Shots. Tens of thousands of people used this simple, inexpensive, safe treatment and achieved substantial and permanent weight loss.
The main problems that overweight people deal with are massive, intense, constant physical hunger; food cravings and uncontrollable urges to eat when not hungry; low metabolism; and an high amount of fat stored in stubborn secure problem areas such as the hips, thighs, buttocks, and waist. The HCG weight loss plan helps with all these problem along with the HCG Injections.


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Home / AMG Engineering Services, Omya and NewPage create new jobs with PCC project at Michigan mill
AMG Engineering Services, Omya and NewPage create new jobs with PCC project at Michigan mill
September 11, 2013 - 10:39
ESCANABA, MI, Sept. 10, 2013 (SBWire) -Under the supervision of AMG Engineering Services, construction is beginning on the new Omya Region Americas Precipitated Calcium Carbonate plant in Escanaba, Michigan. The plant is being constructed on the site of the NewPage paper mill and mark's the beginning of a long term commitment between Omya and NewPage. In a recent article, technology blog GadgetsMadeSimple.com takes a look at the new partnership and what it means for American industry and Michigan's local economy. The site reports estimates from NewPage and Omya that the new plant will create seven new jobs in Escanaba.
"We really love what we're seeing," said Dan Lewis, an editor at GadgetsMadeSimple.com, "Too many jobs in America revolve around service positions in restaurants and retail, that's one of the points that we covered in the article. We think it's important to create more technical jobs in America, instead of importing industrial materials from China and South America".
The article noted that NewPage currently uses a different supplier for Precipitated Calcium Carbonate and decided to partner with Omya to create an on-site plant in an effort to save on costs incurred from shipping the industrial mineral. According to GadgetsMadeSimple.com, Precipitated Calcium Carbonate is a vital component in paper, responsible for adding bulk, opacity, brightness and whiteness to the finished product.
GadgetsMadeSimple.com also pointed out the environmental impact of the new plant. One of the anticipated benefits of building a PCC plant on the same site as the paper mill is that carbon dioxide produced by the mill can be used by the PCC plant. Currently, the mill releases carbon dioxide into the air as a waste product, but after the new plant's construction, the mill's carbon dioxide waste will be re-used to produce Precipitated Calcium Carbonate.
"The environmental aspect of this project is important to us too," said Dan Lewis, "We expect that AMG services is will do a fine job when it comes to constructing the plant in an environmentally responsible way, and once the plant is up and running we are really excited to see how well it actually re-uses the paper mill's waste carbon dioxide."
Editors of GadgetsMadeSimple.com indicate that they expect to publish follow-up articles that will go into more details about the paper making process and the production of Precipitated Calcium Carbonate.
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Investment Producer
NewPage
VPK Packaging starts up new corrugated packaging business in Poland
A.Celli starts up complete turnkey Tissue plant at Partex Star Group's facility in Bangladesh

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Co-localization of the Cysteine Protease Caspase-3 with Apoptotic Myocytes afterIn VivoMyocardial Ischemia and Reperfusion in the Rat Academic Article
The aim of our study was to characterize the temporal relationship of apoptosis to regional myocardial ischemia and reperfusion and we aimed to determine the effect of ischemia and reperfusion on the distribution of the pro-apoptotic cysteine protease caspase-3 (CPP 32, apopain, Yama) in an in vivo rat model. Male Sprague-Dawley rats (250-400 g) were anesthetized with sodium pentobarbital (65 mg/kg, i.p.), the left external carotid artery was isolated to monitor arterial pressure and a left thoracotomy was performed. Regional myocardial ischemia was induced by occluding the left main coronary artery for 45 min. The heart was reperfused for 0, 60, 120 or 180 min. TUNEL staining of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded left ventricle, and DNA fragmentation analysis, showed that apoptosis occurred during 45 min of ischemia alone, but further developed during the 3-h reperfusion period. Immunohistochemical analysis of ischemic/reperfused left ventricle showed caspase-3 levels were substantially elevated and localized in the ischemic/reperfused region, and that caspase-3 co-localized to TUNEL positive myocytes. Therefore, regional myocardial ischemia serves as a stimulus for myocyte apoptosis, and this form of cell death progresses time-dependently after the onset of reperfusion. Our studies implicate caspase-3 to be involved in apoptotic cell death in ischemic/reperfused rat heart.
Black, Shawn C
Huang, Jing Qi
Rezaiefar, Parisa
Radinovic, Steve
Eberhart, Andreas
Nicholson, Donald W
Rodger, Ian
1102 Cardiorespiratory Medicine and Haematology (FoR)
1116 Medical Physiology (FoR)
Animals (MeSH)
Apoptosis (MeSH)
Cardiovascular System & Hematology (Science Metrix)
Caspase 3 (MeSH)
Caspases (MeSH)
Cysteine Endopeptidases (MeSH)
Heart (MeSH)
Heart Ventricles (MeSH)
Myocardial Ischemia (MeSH)
Myocardial Reperfusion (MeSH)
Myocardium (MeSH)
Rats (MeSH)
Rats, Sprague-Dawley (MeSH)
Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology Journal
Cysteine Endopeptidases
Heart Ventricles
Myocardial Ischemia
Myocardial Reperfusion
Myocardium
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
10.1006/jmcc.1998.0660


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It seems like things go wrong with our plans on a regular basis. Some guy named Murphy stated it in the form of a law: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." Some of us have been more subject to this "law" than others, but no one ever avoids problems completely.
The Apostle Paul was a tenacious and effective missionary throughout the Roman Empire. On three different missionary journeys over the course of about 9 years, Paul managed to travel nearly 10,000 miles and plant churches in major cities. Because of these efforts, the Good News spread throughout the civilized world. However, Paul didn't experience smooth sailing as he served the Lord. He was under almost constant attack - both spiritually and physically.
Paul's missionary work wasn't the end of the job. Jesus' building project continues today and you and I have been tasked with bringing the gospel to everyone we encounter. But, just like Paul experienced, we can expect difficulties along the way. The question is whether we will keep moving forward like Paul did or throw in the towel.
This Sunday, April 10th, we'll talk about how we can deal with those inevitable challenges. Remember, we're not on our own: we have God within us -- and that makes all the differenece!
Where are the building plans?
We've reached the part in the Story of Scripture in which Jesus leaves his followers with a clear building plan: to be his witnesses to the entire world and build his church. Jesus wasn't talking about a building with walls and a roof, but a gathering of believers fully committed to living their lives in right relationship with God and others. And unlike Sarah Winchester who sought out the instructions of demonic forces, the Holy Spirit empowered and guided those early Jesus-followers - and does the same for you and me!
I hope you'll be able to join us this Sunday, April 12th, as we begin our look at the way Jesus' followers spread the Good News throughout the Roman Empire - which eventually reached through the centuries to all of us. And like the Winchester Mansion, the Holy Spirit's building project isn't finished. We've still got work to do!
A stairway that ends at a ceiling
Watch your step!
In San Jose, CA, you can visit an extremely unusual mansion that was built by Sarah Winchester, widow of the inventor of the Winchester repeating rifle. Actually, she never finished building it. After the death of her daughter and husband, Sarah consulted a medium who told her that her only hope of finding peace from the spirit world was to never stop building a home for herself and the spirits of those who had fallen victim of Winchester rifles. As a result, she began a 24 hour a day, 365 days a year building project for 38 years until her death.
Being an incredibly wealthy woman with a daily income of $1000/day (the modern equivalent of approximately $23,000!), much of the mansion is magnificently beautiful and innovative. However, her instructions to the team of builders led to all kinds of random and wacky features including stairways that ended abruptly into a ceiling and doors to no where. There certainly doesn't appear to have been a logical, intentional building plan with a finished product in mind.
Mark your calendar and purchase your tickets for our CHIC fund-raiser! On Sunday, April 26, at 6:00 pm, our young people will host a south-of-the border dinner and dessert auction at the church. Proceeds will help to send our group of 10 high school students and adult leaders to the Covenant High In Christ (CHIC) conference at the University of TN this coming July.
Purchase your tickets from the students for $15 ($20 at the door).
This Changes Everything
Sarah Churman was born deaf. At the age of 29 she received a hearing implant that changed her life. Take a look at this video of it being turned on for the first time.
There are some moments that forever divide our lives into two: everything that we experienced BEFORE it happened and everything the we've experienced SINCE it happened. The greatest one of those moments is what we're celebrating this Sunday! Jesus' resurrection completed God's plan to make a way for everyone to experience a restored relationship with Him and a profoundly new quality of life. I hope you'll be able to join us this Sunday at 10:00 AM.
Our Holy Week prayer experience continues through Friday evening. I hope you'll have the opportunity to spend a quiet and contemplative 30-60 minutes reflecting on Jesus' final week leading up to his crucifixion.
Help Needed this Saturday at 10:00 AM
We'll be taking down the Journey to the Cross stations and preparing the Sanctuary for Easter Sunday. Come lend a hand - the more help we have, the easier the task will be!


Only 25 percent of consumers are aware of the recommendation to replace smoke alarms every 10years, according to research conducted by The Home Depot Consumer Insights team. After 10 years the sensors inside the alarms simply wear down, and even if the alarm still chirps when you test it or replace the battery, the sensors may be compromised.
When updating to the latest technology, consider an alarm that detects both fire and carbon monoxide dangers. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention found that each year, more than 400 Americans die from unintentional CO poisoning not linked to fires, more than 20,000 visit the emergency room, and more than 4,000 are hospitalized.
Kidde has created the best interconnected, combination alarm on the market, the only alarm that's Red Cross-certified. The new Kidde Worry-Free Wireless Combination Alarm (pictured) talks to all the alarms throughout the house with easy installation – no need to hard wire. So if there is a fire in the basement, you'll be notified in the bedroom right away. It also allows you to install one alarm for two risks, with voice alerts that tell you exactly if the danger is fire or carbon monoxide. And your home is protected even when you aren't there with capability for push notifications to your phone. All of these features in one alarm are only available at The Home Depot.


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Biggest Business Transactions In History
Home » Business » Biggest Business Transactions In History
History has seen many large business deals, but it's difficult to compare them to each other since the value of currency has changed over time.
Without convert financial figures into today's dollars, you can't really see how the tech megadeals of today stack up against business transactions of the past. We've done the math so that you can see exactly how the biggest business deals in history stack up against each other.
One of the earliest megadeals took place in 1708, when the British East India Company purchased the English Company Trading to the East Indies, a merger that was sealed with a 3.2 million pound loan to the government for exclusive rights to British trade in India (equivalent to $722 million today).
While many people probably believe that the AOL-Time Warner merger in 2000 was the biggest transaction of all time (totaling the equivalent of $257.84 today), in fact, the biggest transaction to date took place in 1999, when Vodafone acquired Mannesmann for $185.1 billion, or $263.2 billion today.
This deal created the largest mobile phone operator at the time, with over 42 million customers across Europe.
More recently, Google and Facebook have been actively acquiring businesses.
Google has bought YouTube, Android mobile OS, Motorola Mobility, and Nest in the past ten years, while Facebook has purchased Instagram, Oculus Rift, and WhatsApp since 2012.
However, these deals are still dwarfed by the Vodafone transaction; Google's largest purchase was Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, or $13 billion today, while Facebook took its biggest hit to its wallet with the $19 billion WhatsApp purchase in 2013.
This just goes to show that the biggest names don't always translate to the biggest deals- at least for now.
5 questions you should ask a leather distributor before ordering wet blue leather Jul 7, 2017
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The Chevy C10 Suburban is a model of the Suburban that was released during the seventh generation of the vehicle. The C10 is a half ton vehicle that is designed with two-wheel drive handling. It has a four-door design, three rows of seating that you can fold down or remove to create more storage space in the vehicle, and there is even an optional rear heating system. The C10 was also created with a stepping plate that made it easier to enter the vehicle.


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Springsteen Launches Jersey Stand With New "Wrecking Ball"
October 1st, 2009 by Andy Greene Leave a reply »
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band kicked off their five-night Giants Stadium stand last night with a brand new song called "Wrecking Ball" — a tribute to the venue that's months away from being demolished. In the surprisingly poignant track, Springsteen takes the voice of the gigantic concrete structure ("I was raised out of steel in the swamps of Jersey… I've seen champions come and go") but was also clearly singing about his own life just days after his sixtieth birthday. (The best footage is above; full song below.)
Flip through vintage photos of Bruce Springsteen.
The song kicked off a three-hour-and-15- minute epic that featured a complete performance of Born To Run alongside new tracks and rarities like "E Street Shuffle" and "Growing Up." Tomorrow he'll perform Darkness On The Edge Of Town in its entirety and on Saturday he'll do Born In The U.S.A. for the first time ever. Rolling Stone will have a report from Springsteen's final Jersey gig — a U.S.A. show on October 9th — so stay tuned.
• Photos: Artifacts from Springsteen's Career
• The Band on Bruce
• Clarence Clemons Answers Burning Questions
Previous Entry: Gov't Mule Break Out Alice Cooper Cover at "By a Thread" Preview Gig
Next Entry: Hype Monitor: Jemina Pearl, Cassius, Magic Kids
Previous Entry Gov't Mule Break Out Alice Cooper Cover at "By a Thread" Preview Gig
Next Entry Hype Monitor: Jemina Pearl, Cassius, Magic Kids


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layout: post
date:	2007-04-02 19:51:00
title:  Humour on the Road
tags: [archived-posts]
categories: archives
permalink: /:categories/:year/:month/:day/:title/
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There is a well-known audio-system maker for cars, called "BLAUPUNKT" (which means, blue dot, in German)...

I loved what this witty guy had made of it by removing a few letters from the sticker!

Luckily, I was going to the Bangalore Palace, and I had the camera handy...as you can see, we were all waiting at the traffic signal!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


and weaving nets, brushes, cables, filters, high pressure pipe, construction, handicrafts and other industries.
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$70M Worth of Cocaine Seized at Russian Port
Russian customs officials have seized 400 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a shipping container transporting canned fish from Ecuador, the Federal Customs Service (FTS) said in a statement Tuesday.
The contraband was seized in coordination with federal anti-drug officials and local police on Monday, the FTS said. When the shipping container was opened, officers reportedly found polymer bags stuffed with white powder, which chemical tests showed to be cocaine.
The overall value of the bust is estimated to be 4.5 billion rubles ($69.2 million) and equivalent to 2.5 million doses, according to the FTS statement.
It was not the first time that a large shipment of cocaine from Ecuador was discovered in the port of St. Petersburg — one of the fifth largest ports in Russia.
In January of this year, police and customs officials discovered 50 kilograms of cocaine in a shipping container with bananas from Ecuador, while in August 2016, customs officials seized more than 21 kilograms of cocaine from the country in a container with fish.
An investigation is currently underway to identify the individuals responsible for the latest shipment.
Read more about: Drugs
Swap canceled
Israel Extradites Suspected Russian Hacker to U.S. in Snub to Moscow
Russia had asked Israel to exchange Burkov for Naama Issachar, who was sentenced to Russian prison on drug-smuggling charges.
Officials detained
Russian Cops Take Down Security Officials for Planting Drugs on Teen
The officials took the 16-year-old victim to an ATM to withdraw cash for a bribe.
False arrests
Drug Charges Are 'Routinely' Falsified in Russia, Most Russians Say
"The notion of total corruption in law enforcement agencies ... has taken root in public consciousness," the pollster's head said.
A Change in Russia's Draconian Drug Laws Could Be on the Horizon
The fiasco surrounding the case of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov is bringing the country's controversial Article 228 into the spotlight.


The National Wrestling Hall of Fame will honor seven individuals at The Minnesota Chapter Banquet in Austin, Minn. on Saturday, May 3, 2014.
Al Olsen (Maple Grove), Mike Bredeck (Madison), Charles "Buzz' Cummins (Waterville-Elysian), Joe Frank (Fridley), Bill E. Garland (Minnesota State University Moorhead), Rodney Mosher (Crookston and Fertile), and Gary Rettke (Spring Lake Park) will be honored.
The awards banquet will be held May 3rd at the Austin Holiday Inn Conference Center. Social Hour will begin at 2:00 PM. Lunch/Dinner will follow at 3:00 PM. A video presentation will run from 4:30-5:15 PM. The Honorees will be presented and speeches given from 5:15-7:00 PM.
Ticket information is available from Chapter President Spencer Yohe 320-766-1934 or 507-495-3213, syohe@acegroup.cc, or http://mn-nwhof.ticketleap.com.
Rod Mosher, who is currently battling some health issues, will be honored by The National Wrestling Hall of Fame on Monday, March 24th at The Crookston Inn in Crookston, Minn.
Steve Ricard, Minnesota Chapter of the NWHOF, will be on hand to present Rodney's award and jacket. Social hour followed by a meal and presentation will start at 4:00 PM.
Please RSVP Kory Mosher at kmosher@midmark.com or 612-747-0900 (cell) by March 17, 2014. You will still be able to show up that day, but the family needs to know how much food to order.


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Ivy | Newborn Photographer Wilmington NC
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Family Photos at Wrightsville Beach | Photographer Wrightsville Beach North Carolina Sunrise Maternity Photos at Wrightsville Beach, NC | Maternity Photographer Sunrise Sunset Maternity Photo Shoot | Maternity Photographer Wilmington NC Mini Sessions | Holiday Photos | Photographer Wilmington NC Maternity Dresses for Photos | Maternity Photographer Wilmington NC King Family | Photographer Figure 8 Island Newborn Photographer | Wilmington North Carolina | Charley Clark | Newborn Photographer | Wilmington NC The Smith Family | Photographer Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina Maternity Photos at Airlie Gardens | Photographer Wilmington North Carolina
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Pronounced /ˈʃɪ.vəʊ.æ/
A varied selection of short essays on computer games, software development, and various miscellanea.
Games of the Year 2020
Well last year I tweaked the criteria for my lists and listed a number of games I'd get to that *checks notes* I did not manage to get round to this year (although I did at least get through quite a few games that had built up from lists in previous year - Divinity: Original Sin 2 is currently in progress). Everything outside games has been, for reasons you can guess, a lot to handle so I'm actually thinking of making another slight career change in 2021. Got that plan to eventually build up a co-op still rattling around somewhere. The slow ending of the 30% digital store rip-off may actually meaningfully improve the viability of making small games for a small market. But on to the new games other people have made that I've played and found notable this year.
Best of the Best 2020:
Final Fantasy VII Remake (part 1)
The most well remembered classic JRPG, completely remade with modern AAA production values, and cut into pieces because making games as big as the original with 2020 costs would be prohibitive. It's a large ask, larger than was required of the total remake of Resident Evil 2 last year, but they seem to have worked out what Final Fantasy VII would look like if you made it today. Which things needed to be retained, which things had to change, and what stuff you could rework and expand because you're free to experiment a bit as slavish devotion to the original would necessarily import the most outdated issues into the reworking. At the start of the year, this was not the remake I expected to be at the top of my list by year end.
Baring a few asset streaming issues that hopefully the eventual PS5 or PC ports will completely fix, this is an incredibly lavish RPG that manages to walk through the initial sections of the 1997 game while showing that some of the offline rendered background from that era are now more than attainable by real-time rendering. But also that the current designers are willing to throw out entire systems (like the old combat mechanics) to build something that feels fresh inside the shell of the classic game. It really gets onto my list by doing the same thing I praised RE2 for: knowing how to merge the best of the original game with enough new to be novel without losing the identity of the game.
I didn't get into Ori and the Blind Forest until a while after release (after the Definitive Edition had been out for a bit). The many escape sequences without checkpoints managed to sour me slightly on the whole thing, while acknowledging that it otherwise worked quite well (even the divisive system of laying your own checkpoints using an energy currency rather than hitting standard console auto-checkpoint areas - almost felt like when PC games have played with limiting quicksave for higher difficulty levels). But after they had fixed some launch performance issues with this sequel, I was ready to jump into this somewhat classic Metroidvania platforming experience and find out what was new.
Luckily this contains lots more of same and far less annoying escape sequences. The innovative checkpointing is out (so no forgetting to checkpoint and losing progress) but the various combat and upgrade systems have been extended in every way imaginable. It's now a lot more of a combat platformer than the first game (which relied upon auto-target shooting rather than a range of weapon styles) with your face buttons remappable to whatever skills you feel are best suited for where you're currently traversing. And the traversal still feels as good as the last game (I would not have persevered through the partial memorisation & cheap kills of those original escape sequences if the movement hadn't felt this good) while the story sorta retreads the same emotional notes the last game did - it mainly still worked for me but whatever they try next needs to change it up narratively or it'll just feel cheap a third time. It's still doing very nice things with making a world mixing 3D elements with lots of deformable 2D layers.
I'm not sure I've played the original game this remakes since shortly after it released in 2009. I have maybe replayed the original Modern Warfare since then but I'm not certain of it. Either way, Sony's co-marketing deal for recent Call of Duty titles have also ended up with remakes of the first two Modern Warfare titles coming to PS4 slightly before other devices and in the last two years also included them for any PlayStation Plus users (so anyone with a PS4 who wants to play online with others). After this arrived on PS+ only a few months after first being released, I decided to do a back to back (re)play of the two Modern Warfare games that are the definitive Call of Duty campaigns in my recollection.
While this isn't the sort of total reimagining that I've praised above, there's definitely some production values behind these and it's certainly not just offering up a PC port (higher resolution than consoles at the time could offer) with reworked textures and some higher detail models. This is all new work but based upon the level progression of the original campaigns (the credits seem to list "archive sound" so the original VO is retained but they've done new motion capture so it feels all-new). This is basically a "how you remember it" remake where you go back to look at the original and realise that actually the dynamic modern in-engine cut-scenes you've just played through actually were far more basic in the original game. It feels like the original given 2020 production values.
I did notice that the ground-up rework has (in the same way the Black Mesa remake of HL1 in the HL2 engine fails to capture identical enemy AI) somewhat changed the actual play experience and difficulty. This is a campaign that I did not beat on the highest difficulty in 2009 and I've not become radically better with a controller in the last 11 years of ageing. I still found a few spots of repeatedly reloading a checkpoint until I'd worked out a reliable way to get through a difficulty spike but it wasn't as punishing as the original game - I generally expect the very hardest difficulty in a game to be beyond me, leaving room for those with good reaction times and knowledge of a scenario to still have something to offer some resistance. There is a famous achievement for the very end of the original Modern Warfare on the hardest difficulty (which also slashes how much time you've got to complete that level) and it wasn't easy but this year I managed to get that perfect run in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered. It feels like that same difficulty change continues into this 2020 game, which some may find disappointing.
That lovely Gears 5 engine, tweaked even higher with a PC-first release, and a turn-based tactical combat game between the lavish cut-scenes? Sign me up!
Somehow we're having another year where my personal list contains quite a bit of stuff that looks a lot like a modern Xcom and yet I'm still going to be adamant that I do not like either of those games and the expansions did not fix that for me, despite going back to the mid-'90s X-Com games they are based on and getting a lot out of spending my action points to slowly work through a procedurally generated map of alien terror. The way this game gets over the two-phase move + shoot turns I dislike in XCOM 1 & 2 is making it so you quickly multiply your total moves while also being able to recharge them during a turn. It's basically getting us towards proper action points while pretending to adhere to the modern choice to do away with them.
I'm also unsure how much the actual combat drove me through this game vs enjoying those lavish production values for every cut-scene. It's maybe not exactly as much obvious money on the screen (rendered in real-time) as a numbered Gears of War game but it comes close enough to remind you how little budget Firaxis Games are given to make anything outside mainly functional graphics by 2K (despite a consistent record of making multi-million selling titles).
Lotta remastered games getting to the top of the list this year. Almost feels like a theme: the last push for this generation with very mature technology being deployed to work over games that are old enough you'd maybe not really want to dive into the limited visuals today but, at the same time, they still often play really well. In this case, Activision have tried remaking and bringing forward various THPS projects in recent years without enough funding or care and completely failed. But after Toys for Bob remade Spyro and Crash Bandicoot into extremely profitable titles, the classic levels from the first THPS games and enough cash to relicense the vast majority of the classic soundtracks have made it into a game that feels like how you remember those old games did, only today we actually get the sort of framerate consistency you really didn't around the turn of the millennium.
I think I played a ridiculous amount of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 on PC with nothing more than a keyboard (this was far enough back that console games were being designed for digital not analogue inputs so actually you could just get a keyboard out and pray the port had been given more time and money than most to get it working well under Windows 9x). We Europeans then missed out on the Xbox merging of levels from the first two games in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x because by the time the console was out here, it was time for the 3rd full sequel to release.
So here is the first European chance at getting all these iconic levels together in one package, now remastered with a lot of extra content and tweaks (the combo system is completed with the revert from THPS3, although you can disable it to get a pure experience on the original levels) while feeling a lot like those classic games, only without the classic framerate (it's a guaranteed 60 fps here). Now I'm just waiting to see if they add level packs from the 3rd and 4th game to this package or if that's going to be left for a full sequel bundle.
At a certain point I had to stop just thinking that this annual franchise had never been better and start actually considering it for the end of year lists.
It's not quite what I wanted as this is very much another incremental tweak to the 2019 release that's coming out at the end of a console generation so probably has most of the major rendering tweaks waiting to be shown off in the 2021 release for the new consoles. But this is still an extremely good semi-sim game that this year adds the ability to create your own team and really take charge of making waves in F1. Like the addition of an F2 season to last year's game, it's an incremental change from what they've been doing recently so if you don't upgrade to the latest game you're not missing out on a radically new experience but it does help round out the package and build on top of the great driving engine they've had for a few years that can range from assist-heavy to a very light-touch semi-sim approach where you always need to be on top of the tyres and mix moment to moment precision with race-long strategic choices.
Also Notable 2020:
This won the hearts of just about everyone else this year and is from a developer whose previous work I've enjoyed. I played a bit of the early access version when it first became available then gave it another go after the final release but, not helped by it always feeling really laggy on my Intel (iGPU) machine, I never really loved the combat loop (latency wasn't an issue on my nVidia desktop but when I was playing it was mainly on the go). As a roguelike-like, it's always going to be tuned for maximum difficulty but I also just didn't feel like how I lost health was often something I could significantly improve around without major elements of luck (often keyed to random rolls for upgrades etc) or grinding (as there are permanent unlocks you slowly earn currencies towards). Again, none of this is totally unexpected for what they set out to make but I'm not the biggest fan of 2D action games and definitely won't grind much to progress, even if there is a lot of recorded VO to put around shuffled tiles of levels. Maybe one to give another go in 2021.
First off, this is a free to play game with primarily gambling mechanics around the collection of additional RPG characters that make up your party of four. It's an always online open world narrative RPG with matchmade online dungeons you can also tackle solo. You own nothing but that does mean you can completely seamlessly jump between a session on PC or on mobile. But if you feel compelled to collect everything in a game, this is a bad option because the dozens of characters have several tiers of power to unlock and each unlock comes from a rare random roll primarily using the paid currency. So it can't go on the top list, even if I've been having a lot of fun with this without having to pay money.
The core of the game is anime characters (with English or Japanese VO joining the original Chinese) exploring a large vibrant open world full of both repeatable event quests and a solid narrative mainline quest series. Your party of four elementally-aligned characters can be switched between on the fly and this provides some depth to the combat which otherwise restricts inputs to a jump, dodge, attack (fast & charged variant), with special on a timer and super that recharges with attacks (fitting into the limited options for phone controls). The elemental combos really make the combat sing here, along with plenty of abilities that operate even when the party member is swapped out (which is something you'll be doing potentially every few seconds when in intense combat) - it's an intriguing way of giving players most of the versatility of a four character full party & associated health pool without the pure offensive output of a group party with all characters active at once (which is how you do online play). You've also got plenty of modern niceties like zero punishment death, climb-anywhere traversal, gliders, plentiful fast-travel unlocks, and rebuilding a new party composition whenever out of combat. Actually one of the primary things to note about the lavish F2P RPG here is that it's rarely punishing in a way that feels like they're pushing the paid currency. You don't buy around death punishments because there is none.
There's zero friction to entry with the download kept reasonably small to fit mobile storage and lots of quite generous freebies on offer during limited time event and a drip feed of premium currencies that get you most of the way to the end-game without much grind (I got a full double party - only required for the most strenuous activity of a combat arena dungeon - up near level 80 when the cap is 90 and got to an Adventure Rank in the 40s, which is the non-level-based gating to progression). The PlayStation servers use different accounts but play on mobile and PC and it's seamless as they're the same servers and account system (you can also get a native 4K on PC, which the PS4 Pro doesn't quite hit and also has issues holding a stable 30fps there).
This is one of the close-but-no-cigar games for this year. I grabbed it at launch and had a good time... and then almost completely forgot about having played it during the rest of the year. Which rather says how the "friendly cops" narrative didn't stick with me given the geopolitical events this year that could have reminded me of their attempts at making the Xcom universe more light-hearted than previous games.
On the plus side, this was launched at a very attractive discount so early adopters got to take the risk for the sort of price that matches the more limited ambitions on display here. As an Xcom game, one of the best things it does is to remove the terrible sequences of cautious play while you work forward to reveal the map and activate enemy groups. Here each area is far more constrained and you start off with a breaching mechanic that can remove plenty of enemies from the room and also primes you for the mixed turn-based (initiative) rounds that mix up the previous gameplay formula.
As I mentioned when discussing Vampyr, I do hope Dontnod don't end up trapped in a rut as they seem to make interesting games and I'd like to see them making many more. Surely there are some Quantic Dream developers who worked on the (world class) motion capture and animation systems who want to stay in Paris but would like a different boss. Interesting that another team at the studio completed Twin Mirror about the same time (I'm yet to play it but the reviews have not been very positive). This game, heavily advertised by Microsoft, definitely has the legacy of Life is Strange hanging heavily over it.
A trans coming-of-age (into young adult) story with magical realism elements, this is definitely an evolution of the house style and some narrative themes. Unlike the first Life is Strange, this embraces queer text with the assistance of some outside sensitivity readers and provided all of the episodes in rapid succession, having been developed entirely before release. I liked it despite some polarising choices made about how certain elements offered player choice.
Well, given my praise of Resident Evil 2 and other remakes, this would seem to be a slam dunk. While I don't have much of a history (I have watched it replayed quite recently) with the original, the idea of taking what worked about RE2 or even infusing some of the innovation of Resident Evil 7 into a more open city scenario sounds like it would be a great game.
Unfortunately this fails to fully utilise the excellent engine they've been building to update the 3rd game with the same scale of smart choices that made the last remake work so well. Some sections feel needlessly faithful to the rather limited original that was creaking at the limits of PS1 while others don't seem to know what new direction they're trying to build in.
The ways this sculpting tool and console game development platform manages to empower users to rapidly create so many different things is pretty impressive. Some smart rendering choices have ended up creating a very different look for consoles and I really hope the Media Molecule team are being given plenty of support from Sony to port this and everything created with it to PS5 to give it a long life (and maybe PS5 exclusive increased complexity or features). More people deserve to give this a proper shot and it's a real shame the 2019 public early access into 2020 official release and VR patch have seemed to see media interest wane rather than explode. Creators need curators with big audiences to find and promote their best creations to a wide audience to ensure the ecosystem stays enthused.
Long in development, this finally released the final episode in 2020 along with a console port. I think that's notable but also have remarkably little to say about this indie darling. Something about the intentionally aliased style eats at me, especially with how it scales to different resolutions. There are some interesting choices made in the emerging narrative but this has been picked apart over the years as each episode has been released.
Failed to Play 2020:
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales - I mentioned this when talking about playing the previous game again but ended up deciding I'd rather wait for PS5 hardware to enjoy the best version of it (especially given how expensive this is compared to a Lost Legacy release, before exchange rate and other price increases made games a lot more expensive domestically).
Control - Sorry Remedy but the last gen version just looks bad to me when I tried to get into it. I'm still waiting on an upgrade to my home PC hardware. As soon as I've got a current GPU with hardware ray tracing acceleration, I've got the Ultimate Edition ready to go.
Noita - This did hit 1.0 this year but I've not really dived into it properly unfortunately.
Teardown - This is still in early access and is quite an interesting rendering choice with a completely destroyable world. Unlike Noita, it's all in 3D. Worth keeping an eye on as it develops.
MS Flight Simulator 2020 - My PC can barely run it, so I will wait until it runs a bit better on modern CPUs (has to be optimisation coming with that VR patch only just out by end of the year) and I've got a beefier GPU to throw at the ridiculous scale of what's being attempted.
Half Life: Alyx - My home VR equipment is getting old (DK2 & PS VR) so not being able to visit friends or offices with something fancy meant I didn't get nearly as much VR in 2020 so this will have to wait.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - As is quite a theme in these, I never quite get round to Ryu Ga Gotoku games at launch so end up putting them on the end of my annual lists.
Cyberpunk 2077 - Sure sounds like waiting for the long patch and expansion cycle towards a GotY/Enhanced Edition (this team is known for) will pay dividends here vs playing the launch version. I'm up for some open world Deus Ex style gameplay but it seems like there's too much focus on shooting (a lot like how Watch Dogs: Legion sounds like it's not actually the sequel to WD2 that I wanted despite the ludic space being so ready for making guns even less relevant and a push towards Immersive Sim stealth/ghost play) that maybe fan mods will fix. Another game with too much to do and releasing too late in the year for me to have a chance of completing it.
Ghost of Tsushima - This runs at both high resolution quality mode and 60 fps on a PS5 (PS4 Pro makes you pick 1800p sub-30 [but actually mainly 30 fps] or 1080p30 locked) so I'll wait to play this on new hardware, once it becomes easy to get that at home and there is a critical mass of exclusive games to play on it. "1800p and if you're really pushing the visuals maybe accept 30 fps" is something I've associated with my [coming up to 5 years old] GTX 1070 OC and I'm ready to ask for 60 fps again from hardware upgrades.
The Last of Us Part II - I bet this will look even nicer if they do a big PS5 patch or rerelease rather than just a back-compat update. Maybe explore the options for ray traced global illumination and unified lighting/shadow model that their PS4 baked solution attempts to approximate but with a few obvious spots where it breaks when dynamic lights and objects fail to cast the shadows you'd expect.
Watch Dogs: Legion - I'm absolutely waiting for a new PC GPU for this. Ray tracing looks variable (not a big fan of how close the max distance is for rays, either dynamic objects or static, compared to how Spider-Man is dealing with the same problem) but it definitely looks better than without it.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Lotta big games coming out at the end of this year, right? Ubisoft Plus is going to get a lot of use in 2021.
Wasteland 3 - Conceptually I really want more Wasteland (I backed 2 when it came to KickStarter) having come to the series via the original '90s Fallout games but once again this seemed like it needed a few patches before being ready and with Game Pass I know it'll be waiting for me next time I subscribe with any enhancements they patch in.
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Manjit Kumar
Manjit Kumar has a degree in physics and philosophy. He is deputy editor of the journal Paradigm, and a tutor at the City Literary Institute, London.
Science and the Retreat from Reason
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Saba Dewan
Saba Dewan is a documentary film-maker. Her documentaries have focused on issues of gender, sexuality and culture. This is her first book and has emerged from her trilogy of films on stigmatised wo
Mark Gevisser
Anita Anand
Anita Anand is a development and multi-media communications specialist, writer and water colour artist. She has worked as a policy analyst in Washington DC, and was Director of the Women's Featur
Louis Dumont
Rajendra K. Jain
Rajendra K. Jain is Director, Europe Area Studies Programme and Professor of European Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the first and only Jean
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Harbans Mukhia
Harbans Mukhia taught medieval history for 44 years at Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru Univesity. He is the founder-editor of The Medieval History Journal.


Running 26 miles is a tricky undertaking for anyone but how about doing that and being a manager of Brewbird – our buzzing social enterprise café? In this interview, Brewbird's David Adams talks about his motivation and offers tips!
What made you choose to run?
'To get fit and healthy and I saw this as an opportunity to raise awareness about Brewbird. We give the most marginalised people in society the opportunity to build their skills and raise their aspirations through becoming a trainee barista. This helps them in whatever their next steps are'.
What do you find most rewarding about running?
'It's all about feeling refreshed, healthier and gives me a chance to think about other things than work! The endorphins make me feel good. I like to set myself goals and create personal best times which - with my competitive nature - I like to beat'.
What running have you done before?
'This is my first ever big running event! I've done the occasional park run of around 10K but then life got in the way'.
What are your tips to other runners?
'Buy two pairs of the same running trainers; you don't want to end up with new trainers on the big day which might cause injury. Get plenty of sleep; it's hard to run when you are tired. Run for a good cause, it will keep you motivated during these cold dark days'.
We wish David and our other six runners all their best in their training and for the big event in April!


We offer two categories of care: assisted living and memory care.
Assisted Living is for seniors who need a little help with mobility and daily tasks from trained caregivers while enjoying the convenience of resort services and the privacy of their own apartment. Assisted living offers residents the specific type of personalized aid they need to make their lives easier and healthier, while enabling them to live as independently as possible.
The senior in your life doesn't have to choose between independence or assistance. Unlike a nursing home, Brookdale Brookhurst is a community of apartment homes where they can have both — the independence of a private home, plus whatever type of supportive aid they need to perform daily tasks and maintain health.
If you remember your bygone days in a college dormitory or at summer camp, you recall the fun of living with people your own age who shared your interests and life experiences. You sat together in the cafeteria or living room, where you could play card games, board games, tell stories, share secrets and talk for hours. At Brookdale Brookhurst, we recreate that fun communal experience of living with a family of friends.
At Brookdale Brookhurst, we assist our residents in body and mind.
In addition to aiding seniors with physical challenges, our senior living community also offers care for residents impaired by symptoms of early, middle, or late stages of Alzheimer's or dementia, utilizing the latest research, technology and treatment programs. Your loved one's distress can be alleviated by the unique features of our memory care program.
Although the Clare Bridge program has established more than a quarter-century of success, it continues to evolve by incorporating the latest research for the care of thousands of Brookdale residents across the country who are overcoming symptoms of dementia. In small "Cluster Groups" each resident is surrounded by others with the same cognitive abilities, to give them a feeling of fitting in. They participate in easy Daily Path activities that foster everyday successes and build feelings of accomplishment and competence. We select a minimum of six activities per day, tailored to match each resident's previous life interests, and scheduled to give our residents a gentle daily structure, seven days a week, in a routine that gives them a sense of security.


text:
'Sending your child into a lion's den': Parents voice concerns about COVID-19 in schools
Updated: 11:35 AM MDT Sep 1, 2021
By Maggie Fox, CNN
There is a backlog around the country and in here in Georgia where pediatricians just are trying their best to get these kids in and get them caught up on vaccines. Children didn't come to the office back in 2020. You know, they came sometimes. But a lot of parents stayed out of the office. They were scared to come because of COVID. Yeah. Yeah. We're really concerned about it now that we want kids to be back in school for safe in person learning that in fact they get caught up on the vaccines that they that they might have missed last year or that are due this year. Mhm. Okay. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. We have seen some more vaccine. Hesitancy about parents Over the course of covid. We have the means to protect our Children. We have safe effective vaccines. If we had a vaccine preventable illness, measles, whooping cough, anything like that that swept across our country now, it would put health care workers in a real bind because we're already working to a maximum capacity. I think none of us want to see that happen. In addition to not wanting kids to be at risk of diseases that otherwise could be prevented.
TRACKING THE COVID-19 VACCINE
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What finally did it for Nathan, the parent of a young child at a small Catholic school in California, was the seating chart that showed how a teacher infected at least 12 of 24 students in her class with the coronavirus."We had never seen that seating chart before," Nathan told CNN. "That makes it real."CNN did not use Nathan's actual name or otherwise identifying parents or the school to protect the privacy of the children and teachers involved.Back in May, when it was learned the teacher and some of her students had COVID-19, parents say they were given minimal information about what happened.But Marin County's health department did a careful contact tracing investigation that revealed in startling detail how, despite considerable precautions, the teacher passed the virus to her students, who then infected other students and family members.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted the investigation last week in its weekly report on death and disease, the MMWR. It included a seating chart that showed eight of 10 students in the front two rows became infected, evidently when the unvaccinated teacher took off her mask to read aloud to them. It did not identify the school or staff.Nathan says his young child was in the classroom — among the students at the back of the class and so was not infected.But he feels confused that the teacher was allowed to remain unvaccinated and came to school with symptoms she thought were allergies but which appear to have been COVID-related and that she felt free to take off her mask in class, however momentarily, despite school regulations.'Questions around trust'"It really does sober you up to the reality of the pandemic," Nathan told CNN. "I didn't think it would hit so close."He said his family had taken many precautions to stay safe throughout the pandemic."There's not, like, an anger at the teacher. It's more disappointment," Nathan told CNN. "She is a lovely young woman, so I don't think she did this maliciously. But there are questions around trust."The school does not require vaccinations, although California made teachers a priority group when rolling out coronavirus vaccines earlier in the year. California will require all teachers and other school staff to be vaccinated or to submit to regular testing starting in mid-October."As adults, I feel like we have such responsibility during the pandemic to protect these kids," Nathan said, noting that children under 12 are not eligible for vaccination."If we are opening our schools and having our children inside classrooms, it the responsibility of all adults to do whatever we can to keep them safe."The school does have strict coronavirus protocols posted on its website. It says parents must fill out a form each day attesting that their children do not have any COVID-19 symptoms and have not been exposed to coronavirus. Teachers and staff must do the same."We were told, as parents, that if our child showed any symptoms we were to stay home," Nathan said. "Why didn't a teacher take the same action?"The timeline and genetic fingerprints of the viruses that were tested leave little doubt as to who infected whom."The teacher reported becoming symptomatic on May 19, but continued to work for 2 days before receiving a test on May 21," the Marin County team reported in last week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Students in her class began experiencing symptoms on May 22."On occasion during this time, the teacher read aloud unmasked to the class despite school requirements to mask while indoors," the team added. "Beginning May 23, additional cases of COVID-19 were reported among other staff members, students, parents, and siblings connected to the school."The school did not respond to requests from CNN for comment. The Archdiocese of San Francisco, which operates the school, issued a brief statement to CNN calling it an "isolated incident" that was handled internally."The Archdiocese of San Francisco's Department of Catholic Schools follows CDC guidance as well as state and local protocols to ensure the safety and security of our school communities," it read."We are grateful for the many sacrifices made by parents, faculty, staff and more than 23,000 students that allowed our schools to reopen last year and for their continued efforts in dealing with an unprecedented and evolving health crisis."But it's far from an isolated incident. What made the Marin County case exceptional was the degree to which public health officials could document what happened. But schools nationwide are struggling to quarantine students after exposures, battling parents who either demand mask mandates or demand that no one even ask their children to wear masks, and debate whether to require teachers and staff to be vaccinated.A CNN analysis shows at least 21,869 students and 4,481 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 throughout the 15 largest school districts in Florida since the start of school. Another 45,024 students and staff members have been quarantined or put on "stay home" directives due to possible exposure to COVID-19.In Texas, 20,256 students and 7,488 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 in districts that returned to school in August. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has banned masks in schools and virtual learning options, although some districts are challenging the mask ban and requiring them in their schools.Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday the state would require masks in K-12 schools and childcare settings starting Sept. 7. In Florida, school districts including Alachua and Broward County Public Schools are moving forward with mask mandates despite threats of financial penalties from the state, whose governor, Ron DeSantis, has limited mask mandates.Perhaps most of all, schools are struggling to communicate with frightened, confused and often angry parents.In Raleigh, North Carolina, Ann is keeping her 8-year-old son home from the small, private religious school he attends for fear he'll be infected."We've had 18 cases in a week," she said. "It would be easier to have him in school. but it feels safer to keep him home."Ann, who also wishes to protect her identity for her son's sake, sent CNN a photograph of the school's pastor delivering a sermon to a room full of masked children while not wearing a mask himself.Ann and Nathan both say their schools refuse to tell parents whether teachers and staff are vaccinated, and they have provided few details on how students or staff may have become infected — although they do report positive coronavirus cases to parents.'You feel like you are sending your child into a lion's den'Both Ann and Nathan feel their schools are not doing enough to protect their kids."They are putting K through third-graders in the lunchroom at the same time — that's 150 children for 30 minutes unmasked," Ann said.The North Carolina school accommodates remote learning with cameras in the classroom, but Ann said she is looking for other options."The last week and a half has been sleepless and exhausting. You feel like you are sending your child into a lion's den," she said.
What finally did it for Nathan, the parent of a young child at a small Catholic school in California, was the seating chart that showed how a teacher infected at least 12 of 24 students in her class with the coronavirus.
"We had never seen that seating chart before," Nathan told CNN. "That makes it real."
CNN did not use Nathan's actual name or otherwise identifying parents or the school to protect the privacy of the children and teachers involved.
Back in May, when it was learned the teacher and some of her students had COVID-19, parents say they were given minimal information about what happened.
But Marin County's health department did a careful contact tracing investigation that revealed in startling detail how, despite considerable precautions, the teacher passed the virus to her students, who then infected other students and family members.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted the investigation last week in its weekly report on death and disease, the MMWR. It included a seating chart that showed eight of 10 students in the front two rows became infected, evidently when the unvaccinated teacher took off her mask to read aloud to them. It did not identify the school or staff.
Nathan says his young child was in the classroom — among the students at the back of the class and so was not infected.
But he feels confused that the teacher was allowed to remain unvaccinated and came to school with symptoms she thought were allergies but which appear to have been COVID-related and that she felt free to take off her mask in class, however momentarily, despite school regulations.
Unvaccinated, unmasked teacher infected more than half of their class with COVID-19, CDC says
'Questions around trust'
"It really does sober you up to the reality of the pandemic," Nathan told CNN. "I didn't think it would hit so close."
He said his family had taken many precautions to stay safe throughout the pandemic.
"There's not, like, an anger at the teacher. It's more disappointment," Nathan told CNN. "She is a lovely young woman, so I don't think she did this maliciously. But there are questions around trust."
The school does not require vaccinations, although California made teachers a priority group when rolling out coronavirus vaccines earlier in the year. California will require all teachers and other school staff to be vaccinated or to submit to regular testing starting in mid-October.
"As adults, I feel like we have such responsibility during the pandemic to protect these kids," Nathan said, noting that children under 12 are not eligible for vaccination.
"If we are opening our schools and having our children inside classrooms, it the responsibility of all adults to do whatever we can to keep them safe."
The school does have strict coronavirus protocols posted on its website. It says parents must fill out a form each day attesting that their children do not have any COVID-19 symptoms and have not been exposed to coronavirus. Teachers and staff must do the same.
"We were told, as parents, that if our child showed any symptoms we were to stay home," Nathan said. "Why didn't a teacher take the same action?"
Mask debate moves from school boards to courtrooms
The timeline and genetic fingerprints of the viruses that were tested leave little doubt as to who infected whom.
"The teacher reported becoming symptomatic on May 19, but continued to work for 2 days before receiving a test on May 21," the Marin County team reported in last week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Students in her class began experiencing symptoms on May 22.
"On occasion during this time, the teacher read aloud unmasked to the class despite school requirements to mask while indoors," the team added. "Beginning May 23, additional cases of COVID-19 were reported among other staff members, students, parents, and siblings connected to the school."
The school did not respond to requests from CNN for comment. The Archdiocese of San Francisco, which operates the school, issued a brief statement to CNN calling it an "isolated incident" that was handled internally.
"The Archdiocese of San Francisco's Department of Catholic Schools follows CDC guidance as well as state and local protocols to ensure the safety and security of our school communities," it read.
"We are grateful for the many sacrifices made by parents, faculty, staff and more than 23,000 students that allowed our schools to reopen last year and for their continued efforts in dealing with an unprecedented and evolving health crisis."
But it's far from an isolated incident. What made the Marin County case exceptional was the degree to which public health officials could document what happened. But schools nationwide are struggling to quarantine students after exposures, battling parents who either demand mask mandates or demand that no one even ask their children to wear masks, and debate whether to require teachers and staff to be vaccinated.
Education Department investigating states that have banned mask requirements in schools
A CNN analysis shows at least 21,869 students and 4,481 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 throughout the 15 largest school districts in Florida since the start of school. Another 45,024 students and staff members have been quarantined or put on "stay home" directives due to possible exposure to COVID-19.
In Texas, 20,256 students and 7,488 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 in districts that returned to school in August. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has banned masks in schools and virtual learning options, although some districts are challenging the mask ban and requiring them in their schools.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday the state would require masks in K-12 schools and childcare settings starting Sept. 7. In Florida, school districts including Alachua and Broward County Public Schools are moving forward with mask mandates despite threats of financial penalties from the state, whose governor, Ron DeSantis, has limited mask mandates.
Perhaps most of all, schools are struggling to communicate with frightened, confused and often angry parents.
Bus driver shortages are latest challenge hitting US schools
In Raleigh, North Carolina, Ann is keeping her 8-year-old son home from the small, private religious school he attends for fear he'll be infected.
"We've had 18 cases in a week," she said. "It would be easier to have him in school. but it feels safer to keep him home."
Ann, who also wishes to protect her identity for her son's sake, sent CNN a photograph of the school's pastor delivering a sermon to a room full of masked children while not wearing a mask himself.
Ann and Nathan both say their schools refuse to tell parents whether teachers and staff are vaccinated, and they have provided few details on how students or staff may have become infected — although they do report positive coronavirus cases to parents.
School COVID-19 vaccine mandates are a 'good idea,' Fauci says
'You feel like you are sending your child into a lion's den'
Both Ann and Nathan feel their schools are not doing enough to protect their kids.
"They are putting K through third-graders in the lunchroom at the same time — that's 150 children for 30 minutes unmasked," Ann said.
The North Carolina school accommodates remote learning with cameras in the classroom, but Ann said she is looking for other options.
"The last week and a half has been sleepless and exhausting. You feel like you are sending your child into a lion's den," she said.


Waterway-lovers in Stratford are squaring up for a battle over plans to allow a canal boat to be moored in the canal basin to give advice to young people.
They are furious at the scheme to allow the Depot advice centre to open a canal boat in the evenings in Bancroft Basin in Waterside.
The canal boat will provide a place for people aged between 14 and 25 to get support and information on issues including careers, benefits, health, smoking, alcohol and volunteering.
But nearly 100 campaigners say the centre does not need to take to the water.
They argue that the static boat would take up vital mooring space and get in the way of working boats.
Members of the Stratford-upon-Avon Society are also opposing an application by street artist Dylan Hemley to open a working art gallery in a barge.
Mr Hemley has told Stratford District Council that the idea would help tourism.
British Waterways supports both applications, which will be decided when the Avon Area Planning Committee meets on Thursday 27 April.
But the Inland Waterways Association argued that there is no good reason why the Depot should not be based on land.
"This boat will never be able to use the canal on which it is to be moored as it has been built to the wrong dimensions.


Your WIRED.co.uk daily briefing. Today, Elon Musk reckons that a Tesla will be able to cross the USA by itself within the next 24 to 36 months, Nasa has established a new taskforce to defend the Earth against asteroid impacts, Facebook is reported to be developing a desktop Messenger for the Apple Mac and more.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that Tesla's cars could be fully autonomous in between 24 and 36 months (Jalopnik). This statement follows the release of the latest 7.1 firmware update for the Tesla Model S, which gives the electric car the ability to come to come to its driver and park itself when summoned. In future developments of the technology, "if you're in New York and the car's in Los Angeles, you can summon your car to you from your phone and tell the car to find you, and it'll automatically charge itself along the journey," Musk told a conference ahead of the Detroit Motor Show.
Nasa has announced the establishment of the Planetary Defence Coordination Office (PDCO) to better protect the Earth from Near Earth Objects -- asteroids and comets likely to pass dangerously close our planet (Motherboard). The PDCO will consolidate and supervise Nasa's various tracking programmes, and also link up and exchange data with other involved national and international agencies. Its establishment follows a harsh audit of Nasa's previous NEO detection programme, which was found to be poorly integrated and lacking in either oversight or meaningful milestone goals.
Photos published by TechCrunch show what appears to be a development version of a dedicated Facebook Messenger app for Mac OS X, launchable directly from the Dock. The move would be in keeping with Facebook's recent tendency to split its service into dedicated apps on mobile platforms, although an official stand-alone Messenger client for Windows languished unloved between 2012 and 2014. Facebook responded to an invitation to comment with a stock statement that "we don't comment on rumour or speculation".
Apple Music now has over 10 million paid subscribers across more than 100 countries, according to The Financial Times (The Verge). Speaking to The Verge, a Spotify spokesman indicated that the Swedish streaming service's paid subscriber numbers had grown by 5 million to 25 million. The figures indicate a huge uptake in streaming audio service use in general -- if you include its free tier, Spotify now has 75 million active users.
The German Aerospace Centre DLR this weekend made what will probably be its final attempt at waking the Philae lander, currently trapped in the shade on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (The Register). Philae has been unresponsive since July 2015, but the team hopes that activating its flywheel could either tilt its solar panels to better face the sun or at least shake some dust off them. As the comet moves away from the sun, temperatures will soon drop to the point where Philae can no longer operate, although its Rosetta parent probe will be attempting to land on the comet's surface to send back some final data when it is decommissioned in September 2016.
Musician Melissa Ferrick has filed a lawsuit against Spotify for its failure to either notify her or correctly obtain a licence to stream her compositions on its service (Music Business Worldwide). Ferrick is seeking class action status for the lawsuit and said that she wants the service to pay out $200 million to musicians whose copyright it has infringed. The lawsuit follows a similar legal action for $150 million dollars, lodged last month by American alt-rock musician David Lowery. Spotify denies deliberate copyright violation but says that inaccurate music rights data in the US has given it trouble when it comes to identifying rights-holders.
This week's trendy new social network, Peach, has reportedly been deluged by fake celebrity accounts making a range of odd, if not actually funny, posts (TheNextWeb). Peach, currently available only for iOS, is a microblogging, video and image-sharing network that's been described as a cross between Twitter and Slack, with features and post formatting options that can be triggered by 'magic words'. A key part of Peach's appeal, and a likely reason for its rapid uptake, is that one of the people behind it is Dom Hofmann, co-founder of micro-video sharing service Vine.
A new map produced by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) shows the relative ages of over 70,000 stars in our galaxy, producing a huge image that uses a colour scale to show the oldest stars in red and the youngest, formed when the Milky Way was already mature, in blue (Phys.org). The ages of the stars are extrapolated from a combination of light spectra data taken from the SDSS's own Apache Point Observatory Galaxy Evolution Experiment and Nasa's Kepler satellite. Team lead Melissa Ness said that "because we can see so many individual stars in the Milky Way, we can chart its growth in unprecedented detail. This unprecedented, enormous map really is one for the ages."
We still don't have a solid release date for this year's promised Doom reboot, but Game Informer got hands-on with the latest preview version of Bethesda's update of id's genre-defining FPS. The Doom reboot -- originally set to be Doom 4 when it was first announced -- promises ultra fast-paced combat, a V.A.T.S. style time-slow mode for weapon swapping and dedicated controller buttons to arm your trusty chainsaw and BFG.
Think hoverboards are just a fad? Think again. At CES 2016 the next generation of mass-produced, affordable ride-alongs is making its debut. A number of companies were showing off new versions of hoverboards, Chinese manufacturer Shenzhen Kebe demonstrating one with a seat. A bit like a two-wheeled electric unicycle, the new-look hoverboard has a bicycle saddle on a pole in the middle. The base is slightly chunkier than on standard hoverboards and a company representative claimed that it was easier to steer and less prone to throwing its riders onto the floor.


Pasta recipes can range in difficulty, but most are pretty easy to prepare, like our Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce. Instead of buying the pasta pre-made in the box with processed cheese, venture into unknown cuisine territory. Our take on the classic Macaroni and Cheese will have you rethinking pre-made food.


Model transformation is one of the basic principles of Model Driven Architecture. To build a software system, a sequence of transformations is performed, starting from requirements and ending with implementation. However, requirements are mostly in the form of text, but not a model that can be easily understood by computers; therefore, automated transformations from requirements to analysis models are not easy to achieve. The overall objective of this systematic review is to examine existing literature works that transform textual requirements into analysis models, highlight open issues, and provide suggestions on potential directions of future research. The systematic review led to the analysis of 20 primary studies (16 approaches) obtained after a carefully designed procedure for selecting papers published in journals and conferences from 1996 to 2008 and Software Engineering textbooks. A conceptual framework is designed to provide common concepts and terminology and to define a unified transformation process. This facilitates the comparison and evaluation of the reviewed papers.


This is a volunteer sunflower from two summers ago. I should have saved all the sunflower seedlings that came up in the garden rather than weeding them as the sunflower seeds I planted were a bust.
Ooooh. And there's even a honey bee on it. You have any hives nearby?


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PRO BASKETBALL TALK | NBC SPORTSPBT Select Team
Eastern Conference Atlantic Division Boston Celtics Brooklyn Nets New York Knicks Philadelphia 76ers Toronto Raptors Central Division Chicago Bulls Cleveland Cavaliers Detroit Pistons Indiana Pacers Milwaukee Bucks Southeast Division Atlanta Hawks Charlotte Hornets Miami Heat Orlando Magic Washington Wizards Western Conference Northwest Division Denver Nuggets Minnesota Timberwolves Oklahoma City Thunder Portland Trail Blazers Utah Jazz Pacific Division Golden State Warriors Los Angeles Clippers Los Angeles Lakers Phoenix Suns Sacramento Kings Southwest Division Dallas Mavericks Houston Rockets Memphis Grizzlies New Orleans Pelicans San Antonio Spurs
Chandler Parsons at odds with Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle over his weight
By Brett PollakoffOct 11, 2014, 11:00 AM EDT
Chandler Parsons was the marquee free agent acquisition for the Mavericks this summer, who signed him to a three-year contract worth more than $46 million that the Rockets called "untradeable," and decided not to match.
Because of the fact that he was after a new deal, Parsons didn't push himself too hard in workouts in the early part of the offseason; an injury, after all, would have severely affected the new contract he was seeking.
He came to training camp bulkier than expected, and Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle mentioned the fact that "bulkier" to him meant that Parsons was out of shape.
This wasn't a big deal, because many players use training camp and the preseason to work themselves into shape. But it may be becoming one, because Carlisle is hammering Parsons about it on a daily basis.
From Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas:
For the second time since the Mavs reported to camp, Carlisle made a point to note that Parsons needs to shed weight. …
"He looked tired out there tonight to me, and his shot is short," Carlisle said. "He's working on losing some weight. He's a little bit heavier than he's been. He's up over 230, and we want to see him get down to at least 225. That's a work in progress, and tonight's one of those nights where I think the extra weight was a hindrance." …
"His opinion of heavy is different than mine," said Parsons, who was 1-of-6 from 3-point range against the Thunder. "We kind of go at it every day about it. At the end of the day, I respect his opinion. After training camp, my weight fluctuates. I'll get it down."
Carlisle is one of the more open coaches in the league when it comes to publicly discussing player issues he believes are negatively affecting his team, so to a certain extent, this is simply how he handles things. He went on to say he "doesn't mean to call him out in public or ridicule him," but it's unclear if Parsons is viewing all of the attention on his weight in the same way.
The Mavericks have every right to demand that the player they just handed a large free agent contract to is in peak physical condition. But there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it, and it's worth wondering if Carlisle's approach is putting an unnecessary strain on this very new relationship.


The 3 mage specializations are Knight-Enchanter, Rift Mage, and Necromancer.
Knight-Enchanters are mages that specialize in fighting in melee combat, similar to warriors and rogues. Instead of using standard weapons and defenses, they use magic to conjure their own.
Rift Mages specialize in using the power of the Fade and Rifts to their advantage. They have a large array of abilities for both dealing damage, controlling their enemies, and casting various debuffs. Rift Mages are the best choice for AOE damage and crowd control.
Necromancers specialize in using dark magic to weaken their foes and strengthen themselves and their allies.


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Jam to These Super-Specific Spotify Playlists
Nick Douglas
Writer Grace Spelman collects songs like they're Legos, in a meticulously sorted tackle box. She has over 20 Spotify playlists that trace a specific concept, like False Starts/False Endings, 2000s Dialogue Opening, and her magnum opus, Songs for Short Attention Spans, which includes over 200 songs that "totally switch up in the middle." Learn more about her hobby in her video interview with The Outline, above.
Spelman also has plenty of more typical mood playlists, like sleepy music, and songs for feeling over your breakup. She also takes song suggestions over Twitter, so if you know a good horn intro, hit her up.
Metafilter users, impressed by Grace's playlists, thought of some more specific playlists. There's the Truck Driver's Gear Change, a collection of songs with a desperate late-stage key change. There's 4 Chords, a collection of songs using the same super-popular chord progression ripped off of Pachelbel's Canon, as parodied by musical comedy acts Axis of Awesome and Rob Paravonian.
We found a few more around Spotify: Whistling Songs, Songs About Butts, Songs From an Animal's POV, and my favorite, Is This Sufjan Stevens Song Gay Or Just About God. We (I) even have a few of our own, though they're all tiny: Songs about a very specific party, songs that start with a repeated high piano note, and songs with a long-ass spoken-word story. But we could always use more.
Staff Writer, Lifehacker | Nick has written for Gawker, Valleywag, the Daily Dot, and Urlesque. He currently runs the scripted comedy podcast "Roommate From Hell."
automaticdoor
Thanks to an early-2000s flashback YouTube session I had with some friends Saturday night, I have a suggestion for Very Specific Parties: "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)" by Aaron Carter.


BELMONT, Calif. — April 24, 2018 — RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE:RNG), a leading provider of global enterprise cloud communications and collaboration solutions, today announced that the San Francisco Business Times and the Silicon Valley Business Journal recognized RingCentral as a 2018 Bay Area Best Places to Work. The award coincides with the Denver Post naming RingCentral as a Top Workplace in the Denver, Colorado, area based on the results of an independent survey conducted by Workplace Dynamics.
Bay Area award applicants were evaluated and ranked across five categories based on the number of employees. The ranking found companies in the region whose employees rate them as the highest on such values as fun, collaborative culture, solid compensation, benefits offerings, and other amenities as well as management practices.
The Bay Area office was recognized as one of the best employers in the Large Company category (250–999 employees in region), while the Denver office achieved a Top Place to Work Ranking in the Mid-Size Company category (150–499 employees in region). Key reasons Denver employees chose RingCentral as a top employer include the company's inclusive environment and forward-thinking leadership. This is the fourth time that the Denver office was named one of the Top Workplaces by the Denver Post. In addition, RingCentral's Xiamen, China, office was awarded the prestigious Liepin Extraordinary Employer Award in 2017, underscoring the company's recognition as a global employer of choice.
For information about career opportunities at RingCentral, please visit: ringcentral.com/company/careers.


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Clarissa C. Potter Named Acting Senior Counsel to the Chief Counsel (Legislation)
IR-2005-135, Nov. 21, 2005
Washington — The Internal Revenue Service announced the acting appointment of Clarissa C. Potter to the position of Senior Counsel to the Chief Counsel (Legislation) effective November 13, 2005.
"Clarissa Potter is a true asset to the Office of Chief Counsel," said Donald L. Korb, IRS Chief Counsel. "Ms. Potter's extensive experience with the different branches of government involved in the tax law and her deep knowledge of tax policy and administration make her an excellent candidate to act in this position."
The Senior Counsel to the Chief Counsel (Legislation) serves as program manager and senior advisor to the Chief Counsel on a broad array of activities designed to fulfill Counsel's responsibilities to develop, review, and assist in shaping proposed legislation, and to provide legal support to the IRS in fulfilling its legislative responsibilities.
Since July 2005, Potter has served as Special Counsel to the Chief Counsel, advising the Chief Counsel, the Deputy Chief Counsels and IRS executives on tax administration and policy issues, including legislation, tax shelter and tax shelter promoter initiatives, media relations, and coordinating with the Treasury Department and Congress.
Before joining the Office of Chief Counsel, Potter was an associate professor at Georgetown University Law Center, teaching tax law and policy. While there she served as director of the Georgetown University Law Center Tax Policy Workshop, and was Director of Projects at the American Tax Policy Institute.
She came to Georgetown from the Office of Tax Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury, where she held a series of increasingly responsible positions, including Acting Tax Legislative Counsel. She also previously served as Legislation Counsel for the Joint Committee on Taxation of the United States Congress. Her work has involved highly complex tax matters, directly impacting a large portion of the tax-paying public nationally.
Potter received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1989 where she was the Managing Editor of the Yale Law and Policy Review, and a B.A. degree from Miami University of Ohio in 1983.