text:
Each year I write a list of books I read during the year. This is the 2017 list:
The art of game design. A book about how to design games.
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. Is a biography on John Carmack and John Romero, who created the popular games Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake.
The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why. The book will tell you what's happening with your body when a disaster is happening to you. Examples of disasters in the book includes 9/11 (both what was going on in the heads of the people in the buildings and in the airplanes), Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Tsunami, a restaurant on fire, the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, and crowd crushes during the pilgrimage to Islam's holy places in Saudi Arabia. So how do you survive a disaster? The basic idea is that you should be prepared and learn what's going on in your body when a disaster is happening.
We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam. The book is describing the battle famous from the movie with the same name. If you saw the movie, you should still read the book because a lot in a Hollywood movie is different from what really happened.
The new drawing on the rights side of the brain. If you can't draw pictures you should read this book. The basic idea is that those who suck at drawing are drawing objects, while those who are good at drawing are drawing shapes. The easiest way to draw shapes and not objects is to turn whatever you are drawing upside down. Now your brain won't recognize what you are seeing making it much easier to draw shapes.
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down. Is a book about how you can design machines and buildings so they don't fall down. It's not a book you should read if you want to learn how to actual design so things don't break - the purpose of the book is to give an overview of the area, but it includes some formula you may use but no examples how to use the formulas. But the book is filled with interesting examples of how structures historically have failed.
Helicopter flying handbook. Is a free book written by the US Department of Transportation and is a handbook written mainly for those who want to become helicopter pilots. It will tell you all about aerodynamics, flight controls, systems, performance, flight maneuvers, emergencies, how to operate a helicopter in different weather conditions, and so on.
Unity 5.x Shaders and Effects Cookbook - Master the art of shader programming to bring life to your Unity projects. This book will teach you about shaders. It will not teach you everything about shaders, but if you are using it together with other shader resources you will learn a lot, including how to write a fur shader.
Low level hell - A scout pilot in the Big Red One. Is a biography on and by Hugh Mills who flew a scout helicopter in the Vietnam war.
Chickenhawk. Is a true story written by Robert Mason, who was a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam war. The battle dramatized in the movie We Were Soldiers was one of the battles he participated in. This book is considered being a handbook for helicopter pilots all over the world.
Troop Leader: A Tank Commander's Story. A biography on a tank commander in the battle for Europe in 1944 and 1945.
Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War. Tells the story of a one-day battle in the 2003 Iraq war. If you have seen the television series Generation Kill, and remember when they are driving on a bridge and are seeing a burned out military vehicle, that vehicle was destroyed in this battle.
Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation. Some games just feel better than other games, and this book is trying to figure out why.
Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War With Militant Islam. Tells the story of when Iran took the American embassy as hostage.
The New Science of Strong Materials or Why You Don't Fall Through the Floor. Is closely connected with the above "Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down" but is more about the history of materials used in engineering applications.
The word of Notch. Is a pdf version of Notch's blog. Notch is the guy who came up with the idea behind one of the world's most popular games: Minecraft.
The Timeless Way of Building. If you have read this book you have learned a new way to think about architecture - why are some buildings "better" than other? The answer is that you should use patterns when designing a building.
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Is written by the same author as The Timeless Way of Building, but includes examples of patterns discussed in that book. I believe the guy who invented the popular game SimCity read this book and came up with the idea for that game.
John Carmack Archive - Interviews. Free book consisting of interviews with John Carmack, who created the games Doom and Quake.
Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization. Tells the history of the chicken.
Rush to Glory: Formula 1 Racing's Greatest Rivalry. Tells the story of the Formula One drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt.
Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time. Is written by Howard Schultz, who bought a company called Starbucks that was selling coffee beans, and decided that Starbucks should also sell coffee drinks.
Uncommon grounds - The history of coffee and how it transformed our world. Tells the history of coffee.
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter. Includes a lot of information about color and light mostly aimed for painters, but 3d artists will also find it useful. For example, the author argues that using only photos as references is not a good idea because a photo is not an accurate representation of the real world. For example, colors and shadows tend to be different in a photo, so you also have to go out into the real world.
Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens. Everything you need to know about chickens.
Computational Geometry: Algorithms and Applications. A book on how to triangulate points, how to generate convex hulls, etc.
Leonardo da Vinci. Written by the same guy who wrote the official Steve Jobs biography.
A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable. Tells the story of the first telegraph cable from UK to USA.
The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Tells the history of the container.
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. Tells the story, from a UN perspective, of the 1994 civil war in Rwanda.
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. As the title says, it tells the story of the construction of the canal between the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean.
Computational Geometry - Part 2
As said before, I've spent some time learning an area called Computational Geometry. This area is big (and some algorithms tend to be complicated) so I've still not learned everything. In this part I've studied algorithms that will cut polygons in different ways.
Sutherland-Hodgman. You can use the Sutherland–Hodgman algorithm if you have a polygon and you want to cut away the parts of that polygon that doesn't intersect with another convex polygon. The polygon you want to cut doesn't have to be convex. The result is the intersection between the polygons:
Greiner-Hormann. The Sutherland-Hodgman algorithm was kinda limited - it could only find the intersection of two polygons and one of the polygons had to be convex. It can be easily modified if you need the outside of the intersections, but the result is not optimal. If you have concave polygons (or convex or one of each) and you want do do other types of so-called boolean operations on the polygons, then you need another algorithm. One such algorithm is the Greiner-Hormann algorithm.
ExclusiveOr
That's it for now. Next up on the study-list is boolean operations on meshes. You can use one of the above algorithms if you want to do boolean operations on meshes, but better algorithms exist.
I've spent some time studying an area called Computational Geometry, which according to Wikipedia is "a branch of computer science devoted to the study of algorithms which can be stated in terms of geometry." Examples include: Are two lines intersecting? How can you triangulate random points? If you are interested in the area, the best book I found was Computational Geometry: Algorithms and Applications. The algorithms I've studied are:
Find the convex hull of random points. If you have some points and you want to find the smallest possible area that includes these points, then you need to find the convex hull of those points.
Triangulate polygons. If you have a convex polygon or a concave polygon, how can you triangulate them?
Triangulate points. If you have random points, how can you triangulate those?
Delaunay triangulation. If you look at the images above, the triangles look kinda odd. To improve the triangulation you can use an algorithm called Delaunay triangulation.
Voronoi diagram. If you run a stores in different cities, then you can create a Voronoi diagram to find out where those customers live that live the closest to a specific store.
That's it for part 1. Next part will include boolean operations on polygons!
Engineering is fun and it's also fun to read about other engineers so you can learn something from their mistakes and find inspiration. Engineering is also about math, physics, etc, but this is a collection of books without any math that you can read on the beach. So leave your calculator behind!
A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable. One of the big engineering projects that took place in the 1800's was to connect Europe with America by dragging a 2500 tonnes heavy telegraph cable from one continent to the next. If that was possible, it would take just a minute to send information between the continents, compared to the weeks it took to send the same information with a ship. How this was possible is explained in the book.
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down. I've always been fascinated by those engineers who worked without calculators. How could they build a ship like Titanic without computers? This book will tell you the history of how to engineer buildings, bridges, ships, and much more.
Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem. Math and engineering are deeply connected. This book will tell you the story of when one guy tried to prove Fermat's last theorem. It will also tell you the history of mathematics.
Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee. This book tells the story of one of the famous generals from the American Civil War. But little is known that Robert E. Lee was also an engineer, which is maybe the reason he was successful as a general? The book includes a lot about the war, but also about the engineering challenges to build a fort and change the flow of a river.
Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius. Nikola Tesla was a famous inventor, and one of Elon Musk's role models, but the problem was that he never made money from his inventions so he died poor. This book will teach you why great engineering is not the end goal - make money is always the goal.
The Martian. What if you are on Mars, then an accident happens which forces your team to leave you behind, so you have to survive with what you have until someone can rescue you? This is of course a made up story, but the author worked as an engineer before he began writing books so the book is realistic.
Alan Turing: The Enigma. One of the great engineering challenges during the Second World War was to break the German codes. He wasn't alone, but one of the persons who accomplished this was Alan Turing, and this is the best biography on him.
Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module. It might have been difficult to drag a telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean without the help of computers, but what if you want to land on the Moon with only primitive computers? This book is written by the engineer who was responsible for designing the vehicle that actually landed on the Moon, so you will learn all about it.
The Quest for Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence or smart computers are becoming an increasingly larger part of our life, such as self-driving cars. The area is actually not new, people have always tried to build smart machines, and this book will tell you all about it.
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. This book will tell you the history of the computer - from the first attempt to build a calculator up to the guys who designed Google. It is written by the same author who wrote the best Steve Jobs biography, so you should read both!
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope. What if you grew up in a poor place in Africa and decided you wanted to help the community to get electricity. This book will tell you how William Kamkwamba built a wind turbine from scrap.
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed. One of the most recognizable planes is the F-117 which was the first plane that was hard to detect on a radar - a so called stealth fighter. This book is written by one of the engineers who built that plane and other innovative aircraft at the company Skunk Works.
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. One of the most famous computer games is Doom, and this book will tell you the story of how Doom was created.
The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. This book will tell you the history of the container, so it's actually a book on logistics. But it's also a book on product development, and entrepreneurship because it turned out that it was businesses that decided to begin using the container before the governments began to use it for military purposes during the Vietnam War.
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. One of the great projects during the turn of the twentieth century was the construction of the Panama Canal. The first attempt made by the French failed because they ran out of money and because they forgot to take the human factor into account. Yes it wasn't easy to build the canal from a technical point of view, but it was even more difficult to keep the humans who were building the canal free from illnesses like malaria, so the workers (and managers) died in the thousands. There's also a great quote that says: "Engineers are sometimes the least practical of men, they may be attracted by difficulties."
Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869. Before the Panama Canal was built, it took 6 months to travel from the US east coast to the west coast. To shorten the time to just seven days they decided to build a railway connecting the west with the east. This books tells the story how they did that.
Inside the Third Reich. Is written by the architect Albert Speer who at age 28 found himself responsible for redesigning Berlin and during the Second World War responsible for the industrial production. The book answers the question how Germany, despite being bombed, could build tanks.
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. Tells the Story of John Boyd who began his career as a fighter pilot and ended it as an engineer. Most aircraft engineers are not pilots, but Boyd could use his practical experience to develop aircraft in a way those without any pilot experience couldn't. This book will also give you an idea about the political struggles going on when building stuff for the government.
Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution. Tells the history of the most famous military drone. How did they design it to fly for +24 hours without refueling, how can you control it from a container in United States while the drone is flying above Afghanistan, and how can you fire missiles from it?
And finally some shameless self-promotion. If you have read all books about engineering you should also read my book about engineering, which is a biography on Elon Musk: The Engineer: Follow Elon Musk on a journey from South Africa to Mars.
Would Leonardo da Vinci have streamed his work online?
Television is 20th century technology and the new way to consume entertainment is to watch streamers on services like Twitch. A streamer is someone who is showing him/herself through a web camera while the person is doing something like playing a game, drawing a picture, or even looking for zebras in South Africa. Why? Traditional television has a broader audience, so the television shows tend to become kinda dull. Watching a stream on Twitch is more personal and you can even interact with the person through a chat. Streamers are also calming background noise, and I was listening to an art streamer while writing this article.
But watching someone else doing art is not something new. I've recently read a biography on Leonardo Da Vinci, written by Walter Isaacson - the same author who wrote the official Steve Jobs biography. He has also written a biography on Albert Einstein, and I've read all three of those books. In the book on Leonardo da Vinci, it's revealed that people were watching him when he was doing art, while he was saying "Drawing in company is much better than alone."
When Leonardo da Vinci was painting The Last Supper, spectators would visit and sit quietly just so they could watch him work. The creation of art, like the discussion of science, had become at times a public event. According to the account of a priest, Leonardo would "come here in the early hours of the morning and mount the scaffolding," and then "remain there brush in hand from sunrise to sunset, forgetting to eat and drink, painting continually." On other days, however, nothing would be painted. "He would remain in front of it for one or two hours and contemplate it in solitude, examining and criticizing to himself the figures he had created." Then there were dramatic days that combines his obsessiveness and his penchant for procrastination. As if caught by whim or passion, he would arrive suddenly in the middle of the day, "climb the scaffolding, seize a brush, apply a brush stroke or two to one of the figures, and suddenly depart."
Here are some other lessons learned from the book on Leonardo da Vinci:
You have to observe the real world and this is more important than learning from someone else:
If you look around you, you will not see any sharp lines, so why should you paint using sharp lines? "Paint so that a smokey finish can be seen, rather than contours and profiles that are distinct and crude."
Use shadows, not lines, and this is the secret to modeling 3d objects on a 2d surface. Leonardo da Vinci spent more time studying shadows (and thus light) than he did on any other artistic topic.
Leonardo da Vinci took this one step further by dissecting human bodies to really learn how to make better paintings. Art and science is interwoven. If you paint someone, you should begin with the skeleton, then the skin, and finally add the clothing.
Study the movement of bodies. Many say that Leonardo da Vinci's characters are moving, and he said that "movements should announce the motions of the mind." If he met someone on the street with an appearance he wanted to study closer, he invited the person over for supper.
To remember all observations, he always brought a notebook with him. In these books he wrote what he observed and what he wanted to observe, such as "Describe the tongue of the woodpecker."
He failed a lot. In some cases it could take 20 years before he finished a painting, and in some cases he never finished a painting he was working on. Leonardo da Vinci wanted is art to be flawless, so he could never finish them because they were so complicated if you took the lighting into account. In one case he had to dissect a body to learn how a muscle worked before he was satisfied with the painting.
Combine fantasy with observation. Leonardo da Vinci is famous for coming up with futuristic machines, like helicopters and tanks. But it turned out most of these machines were not meant to function because he created those machines for theatrical plays. If you want to draw a dragon, it's easier to combine parts from other animals, like the head from a dog, the eyes from a cat, the ears from a pig, and so on.
Procrastinate is not always bad. Leonardo da Vinci was having a discussion on how creativity occurs. Sometimes it requires going slowly, pausing, even procrastinating. "Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form."
Evil pumpkins - or how to simulate subsurface scattering
If you are making a game, it's really important that the game looks good and that the game runs as fast as possible on the computer. It's often difficult to achieve both good looks and speed, so you have to cheat by using various tricks. One of the cheats I read about was how to achieve fast subsurface scattering in Unity. The idea behind subsurface scattering is that light tends to shine through some materials. For example, if you are holding up your hand against a strong light source, you will see that some of the light shines through you the edges of your fingers. To implement this effect I decided to make a Halloween pumpkin.
I began by making a pumpkin sculpture in Blender.
Making a sculpture in a 3D software is not that far from using physical clay. This is why the technique has become popular because it's easier to model something in clay than by adding triangles one after the other. The most popular sculpt software is ZBrush, but Blender has a sculpt part which is also working fine. The problem with a sculpture is that it consists of far too many triangles so it will fail if you put it in a game:
The solutions is that we once again have to cheat by making a less complicated model on the top of the more complicated model. This process is called retopo. The less complicated version looks like this:
But this less complicated version is kinda ugly. To make it look better we can use the more complicated version and "bake" normals and ambient occlusion, which is again a cheat to make an ugly model look better:
...and now it's just a matter of adding the subsurface scattering materials to the pumpkin, and it will look like this:
This self-driving car is now faster with the flow field algorithm
So I've made a self-driving car in Unity. The car is using the Hybrid A* pathfinding algorithm along with other algorithms to find its way around a confined area, such as a parking lot. You can test it here or here. The old version was working fine, but one can always improve. The updates in this version are:
Added lines showing the waypoints
Fixed a bug where the wrong value was added to the sum or errors in the PID controller, so the car is now following the path much better
Added a cost for switching driving direction, like forward -> reverse, because it would be annoying to sit in a car that constantly is switching driving directions
Fixed a bug where the smooth path algorithm optimized the distance to obstacle in 3d space and not 2d space
Added an improved obstacle-intersection algorithm which is faster and more accurate. It's now using rectangle-rectangle intersection instead of circle-circle intersection
Added UI where you can display the grid and the flow field
When optimizing the final path, it's now optimizing the distance to the average of the surrounding obstacles and not just the closest obstacle
Cleaned up the code
Added flow fields as heuristic and for obstacle detection, which makes the pathfinding much faster
Made so that the Hybrid A star can expand to a cell if this expansion has a lower cost than previously
Improved path following so the car is slowing down gradually before it reaches the end or a turning point such as "reverse -> forward". Previously you could often see how the car crashed into walls because it was driving too fast
This is the flow field the car is using to faster detect if it's colliding with an obstacle:
The area is divided into cells, and the darker the cell is, the further away it is from an obstacle. So if you want to check if a car is colliding with an obstacle while generating the path, you can see in which cell it is and see how far away from an obstacle it is. If it can't possible be colliding with an obstacle, then it's not colliding with an obstacle and you don't need to use a slow rectangle-rectangle intersection algorithm to check if it's colliding with an obstacle.
Update 2017-07-26
I realized that a good idea might be to close cells depending on the heading the car had when entering the cell. So the car can drive to the same cell even if it is closed if it hasn't arrived to that cell before with the same heading. The result looks like some abstract art:
...but the algorithm is now finding more solutions and the car can even turn around on its spot. The problem is that sometimes this solution is much slower, so maybe a combination between the slow and the faster algorithm can be used?
What happened to John Carmack after the book Masters of Doom?
John Carmack is famous for creating the games Doom and Quake. In the book Masters of Doom, you will learn how he created those games and the company id software. That book ended with the game Quake 3, but what has he been up to since 1997? The answer comes in a free 300 pages pdf, which consists of interviews with John Carmack, beginning with Quake 3 and ending with Rage, so from year 1997-2008.
Here are some key lessons learned from the book
"The assumption that hiring more people gives a better product is often incorrect. It might (but not always) give you more product, but not necessarily better product." [He argued that the 11 people id software had at the time is the right number of people to do a project and having 50 people would hurt the project]
You should listen to the community, but this will also take time, so you have to prioritize. Carmack argued that John Romero (who was forced to leave the company) was talking to the community when he should have been working.
"I will always take an aggressively simple approach to things" was his answer to the question if Quake's level should be more interactive.
Carmack was working 70 hours a week for six years.
"I had this really bizarre conversation with a couple of lawyers and they were talking about 'How do you pick your target market? Do you use focus groups and poll people and all this?' It's like 'No, we just write games that we think are cool.' They're from such a different world that they fundamentally did not get that."
"There's plenty of starving artists that are probably talented and hard working, they're just doing something nobody cares about."
"The graphics technology everybody looks at is only a quarter of Quake's code, and it's not even the hard part of it. Look at the things that are really unglamorous but really important, like the file extension architecture in Quake."
"I tried just a couple of features, like transparency or shadows and reflections. And they just dropped in - it was so wonderful. And that was what really got me crusading for OpenGL. It was like, "This helps me. This is something that's letting me be more creative and try out more things to produce a better architecture than we would have had otherwise." A good API can help you produce better products." [So using a game engine like Unity is not cheating!]
How do you handle third-party developers when you license your engines? Carmack: It's, "Here's a CD. Thank you for the half-million dollars. Have a nice life."
"All of science and technology is built standing on the shoulders of the people that come before you. Did Newton patent calculus and screw the hell out of the other guy working in it? It's just so wrong, but it's what the business world does to things, and certainly the world is controlled by business interests." [Why software patents is a bad idea]
You hear it from the fan base a lot. "Do it right. We'll still be here. We'll wait," and it's tempting to just let things slip. But that's really not OK. If you're doing something cutting edge, you're making fundamental decisions about your architecture, and if you let it slide for a year or two, then it's just not the right decision anymore. Even if you pile on all these extras, it's not optimal. It's not targeted at what you're doing. [Why it's important to ship a game. They planned it would take 12 months to make Quake, but it took 18, which is fine] If we shipped on time, we probably weren't ambitious enough. Quake 2 would take 12 months because "a lot of things are functioning better at the company."
"Programming is really just the mundane aspect of expressing a solution to a problem. There are talents that are specifically related to actually coding, but the real issue is being able to grasp problems and devise solutions that are detailed enough to actually be coded."
"I feel bad for some companies out there. The founders, who are these incredible engineers, are now directors of their departments doing management rather than engineering. At the same time most of the people they are managing are nowhere near as good as they were at doing the actual work. That's what I hope never happens to me. I want to stay in the trenches working on the things all the time."
"In the last two projects, my time has been split. I'd have about 3 months och pure research, playing around with different stuff. And then after that it's about 16 months of work on the project. It would be nice to shift that more towards research, but I would never want to devote a majority of my time to research."
"It's not the one brilliant decision, it's the 500 smart decisions that really make things good. Even at the end of Quake 3, I had a to-do list of a thousand things that could potentially be improved on. So it's a matter of going through and knowing all these things that could be done, and prioritizing what the "sweet spots" are."
"I actually learn from almost anyone. Maybe I was smarter than the [college] professor but it didn't mean that there weren't things I could learn from him. So it doesn't take someone that's necessarily a "better" developer or programmer for them to have things that you can learn from. So almost all the programmers I've worked with, I've learned something from."
"There have been flight simulators where you just jump in, fly around and shoot things, and those are fun and interesting. Then there are these serious simulators where you have to convince yourself that you're being entertained. I still like playing a simple, fast game, where you jump in and have a good time, and I think there are five times as many people in the game buying world that also feel that way."
"Sometimes I wind up feeling guilty that I'm not doing more. I'm willing to just ignore a whole lot of things. And that's pretty important, because so many things come in that are potential demands on my time, and it's just easy to see how people that are in a similar situation, wind up just getting their entire days spoken for, and not being able to do any work because every day, there's phone calls and emails from people that want to do something, they want to have an interview, or pitch a business proposal."
On market research: "I don't do a really through canvassing, play everything that's out there. Usually I watch over someone's shoulder when they're playing the hot new game. But I don't spend that much time actually playing other games. I certainly play more Quake 3 than any other games out there."
"Too many programmers agree to random feature requests without thoroughly considering the impacts."
"There are a lot of arguments that can be made about game design, and I prefer simplicity and elegance. I'm always the one saying we want the minimum number of everything, because I want it to be simple and fun to play." He would later say that he stepped away from id software because "I'm really no representative of what most of our market is now. I did realize that my very simplified game design ethic is not what the market is demanding. [Quake 3] was the id game I probably spent the most time playing and enjoyed the most, but it was actually one of our less successful titles."
"Usually when I set out making the technical decisions I don't know how it's going to turn out. A lot of it is working out what works, and what ideas come to you. We commonly switch gears during our development process when a really good opportunity comes up."
"Once or twice a year I go on "working retreats", where I lock myself in a hotel room for two weeks with no internet connection for completely focused work."
"We try to pick directions that a good number of people will enjoy, then just do a quality job implementing it. Some people will love it, and some people will hate it. The people that hate it usually scream louder."
"Tessellation has been one of those things up there with procedural content generation where it's been five generations that we've been having people tell us it's going to be the next big thing and it never does turn out to be the case. What we want is something that you can carve up the world as continuously as you want without any respect to underlying geometry."
"A lot of people don't seem to really appreciate how the vertex fragment rasterization approach to computer graphics has been unquestionable the most successful multi-processing solution ever."
"'Oh just thread your application.' Anyone that says that is basically an idiot, not appreciating the problems."
Update! John Carmack replied to this article on twitter:
Why you need to learn the Flow Field algorithm
As said in the last post, I've read a lot about pathfinding. One of the pathfinding algorithms I found was the Flow Field. A Flow Field covers the entire grid (if a cell is not an obstacle and if a cell can be found from the start position), so while A* is finding the shortest path from the start position to a goal position, a Flow Field is inspired by water and is finding a path from each cell to the start position. It looks like this:
In the image above, the darker a cell is, the further away it is from the start position, which is the red sphere. The blue lines is pointing in the direction of the shortest path. But you can also add more start positions, which is actually speeding up the algorithm. So if you want to find the shortest path to the nearest door, then you can use the Flow Field.
A Flow Field is useful if you have a lot of units trying to find their way through your map, and was used in the game Planetary Annihilation. What they were doing was to divide the area into sectors, then use A* to find the shortest path between the sectors, and then they used a Flow Field to find the shortest paths through a sector. It looks like this:
But that's not it. A few years ago I made a self-driving car in Unity after reading a report on the Hybrid A* algorithm. One of the heuristics used by the Hybrid A* algorithm was something they called Dynamic Programming. I realized that Dynamic Programming is actually a Flow Field, so I updated my self-driving car with that algorithm. The 160x160 Flow Field looks like this and is generated in around 0.05 seconds:
You can also use the Flow Field algorithm to help you with obstacle detection. In the Hybrid A* algorithm, it's obviously important to quickly find the distance to the closest obstacle, and you can generate these distances fast once in the beginning. That Flow Field looks like this:
Pathfinding best practices and surprising uses
Weather is crap, so I've studied a lot of resources related to pathfinding, which is the art of finding a path between two or several points. I've already spent a lot of time studying the Hybrid A* pathfinding algorithm used by self-driving cars, but one can't study enough of pathfinding! This is a summary of what I want to remember and what you also will most likely want to know:
A good pathfinding engine can be used for more purposes than just moving units around the world. In the real-time strategy game Empire Earth, pathfinding was used for tasks such as terrain analysis, choke-point detection, AI military route planning, weather creation/movement, AI wall building, animal migration routes, and pathfinding.
Pathfinding can also be used as a flood-filling algorithm. The closed list will store all nodes searched, so you can use it to find which nodes were filled with the flood. In this case you can return the top open list node without searching for the cheapest node to process next because in this case, tile costs mean nothing.
Pathfinding can be time-consuming, so it may freeze the game. A solution to this problem is to split the paths up over time. This works well for both static and dynamic maps, and was used successfully in the game Empire Earth, which used paths that supported thousands of units. The solution is to first generate a quick path to get the unit moving because the unit should move the moment the player tells it to move. This quick path uses a pathfinder algorithm that stops after maybe 10 iterations and picks the node closest to the goal-node as the path's end-node. Then you should generate a full path, which is a path from the end of the quick path to the goal node we wanted to reach from the beginning. But this full path may be ugly and look wrong because it begins at the end of the quick path, so you need to add a splice path, which uses the same idea as the quick path by using the unit's current position as starting position and a point on the full path as end position. This point should be experimented with but can be like eight nodes in on the full path.
In Empire Earth, if an AI-controlled unit failed to find a path more than 10 times in 30 seconds (perhaps because the unit was walled in), they simply killed that unit.
Finding the cheapest node in the open list is often time consuming so you need to optimize the list. To optimize this you can use a sorted heap structure that allows for fast removal, but slow insertion. The second method is to have an unsorted list where insertion is fast, but removal is slow. A third alternative is to have a "cheap" list with roughly the 15 cheapest nodes (sorted). So each time you want to add a new node to the open list, you first check if it's cheaper than any nodes in the cheap list, then add it to that list and sort it, so it can have more than 15 nodes. Otherwise, add it to the list with all the other nodes in the open list, which is unsorted. If the cheap list is empty, add 15 of the cheapest nodes from the expensive list.
Iterative deepening is the art of restricting the A* algorithm by limiting the number of iterations allowed or limiting the maximum path length. If A* fails to find a path, the restriction can be increased. This can be used if the map is dynamic. Let´s say you have two agents that want to go through a door. The first agent will find a path, but the second will fail. If you had not used iterative deepening, then the second search would have taken a long time before failure. With iterative deepening, the second search will fail fast, but then it may succeed the next time loop because the first agent may have passed the door.
In some environments it might be a good idea to return the failed path if pathfinding fails. If an agent follows a failed path instead of just standing still, it might appear as the agent is exploring the environment.
If everything else fails, let the player add waypoints, and the pathfinding algorithm can find paths between these waypoints.
You don't always have to use A*. What if a straight line to the goal is possible?
If the player can't see the AI controlled enemy units, then you can ignore pathfinding and just teleport the units, so pathfinding is not always needed.
It's possible to pre-compute every single path in a search space and store it in a look-up table. For a 100x100 grid, this will need 200 MB of space. An alternative is to calculate a few paths, store them, and see if the path you create while the game is running can use those paths. A unit will most likely pass through a door, so calculate paths from the door.
It's important to optimize the search space, the fewer nodes you have to search through, the better. Maybe you don't have to divide the are into small squares, what if you divide the area into waypoints? Or you can combine both techniques: first find the shortest path through the waypoints, and then find the shortest path between the waypoints by dividing the area into squares. In the game Company of Heroes, the high-level search space representation was a hex-grid, and the low-level representation was a square grid. One way to improve search space is to use Quadtrees, which means merging cells that don't have an obstacle in them into one large cell. It works like this: Pathfinding in an Entity Cluttered 3D Virtual Environment.
A* demands that you use a heuristic which i admissible, meaning that the h-cost is never larger than the true cost. This will result in an optimal path. But if you don't follow this rule, you can get a faster algorithm but not an optimal path. But why would you need an optimal path, will anyone really notice? You can add this to your game by simply multiplying the h-cost with a constant such as 1.5.
The best heuristic to use on a grid is the octile heuristic. It looks like this: max(deltax, deltay) + 0.41 * min(deltax, deltay), assuming that diagonal movement cost 1.41. The problem with the euclidean distance is that it underestimates the cost, while manhattan distance overestimates the cost.
When should you use a grid, waypoints, or a navigation mesh to represent the search space?
Grids are most useful when the terrain is 2D, when implementation time is limited, when the world is dynamic, and when sufficient memory is available. Don't use them when you have a large open world or when you need accuracy (like when you have a house with an angle that doesn't fit the grid)
Waypoints are useful when implementation time is limited, when fast path planning is needed, and when you don't need high accuracy.
Navigation meshes should be used when you have time to implement them. But there's no best technique to create an optimal navigation mesh.
No one solution is useful all the time. Navigating open terrain requires a mix of different techniques. Use local collision avoidance techniques for nearby areas and pre-processed data for longer distances. Using multiple techniques that complement each other yields better results than any one technique alone.
It's kinda boring if all AI controlled units follow the exact same path. To solve this, each edge between two nodes can have a width, and you need to make sure this width doesn't collide with an obstacle. Then each unit follows the edge but with a certain distance from the edge.
While A* is finding the shortest path to a single point from a points, Dijkstra's algorithm will find the shortest path to all points from a point.
Pathfinding algorithms tend to terminate when the goal node is the node with the smallest cost, so the algorithm doesn't terminate when it reaches the goal node. But when it first reaches the goal node, then that path is in many cases also the best path, so you could stop the algorithm when it first sees the goal node and not when the goal node is the node with the lowest cost.
AI Game Programming Wisdom
Game AI Pro
The secrets of Artificial Intelligence in classic games
The old classic computer games were fun and often challenging because of the Artificial Intelligence that controlled the enemies. But how could the AI in those old computers be challenging? This will be a short description of how the AI in classic games was working and the tricks they used.
Warcraft. The AI was waiting for some fixed amount of time, and then started spawning a wave of units to attack you. It would spawn these units at the edge of the gray fog and not at the base as you first may have thought. It continued to spawn these units until your defenses were nearly overwhelmed - and then it would stop, leaving you to kill the remaining enemy units and win the fight. So the AI didn't have to worry about building buildings, saving money, or building units.
Pac-Man. The AI had two states: normal, which is when the player is collecting dots, and another state when the player has eaten the power-up. In their normal state, each of the four ghosts moves in a straight line until they reach a junction. At a junction, they randomly choose a route to move to next. Each ghost chooses either to take the route that's in the direction of the player (calculated by using an offset, so no pathfinding), or to take a random route. The choice depends on the ghost: each has a different probability of doing one or the other. This sounds like stupid AI, but those who played the game thought the AI was smarter, arguing the ghosts tried to set a trap or group up to attack the player.
The Sims. This game put the intelligence in the world and not in the character. The objects in the world, like a fridge or a television, tell nearby sims what they offer, such as food or entertainment. The object will also tell the sims how to perform the action to get the offer.
Starcraft. The game had several pathfinding problems. One of these problems was that the units who collected minerals jammed. The solution was: "whenever harvesters are on their way to get minerals, or when they're on the way back carrying those minerals, they ignore collisions with other units."
The StarCraft path-finding hack
Finding inspiration from other games
In April this year I participated in the Ludum Dare competition where you are making a game in 48 hours. I made an Aircraft Carrier Simulator, looking like this:
Today, I saw on steam that someone had released a game called Carrier Deck. It looks like this:
In the game you "manage the deck of the Nimitz-class nuclear powered supercarrier, the USS Ronald Regan (CVN-76)." So the game has the same game play, the same view angle, the same carrier type, and the same F18 aircraft as my Ludum Dare game had. I wonder if they found inspiration from my game? That would be cool because I don't mind anyone finding inspiration from my ideas. I had plans to make a complete game out of my Ludum Dare game but decided not to because I thought it wasn't fun enough.
Resources if you want to learn more about architecture
I've set out to learn more about architecture for a project I'm working on. This will be a collection of the resources I thought were the best. I've learned there is not one "bible" you can read to learn everything about architecture, so you have to use several resources.
The timeless way of building. This book is written by the architect Christopher Alexander, and is the first book in a series of three books that summarizes his ideas on architecture. You might ask yourself why some buildings are "better" than other buildings? Why do you prefer to live in a house but hate to live in another house? Christopher Alexander argues that the reason one building is better than the other is that the building you like was designed by using certain patterns. The main idea is that building a building is an iterative process, and those who will live in the building should be involved in the process. If everyone is aware of this "pattern language" then it will be easier for everyone to participate in the building process, and the result will be a building which feels alive.
Ted talks. Ted is an organization which posts talks, and these talks are supposed to be something extraordinary. It has a search function where you can find several talks on architecture. All of them are not extraordinary, but some are, including one guy who had an idea to stop the spreading of the Sahara desert by using clay buildings.
The Pruitt Igoe Myth. Pruitt Igoe was a housing project in St. Louis. The main idea was to give poor people an opportunity to live in better buildings. But the project failed because the houses were not maintained, so they began to fall apart, which resulted in that the people living in them stopped caring, so they fell apart even more. So the key point from the documentary is that a house on its own is not important, but what's happening with the house when the people have moved in.
Would Leonardo da Vinci have streamed his work onl...
Evil pumpkins - or how to simulate subsurface scat...
This self-driving car is now faster with the flow ...
What happened to John Carmack after the book Maste...
The secrets of Artificial Intelligence in classic ...
Resources if you want to learn more about architec...


text:
Folding the Julia Fractal
So the Julia sets are a class of sets that have became very popular because of their beauty and an interesting object of study. The definition of a Julia set is really simple, it is the set of complex numbers \(\bold S_c\) such that for \(z \in \bold S_c\), we have \(|f^n_c(z)| \le 2\), where \(f_c(z) = z^2 + c\). Each choice of \(c\) gives rise to a different Julia set with distinct looks. I might write more about these stuff maybe but given how popular this subject is you can find a lot of it's cool properties anywhere on the internet. I suggest checking out Inigo Quilez on the subject of rendering them.
I hope your internet's good. Due to the nature of the subject it does require rather large images.
Given how simple the definitions of these sets are, it makes it really easy and straight-forward to render them. It can be done in a few lines and is one of the first things I ever coded.
The source code for the above is here, you can use the mouse to control the value of \(c\). I left the shitty code there for sorta a historical record. Read with caution, it's painful to the eyes.
The procedure to render a Julia fractal is very simple:
Start with a complex number \(z\)
Successively compute \(z=z^2+c\) for a maximum of \(N\) iterations. A larger \(N\) gives a more detailed fractal.
If \(|z|>2\) at any iteration, prematurely stop the computation
For the above GIF, I simply assigned the number of iterations to reach step 3 as the colour: White if step 3 was never reached and different values of grey otherwise.
The creative part comes with how to shade it. I came across a method that involves procedural orbit traps here and attempted to replicate it.
The source code and demo is here. Instead of generating the cloud-like texture procedurally, a texture is used instead. It runs real time and hopefully on mobile browsers too so do give the link a click. The fractal above uses a value of \(c\) around the neighbourhood of \(M_{23,2}\), a Misiurewicz Point that gives the fractal a lacy appearance.
Speaking of lacy, another cool way to render is by estimating it's distance function. I did this a long time ago and probably deleted the source code along the way.
Given the seeming complexity of these fractals, I wondered if there was a way to visualize the formation of them. Since they form via very simple rules, there should be a nice way to depict them. My first attempt was to naively interpolate between each iteration, allowing me to create a smooth animation despite the otherwise discrete procedure. Trying many many ways to interpolate the best I got was this:
It looks cool but imo doesn't show how the very crucial \(z^2+c\) plays a role in it's formation. That took me 2 hours by the way.
Next I had the idea of mapping. The operation \(f_c(z) = z^2+c\) maps a point \(z\) to a point \(z^2+c\). The mapping that forms the Julia fractal \(f^n_c\) is simply that mapping applied several times. Here's my attempt at visualizing \(f_c\):
The first half of the GIF describes the \(+c\) operation, which is simply a shift in the direction of \(c\) . The second half describes the \(z^2\) operation, which is sorta a 'squishing' of the space rotationally, resulting in 2 copies of the image. At the end of the first iteration, we have two displaced copies of the image:
Now, every iteration would generate \(\times 2\) more copies, and you can see how the fractal gets more and more complicated at each iteration.
The above took forever to render by the way, given how slow python really is. Maybe 40fps is a little overkill for a gif but I digress.
JP 23 November 2020

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Gold purchases by emerging market nations have combined with inflation fears to send the precious metal to record highs.
The latest emerging market acquisition news was India's agreement to buy 200 million metric tons of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for $6.7 billion. That amounts to half of what the IMF has put up for sale.
Already in April, China revealed that it almost doubled its gold reserves — to 1,054 metric tons from 600 tons in 2003.
And traders tell the Financial Times that more purchases are coming from emerging market central banks as they seek safe haven investments after the financial crisis.
The central banks are expected to buy gold from the IMF to diversify their reserves away from the dollar. Analysts see China, Russia and Middle East sovereign wealth funds as likely purchasers.
China's gold reserves now account for only about 1.6 percent of its total foreign reserves, despite recent purchases, far below the global average of 10.5 percent.
India's acquisition means that governments as a whole may be net buyers of gold this year for the first time since 1998. That would mostly come from IMF sales.
"Central banks in India and China will be happy to accumulate gold at these levels. I will not be surprised to see even some Southeast Asian banks buying gold," Aaron Smith, Asia head of the $1.65 billion Superfund, told Reuters.


Gift this beautiful organic newborn basket to a new mom or keep it for your new little one. Comes with a long sleeve babybody, swaddle blanket, reversible hat, and a bib. Each basket is handmade and unique with organic palm tree leaves. NB-3 mo, available in baby blue.


text:
Another WordPress site
Custom Wristbands Are The New Trend Impress your buddies with 1 of these 5 special Sweet sixteen birthday party invitations. For teen girls the Sweet 16 is the huge birthday. Previously, 13 was a big deal, because teenhood was reached. The next big 1 is 18, but that a single is much more serious than 16. The Sweet sixteen celebration ought to be exciting, carefree, and frivolous. Make your Sweet 16 birthday celebration invitations stand out in a crowd, just like you! Lego. This is obviously a traditional. Lego is a huge youth presence for several years now, and its popularity is simply developing more powerful. For your party, you can develop an amazing Lego centerpiece and share Lego loot bags containing things like Lego erasers and customized bracelets. To get your school to consider a minor a lot more about their spirit showing ways, just propose to them that possibly there is an alternative to painting yourselves up and down. That is what we did, and we received excellent responses. We aren"t saying that you shouldn"t consider benefit of pep rallies and spirit weeks, we are just saying that when it is not that time of year, that there is a way to express your eternal gratitude to the athletes of your school. cheap wristbands really assisted us do that. We ordered bright blue bands with yellow swirls and lettering. There were so numerous patterns and styles to pick from and create. We ended up marketing out and obtaining to buy far more. Indianapolis Colt Peyton Manning has been the apparent quantity a single option for some time, as the ideal leader and wristband maker at the quarterback place. Some argue he has a powerful cast of characters to throw the ball too. Being capable to dump the ball off to tight end Dallas Clark as a third option is quite sturdy. If you"re a large dude and have a red shirt, find a big curly wig and go as Red Shirt Hurley. Expand some scratchy face stubble. The creators of Lost like to pretend that the lovable man is a target, but we know he will reside via the worst, despite his bad luck. Carry around a fake lottery ticket with the numbers 4, 8, 15, sixteen, 23 and 42. In addition to stupidity, there is increasing concern of potential danger of youngsters wearing as well several bandz for as well extended. Rubber bands were created to band objects together. It is not uncommon to see a kid wearing an excess of a hundred+ bandz at the identical time on a single arm. This could lead to the blood circulation currently being lower off which could lead to critical issues. Encourage the little darling to pray every evening by offering her a pretty bedtime prayer cross. There are lots of prayer crosses particularly made for the minor girls. Their colours and designs are meant to appeal each and every small woman"s eyes. Most of them contain a brief prayer like "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep". These prayer crosses can be customized with the lady"s name to make her truly feel even a lot more special.
President Xi Jinping (R) meets with his Pakistani counterpart Mamnoon Hussain in Qingdao, East China"s Shandong province, June 9, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]
QINGDAO - China is willing to intensify high-level contact and strategic communication with Pakistan, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Saturday while meeting his Pakistani counterpart Mamnoon Hussain.
"The China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperation is not only the shared asset of the two countries, but also offers a model for building a new type of international relations," Xi said.
Hussain is in the coastal Chinese city of Qingdao to attend the 18th Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit. Xi congratulated Pakistan on its participation in the summit as a full member for the first time.
China will steadily promote the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) construction, and strengthen bilateral cooperation in areas such as energy and transportation infrastructure under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.
China also expects to enhance its anti-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan, Xi said.
He stressed that China would continue to support Pakistan in safeguarding national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and support Pakistan to choose its own development path.
"China and Pakistan will always support each other on issues involving each other"s core interests, and safeguard common interests of the two countries as well as other developing countries," Xi said.
Hussain said that China is a reliable friend and steady partner of Pakistan, and relations between the two countries are unshakable.
Pakistan would adhere to one-China policy and support China"s core interests, he said.
Pakistan is willing to maintain high-level contact with China, deepen their cooperation in such terms as economy and trade, and security, push ahead with the construction of CPEC, and enhance coordination on global and regional affairs, Hussain said.
"Pakistan supports China to play a bigger role in international affairs, which is important to maintaining global security and stability," he added.
wholesale custom wristbands
custom made paracord bracelets
personalized heart bracelet
make custom wristbands
basketball silicone bracelets
Tagged: siliconewristbandsmilitary
Gang deny brutal racustom design braceletspe, killing of girl
China"s endeavor to build clean, beautiful country contributes to global magic band designs 2016ecological development
China-silicone wristbands militaryASEAN ties most dynamic model in the region, says Foreign Minister
Proudly powered by silicone wristbands military | Theme: sela by silicone wristbands military


Ambassador Fine Cigars – Take time out of your day to live the good life.
Being a cigar aficionado is more than just a hobby, it's a lifestyle. It's about taking the time to savor the small, joyful moments of life with good friends at your favorite cigar shop. While the rest of the world is constantly stuck in high gear, the cigar aficionado knows when to slow down, relax, and enjoy life.
As a premier dealer, Ambassador Fine Cigars is certified to help you enjoy the best cigar experience possible regardless of your price range. Our knowledgeable and friendly staff can assist you over the phone, via email, or in person to select one of our fine cigars personally from the largest cigar shop humidors in Arizona.
Although fine cigars are certainly an important part of fine living, there's much more to the good life than just a great cigar. Ambassador offers a full range of accessories and products that help you live life to the fullest. Whether you enjoy a finely crafted lighter and humidor, or long for the superior craftsmanship of a premium attaché case, our cigar shop has something for you.
Ambassador is more than just a store, it's an experience. Whether you take time to relax in our exclusive cigar lounge, browse our luxurious cigars and accessories selection, or just enjoy a few moments with good friends in comfortable seating area, you'll find that Ambassador offers a unique slice of the good life.


text:
Meet Bob
Contact UsDonate
News: Page 7
32BJ SEIU Endorses Bob Menendez for U.S. Senate
New Brunswick, N.J. – The Menendez for Senate Campaign today announced that the 32BJ SEIU, the largest property services workers union in the country, has endorsed Bob Menendez for reelection to the U.S. Senate. 32BJ SEIU represents over 12,000 hardworking New Jerseyans, including office cleaners,
Operating Engineers Local 825 Endorses Bob Menendez for U.S. Senate
New Brunswick, N.J. – The Menendez for Senate Campaign today announced that the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 825 and its 7,100 members have endorsement Bob Menendez for re-election to the United States Senate. "I have spent my entire career fighting to make critical infrastructure
Bob Hugin's Sick Care Plan
New Brunswick, NJ – The Menendez for Senate Campaign today called greedy drug company CEO Bob Hugin's health care reform plan the "very definition of 'sick care'" that would leave millions of Americans uninsured. Last year, Hugin, who cut his teeth as a Wall Street banker
Garden State Equality Endorses Bob Menendez for US Senate
New Brunswick, NJ – The Menendez for Senate Campaign announced today that Garden State Equality (GSE), New Jersey's largest organization advocating for LGBTQ rights, has endorsed Bob Menendez for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Founded in 2004, GSE led the fight for marriage equality in New
New Menendez Web Ads Remind Voters of Hugin's Wars against Women's, LGBTQ Rights
New Brunswick, NJ – The Menendez for Senate Campaign today released two new web ads highlighting greedy drug company CEO Bob Hugin's record fighting against equal opportunities for women and against equal protections for LGBTQ students at Princeton University. "When women fought for equal opportunity and
Hugin Still Silent after Trump Claims Women Can't be Sexually Assaulted while Drunk
New Brunswick, N.J. – The Menendez for Senate Campaign today called on Republican Bob Hugin, who has his own long history of denying rights to women, to publicly condemn Donald Trump's statements doubting the credibility of Deborah Ramirez's sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett
VIDEO: 'Bob Hugin is a Con-man'
New Brunswick, N.J. – Renowned civil rights activist Steven Goldstein, founder of Garden State Equality and leader of New Jersey's battle for marriage equality, called the race for U.S. Senate a battle of "good vs. evil." He praised Sen. Bob Menendez for his hard work and leadership
VIDEO: 'I Am Personally Offended By Bob Hugin'
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – While heralding Bob Menendez's support of the Violence Against Women's Act and his work to protect women from sexual assault on college campuses, New Jersey's leading gender equity advocate, Patricia Teffenhart says she is "personally offended" by greedy CEO Bob Hugin's legal
NEW YORK TIMES INVESTIGATION: Hugin & Celgene 'By Far the Worst Offender'
Time for Hugin to pay for sins at Celgene New Brunswick, NJ – Pointing to an investigative report by the New York Times, Senator Menendez's campaign today called on greedy drug company CEO Bob Hugin to use some of the blood money he made ripping off
Lampitt, Women Leaders Decry Hugin Silence on Trump, Kavanaugh
Tavistock, NJ – Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt (LD-6) and other South Jersey women leaders denounced Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Hugin, who has a long history of denying rights to women, for staying silent as allegations of sexual assault mount against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and
NEWARK, NJ 071020648
info@menendezfornj.com
PAID FOR BY MENENDEZ FOR SENATE


the French experience of art and history Towns on mediation: heritage education (workshops), heritage tourism development (discovery tours, visits-show), actions with the residents (event (people...) .
urban planning as practiced in France: safeguarding and development plans for the safeguarded sectors (examples of Sarlat and Périgueux) and Local Urban Plan in order to realize a protection Plan in the old center Trogir.
The town of Sarlat, in turn, wants to benefit from the expertise of Trogir in heritage conservation through international programs led in the framework of Unesco.
In December 2007, technicians from Sarlat, Karine FERNANDEZ, heritage manager, Philippe ROCHAS, Architect went to Trogir in order to accompany this process of the ilpmementation of a urabn plan for the old center of Trogir. They was working with urban firm from Trogir.


Many have zip and link beds so they can be either king size double or twin.
Each room is equipped with colour TV, a telephone (with direct international dialling), hair dryers & sockets with USB Charging points incorporated in to them.
There are tea and coffee making facilities. Rear view rooms enjoy distant views of the hills and Rombalds Moor.
Your choice of Full English or a Continental ie. ham, cheese, fruit, croissant.
Available Monday to Thursday, Sandwiches available at weekends.
Our dining area is available for group events of up to forty people these include family funerals, small wedding, christening and birthday parties or company presentations. We are more than happy to create a menu of your choice for the occasion.
A well stocked bar and residents lounge provides a comfortable place for guests to relax or chat after a day's sightseeing or business.
Please ask for Daily Specials or Vegetarian dishes.


This resource explains the history and evolution of musical instruments.
Students will learn about percussion, brass, string, wind and exotic instruments from various cultures.
Music terminology, a glossary, bibliography and answers are also included.
Music: 450 A.D. - 1995 A.D.


text:
4 people charged in fatal shooting in Kansas City suburb
BELTON — Prosecutors have charged four people in connection with last week's fatal shooting of a 25-year-old man in the Kansas City suburb of Belton, Missouri.
Belton Police said four suspects were in custody in connection with Wednesday's shooting at an apartment complex in Belton. All four are charged with second-degree murder, first-degree robbery, forgery and weapons charges.
Police say Timothy Hunter was found wounded at the apartments around 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday. He died at the scene.
The suspects are: 19-year-old Crishon Willis of Grandview, Missouri; 18-year-old Makayla Davis of Grandview, Missouri; 20-year-old Shane Pierce of Kansas City, Missouri; and 18-year-old Alea Campbell of Belton, Missouri.
Willis' bond was set at $250,000. The other three suspects all have $150,000 bond amounts.


text:
Станіслав Петрович Кадочников ( 15 жовтня 1959, Київ) — український майстер художнього скла, живописець; член Спілки художників України з 1994 року. Чоловік скульпторки Тетяни Зайцевої.

Біографія
Народився 15 жовтня 1959 року у місті Києві. 1990 року закінчив Львівський інститут прикладного та декоративного мистецтва, де навчався зокрема у Андрія Бокотея, Олександра Звіра, Святослава Мартинюка, Володимира Рижанкова.

Упродовж 1980—1985 років працював на Київському заводі художнього скла художником-оформлювачем; у 1990—2002 роках— у відділі головного художника. Відтоді — на творчій роботі. Живе у Києві, в будинку по вулиці Генерала Шаповала, № 7, квартира № 26.

Творчість
Працює у галузях дизайну, декоративної скульптури, станкового живопису, кераміки, графіки, фігуративізму, абстрактної пластики з гутного скла. Використовує авантюринове скло, неодим, кришталь, бронзу, каміння. Серед робіт:

скульптура
 «Стежками болю» (1990);
 «Мадонна» (1990);
 «Янгол» (1991);
 «Баттерфляй» (1994, кольоровий кришталь);
 «Танок у хмарах» (1997);
 «Біла перлина» (1997);
 «Риби» (1999);
 «Зимові стежки» (2004);
 «Монетний двір» (2004);
 «Місячна ніч» (2006);
 «Птах мрії» (2006, бронза);
 «Ніч перед Різдвом» (2008);
 «Найкраща Памела» (2009);
живопис
 «Ірпінь» (1990);
 «Викрадення Європи» (1991);
 «Сон пілігрима» (1994);
 «Мадонна» (1995, полотно, олія);
 «Золоте руно» (2005);
призи для
 Київського міжнародного автосалону (1996—2009);
 кінофестивалю «Стожари» — «Кришталеві дзвони» (1999);
 міжнародного конкурсу «Кришталевий силует» (2004).
</div>
Учасник всеукраїнських мистецьких виставок з 1988 року, всесоюзних та зарубіжних — з 1990 року. Персональні виставки відбулися у Києві у 1994, 1996—1997, 1999, 2006, 2009 роках.

Окремі вироби майстра зберігаються у Національному музеї українського народного декоративного мистецтва у Києві, Музеї скла у Львові, Музеї Японського монетного двору у Токіо.

Відзнаки
 Срібна медаль Міжнародного конкурсу екслібриса у Римі (1993);
 1-а премія Міжнародного конкурсу дизайну монет у Токіо (2005).

Примітки

Література

Майстри художнього скла
Українські живописці
Художники Києва
Працівники Київського заводу художнього скла
Члени Національної спілки художників України

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Beating The Odds: Valentino's OMS Journey
by Melissa Ayres | Sep 24, 2020 | People |
"Here we are eight years later, and Valentino beat the odds." – The Ricciotti family
A smile is worth a thousand words, that's why Valentino Ricciotti's family was so confused when seemingly overnight, his smile just vanished. Little did they know, the once happy one-year-old was just beginning a battle that would take years to overcome. The Ricciotti family shares Valentino's OMS story.
"February 15th, 2012, shortly after his first birthday, Valentino woke up barely able to stand. His beautiful smile was gone, and his eyes would bounce around as if they couldn't focus on anything. Our pediatrician rushed us to the local children's hospital, where our lives would forever change as we began a journey of trying to figure out what was wrong with him.
Valentino's symptoms were becoming worse each day. His little body would shake so hard that he could not sit up unassisted. He would scream in pain and would require us to hold him all day and night. He could barely swallow, and his eyes bounced around so quickly, we thought we were losing him and prepared for the worst.
Doctors would apologize for not being able to help. We were told he would be mentally disabled, and we would need to care for him for the rest of our lives. We didn't want to believe this; we thought there had to be a way to treat him. So as his biggest advocate, we moved to a different children's hospital and finally got a diagnosis.
Within days of being transferred, we were told Valentino had Neuroblastoma and Opsoclonus Myoclonus Syndrome. We were heartbroken but so grateful for all the doctors that had a plan to get our boy back. After endless nights in the hospital, surgeries, setbacks, shots, infusions, steroids, chemo and many tears, here we are eight years later, and Valentino beat the odds."
At Pirouline, we value hard work and dedication to family. That's why we've made it our mission to support the OMS Life Foundation. The foundation was created to raise awareness about OMS, maintain a support network for caregivers, and fund research for a cure. It's important for us to help support the young warriors and their families battling this rare disorder.


Kaizer Chiefs winger Siphiwe Tshabalala has praised the team's work ethic and says nobody is guaranteed of a place in the side this season.
Amakhosi are in their final week of preparations before the Absa Premiership kicks off next week Tuesday, with Chiefs facing a tough away day in their opening encounter at BidVest Wits.
They then travel to Cape Town City for an MTN8 quarterfinal three days later.
'Shabba', who has been out of action following knee surgery last month, has been impressed with his teammates in training and praises the unity within the squad.
"Even though I have been absent, I can see the team have been working very hard," he said.
The 31-year-old adds that the fighting spirit within the squad is set to make for good competition for places in the starting-line up as the start of the campaign grows nearer.
"It's going to be difficult in the sense that the starting line-up will not be guaranteed, because of the hard work that the players have been putting in the pre-season," he added.
READ Orlando Pirates striker Tendai Ndoro is refusing to vacate his romantic pitch after he was allegedly red carded by the landlord for failing to pay rent.


text:
Cheesecake Factory Beats Texas Roadhouse
Cheesecake Factory is the nation's favorite casual-dining restaurant, according to an annual consumer survey conducted by Market Force Information.
This is the second consecutive year the popular U.S. chain has landed in the survey's No. 1 spot.
More than 4,500 consumers across North America participated in the survey, which was conducted in August 2011. It examined which casual-dining restaurants consumers prefer and which attributes are the most important to them.
Market Force first calculated the favorites based on pure number of votes, and then factored in the number of locations for each chain to effectively measure which chain garnered the most votes per restaurant.
When the consumers were shown a list of the country's 51 top casual-dining restaurants and asked to select their single favorite, Olive Garden earned the most raw votes (for the second consecutive year), followed by Applebee's (which tied for first place with Olive Garden in 2010), then Red Lobster, Chili's, and Outback Steakhouse.
Cheesecake Factory Hits Sweet Spot as Nation's Favorite
However, the top vote-getters are not necessarily the consumer favorites. Since consumers are only likely to vote for restaurants they patronize and that are located in their area, Market Force indexed the results to account for the number of restaurant locations per chain.
When the votes were weighted, Cheesecake Factory was the first choice among consumers by a wide margin, earning 7.3 percent of the vote share, more than double the 3.2 percent earned by the second-place finisher Texas Roadhouse.
Olive Garden came in third in the study with 2.8 percent, and P.F. Chang's and Carrabba's Italian Grill followed in fourth and fifth place. Sixteen chains made it to the top of the rankings, each collecting 0.2 percent or more of the vote.
This is the second year in a row that Cheesecake Factory, Texas Roadhouse, and Olive Garden took the top three spots. In Market Force's 2010 restaurant chain survey, Cheesecake Factory ranked No. 1, Texas Roadhouse and Red Robin tied for second, and Olive Garden came in third.
On the flip side, restaurants that are not tickling as many tastebuds this year include Denny's, IHOP, and Ruby Tuesday. While in the top 16 overall, all three landed on the bottom of these rankings with one-half percent or less of the vote.
Which Restaurants Reigned Supreme by Attribute?
Market Force attempted to uncover why respondents prefer one casual-dining restaurant over another by asking those who selected a given brand as a favorite to rate them by attributes such as food quality, taste, speed of service, cleanliness, and value. The categories with the greatest variance in consumer ratings were value and speed of service.
Consumer favorite Cheesecake Factory did not excel on any one attribute, but it fared well across all of them, particularly in the important areas of food quality and taste. Golden Corral scored highest on value – a category showing quite a bit of differentiation – as well as on speed of service, which is logical given it offers a self-service buffet.
Ruby Tuesday Differentiates Through Healthy Choices, IHOP Through Its Green Practices
Market Force also looked at how the chains differentiate by other noteworthy attributes, such as healthy choices, accommodating children, atmosphere and green/sustainable practices.
Ruby Tuesday was called out for having the healthiest menu choices, Golden Corral was the most kid-friendly, Carrabba's rated highest for atmosphere and IHOP led in sustainable/green practices, a category where several restaurant chains received zero votes.
Meanwhile, Red Robin ranked lowest in both the atmosphere and healthy choices categories, and P.F. Chang's was at the bottom for accommodating children. See Graph 4
The pool of survey respondents ranged in age from 18 to more than 70 and reflected a broad spectrum of income levels, with 62 percent reporting incomes of more than $50,000 a year. Seventy six percent were women, the primary household consumer purchasers.
Half of the participants said they have children at home.
Chili's Red Robin


Television producer Shonda Rhimes hit out at an article posted on Deadline which claimed television has become too diverse this season and the 'trend' may not last.
The article quickly drew a wave of criticism on Twitter with Rhimes, 45, leading the charge.
Just hours after the article was posted Tuesday evening, many Twitter users blasted the article causing Deadline to trend for hours, The Wrap reports.
Many celebrities, television industry journalists, and Twitter users criticized the article and even created the hashtag #DeadlineHeadlines with offensive headlines they believe the publication would use.
Retweeters of Rhimes' post include actress Garcelle Beauvais, Helena Andrews, author and Washington Post journalist, Ava Duvernay, the director of 'Selma,' and more than 1,000 others.
Rhimes, creator of 'Grey's Anatomy,' 'Scandal,' and 'How to Get Away With Murder,' retweeted a few critical tweets about the article from the New York Times' Emily Nussbaum, Dave Itzkoff, and the Huffington Post's Mo Ryan.
Neither Deadline nor Andreeva have publicly commented on the incident.
'REALLY?' Eric Goldman, executive editor at IGN, tweeted 'Deadline, did you seriously post an article exhibiting concern that perhaps too many non-white actors are getting cast in TV series? REALLY?
Too Diverse?: Technologist Danny Sullivan tweeted saying 'WTF, TV is now too diverse? Not!


The deployment of artificial intelligence allows analytic technologies to spot relationships between variables that humans are simply incapable of foreseeing.
The firm was established in 2002 and is headquartered in Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex, UK.
Shaping Tomorrow has won five major awards in the last two years, two for Best Global Knowledge Management System 2017/2016, two as a Technology Innovator 2017/2016 and one for Best Use of AI in Consultancy Practices.
Shaping Tomorrow was set up after we realized the need for a comprehensive strategic foresight portal serving all organizations to help make better decisions today. We expanded from collecting manual evidence of emerging change in the form of Insights (articles, reports, PowerPoints) to analyzing the Insights with AI. The AI extracts verbatim forecasts from Insights about the future and collects text and numerical analysis that we combine with big data and text and graphical analysis to present instant reports on the likely futures of our members' interest topics.
We invite feedback at every opportunity through traditional methods such as short feedback forms. And, now, our robot acts is a chatbot too, gathering even more feedback and allowing us to respond to previously hidden member frustrations very quickly.
Walk us through the services Shaping Tomorrow offer.
Our system performs daily scanning of over15, 000 future-orientated, eclectic sources and automatically extracts and creates instant reports on political, economic, social and technological challenges. It offers; fast decision-making, is fully collaborative, multi-lingual and omnichannel. It is designed as a perpetual, personal and enterprise-wide knowledge management system with mobile apps and a developer API as additional services.
We have currently gathered over 235,000 verbatim forecasts of emerging change from the web and social media which our members and clients can search through a simple dialog box to produce instant summaries, detailed narratives and forward chronologies of emerging change. The system also produces many powerful metrics and comparison charts and strategic foresight thinking tools. It boasts the world's first auto scenario generator dramatically improving decision-making and cutting the cost and time for planning to a few hours rather than the many weeks and months of expensive traditional methods.
We are a driven team of five, one handling sales and strategy development, based in Asia, three web developers based in the UK and another in Switzerland who is our AI expert. Our systems partners include a text analytics company based in France, a graphical analysis company based in India and a Chinese mathematics expert as well as over 40 researchers and representatives from around the world.
Our core team has been together for over 16 years and has over 100 years of combined knowledge in foresight, strategy and change management and we are experienced in working with and advising international executives, government policy makers and NGO's. They have socio-economic backgrounds and are used to working in multi-disciplinary teams. We also have deep experience of leading highly successful, major change management programs in major businesses.
Yes. They mainly revolve around further robot self-learning, more use of graphical representations of the future and the robot's ability to provide wisdom (a new goal for us) from the knowledge she is gathering. The robot will probably never pluck inspiration from the sub-conscious or know a client's business in the near future, but she can already offer potential solutions to client expressed future challenges. We are intent on maximising that.
We hope to be recognized as a must-have service by all foresightful organisations and helping them to achieve greater sustainability. We have been growing at 40 percent per year. We are hoping to accelerate that in the next few years as our reputation grows and to move towards our aim of having our service on the device of every decisionmaker in the world.
Our USP is our AI robot, Athena. She extracts verbatim future forecasts from articles, reports and PowerPoints she daily finds from the web and social media.
Her evidenced extractions are added to our database and presented to members and clients as comprehensive, current stories about the future of their interest topic.
Athena is now also a chatbot and digital educator, personal assistant and online coach designed to educate our stakeholders in strategic foresight without having to go to University to get a master's degree.
Dr Mike Jackson: Dr Mike Jackson is a founder member and chairman of Shaping Tomorrow. His specific area of research is sustainable business futures. With over 30 years' of experience in Business Management in the UK, North America and Europe, Mr Jackson has significant exposure to corporate banking and consumer finance and, latterly, strategic foresight.
Mike joined Bank of America in 1986 and served as a Senior Vice President for four years. He held several positions at the bank which included the head of Europe, Middle East and Africa operations, based in London, head of Consumer Loans Services and Chief Financial Officer for consumer markets, based in North America (San Francisco).
Mr Jackson also served as a non-executive Director of Galliford Try PLC (a top ten UK construction company), and as managing director of a legal processing business for Salans, a firm of international lawyers.
Mike studied at Salford University, Manchester, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Electronics and a U.S. accredited MBA in Operations Research. He was conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration by the University of Wolverhampton in 1997.


text:
Home / World News / Congressional watchdog says Trump administration violated law over Ukraine aid
Congressional watchdog says Trump administration violated law over Ukraine aid
Trump denies wrongdoing and has called the impeachment process a sham.
world Updated: Jan 17, 2020 03:05 IST
U.S. President Donald Trump said the entire impeachment process is a witchhunt. (REUTERS)
The White House violated federal law by withholding security aid approved by lawmakers for Ukraine, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog said on Thursday, in a blow for U.S. President Donald Trump as the Senate prepared to hold a trial on whether to remove him from office.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives on Wednesday sent the Senate the two charges it passed last month accusing Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress arising from his dealings with Ukraine, clearing the way for only the third impeachment trial of a president to begin in earnest next week.
The abuse of power cited by the House included Trump's withholding of $391 million passed by Congress in security aid for Ukraine, a move aimed at pressuring Kiev into investigating political rival Joe Biden, the Republican president's possible Democratic opponent in the Nov. 3 U.S. election.
"Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law," the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded, referring to the fact that Congress had already voted to appropriate the funds.
While the agency's assessment was a setback to Trump, it was unclear how or even if it would figure in his trial in the Republican-led Senate given that key issues such as whether witnesses will appear or new evidence will be considered remain up in the air.
An arm of Congress, the GAO is viewed as a top auditing agency for the federal government that advises lawmakers and various government entities on how taxpayer dollars are spent.
Its findings are not legally binding, but its reports are seen by lawmakers as objective, reliable and generally uncontested. The GAO has no prosecutorial power.
The $391 million was approved by lawmakers to help Ukraine combat Russia-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country. After being withheld by the White House, the money ultimately was provided to Ukraine in September after the controversy had spilled into public view.
House members voted on Wednesday 228-193, largely along party lines, to give the Senate the task of putting the Republican president on trial. The Senate is expected to acquit Trump, keeping him in office, as none of its 53 Republicans has voiced support for removing him, a step that requires a two-thirds majority.
Trump denies wrongdoing and has called the impeachment process a sham. Ceremony, rather than substance, was expected to mark Thursday's proceedings, with the seven House "managers" prosecuting Trump to present the articles of impeachment to the Senate at noon (1700 GMT).
The Senate will later in the day invite U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts to the chamber to be sworn in to preside over the trial and, eventually, to swear in all 100 senators to serve as jurors. It will then formally notify the White House of Trump's impending trial.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan and David Morgan; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Susan Cornwell and Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Will Dunham)
Apple asks supplier to up chip production to meet strong iPhone 11 demands
Traffic Police issues advisory for Republic Day rehearsals: Routes to avoid
Saudi crown prince hacked Amazon chief Jeff Bezos's phone: Report
Trump and Greta engage in climate showdown at Davos
China warns coronavirus may spread as death toll jumps to 9, cases top 400
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/congressional-watchdog-says-trump-administration-violated-law-over-ukraine-aid/story-zvAurQBZQzjrt7LEWcBDXJ.html
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/saudi-dubs-report-of-kingdom-hacking-jeff-bezos-phone-absurd-calls-for-probe/story-RNmGpMrw3d1pI1GhJ26FtO.html
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/south-african-wedding-venue-refuses-to-marry-lesbian-couple/story-NP8QrT0wHqyRijqhIIS9jK.html
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/iranian-lawmaker-offers-3-million-reward-to-anyone-who-kills-trump-report/story-jCMWbFPPx2GhvqvRze4W4M.html
Iranian lawmaker offers $3 million reward 'to anyone who kills Trump': Report
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/prince-harry-issues-legal-warning-to-media-for-spying-on-meghan-archie/story-NK1zcnHji1SFMkTLtsVo3L.html
Prince Harry issues legal warning to media for spying on Meghan, Archie


In relating the eventful story of her days it is indispensable that pictures should be given of the courts in which she figured, the incidents that amused or the storms that shook them, the political events that led to comedy or tragedy, the characters who played important parts as kings or queens, princes and princesses, sycophants or conspirators, great officers of the state, courtesans, whispering pages of the back stairs, bedchamber women, petty clerks of the palace; all puppets of a brief hour, unconsciously posturing for posterity, their antics illustrating the Annals ofa reflection of their writers' minds — have occasionally been given at length, to illustrate a character, or describe an event. And though no statement is made without authority, and scandal is not sedulously avoided, the unnecessary task of pointing a moral, that so frequently disfigures a tale, is unheeded.
Many of the heretofore unpublished statements, ancedotes, and letters in this strange eventful life story, have been found in the thirty-four volumes of manuscripts originally collected by Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, as materials for the memoirs of her husband; only an inconsiderable part of which could be used by their writer, Archdeacon Coxe; who in describing the historic exploits of the duke, left himself little space to speak of the social episodes in the career of the indomitable duchess. At the biographer's death, these papers passed to the peaceful security of the British Museum, where time-stained and faded they still bear silent witness to the ambitions, passions, schemes, and ferments that stirred the souls of those whose actions made history.


Wow, this is just fascinating. Congrats to Ross and the Socialtext crew for making this happen… it's exciting to see such a wonderful example of civic engagement made more effective through the use of technology.
Update: Britt Blaser has some background on how this came to be; it's just so cool to see how this takes shape. Bi-partisan technology. I love it.


SQA holds a special symposium in September or October of most years in conjunction with September Quality College. Quality College is held twice each year, in the Spring at the site of the Annual Meeting , and in the Fall at a different location.
Currently, no symposia are scheduled. Please return to this page for further announcements.


The Kimberly Corset is a Long Line Pointed Underbust, which offers lovely curves and a high back for great posture.
The Kimberly Corset can be worn by all sizes, but will look best on curvier ladies, and will flatter plus sizes.
The Kimberly Corset can be worn in any style, and looks lovely in both casual and formal fabrics.


Launder your hunting clothes, hats, gloves and accessories in your favorite scent free detergent or carbon wash. Place the laundered garments into the orange liner section of the Mini Camo Carrier. Zip the two lining zippers to the center until they meet. Push the air out of the bag. Using the stiffener band at the top section of the bag, begin to roll the bag over onto itself and complete at least two full rotations. Secure the outside buckles to the buckles located on the sidewall. Your clothes will now remain protected and as dry and scent free as they were when you placed them into the bag.
This mini carrier is the most versatile bag I have ever owned! For its compact size, it is amazing how much stuff I can cram into it and it just seems to grow, but folds over neatly if I have just a few items. The two end straps help reduce the bulk if you only have a few items. It will not disappoint!
I use the mini carrier both in the woods and out. During the cold weather it allows me to carry in extra gear all while keeping it scent free and water proof.
This mini carrier is the most versatile bag I have ever owned! It is amazing how much stuff I can cram into this bag, but folds over neatly if I have just a few items. It will not disappoint!


text:
511 another test June 20, 2022, 1:49 a.m. Never 27 bytes 116
521 test June 22, 2022, 10:59 p.m. Never 1.5 MB 124
523 456 July 1, 2022, 2:42 a.m. Never 6 bytes 118
527 test url July 1, 2022, 2:58 a.m. Never 16 bytes 120
529 test url July 1, 2022, 3 a.m. Never 16 bytes 131
589 .\test.txt Oct. 22, 2022, 5:03 p.m. Never 24 bytes 58


Nickelodeon's hit show iCarly has fans craving iCarly gifts this Christmas. Christmas shopping for the iCarly fan can be exciting and easy if you know what to look for. Here is a quick reference guide to iCarly Christmas gifts and where to buy them.
Fans of the iCarly show dream of being featured by Carly, Sam, and Freddie. Toys-R-Us has the perfect gift, an iCarly digital camcorder. This camcorder costs $79.99 and has a built in microphone, speaker, and editing tools.
Toys-R-Us also has an iCarly CD/MP3/AM/FM boombox for $39.99. This player can play any MP3 player, but why not get an iCarly 1GB MP3 player for $29.99. The MP3 player will store up to sixteen hours of music.
Nickelodeon has also come out with a gift for the musical fan: a First Act iCarly 49-key keyboard for $49.99 and a twenty-nine inch acoustic guitar for $34.99.
Do you have a fan that would love to become a singer? Toys-R-Us also sells an iCarly Karaoke system for $99.99 that would be a perfect gift for the aspiring singer. The karaoke machine will display lyrics onscreen when using CD+G discs. It also has a built in video camera so the singer can watch themselves perform.
A gift to go along with the karaoke machine could be the iCarly CD for about $10. This CD features thirty tracks of both music and cast dialogue from the show. The music includes "Leave it All to Me" by Drake Bell and Miranda Cosgrove, "Face in the Hall" by the Naked Brothers Band, and "Move" by Menudo. The dialogue tracks include "Sam's Second Toe", and "Locked in a Closet". The iCarly CD is advertised at Toys-R-Us, Kmart, Sears, and Walmart.
Walmart has an iCarly Fan Pack that includes the iCarly CD with an exclusive DVD. This fan pack includes three extra tracks, and a poster along with the thirty minute bonus DVD. Also available at Walmart is an iCarly Charades game with categories based on the show. The charades game sells for $11.94.
iCarly season one is available on DVD and sells for around $20 at Kmart, Target, and Walmart. This Christmas gift is perfect for all fans. You can sign up for notification of the availability of iCarly season two DVD at Amazon.com. These three stores also carries iCarly Mad Libs. Target has "iHave a Web Show" paperback available for preorder online.
Toys-R-Us has more iCarly accessories and gifts than any of the other stores that I had shopped at. These items included a digital photo viewer ($24.99), iCarly totes and bags ($10-$15), an electric drum pad ($34.99), and a digital diary ($24.99).
I does not matter what your gift buying price range is, you can always find the perfect Christmas gift for your iCarly fan at these national retailers.


text:
A partida MLS All-Star de 1998 foi a terceira edição, o jogo envolveu as principais estrelas da Major League Soccer. A equipe MLS EUA enfrentou MLS World no Citrus Bowl, Orlando, em 02 de agosto de 1998. O MLS EUA venceu o jogo por 6-1, com gols de Tab Ramos, Alexi Lalas, Brian McBride, Preki, Roy Lassiter e Cobi Jones enquanto Mauricio Ramos descontou para o MLS Mundo. O atacante do MLS EUA Brian McBride foi nomeado como o melhor jogador da partida. Esse Baharmast arbitrou o jogo, que foi acompanhado por 34.416 torcedores.

Detalhes

Melhor em Campo: Brian McBride (MLS EUA)

Ligações externas
MLS All-Star Game de 1998 em MLSsoccer.com

1998
1998 no futebol
Desporto nos Estados Unidos em 1998