It's that time of the year again! The time where I make a dress inspired by my favorite holiday, which is Christmas.
In case you are new to my blog, this is my third year in a row making dresses with this theme. My previous two holiday inspired dresses can be viewed here and here. And like last year i'm filming the process of making this, the videos about it will be posted here.
This years dress has proved to be more of a challenge than ever. Not because it was difficult to make, in fact the construction was a lot more straightforward on this dress than last years. The challenge was coming up with an idea, which is weird for me, usually the idea is the easy part!
The ideas behind my previous Christmas dresses were very solid in my head for a few weeks before I started working on them, which made the lack of inspiration about this years project all the more frustrating.
After a lot of consideration I've decided to make something simple. I think my problem was trying to overcomplicate this project and come up with something really impressive. But I don't feel like making a really complicated this year. I want to make something quite simple and pretty that goes with this headpiece that I made last year.
I'm making the design somewhat Angelic once again, with a fitted bodice, full length puffed sleeves, and a full skirt. It's kind of a throwback to the Renaissance inspired dresses I made when I first got into historical sewing a couple years ago – but the construction will be much better.
Today i'll be showing you my materials and how I made the bodice.
I'm using fabrics I already had around. The bolt of striped brocade was picked up earlier this year, and the other brocades were bought last year. I'm also using a bit of off white chiffon. Ideally this dress would be made entirely out of the striped brocade, but I only have four yards. That's enough to make a relatively full skirt and pair of sleeves, but not enough for the bodice. So that's where the gold brocade on the left side will come in.
The chiffon is for a gathered panel at the front of the bodice, which will make it look like i'm wearing a chemise underneath the dress. The did this with a lot of Lucrezia's dresses in "The Borgias" which is one of my favorite series and probably why i'm so obsessed with this style.
Once I selected the materials from my stash I went on a little trip to joanns and browsed the Christmas selections with hopes of finding inspiration. I didn't find too much, but I did get these cute little velvet birds, a gold cage, seasonal sprigs, and some braided trim. I really loved the little birds, and the contrast between the doves and cardinals. That was something I wanted to incorporate into my dress.
Once I got back home I discovered some red and gold ribbon that I bought a few years back (for 70c or something crazy, thanks to sales) which matched the little birds perfectly! So I chose to feature this ribbon prominently in the dress at the waist and cuffs. I also pulled some gold sequins, seed beads, and 4mm fake pearls from my stash which i'm going to use around the bodice neckline.
With all that settled, I got to work on the bodice. Instead of drafting a new pattern I used a vest pattern I made a few years ago to wear with my Pretty Pirate Project. I altered it quite a lot but the shape is still the same. The main changes were making the neckline wider and deeper, lowering the waistline, and removing the side seams.
Then I cut out a layer of cotton and marked all the boning channels. I drew these out randomly, with most of the bones at the center and sides of the bodice. I went a little crazy with the boning channels, but i'm using all plastic bones, and to get a nice shape with them you have to go a bit overboard.
Also, since i'm using brocade which shows every flaw I wanted the bodice to have a very stiff, smooth base, which is the effect lots of plastic bones give you.
I cut a layer of twill out and pinned them together, then sewed all the boning channels. This took a while but I like sewing boning channels, it becomes relaxing after a while.
I used the twill/cotton layer as a guide to cut out the brocade layer of the bodice. Then I pinned them together with the right sides facing each other and sewed around each edge. This should have been really easy, but I did it wrong. Or at least I thought I did it wrong. So I cut a few slits in the brocade layer, then began seam ripping the stitching. Only to realize a minute later that I DID sew it the right way.
Anyway! I redid it and it turned out fine. Then I added some lightweight fusible interfacing to the back edges of the bodice, so the eyelets will sit better in the brocade.
I also trimmed the curves and corners so everything would look sharp when it's turned the right way out.
Speaking of turning things the right way out, I spent half an hour doing just that. I used pliers and colored pencils to speed the process up but it still seemed to take ages. When I was finally done I pinned around the edges, making sure that none of the twill/cotton/base layer was visible from the front side of the bodice.
I sewed around each edge with a whip stitch so the brocade layer wouldn't move around and reveal the base layer. You can avoid doing this if you make the lining slightly smaller than the top layer of fabric, but I didn't want to risk doing that when boning channels were involved.
I only grabbed a few threads from the top layer of fabric so none of these stitches are too visible.
When that was done I added boning to the bodice and tried it on – luckily it fit!
Then I stitched all the eyelets. I had the realization last week that you can use embroidery floss for sewing eyelets and it is way easier to work with than regular thread. I don't know why this never occurred to me – it's so obvious! Embroidery floss for embroidered eyelets. Makes perfect sense.
Fun fact: Totally pricked my finger when I was doing this and now it's infected (though the doctor I saw insists it's a bruise – despite the swelling, redness, and pain). I have my fingers crossed (the ones that aren't infected) that it will resolve itself soon.
But hey, that barely matters because the eyelets look super pretty!
I also trimmed the bottom edge and sewed on bias tape to cover it.
To create the gathered front panel I cut out a strip of chiffon. Then I folded it in half and hand stitched across the folded edge so it wouldn't shift.
I gathered it by hand at two points – one is three quarters of an inch away from the top edge, the other is half an inch away from the bottom edge.
Then I sewed it into the bodice with small whip stitches.
I liked how it looked, but when I tried it on the gathering stitches at the top snapped. So I regathered it down to twelve inches (instead of the eight it was gathered down to originally) then sewed some thin elastic at the gathering point. This holds it close to my body but gives it the ability to stretch if it needs to.
With that done it was time to add the embellishments to the neckline.
I alternated between 4mm fake pearls and gold seed beads, then whip stitched the strand in place. Below that I sewed a spattering of gold sequins on. It's subtle, but I think it's very pretty!
I didn't extend the beading to the back of the bodice because I didn't have enough pearls. And beading on the backs of dresses is kind of a pain, hair gets caught in it so easily.
And here it is with the shoulder seam done up! I did sew lining into the bodice but that step came after attaching the sleeves, so i'll show that in another post.
And here is a preview photo of what the whole thing looks like finished, because the details are so much clearer in this photo and I wanted to show how smooth the brocade looks. I'm quite proud of that!
More photos and The Making of Posts about this project will be up soon!
I love your red eyelets!
#8 Perle Cotton is also good for eyelets. I love your choice of red. Very pretty. Looking forward to the next post.
I've been following your videos and blog for a while, and you are AMAZINGLY talented. I can't believe you've only been sewing for a couple of years! One day, when I have money for materials, I would love to get into costume making. You're really inspiring!
Your work is amazing would you be willing to make a wedding dress ? I am moved by your work I love how it tells a story in one photo alone. My personality fits your kind of art work I would be honored if u would make time for me I don't plan to have a wedding for another 2 and half years.
I love your dresses and video tutorials!
Can you make a video on teaching how to sew boning channels, please? I've read loads of your blogs and videos, but I still can't understand how to make it. Thank you!


Hey everyone, I wanted to get back in contact with people after what, forever? You should comment your kiks or something so we can make a group. Much love to the people who made 12- and 13-year-old me a happy (ish) one. And tell me how your life is going! I'm interested.


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Book in 60 Seconds
The Cleaning Blog
Dust Wars: A Game of Bunnies – Chapter 9
by Kitsap Cleaners - July 30, 2017
In the dining hall, Bluster sat with Xela and Tiger. Tiger wasn't saying much, because he was still sulking from the beating he'd gotten at Mac's hands. Not that it had actually hurt him much, but his pride had taken a pretty heavy hit. He was seething from being made a fool in front of everyone, and Xela understood that feeling pretty well. When she'd noticed what was going on, she'd actually felt happy about it at first, because it meant that she wasn't the one being embarrassed for once. She'd quickly changed her way of thinking, but she couldn't help it. She'd felt like she'd had a little reprieve for once, and it felt good. She wanted to tell Bluster that, since she'd really been opening up to him, but with Tiger sitting there like a dirty white storm cloud, she decided that it was probably better to hold her tongue.
"Well, I invited him to come sit with us for dinner, but I'm not sure if he's going to take me up on it. He seemed different to me, like there was something there that hadn't been before. I just don't know if it's good or bad. It'll take some time for me to find out for sure." Bluster was picking away at his food, looking defeated with slumped shoulders and a frown on his face. What he had seen in Mac was something that had set him on edge. He hadn't been trained to have a warrior's instinct yet, but there was something that just made his senses scream at him that Mac wasn't ok. He couldn't quite put his paw on it, and that was what bothered him the most.
"I think that he's been hammered into an archaic way of life from his clan, and he just doesn't know how to deal with anything else. I don't know if I put all the blame on him, since it's all he's ever known. I just frown on the fact that he's not willing to open his eyes and learn a new way. He's a little on the stubborn side, isn't he?" Here Xela looked at Bluster for confirmation, but Bluster was too busy lost in his own thoughts to answer. She looked at Tiger and saw that she wouldn't get anywhere there, either. Both bunnies were off in their own little world, and she was afraid of going there without breadcrumbs to lead her back out. She sighed heavily and went back to her plate, letting her eyes sneak over to the door every now and then, looking for Mac. She felt heat in her cheeks when she admitted to herself that she was hoping he would come and eat with them. Bluster had teased her a little about the budding feelings that she had, but he was only speculating from a few glances that he'd caught her tossing Mac's way.
They bunnies ate in silence, each with their own thoughts, ignoring the rest of the room who ate with wild abandon and had conversations with each other that sounded like they were having a good time, and the one table in the middle of the room had darkness and grey storm clouds hanging over it.
Mac enjoyed his shower. The hot water soothed his aching muscles, and was like he washed off more than just the film of sweat from the workout he'd put his body through. He felt like he was a young bunny again, and the weight of the world had gotten washed off with the dirt. Everything seemed shiny and new to him, and the hunter slumbered deep inside his chest. He felt regenerated and rejuvenated, but he didn't know what exactly had caused it. He could barely remember the battle in class, but he knew that he'd won. His stomach growled, reminding him of Bluster's offer to sit with him at dinner. Mac toweled off quickly and got dressed, heading down to dinner.
When he walked in, he scanned the room for his friend, but when he saw him sitting with Xela and Tiger, he didn't make any move to join them. As his gaze found the table, Xela's eyes locked on his. The look on her face was blank, and Mac could feel himself bristling as he fell under her scrutiny. She offered him a shy smile, and it froze him in his tracks. When Xela smiled, her whole face lit up with a softness that he hadn't noticed before. He felt sheepish as the thought crossed his mind, because he really hadn't given her much of an occasion to be soft around him, or smile. He made a mental note to change that. There was something about her smile that punched into his chest and spread a warmth that had nothing to do with hate or anger, or even the warmth of blood and gore. It was strange for him to feel this way, but he wanted to try it out. Tiger shifted in his seat, subtly, just enough to catch Mac's attention, and he glared daggers at Mac. The message here was clearly to go away. Mac went over to the tables laden with food, listening to snippets of the conversations around him as he went. Everyone was happy and jolly, eating their fill and making friends. One or two conversations were about him, and his ears pricked up in surprise. It was strange to hear the story from the view of others. If he had been hearing what they were saying about anyone else, he would think the person they were describing was a demigod or some such deity that could never be defeated. It boosted his confidence to hear things like that being said about him. He didn't stop to dwell on them, however, he was intent on finding his way to the table to get a plate.
The conversation still hadn't picked up by the time Mac joined them at the table with his plate, and Xela was a little worried that a fight would break out. Tiger was still glaring at him, and she was worried he might add a growl to it. Bluster was trying to make himself look like nothing had happened, that nothing had changed and that they were still the best of friends, but his smile was strained, and if she could pick up on it, so could Mac. He stopped at the corner of the table and looked around. There were empty seats next to all three bunnies, and Xela secretly found herself hoping that he would sit next to her. Unfortunately, she had to hide her disappointed smile by chomping down on a piece of broccoli as he settled on the bench next to Bluster.
"That was some class today, huh? Staves! I would have never tried to use a staff before. I'm looking forward to seeing what other weapons they'll give us." Tiger slammed his fists down on the table, then grabbed his plate and left. Mac watched him go, with no more emotion on his face than he would have for a bug that was crawling by him on the floor. It triggered a red flag for Bluster, because he had been pretty sure that Mac was the kind of bunny who would have never done anything to hurt anyone. Now he seemed like he could care less. Had his innate skills of being a good judge of character let him down? Or was there a demon living inside Mac that he pushed down so much it rarely got to see the light of day?
The hunter inside Mac relaxed and went to sleep, feeling safe and secure where he was. The silence stretched on at the table, and Xela focused her gaze on her food, thinking that maybe the boys needed a minute alone together. She was toying with the idea of getting up when Bluster excused himself instead. He told them that he had a headache and that he was going to go lay down. That left Xela alone with Mac, and she could feel her cheeks burning. She was secretly pleased that it was just the two of them, but she was also afraid that he might not want to stay here and eat now that the other males were gone.
"Yeah, the staves were ok. I didn't think that we'd be doing something like that. I felt like I was a little girl again playing with my dad's toys." It was hard for Xela to force out the words, but if she at least gave him some conversation, he might stay. Mac smiled at her. It was a friendly smile, not one that said he was calculating something, and it gave her hope. She'd been trying to fight her feelings and the thoughts that had taken over her waking moments lately, but she'd been fighting a losing battle. She felt like a younger girl, giddy with her first love. It was hard for her to accept, because she'd never felt like that before, and she wasn't the type that would.
"I hope that we have more action classes. That history lesson had me falling asleep." Xela laughed, and she was surprised and pleased at the same time that he was treating her normally, rather than being mad at her for being there and being on equal footing as the males. The rest of the meal passed very pleasantly, and Xela found herself starting to open up a little to him, just as Mac was with her. He told her stories of his childhood, and they swapped accidents back and forth as children. Mac found that she was a lot like him, and he had to admit to himself that he was starting to like her. They might even be friends by the time they left. The hunter inside him cracked open an eye, saw the pretty bunny in front of him, then went back to sleep. He wasn't needed.
The next day found the bunnies back in class, milling around and talking until Regis came walking in with a large box filled with something that didn't look too heavy. A blanket lay over the top of it to conceal its contents, and it gave no clue as to what was inside of it. When Regis told them to pair up, Bluster instinctively started to move towards Xela, but as he made it around another pair of bunnies, he saw that she was shyly asking Mac if he'd like to partner with her. Bluster didn't know if he was happy that she was starting to make some progress with Mac, or jealous because he enjoyed being around her, too. Part of him hoped that Mac would tell her to get lost, but he did no such thing. He nodded to her, accepting her as a partner.
"You like her, don't you?" It was Tiger, now at Bluster's elbow. He'd been moving towards Bluster from the beginning, because he refused to partner with Mac again. Bluster could feel himself blushing, but there was no use in denying the fact, because his pink cheeks betrayed him.
"I don't know. She's alright I guess. I mean, she made it here, so she can't be all bad." Tiger laughed at him, and Bluster could feel himself flushing even deeper.
"Guess you're with me." Tiger's voice cut through his thoughts and with some effort, Bluster turned his back on the pair and decided it was time to pay attention to Regis. Regis, meanwhile, oblivious to the turf wars in his classroom, had put the box on top of his podium and was now surveying the bunnies around him.
"We've had the privilege of having some of our staff go into the garden of the Stone Giants and come back with pieces of things that you might encounter, should you have to go on outdoor raids. Today's lesson will be about identifying different plants that could harm you."
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


You can totally dress up without emptying your bank account.
We asked the BuzzFeed Community to show us their best cosplays for under $20. Here are some of the best responses.
Some of the responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.


Great Falls, VA, July 22, 2015.
The CloudPlugs Industrial IoT software products allow commercial and industrial businesses to easily integrate their legacy Modbus devices, SCADA and Building Management Systems (BMS) with the Internet of Things fabric.
Products enable transparent communication between Modbus devices, SCADA and BMS and new generation IoT devices through the CloudPlugs platform.
SCADA and BMS systems can now control and manage legacy and new generation IoT devices.
CloudPlugs Inc. today announced the availability of its Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) product line giving commercial, industrial, utilities and government offices a simple, cost-effective method for integrating the Internet of Things with their legacy Modbus, SCADA and BMS systems. The CloudPlugs IIoT products enable seamless communication between new generation IoT devices and Modbus, SCADA and BMS systems. The IIoT product enables organizations to leverage the advantages of new generation smart devices, wireless sensor networks and asynchronous, secure, much lower cost data transport while maintaining and extending the life of their investments in their existing control and data acquisition infrastructure.
The IIoT Thing enables the seamless, secure integration of a single Modbus device into the CloudPlugs platform. The IIoT Thing coupled with a SmartPlug™ IoT agent enables the creation of a powerful software PLC.
The IIoT Gateway is used to integrate securely and control hundreds of Modbus devices. The limit of the number of devices managed depends on the capabilities of the hardware running the IIot Gateway. Just like with the IIoT Thing, installing a SmartPlug™ with the IIoT Gateway enables local intelligence to create smart software PLC's.
The IIoT SCADA Gateway provides seamless integration of CloudPlugs with any SCADA or BMS system enabling bi-directional communications to deliver data to and receive control commands from the SCADA system.
The IIoT Connector is a versatile product that acts both as a Modbus Gateway and as a SCADA or BMS Gateway. It is typically deployed in environments such as facilities and buildings for which the customer wants to move local device and BMS data to the cloud.
"Many of our customers and systems integrator partners interested in bridging the Internet of Things with legacy industrial and commercial environments finally have the capability to easily integrate their existing systems securely with the cloud and new generation IoT devices. Our products enable a secure, IP connection over the Internet for field devices, eliminating the need for costly field VPN and network infrastructure investments. The event driven nature of our products reduces network traffic and communications costs dramatically. In addition, we enable organizations to safeguard and seamlessly extend the capabilities of their investments in SCADA and BMS systems." Said Jimmy Garcia-Meza, CEO of CloudPlugs.
The IIoT Products are bundled in a simple to install and package that allows customers to choose the best product for their environment or application, and that includes a user friendly web based interface for easy configuration.
Connectivity to CloudPlugs is achieved by either using a SmartPlug™ or by configuring an MQTT connection.
The IIoT Products run on any Linux, Solaris, Windows or Real Time Operating System.
The CloudPlugs IIoT Products are available for purchase now. For more information and for an evaluation version of the products, please contact our sales department through the CloudPlugs website contact form.
CloudPlugs Inc. enables, easy, powerful and cost effective end-to-end connectivity and lifecycle automation for new and legacy devices. The company is headquartered in Great Falls, Virginia and its European offices are based in Rome, Italy.
To learn more about the CloudPlugs IoT service and the Industrial IoT Product suite, visit http://cloudplugs.com. For inquiries contact pr@cloudplugs.com.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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NVIDIA: The 2016 Yahoo Finance Company of the Year
Rick Newman
Senior Columnist
Yahoo Finance December 19, 2016
The Trump rally. The energy recovery. The resurgence of Wall Street. Think those are the year's big financial stories?
They're interesting, sure. But something much bigger is going on at one company most Americans have never heard of.
Shares of Nvidia (NVDA), the nation's 314th biggest public company—and rising fast—have nearly tripled in price this year. That sort of explosive growth happens sometimes at startups that catch a megatrend, or at floundering companies left for dead that dig themselves out of a perilous hole. Nvidia—pronounced en-VID-ee-ah—is neither. It has been around since 1993, making processors that power video games. And though it struggled a few years ago, Nvidia now enjoys a surprising near monopoly on some of the most promising technologies of the future.
Nvidia's unseen processors help power Google searches, Amazon's Alexa digital assistant, Tesla's self-driving cars and movie recommendations on Netflix. They're also the brains behind breakthroughs in artificial intelligence that are wowing researchers. "It's destiny meets serendipity," CEO Jen-Hsun Huang tells Yahoo Finance. "People think it's an overnight success, but like most overnight successes, it took us years." Investors, it turns out, are piling into Nvidia because they expect it to leapfrog traditional chipmakers such as Intel (INTL) and AMD (AMD), to power the next wave of computing. We see their point, and have chosen Nvidia as the Yahoo Finance Company of the Year, joining past winners such as Facebook (FB), Under Armour (UA) and Disney (DIS).
Investors are piling into Nvidia because they expect it to power the next wave of computing.
A tour of Nvidia's campus in Santa Clara, Calif., in the southern half of Silicon Valley, could leave you wondering if the company suffers from strategic schizophrenia. Punked-out gamers share office space with hypereducated researchers who talk of using artificial intelligence to cure cancer and fight poverty. In one corner, there's a couch-filled fun room demonstrating the latest in virtual-reality entertainment; in another, an atomic microscope able to see each of the 18 billion transistors on a chip the size of a cocktail napkin.
There's a common denominator, however, that links it all together—something called a graphics processing unit, or GPU, analogous to the CPUs that began powering PCs in the 1980s. Huang and two co-founders started Nvidia in 1993 with a plan to improve the blocky, primitive quality of computer-game graphics. The company name was meant to connote enviable video images on a computer screen. There were a lot of competitors, but Nvidia updated its products rapidly and consistently, and invented the GPU in 1999, becoming the lead provider of hardware that allowed games to run smoothly and feature rich, realistic graphics. Revenue rose 11-fold from the company's fiscal year 2000 through 2008.
Gamers share office space with hypereducated researchers using AI to battle cancer.
The recession that erupted that year led to two years of losses, and there was another problem: the rise of mobile devices and the decline of PCs threatened to make Nvidia a fading legacy company. Nvidia tried to develop a version of its hardware for mobile devices, but it didn't work out. That product, however, turned out to be a good fit for dashboard and console displays in cars. So Nvidia got into the car business, selling automakers GPUs that enable distinctive, game-quality graphics on dashboard displays for music, climate and map settings. "We're in over 10 million cars," says Danny Shapiro, Nvidia's senior director of automotive. "A Tesla, with its nice big touchscreen, is driven by Nvidia. Audis, with their controller and their navigation and the virtual cockpit, that's Nvidia." There's still a ton of upside, however, since global automakers sell about 90 million cars each year.
In 2012, the serendipity happened. Academic researchers discovered that Nvidia's GPUs were able to provide the massive computational power required in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence. GPUs are known as "parallel" processors because they can conduct billions or trillions of operations at the same time. CPUs, by contrast, are good at running many different types of code, making them an efficient, all-purpose platform for computers and mobile devices that do a lot of different things. Compared with GPUs, however, CPUs are computational slow-pokes.
In a stroke of luck, or foresight, or both, Nvidia also began to write software that accompanied its GPUs and made them programmable, so they could be tailored to whatever a user wanted to do with them. "They wrote very, very good software," says James Wang, a former Nvidia product manager who's now an analyst for ARK Invest, which has a long position in Nvidia. "They had to be the top 1% of programmers to even try that."
Interest in artificial intelligence, which is basically the ability of software to program itself, has exploded since 2012. Computations that once took weeks or months are now done in hours or minutes, with advances occurring far faster than predicted by Moore's Law, which holds that processing power on conventional CPUs doubles every two years or so. And Nvidia suddenly cornered the market on the processors that made it possible. Its main competitor on graphics chips, a company called ATI, was bought by AMD in 2005, and its products fell out of favor as AMD began to struggle amid the PC slowdown. Nvidia, by contrast, started to land big clients such as Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), Facebook, IBM (IBM), and Amazon (AMZN), which need AI capabilities for their huge cloud-computing operations. There are also hundreds of research labs and at least 1,500 startups worldwide developing AI applications, most of them using Nvidia's GPUs as the technology backbone. Overall, Nvidia is working with 20,000 companies on AI applications.
"We're in over 10 million cars," says Danny Shapiro, Nvidia's senior director of automotive.
AI is still the domain of geeks, but the "deep learning" it allows machines to accomplish could transform the everyday lives of ordinary people more than any computing development to date. Traditional software can only do what programmers tell it to do. That means programmers have to anticipate every scenario that could possibly occur and provide if/then instructions telling the software how to react. AI is different because the software can learn what to do by observing and analyzing gargantuan amounts of data, noticing patterns on its own and coming up with solutions governed by a set of rules. Huang calls AI "a Thor's hammer that fell from the sky." "We can finally use computers to solve problems no human software engineer could previously develop software for," he says. "This is a big deal. There are too many problems in life where there are no easy equations for it."
Self-driving cars require AI, for example, because programmers can't possibly anticipate every combination of factors that could pose a danger on the road. Medical researchers and pharmaceutical firms hope to use AI to discover new drugs and disease cures by seeking insights among troves of data that human researches could never crunch on their own, even if armed with supercomputers. Many AI applications require the ability to analyze millions of images, to figure out the difference, say, between a normal biological cell and one with a slight imperfection.
At a more familiar level, AI enables voice recognition by Siri, Alexa, Cortana and other bots humans have begun talking to, along with shopping recommendations provided by Amazon, movie recommendations provided by Netflix (NFLX), personalization offered by Pinterest and many other advanced web features becoming commonplace. If you're not impressed yet, just wait a few months; you will be.
During the last 12 months, Nvidia's eclectic portfolio of bets began to pay off on the top and bottom lines, which both exceeded anybody's expectations. In the latest quarter, revenue soared 40% compared with the prior quarter, and 54% from the same quarter in 2015. Net income was up 108% quarter-over-quarter and 120% year-over-year. The blowaway results pushed Nvidia's stock up 30% the day they were announced, adding $11 billion to the company's value in a single trading session. The company now employs more than 10,000 people, up 800 in the last year alone.
Huang owns 21.5 million shares in the company, which are worth roughly $2.1 billion.
Nvidia's good fortune has also made Huang, the founder and CEO, an unlikely billionaire. Huang was born in Taiwan to parents who spoke scant English and wanted to send him and his brother to the United States, to learn the international language of business. They located a school in rural Kentucky that would take the two boys—but mistakenly thought it was a prep school when in reality it was a reform school for delinquents. The two brothers toughed it out, with Huang becoming a teenage table-tennis champ. When the parents finally arrived in the States, they settled in Oregon, with Huang earning an electrical engineering degree from Oregon State. He followed that with a master's degree in the same discipline from Stanford, and started Nvidia shortly after that. He now owns 21.5 million shares in the company—about 4% of the total—which are worth roughly $2.1 billion.
A generation of gamers
Nvidia's numbers look more remarkable when you break down where they're coming from. Gaming—the company's original market—accounted for 62% of revenue during the latest quarter. And that was up 63% year-over-year. Most legacy businesses mature and flatline, but gaming is a $100 billion industry enjoying a kind of second life, with worldwide revenue growing by more than 8% per year. The PC segment, where Nvidia is strongest, pulls in $27 billion and is growing around 5% per year. Fueling the growth: high-end gaming PCs able to run remarkably realistic games, the new phenomenon known as esports (or electronic sports) and the ubiquity of mobile apps that hook young users on games the moment they start using a smartphone or tablet. "Almost everybody who grows up today grows up a gamer," says Jeff Fisher, who's in charge of Nvidia's gaming division. "As a result, there's just a ton of energy and a ton of investment in this space."
Gaming—the company's original market—accounted for 62% of revenue during the latest quarter.
Nvidia is also emerging as the lead supplier for the platforms that will serve as the brains for self-driving cars, which could become a $40 billion industry within a decade. But that revenue is just beginning to trickle in, with most of Nvidia's automotive business still coming from display chipsets. Again, the current business generates healthy cash flow while future business looks even brighter.
AI may represent the company's biggest source of growth in the future, even though revenue from that division is still small, as well. The overall mix of the large-and-still-growing businesses, with key investments in the most fertile technologies of the future, explains why investors love the company. "The gaming business provides the scale," says Wang of ARK Invest. "If a 5-person startup did this, it would be very costly. Because Nvidia sells tens of millions of gaming GPUs every year, they have the gaming business to subsidize the whole effort. It's kind of like Google has its search business subsidizing the whole rest of the company."
Room to run
Is Nvidia a bubble? Wall Street doesn't think so. Even with the stock up 193% so far this year, 28 analysts surveyed by S&P Capital IQ predict the stock will outperform, on average, during the next 12 months. S&P forecasts that revenue will grow another 29% during the next two years, with the profit margin rising to 25%, which would be higher than Apple's current margin. No wonder the popular refrain among investors following the company is that Nvidia is the next Intel.
Nvidia's success has obviously caught the attention of competitors, or rather, companies that hope to become competitors. "Now that these applications have become very hot, there's definitely competition on the horizon," says Mark Hung, a research vice president at Gartner. Intel has announced two acquisitions during the last year meant to beef up its AI offerings. AMD is investing more in the graphics business it acquired in 2005 in a bid to catch up with Nvidia. And big cloud operators like Alphabet and Facebook are developing their own AI technology, perhaps so they can bring the capability in-house instead of relying on Nvidia.
Still, Nvidia's early foothold in the industries of the future could become an enduring edge. "First mover advantage in some of these industries is quite significant," says Hung. "Even if there are more competitors, if the overall pie is growing faster than the competition, then it's still a good story."
Huang, the CEO, likes to say the development of AI is in the first at-bat of the first inning, and he foresees far more dramatic change ahead than the digital era has produced so far. "The AI revolution will be the largest computing revolution ever," he says. "This is the first computing technology that has come along in a long time that we can imagine affecting every single industry." If it's not affecting yours, it soon will be.
Rick Newman is the author of four books, including Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
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Everything's upside down. Last week a Democratic president urged a military strike in the Middle East while Republicans dithered about quagmires. Tomorrow, a subpanel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will launch its first climate change hearing in years and hardly any Obama administration official is willing to show up. Representative Ed Whitfield (R-Ky), who chairs the Committee's Energy and Power subpanel, says the committee requested presentations from 13 federal agencies. But as of this post only EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz have promised to testify.
Normally, of course, you can't stop us progressives from talking about climate change. We talk smack about Canadian tar sands, press universities to rethink their carbon investments, and name hurricanes after Marco Rubio. (The last was really funny, but perhaps not fair.) The President's all in too. Last August, when he denounced, "the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants," I couldn't get enough.
The thing to know is that tomorrow's major hearing on climate change is not really a major hearing. It is not even one of those Potemkin major hearings where the participants sit like plyboard cut-outs and pretend to be interested in the topic.
No, this is an ambush. And even the Democrats have figured it out.
So, please, do not expect the panel's vice chairman, Representative Steve Scalise (R-La) to express concern that because of warming and subsidence, Louisiana is experiencing the fastest rate of sea-level rise on the planet. And, no, Representative Cory Gardner (R-Co) is not going to waste time explaining that his state's water conservation board worries that Colorado may soon lack water to support its cities, farms, and fish runs. Nor will Representative John Barrow (D-Ga) complain that the Peach State lacks any plan to prepare for such climate shockers as heat waves, vector-borne illness, and increased smog?
You see, the real concern of those in charge of this hearing is not that the climate is changing, but that the government might try to do something about it.
One of those "unilateral actions" that Whitfield, no doubt, has in mind is EPA's upcoming proposal to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new fossil fuel power plants. Let's ignore for the moment how a rule embraced by an elected president, impelled by a Supreme Court decision (Massachusetts v. EPA), and authorized by an act of Congress (the Clean Air Act) can be characterized as "unilateral." I need to save something for my law students' final exam.
The coal industry is extremely worried about this because coal is exactly the fossil fuel that President Obama had in mind when he complained about all that "limitless dumping" from "power plants." And some Beltway experts are predicting that EPA's new rules may require new coal-fired power plants to adopt expensive technologies like "carbon capture and storage" (CCS) in order to qualify for permits.
Fancy this, for years the coal industry has been telling us about all its clean coal technology. They said over, and over again that clean coal technology allowed power plants to capture greenhouse gases and pump them underground. We were assured such advancements "aren't just predictions," but reality.
And now they say they don't have it? Let's have a hearing on that!
I'm not an expert, or a scientist, not even a philosopher, but, with that being said, even I notice things are changing. This summer we set a record for days without rain. A first in the Northwest where we are known for our steady rain. Instead of mushrooms, I grew a bumper crop of spicy hot peppers - in my back yard. The shores of Puget Sound are changing so quickly that we can see it. And, for the first time, many northwest folks found themselves wishing they had air conditioners. For the. First time that i can remember, Seattleites are hoping for our rainy weather to return. Call it whatever you want. There's a big change going on around these parts.


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March 12, 2018by Chief Guardian in Best Practices, Privacy, Security
How to spot and avoid fake apps?
What do these apps have in common - WhatsApp, Waze, Uber, Telegram, Facebook and Avast?
It is said that imitation is the best form of flattery. All of these apps have fallen victim to their own success. Malicious developers have launched their own fake apps masquerading as these legit apps.
In 2017, a fake WhatsApp app was downloaded by more than a million people before being caught and taken down. A fake Facebook Messenger app was downloaded more than 10 million times!
These mischievous developers keep moving their marks. Once their fake apps are taken down by the app stores (Google Play Store, Apple's App Store or third party Android app stores), these developers then target the next hot and trendy app.
With the millions of apps that are launched every month, it is impossible for the app stores to catch every fake app. They have made some good progress in identifying these apps early on, but they still have a long way to go.
What do these fake apps do?
Developers of these fake apps have different motives and no regard for infringing on others' copyrights, trademarks and intellectual property rights. They develop apps to take pictures of you, steal your personal information and making money from you.
Telegram, a very popular messaging app, was recently the victim of a cybercriminal who created an app with a very similar logo and icon and named the app "Teligram" with an "I". It was labelled as "New version updated" to fool people into thinking that it was an upgrade of an existing app. This specific version of the fake app showed full screen ads and made money off these ad views/clicks. Another fake version of Telegram app went a lot further by installing a malware into your phone. This gave a hacker a backdoor to your phone or an ad clicker to your system.
Symantec recently discovered a fake Uber app where the developer recorded your phone number and password on their remote servers. The developers could then further compromise your other accounts and sell this information on the dark web.
A copycat gaming app, Cuphead, convinced people to pay $5 per download, the same price as the legit game. The issue is that this money didn't support the many designers and developers who created the original game and hence siphoning off real revenues! You are putting money into the hands of these illegal app developers.
The danger from using fake apps is real and can result in a serious loss to your privacy, financial loss, identity theft and worse.
Does Apple's AppStore have fake apps?
While Android platform may attract more fake apps and related attention, iOS users are not immune to fake apps. Both Google Play Store and Apple's App Store continue to improve their methods to detect fake apps as fast as possible, but invariably, some apps will slip through. Here is an article from the New York Times discussing what Apple is doing to prevent fake apps appearing on its App Store.
How to spot fake apps?
Scammers count on people being too busy to read the details and notice discrepancies between legit and fake apps. We all have to stay vigilant and spend a couple of extra minutes to do our due diligence before downloading ANY app.
Look at the icons of the app
If you find many apps with the same or similar icon of the app that you are searching for, that is a sign that you need to spend a few extra moments to analyze and identify the legit app. If the app is not a Pro version as compared to its sibling free app, then we need to examine the App Name and Developer's name to identify the legit app.
Closely examine the App name and its meta data
Sometimes, you can find hints within the app name to raise suspicions. Look for extraneous words in the name of the apps. In this example, the name of the app is "Update WhatsApp Messenger". No one adds words like UPDATE to the name of the app and this should raise some eye brows for sure.
Looking beyond the app name, you will notice that this version of the app contains ads. A quick search on google will reveal to you that WhatsApp is ad-free – at least for the moment.
Another hint is that this app is classified as "Lifestyle" app. Messaging apps are usually found in the "Communications" category.
Check for the App Developer name
In the above WhatsApp example, it's hard to distinguish the fake app from the developer's name as it is nearly indistinguishable from the real name. In this example, there is actually a white space at the end of the name which is not visible to the human eye. The extra space at the end makes it technically different from the real name. These guys were very cunning.
Most of the times, it is easier to spot fakers. In 2017, a fake Avast app was found with the developer name of "Lose Fat Secret Fitness Pal Avast Avira AVG Clean." The fake SwiftKey app was developed by "Designer Superman". Both are good examples that should raise red flags.
Another indicator is to check what other apps that the developer has developed. Simply click on the developer name on the app store listing and you will see more apps from the same developer. You may spot inconsistencies in the types of apps developed by this person. Usually companies develop apps within a certain category. For example, a company developing a keyboard will probably not be developing an Uber type app. They will probably develop other utilities.
Check the physical address and website of the developer
Does the developer provide a physical address of their business? At the bottom of Additional information of the app, you will find their physical address and their website. WhatsApp and other legitimate developers will provide their physical address which can easily be verified on google or from their own website.
Search for the developer's website on google and make sure that it's the same site when clicked on their link from the app info page. If the URLs are different or the sites look different, then be suspicious!
Read the app reviews
Even fake apps have reviews (fake and real reviews). In general, the more the reviews, the more likely it's to be a legit app. But if there are only a few reviews and all are highly rated, they could be fake reviews. In the event of the fake Avast app, a few people had noted it as a fraud app in the reviews. Some people clearly overlooked these warning as there were still some people who went ahead and downloaded the fake app.
Read the description and look at screenshots
While this step may take a little time, it can yield many clues about the legitimacy of the apps. Genuine app developers will use clear language to describe their app and its benefits with good and professional graphics to convey their messages.
To spot potential fake apps, pay attention to poor grammar, spelling mistakes, broken English, weird phrases and bot-like writing.
Similarly, take a look at the screenshots. While sometimes developers may copy some of the screenshots from the original app, they may add their own wording or phrases that might give them away.
Check for a high download count
Although this only helps to possibly identify copycats of major and popular apps like Facebook or WhatsApp, it might not be a good indicator for a brand new app recently launched with small download count. But never the less, it is another key piece of information to review. Popular apps like WhatsApp which has over 1 billion downloads will make it easy to spot a fake WhatsApp with a few hundred or even a million downloads.
Is the app developer promising eccentric performance or prizes? The fake Avast app forced you to give it a 5 star rating before letting you activate it! To incentivize you further, it said that it would enter you into a draw for a chance to win iPhone X which wasn't available at the moment. These are all red flags!
How to prevent being a victim?
Whatever app is hot today will attract a lot of attention from bad actors. This is why you have to do your own due diligence when downloading new apps.
Over and above from spotting fake apps, there are other steps we can take to ensure that we only download trusted apps from reliable stores. One easy way to protect yourself is to go your Android settings and make sure you do not allow app downloads from untrusted sites. Search for the setting called "Trusted sites" or "Unknown sources" and ensure that is set to not download from unreliable sources.
Supplement your app store search with a google search of the app as well. Visit the app developer's web site and if looks legit, use the download links from their website to take you directly to the app page. Did you arrive at the same app page as from within the app store search? Does the app look legit?
When on the web, be sure that you are on a secure and encrypted app download page. Ensure that the URL contains HTTPS. If there is no "S", then do not trust this page. If there is a "S" after HTTP, you will see either a lock icon or the words SECURE to indicate that this page is safe to download information from. This can minimize the chances of your web browser being hijacked by third parties and redirecting you to untrusting and insecure sites.
If the app looks fake or if you tried it and determined that it is fake, Report the app as soon as possible. Scroll down to the Additional information for the App and click on "Flag as inappropriate".
On the mobile phone, you will be presented with a screen with different options. Select "Copycat or impersonation" as your reason and submit.
On the website, clicking on the Inappropriate link will take you to a Google Play help page, where you'll need to click on the "report inappropriate developer reply form" link, and fill it out as per instructions.
More recently, Google has started to take this issue more seriously and implement "Google Play Protect" – a security system to verify apps in the Play Store. It scans apps upon submission to the Play Store by the developers. It will probably weed out a lot of the fake apps. It is a still a new system that we hope will keep getting better at stopping malicious apps from creating a mess for people. From the millions of apps added every month, even they will miss a few. In the meantime, we hope that you find these tips useful in identifying and protecting yourself from being spoofed into downloading fake apps. Just remember that if something is too good to be true, it probably is!
Do you have any tips to add or any of your experiences that you can share to help others?
androidapp storeavastcupheadfacebookfake appsgoogle play storeiOSmaliciouspressroomtelegramwazewhatsapp
Chief Guardian
Best ways to protect your recreational use of Marijuana! October 18, 2018
How to hack Conseel to spring clean your phone April 14, 2018
How to find and delete your Facebook data and your account? March 26, 2018
How to spot and avoid fake apps? March 12, 2018
Tips on how to prevent your privacy from being snooped March 7, 2018
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Rebels rest Wallaby stars for Sharks duel: The Melbourne Rebels have made several changes to their team to face the Sharks in Durban.
SEE: The top SA city for quality of living: Mercer's annual global survey on the quality of living enables companies to compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments.
Craig Burden included in Sharks squad for Rebels: The Sharks have made numerous changes for their Super rugby clash against the Rebels in Durban on Saturday.
SA foreign services should be 'professionalised again' – former ambassador: South Africa's foreign services should be professionalised again, former ambassador Febe Potgieter-Gqubule has said.


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THIS REPORT WILL TELL YOU HOW MUCH CAN MAKE IN RUSSIA WITH YOUR GAME, AND HOW.
The mobile gaming market is growing fast around the world. Russia, with its 80 million smartphone users, is no exception.
In this market, more of a hundred games are released every year. Top domestic and foreign publishers generate revenues exceeding $1 million per month, while savvy marketers promote their apps for twice as less as in the US!


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Q: R: changing color of stacked barplot library(ggplot2)
df2 <- data.frame(supp=rep(c("VC", "OJ"), each=3),
                dose=rep(c("D0.5", "D1", "D2"),2),
                len=c(6.8, 15, 33, 4.2, 10, 29.5))
head(df2)
ggplot(data=df2, aes(x=dose, y=len, fill=supp)) +
  geom_bar(stat="identity")

I have a simple stacked barplot, and I would like to change the colors manually. More specifically, I would like to flip the colors used for fill = supp (i.e. teal for OJ instead). I've trid adding a color = ... parameter into geom_bar but that simply outlines the barplots instead of coloring them in.

A: ggplot(data=df2, aes(x=dose, y=len, fill=supp)) +
  geom_bar(stat="identity")+scale_fill_manual(values = c("Green","tomato"))

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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CCU partners with Conway Medical Center on health care initiatives and receives historic donation
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Conway Medical Center (CMC), a mainstay of the local community since 1928, now holds the distinction of making the largest donation to another anchor in Horry County: Coastal Carolina University. In recognition of a $10 million contribution – the largest single gift ever received by the University – CCU's newest college is named the Conway Medical Center College of Health and Human Performance. The endowed funds will provide the college with resources for scholarships, faculty support, research, and other areas.
(Front row, from left) Brian Argo, CMC executive vice president/COO; Bret Barr, CMC chief executive officer and president; Michael T. Benson, CCU president; Kelly Moore, CAF executive director; and Matt Hogue, CCU vice president for intercollegiate athletics and university recreation. (Back row, from left) David Frost, CCU senior vice president for finance and administration/CFO; Ted Millford, CMC vice president, chief development officer/executive director, CMC Foundation; and Daniel J. Ennis, CCU provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
"Coastal Carolina University appreciates Conway Medical Center's long-standing commitment to quality health care in our community and is extremely grateful for the ongoing support of its hometown University," said CCU President Michael T. Benson. "This is a transformational contribution that will help with a very acute infrastructure need, but will also support our newest college as it develops to address the expansion of our community and the tremendous influx of new residents."
Bret Barr, CMC's president and CEO, said, "We're excited about what this gift represents, not just for our two great organizations but, more importantly, for our community. CMC and CCU are the twin pillars of education and health care in our region. This 25-year commitment and partnership highlights our shared dedication toward the future of health and workforce development in Horry County."
The new Conway Medical Center College of Health and Human Performance began operations on July 1, 2022, and is home to the following academic units: public health, nursing, health administration, exercise and sport science, recreation and sport management, and sport management (master's degree). With more than 1,500 students enrolled, it is poised to be the fastest-growing college at the University.
"We have an extraordinary opportunity to improve the quality of life in our region through new programs in the areas of health, human performance, and recreation," said CCU Provost Daniel Ennis. "Our faculty will use these resources to create opportunities for our students, and graduates of this new college will use their talents and expertise to address challenges in our community related to health, wellness and physical activity. In an age that demands college graduates be career-ready, having a partner such as Conway Medical Center will help ensure that we are staying ahead of the developments in these crucial areas of study."
"As a nonprofit health system, we are grounded in our mission to cultivate a happier and healthier community for all," said Brian Argo, CMC's executive vice president and chief operating officer. "This long-term partnership highlights our shared commitment to workforce development, which will reap fantastic benefits for our patients, our staff, and the local economy. Together, CMC and CCU will create a multi-generational, positive impact for our community."
A portion of CMC's donation will be directed to the Chanticleer Athletic Foundation to support furthering the development of the University's rapidly growing athletic programs. Investments in infrastructure include a multiple-use facility that will house the new Conway Medical Center College of Health and Human Performance, as well as further revitalization efforts on the south portion of the Conway campus. The first project to move forward will be a nearly 90,000-square-foot indoor practice facility at Brooks Stadium.
Rendering of CCU's new indoor practice facility, which will be supported by CMC's historic donation to the University.


A Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies encompasses interdisciplinary study of global, international, and regional politics, economics, culture, and society. The global studies degree will provide students with training and education appropriate to individuals seeking careers in diplomatic service, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and foreign policy. Students will be prepared to undertake graduate studies in a variety of fields with international orientation. Graduates of the program will be able to contribute to Texas Tech's vision of championing global engagement, educating a diverse and globally competitive work force, and enhancing the cultural and economic development of the state, nation, and world.
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"Caller claimed to be a Federal IRS officer and wanted money for a minor tax miscalculation and legal fees. The caller wanted me to purchase a card at Walmart to email them the amount they were asking for (4,000.00 ). They claimed there would be a warrant for my arrest if I didn't agree."


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Conservative pundit blasts Mattis for not speaking candidly about Trump: He 'is not a moral hero — he is enabling the criminal to escape'
Alex Henderson, AlterNet
When former Defense Secretary James Mattis announced his resignation in December 2018, many Never Trump conservatives lamented the departure of someone they saw as a voice of reason and sanity in the Trump Administration. Those Never Trumpers were anxious to hear what a post-White House Mattis had to say in an interview with NBC News' Chuck Todd that aired on "Meet the Press" Sunday. But conservative Washington Post writer and Trump critic Jennifer Rubin, in her October 14 column, stresses that she wishes Mattis were speaking more "candidly" and frankly about his time in the White House and President Donald Trump's foreign policy decisions.
During the interview, Todd asked Mattis to weigh in on, among other things, the Ukraine scandal. And Rubin found his comments much too vague.
"If Mattis is willing to testify under oath, why is he not willing to speak candidly when not under oath?," Rubin asserts. "A witness to an ordinary crime who agrees to speak only under subpoena at trial but not to assist in the investigation of the crime is not a moral hero — he is enabling the criminal to escape."
Rubin would also like to hear Mattis speak more frankly about Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeastern Syria and abandon the Kurdish-led forces who have been guarding captured ISIS prisoners.
"No one is asking him how to vote," Rubin says of Mattis. "He has a unique perspective on the decision-making 'process' at the White House and on Trump's motives for abandoning the Kurds — which he tried doing previously, and which precipitated Mattis' resignation. At a time when the American people desperately need to hear all available facts from credible sources, it is not helpful to withhold that information."
Rubin wraps up her column by emphasizing that she also wants to hear a lot more frank comments from other ex-members of the Trump Administration, including former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, his successor John Bolton and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
"Mattis' performance leaves one flummoxed and frustrated," Rubin laments. "Perhaps House chairs can relieve him of the self-imposed oath of silence by subpoenaing him to testify — in public. It is time we heard from him, from former national security advisers John Bolton and McMaster and from former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson…. It's time to lay it all out for the American people."


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I watched this whole thing go down in an airport and felt like sharing it with you. This young military man, Michael (full name was on his backpack) was standing here about to board a plane and a random man walked up and said thank you for your service. Then asked if he could pray for his safety. I started crying of course just watching this nice end to a crappy day unfold on my 16 hour cross country flight, but Americans never cease to amaze me. Beautiful. I would love for this picture to find it's way to the man pictured here in uniform to show how many people are praying for you and wishing you good thoughts and safe travels.
@GettinSweenered That is so awesome.


text:
Home/CityGist/NBA Demands N5bn Compensation For Murdered Lawyer
NBA Demands N5bn Compensation For Murdered Lawyer
TheCity People Send an email December 29, 2022
The Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, has demanded N5 billion compensation for the family of slain Lagos lawyer Omobolanle Raheem.
The lawyer was killed on Christmas day by an irate policeman, and according to her family was pregnant with twins at the time she was murdered in cold blood.
The Inspector General of Police, Baba Usman has suspended the policeman who killed her, Drambi Van did an Assistant Superintendent of police, DSP who is currently under probe.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos state has also demanded a thorough probe of the matter, even as many Nigerians said incessant killing of Nigerians by policemen must stop.
Ebun – Olu Adegboruwa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, said he the NBA president has directed the Lagos branch of the Association to be part of the prosecution team with the Lagos State government.
The association will demand N5 billion as compensation for the deceased family, the human rights lawyer and activist said.
According to him, "The NBA Lagos in conjunction with the NBA President, Mr. Y.C. Mikyau, SAN, has decided to be part of the prosecution of the policeman as part of its efforts towards securing quick and effective justice for the family of the deceased.
"In this regard, the NBA will be partnering with the Ministry of Justice during the trial.
"Mr. Adegboruwa has in turn obtained relevant briefing from the Hon. Attorney-General of Lagos State and has secured the assurances of an accelerated prosecution once the case file is received from the police."
"The NBA is also seeking monetary compensation for the family of Mrs. Raheem from the government of Lagos State, the Federal Government, and indeed the Nigeria Police Force and the Police Service Commission, through its Human Rights Committee.
The NBA will seek for payment of damages not less than five billion naira in addition to the prosecution of the killer cop."
In October 2020, an anti – police brutality protest also known as EndSARS rocked the country after some policemen killed a man in Delta state. Following the nationwide protest the federal government disbanded the notorious Special Anti Robbery Squad, SARS, as part of its efforts to restructure the Nigerian Police Force, NPF, but critics of the Force say Nigerians are still being killed daily by policemen.
Atiku-Wike feud: PDP should reach out to Amaechi – Omokri
Do your job but don't harass or intimidate Emefiele – Niger Delta youths tell DSS


text:
2001ApJ...556..121K - Astrophys. J., 556, 121-140 (2001/July-3)
Theoretical modeling of starburst galaxies.
KEWLEY L.J., DOPITA M.A., SUTHERLAND R.S., HEISLER C.A. and TREVENA J.
We have modeled a large sample of infrared starburst galaxies using both the PEGASE v2.0 and STARBURST99 codes to generate the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the young star clusters. PEGASE utilizes the Padova group tracks, while STARBURST99 uses the Geneva group tracks, allowing comparison between the two. We used our MAPPINGS III code to compute photoionization models that include a self-consistent treatment of dust physics and chemical depletion. We use the standard optical diagnostic diagrams as indicators of the hardness of the EUV radiation field in these galaxies. These diagnostic diagrams are most sensitive to the spectral index of the ionizing radiation field in the 1-4 ryd region. We find that warm infrared starburst galaxies contain a relatively hard EUV field in this region. The PEGASE ionizing stellar continuum is harder in the 1-4 ryd range than that of STARBURST99. As the spectrum in this regime is dominated by emission from Wolf-Rayet (W-R) stars, this discrepancy is most likely due to the differences in stellar atmosphere models used for the W-R stars. The PEGASE models use the Clegg & Middlemass planetary nebula nuclei (PNN) atmosphere models for the W-R stars, whereas the STARBURST99 models use the Schmutz, Leitherer, & Gruenwald W-R atmosphere models. We believe that the Schmutz et al. atmospheres are more applicable to the starburst galaxies in our sample; however, they do not produce the hard EUV field in the 1-4 ryd region required by our observations. The inclusion of continuum metal blanketing in the models may be one solution. Supernova remnant (SNR) shock modeling shows that the contribution by mechanical energy from SNRs to the photoionization models is ≪20%. The models presented here are used to derive a new theoretical classification scheme for starbursts and active galactic nucleus (AGN) galaxies based on the optical diagnostic diagrams.
Journal keyword(s): Galaxies: Starburst - Radiation Mechanisms: Thermal
To bookmark this query, right click on this link: simbad:2001ApJ...556..121K and select 'bookmark this link' or equivalent in the popup menu


A little Little Boy by the name of Toby took himself off one day from the Village and managed to lose himself in the Impchkin Forest.
Now, Toby was known to complain.
He complained about almost everything.
He complained almost all the time.
He complained to everyone that he met.
That's just what he did. He got himself really lost. He thought someone would come looking for him but nobody did. He kept complaining to himself about the people he had to live with and the food he had to eat. Then he started to complain to himself about being lost, and tired, and hungry and thirsty.
When it started to get dark and he found himself in the middle of a Forest, he really started to whinge and whine. He was also rather afraid.
Round about then he saw a light coming towards him.
Toby was about to complain about being called a Growler but he thought better of it. He didn't know any other way to get out of the Forest so he took a closer look at the Light. It was being held by a tiny little Man. Impchkin Ian was his name. He was crooked and he had a crooked walking stick and his bottom lip stuck out.
" Get up, Toby the Growler, and follow me!
WHEN THINGS SEEM TOUGH AND TIMES ARE ROUGH, REMEMBER THAT IT COULD BE WORSE.
Zretazoola found a head. The head was still alive and talking. Zretazoola really didn't know what to do with a Head. Now, that's a REAL problem.
The Goat, the Chicken and the Parrot have found a Fallen Idol. That's the little fella lying on the Ground. They have tried to stand the Fallen Idol up but it just won't stay up. That's a real problem.
Lavinia and Louisa have a little Cottage in the Village. Everything looks pretty good at their place until you meet Albertina. Albertina is their sister. Unfortunately, she is becoming more and more like a cat as she grows older. She was warned when she was little to stop being so Catty ( so mean and nasty to other people) but she would not stop. Now the only thing that's really left of the old Albertina is her voice. Problem is – she still hasn't learned her lesson. She is still Catty to people. Her sisters try to keep out of her way because she says such mean things to them and leaves fur all over the furniture. She is a big Problem for her sisters.
Any REAL Cat would be ashamed to speak or behave the way Albertina does.
Charmaine truly has a problem. She's not complaining about it but that could be because she is unconscious. Charmaine is the daughter of a Witch. Charmaine is supposed to be a witch, herself but she HATES witchery. She's afraid of flying broomsticks and she doesn't know one single magic spell.
Her mother, Charmaginia, STILL wants Charmaine to be a witch and she will not stop trying to teach her how to be one. Charmaine hates being tied to her mother's broomstick. She almost always passes out.
When two people want two very different things, then you really have problems.
The MerryMen have a new neighbour. Take a look at that for a neighbour when you're feeling sorry for yourself.
The Neighbour is huge and he has a good heart. He is what we call"Helpful". The problem is that his help always goes wrong. He treads on people without meaning to. And not just on their toes. He gives people a lift – but not to where they want to go.
Impchkin Ian showed Toby some Beings with Problems. Then he took him to his treehouse in the Impchkin Forest and made him a bed and something to eat.


text:
Dr John Eyre
John leads research and development to improve exploitation of satellite data in numerical weather prediction and other applications in weather and climate.
Weather satellite data
Radiative transfer
Inverse and retrieval methods
Observing-system design
Publications by John
John manages and conducts R&D which aims to:
Improve the exploitation of data currently available from weather and other environmental satellites
Prepare for the exploitation of data expected from new satellite instruments to be launched in the next few years
Contribute to studies to define future generations of weather satellites and their instruments.
Most of these activities have the goal of improving the performance of NWP, through improvements in satellite data and their methods of exploitation. Some of the work is targeted on improvements in forecasting, in climate analysis and in other environmental applications.
He devotes a significant fraction of his time to working with EUMETSAT and WMO - on the specification of future operational weather satellites, and on the evolution of global observing systems.
He continues to participate in personal research on theoretical aspects of retrieval and assimilation problems concerning the use of satellite sounding data in NWP.
Career background
John joined the Met Office in Bracknell in 1978, with a BA in Physics and a DPhil in Atmospheric Physics from the University of Oxford. For his doctorate he studied radiometric measurements of minor constituents affecting ozone concentrations in the stratosphere.
At the Met Office, John worked first as research scientist within the Satellite Meteorology branch, becoming manager of the Satellite Data Research Group in 1983. From 1984-90, he was back in Oxford leading the Met Office Unit within the Robert Hooke Institute for Cooperative Atmospheric Research. This period included a year as a Senior Visiting Scientist at the CIMSS at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In 1990, he was appointed as Head of the newly-formed Satellite Section at ECMWF in Reading. He returned to the Met Office in 1995 and took the position of Head of Satellite Applications, which he held until 2014, first in Bracknell and from 2004 in Exeter, with a short interlude in 2003-4 to lead the Met Office's Satellite Applications group at the University of Reading. He is now a Met Office Fellow in Satellite Applications.
His personal research contributions have been mainly on: infra-red and microwave radiative transfer modelling, retrieval of atmospheric temperature and composition from satellite observations, assimilation of remotely-sensed observations into NWP models, and the design of future observing systems.
Buchan Prize of the Royal Meteorological Society, 1996.
L G Groves Memorial Prize for Meteorology, 1999.
Co-chair, International TOVS Working Group, 1991-97.
Chair, EUMETSAT Post-EPS Mission Experts Team, 2005-2013.
Chair, WMO ET-EGOS, 2006-2012; IPET-OSDE, 2012-present.


TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian buyers of Iranian crude imported 6.6 percent less in September than a year ago, the first on-year decline since December, but shipments rose back above the 1 million barrels-per-day mark allowed under a deal that eased Western sanctions.
World powers are negotiating to strike a permanent settlement with Iran on its disputed nuclear program by a Nov. 24 deadline. Tehran would have to curb its nuclear work to ensure it cannot be applied to weapons in exchange for removal of the sanctions that have hobbled its oil-based economy.
Iran and the United States said earlier they made some progress toward a final deal this month but that much work remains to be done. Some industry sources expect Iran to strike an agreement to escape the tough sanctions that have cut its crude exports by more than half sine early 2012.
Tehran's crude sales would likely surge if Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States reach any agreement with Iran that would scuttle the sanctions.
After a temporary deal was reach in November of last year to ease some of the sanctions, Iran's sales to its biggest Asian buyers - China, India, Japan and South Korea - jumped by as much as a third in the first quarter of this year.
A similar upswing in Iran's exports now would add to an oil glut that has already reduced Brent futures to levels not seen since late 2010.
China, India, Japan and South Korea together in September took in 1.08 million bpd of the Islamic republic's crude, down 6.6 percent from a year ago but up from 921,064 bpd in August, government and tanker-tracking data obtained by Reuters showed.
In the first nine months of 2014, the four buyers' imports averaged 1.14 million bpd, up 19.6 percent from the same period last year.
The interim agreement between Iran and world powers last year allowed Iran to keep exports at the reduced level of about 1 million bpd. But imports by Iran's four major clients in Asia have topped that mark every month of this year except August, rising to as much as 1.37 million bpd in February, although there has not been an apparent crackdown on the higher volumes.
Prior to a toughed sanctions regime introduced in 2012, Iran's crude exports had averaged 2.5 million bpd.
Tehran's largest oil client China has since late 2013, when the interim deal was reached, been stepping up purchases, accounting for most of the stronger Asian imports since then.
China's firm imports - along with No.2 buyer India - have countered lower year-to-date imports by Japan and South Korea.
China's imports from Tehran for the January-September period were at 570,350 bpd, up 33.2 percent on year. For September, China's imports from Iran rose 5.8 percent from last year to a two-month high of 503,261 bpd.
India's imports in September fell 18.5 percent from last year to 241,400 bpd, and over January-September, imports rose 38.1 percent to 267,800 bpd.
South Korea's imports from Iran last month fell 2.3 percent from a year ago to 134,300 bpd, while its shipments for the January-September period were down 6.7 percent from last year to 127,458 bpd.
Shipments to Japan - the last of the four to report its oil intake - fell by 18.4 percent to 205,798 bpd last month, trade ministry data showed on Friday. For the year through September, imports fell 10.5 percent from a year ago to 174,395 bpd.


Has anyone tried to use the SureSelect XT kits to make a WGS library? I only have 2 libraries to make and had some spare reagents leftover from the SureSelect XT kit from a previous project.
My only concern is adjusting the pre-capture and post-capture indexing PCR cycles accordingly.


UPDATE: You can also grab this My Little Pony Feature Princess Twilight Sparkle at Target.com for $24.99 plus FREE Shipping and 5% off for Target REDCardholders.
Know someone who loves My Little Pony!? Head on over to Amazon where you can score this highly rated My Little Pony Feature Princess Twilight Sparkle for the lowest price of just $24.98 (regularly $67.99!)! Plus, get free Super Saver shipping on a $35+ order or free 2-day shipping with Amazon Prime. As a price comparison, this same toy is priced at $40 on Walmart.com, so this seems like a nice deal!
FYI-Toys R Us has it for the same price also with free store p/u if your store has it in stock.
Can't wait to see more of these toy deals that can be put up for Christmas! I like to shop early so I can just sit back and enjoy the holiday instead of running around shopping.
My son's birthday is December 2! Of course, he will be 16, but it's a great day to have a baby! Good luck!
Congrats to you all! Hope you have an amazing holiday.
They look cuter but u think the ponies have a really bad attitude. Since my girl started watching MLP, I started to notice she talks the same way and she talks back A LOT! And she's only three!
I agree. My girls are 15, 13 and 6. Over the years MLP's have gotten quite the attitude and it is a shame. My six year old plays with the ponies but we discourage the show. Not the worst show ever, but there are better ones.
It's gonna be a great Christmas. Hip2save saved me a fortune last year! So much that I didn't even do the black Friday shopping thing.
Bummer, Amazon is sold out. 🙁 Will have to go check out Target!
On Amazon it's showing that it's $20.79 with $9.16 in shipping. It comes out to 29.95.
awesome! Thanks so much! I am done with me kids for Christmas already but can't help these extra's!
Got it for the $29,thanks so much! My daughter will love it!
Target website says not available. Bummed. This is just the deal I was looking for for a birthday gift. If you know of any other place to buy this for a great price, please share. Thank you.
A friend of my child said that this was a most loved toy their daughter received for her birthday. Thanks Collin for posting this deal previously. The mom said we were the best gift givers!


text:
BlockBlock
==========

Networked 3D Air Hockey Game

# Prerequisites
1. CMake
2. Sublime Text 3
  1. Recommended packages:
    1. Package Manager: https://sublime.wbond.net/installation
    2. C++ Starting Kit
    3. Theme - Soda
    4. Oasis Theme
  2. Select View->Syntax->C++
  3. Select Sublime Text->Preferences->Color Scheme->Oasis Theme->Oasis
3. Clang (optional)

# Setup

1. Checkout repository
2. Open ~/.bash_profile
3. Add the following functions:
  1. Build debug:

```
#!bash

function make_debug()
{
  target_path=<path_to_checkout (eg. ~/Dev/BlockBlock)>
  original_path=$(pwd)
  cd $target_path
  cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug .
  make
  cd $original_path
}
```
  2. Build release
```
#!bash
function make_release()
{
  target_path=<path_to_checkout (eg. ~/Dev/BlockBlock)>
  original_path=$(pwd)
  cd $target_path
  cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release .
  make
  cd $original_path
}
```
4. source ~/.bash_profile
5. You may now run these functions from any directory. You can run these steps manually, they are just helpers to setup and properly pass in target flags
6. (Optional) Setup make to run multiple jobs (this should be # of machine cores + 1)
  1. Add the following statement to your .bash_profile
```
#!bash
export MAKEFLAGS=-j<n> # Have make run on n cores for this machine (one spawner task and two workers)
```


text:
Movie Review: 'NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS' – Beautiful Wrapping, Socks Inside
Courtney Howard // Film Critic
Rated PG, 99 minutes
Directed by: Lasse Hallström, Joe Johnston
Starring: Mackenzie Foy, Keira Knightley, Jayden Fowora-Knight , Helen Mirren, Eugenio Derbez, Richard E. Grant, Morgan Freeman, Matthew Macfadyen, Ellie Bamber, Tom Sweet
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS has a very good, heartrending heroine at the center of a very poorly executed narrative. It's a jumbled mess of ideas with none of them functioning as precisely as they should given the enduring nature of the elegant source material. The most famous iteration is benched in favor of directors Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston's reimagined take – a sequel "suggested by" E.T.A. Hoffman's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and Marius Petipa's "Nutcracker Ballet" – telling the story of a brave, budding inventor's grief-fueled quest to live up to her deceased mother's legacy. However, it lacks a distinctive, innovative drive necessary to keep the gears in the machine greased. What's left, though visually sumptuous and well-acted, is almost as hollow as a tin solider.
Middle child Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy) is an inquisitive, innovative fourteen-year-old, inventing Rube Goldberg devices in her family's attic. These entertaining distractions are her way of containing the sorrow over her mother Marie's recent passing. While her older sister Louise (Ellie Bamber) and younger brother Fritz (Tom Sweet) have also found ways of coping with the loss (ways we don't necessarily see but are forced to assume), their father Richard (Matthew Macfadyen), caught in the first four stages of grief, has mandated that the family carry on with holiday festivities as normal. The Christmas tree is perfectly trimmed. The love of family warms the home, thickly coating the air. And presents are given from the entire family, including gifts from the kids' deceased mother, who willed Clara a mysterious, locked, pearl-encrusted metal egg designed by Clara's inventor godfather Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman).
Maintaining tradition also means attending Drosselmeyer's lavish Christmas ball, which attracts all of London's high society families. It's there where Clara's journey of personal discovery begins, leading her into an adventure in the fantastical four realms. These realms are guarded over by the Nutcracker Captain Philip (Jayden Fowora-Knight) and run by the regent of the land of sweets, baby-voiced Sugar Plum Fairy (Kiera Knightley); the regent of the land of snowflakes, Shiver (Richard E. Grant); the regent of the land of flowers, flamboyant Hawthorne (Eugenio Derbez); and the former regent of the land of amusements, Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), who got herself banished and is at war with the other three realms.
Mackenzie Foy and Jayden Fowara-Knight is Phillip in Disney's THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS.
Screenwriter Ashleigh Powell half-bakes many of the film's big ideas – and sadly, all of this could've been fixed by a few extra passes on the script. For example, Clara should've been an only child, as her brother and sister are completely superfluous. They're even insultingly brushed aside by their godfather at the end, in a line that's supposed to be uplifting. That doesn't mean the other emotional aspects of her arc don't sufficiently land. They actually do. The filmmakers, along with the formidable Foy, perfectly nail Clara's burning desire and uncertainty surrounding her dead mother's legacy. It feels palpable, especially for those in the audience who've been thrust into similar situations – granted, not in fantasy realms. She gets to hear the confirmation and validation those suffering from loss would love to hear.
The rest of the picture is bogged down by convolution, contrivance and exposition. Time and time again, we're shown and then told everything we were just shown. It's like watching a movie for the blind with the audio description turned on. Sugar Plum Fairy narrates the Nutcracker Ballet performance. Clara yells to her army that mice are attacking the carousel when it's clearly shown that's what's happening. And so on and so on. There's hardly any room for subtleties.
It's an absurdist travesty that a film "suggested by" (as the lingo cleverly states) a world-renowned ballet doesn't take ample time to spotlight the art of dance. In fact, it's treated as an afterthought, favoring a fairly generic, utterly predictable story instead. What's even more astounding is that the filmmakers recruited incredibly inspiring artists like Misty Copeland, Sergei Polunin, and Charles "Lil'Buck" Riley, who all elevate the art form to new heights, yet are not given the showcase they deserve. Their sequences are cut to bits, so those searching for a transcendent dance performance best look elsewhere. The same goes for the music. Tchaikovsky's iconic compositions are threaded throughout, but are never given sequences long enough to show off their time-honored power. Instead, James Newton Howard's wall-to-wall score dominates.
Despite all the narrative faults and other creative failings, there are a handful of highlights. The worlds the filmmakers create feel tangible and immersive. Jenny Beavan's costume design and Jenny Shircore's brilliant makeup and wig design are absolutely scrumptious. Literally. The scene featuring Sugar Plum ripping out her cotton candy hairdo to stuff a handful of the confection into her mouth should be this film's FYC submission. Guy Hendrix Dyas' production design provides a dazzling setting for the actors to play dress-up.
Since this is a story about an inventive young woman finding her strength amidst sorrow, it makes me wish she was in a much more innovative film. Imagine if those titular four realms represented the stages of grief Clara had to overcome, instead of a place where a lackluster, generic, predictable story unfolds.
NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS opens on November 2.
Ashleigh Powell1 Charles "Lil'Buck" Riley1 Ellie Bamber2 Eugenio Derbez4 Guy Hendrix Dyas1 Helen Mirren5 James Newton Howard1 Jayden Fowora-Knight1 Jenny Bevan1 Jenny Shircore2 Joe Johnston1 Keira Knightley4 Lasse Hallström3 Mackenzie Foy1 Matthew Macfadyen1 Misty Copeland1 Morgan Freeman3 NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS1 Richard E. Grant1 Sergei Polunin1 Tom Sweet1
Fresh on Blu-ray: 'THE PRINCESS BRIDE' and 'INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS' receive inconceivable look for collector's release
Movie Review: 'UNLOVABLE' a cutesy but thoughtful look at sex addiction
Courtney Howard is a LAFCA, OFCS and AWFJ member, as well as a Rotten Tomatometer-approved film critic. Her work has been published on Variety, She Knows and Awards Circuit.


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