text:
Q: C++ call member method vs normal function overhead Suppose whatever C++ class that performs an operation like this:
void MyClass::operation()
{
    // final sum it's just a class member
    finalSum = {0};

    for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
        if (i % 2 = 0)
            finalSum += 2;
        else
            finalSum += 1;
}

Instead of write a bunch of operations inside just one method, you refactor part of that calculations to a new method, so code now looks like this:
void MyClass::operation()
{
    // finalSum it's just a class member
    finalSum = {0};

    for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
        calculateIncrement(i);
}

MyClass::calculateIncrement(int i)
{
    if (i % 2 = 0)
        finalSum += 2;
    else
        finalSum += 1;
}

So, two questions:

*

*There's a little bit of overhead for make that method call? It's really relevant?

*It's cheaper (in terms of memory and CPU usage) to call a method of an instance that
calling an external function (any non-member fn that performns the same operation than calculateIncrement(), but with a return value?

*What if you pass the instance of your object by non-const reference or pointer to that
external function? It's the overhead the same?

Code it's minimal, but you can argue with more complicated values that the language primitives, and suppose larger and complicated calculations than the proposed above.
Thanks.

A: Don't do premature optimization. Correctness is much more important than performance. The fastest code is worth nothing when it does not compile or produce wrong output.
Write code to be readable. Readable code is easier to test, debug and to refactor. Once you have working correct code you can measure to see where are the bottlenecks.
Anyhow, compilers are smart enough to see the pattern of loops similar to this one:
 int sum = 0;
 for (int i=0; i < 100; ++i) sum += i;

Knowing this, I changed your calculations to this (without this transformation I didn't get the desired output):
int main() {
        // final sum it's just a class member
    int finalSum = {0};

    for (int i = 0; i < 100; i+=2)
            finalSum += 2;
    for (int i = 1; i < 100; i+=2)
            finalSum += 1;
    return finalSum;
}

Turned on optimizations (-O3) to get as a result:
main:
        mov     eax, 150
        ret

There is no need to write a loop and no need to call a function. Even though I did write two loops in the code, the compiler was smart enough to see that the final result can be determined at compile time. This is the kind of optimizations that make C++ code run fast. Human-driven optimizations must always be based on profiling and measurements, and it is really hard to beat a good compiler. Though in this case you could have noticed that the final result is just 150 and that there is no need for the loop.
Conclusion: Write code to be simple and readable. The code you posted effectively assigns 150 to finalSum and the most simple way to express this is finalSum = 150;.
You may argue that I missed the point of the question. But my point is that details matter. Different code will have different opportunities to make it simpler and more expressive. It is difficult/impossible to make a general statement about whether a function call introduces too much overhead. Anyhow the compiler is much better at making this decision. It may inline the call or not when it sees that it will be worth it.


Basic income is the most comprehensive political reform of our century so far.
There is no other reform in sight that would a) potentially impact the majority of citizens in any given nation and b) be of such great importance in as many countries as basic income is today. Take the global interest in the Finnish experiment as evidence: why such attention for a trial in a country of just 5 million inhabitants? Probably because basic income seems to address challenges faced by all societies across borders. Currently, basic income is being discussed in earnest in Switzerland (where a basic income reform was rejected in a referendum in June 2016), in the US (where Y Combinator, an organization known for its highly successful start-up accelerator, has announced a pilot experiment for basic income to take place in Oakland, California) and in the Netherlands (where a basic income experiment will begin in the city of Utrecht in January 2017).
The Finnish basic income experiment is officially referred to as an incremental reform of the welfare model, not as an indicator of a complete paradigm shift.
Looming explosion of robotics and automatisation is estimated to take over various jobs in short period of time, resulting in major changes in the structure of work.
At present, citizens in Finland are entitled to a minimum level of social security support that is the same as the amount of its suggested basic income (560€ a month). In official statements, the basic income experiment is said to aim to reduce bureaucracy, to unravel disincentives and to decrease poverty in society. Government documents do not mention changes in the structure of work and income, nor do they offer comments on looming technology-induced unemployment. Hence, basic income is seen as an additional element to the Finnish universal social security system. Elsewhere, basic income has been envisioned as a solution for rising inequality, exacerbated by the explosion of robotics and the automatisation of routine work. Top politicians in Finland, however, have not explicitly made these connections.
The basic income trial is a part of a larger shift in policy-making.
Fruits of experimental culture: due to an innovative interpretation of traffic law, the book of law doesn't oblige the driver to be inside the vehicle. Thus, Finland can test driverless vehicles in real urban environment.
This new form of policy-making has come to be known as "co-design" or "co-creation" of policy. In short, the term refers to the engaging of relevant stakeholders and citizens in the policy-making process from its early phases onwards. As further described in this article, which looks at the policy-making model that was created by Nordic think tank Demos Helsinki, more human-centered and experimental governmental steering can encourage trust and make policy more user-oriented, targeted and efficient.
The basic income trial will pave the way for about 20 other large-scale experiments in Finland that have been launched or will be launched by the country's ministries in the coming months. With the preparation work for the basic income trial, the Finns have spotted a handful of legislative problems that will need to be tackled in order to foster further experimentation. Experimental culture in general has encouraged civil servants to take a permissive attitude to legislation and thus enabled further innovative experimentation (well demonstrated by this case, where traffic law was reinterpreted so that it allowed Finland to become the first country in the world to test driverless vehicles in real urban environments). Lastly, preparing the large experiment has already forced the country to open up the discussion on and solve important issues in relation to the ethics and practices of experimenting. All this lays as a solid groundwork for building a forerunner governance system in the country.
Demos Helsinki has written widely on basic income, and its experts have been consulted for features in The Guardian, Forbes, Business Insider, Futurism, and other media. The Design for Government report completed last year by Demos Helsinki proposed a new, quick-to-implement model for including experiments and behavioural approaches into Finnish policy design. It has been translated into English and is available for free download here.


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GRSLB&G named on 2017 "Best Law Firms" List by U.S. News and World Report and Best Lawyers | Golden Rothschild Spagnola Lundell Boylan Garubo & Bell P.C.
On November 1, 2016, U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers publicly announced the Seventh Edition of the "Best Law Firms" rankings. GRSLB&G is proud to announce that it has been named on the 2017 "Best Law Firms" List. GRSLB&G is designated as a Metropolitan Tier 2 Law Firm in the practice areas of Construction Law, Litigation-Construction and Personal Injury Litigation – Defendants.
Firms included in the 2017 "Best Law Firms" list are recognized for professional excellence with persistently impressive ratings from clients and peers. Achieving a tiered ranking signals a unique combination of quality law practice and breadth of legal expertise. Ranked firms, presented in tiers, are listed on a national and/or metropolitan scale. Receiving a tier designation reflects the high level of respect a firm has earned among other lawyers and clients in the same communities and the same practice areas for its abilities, its professionalism, and its integrity. To be eligible for a ranking, a firm must have a lawyer listed in The Best Lawyers of America, which recognizes the top 4 percent of practicing attorneys in the United States. Over 10,000 attorneys provided more than 800,000 law firm assessments, and over 10,000 clients provided more than 90,000 evaluations.


text:
Lawmakers Announce Plan to Phase-In Lower K-3 Class Sizes
Raleigh, N.C. – State lawmakers on Thursday unveiled an aggressive effort to improve student outcomes in the early grades by phasing in smaller class sizes and lower student-to-teacher ratios in kindergarten through third grade classrooms.
The legislation provides millions of additional state dollars to fund special subject area teachers and eliminating the state's Pre-K waiting list.
"State House members traveled across North Carolina listening to educators and families about their priorities for our school systems," state House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) said in a press conference announcing the proposal.
"Our plan to lower class sizes over time is the result of successful, continued collaboration among legislators and educators to implement an innovative education agenda for North Carolina students."
The co-chairs of the House and Senate education committees worked closely with school superintendents, while listening to parents and teachers, to develop a plan that doubles down on the legislature's years-long effort to improve academic outcomes for students by the end of third grade.
For years, Republican lawmakers have supported smaller class sizes in core academic subjects in the early grades – since research has shown this leads to improved academic outcomes for students – and have already given schools about $222 million in additional tax dollars toward that purpose.
Laws to reduce class sizes have been on the books for years and were slated to go into full effect next school year, but some local school administrators flagged what they said could be unintended consequences – including that they could no longer spend state dollars intended to reduce class sizes on enhancement teachers in non-core subject areas like art, music, drama and P.E.
"Lower class sizes are an important part of North Carolina's innovative education reforms that provided teacher pay raises, hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding and education options for low-income students," said Rep. Craig Horn (R-Union.)
"These are the priorities of parents and families – improving performance and offering high-quality learning environments that create the best opportunity for student success."
The plan addresses those concerns by phasing in implementation of class size reductions over the next four school years – with no changes to the status quo in the first year – giving school administrators ample time to plan and take the necessary steps to meet those requirements.
Under the proposal, school systems across the state will continue to receive about $70 million each year to cover the expense of hiring additional K-3 teachers needed to meet the class size requirements. But schools will only be required to gradually lower their student-to-teacher ratios until the 2021-2022 school year.
"From parents to educators to lawmakers to Gov. Cooper, nearly everyone agrees that lowering class sizes is an important priority that will have a real positive impact on academic outcomes for our students," said Sen. Chad Barefoot (R-Wake.)
"After months of work reviewing the data and hearing from stakeholders, I believe we've arrived at a data-driven solution that will achieve the smaller classes that we all support and that taxpayers have paid for, with a timeline and framework that our local schools should be able to implement successfully."
The plan also fulfills lawmakers' earlier promise to reinstate a dedicated funding stream for enhancement teachers that was eliminated by former state Sen. Roy Cooper and former Gov. Jim Hunt in the 1990s. It will immediately set aside more than $60 million to be used for the 2018-19 school year, and will increase that amount each year based on what data shows is actually required to meet students' needs.
Based on current calculations and needs outlined in data provided by local school systems, schools across the state will receive nearly $250 million in additional recurring state dollars to fund special subject area teachers by the 2021-2022 school year.
The bill will also eliminate the state's Pre-K waiting list, adding close to 3,000 slots for low-income children to the program.
The proposal is supported by the N.C. Association of School Administrators.
"Our youngest students will benefit from smaller class sizes and Pre-K programs that we know lead to better outcomes, and our school districts will benefit from dedicated enhancement teacher funding and a longer implementation timeline," said N.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson.
"My hope is that we can now shelve the partisan wedges and put the focus back where it needs to be: on making sure every student can read proficiently by the end of third grade."
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
is a vehicular combat racing game, originally released as an arcade game by Taito in 1988. It is sometimes seen as a spiritual successor to Taito's earlier Full Throttle. The player assumes the role of a police officer named Tony Gibson, member of the "Chase Special Investigation Department". Along with his partner, Raymond Broady, he must stop fleeing criminals in high-speed pursuits in a black Porsche 928.

Chase H.Q. was ported to many home computers by Ocean Software in 1989, including versions for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, Amiga and Atari ST. Taito produced versions for the Family Computer (1989), Game Boy (1990), Master System (1990), TurboGrafx-16 (1990), Game Gear (1991) and Saturn (1996). It was released for PlayStation 2 in Japan in 2007 as part of Taito Memories II Volume 2.

The game was a commercial success, becoming Japan's highest-grossing dedicated arcade game of 1989 while also becoming a hit overseas for arcades and home systems. The game was also well received by critics. It was followed by three arcade-based sequels: Special Criminal Investigation (1989), Super Chase: Criminal Termination (1992) and Chase H.Q. 2 (2007). Two spin-offs were also released: Crime City (1989) and Quiz H.Q. (1990).

Gameplay
At the start of each level the player is informed who they are pursuing, a great distance away: They must apprehend the criminal before their time limit expires. The criminal's car is constantly moving away, so if the player repeatedly crashes or drives too slowly, the criminal will escape. At some points during the game the road splits, and the correct turn must be taken, otherwise it will take longer to catch the criminal. When their vehicle is reached, the time limit is extended; the vehicle must be rammed a number of times until the criminal is forced to stop, then is arrested.

The game includes five levels. Both the initial time limit to reach the criminal and the time extension to ram the criminal are 60, 65, or 70 seconds.

When Nancy at Chase HQ (at the start of every level) calls on the radio, the frequency is often between 144 and 148 MHz. This is actually the 2-meter band of amateur or ham radio frequencies.

Although superficially similar in technology to Sega's Out Run, Chase HQ features significant technical advancements over that title in the presentation of perspective, hills and track splits.

Villains (for arcade versions):
1. Ralph, the Idaho Slasher (White Lotus Esprit)
2. Carlos, the New York armed robber (Yellow Lamborghini Countach)
3. Chicago pushers (Silver Porsche 959)
4. L.A. kidnapper (Blue Ferrari 288 GTO)
5. Eastern Bloc Spy (Red Porsche 928)

The last villain's car is always listed as unidentified.

If the level is completed, bonus points are as follows: if completed without continuing, 100,000 times level in play, otherwise, 10,000; plus, 5,000 per second saved for completing level. A 5,000,000-point award is collected for beating the game.

Ports and related releases
Ocean released versions of the game for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST in December 1989. The MSX version was released in February 1990 only in Spain, roughly one month later after the launch of the rest of Ocean's versions in that market.

Taito produced ports (known as Taito Chase H.Q.) for the Family Computer (1989), Game Boy (1990/1991), Master System (1990), TurboGrafx-16 (1990) and Game Gear (1991). It was released on the Genesis as Chase H.Q. II (known as Super H.Q. in Japan), with some minor changes, including alternative player vehicles.

In December 1990, the game was included on the Wheels Of Fire compilation, which also featured Hard Drivin, Power Drift and Turbo OutRun. In June 1991, the game was released on the Power Up compilation, which also featured Altered Beast, Turrican, Rainbow Islands and X-Out.

In 1991, the game was released for the FM Towns.

In 1993, Taito released Super Chase H.Q. (known in Japan as Super H.Q. Criminal Chaser) for the Super NES. Unlike other home versions, it is played in first person perspective and is based upon Super Chase: Criminal Termination rather than the original Chase H.Q. Gameplay is modeled on the original with some aspects of S.C.I. incorporated. A PAL version of Super Chase H.Q. was released exclusively in Australia in 1993 by Mattel (Nintendo's ANZ distributor until 1994) and re-released by Nintendo Australia thereafter. There is also a Super Chase H.Q. for the Game Boy, which was released exclusively in North America, in 1994. The game is similar to the Game Boy's Taito Chase H.Q. (1991).

In 1996, Taito released an emulation of the arcade original for the Sega Saturn in Japan, bundled together with Special Criminal Investigation on one disc.

In 2000, Chase H.Q. Secret Police was released for the Game Boy Color.

In July 2008, the TurboGrafx-16 version of the game was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console.

A spin-off was released in 1989 titled Crime City. The game play deviates from the traditional third-person driving and is instead a side scrolling type shooter.

Reception

Commercial
Upon release in arcades, Game Machine listed Chase H.Q. on their 15 November 1988 issue as being the second most-successful upright arcade cabinet of the month in Japan. It went on to become Japan's highest-grossing dedicated arcade game of 1989. In the United Kingdom, it was a hit in the arcades, becoming the top coin-on arcade game at one point.

The home computer conversions topped the UK sales chart in Christmas 1989. The ZX Spectrum version of the game was later number 2 on the UK sales charts in early 1990, behind Rainbow Islands.

Critical
The arcade game was very well received by critics. Computer and Video Games gave it a positive review, stating "at last" a "racing game with something more to do than just whizzing around a track to beat the course time". They concluded that it is "fast and challenging with great graphics" and "good clear sound effects" and is "definitely a winner". ACE said that the "Out Run theme keeps being expanded and presented in different ways" like Power Drift but "Chase HQ is the best so far." They concluded that the game's driving and violence is "a winning coin-up combination". Crash said it "is a great game" and "the ultimate arcade version of cops-and-robbers movies". According to Arcade History, it "was arguably the first sprite-scaled racer since" Out Run "to truly capture the gaming public's imagination".

The home computer conversions were also mostly well received by critics. The 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST versions received positive reviews, while the 8-bit ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC conversions received very high review scores and are generally recognised as the most accurate and most playable of the Ocean Software home computer releases. All three of the ZX Spectrum magazines awarded it 94% or above, praising the speed of the game and the originality. Crash gave the game 95%, while Sinclair User awarded it 96%. On the other hand, the 8-bit Commodore 64 conversion received a generally negative reception.

The Sega Master System conversion was well received by critics. Computer and Video Games said the "gameplay is as exciting as it was in the arcades" and "the high-speed thrills of this conversion make it well worth a look."

Accolades
At Japan's 1989 Gamest Awards, the arcade version was nominated for Hit Game of the Year, for which it was voted 10th place. According to an Ocean Software advert in 1989, the arcade version was voted Arcade Game of the Year.

At the 1989/1990 Golden Joystick Awards, the 8-bit home computer versions were awarded Best 8-Bit Coin-Op Conversion and Best 8-Bit Soundtrack. The Spectrum version also topped Computer and Video Games "The Best Games of '89" list (along with Super Mario Bros. 2). The Spectrum version was voted number 1 in the Your Sinclair poll of Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time in 1993.

Records
Brian Kuh from Weirs Beach, New Hampshire holds the official arcade world record with a score of 3,596,680 points achieved on 1 June 2006 at Funspot Family Fun Center, Weirs Beach, New Hampshire. Robert Gray from Dumfriesshire, Scotland holds the official MAME world record with a score of 11,490,280 points achieved on 13 June 2010.

Legacy
Chase H.Q. was successful enough to earn two arcade-based sequels - the widely released Special Criminal Investigation released in 1989 and the extremely rare Super Chase: Criminal Termination released in 1992. It also earned two spin-offs - the run and gun Crime City, and the quiz game Quiz H.Q..

Special Criminal Investigation expands on the original with the addition of guns - the passenger can rise out of the T-top of his Nissan 300ZX Z32 and shoot at oncoming targets. To take advantage of this, enemies are placed throughout the level and will attempt to shoot at or ram the player as they attempt to pursue the main criminal. Deviating from the relatively realistic tracks on offer in the original, the sequel features pursuits through waterfalls and unfinished sections of elevated highway.

Super Chase: Criminal Termination was the third arcade release in the Chase H.Q. series, released in 1992.

The 1997 PlayStation game Ray Tracers, developed and released by Taito, has been described as "more or less a follow up" to the game, with "only a few differences" such as a different speed-boost system and a greater variety of targets.

In February 2006, Chase H.Q. : Nancy Yori Kinkyuu Renraku () was presented at the Arcade Operator's Union trade show in Tokyo. The game was released as Chase H.Q. 2 later in the year.

Saint Etienne recorded a demo dance track called "Chase HQ" that was inspired by Chase H.Q. It includes samples of the "Oh man!" and "Punch the pedal!" exclamations from the game action. The track was released as a bonus track on the 2009 Deluxe reissue of the band's 1991 album, Foxbase Alpha.

Chase HQs gameplay, which involved ramming the enemy car while avoiding oncoming traffic, has been cited as a precursor to the gameplay of later titles such as Driver and Burnout.

References

External links

Arcade History Database entry
Xleague.TV/TGWTG Video Retrospective feature of the Chase H.Q. series
Review of the ZX Spectrum conversion of Chase HQ
Review of the Amiga and Commodore 64 conversions of Chase HQ
Twin Galaxies Official MAME World Record

1988 video games
Arcade video games
Amiga games
Amstrad CPC games
Atari ST games
Commodore 64 games
FM Towns games
Game Boy Color games
Game Boy games
Game Gear games
Golden Joystick Award winners
Master System games
MSX games
Ocean Software games
Racing video games
X68000 games
Single-player video games
Square Enix franchises
Super Nintendo Entertainment System games
Taito arcade games
Taito Z System games
TurboGrafx-16 games
Virtual Console games
Video games about police officers
Video games scored by David Whittaker
Video games scored by Yasuhisa Watanabe
ZX Spectrum games
Video games developed in Japan

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Mellon Fellows Seminar - Ahmed al-Rahim, "Mobility and Knowledge in the Mongol Empire: The "Peripatetic School" (Madrasa-ye Sayyārā) of the Ilḫān Ūlǧāytū (r. 1304-16 A.D.)""
Ahmed H. al-Rahim works on Arabo-Islamic intellectual and religious history from Muhammad to Avicenna to Abū-Bakr al-Baghdādī. His research and teaching cut across the centuries, spanning the Arabic reception history of Avicennan philosophy during Islam's so-called "dark ages," from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, the development of Islamic ethics in the Middle Ages, and the ideologies of political Islam, also known as Islamism, in the Middle East in the early nineteenth to twenty-first century. Professor al-Rahim is currently working on a history of etiquette literature and manuals of practical virtue ethics (ādāb) in Islamicate civilization, and on a short introduction to modern Islamist ideologies. His publications include: Islamic Ethics: An Introduction to the Classical Tradition, New Islamic Surveys (Edinburgh University Press, Forthcoming); The Creation of Philosophical Tradition: Biography and the Reception of Avicenna's Philosophy from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century A.D., Diskurse der Arabistik; XXI (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018); and Before and After Avicenna: Proceedings of the First Conference of the Avicenna Study Group, co-edited with D.C. Reisman, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies, LII (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003).
Wilson Hall 142


text:
title: Ubuntus Karmic Koala Needs You!
author: Rami Taibah
layout: post
permalink: /2009/07/ubuntus-karmic-koala-needs-you/
tags: ubuntu, linux, eye-candy
---

![Ubuntu-Artwork-Flickr-Karmic-Koala-9-10]({filename}/images/Ubuntu-Artwork-Flickr-Karmic-Koala-9-10.png)

The Canonical Design team is currently running a contest for beautiful desktop wallpapers for its upcoming Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 scheduled to be released in October 2009. They have created [a photo pool on Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/groups/ubuntu-artwork/) where you can submit or just browse proposed backgrounds:

> In our next release, the Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10), we would like to include a set of high quality desktop backgrounds.
> In order to accomplish this we call on **anyone** and **everyone** to submit images which are freely licensed CC-BY-SA and follow the [guidelines for inclusion](http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Documentation/Backgrounds).

Here are some more guidelines for the competition:

* Avoid prominent use of the Ubuntu logo. It appears in enough places already.
* No version numbers. Some individuals may desire to use an older theme, or use the latest theme in their older version of Ubuntu. Let your submission be about choice and do not use version numbers in your artwork.
* Avoid text, it calls for attention too much and will likely look bad when scaled. Plus it can't be translated easily.
* Be careful with small patterns, they might become uneven when scaled.
* Consider how the wallpaper will interact with the panels, icons and windows.
* Show restraint in your use of color tone and contrast. The wallpaper sets the scene for other elements, it is not the main act.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your SLR and launch your GIMP!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Telecoms Giant, Huawei Caught in Spying Scandal
Was America's president, Donald Trump correct to blacklist Huawei as a threat to national security?
By Sebastiane Ebatamehi.
An investigation by the Washington Post claims that Huawei Technologies helped Uganda's President Museveni spy on Bobi Wine.
President Yoweri Museveni and Bobi Wine have been at loggerheads over the president's continuous stay in power.
According to the report, Huawei technicians helped authorities in Uganda to intercept encrypted messages to penetrate a WhatsApp chat group in which musician and politician Bobi Wine is a member.
After gaining access to the private messages, Ugandan authorities allegedly used the information in the WhatsApp group to prevent street rallies and arrested Wine and dozens of his supporters.
Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, is a hip-hop artist and Member of Parliament. He is a fierce critic of President Yoweri Museveni.
Huawei Technologies is one of the world's largest telecommunications company. It dominates African markets where it has sold security tools that governments use for digital surveillance and censorship.
Earlier this year, the Chinese company was blacklisted by the American president, Donald Trump. The ban meant that American companies like Google could no longer do business with Huawei because its a threat to national security.
The American president received knocks from critics who believed that Huawei's market dominance influenced the ban. They claimed the dominance was a threat to Apple's sales and shares.
They further anticipated that since Apple is an America company, President Trump only acted to protect their interest.
This is not the first time Huawei has faced accusations of spying for the government. In Zambia, Huawei technicians allegedly helped the government access the phones and Facebook pages of opposition bloggers behind a pro-opposition news site that criticized President Edgar Lungu.
The Huawei employees located the bloggers and were in contact with the police units deployed to arrest them.
The development was confimed by both Spokespersons from Uganda and Zambia's that they are working with Huawei technicians.
In a statement provided to The Washington Post, a Huawei spokesperson wrote: "Huawei rejects these unfounded and inaccurate allegations against our business operations completely. Our internal investigation shows clearly that Huawei and its employees have not engaged in any of the activities alleged. We do not have the contracts nor the capabilities to do so."
Bobi Wine declared earlier this month that he would challenge Museveni for the presidency. The MP cum singer currently faces treason charges.
The charges were in connection to August 2018 protest that led to the stoning of President Museveni's motorcade.
The accusation comes days after the death of Ugandan Musician Ziggy Wine who succumbed to injuries after being abducted and tortured by unknown people. Bobi Wine believes President Museveni ordered the torture.
The artist was a close friend of Bobi Wine and a supporter of the resistance movement in the country.
Header Image Credit: THE #LJfiles
President Yoweri Museveni
Ugandan Activist Sparks Racism Claims ov…
The Ugandan activist was cropped off the group pho…
Africa Betrayed Libya and Muammar Gaddaf…
The Ugandan leader says the African Union should h…
Yvonne Chaka Chaka Promises to Return to…
The South African songstress was not allowed to pe…
Ugandan Court Accuse Govt. of Human Righ…
Dr Stella Nyanzi smiles last after a prolonged bat…
Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei Sets New 10km …
The Ugandan athlete set the new record in Valencia…
Dec 2nd


During our last adventure into the realm of format string exploitation, we learned how we can manipulate format specifiers to rewrite a program's memory with an arbitrary value. While that's all well and good, arbitrary values are boring. We want to gain full control over the values we write, and today we are going to learn how to do just that.
The format string is on the bottom line. Here we can see two symbols that should stick out as odd: %s and %d. These are format specifiers. When a running program comes across a format specifier, it knows to expect a variable to be passed in as a substitute for that format specifier. In the above example, the variables being substituted into the string are person1, person2, and books.
While format strings are indeed convenient, they are not always safe. If an attacker gives a format specifier as input to a program which doesn't properly sanitize that input, the program could be manipulated to read or write its own memory when it isn't supposed to. An attacker could potentially hijack execution of the entire program.
If you're still a little fuzzy on what exactly a format string is, pop back over to our last article on format string exploitation. There, you'll find a much more complete explanation and a practice lab you can follow along with.
Once you've re-familiarized yourself with format strings, it's time to once more embark into the war-torn world of Protostar. For those of you who are new to this exploit development series, Protostar is a virtual machine which we use to practice writing exploits.
As we've seen in previous challenges, an integer variable called "target" is defined. I'd bet every dime I have that modifying this variable is going to have something to with our objective in this challenge. Looking at line 21, this is confirmed. We seem to be tasked with using a format string exploit to make the target variable hold the value "0x01025544."
Unlike the last challenge we walked through, this time we need to write a very specific value to the program memory. We'll worry about that part later though. For now, let's just focus on being able to write anything to memory.
After that, we'll build a skeleton for our exploit by typing the code seen in the screenshot below.
Let's break this code down line by line.
The first line is somewhat optional, all it does is let the operating system know that if it wants to execute this file, it needs to do so with Python. If you choose to omit this line, you can only run the program by typing python exploit.py in the command line.
The next two lines import a couple packages that we will want to use, os and struct. The os package allows us to make system calls and run the format3 program from within our code. This way, we'll be able to start the vulnerable program and pass it our exploit code all from one place. The struct package allows us to write addresses such as 0x01025544 to variables in a format that the vulnerable program will understand easily.
Jumping down a couple lines, the next thing we do in the program is define a main function that will run. Putting our exploit code into a function is optional, but recommended. Storing our exploit in a function helps to keep things organized and makes our exploit easy to call from other Python scripts.
Inside of the function, we create a new variable called payload. This is the variable we will use to store our final exploit code. We give it an initial value of AAAA so that the payload is easy to find once we start trying to figure out where in memory that information is stored.
On the next line, you'll find an arcane symbol, %x. Like %s or %d, %x is a format specifier. Like we saw in the last article, %x allows us to read program memory that we shouldn't be able to. While the other two aforementioned format specifiers also allow us to read program memory, %x presents the memory data in the most usable format. We add four copies of this format specifier to the payload so that we can figure out where in memory the program begins grabbing information to substitute into the string. Once we know where in memory this is occurring, we can determine how far we need to take that process in order to arrive at the memory location we want to be at.
As I mentioned in our last excursion into format strings, this sort of exploitation can seem very abstract at first. Don't worry, I promise that we'll lead you to the ... well ... the promised land. It just may take a little time.
In order to successfully take advantage of a format string exploit, we need to know two pieces of information: First, we need to know where our malicious format specifiers begin reading the memory. Once we know where we're starting, we need to figure out where in memory we are trying to get to. Once we know these two things, we can determine what it will take to get from point A to point B.
If you've read our previous articles on exploit development, this command may seem a bit barren. In the past, the run command has been accompanied by an argument specifying what input we wanted to pass into the program. This isn't how we pass input to the format3 program though. This is because instead of accepting a command line argument as input, format3 uses the fgets command in order to take user input. In this case, the command is similar to the input command in Python, which takes user input once the program has already begun execution.
Here we can see that we've hit the breakpoint we set earlier. The most interesting line is the first one below the string we typed. The line AAAA.0.bffff5c0.b7fd7ff4.0 has the information that we're going to need in order to figure out where in memory the format specifiers begin reading at. Now that we have that information, it's time to go hunting!
We'll start our prowl through these cyber woods with the current stack frame. If we're lucky, we'll find the same byte sequence in the stack frame as we saw printed by the program. Essentially, we're trying to find where in memory the sequence 0.bffff5c0.b7fd7ff4.0 appears.
Aha! There's that rascal ... wait. It seems that the beast has eluded us thus far. While we see one of the memory sections we are looking for, the next two don't match. We are looking for 0.bffff5c0.b7fd7ff4.0 exactly in that order, with nothing in between.
There it is! Our arduous search has paid off. We have found our prey. The format specifiers start reading at the location 0xbffff590. This is 12 sections of memory before our beloved As. This means we need 12 format specifiers in order to read memory we have the ability to write to.
The output of that command will show us the address of the target variable.
From the above output, we can see that the address of "target" is 0x80496f4. If we use the x command to examine this piece of memory, we see the current value at that memory address is 0. This is exactly what we would expect since "target" isn't given a value when it is declared in the source code.
Now that we have these two key pieces of information, the number of format specifiers we need and the address of the target variable, we can finish our exploit. Let's knock this bad boy out.
It's pretty much the same. We really don't want to change too much at one time though. This approach is called incremental development. The idea is that by coding and testing in small increments, we can minimize the amount of mistakes we make. While this may seem inefficient, it is significantly faster than trying to program a massive chunk of a project, making a mistake, and trying to dig through and find the mistake later.
Sweet. Just as we were hoping, the last format specifier read the very beginning of our payload. This doesn't do us any good if the beginning of our payload is just a bunch of As. As nice as a bunch of As can be, they don't do us much good when it comes to overwriting memory addresses.
So, what we need to do next is change our As to the address of target we found earlier. This can be easily done with the pack function in the struct package. By using this function, we can put the address of target into our payload in a format that the program can read correctly. Let's open up our exploit file again and make this change.
The change comes on line 7 with the struct.pack function. The first argument of struct.pack specifies that we want to package the information as an unsigned integer. We don't really need to worry about that too much, but it's good to know why we're doing what we're doing. The second argument is the information that we want to package. The struct.pack function returns a string, which we then append to the payload string variable.
As we had prayed would happen, the last memory address we read is the address of the target variable, 0x80496f4.
Now that we know that the last piece of data we're reading contains the address of the target variable, we can move on to writing data.
The way we do this is with the %n format specifier. Like the %x format specifier, the %n format specifier reads a piece of data from memory. Unlike %x, %n does not display the memory that it reads. Instead, it writes the length of the string up to that point. Where does this data get written to? Why the address equivalent to the value that was read, of course.
The change should be fairly obvious. Our last format specifier went from being %x to %16930040x. Having a number in the middle of a format specifier determines how much padding should be printed with the variable. For instance, the following code would print out "Hello Steve" with five extra spaces between "Hello" and "Steve."
These extra padding characters are counted as a part of the length of the string. This means that by padding the last %x format specifier with 16930040, it should give us the correct string length we need to write "01025544" to the target variable. Let's try it out!
Well, we're certainly a lot closer. It looks like we still need 8 more bytes in our string to get to the magic number. This is because we set the last format specifier to have a total length of 16930040 bytes. That format specifier was already giving us a string that is 8 bytes long. This means we were only adding 16930032 bytes to the length of the entire string. Oops. This is an easy fix though. All we have to do is change %16930040x to %16930048x. This will give us the correct number of bytes to overwrite the target variable with the value we want.
And just like a mediocre comedian, we were able to turn that frown into a vaguely approving smile.
Despite the anticlimactic response from the program, the implications of format string vulnerabilities can be quite damaging. In this particular example, all we did was overwrite a variable. However, we could very easily use this sort of vulnerability to overwrite the programs instruction pointer to execute shellcode like we did when we worked through the stack overflow challenges. Format string vulnerabilities have the potential to be just as dangerous as stack overflow vulnerabilities.
Thank you for reading! Congratulations on making it through the slow grind of format string exploitation. Being able to think through these kinds of problems will really help your critical thinking in all areas of computer science, so good on you. Comment below with any questions or contact me via Twitter @xAllegiance.
How To: Attack on Stack [Part 6]; Smash the Stack Visualization: NOP Sled Technique, the End of a Trilogy.
Great tutorial dude. Easy to follow and understand exactly what you did and how you got to the solution. Other write ups have failed to clearly elucidate the steps in their solutions.
Thank you so much for this gem of a resource.


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Sprint, T Mobile Win US Antitrust Approval for $26 Billion Merger
Sprint, T-Mobile Win US Antitrust Approval for $26 Billion Merger
The companies agreed to divest Sprint's prepaid businesses to satellite television firm Dish Network.
By Reuters | Updated: 27 July 2019 10:50 IST
T-Mobile competes with US telco giants Verizon and AT&T
T-Mobile CEO John Legere will lead the combined company
A group of US state attorneys general have sued to block the merger
T-Mobile and Sprint's Dish are required to work out a deal
T-Mobile US won US antitrust approval for its $26 billion (roughly Rs.1,79,036 crores) takeover of rival Sprint, the Justice Department said Friday, clearing a major hurdle to a deal that merges the nation's third and fourth largest wireless carriers.
The companies have agreed to divest Sprint's prepaid businesses, including Boost Mobile, to satellite television firm Dish Network to create a fourth US wireless carrier.
The Justice Department indicated the deal would improve competition and the rollout of faster 5G networks by combining weaker players and creating a strong, new No. 4, in Dish, that has unused spectrum, which can be activated. Critics, including some state attorneys general, say competition won't increase and prices for mobile phone plans will rise.
The deal is a clear success for T-Mobile Chief Executive Officer John Legere, who will be the CEO of the combined company and who pushed back at critics arguing a more concentrated market would lead to higher prices.
"It's a bit dumbfounding to think that we've decided to go and build this network and go through this merger so that we can become the basic, lazy, fat, dumb and arrogant players that we were born to teach how to behave," he told analysts in a conference call.
Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, said the deal would hasten the development of 5G, the next generation of wireless.
Shares of T-Mobile, which is about 63 percent owned by Deutsche Telekom, were up 5.3 percent at $84.17. Shares of Sprint, which is about 84 percent owned by Softbank Group, rose 7.1 percent to $7.97. Dish was up 0.7 percent at $39.44.
But the deal still faces a significant challenge: A group of US state attorneys general, including from New York and California, have sued to block the merger on antitrust grounds, arguing the proposed deal would cost consumers more than $4.5 billion (roughly Rs. 30,987 crores) annually.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James indicated the lawsuit would continue, at least in part because of what critics see as Dish's failure to live up to pledges it had made.
"We have serious concerns that cobbling together this new fourth mobile player, with the government picking winners and losers, will not address the merger's harm to consumers, workers, and innovation," she said.
The Justice Department, backed by five state attorneys general, said the deal required the merging companies to sell Virgin Mobile and Sprint's prepaid business and provide Dish with access to 20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail locations.
Prepaid wireless phones are generally sought by lower-income people who cannot pass a credit check.
Dish has agreed to acquire spectrum, or airwaves that carry data, in a deal valued at $3.6 billion from the merged firm and pay $1.4 billion for Sprint's prepaid business that serves about 9.3 million customers. Dish will get access to the new T-Mobile's network for seven years while it builds its own 5G network.
T-Mobile and Dish are also required to work out a deal where T-Mobile can use Dish's unused 600 MHz spectrum and the companies are required to use eSIM, which allows consumers to switch easily between carriers, a Justice Department official said.
Sceptical lawmakers
T-Mobile competes with Verizon Communications and AT&T.
U.S. consumers tend to stick with one mobile carrier for years, giving companies a steady stream of cash. As more people rely on cell phones for social media, banking or news and entertainment, the lines have blurred between telecom, content and cable companies, just as so-called 5G technology promises to make mobile phones even more powerful.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement on Friday he would soon circulate a formal order supporting the deal. The FCC could vote on final approval in August or September, officials said.
The FCC agreed to give Dish more time to use spectrum it previously acquired. The company could face up to $2.2 billion in penalties and lose its spectrum licenses if it fails to meet its commitments to build its network, according to a letter filed Friday with the FCC. Dish must have a 5G network covering at least 70% of the U.S. population no later than June 14, 2023.
Dish has spent years stockpiling wireless spectrum and faced a looming March 2020 deadline to build a product using the spectrum in order to fulfil its licence requirements.
Some senior lawmakers remained sceptical about the merger, including Senators Mike Lee, a Republican, and Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, the top lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee.
Lee said he was hopeful the divestiture would succeed but uneasy about Dish's dual role as a critic of the transaction and a buyer of divested assets.
Klobuchar, who is running for president, reiterated that she had wanted the deal stopped. "It looked like a bad deal then, and it looks like a bad deal today, despite the parties' promises and this proposed consent decree," she said.
Further reading: T-Mobile, Sprint
Apple Request for Tariffs Exemption on Mac Pro Parts From China Denied: Trump
Trump Says US Could Tax French Wine in Retaliation for Digital Tax
T-Mobile CEO John Legere Stepping Down Next Year, Even as Sprint Deal Not Done
People Puzzled by Peculiar Texts in the US, and No One Can Say Why
Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Approved by US Telecom Regulator
Google Denies Talking to Dish to Create Fourth Telecom Carrier in the US
Ten US States Sue to Stop Sprint-T-Mobile Deal, Saying Consumers Will Be Hurt
Samsung Galaxy A51 Launched In India- Unboxing, Price In India, And More


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Antibiotic resistance bacteria: a global health threat.
UC San Diego Health phage therapy patient Tom Patterson and wife, Steffanie Strathdee, in November 2015, vacationing in Egypt just days before Patterson contracted a multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infection.
Tom's condition turns critical as he fights for his life against a multi drug resistant superbug, A.baumannii.
Bacteriophages infecting bacteria, computer illustration. The tail injects the genetic material into the bacterium, and the cellular machinery of the bacterium is used to produce more copies of the virus.
Tom Patterson recovering at Thornton Hospital at UC San Diego Health in July 2016, four months after phage therapy and eight months after he initially contracted a multi-drug resistant bacterial infection in Egypt.
Tom Patterson and wife, Steffanie Strathdee, at home in December 2016, nine months after phage therapy at UC San Diego Health and 13 months since he contracted a multi-drug resistant bacterial infection in Egypt.
Rob Knight, Ph.D., Director, Center for Microbiome Innovation, University of California San Diego, Author, "Follow your Gut" and "Dirt is Good"
"A remarkable story of love, resilience, the science of discovery, and quite possibly the future of medicine".
"A gripping and intriguing medical thriller"


None of which you would have predicted on its critical reception ahead of its Boxing Day release. It's not an accurate portrayal of PT Barnum's life, some said; it doesn't have enough of a dramatic narrative, others sniffed; still more have derided its complete lack of any post-modern ironic edge, de rigueur for a contemporary musical so they'd have you believe. And there's merits to all of these points though they do seem to spectacularly miss the point of the film, which is pure entertainment.
It is on shaky ground if you scrutinise it too deeply but if you just go in with a bag of Butterkist, critical faculties switched off and your best belting voice at the ready, The Greatest Showman taps into something as sweet and wonderful (and yes, insubstantial) as candy floss. But as the immense twinkling charm of Hugh Jackman guides us through the genesis of the circus, as Pasek and Paul's shiny songwriting hits paydirt once again, as it taps into an old-fashioned sense of spectacle, it proves hard to resist. And if you don't like it, then that's absolutely fine too!
Pleasingly for me, the film has also provided breakout success for Keala Settle, playing Lettie Lutz – a bearded lady – whose big number 'This Is Me' is a true powerhouse moment, the perfect vehicle for this undersung Broadway performer (so very good in Waitress) to let loose. And it is this song which has scored The Greatest Showman's sole Oscar nod and means that Settle will get to impress an even wider audience with what should, by rights, be one of the stand-out moments of the night.


text:
What does it mean to be educated?
Elizabeth Suhanina
Education should be much more than a degree or the amassment of knowledge.
Wednesday, 26 April 2017 Journal
Around June this year, a couple of weeks before my 23rd birthday, I expect to be handed my master's degree in physics. Besides extensive specialisation and research for a doctoral degree, this is the highest honour a person can obtain to signify his mastery in a particular field. In essence, there is no doubt that I, and the many others in my graduating class, would be looked at as 'educated' people.
Things and behaviours will be expected of us now that a formal closure has been made to a two-decade-long journey of learning. But, two decades later, what does it all mean? As holders of such a degree, and, more broadly, as educated people, what should education really mean to us? I think there are a series of characteristics which describe what a truly educated mind is and it takes more than a simple list to understand these. Then again, perhaps it takes one educated mind to appreciate another, but I digress.
This is a republishing of an old article from the archives in part due to its popularity and in part because I think it will prove to be a worthwhile and timely read, especially for someone hoping to graduate soon.
A look at the etymology of said academic degree takes us to Latin: the word 'magister' meant a master, a scholar who was proficient enough in a field to teach at a university. There are, strictly speaking, only two master's degrees in the world: Master of Arts (MA, or AM in some countries), and Master of Science (MS or SM in the US, MSc in the UK, India etc.). Everything else (MBA, MFA, MPhil etc.) are 'tagged' degrees specific to various fields and any discussion beyond this quickly gets messy. But, that said, I think this is a wrong approach to the question at hand because it deals not with the fundamental aspect of learning, but instead works towards defining an acceptable level of proficiency in a particular field. To really understand education one will have to go deeper, to its roots, and back in time over 2,300 years.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle
Aristotle was a man with remarkable insight into a lot of things. He would have had the equivalent of a master's degree in an array of disciplines if the concept existed back then; and, although all his theories about the universe were wrong, it was his manner of thinking scientifically that really pushed the boundaries of schools back in his time. As wrong as his science was, his philosophies were spot on: 'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it', he once said, and it really takes a couple of readings to grasp the full meaning of his words.
To me, this statement by Aristotle has often been the cornerstone of a scientific and educated mind. Life is full of decisions waiting to be taken, full of debates to be argued, as well as agreements and disagreements to be had. In life one is presented with a plethora of choices, an array of approaches to a task, several manners and ways in which a thing can be done and it is easy to be influenced by others, which brings me to my first characteristic: the educated mind can think independently. It should be able to take in everything around it, facts, rumours, observations, and biases, then it should be able to make sense of everything, weigh everything, and finally arrive at an objective conclusion, unadulterated by the noise all around.
Does it mean, then, that educated people know facts? A seemingly valid argument can be made that facts help in decision making. I do not believe this is true. A distinction needs to be made between 'facts' and 'information': knowing the remarkable fact that Jupiter is hundreds of thousands of times more massive than the Earth does not help me decide if I should or should not buy groceries today. What helps is knowing relevant information as to, for example, whether my refrigerator is stocked or not, or whether I have a dinner reservation elsewhere today or need to cook at home. In other words, facts by themselves are often useless until they are put in context; and when they are, they become information.
Is it then possible to argue that anyone with sufficient information can take good decisions? This logic falls flat for the same reason why anyone given a chessboard and a rule book cannot magically start winning at chess: information is the starting point, but knowing information is different from handling information, which brings us to the second characteristic: the methods and skills of using information to our best advantage is something an educated mind has acquired.
You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work. Sherlock Holmes
It is important to note the use of the word 'acquired' here. Not 'learnt', but acquired. A lot of the skills an educated mind possess cannot simply be taught; they are slowly developed and improved over a long period of time with constant dedication (even halfhearted dedication can yield better results than someone who sits mum at home)—which is why the entire process of education lasts at least ten–twelve years.
That is where Jupiter comes in. To 97% of the people1 graduating with a degree that signifies their 'education' is complete, knowing absolutely anything about Jupiter is of no use in their daily life, but, for the last ten years, the use of such facts, situations, circumstances, and examples are what helped them develop their mental abilities. Every single fact that one learnt need not be of direct use to us everywhere, everyday, but you can rest assured that they each played an important role at one point in developing your mind.
Consider, for example, what the writer and speaker Alfie Kohn says of his wife—
She (is) a successful practicing physician. However, she will freeze up if you ask her what 8 times 7 is, because she never learned the multiplication table. And forget about grammar or literature… So what do you make of this paradox? Is she a walking indictment of the system that let her get so far—29 years of schooling, not counting medical residency—without acquiring the basics of English and math? Or does she offer an invitation to rethink what it means to be well-educated since what she lacks didn't prevent her from becoming a high-functioning, multiply credentialed, professionally successful individual?
The wonderful Mrs Kohn is not the only one. The accomplished detective, Sherlock Holmes2, for all his powers of deduction was rather ignorant in most matters that did not directly concern his work. His friend and colleague, Dr Watson, once said of him—
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing… My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System… That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
The commonality between Sherlock Holmes and Mrs Kohn is that they both knew whatever they needed for their job perfectly. This is how a lot of one's education ultimately goes down: we end up forgetting, to various extents, the things we learnt that are no longer useful to our jobs, and we slowly become experts at whatever we learnt that is playing an important role in our day jobs3.
However, to get where they did, they likely needed a lot of the forgotten knowledge, and, in any case, having all that knowledge broadened their horizons enough long before they settled on their current, highly focussed jobs. This is what I like to call peripheral knowledge—hazy stuff you once knew but have no need for at the moment—and you could have gained it from anywhere: school, books, newspapers, intelligent conversation with peers et cetera. It is the usefulness of this peripheral knowledge that leads us to the third characteristic of the educated mind: while such knowledge most certainly does not impart expertise, it cannot be denied that because of it the educated mind can think multidimensionally and hold discussions across a wide network of interdisciplinary ideas and enrich any conversation.
A lot of our world has been shaped by a steady flow of ideas, most brilliant, few world-changing, and almost all of these have been brought out by educated minds. I foresee several people wanting to point out that some great inventors and scientists never had formal education, but that has never been the point: nowhere have I directly linked education and formal schooling as exclusive.
For a mind to be educated, from everything I have said, the key requirement is exposure to ideas, which is something that can be had with no formal schooling whatsoever. Perhaps one must have to be extraordinarily talented to both read about ideas and sprout them with little exposure to an inspiring peer group or an environment of rigorous learning, but, for the vast majority, formal schooling often simply proves to be more effective. That said, it is worth noting that although said inventors and scientists never had 'formal education', they were all still self-taught, which would make it a manner of schooling nonetheless, just not one by formal definition. What John Dewey said about education, in my opinion, sums it up beautifully—
(Education cultivates) deep-seated and effective habits of discriminating tested beliefs from mere assertions, guesses, and opinions; to develop a lively, sincere, and open-minded preference for conclusions that are properly grounded, and to ingrain into the individual's working habits methods of inquiry and reasoning appropriate to the various problems that present themselves.
But what causes the initial spark? One could attribute it to a lot of things, but it would be shortsighted not to give a huge chunk of the credit to one's curiosity. To accept the status-quo is not always a bad thing, but if all we do is accept the status-quo, then we have put an end to our social and scientific evolution, and will soon cease to exist. If we stopped at wheels and never built the horse cart, if we stopped at sparking fire and never cooked on it, if we stopped at caves and never built villages, we would have died a long while back.
We have come far enough that we can survive considerably long even if innovation simply ceased altogether, but the end, while delayed, is nonetheless the same. Mr Dewey, in his book, How we think4 speaks of how curiosity, save in some people, can easily be dulled and how education helps keep it kindled. Curiosity and the habit of questioning leads to innovation and change; embracing change and exploiting it to better our world is not something only the educated mind can do, but it takes an educated mind to make the change rapid and voluminous enough to make a difference. Our fourth characteristic is then simple, but supremely effective in life: an educated mind is a curious and probing mind.
We discussed how an educated mind improves the chances of sparking ideas in society and helps drive an idea from its inception to its realisation. Everything said so far cascades in a manner so as to allow better thinking, better decision-making, and better execution to bring an idea to life. Can, then, a robot or AI of any sort—programmed with all the information it may need and all the logic it may wish to derive from—take these decisions just as well?
As much as I want a robot maid like the Jetsons, I would not be hasty in giving them duties along this line. This is where the so-called 'human element' comes in. Problem solving is multidimensional and cannot be programmed absolutely5 without thinking of every possible outcome, which, the larger a problem becomes, the harder it gets, tending towards impossibility.
One of the requirements in such a scenario is being able to change perspectives; the ability to look at a problem from someone else's shoes and to understand and appreciate the views of another person by looking at the situation from their stand is neither simple nor easy. This form of empathy is something education cultivates. Added to it are the usual traits of understanding, sympathising, helping, and encouraging. All of these add up to good habits that help lead people in any manner towards any common goal. This is precisely what our next characteristic is: an educated mind cam empathise with, encourage, lead and bring out the best in others.
With ideals and practicality merged, education should, undoubtedly, prepare students for a better life, and for an independent life in general. I have come to believe, sincerely, that the effect of education is not always immediately obvious, but will show itself when the need arises—and particularly while in the company of the uneducated. An article in the Washington Post last year puts in judiciously: 'Education should prepare young people for life, work and citizenship.' These are the material aspects which hide the deeper characteristics we have described so far; they merge uncomfortably with the perks of literacy, but they cannot—and should not—be overlooked.
There are other, simpler sides to what makes someone educated. As my friend, Manu, puts it, the work educated people do will 'help the world' and educated people find 'simple ways' of finishing complex tasks. While these are not exclusive to educated minds—anyone with sufficient expertise can simplify complex ideas, for example—they are nonetheless smaller prerequisites.
Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform. Derrick Bell
Lastly, in addition to having discussed everything that education is, an equally important topic that merits discussion is what education is not. Education is not literacy. Learning to read and write gives you certain capabilities but this is too often confused with education. A college degree, therefore, signifies both education and literacy, but a lot of graduates, sadly, are merely literate and not educated. Education also varies by subject. For instance you could hardly call yourself 'educated' in C programming if you know 28% of it, but the brilliant mathematician, John von Neumann, when asked how much mathematics a person can hope to learn replied just this: twenty-eight percent.
Some disciplines are vaster than others, older, more developed, larger, more complex and harder to understand and master. Of these physics is the oldest, largest, and the fastest developing subject on earth, which means it is that much harder for one to fully master it. This is precisely why I shied away from attributing to one's knowledge of their discipline a great deal of responsibility in describing the level of their education. It is important, but not important enough. For me, as a physicist, this marks a point in my journey: an extremely important point, and one that I will treasure, in a journey that will last no less than a lifetime.
The other three percent of us become astrophysicists.↩
Forgive me for resorting to a figment of our imagination, but most of us probably know Holmes better than any living person I can name in his place.↩
Holmes goes so far as to purposely forget anything he learnt that does not make a difference to him.↩
Dewey's How we think is free to download as a pdf, so you have no reason not to read it.↩
At least not at the moment. I would certainly be weary of living in a world where it can.↩
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Bill Nighy Discards Science for Magic, Signs Onto Last Potter Films
Rhys Ifans Joins 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' as a Lovegood
Another fantastic British actor has joined the Potter universe. Rhys Ifans will be jumping off The Boat That Rocked and strapping his conspiracy goggles on for The Deathly Hallows.
Deathly Hallows Set for 2010 Release
The good news is that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has announced a release date. The bad news is that, after this year's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, fans will have to wait two years sans the lightening-scarred sorcerer.
SXSW Blog: The Long Road into Texas
By Neil Miller
From Columbus, Ohio to Austin, Texas to movies to party… It was a long day 1 (alright, days 1-3, but who's counting).


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https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-immigration-business-lifestyle-health-a569517379e770a146b1741391c2d970
UN migration agency: COVID has 'radically altered' mobility
By JAMEY KEATENDecember 1, 2021 GMT
FILE - A migrants makeshift camp is set up in Calais, northern France, on Nov. 27, 2021. The U.N. migration agency says the coronavirus pandemic has "radically altered" mobility around the world, projecting in a new report that the growth in the number of international migrants is likely to remain weaker as long as travel and other restrictions remain. (AP Photo/Rafael Yaghobzadeh)
GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. migration agency says the coronavirus pandemic appears to have accelerated "hostile rhetoric" against migrants in the world and "radically altered" mobility, projecting in a new report that travel and other COVID-19-fighting restrictions could dampen migration worldwide as long as they remain.
The International Organization for Migration released Wednesday its World Migration Report 2022, a vast compendium of the latest trends in human movement of all types — from people fleeing war to workers seeking jobs abroad — and a recap of the last two years of mobility. It cited the impact, for example, of a plunge in air travel last year as the pandemic was raging.
IOM pointed to a "dramatic increase" in internal displacement — movement within countries — caused by natural disasters, conflict and violence just as COVID-19 restrictions have sporadically shut borders across the globe since the pandemic emerged and spread over the last two years.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered immobility worldwide to an extent unseen in recent history, slowing the pace of human mobility and migration," said Ugochi Daniels, IOM's deputy director-general for operations, at a meeting of its member states. "The pandemic is estimated to have negatively impacted the total growth of international migrants by 2 million."
IOM Director-General Antonio Vitorino said "the pandemic also seems to have accelerated the hostile rhetoric toward migrants that has been growing in the last decade."
"So we have devoted, in this report, a chapter on disinformation about migration," he said. "Our research shows that debunking myth, as well as pre-bunking strategies, can help to mitigate or prevent harm caused by nefarious actors, who seek to undermine balanced discussions on migration."
The report tallied about 281 million international migrants — not 283 million as initially expected — around the world by its latest complete count in 2020, amounting to just 3.6% of the global population. That was up from 272 million in 2019. About 60% of those migrants last year were migrant workers, it said.
IOM noted that migration is increasingly taking place between highly developed countries, not just from poorer countries to rich ones.
International remittances — people sending money back home — dropped to $702 billion in 2020, compared to $719 billion a year earlier, but marked a smaller decline than expected.
"The resilience of migrants' international remittances has defied predictions, remaining high in 2020, with just a 2.4% decline globally — and much less dire than the 20 % drop initially projected," Daniels said.
About 3,900 people died while on the move last year, down from 5,400 in 2019, IOM said.
The report highlighted "major migration and displacement events," including conflicts in places like Syria, Yemen, Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan, as well as political and economic instability like Venezuela and Afghanistan in the period. It also cited climate and weather related displacement in places like China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Haiti and the United States over the last two years.


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French driver confuses entrance to car park with Metro station… and gets a shock
When a French city's Metro station and a car park have the same name it's easy to get confused between the two, isn't it?
Published: 7 November 2017 10:32 CET
Photo: Twitter/@Letontonskol
It's not the first time and it certainly won't be the last.
A driver in the south western French city of Toulouse got a shock on Monday night when she realised what she thought was the entrance to an underground car park was actually the stairs down to the Metro station.
The driver, a woman aged in her 50s from the Landes department of the south west, had been looking for the entrance to the Jeanne-d'Arc car park but instead drove down into the Jeanne-d'Arc Metro station.
Images posted on Twitter showed the car stuck on the stairs with the two rear wheels in the air. It was the Toulouse transport authorities who first raised the alarm after spotting on CCTV the huge crowd of amused onlookers gathering at the station entrance.
Quand tu confonds parking jeanne d'arc et metro jeanne d'arc #toulouse pic.twitter.com/wxTtBNwYa4
— Ton Tonton preféré (@letontonskol) November 6, 2017
Regional newspaper La Depeche reported that the shocked driver remained in the vehicle for several minutes until firefighters arrived at the scene.
Luckily for her no one was hurt in the incident and firefighters managed to pull her car out of the entrance without causing any damage.
#Toulouse est magique!!!! #mcdo #metro #championdumonde pic.twitter.com/OSQVJ4JZpi
— Mike Laskar (@MikeLaskar) November 6, 2017
She can also console herself with the fact that she was not the only driver to have confused the entrance to an underground car park with a Metro station.
In 2014 The Local reported how motorist accidentally drove into a Metro station entrance on the Champs Elysées in Paris of all places.
The driver zipped off the busy Avenue Champs Elysees and drove onto the pavement towards what he believed was a car park, but it was only after making it down several stairs that he realized his mistake.
Photos from the scene show onlookers laughing, some as they climbed past the car on their way out of the Metro.
un mec qui a confondu une entrée de parking souterrain avec une bouche de metro.#paris #champselysees #park #fail pic.twitter.com/3szM22aBNS
— Sofiane.F (@farrahsofiane) March 19, 2014
Given that Paris has over 300 Metro stations and hundreds of thousands of drivers, run-ins between the two aren't that rare. In April 2012 a 26-year-old man, who police determined was sober, also ran into some parking problems.
He drove his SUV partly into the Chausee D'Antin Metro entrance before he realized it wasn't the parking garage where he'd planned to leave his car.
Ce mec est TROP FORT !
Confondre arrêt de métro et entrée de parking à Haussman aujourd'hui .. pic.twitter.com/oABkpdZ1
— Daniel Bena (@danou00013) April 24, 2012
Beach parking rates soar at tourist hotspots across France
Price hikes: How life in France will get a little more expensive in 2018
The cost of a simple trip to the beach is rising fast in some of France's tourist hotspots, with holidaymakers having to dig deeper to cover the cost of parking.
Tourists in many coastal parts of France are having to cough up higher amounts than ever for parking penalties and leaving their cars parked on public roads for extended periods of time.
The price hike has become much more obvious this summer, the first long-term holiday period since deregulation by France's central government put the parking power in municipal hands on January 1st 2018.
Town halls now have the right to decide how much they charge drivers for parking on public space, so many of the 400 municipalities involved have increased their rates, extended the payment times and introduced stiffer penalties for unpaid parking tickets.
According to French daily Les Echos, the first hour of parking remains roughly the same at €1 across most of l'Héxagone, but the price soars quickly the longer they stay.
As the reform does prevent town halls from setting the price of fines (the post-parking or non-payment fee, FPS as it is called in France) in excess of the cost of a full day's parking rate, they have instead extended payment periods and bumped up rates for long-term parking.
In the seaside Côte d'Azur town of Cavalaire-sur-Mer, the parking price has almost quadrupled from €6 to €23 for the day.
Upmarket neighbour Saint-Tropez now charges drivers €30 to park on a street close to the beach and in Brittany in the northwest of France, authorities in the coastal town of Concarneau have set the daily amount at €35.
These are France's 12 'most expensive' beaches
Saint Tropez. Photo: Krzysztof Belczyński/Flickr
But whereas some coastal municipalities are seeing deregulation and an increase in tourist numbers as a chance to fill public coffers, other smaller tourist spots are more apprehensive about dissuading visitors with sky-high rates.
The seaside town of Sainte-Maxime on the French Riviera for example has decided to make its beachside public car park completely free of charge to visitors.
Authorities in France's biggest cities have however taken to putting up parking rates, much the same as town halls in some of the country's most popular coastal spots.
In Paris the rate for not displaying a parking ticket is now €50 and in Lyon it's as high as €60.
FIND OUT MORE: Parking fines to skyrocket in Paris and other cities in France
Van driver in Paris ends up parked on steps of Metro station
Parking fines to skyrocket in Paris and other cities across France


This Japanese film from 1989 follows a senior detective around as he tracks local drug kingpins he discovers have connections inside the police department. He plays outside the rules and is barely tolerated. When he tracks down a suspect his behavior is violent, cruel, and vicious. As he upsets the local drug "business arrangements" his mentally disturbed sister is kidnapped by the bad guys. The cop goes on a cool, calm, and collected rampage. Much blood is spilled in the process.
Stated this way one can imagine any number of films that fit this boilerplate. In the hands of director Kitano we get instead a steady but brutal procedural that we gradually realize is Not Going To End Well. Kitano plays the main character and his mannerisms, way of talking, and even his walk signal a calm demeanor that barely conceals the coiled vigilante underneath.
Moral codes? There are none here. Kitano's character lives outside the mainstream despite his devotion to his sister. He is close to no one at the police department where he works and, in fact, has silent contempt for them.
The pace of this film is languid as we follow the characters around between bouts of sudden and occasionally awful violence. We spend much time in the city streets and back alleys of this water-side Japanese city.
It is my understanding that this was Kitano's first film as a director. His confidence in front of and behind the camera is impressive. Recommended (for the non-squeamish).


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How to buy drone detection (eBook)
Ohio governor deploys National Guard to help federal prison with COVID-19
Officials fear that an outbreak of the swift-spreading and contagious disease could overwhelm prison staff and local hospitals in the mostly rural area
By Cory Shaffer
Advance Ohio Media
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday announced that he authorized the Ohio National Guard to help federal officials handle an outbreak of the coronavirus in a federal prison in Elkton that has left three inmates dead.
The state is will send up to 26 medically trained guard members, as well as equipment including ambulances, to the Columbiana County facility on Tuesday for a mission that will last seven to 10 days, DeWine said at his Monday briefing from the Ohio Statehouse.
A COVID-19 outbreak in a federal prison in Elkton has left three inmates dead. (Photo/Cleveland.com via TNS)
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The members will be unarmed and will not provide any security. The mission will continue until the federal government can send help, DeWine said.
"This is a medical mission, only," DeWine stressed during his daily pandemic briefing.
DeWine also called on the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to stop sending new inmates to the facility until the outbreak is under control.
"When an outbreak inside the prison takes place, it's certainly not the time to introduce new inmates to that population," DeWine said.
Sen. Rob Portman tweeted on Monday that the Federal Bureau of Prisons had agreed not to send prisoners to the facility.
A spokeswoman for the prisons bureau said in a statement that the Army Corp of Engineers is also sending medical personnel to Elkton to work with the guard members to provide lab testing, portable x-rays and in-patient care to inmates at the prison. The goal is to reduce the number of inmates being transferred to local hospitals to preserve bed space.
"Guardsmen and women are deploying solely to assist with medical care at the prison," Sue Allison said in a statement. "The BOP very much appreciates the assistance of and coordination with the Army Corp of Engineers and the Ohio National Guard in providing this additional medical support to FCI Elkton."
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Justin Herdman's declined to comment on Monday afternoon.
The move comes after the federal prisons bureau on Saturday reported that Frank McCoy, 76, was the third inmate to die of suspected coronavirus-related illness in as many days at the prison. Woodrow Taylor, 53, and Margarito Garcia-Fragoso, 65, died Thursday.
The facility, about 100 miles east of Cleveland, includes a low-security prison and a satellite prison that combined can house 2,469 inmates.
Officials fear that an outbreak of the swift-spreading and contagious disease could overwhelm prison staff and local hospitals in the mostly rural area.
U.S Rep. Bill Johnson, whose district includes the facility, said in a statement Monday that 23 inmates housed at Elkton and two staff members have tested positive for the disease. Several inmates had been transferred to local hospitals for treatment, Johnson said.
Johnson said the facility is "like a petri dish, a breeding ground for the virus" and that he is monitoring the situation daily.
"We have a moral responsibility to protect the health and safety of both staff and inmates at the Elkton facility and that's exactly what we are going to do," Johnson said in his statement.
DeWine said he asked the guard's surgeon general and officials from the health department to go to the prison after he began receiving phone calls from local officials worried about the conditions inside the prison.
Maj. Gen. John Harris, Ohio's adjutant general, reported that Elkton is operating with half the medical personnel it should be, DeWine said. The prison also has to send two guards to monitor each inmate who is transferred to a hospital outside of the prison.
"There is no doubt that this prison needs help," DeWine said.
The guard sent an advance team to the prison on Monday, DeWine said. The federal government on Monday also formally asked for the state's assistance.
The members will focus on treating inmates who show symptoms of the virus and those who are sick with other illnesses, and help the infirmary get those with severe symptoms to area hospitals, DeWine said. If the virus continues to spread, the members will help officials transport inmates to the hospital.
DeWine also said that he had received calls from family members of inmates at the facility asking him to order the release of prisoners there. DeWine said he has no authority to do so because the federal government runs that facility.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Friday ordered prison officials to speed up their efforts to place some inmates on home confinement. The goal is to remove many older inmates, along with those with preexisting conditions that may make them susceptible to illnesses associated with the virus, from behind bars.
His memo specifically mentioned focusing efforts on Elkton, as well as prisons in Louisiana and Connecticut.
Among the high-profile inmates in custody at the facility is former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, who is serving a 28-year sentence for corruption-related crimes.
Prison officials released Amish Bishop Sam Mullet from a halfway house to his home in late March to finish serving the rest of his sentence due to the virus.
©2020 Advance Ohio Media, Cleveland
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
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Teacher Attire: Too Hot For The Classroom?
Forget about what the kids are wearing for a moment, the clothing worn by teachers has become an issue in some districts:
Teachers are expected to bear long days, challenging students and demanding parents. Now, apparently, some teachers are baring too much of themselves. School boards and superintendents increasingly are pursuing dress codes for teachers. At issue is the same kind of questionable attire most often associated with students.
In some districts, teachers can get dressed down for wearing skimpy tops, short skirts, flip flops, jeans, T-shirts, spandex or baseball caps. Spaghetti is fine in the cafeteria, but shirts supported by spaghetti straps are not welcome in the classroom.
District 11 in Colorado Springs, Colo., for example, prohibits sexually provocative items. That includes clothing that exposes "cleavage, private parts, the midriff or undergarments," district rules say.
In Georgia's Miller County, skirts must reach the knee. Elsewhere in the state, hair curlers are disallowed in Harris County and male teachers in Talbot County must wear ties two or three times a week.
"There's an impression that teachers are dressing more and more _ well, the good term for it would be 'relaxed,'" said Bill Scharffe, director of bylaws and policy services for the Michigan Association of School Boards. "Another term for it would be 'sloppy.'"
School administrators say inappropriate dress is most often an issue with younger teachers, whose trendy clothing and casual style can make it hard to distinguish them from their students.
Mark Berntson, who teaches high school band in West Fargo, N.D., wears a tie each day. It's a tradition he began years ago to stand out from his students. He does not wear blue jeans to class often, saving them for occasions such as the first day of baseball season.
"I don't think I'm taken as seriously if I'm dressed down and I don't think I take my job as seriously if I'm dressed down," he said. "When I dress more professionally, I think I teach better, I think I'm received better, and I think I show more respect for my profession."
On the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where Aaron Paragoso teaches music, neat and casual clothes are the norm. He wears a tie when sixth-graders graduate from his school, telling them: "I'm congratulating you by dressing up in this manner. It shows that I'm very proud of you."
Teachers set the example, said Scharffe, the Michigan official and former director of school personnel. That is why he once sent home a teacher whose belt buckle featured a marijuana leaf.
In the California elementary school district where I work, teachers are expected to dress in a "neat and professional manner." Nevertheless, there are a number of teachers (mostly in their 20s) in our district whose miniskirts, plunging necklines, and stiletto heels produce a "look" more suited for a Friday evening date than an elementary school classroom.
Since the racy dress has been a feature in our district for a number of years, I suppose that administrators must have reasoned that this attire makes these teachers look like "professionals."
Among male teachers, I've seen some wearing (sockless) Birkenstocks with tshirts and denim shorts. Most don't wear slacks, (jeans are the most popular) and dress shirts are a rarity.
And let's not forget the male substitute teacher who wore black leather pants, a mesh "muscle" tshirt, and told the kids all about the local "alternative" party scene.
My own personal thought is that if teachers wish to be treated as professionals, they should start by being dressed professionally. This means that both men and women should dress for the classroom, and not for an evening at the local dance club. --------------------------View the latest edition of the Carnival of Education (as well as entry instructions) right here.
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The Guide which I wrote with Jane Thornback is now available to download, free of charge, from the Construction Products Association website. I hope you will find it a useful resource.
CEN/TC 350 and EN 15804 – what are they and why do I need to know about them?


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