Playing games on the Internet.
Finding out who or what was behind Horse_ebooks became on online obsession.
Were you driving through western Pennsylvania in the mid-nineteen-nineties, with the radio on? Was the music interrupted by two adolescent male voices jabbering trucker lingo? Or, several years ago, did you come across an online tourism video for the city of Milwaukee? Did it seem a little strange, in that the city shown was very obviously Manhattan, and that the video suggested that the entire Milwaukee area had been contaminated by an industrial accident? Or, sometime during the past few years, did you notice an account on Twitter called Horse_ebooks that spewed peculiar, mantralike messages such as "You're not alone in your passion for tomatoes!" and "Demand Furniture"? Around the same time, did you happen upon a YouTube channel called Pronunciation Book, which consisted of videos of words in black lettering on a white background, and a calm male voice pronouncing each word three times, with great deliberation?
Jacob Bakkila and Thomas Bender—the pair behind these projects—were recently reminiscing about another collaboration, a play they wrote called "Cowboy," which had nothing to do with cowboys. This was when they were in high school, in suburban Pittsburgh. Bakkila and Bender are now both thirty, but it's easy to picture them as mischief-making teen-agers. Bakkila is a creative director at BuzzFeed, where he designs sponsored posts for companies like Pepsi and Geico. He is tall, with bristly blond hair, a square jaw, a sturdy neck, and biceps that look gym-made. He has a slight drawl that somehow sounds vaguely Texan. Bender works as a freelance tech consultant. He is slim and fair, clean-cut, with fine features, and speaks in a professorial tone. "We printed programs that made 'Cowboy' seem that it would be something like Gilbert and Sullivan meets Annie Oakley, which it definitely was not," Bakkila said. He and Bender managed to lure a crowd to their high-school auditorium for the performance of the play, which was, in fact, an absurdist affair with an epic moment in which the actors stacked desk chairs until they came crashing down. Reaction to "Cowboy" was highly polarized: half the people couldn't leave the auditorium fast enough; the other half seemed to think that the play was amazing.
A fifty-per-cent approval rating may sound disappointing, but Bender and Bakkila are less interested in winning approval than in eliciting a strong reaction, and by that measure their achievement has grown exponentially. According to YouTube's analytics, the Pronunciation Book videos were viewed thirty-seven million times. Horse_ebooks' most popular tweet, "Everything happens so much," was re-tweeted more than nine thousand times by some of the account's two hundred thousand followers. Bakkila and Bender operated both accounts anonymously, and trying to figure out who and what were behind them became an Internet obsession. On the day last September when they stepped forward to claim authorship, end the accounts, and launch an interactive video piece that they had designed as the final installment of the project, Pronunciation Book's entry—"How to pronounce Horse_ebooks"—was one of the most viewed videos on YouTube.
Bakkila went on to study journalism at the University of Southern California. Bender majored in physics at Princeton. In 2006, he saw "Vernon, Florida," Errol Morris's documentary about the eccentric residents of a small town. "I almost fell out of my chair," he said. "I immediately started neglecting my classes to spend time making videos." When he read a news story about a school for Wiccans in Illinois, he figured that he'd found a subject for his own documentary. By then, Bender had graduated, and had a temporary gig teaching physics at a cram school in Queens. He called Bakkila, who had also graduated, and was working at a coffee shop in Ithaca, and asked him to help. "Tom saved me from months of scalding myself," Bakkila said. "I wasn't a very good barista." They drove to Illinois, shot the documentary, and Bender spent a year editing it.
Bakkila and Bender posted the video, listing themselves in the credits, on YouTube in November, 2008. Within three days, more than a hundred thousand people had viewed it. Some of them contacted local authorities to find out what was going on. "What the heck is 'This Is My Milwaukee'?" a Wisconsin news site asked. "We're getting deluged with e-mails asking us about a peculiar new Web site that just popped up." Most people, though, seemed to get the joke. Five years later, Bender and Bakkila still hear from fans who want them to continue the story.
I spend a lot of time on Twitter, and I came across Horse_ebooks by chance, in 2012. I started following the account and re-tweeted it frequently. I wasn't as passionate as those followers who tweeted "I love you" to the account nearly every day, but it was one of my favorite things on Twitter. I wasn't sure what sort of sensibility was behind statements like "Who else wants to become a golf ball," but I assumed that it was machine-made, since it sounded both brash and illogical, like a self-help book that had been run through a shredder. That October, I received an e-mail from someone whose name I didn't recognize, asking if I wanted to know more about the account and, perhaps, write about it. Potential subjects don't usually promote themselves to me in such a way, but I was interested in how that corner of the Internet works. To "satisfy the burden of proof" that he was in control of the account, the writer told me what he would post that evening. I watched Twitter, and saw the post.
There are lots of offbeat accounts on Twitter. Some feature invented characters, like "Ruth Bourdain," a mashup of Ruth Reichl and Anthony Bourdain; there are parodies of politicians and celebrities, such as Anthony Weiner and Tilda Swinton; and pure surrealist humor, like that of coffee_dad, who has more than a hundred thousand followers and posts nothing but updates on his daily coffee-drinking. ("Time for coffee"; "Looking for coffee"; "Have coffee.") There are automated accounts that are designed purely as curious exercises, such as Pentametron, which scans Twitter for posts that happen to be written in iambic pentameter, and Stealth Mountain, which collects tweets that misspell the phrase "sneak peek" as "sneak peak." Then there is the category of "weird Twitter," which essentially plays with the form. (In the early days of Twitter, Bakkila ran one such account, called agentlebrees; that name has since been taken over by someone else.) Horse_ebooks fits into the weird-Twitter world, but Bakkila prefers to describe it as "conceptual/performance/video art," or, sometimes, as "performance mischief." He says that the first art that enthralled him was Christopher Wool's block-letter canvases of phrases like "CATS IN BAG BAGS IN RIVER." Bakkila has a vivid memory of seeing one of Wool's paintings at a museum when he was eight or nine. He told me, in an e-mail, "It amazed me how something so simple—it was just words!—could fill the room, fill my entire mind." Many of the other artists who he says have influenced him, such as Jenny Holzer, also use text as their medium.
Making art on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, or by e-mail or in chat rooms, began almost as soon as those platforms existed. Net art's most immediate predecessor was the Fluxus performance-art happenings of the nineteen-sixties, but its roots go back to the Dadaism of the early twentieth century. Vuk Ćosić, a pioneer of conceptual Internet-based art, has called net artists "Marcel Duchamp's ideal children." Like Duchamp's readymades, a lot of net art defies the attributes usually associated with art: it isn't singular, it doesn't require the artist's hand, it isn't necessarily visual, it is often intangible, and, because it is usually distributed free, it is hard to collect and monetize.
A producer was interested in developing a "This Is My Milwaukee" television series, but, after a year of talks, the plan fizzled. In the meantime, Bakkila moved to New York, and worked at various temp jobs, before ending up at BuzzFeed. Bender got a job as an editor at Howcast, a Web site of instructional videos. His first video, "How Not to Get Mugged," starred Seena Jon, a middle-school friend of his and Bakkila's, as the victim and Bakkila as the mugger. Bakkila, who occasionally freelanced at Howcast, helped write the script, which is more or less credible as a guide to street safety but also seems suspiciously like a goof on the whole idea of a how-to video.
Bakkila and Bender started thinking about a series of new projects. Jon, a former comedian who now works as a lawyer and a producer, became part of the team. They considered and then rejected the idea of telling a story through fake takeout menus slipped under apartment doors; forming a seemingly real trade association and issuing a monthly newsletter; opening a storefront to market a fictional clothing line; and aggressively promoting a new sports league that didn't exist. One of Jon's suggestions was to deliver a narrative through fortunes in fortune cookies, which would have been convenient, since Bakkila lived across the street from a fortune-cookie factory in Bushwick.
Bender was interested in "content farms"—Web sites that analyze which subjects are most frequently Googled, and then churn out material on those subjects so as to end up at the top of search results. The content is often just text grabbed from other Web sites and repackaged; the goal is to attract as many viewers as possible and then flood them with related advertising. Bender wanted to take the idea of demand-driven content to an extreme—to get as many views as possible while spending as little money as possible, as a kind of commentary on a form that tries relentlessly to convert a search for information into a chance for sales.
He knew that people Googled words and names in order to learn how to pronounce them. Making a pronunciation guide would cost next to nothing: he could find the words most often searched by typing in "how do you pronounce" and noting the words that Google offered. It was easy enough to produce type on a screen, and he recorded the pronunciations himself. He offered a new word each day; the first, posted in April, 2010, was "How to pronounce ASUS." Bender says that he researched the way to say the words correctly. "It was initially very sincere," he said. The videos immediately drew viewers who wanted to know how to pronounce the words he chose, and then, within a year or so, the channel drew another set of viewers, who were curious about its origins, its portentous tone, and its random-seeming choices, such as "Tagalog," followed by "Srixon," and then "giclée." One of the videos—"How to pronounce 1999"—attracted more than three hundred and fifty thousand views. "It was really surreal watching the views grow," Bender said.
Bakkila also found a medium that he thought he could hijack. Automated programs, known as bots, that deliver spam and sales links had been proliferating on social media. Last year, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that bots generate twenty-four per cent of all posts on Twitter. By Facebook's own account, some fifteen million of its "users" are bots, which post sales links as status updates. Some bots are welcome—on Twitter, there are weather and seismic-condition bots, run by legitimate agencies, that post temperature and earthquake information. But most bots are the equivalent of junk mail, broadcasting e-commerce links in bulk, and both Twitter and Facebook devote considerable resources and manpower to flushing them out. To evade detection, bots masquerade as real accounts, so, in addition to the links, programmers give them something to say, or at least to appear to say—often snippets of text taken off the Internet—to make them seem as human as possible.
Bakkila decided to take over an existing bot on Twitter, and then slowly subvert its tweets. He wanted to attempt an identity inversion: he would be a human trying to impersonate a machine that was trying to impersonate a human. There were plenty of bots to choose from, but the one he liked best was Horse_ebooks, which appeared on Twitter in 2009. Its tweets often had an equine theme, but some, like "Considered GIVING UP on the whole professional gambling scene?," seemed to come out of the blue.
Many of Horse_ebooks' tweets were followed by links to e-library.net. The site sells e-books, some of which are about horses, but its most popular categories are inspirational guides and financial-advice books. It lists as its current best-sellers "Forbidden Psychological Tactics," "Sexual Fun and Games for Christian Couples," and "How to Buy and Sell Real Estate in the Bahamas." The bot grabbed most of the text for its tweets from books on e-library.net, but, probably owing to a programming glitch, it often failed to pull out complete sentences, and it didn't seem to be able to process certain punctuation marks. Many of the resultant tweets were half-formed, vaguely melancholy exclamations, such as "For many years this beautiful story has delighted millions of." They were more peculiar and more evocative than bots usually are; they were like found poetry in an otherwise crass medium. By the time Bakkila came to Horse_ebooks, it already had hundreds of followers who loved its fractured tone.
In order to take over the account, he had to find the person behind it. You can set up a Twitter profile with nothing more than an e-mail address, but Bakkila followed links to e-library.net, and after six months he managed to track down a young Russian Web developer named Alexey Kouznetsov, who acknowledged that he owned e-library.net, and had set up Horse_ebooks to drive traffic to it. They agreed that, if Bakkila would buy two hundred and fifty dollars' worth of books from e-library.net, Kouznetsov would give him control of the Horse_ebooks account. Kouznetsov remains the owner of e-library.net, and he told me that he sold between five and ten e-books a month through the account after Bakkila took it over.
Bakkila never wrote anything original for Horse_ebooks; like a bot, he just combed the Internet for text. (He had pulled the phrase that I watched him tweet at our first meeting from "The Essential Beginner's Guide to Raising Swans.") That part, he said, was easy: "There are so many weird, unindexed sites out there. When you go down the rabbit hole of spam, it's an infinity of infinity." He added, "One person could curate or remix endless amounts of information." The first pulled text that he chose to tweet was "You will undoubtedly look back on this moment with shock and," on September 14, 2011.
Bakkila was so excited by the prospect of playing a machine that he overlooked some of the challenges. Machines never sleep; bots post day and night and on weekends and holidays as well. He could have made a lot of tweets and programmed them to be time-released, but he decided to post in real time, because, as he put it, "I wanted to preserve the integrity of bespoke spam." Bender, by contrast, recorded dozens of Pronunciation Book videos, then uploaded one each day, at his convenience. "Jacob really gets into these endurance things," Seena Jon told me. "He likes to see how hard he can push himself." Because Bakkila wanted to remain anonymous, he says that he didn't explain even to close friends why he was excusing himself during dinners and movies.
Bakkila doesn't remember the original context of his most popular tweet, "Everything happens so much," but he says that it was something ordinary, like "Everything happens so much faster when you're retired." Stripped out of the sentence, the phrase feels koanlike. "I was trying to wrest wisdom from these wisdomless piles of information," Bakkila said. A recurring theme in net art is appropriating something familiar and setting it in a new framework that makes it surprising. It's especially surprising if you think that a machine is doing the decontextualizing unintentionally, and ending up with something that seems poignant or meaningful.
Shortly after Bakkila took over Horse_ebooks, some followers mentioned that the percentage of notably odd tweets seemed to be growing. As John Herrman, who is now the tech editor at BuzzFeed, wrote on the comedy Web site Splitsider, "The kinds of tweets that used to take weeks to show up—the perfect truncations, the ominous declarations—were now coming fast and hard." After that, Bakkila, without revealing his involvement, persuaded an acquaintance to post a story dismissing the idea that the account had changed. (The acquaintance was extremely irritated when he later learned the truth.) He also worked to make the account look as botlike as possible, which is why he kept posting frequent links to e-library.net, as Kouznetsov had. "To be a sincere spambot, I wanted to try to sell as many e-books as possible," he explained.
Horse_ebooks continued to attract attention. Adrian Chen wrote a long feature for Gawker about the "beloved online automaton," which he described as being "showered with a level of praise seldom applied to actual humans on the Internet." (Chen correctly identified Kouznetsov as the founder of Horse_ebooks, but he didn't realize that the account had changed hands.) Fans started Tumblr accounts and Facebook pages, and created Horse_ebooks-inspired comics and fan fiction. At least one fan got a Horse_ebooks tattoo. An artist on Etsy produced letterpress stationery decorated with the tweets, and someone wrote a campaign speech composed entirely of them: "Every week it seems the economy" "Is uncertain, insubstantial" "Or going on a dangerous fad diet!" One guy posed as a woman and chatted on an online-dating site, using only the tweets, and posted the results on Tumblr.
Although Bear Stearns Bravo was to be launched last, planning for it began first. A few months after Bear Stearns collapsed, in March, 2008, Bakkila and Bender sat in Bender's studio apartment, and began plotting a narrative that would be set in a fictitious version of the firm. They decided to use short live-action video segments and a format inspired by choose-your-own-adventure children's books. The basic story would pit Bear Stearns employees against government regulators in a surreal financial emergency. After each segment, viewers would be given a choice: Arrest a suspicious secretary or get her to inform on executives? Butter up the C.E.O. or embarrass him in front of the board members? Meanwhile, employees burned documents and pined for more time on their yachts. ("In every project Tom and I have created," Bakkila told me, "we have characters who regret owning boats.") There were two episodes to the piece. They decided to make the first one available for free, but to charge users seven dollars for the second.
The videos were shot in a tiny, windowless room that Bakkila rented down the hall from his loft. On the day I visited, last summer, an actor, sweating amply, was shouting into the camera, "Multilevel marketing! Crystals! Stationary progressions!" Bakkila nodded, leaned over to Bender, and said, "Wow, that's a wall of nonsense!" Next up was Bakkila's girlfriend, Emily Liu, who was playing a small role that required her to deal a deck of tarot cards. Liu, who is an account executive at an online advertising agency, performed with an air of quiet bemusement. After the first take, Bakkila said, "Emily, I don't want to direct your card dealing, but please put the last card down with . . . triumphalism." After Liu managed to do a sufficiently triumphal take, Bakkila switched places with her. He hadn't planned to be in the videos, but he ended up taking the role of the C.E.O., because he and Bender couldn't find anyone they felt was right for the part, which was physically taxing—the C.E.O. bellows all his lines. By the end of the day, Bakkila had blown out his voice, but he seemed pleased with the results.
No one would have suspected that a slightly bizarre, faceless YouTube channel and an apparently automated Twitter account had any connection. If you paid close attention, you might have noticed a few common notes—mentions of the names Dalton and Chief, and frequent references to tomatoes and pyramids—but, otherwise, the sites appeared to be separate entities, each with its own mysteries. Online forums studied Pronunciation Book's word choices and even the ambient background noise in each video; one generated a file of more than a hundred pages trying to decrypt the site. Once Bakkila and Bender settled on a launch date for Bear Stearns Bravo, Bender began posting full sentences on Pronunciation Book and then started a countdown—"Something is going to happen in seventy-seven days"—that sounded especially ominous.
Bakkila and Bender wanted to launch Bear Stearns Bravo with a performance, so they found a gallery on the Lower East Side that would rent them space for a day. They planned to post a phone number on Horse_ebooks at ten in the morning, and man the phones for the next eleven hours. They would read a line of spam to each caller and then hang up. The gallery would be open to anyone who wanted to watch. Loops of video from Bear Stearns Bravo would be projected onto the walls.
The night before the launch, Bakkila, Bender, Jon, Niemasik, and Liu gathered in the gallery to set up the projectors and install the phones. Bakkila placed an artist's statement near the front door that began, "We are influenced by data," and went on to say, "Bakkila has . . . performed, in secret, as a spambot on the social network Twitter, posting a piece of spam roughly every two hours for 742 days." (In total, there were eighteen thousand tweets, including Kouznetsov's.) Bakkila said that he expected to feel a little depressed once he ended Horse_ebooks, the way an actor might feel at the end of a play's run, but that he couldn't spend the rest of his life performing as a machine.
In the morning, a few friends milled around; they had agreed to help with logistics but still didn't know what the project was. One of them, reading the artist's statement, started sputtering, "What? Jacob wrote all Horse_ebooks . . . a machine didn't. . . . This is . . . . Wow." Bakkila and Bender sat down at a conference table, each armed with a phone and a stack of printouts from which to read. I sat at a third phone to watch the proceedings and answer a few calls. At exactly ten o'clock, the Pronunciation Book video of the day demonstrated how to pronounce "Horse_ebooks," and Horse_ebooks tweeted the gallery telephone number, followed by its last tweet, "Bear Stearns Bravo." Within a minute, all three phones began ringing. A few times when I answered, I heard the caller laughing. One person yelled, "What does this have to do with Horse_ebooks? Tell me! Tell me!" The phone I was watching registered almost four hundred missed calls in the first twenty minutes. In addition, Bakkila and Bender claim that, by the end of the day, a hundred thousand people had visited bearstearnsbravo.com.
Horse_ebooks and Pronunciation Book aren't the first art projects to rile people and leave them feeling betrayed; net art often makes use of ambiguous identity and deliberate misdirection. By definition, it examines the nature of our relationship to machines, and the notion that machines or computer systems might be closer to sentience than we realize.
At other times, we've mistaken a human for a machine. Some people commenting on Horse_ebooks have also mentioned an automaton called the Turk, which was introduced, to great acclaim, in Austria, in 1770. The metal-and-wood contraption, which was designed to look like a man and was dressed as a sorcerer, amazed audiences by playing master-level chess against human opponents around the world, for seventy years. The secret of the machine was that it wasn't really a machine. The mechanical body had a concealed cabinet behind its gears and cogs, and a real chess master hid inside it and directed the Turk's moves. In 1854, the Turk, which had been stored in a museum in Philadelphia, was destroyed in a fire. Many people still believed it was a robot that had acquired an uncanny, humanlike intelligence. Its last owner claimed that he heard the Turk calling out as it went up in flames.
No longer fashion's enfant terrible, the iconic French designer still seeks to conjure a world without boundaries.
Robert J. Lang was a high-powered physicist—until he dropped everything to become a master paper-folder.


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Light for our path: What does a submissive wife in a Christian marriage look like?
What does a submissive wife in a Christian marriage look like?
James F. Pope
While Scripture provides the definitive answer, I also will be passing along excerpts—in quotation marks—from wives who gave me real-world insights. These wives had ties to courses I taught at Martin Luther College last summer.
"I don't really think of myself as 'submissive' because today's society puts a bad spin on being submissive. I like to think of myself as a 'suitable helper.' I need to support my husband as the Christian leader of our family."
To many people today, "submissive" means "a willingness to be controlled by other people" (The Cambridge Dictionary). Many view any form of submissiveness in a strictly negative sense that pits one person in authority against another who merely yields to the authoritarian.
That is not the Bible's meaning of submissiveness. When the Bible instructs Christian women to "submit yourselves to your own husbands" (Ephesians 5:22), there is a context that removes anything that might be demeaning, degrading, or insulting to women. That instruction follows this command that God gave to Christian men and women: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:21). Also, Christian women are to "submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. . . . Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything" (Ephesians 5:22,24). How the Christian church submits to Christ is the pattern for Christian women interacting with their husbands
Practical perspectives
Christian wives explained what that pattern looks like in their marriages:
"Look for ways to encourage your husband, in private and in public, and build him up."
"A submissive wife in a Christian marriage is a supportive wife. You work together with your spouse, and respect and support him in your marriage."
"Within a Christian marriage, a wife freely expresses her thoughts, trusting her husband's response will lovingly support her and look out after her best interests."
"A Christian wife happily submits to her Christian husband because she knows every decision he makes will be done selflessly for her happiness and the good of their marriage."
Final perspectives
To provide balance, I also asked husbands who were on campus for courses last summer for their responses to your question:
"She serves the Lord before she serves me."
"Because people are different,that submission on the part of wives will look different from one marriage to another."
"1 Corinthians 13 describes the kind of love husbands are to have for their wives."
That last comment puts the instruction of wives submitting to their husbands in the proper context. While wives are to submit to their husbands "as the church submits to Christ" (Ephesians 5:24), husbands are to love their wives "just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25). Just as Christ is the pattern for a wife's relationship to her husband, so Christ is the pattern for the husband's relationship with his wife. Husbands are to love their wives with self-sacrificial love. It is to a loving leader (Ephesians 5:33) that a Christian wife submits.
A wife like that said: "Although my sinful pride can get in the way at times, it is not hard to agree with the authority of my husband as he demonstrates love for me in everyday life." That wife describes Christian submission and Christian love well.
Author: James F. Pope
Volume 106, Number 10
James Pope, a professor  at Martin Luther College, New Ulm, Minnesota, is a member at St. John, New Ulm.
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India cricket captain Virat Kohli has a lot going for him at the moment. The 29-year-old has exhibited remarkable batting consistency and astute leadership in all three formats of the game. Kohli not only has a vision for Indian cricket but has also been able to implement measures within the team to achieve it. From showcasing an aggressive brand of cricket to drastic improvement in fitness levels of players, Kohli's stamp is all over the current Indian cricket set up. Kohli is not just the most marketable athlete in India but the face of cricket globally.
In a sense, Kohli's popularity and power has been captured by his massive following on various social networks. The Delhi batsman has over 20 million followers on Twitter, 15 million on Instagram and more than 36 million likes on Facebook.
According to Forbes, Kohli's brand value is higher than football legend Lionel Messi, golf superstar Rory McIlroy and Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry. Kohli earns a whopping $500,000 (Rs 3.2 crore) per promotional post on Instagram, that is the same amount as football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.
Under Kohli, the Indian cricket team has enjoyed tremendous success in all formats. The team's latest triumph came on Tuesday after sealing the 3-match T20I series against New Zealand 2-1. The Men in Blue beat the Kiwis by an identical scoreline in the ODI series as well.
Kohli's next assignment starts on November 16, as India host Sri Lanka in the first Test at the Eden Gardens.


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Star Trek on Store Shelves April 28
Star Trek: The Original Series Season One -Starring one of the most endearing casts in television history led by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan and Nichelle Nichols, STAR TREK® is a worldwide phenomenon and served as a launching pad for numerous television series and feature films. These classic first season episodes started it all, introducing the world to Kirk, Spock and the rest of the Enterprise's iconic crew. Blu-Ray. 24 hrs. 20 min.; $118.00; Ages 12-18. Paramount Home Entertainment.Star Trek: The Best of the Original SeriesSet in the 24th century and decades after the adventures of the original crew of the starship Enterprise, this new series is the long-awaited successor to the original "Star Trek" (1966). Under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the all new Enterprise NCC 1701-D travels out to distant planets to seek out new life and to boldly go where no one has gone before. DVD. 201 min.; $14.98; Ages 12-18. Paramount Home Entertainment. Street Date: 4/28/09
Star Trek: The Best of the Next Generation. Space…The FinalFrontierThese are the voyages of the Starship, Enterprise. Its5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before !" The series is set in the 23rd century where Earth has survived World War III then moved on to explore the stars. DVD. 181min.; $14.98; Ages 12-18. Paramount Home Entertainment. Street Date: 4/28/09
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Habitat Heroes™ – Global, Social Networking web site for Young Eco-warriors
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
Habitat Heroes™, the first global, social networking web site for young eco-warriors, will launch in time for Earth Day on April 22nd. Sharon Lowe, an Australian mother of three, created Habitat Heroes™ after observing her daughter's online play. She had a desire to create an entertaining, yet worthwhile destination for children seeking to learn more about the earth, conservation, and preservation.
Lowe developed the site with the assistance of a top-notch panel of environmental experts."The core of Habitat Heroes™ was formed around values my husband and I wish to instill in our children. Treating other living creatures, and our planet, with respect is of the utmost importance to us. Since computers are part of our children's lives beginning at such a young age, I wanted to create an online destination where children could learn about these fundamentally important issues through things they enjoy, such as games and activities," said Lowe.
Habitat Heroes™ is an interactive web destination where children can adopt an animal from an endangered species, and create a life for it, while also playing games, reading fun facts about the planet, and communicating with other young environmentalists. Children select and personalize animal avatars to represent them on the site, and decorate the habitats where their avatars live. The number of avatars for a specific species on the site corresponds to the number of members of that species existing in the real world. For instance, only 3600 members who sign-up can choose the black rhinoceros as their avatar, corresponding to the 3600 black rhinoceros in existence. The site will introduce a new endangered species once the old one is retired.
One of Habitat Heroes™ primary goals is to bring young environmentalists from around the globe together so that they can share their ideas for saving the planet. Animal avatars looking to socialize, or share their thoughts on the environment, can make friends at the local "Watering Hole" and communicate with them via chat boxes. Safety features have been built into the site and online chats are closely monitored. Parents also have the option to limit use of this function or any other aspect of the site."As a mother, I make sure that everything my children do online is safe and worthwhile. I envision Habitat Heroes™ as an online destination where any child can have a truly engaging experience," said Lowe.
On Habitat Heroes™, children can explore different continents and learn about environmental issues by touring a virtual map. Each continent also has its own games. Water Wheel is a game based on the real-life work of PlayPumps International, an organization that constructs merry-go-round water pumps for communities in sub-Saharan Africa. In this game, players virtually construct an irrigation system in an African village. In another game, located in India, Connectastrophe, children can explore and learn about natural disasters.In addition to traditional environmental concerns, Habitat Heroes™ also enlightens children about healthy eating and global cultures. Kids learn to make proper food choices at Scoops & Sprinkles, where they can assemble healthy frozen yogurt desserts, or by feeding their avatars sashimi and salads at the Chow House. They can learn about Indian heritage by playing dress-up with traditional saris and jewelry at the Sari Salon. These additional elements allow children to feel a connection – both social and geographic – with other world communities facing difficult environmental challenges.
Beyond the interactive features of the site, children can visit Habitat Heroes™ to find out more about environmental organizations as well as their favorite celebrity environmentalists and the causes that most interest them. Check out this site with your young ones for a fun and educational experience.
Posted in Family News, Web Fun | Comments Off on Habitat Heroes™ – Global, Social Networking web site for Young Eco-warriors
Legally Blondes – An Interview With Becky and Milly Rosso
Calling all "Legally Blonde" fans, fans of "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody," or even fans of fun, family films that keep you laughing! Now is the time to enjoy the third film in the "Legally Blonde" franchise, entitled "Legally Blondes." The beauty of this title is that it's enjoyable enough to entertain teens and adults, but also appeals to younger children. The lack of no offensive content makes it a perfect full-family film.In "Legally Blondes," when Elle Woods' young, blonde cousins Annie and Izzy (Milly and Becky Rosso) moved from England to California, they thought their pink clothes, small dogs and street smarts would make them instantly fit in and feel at home. However, they find they are miles away from the uniform fashions and money-focused power structure of their new prep school. When the school's reigning forces turn on the girls and try to frame them for a crime, Izzy and Annie must use their cleverness and charm to clear their names and show the school that in the classroom or the courtroom, they should never underestimate the power of blondes!Becky and Milly, the fabulous main characters in the film, not only have beautiful faces, but also beautiful personalities. They are great role models for young viewers. Here is their take on their acting careers:
1. You have been thrown into the world of acting pretty suddenly. What is the most challenging part of acting that you have discovered?Becky – It takes me a while to practice and get into character.Milly – It's hard for me to act confident on set when I'm feeling a bit insecure.2. How do you prepare for a film in comparison to filming for a television episode?Becky – You have to be ready to portray any part of a script at any sequence since filming is out of order. I loved the live audience on Fridays with Zac and Cody where there was great energy and you could feed off the audience energy.Milly – In television there is a short script, generally one day, so you don't get as much character development.3. What was your reaction when you were first cast for Legally Blondes?Becky – The "Legally Blonde" movies are some of our favorite films and we are "so thrilled."Millly – "We are honored to carry on the franchise."4. What was the most enjoyable part of making the film for you?Becky – It was great playing a character I liked. The script was very funny and clever. Milly – It was fun going to all the different locations – Queen Mary and the mansion and Rodeo Drive.5. How did you grow personally and professionally during the filmmaking process?Becky – It helped make me more confident as I met challenges, and I became more educated on the filming process.Milly – It helped me become less shy around people of all ages. The difficult process helped me learn more about filming.6. What's the best piece of advice can you offer to aspiring actors?Becky – Be prepared and be professional. Listen to the director and enjoy the experience. Milly – Don't get discouraged. Set long term goals for yourself and don't compare yourself to others.7. What new projects are you working on?Becky and Milly – A pilot of Disney channel which hopefully will become a series.8. Where would you like to see yourself ten years from now?Becky – Happy in whatever I do. Hopefully acting. Milly – I hope I'm an actor surrounded by friends and family.9. Is there anything you would like to add?Becky – "Legally Blondes" is a great film for a younger audience. It's funny and sweet. Milly – We're from England and so much appreciate the kindness of Americans.Look for this DVD in stores on April 28th!
Posted in DVDs Released, Interviews | Comments Off on Legally Blondes – An Interview With Becky and Milly Rosso
NBC Meteorologist Janice Huff Joins Cyberchase
CYBERCHASE, the only math series for children on American TV will be premiering new episodes starting on April 20, featuring NBC-TV meteorologist Janice Huff as part of its seventh-season Weather Watchers initiative that helps kids learn more and get motivated about climate change.CYBERCHASE's Weather Watchers episodes explore real-world math connections in a context that encourages kids to take action and seek answers to our environmental problems. The Weather Watchers initiative features five math and weather-themed episodes, including four new premieres, an interactive Web game on pbskidsgo.org/cyberchase, a hands-on activity booklet, tips for parents and teachers, and other outreach efforts.The CYBERCHASE episodes embed math concepts in situations where the CyberSquad measures physical properties, quantifies atmospheric conditions and makes predictions to get out of jams. Janice Huff will be featured on the first two premiere week episodes, April 20 and 21 (check local listings). In three live-action shortform videos for Weather Watchers, to debut on CYBERCHASE Online and the PBS KIDS GO! broadband player, Cyberchase goes behind the scenes with meteorologist Janice Huff, the voice of Stormy Gale in the Weather Watchers episodes, and real kids engage in weather-related activities that motivate viewers to "try this at home!"The Cyberchase Weather Watchers programs are:· "Gone with the Fog" (April 20, new! Check local listings) The Cybersquad must figure out the mysteries of dew point to make a daring rescue under the cover of fog. Math topics: Algebraic Thinking, measurement. Weather topic: Fog· "The Emperor Has Snow Clothes" (April 21, new! Check local listings) Hacker turns the Emperor of Penguia into an icy statue, and the kids have to track a powerful storm so they can avoid it and save the Emperor from a frozen fate. Math topic: Algebraic thinking. Weather topic: Tracking Storms· "The X Factor" (April 22, EARTH DAY, new! check local listings) One tiny, seemingly harmless act multiplied hundreds of times creates a huge problem in Perfectamundo, and the CyberSquad must use that same power of multiplication to find a solution. Math topic: Power of Multiplication. Weather topic: Climate Change.· "Blowin' In The Wind" (April 23, new! check local listings) The key to curing Motherboard's virus may be at the windiest place in the Northern Frontier, and the CyberSquad must measure and compare wind speeds to find it. Math topic: Measurement. Weather topic: Wind Speed.· "Digit's B-Day Surprise" (April 24, encore. Check local listings) In a misunderstanding about a surprise b-day party, Hacker nearly convinces Digit to join his team! Math topic: Measurement. Weather topic: Evaporative cooling.
Posted in Education, Family News, TV | Comments Off on NBC Meteorologist Janice Huff Joins Cyberchase
Fifteen Aspiring Young Filmmakers Will Have Their Work Featured on National TV – Deadline April 20, 2009
In response to the phenomenally successful first round of qubopics premieres, qubo, the TV and online entertainment service for children and families, will again select user-generated short animated films to debut on national TV. Between now and April 30, 2009, aspiring young filmmakers can create mini animated movies at qubo.com using the innovative storytelling web application called ZIMMER TWINS. Fifteen films will be selected by qubo to be professionally adapted into fully animated mini movies and screened on national TV this summer on qubo Channel as well as on qubo's broadcast blocks on NBC, ION Television and Telemundo.
Launched on qubo.com in the fall of 2007, the Zimmer Twins, Edgar and Eva, are animated characters featured in interactive cartoons that kids can create from scratch, modify and share with their friends in a rich, safe web environment. The ZIMMER TWINS section on qubo.com includes storytelling tools, pre-made animated clips and simple editing instructions that tap into kids' inherent love of stories. The clips and storytelling prompts explore classic kid themes like science, animals, magic and adventure. The animation interface is designed around the basic elements of sentence structure, and reinforces reading, grammar, and writing techniques. After creating their stories, users can post and share their creations and even vote for their favorite user-created submissions online. In 2007, the ZIMMER TWINS won the International Interactive Emmy® Award.
Last fall, nearly 25,000 children logged in to qubo.com to create nearly 50,000 qubopic ZIMMER TWINS films. Qubo selected twelve stellar user-generated animations to be adapted into professionally animated films, converting them into high-resolution video with broadcast quality color, music and sound effects. Qubo also enlisted actors to record the character voices and narration created by the filmmakers in their text bubble script. The qubopics were broadcast on qubo Channel and on qubo's broadcast blocks between December 2008 and February 2009.
Since the first round of qubopic ZIMMER TWINS film began premiering on qubo, the number of films and users has virtually doubled. An additional 66,000 ZIMMER TWINS films have been created on qubo.com in the past few months with more than 110,000 original user-generated animated films now posted on qubo's site. The number of registered users has more than doubled since December to reach more than 53,000! Beyond driving a huge influx of traffic to qubo.com, another measure of the qubopic initiative's success are the feature stories that were garnered for the twelve young filmmakers among their local media.
"We were thrilled with the response to our first round of qubopic premieres and can't think of a better way to honor and thank our viewers than by launching a second effort," said Rick Rodriguez, president and general manager, qubo. "We are proud to showcase the creativity of these talented children on our air. The ZIMMER TWINS helps reinforce qubo's mission of engaging children's minds while promoting reading and literacy." ZIMMER TWINS is created by zinc Roe design, a company that specializes in advanced flash development and new media projects for children and youth. The property is licensed to qubo by Bejuba! Entertainment Inc.
Posted in Contests, Education, Family News, For Producers | Comments Off on Fifteen Aspiring Young Filmmakers Will Have Their Work Featured on National TV – Deadline April 20, 2009
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text:
Q: Symfony serializer and ManyToMany setter I have two entity.
Book and Author
class Book
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Id()
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue()
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     */
    private int $id;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=255)
     */
    private string $name;

    /**
     * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="App\Entity\Author", fetch="EXTRA_LAZY")
     * @ORM\JoinTable(name="books_authors",
     *     joinColumns={@ORM\JoinColumn(name="book_id", referencedColumnName="id")},
     *     inverseJoinColumns={@ORM\JoinColumn(name="author_id", referencedColumnName="id")}
     *  )
     * @var PersistentCollection|ArrayCollection
     */
    private $authors;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->authors = new ArrayCollection();
    }

    public function getId(): ?int
    {
        return $this->id;
    }

    public function getName(): ?string
    {
        return $this->name;
    }

    public function setName(string $name): self
    {
        $this->name = $name;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getAuthors()
    {
        return $this->authors;
    }

    public function setAuthors($authors)
    {
        $this->authors = $authors;
    }

    public function addAuthor($author){
        if(!$this->authors->contains($author))
            $this->authors->add($author);
    }

    public function  removeAuthor($author){
        if($this->authors->contains($author)){
            $this->authors->removeElement($author);
        }
    }
}

In BookController i try create new book and use Serializer
book body like
{
  "name:"book name",
  "authors":[
    1,
    2
  ]
}

In controller
$serializer = new Serializer([new ObjectNormalizer()], [new JsonEncoder()]);
$book = $this->serializer->deserialize($request->getContent(), Book::class, 'json');
        try{
            $this->entityManager->persist($book);
            $this->entityManager->flush();
        } catch (UniqueConstraintViolationException $exception){
            return new JsonResponse('already exist', JsonResponse::HTTP_FOUND);
        }

but on flush() I have exception:

Expected value of type "App\Entity\Author" for association field "App\Entity\Book#$authors", got "integer" instead.

because book->authors now is an id collection, but entity collection needle.
I have some variants of resolve this, but what is the best way for create and update entity?

A: You need to create EntityNormalizer like this:
[Medium post][1]

class EntityNormalizer extends ObjectNormalizer implements DenormalizableInterface
{
    private $em;

    public function __construct(EntityManagerInterface $em, ?ClassMetadataFactoryInterface $classMetadataFactory = null, ?NameConverterInterface $nameConverter = null, ?PropertyAccessorInterface $propertyAccessor = null, ?PropertyTypeExtractorInterface $propertyTypeExtractor = null)
    {
        $this->em = $em;
        parent::__construct($classMetadataFactory, $nameConverter, $propertyAccessor, $propertyTypeExtractor);
    }

    public function supportsNormalization($data, $format = null)
    {
        return false;
    }

    public function supportsDenormalization($data, $type, $format = null)
    {
        return !$this->em->getMetadataFactory()->isTransient($type) && (is_string($data) || is_numeric($data));
    }

    public function denormalize($data, $class, $format = null, array $context = [])
    {
        return $this->em->find($class, $data);
    }
}

  [1]: https://medium.com/cloudstek/using-the-symfony-serializer-with-doctrine-relations-69ecb17e6ebd

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Little Evil Review
Published on November 27, 2017 by Just Alright Reviews
"… far from a masterpiece, but it was still pretty enjoyable."
Last night, after stumbling home from working almost twelve hours straight, I realized I had to watch a movie and I decided on Little Evil. I'm not telling you this for sympathy or anything, I'm just being completely transparent because I know that reviewing movies is all about perception; and I want to be perfectly clear that I wasn't not in the best of moods when I sat down to watch Little Evil. Little Evil is a movie by winter/director Eli Craig, who is the man behind Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Little Evil follows Gary, a newly married man who now has to put up with his wife's stepson who may or may not be the antichrist. Little Evil is a spoof of movies like The Omen, so you kind of know what you're getting into before it starts.
At least I thought I knew what I was getting into before it started. I'm a fan of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, but there is no hiding the lukewarm reception that Little Evil got when it was first released. I assumed that Little Evil would be your run of the mill parody, only attacking things that aren't relevant to the structure of what it is parodying instead of things that are necessary to it's creation. Luckily I was wrong (at least somewhat). The main takeaway form Little Evil that I had was that it is actually pretty funny. I found that lot of the jokes landed, and they weren't always just 'so dumb it's funny' punchlines. I found a lot of the scenarios and characters in Little Evil to be pretty funny, and that made for a movie that was pretty enjoyable to watch. But even though the movie was funny, I didn't find it to be a very good parody. Instead of attacking these points head-on, Little Evil decided to use movies like The Omen to set the scene and then throw in jokes that have almost nothing to do with them. It's for this reason that a lot of the plot points seem kind of inconsequential. I mean they're there, but apart from that they didn't really have a purpose in the movie. And I believe they were there in the first place just to manufacture congruency to movies that Little Evil was parodying. "Oh, there's a scene where someone warns the family? Let's throw one of those in there too". Everything, at least substance-wise, about Little Evil felt kind of weak to be honest and it all culminates into a fucking awful final act. I'm not sure what happened, but Little Evil seemingly forgets what it was about and then just throws shit together for the finale. We get introduced to a new bad guy, some new plot points, and just for good measure they throw in a monster truck. It was a pretty big mess. And it wasn't even just the plot that bothered me, but some lazy writing in general. For instance, every single character is frustratingly ignorant to the point where I was getting mad at how easily things could have been solved if they just used their heads. I get that you could argue this is a "commentary on horror films" but it was just frustrating.
As far as the rest of the movie goes, there isn't a whole lot to say. I felt that the performances were passable, nothing great but nothing terrible. I did find that the kid was a little flat most of the times, but I can't really hold that against them because not only are child actors not always the best but the character he was playing was kind of shit. I also felt the movie dragged its feet quite a bit, but this relates back to the whole 'pointless plot' argument that I brought up earlier. One thing that I did notice about Little Evil was the fact that the movie tried to rip off Edgar Wright's style of editing, especially early on. Now I'm not going to give the movie shit for trying to take something from someone else because I believe all art is "inspiration" (theft), but I didn't like how they used it. Edgar Wright uses his quick cuts to set up a scene. It gets the audience ready for what's about to happen by walking them through the steps of how the characters got there. It can also double as a punchline, but that's beside the point. What Little Evil did was a pretty big mistake, and that was the fact that they used this style of editing for scene transitions. That shit don't fly. You can't have a guy sitting at his desk at work, start a montage of him typing and photocopying, and then cut in clips of him watering his garden, and then cut to a scene of him at home. What you're going to do there is confuse the audience, because we thought this character was at work. I'm not saying that you have to hold my hand throughout this character's journey, but the less I go "Huh??" while watching your movie, the better.
Overall Little Evil was far from a masterpiece, but it was still pretty enjoyable. Though the actual 'parody' portions of the movie fell flat, the jokes were still there to bring the laughs. The writing can be kind of weak, and if you want the best experience I would recommend that you stop the movie before watching the last 30 minutes.
I give Little Evil a B
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Do not run motorcycle in a closed garage or confined area.
familiar with its operation and handling characteristics under all conditions.
beginning and advanced rider safety courses. Call 1 800 446 9227 for information.
condition affecting stability and increases the possibility of loss of control.


text:
International Relations--U.S. foreign policy (11)
Energy--Energy security (9)
Energy--International cooperation (8)
International Security & Defense--Weapons of Mass Destruction (5)
Nuclear Issues--India nuclear program (4)
International Relations--United Nations (2)
Conflict & Conflict Resolution--Illicit Trafficking (1)
Nuclear Issues--Dirty bombs (1)
Nuclear Issues--North Korea nuclear program (1)
(-) Energy--Nuclear power (25)
(-) Nuclear Issues--Russia nuclear program (3)
Conflict & Conflict Resolution (3)
Applied History Project (1)
(-) Energy Technology Innovation Policy (27)
Discussion Paper - Energy Technology Innovation Policy Project, Belfer Center
Energy Technology Expert Elicitations for Policy: Workshops, Modeling, and Meta-analysis
Laura Diaz Anadon
Valentina Bosetti
Gabe Chan
Gregory Nemet
Elena Verdolini
| October 2014
Read more about Energy Technology Expert Elicitations for Policy: Workshops, Modeling, and Meta-analysis
Characterizing the future performance of energy technologies can improve the development of energy policies that have net benefits under a broad set of future conditions. In particular, decisions about public investments in research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) that promote technological change can benefit from (1) an explicit consideration of the uncertainty inherent in the innovation process and (2) a systematic evaluation of the tradeoffs in investment allocations across different technologies. To shed light on these questions, over the past five years several groups in the United States and Europe have conducted expert elicitations and modeled the resulting societal benefits. In this paper, the authors discuss the lessons learned from the design and implementation of these initiatives.
Journal Article - Environmental Research Letters
The Future Costs of Nuclear Power Using Multiple Expert Elicitations: Effects of RD&D and Elicitation Design
| July-September 2013
Read more about The Future Costs of Nuclear Power Using Multiple Expert Elicitations: Effects of RD&D and Elicitation Design
Characterization of the anticipated performance of energy technologies to inform policy decisions increasingly relies on expert elicitation. Knowledge about how elicitation design factors impact the probabilistic estimates emerging from these studies is, however, scarce. We focus on nuclear power, a large-scale low-carbon power option, for which future cost estimates are important for the design of energy policies and climate change mitigation efforts. We use data from three elicitations in the USA and in Europe and assess the role of government research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) investments on expected nuclear costs in 2030.
NEAMS/DOE Photo
Journal Article - Environmental Science and Technology
Expert Judgments about RD&D and the Future of Nuclear Energy
Matthew Bunn
Michela Catenacci
Audrey Lee
Read more about Expert Judgments about RD&D and the Future of Nuclear Energy
Probabilistic estimates of the cost and performance of future nuclear energy systems under different scenarios of government research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) spending were obtained from 30 U.S. and 30 European nuclear technology experts. The majority expected that such RD&D would have only a modest effect on cost, but would improve performance in other areas, such as safety, waste management, and uranium resource utilization. The U.S. and E.U. experts were in relative agreement regarding how government RD&D funds should be allocated, placing particular focus on very high temperature reactors, sodium-cooled fast reactors, fuels and materials, and fuel cycle technologies.
Policy Brief - Energy Technology Innovation Policy Project, Belfer Center
Research, Development, and Demonstration for the Future of Nuclear Energy
Read more about Research, Development, and Demonstration for the Future of Nuclear Energy
Dramatic growth in nuclear energy would be required for nuclear power to provide a significant part of the carbon-free energy the world is likely to need in the 21st century, or a major part in meeting other energy challenges. This would require increased support from governments, utilities, and publics around the world. Achieving that support is likely to require improved economics and major progress toward resolving issues of nuclear safety, proliferation-resistance, and nuclear waste management. This is likely to require both research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of improved technologies and new policy approaches.
International Workshop on Research, Development, and Demonstration to Enhance the Role of Nuclear Energy in Meeting Climate and Energy Challenges
| April 2011
Read more about International Workshop on Research, Development, and Demonstration to Enhance the Role of Nuclear Energy in Meeting Climate and Energy Challenges
Newsletter - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Quarterly Journal: International Security
The Summer 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features analysis and advice by Belfer Center scholars regarding the historic upheavals in the Middle East and the disastrous consequences of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Center's new Geopolitics of Energy project is also highlighted, along with efforts by the Project on Managing the Atom to strengthen nuclear export rules.
White House Photo
Journal Article - Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change
Trends in Investments in Global Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration
Kelly Sims Gallagher
Ruud Kempener
Read more about Trends in Investments in Global Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration
Recent national trends in investments in global energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) are inconsistent around the world. Public RD&D investments in energy are the metric most commonly used in international comparative assessments of energy-technology innovation, and the metric employed in this article. Overall, the data indicate that International Energy Agency (IEA) member country government investments have been volatile: they peaked in the late 1970s, declined during the subsequent two decades, bottomed out in 1997, and then began to gradually grow again during the 2000s.
Belfer Center Newsletter Spring 2011
| Spring 2011
Read more about Belfer Center Newsletter Spring 2011
The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center's continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God's Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.
Beacon Power Corp. Photo
Report - Energy Technology Innovation Policy Project, Belfer Center
Transforming the Energy Economy: Options for Accelerating the Commercialization of Advanced Energy Technologies
Venkatesh "Venky" Narayanamurti
Hanna Breetz
Erik Mielke
| February 2011
Read more about Transforming the Energy Economy: Options for Accelerating the Commercialization of Advanced Energy Technologies
"The focus of the workshop was on the demonstration stage of the technology innovation cycle. Current policies do not adequately address the private sector's inability to overcome the demonstration "valley of death" for new energy technologies. Investors and financiers fear that the technology and operational risks at this stage of the cycle remain too high to justify the level of investment to build a commercial-sized facility."


Research published by WWF Scotland today shows that Scotland has world leading targets on phasing out the use of petrol and diesel cars.
The research – carried out by Transform Scotland's social enterprise research consultancy TRAC – put Scotland in the top six countries globally* for setting targets for the use of electric vehicles.
The Scottish Government's new target, which was announced last month, will see the sale of new petrol and diesel cars phased out by 2032. This would put Scotland sixth on the list globally, behind Norway, India, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland.
"It's great to see the Scottish Government setting ambitious targets for electric vehicles. Increasing the uptake in EVs is vital to tackle the illegal levels of air pollution affecting towns and cities across Scotland, as well as for cutting carbon emissions and meeting our climate change targets.
* The Netherlands announced a new, stronger target the day before this research was published. As such, Scotland is referred to as being in the top five, whereas it is now sixth-placed globally for the phase out of petrol/diesel cars.


Centenary of Tung Wah Hospital	A two-stamp set; used; yellowish. ***Discount Rates*** For every purchase of: (1) 3-6 items, 5% off the prices; (2) 7-11 items, 10% off; (3) 12-17 items, 15% off; (4) 18-24 items, 20% off; & (5) 25 or more items, 25% off. A composite item of more than one thing (e.g.


JALANDHAR: Innocent Hearts group of institutions organized induction program-2018 for UG & PG Classes in its Loharan campus. The motive behind this program was to let new students to know about culture, college resources, important rules and regulations, prior to formal commencement of first term of study programmes. The induction programme was an ice breaking session for the fresh students, faculties from different departments given a presentation to the students regarding the college set up policies and procedure, college UMS, Placements policies, culture shows, and various other rules, regulations and activities. In addition to this college invited RJ Garry & RJ Raman from MY FM who interacted with new students.
Students share their ideas and views about the college both the Rj's had done number of activities with students. Innocent Hearts group of Institutions also invited the star cast Punjabi movies "Jagga jeonda aey" star cast on this occasion famous singer Debi Makhsoospuri was the guest of honor he sang different song and interacted with students and given their best wishes to them.
Dr. Shailesh Tripathi Group Director Innocent Hearts Group of Institutions & Mr Deepak Paul principal of Hotel management welcome new students and said that we have organized this induction programme so that these students may step into new phase of their lives and become a future business leaders.


text:
| Table of contents |
|:------------------|
|[General description](#general-description)
  - [Key features](#key-features)
[Motivation](#motivation)
[Detailed documentation](#detailed-documentation)
[Requirements](#requirements)
[Using the library in your project](#using-the-library-in-your-project)
[Coverage of the APIs](#coverage-of-the-apis)
[A taste of some features in play](#a-taste-of-some-features-in-play)
[Example programs](#example-programs)
  - [Modified CUDA samples](#modified-cuda-samples)
  - ['Coverage' programs - by API module](#coverage-programs---by-api-module)
[Bugs, suggestions, feedback](#bugs-suggestions-feedback)|

## General description

This is a header-only library of integrated wrappers around the core parts of NVIDIA's [CUDA](https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-zone) execution ecosystem:

* The lower-level [CUDA Driver API](http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-driver-api/index.html)
* The slightly higher-level CUDA [Runtime API](http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-runtime-api/index.html)
* NVIDIA's dynamic CUDA code compilation library, [NVRTC](http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/nvrtc/index.html)
* NVIDIA's out-of-driver, full-featured [PTX compiler library](https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/ptx-compiler-api/index.html) (available since CUDA 11.1)
* The NVIDIA profiler in-program API, also known as [NVTX](https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/profiler-users-guide/index.html#nvtx) (the NVIDIA Toolkit Extensions library).

It is intended for those who would otherwise use these APIs directly, to make working with them be more intuitive and consistent, making use of modern C++ language capabilities, programming idioms and best practices. In a nutshell - making CUDA API work more fun :-)

Also, and importantly - while the wrappers seem to be "high-level", more "abstract" code - they are nothing more than a modern-C++-aesthetic arrangement of NVIDIA's own APIs. The wrapper library does not force any abstractions above CUDA's own, nor conventions regarding where to place data, how and when to perform synchronization, etc.; you have the complete range of expression of the underlying APIs.

### Key features

In contrast to the above, this library provides:

- **Seamlessly integrated functionality** of the Driver, Runtime and NVRTC API (NVTX doesn't integrate all that much, seamlessly or otherwise, but it's readily usable).
- All functions and methods throw **exceptions** on failure, which carry status information; no need to check return values.
- Methods and **functions return what they produce**, since they don't need to return a status code. No more having to pre-allocate result variables and pass pointers to them as out-parameters. Better compositionality!
- Judicious **namespacing** (and some internal namespace-like classes) for clarity and for semantic grouping of related functionality.
- There are **proxy/wrapper objects** for devices, streams, events, kernels, contexts, modules, link processes, timed intervals and so on - all using the [CADRe/RAII](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/raii) convention; you don't have to remember to free or release your resources yourself.
- You can  **forget about numeric IDs andhandles**; the proxy classes will fit everywhere. Of course, you can still get those numeric values for cooperation with other CUDA-related software.
- Various [Plain Old Data](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/concept/PODType) structs adorned with **convenience methods and operators** (e.g. device properties, block and grid dimensions).
- Aims for **clarity and straightforwardness** in naming and semantics, so that you don't need to refer to the official documentation to understand what each class and function do.
- Aims for conformance with the [C++ core guidelines](https://github.com/isocpp/CppCoreGuidelines).
- Thin and **lightweight**:
    - No work done behind your back, no caches or indices or any such thing - except in corner cases for ensuring Runtime-API and Driver-API compatibility. The sole exception is lazy creation of devices' primary context.
    - No costly inheritance structure, vtables, virtual methods and so on, for almost all wrappers; they vanishes almost entirely on compilation.
    - All "Runtime-API level" actions are implemented so as not to disrupt "Driver-API-level" work.
- **Header-only**: No need to compile anything.
- Permissive free software license: [3-BSD](https://github.com/eyalroz/cuda-api-wrappers/blob/master/LICENSE).

There is one noteworthy caveat: The wrapper API calls cannot make assumptions about previous or later code of yours, which means some of them require more calls to obtain the current context handle or push a(n existing) context, then pop it. While these calls are cheap, they are still non-trivial and can't be optimized away.

## Motivation

NVIDIA provides two main APIs for using [CUDA](https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-zone): The Runtime API and the
Driver API. These suffer from several deficiencies:

* They are both C-style APIs, targeting the lowest common denominator of language facilities for abstraction, safety and ease of use.
* ... although the Runtime API has a few [exceptions](https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-runtime-api/group__CUDART__HIGHLEVEL.html), so you actually need to write C++ to use it.
* The runtime API is supposedly the higher-level, more convenient version of the Driver API; in fact, it's missing a lot of important functionality, and doesn't can't be used in conjuction with other CUDA facilities, like the NVRTC dynamic compilation library. Consequently, you're forced to use _both_ the runtime and the driver API.
* It is difficult to use both the runtime and driver API in conjuction; if you're not careful, you'll mess up things like the context stack.
* The runtime API makes multiple assumptions which you might not want it to make.
* You have to manually check every call to every API function, everywhere.
* You have to work with pointers a lot, and pointers-to-pointers, since the API functions mostly return status codes rather than outputs; this will also prevent you from composing.
* You will need to remember to release all resources you allocate or create - or else bad things happen.
* There is a very large number of API functions, many of are related, with similar names, and are easy to confuse.
* You will be working with a lot of numeric and pointer-based handles, instead of class or structs. Other than the poor aesthetics, this makes it easy to mix up resource-handle and pure-number parameters to functions.

You may have noticed this list reads like the opposite of the [key features](#key-features), listed above: The idea is to make this library overcome and rectify all of these deficiencies as much as possible.

## Detailed documentation

Detailed Doxygen-genereated documentation is [available](https://codedocs.xyz/eyalroz/cuda-api-wrappers/). It is mostly complete for the Runtime API wrappers, less so for the rest of the wrappers.

## Requirements

- CUDA: v11.x or later recommended, v9.0 or later supported.

    Remember that an NVIDIA driver compatible with your CUDA version also needs to be installed. Typically, this can be the one bundled in your CUDA distribution itself.

- Other software:
     - A C++11-capable compiler compatible with your version of CUDA.
     - CMake v3.18 or later; it's very easy to [download and install](https://cmake.org/download/) a recent version - no need to build it yourself.

- An NVIDIA GPU supporting Unified Virtual Addressing (UVA), i.e. Fermi microarchitecture or later. With earlier GPUs, memory copying, and other functionality relying on automtically determining where a memory address is located, will fail.

## Using the library in your project

**Use involving CMake:**

* Use CMake to configure, build and install the library. Then, in another CMake project, use `find_package(cuda_api_wrappers)` and make sure the library's install location is in CMake's package search path. This will let you use three targets within the `cuda-api-wrappers::` namespace: `runtime-and-driver`, `nvrtc` and `nvtx`.
* Use CMake's `FetchContent` module to obtain the project source code and make it part of your own project's build, e.g.:
   ```
   include(FetchContent)
   FetchContent_Declare(cuda-api-wrappers_library
       GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/eyalroz/cuda-api-wrappers.git
       GIT_TAG v12.34.56 # Replace this with a real available version
   )
   FetchContent_MakeAvailable(cuda-api-wrappers_library)
   ```
   The _same_ target names, with the namespaces, will be available in this case.

**Use not involving CMake:**

* Since this is a header-only library, you can simply add the `src/` subdirectory as one of your project's include directories. However, if you do this, it will be up to you to make sure and have the CUDA include directory in you include path as well, and to link against the CUDA driver, runtime API, nvrtc and/or nvtx libraries as appropriate.

Finally, if you've started using the library in a publicly-available (FOSS or commercial) project, please consider emailing [@eyalroz](https://github.com/eyalroz), or open an [issue](https://github.com/eyalroz/printf/issues/), to announce this.

## Coverage of the APIs

Most, but not all, API calls in the Runtime, Driver, NVTX and NVRTC are covered by these wrappers. Specifically, the following are missing:

* Task graph management
* Interoperability with OpenGL, Direct3D, EGL, VDAPU.

Support for textures, arrays and surfaces exists, but is partial: Not all relevant API functions are covered.

The [Milestones](https://github.com/eyalroz/cuda-api-wrappers/milestones) indicates some features which aren't covered and are slated for future work. Since I am not currently working on anything graphics-related, there are no short-term plans to extend coverage to more graphics-related APIs; however - PRs are welcome.

## A taste of some features in play

We've all dreamed of being able to type in:

	my_stream.enqueue.callback(
		[&foo](cuda::stream_t stream, cuda::status_t status) {
			::std::cout << "Hello " << foo << " world!\n";
		}
	);

... and have that just work, right? Well, now it does!

On a slightly more serious note, though, let's demonstrate the principles listed above:

#### Use of namespaces (and internal classes)
With this library, you would do `cuda::memory::host::allocate()` instead of `cudaMallocHost()` and `cuda::device_t::memory::allocate()` instead of setting the current device and then `cudaMalloc()`. Note, though, that `device_t::memory::allocate()` is not a freestanding function but a method of an internal class, so a call to it might be `cuda::device::get(my_device_id).memory.allocate(my_size)`. The compiled version of this supposedly complicated construct will be nothing but the sequence of `cudaSetDevice()` and `cudaMalloc()` calls.

#### Adorning POD structs with convenience methods
The expression
```
my_device.properties().compute_capability() >= cuda::make_compute_capability(50)
```
is a valid comparison, true for all devices with a Maxwell-or-later micro-architecture. This, despite the fact that `struct cuda::compute_capability_t` is a POD type with two unsigned integer fields, not a scalar. Note that `struct cuda::device::properties_t` (which is really basically a `struct cudaDeviceProp` of the Runtime API itself) does not have a `compute_capability` field.

#### Meaningful naming
Instead of using
```
cudaError_t cudaEventCreateWithFlags(
    cudaEvent_t* event,
    unsigned int flags)
```
which requires you remember what you need to specify as flags and how, you create a `cuda::event_t` proxy object, using the function:
```
cuda::event_t cuda::event::create(
    cuda::device_t  device,
    bool            uses_blocking_sync,
    bool            records_timing      = cuda::event::do_record_timing,
    bool            interprocess        = cuda::event::not_interprocess)
```
The default values here are `enum : bool`'s, which you can use yourself when creating non-default-parameter events - to make the call more easily readable than with `true` or `false`.

## Example programs

In lieu of a full-fledged user's guide, I'm providing several kinds of example programs; browsing their source you'll know most of what there is to know about the API wrappers. To build and run the examples (just as a sanity check), execute the following (in a Unix-style command shell):

    cmake -S . -B build -DBUILD_EXAMPLES=ON .
    cmake --build build/
    find build/examples/bin -type f -executable -exec "{}" ";"

The two main kinds of example programs are:

#### Modified CUDA samples

The CUDA distribution contains sample programs demostrating various features and concepts. A few of these - which are not focused on device-side work - have been adapted to use the API wrappers - completely foregoing direct use of the CUDA Runtime API itself. You will find them in the [modified CUDA samples](https://github.com/eyalroz/cuda-api-wrappers/tree/master/examples/modified_cuda_samples/) example programs folder.

#### 'Coverage' programs - by API module

Gradually, an example program is being added for each one of the CUDA Runtime API [Modules](http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-runtime-api/modules.html#modules), in which the approach replacing use of those module API calls by use of the API wrappers is demonstrated. These per-module example programs can be found [here](https://github.com/eyalroz/cuda-api-wrappers/tree/master/examples/by_runtime_api_module/).

## Bugs, suggestions, feedback

If you notice a specific issue which needs addressing, especially any sort of bug, compatibility problem, or missing functionality - please [file the issue](https://github.com/eyalroz/cuda-api-wrappers/issues) here on GitHub. If you'd like to contribute, or give some less-specific or less public feedback -  do [write me](mailto:eyalroz1@gmx.com). You can also write if you're interested in collaborating on related research or coding work.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Home>News>Violent protests spread across U.S. cities
Violent protests spread across U.S. cities
By AT editor - 31 May 2020 at 3:27 pm
Cities across the United States woke up Sunday morning to the grim aftermath of fresh waves of protest that have now lasted nearly a week, spreading from Minneapolis – a diverse community that is home to many African immigrants – and cascading across dozens of cities where racial tensions have exploded in anger and frustration.
New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and nearly all major urban centers saw thousands of people take to the streets. Protesters clashed with police and security forces for a second night at the White House in Washington D.C., before marchers spilled into surrounding blocks where they smashed windows and looted businesses.
"My administration will always stand against violence, mayhem, and disorder," said Trump, who nonetheless sent conflicting messages for days that failed to de-escalate the violence. "We will stand with the family of George Floyd, with the peaceful protesters, and with every law-abiding citizen who wants decency, civility, safety, and security."
Floyd died on May 25 when former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinned the 46-year-old African American to the street with a knee to his neck for some nine minutes, despite Floyd's pleas that he couldn't breathe. The incident was videotaped by bystanders, sparking outrage in the Minnesota city and leading to Chauvin's arrest on murder and manslaughter charges.
By Sunday morning, though, it was clear that protests sweeping the nation were rooted in long-simmering anger at systemic racial and economic injustices, and they sharpen U.S. political divisions ahead of November elections.
Shattered glass, graffiti and burned-out storefronts marked the protests in cities large and small, including Cleveland, Detroit, Louisville and other Midwestern cities. At least three people died in protest-related shootings in Indianapolis. Police cars and stations, alongside other government buildings, have been targets as protesters set them on fire.
Trump has not addressed the nation over the crisis though advisors are urging him to do so, according to the Washington Post.
Image: Chicago Police Department
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Cabinet has directed the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) to improve transparency in the way grain deliveries and subsequent payments are being handled.
This follows several complaints by the farmers over the way they are being treated.
Following concerns raised by farmers over treatment they are receiving from the GMB, Cabinet has issued a directive ordering GMB to receive and accept all grain deliveries to its depots in an open and transparent way.
In a statement on the position of Cabinet with regards to GMB, Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Dr Christopher Mushohwe said the GMB should urgently set up satellite depots at rural districts and service centres in order to reduce transport costs and boost grain deliveries.
The GMB was ordered to ensure all grain delivered is paid for on a first come first served basis, without bias.
Minister Mushohwe highlighted any GMB or public officials working with unlicensed grain merchants to prejudice farmers and the state will be dealt with in terms of the law.
Farmers and the public have since been advised to report all malpractices by public officials and bogus grain traders to the Ministry of Agriculture Mechanisation and Irrigation Development as well as the police.


On 26 and 27 September Bit4id will attend the most interesting cyber security event of the year, the Cyber Security Nordic. A high-profile conference to discuss the importance of cyber security for various business functions and to present new products and services.
The event will take place at the Messukeskus Helsinki, Expo and Convention Centre, the biggest exhibition and congress arena in Finland.
There is free access to the event and the exhibition both days and, free seminar on Wednesday, 27 September; conference program is chargeable on Tuesday, 26 September. Participants have to buy the ticket on the official site.