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EGD News #43 — Epic the Usurper
It's Joakim here. Greetings from Helsinki! This week has been a busy week. Besides creating content for Elite Game Developers, I enrolled in an online course on Roam Research. I want to level up my systems, so I'm betting big on this course. Here's a non-affiliated link to the course, if someone is interested. I'll report back on how I'm learning.
On to this week's news.
🎮 Epic the Usurper
As we are in 2020 and the war between Epic Games and Apple is heating up, I wanted to reflect on the history of digital distribution for games and get a perspective on what I think is going on.
To proceed, I want to tell a story. This story is about three companies, one previously dominant, the second currently dominant, and the third who wants dominance.
Since games started moving away from physical distribution, we've had major online platforms providing growth for the games industry. Over ten years ago, before the iPhone, Facebook canvas games were the place for free-to-play games. Gaming had immense growth when millions of people suddenly started playing games on this vast and ever-growing FB platform. Some of the records haven't been broken since. In 2010, Zynga put out a game called Cityville, and within 50 days of its release, CityVille had reached 61 million monthly active users.
My first startup had a nightclub management game called Disco Empire. Our game had decent graphics, and we tried to lean on people's liking for cocktails drinks. At our in-game bar, we served virtual Mojitos, Cosmopolitans. You name it. Our numbers had been growing nicely, and suddenly we got an email from Facebook's administration that we have 48 hours to take down all references to alcoholic beverages. And if we didn't comply, Facebook would shut our game down.
We rushed to change all drinks into juices and sodas. This way we avoided the boot and could continue running the game on Facebook. Now recollecting, it was the scariest moment of the whole project. We'd never had a face-to-face conversation with Facebook, but they were the way to reach our customers, and the reason our company existed.
During that same year, Facebook decided to end viral mechanics on the Facebook platform. No more posting from games to the valuable news feed. To make matters worse, Facebook announced that all developers were required to process payments only through Facebook Credits, where Facebook retains 30%, and developers get 70%. Previously, developers had used their own web-view payment with only a 5% cut for payment processing.
Eventually, those who had relied on growing their games through the lucrative viral channels suffered and had to shut down.
Soon Facebook gaming died out, not only from the actions that marginalized the opportunities for game developers. It was the time for a new dominant platform, called the smartphone, to emerge.
To summarize, Facebook:
Facebook Canvas games opened up in 2007 to allow developers to run games directly on Facebook.
Massive viral growth. You had access to Facebook's social graph. As players entered the game, developers could immediately ask the players to send game invites to their entire Facebook friends list.
Facebook's agenda. It opened up in 2007 for developers to build an app ecosystem by bringing more "things" for users to do on their platform. As Facebook grew to billions of users, its growth plan didn't include free installs for game developers. Facebook shifted it's focus to:
A) blocking virality and allowing Facebook's ad network to grow through a game developer's user acquisition budget
B) monetization through its proprietary Facebook Credits.
The smartphone era made gaming become the dominant entertainment format over TV and music. Apple's actions have significantly increased the total addressable market for gaming immensely, more than any other company in video gaming history.
But things didn't change much. Apple's power over developers is not much different from the one that Facebook had.
Here's an example. In 2014, Apple instituted a rule that mobile games on iOS had to remove any and all references for guns and weapons from the app icons. Complying with the ruling would guarantee that your update would pass through Apple's app review process. These moments remind developers that someone else is running the show, as a more prominent force in the background. Developers need to rely on Apple that things will be okay.
It might be a blessing in disguise that Apple's game featuring on the front page of the App Store no longer has the significance it used to have. Now everyone has to rely on their user acquisition abilities to find their audience. But at the same time, smaller developers are less likely to receive install spikes at launch. Without sophisticated performance marketing, smaller developers will have their games launch unnoticed.
When operating on the App Store, developers don't have a direct customer relationship. No direct email access. You can always ask players to type in their emails inside the game, but they'd rather be playing than typing. I'm sure developers would love to email their customers to tell them about a sequel, or about a new game. Apple's actions cause developers to spend on ads to get the word out to past players.
To summarize what Apple does:
They brought a computer to everyone's pocket. From day-1, Apple wanted to build an app ecosystem, which it successfully did.
That computer has one app store, where the owner of the app store takes 30% of the revenue.
Apple doesn't facilitate a customer relationship between the developer and the player, but rather fosters the relationship with the customer and Apple as a brand.
Epic Games entered the scene in the 1990s when it released it's shooter Unreal Tournament. Over the years, it's Unreal Engine became a popular off-the-shelf gaming engine for thousands of developers all over the world. But only recently became a force to reckon with, as Fortnite launched in 2017. In Fortnite's success, Epic has built out many developer-facing tools on top of its Unreal Engine.
Epic Online Services for developers to build out their own online games, utilizing features and technical capabilities.
Epic Store. PC gaming online store, competing with Steam from Valve, which takes 12% cut from revenues, landing 88% to developers.
Epic Publishing. Offering publishing services for PC and console developers. Also taking a much lower fee, when compared to rivals like Microsoft.
At the same time, Epic has raised a bunch of capital to take its operations to the next level, altogether $1.78 billion during the summer of 2020. This is a war chest of a few billion to take on the platforms, especially Apple. Fortnite has been a huge success on the iPhone, but it's not happy about Apple's App Store taking 30% of the revenue.
Epic's war against Apple started out of the blue, as it released its own payment system inside the iOS version of Fortnite. Apple retaliated by moving Fortnite away from the store. After the first blows, Epic stated it's altruistic motives by messaging that Apple was to blame for removing Fortnite. Epic said that Apple had too much control over game developers. But Epic seems to be playing a similar game of power, as did Apple and Facebook.
Let's talk about the differences between Epic, Apple, and Facebook. Of the three, Epic has always been a gaming startup. Unreal Tournament was their first success, then the game engine did wonders for them. Later, it developed Fortnite, so it continues to be a games company.
Epic is made out of people who know gaming, all the way from top to bottom. It's positioned itself to grow the whole gaming market in a way that none other could. Epic also understands the developer's struggle. It knows that a 30% cut is too much to push the market forward, that's why it's arguing that it should be 12%.
Apple giving a concession, and relenting would mean that Epic has taken over the dominant spot, and has become the new kingmaker of the games industry. The question is, can developers trust Epic, a company that doesn't abide by the rules and definitely has its own agenda? Can we trust an organization that privately embarks on crusades to save game development?
📄 Pre-mortems, and why your game will fail
To defy the games industry's hit-driven nature, we need to come up with ways to navigate our games past the possible failure situations. Today, I'm publishing my article on pre-mortems, one of the best tools for seeing into the future, before investing all the time and resources in the project.
"But how do they make the right decisions? There is a massive opportunity cost to working on a project that could fail. In gaming, development costs and time allocations have grown immensely. Projects last six to twelve months and cost millions of dollars to complete."
Read the full article here.
🎙 Gigi Levy-Weiss, NFX
I had Gigi Levy Weiss, managing partner of NFX, on the podcast. Gigi's companies include Playtika, Plarium and Moon Active. Since early in his career, Gigi has worked in gaming and with gaming companies, and he has a lot of interesting insights into funding and company building.
Top takeaways:
The essence of network effects for startup founders, is to think about users bringing continuous value to each other, once they are in the service
"After investing in 20 games companies, it's easy to know which team can excel on the optimization side. And it's almost impossible to predict who is going to be amazing on the creative side."
Keys to understand gaming investment: 1) Understand when the talent is the right mix needed. 2) Understand the early KPIs and learn to predict how they develop. 3) Develop pattern recognition for successful gaming companies.
Full episode and transcript available here.
💵 VCs asking questions from founders
Here's a few questions that VCs ask founders:
When did you know this was your life's work?
Used for evaluating ambition level, storytelling skills (sales) and commitment.
If I called your previous colleagues, what would they tell me about you?
Tests the honesty of the founder.
If it didn't work out, why not?
Tests biggest risks and self-awareness, and if the founder can navigate through failure situations.
🖥 Audience-first game development webinar
Elite Game Developers webinars are back!
We're starting the 2nd season with a webinar on Audience-first game development. I'm joined by Mitchell Smallman, Head of Product at Netspeak Games. We'll talk about the approaches you can take to have an audience before you have a game.
Sign up to the webinar by going here.
+ Former Glu CEO is ready to take another company public — As someone who has IPOed a company, I think the SPAC model is super exciting, when compared to the traditional initial public offering. Alex Danco wrote about SPAC recently, and now former Glu exec De Masi is doing something similar in gaming. "The SPAC industry is booming now, as it's a way of going public without all of the hassle. Investors put their money into a shell entity, and the management will acquire one or more companies. De Masi said it will focus on gaming, with a total enterprise value in the range of $1 billion to $3 billion."
+ Tencent invests in Voodoo — Tencent grabs a minority stake in French hypercasual developer Voodoo. It marks the first hypercasual deal since Zynga bought Rollic in early August for $168m. "For Voodoo, the Tencent deal is clearly a gateway into the massive Asia Pacific gaming market. The partnership can further extend its two-pronged business of distributing its own games and third-party titles to the region, said Voodoo CEO Yazdi".
+ Accelerated Learning: Learn Faster and Remember More — This is such a great post from Shane at Farnam Street. I'm fascinated with learning and becoming a better learner. In this post, Shane talks about learning from others' history and learning from experience and reflection. He also talks about the Feynman Technique, which is brilliant. "Outside of your intellectual comfort zone is where you experience the greatest learning. For this reason, having a lot of helpful guidance early on can be counterproductive if it eliminates the all-important struggle to master new material."
💬 Quote that I'm thinking about
"Why would we want to play a competitive game in a field where we have no advantage — maybe a disadvantage — instead of in a field where we have a clear advantage?"
— Charlie Munger
This newsletter is sponsored by ironSource
That's it for this week. I hope you have a great weekend!
Previous EGD News
Have you checked out the previous EGD News?
EGD News #42 — Underdogs
EGD News #41 — Long Term Sustainability


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The index opened weak and stayed weak for the entire session of trade with a dip below 7800 but closed just above at 7814.90, huge loss of 85.50 points. The broader market was weak with 564 advances to 992 declines. Range for the series is at 7600-8000.
Call option 7800-8400 added huge 44.65 lacs OI with small short covering at 7600 and below strike prices.
Put option 7100 added 3.10 lacs OI with huge short covering at 7800 and above strike prices.
Nifty Open Interest is at 1,62,86,400 down by 7,57,575, with decrease in price, probably huge long liquidation.
Bank Nifty Open Interest is at 17,14,470 down by 61,770, with decrease in price, probably long liquidation.
FII's sold 4052 contracts of Index Futures, which includes net 6593 contracts long liquidation and 2541 contracts short covering, with decrease in net OI by 9134 contracts, includes 31340 longs to 35392 shorts for the day.
FII's Index future open contract as on date is 134711 Longs to 95948 Shorts, Net 38763 down by 4052 contracts.
Initial support at 7800, with OI of 51.89 lacs and below that at 7700 with OI of 50.85 lacs.
Initial resistance at 7900, with OI of 56.80 lacs and above that at 8000 with highest OI of 85.52 lacs.
Day Range as per Option Table is 7755 - 7892 and as per VIX is 7745 - 7884 with 7827 as the Pivot.


If you work in or near Skiatook, please let us know where and how many employees work with you! We love taking small treats around to local businesses and introducing ourselves to the town! We will try our best to get to everyone in between our regular orders over the next couple of months!!!


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Home/Breaking/Student steals taxi, jumps in the Hudson
Student steals taxi, jumps in the Hudson
By Shanna O'Mara
A Rider graduate student stole a taxi cab in New York and drove to the Hudson River before exiting the vehicle to plunge into the freezing water on Friday morning, police said.
He reportedly stole the cab from North End Avenue in Battery Park City and drove three blocks to River Terrace. He then climbed the seawall and leapt into the water. Police said he was not injured, though he was transported to Bellevue Hospital for observation.
David Madjrouh was charged with grand larceny, reckless endangerment and unauthorized use of a vehicle after being pulled from the river by two ferry deckhands who threw a rescue buoy and roll-up ladder to him.
Two months ago, Madjrouh was arrested by Lawrence Police on campus after he crashed a professor's car. Public Safety said he reached speeds between 70 and 80 miles per hour before he collided with a curb outside of the Mail Services building.
University spokeswoman Kristine Brown said Madjrouh is still a Rider student but that the university is not legally allowed to provide further information about the situation.
"We are aware of the incident in [New York City]," she said. "Generally speaking, the university has a thorough process to investigate violations of the Student Code of Conduct which includes corresponding consequences if a student is found responsible for misconduct. Our primary concern remains the safety and well-being of all members of our community, particularly students."
From the Editor: Spread thanks this holiday season
Backstage at The Daily Show: Students talk with TV personality
Title IX director departs, Rider announces interim
University hoping to amend fraternity transfer credit policy
Requiem or rebirth: the Westminster saga
University, employee union resolve pay dispute

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Mol Microbiol. 2012 Feb;83(4):712-27. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2958.2011.07954.x. Epub 2012 Jan 18.
Xu Q1, Christen B, Chiu HJ, Jaroszewski L, Klock HE, Knuth MW, Miller MD, Elsliger MA, Deacon AM, Godzik A, Lesley SA, Figurski DH, Shapiro L, Wilson IA.
The tad (tight adherence) locus encodes a protein translocation system that produces a novel variant of type IV pili. The pilus assembly protein TadZ (called CpaE in Caulobacter crescentus) is ubiquitous in tad loci, but is absent in other type IV pilus biogenesis systems. The crystal structure of TadZ from Eubacterium rectale (ErTadZ), in complex with ATP and Mg(2+) , was determined to 2.1 Å resolution. ErTadZ contains an atypical ATPase domain with a variant of a deviant Walker-A motif that retains ATP binding capacity while displaying only low intrinsic ATPase activity. The bound ATP plays an important role in dimerization of ErTadZ. The N-terminal atypical receiver domain resembles the canonical receiver domain of response regulators, but has a degenerate, stripped-down 'active site'. Homology modelling of the N-terminal atypical receiver domain of CpaE indicates that it has a conserved protein-protein binding surface similar to that of the polar localization module of the social mobility protein FrzS, suggesting a similar function. Our structural results also suggest that TadZ localizes to the pole through the atypical receiver domain during an early stage of pili biogenesis, and functions as a hub for recruiting other pili components, thus providing insights into the Tad pilus assembly process.
Genetic maps of tad loci and the domain architecture of the TadZ proteins. (A) The tad loci for the Gram-negative bacteria A. actinomycetemcomitans (Aa) and C. crescentus (Cc), and for the Gram-positive bacterium E. rectale (Er). The locus number for each E. rectale gene is also shown. (B) Representative domain architectures of TadZs from A. actinomycetemcomitans, C. crescentus, E. rectale, Streptomyces avermitilis (Sa) and Chlorobium tepidum TLS (Ct). NTD represents the N-terminal domain, ARD: the atypical receiver domain, and AAD: the atypical ATPase domain.
The crystal structure of TadZ from E. rectale (ErTadZ). (A) The monomer of ErTadZ consists of two domains: the atypical receiver domain (ARD) and the atypical ATPase domain (AAD). Glu56 and Lys279 are shown as ball-and-sticks; ATP is shown as sticks, and Mg2+ as a blue sphere. (B) ErTadZ dimer and molecular dimensions (in Å) with ATP in green spheres. Glu56 and strand β5, corresponding to the canonical phosphorylation site and output surface of a canonical RD, are highlighted in blue and red respectively.
ATP and Mg2+ in the active site of AAD. (A) The σA-weighted 2Fo-Fc density around the bound ATP is contoured at 1.0 σ. ATP and protein side chains of the final refined model are shown ball-and-sticks. Mg2+ and water molecules are shown as green and red spheres, respectively. (B) MALDI MS spectrum showing the presence of ATP (m/z 508.03 Da) and ADP (m/z 428.05 Da) in the ErTadZ protein sample used for structure determination.
Stereoview of the ATP binding sites of (A) ErTadZ, (B) CtTadZ, and (C) the Soj D44A mutant. Magnesium ions and water molecules are shown as gray and red spheres, respectively. (D) The P-loop regions (Walker-A motifs) of the TadZ family of proteins lack the normally conserved second lysine. (Top panel) Sequence alignment of the P-loop regions of several characterized TadZ homologs and E. coli MinD. The consensus sequence of the deviant Walker-A motif is shown at the bottom. (Bottom panel) Sequence conservation pattern of the P-loop in TadZ homologs (490 sequences) and Soj homologs (1631 sequences) as a sequence logo representation, where the overall height of the stack indicates the sequence conservation, and the height of the symbols indicate the relative frequency of each amino acid at that position. Sequences of each set were created from top hits of BLAST (cutoff Expect<1.E-10) using either the AAD domain of CcTadZ or Soj as probes, respectively.
ATPase activity of ErTadZ. (A) ATPase activities were assayed using [33P] α-labeled ATP (1mM). Under physiological buffer conditions, ErTadZ (red) shows a moderate ATP hydrolysis rate as compared to the previously reported ATPase MipZ (green), a distant homolog of ErTadZ and a spatial regulator of cell division in C. crescentus (). An ErTadZE162A point mutation (blue) that substitutes the Mg2+ chelating glutamine residue in the ATP binding pocket with an alanine residue abrogates ATPase activity under physiological buffer conditions. Similarly, the ATPase activity of wild type ErTadZ is lost under buffer conditions used for crystallization (purple). (B) The formation of ADP was quantified by PEI-cellulose TLC as shown for the wild type ErTadZ sample under physiological buffer conditions.
A conserved dimer formed by the AAD domains. (A) Profile of the SEC/SLS experiment displaying the refractive index signal (SEC, solid trace) against elution time (minutes) for ErTadZ (red). The dotted trace represents the molar mass (g/mol) calculated according to SLS. BSA (bovine serum albumin, 66.4 kDa) was used as the standard. (B) AAD dimer of ErTadZ with protomers labeled A and B. Lys279 and ATP are shown as sticks. Residues near the domain interface of ErTadZ highlighted in cyan. (C) A close-up view of ATP-mediated interactions between the two protomers of ErTadZ A and B (A, pale green; B, magenta). ATP plays a conserved role in both dimerization of ErTadZ (left) and Soj (right). Residues near the domain interface of ErTadZ highlighted in cyan. Hydrogen bonds are shown in dashed lines and their distance labeled in Å.
Structural comparisons of CheY and ARDs. (A) Structures of the ARD of ErTadZ (PDB code 3fkq), MlTadZ (PDB code 3snk) and FrzS (PDB code 2gkg) compared to the prototypical RD CheY (PDB code 2che). All molecules are shown in similar (superimposed) orientations. Key residues of CheY and equivalent residues of other proteins are shown as ball-and-sticks. The bound Mg2+ in CheY is shown as a green sphere. (B) Close-up views of the active site of CheY and the equivalent region in ErTadZ. Hydrogen (and magnesium coordination) bonds are shown as dashed lines and their distances are labeled (Å). Water molecules are shown as red spheres.
Homology modeling of CcTadZ (CpaE) and mapping of conserved residues. (A) Homology model of the CcTadZ ARD domain colored by sequence conservation in a gradient from the non-conserved (white) to the most conserved (red). The Cα atoms of the most conserved residues are shown in red spheres. (B) Comparison of the "output surface" of the ARD domains of CcTadZ and FrzS. (C) Surface representation of the homology model of the AAD of CcTadZ colored by sequence conservation (color scheme same as A). ATP is shown as grey sticks. The P-loop region is denoted by a star. (D) A CcTadZ dimer model based on the ErTadZ dimer (color scheme same as A).


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Kahyee Lee, a native of Malaysia, earned her Masters of Music degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder while studying with Ed Dusinberre (Takács Quartet), Margaret Gutierrez and Lina Bahn. She spent her high school years at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where she was recognized with the Fine Arts Award for Violin. After high school, Kahyee attended the Cleveland Institute of Music where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance under David Updegraff.
She shares her passion for the violin through teaching, coaching and outreach programs. While in Colorado, she conducted weekly sectionals with the Fairview High School Orchestra violin section, was a substitute mentor for the Greater Boulder Youth Orchestra, and served as a Teaching Assistant for the violin studio and the Musicians' Wellness Initiative at CU. She is also a certified teacher with the Suzuki Association of the Americas, and received her training from William Starr in Boulder and Kimberley Meier-Sims in Cleveland. While in Omaha, she was a teacher at the Omaha Conservatory of Music as well as a lead instructor for the school's "Violin Sprouts" program. She taught at the Suzuki Talent Education Program in Birmingham, Alabama for four years before moving to the Washington DC area. She currently maintains a private violin studio.
Kahyee is very active in the performance community, and has performed with the Alabama Symphony, Tuscaloosa Symphony, Fort Collins Symphony, Boulder Chamber, Boulder Philharmonic and Greeley Philharmonic. She is currently a violinist of the Des Moines Metro Opera.
Kahyee travels extensively to perform, teach and to learn. She is an alumnus of renowned music festivals such as the Tanglewood Music Center, the National Repertory Orchestra, the ENCORE School for Strings, and the Meadowmount School of Music.


text:
General English Test
Welcome to the Lexis General English Test. if you are thinking of studying General English, or one of our Teen Programs, this is the ideal test for you. If you are thinking of studying one of our academic courses, such as Cambridge Preparation, IELTS Preparation or English for Medical Professionals, then you may want to try the Academic English Online Test >
Once you have complete the answers, submit the test to us and we will contact you within 24 hours with your level, and with our recommendations for study.
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Which school do you plan to attend?*
BrisbaneByron BayNoosaPerthSunshine CoastSydney
Part 1 - Choose the best option
Each sentence can be completed using one or more of the alternatives (A, B, C, D). There are between two and four alternatives each time. In some sentences more than one alternative is possible.Choose the most appropriate option and select the corresponding box.
1. The teacher encouraged her students .................... to an English pen-friend.*
A. should write
B. write
C. wrote
D. to write
2. They spent a lot of time ..................................... at the pictures in the museum.*
A. looking
B. for looking
C. to look
D. to looking
3. Becky enjoys science lessons, but all her experiments seem to ........................................ wrong.*
A. turn
B. come
C. end
D. go
4. ...................................... for Martin, all the group arrived on time.*
A. Except
B. Other
C. Besides
D. Apart
5. She ...................................... her neighbour's children for the broken window.*
A. accused
B. complained
C. blamed
D. denied
6. As I had missed my lesson, my friend went ................................... the homework with me.*
A. by
B. after
C. over
D. on
7. Whether she's a good actor or not is a ......................................... of opinion.*
A. matter
B. subject
C. point
D. case
8. The roof of the old building was ............................... up by four columns.*
A. built
B. carried
C. held
D. supported
9. Would it ..................................... you if we came on Thursday?*
A. agree
B. suit
C. like
D. fit
10. This form ........................................... be handed in until the end of the week.*
A. doesn't need
B. doesn't have
C. needn't
D. hasn't got
Part 2 - Where would you see this notice?
Please read the notices below. Where would you expect to see these?
1. " Please Leave Your Room Key At Reception "*
A. In a Shop
B. In a Hotel
C. In a Taxi
2. " Foreign Money Changed Here "*
A. In a library
B. In a bank
C. In a police station
3. " Afternoon Show Starts At 3pm "*
A. Outside a theatre
B. Outside a supermarket
C. Outside a restaurant
4. " CLOSED FOR HOLIDAYS. Lessons start again January 8th "*
A. At a travel agent
B. At an English school
C. At a restaurant
5. " Price per night - $10 per Tent / $5 per Person "*
A. At a cinema
C. At a campsite
Part 3 - Written Answer
Write an answer to the following question. Write your answer in 120 - 180 words in an appropriate style on the answer sheet, putting the question number in the box provided.
"Write about how you celebrate a special day in your country. For example, in Australia we have a special horse race in November called 'The Melbourne Cup'. Nearly everyone stops work for a few minutes to watch the race. Most shops shut and the restaurants have special lunches"*
P3 Para Word Count
Enter your details below to download the brochure for General English Test
With schools located in Australia's 'best kept secret' locations, you can learn English and enjoy all that Australia has to offer.
Coming to Australia isn't just about improving your English; its about using it in real-life situations, making friends and more.


Supreme Court Election – What's at Stake?
The April 2nd election will likely determine the makeup of the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the next generation.
Consider this, Judge Hagedorn is running to fill the seat left by Justice Shirley Abrahamson. Justice Abrahamson has been on the court since 1976 – that's 43 years!
That means whoever wins in April could very likely hold that seat for decades to come.
Judge Hagedorn is a pro-law judge, who deeply believes in the Constitution and respects the rule of law.
Judge Hagedorn is an experienced judge, attorney, and former law clerk who has what it takes to serve the people on the Supreme Court.
Judge Hagedorn is endorsed by 5 current and former Wisconsin Supreme Court justices.
Judge Hagedorn has the support of 46 sheriffs and 16 district attorneys because they know he is deeply committed to protecting the public.
Judge Hagedorn believes that, as a Supreme Court Justice, his job will be to say what the law is and not what he thinks the law should be.
Judge Hagedorn will not legislate from the bench and believes that personal political views have no place on the court.
His opponent, on the other hand, has shown that she will be an activist justice who will decide cases based on personal ideology and use the Court to push the agenda of her special interest allies.
Democrats and liberal special interest groups are backing Hagedorn's opponent, Lisa Neubauer, because they see her as an ally that, if elected, will help take control of the court and overturn years of conservative reforms.
Lisa Neubauer has been part of Wisconsin's Democrat Party establishment for nearly four decades.
Neubauer is part of an influential political family that has a long history of supporting democratic candidates and liberal causes.
Neubauer and her husband have made over $105,000 in political contributions to state and federal Democratic candidates and left-leaning organizations since 1992.
Neubauer was appointed as a judge by Democrat Governor Jim Doyle after contributing thousands of dollars to his campaign.
Neubauer used to work for Democrat politicians and even helped run a Democratic presidential campaign.
Neubauer's husband is the former chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party and member of the Democratic National Committee.
Her husband also served as Bill Clinton's campaign manager for Wisconsin and the couple was regularly invited to the White House by the Clinton family for social and political functions.
Neubauer recently marched alongside her liberal allies during an anti-Trump protest rally.
As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Neubauer attended a climate change march protesting the environmental agenda of President Donald Trump. Despite her nonpartisan claims, Neubauer's participation in the protest confirms her hyper-partisan leanings and desire to politicize the Court.
Neubauer sat on dozens of cases involving clients of her family's business.
Lisa Neubauer failed to recuse herself more than 100 times from cases involving the financial interests of her and her husband's business clients.
Neuabuer's actions contradict her previous claims. Last month, Neubauer's campaign denied that the Judge ever sat on cases involving her family's business or on any cases involving substantial financial interests of their clients.
Furthermore, Neubauer's past actions are in stark contrast to her support for stronger recusal rules.
Neuabuer's husband tried using his political influence to write legislation to benefit the couple's business.
According to state records, Neubauer wrote a bill for Rep. Cory Mason that would have required state agencies to use "environmentally friendly" cleaning products like those sold by the Neubauers.
Drafting records and emails show that Neubauer wrote the legislation and personally selected the specific types of products the state would be required to purchase – products nearly identical to those supplied by their business.
At the time, the Neubauers already had over a hundred contracts with various Wisconsin state agencies. Had Neubauer's legislation passed, the couple would have likely received significant financial gain from increased sales. As it stood, their business was already being paid millions by the state.
Records show that between 2005-2017, the Neubauers were paid nearly $15 million by the State of Wisconsin for janitorial supplies and services.
Neubauer's business received a sharp increase in state contracts after she and her husband donated thousands to Gov. Jim Doyle's campaign.
Neubauer's family business received 82 new state contracts worth millions dollars after her and her husband donated thousands to Governor Doyle's 2006 re-election campaign.
According to state records, the Neubauers were paid nearly $15 million in taxpayer funds by the State of Wisconsin for janitorial supplies and services between 2005-2017.
Neubauer's campaign is being backed by far left-wing groups, big labor unions, and a party that advocates for socialism.
The Wisconsin Working Families Party recently announced it is supporting Neubauer's campaign for Supreme Court by mobilizing volunteers and running a large-scale voter contact operation.
According to Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Working Families Party is "the closest thing" to a party that believes in socialism.
The WFP was designed to push Democrat officials further to the left and is known for pressuring candidates to take union-friendly stands on issues.
Neubauer has gladly accepted millions of dollars in support from special interest groups despite her earlier denials to the contrary.
When first entering the race, Neubauer lied to voters by saying she would call on special interest groups to stay out of the race.
But now, Neubauer is gladly accepting millions of dollars in support from liberal special interests like Eric's Holder and Planned Parenthood.
Neubauer has also accepted $286,500 in direct campaign contributions from several major labor unions.
Judge Neubauer appears to only be opposed to special interest spending when it doesn't benefit her own campaign.
Liberals see Neubauer's election as an opportunity to take over the Supreme Court.
As reported by the Associated Press, Wisconsin Democrats consider a win by Neubauer as a key step in the complete liberal takeover of the state's Supreme Court.
If liberal-backed Judge Neubauer wins the April 2 state Supreme Court race, liberals would be in prime position to take over the court when the next seat comes up in 2020 — during a presidential primary when Democrats expect to benefit from strong turnout.
A victory by liberal-backed Judge Lisa Neubauer in April would put the future of the court and years of conservative reforms that have reshaped Wisconsin at risk.


Welcome to the forensic science technician page. This page is designed to help anybody looking for information and resources relating to this particular forensic science career.
Whether you are considering becoming a forensic-science-technician, are looking for appropriate forensic science classes or simply want to find out what a forensic science technician does, we hope you find the following material useful.
According to the National Institute of Health Office of Science Education, a forensic-science-technician collects, identifies, classifies, and analyzes physical evidence relating to criminal investigations. A forensic-science-technician will perform tests on weapons or substances, e.g., fiber, hair, and tissue to determine their significance to an investigation.
Forensic technicians may also testify as an expert witnesses on evidence or crime laboratory techniques; as well as serving as specialists in area such as ballistics, fingerprinting, handwriting, or biochemistry.
Access a range of quality Forensic Technician related websites via the following link.
Undergraduate students in a Forensic Chemistry Lab demonstrate how to develop fingerprints using a variety of methods: Cyanoacrylate (super glue), fuming, dusting, and iodine fuming.
There are a number of pages right here on the All About Forensic Science website that provide additional resource material.


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Q: Load log4j2.xml file outside project with enviroment variable I am developing a java web-app (v3.0) for a TomCat 7.0 server and I am having troubles loading the log4j2.xml file.
I have defined the log4j2.xml file outside my project and defined the path for the file in my web.xml file.
If i hardcode the path my log4j2.xml file loads as it should.
<context-param>
    <param-name>log4jConfiguration</param-name>
    <param-value>file:///C:/my/path/log4j2.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

On the other hand I want to use an enviroment variable to define the path.
<context-param>
    <param-name>log4jConfiguration</param-name>
    <param-value>file:///${ENVIROMENT_VARIABLE}/log4j2.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

When I start TomCat I have this error:
ERROR SatusLogger Unable to access file:///$%7BENVIROMENT_VARIABLE%7D/log4j2.xml

It looks like it isn't 'translating' the variable.
Any help will be very aprecciated.
PD: Sorry for my english.

A: Log4j interpolates the value it finds for log4jConfiguration in web.xml. However, you have to use standard Log4j Lookup syntax. To get an environment variable you would specify:
<context-param>
    <param-name>log4jConfiguration</param-name>
    <param-value>file:///${env:ENVIROMENT_VARIABLE}/log4j2.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

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