This post is not so much a tutorial as my own notes on restricting access with .htaccess files and apache. As has been the case with many of my previous tutorials, the basis is writing the steps down so I can refer to them later. Turns out making notes public on a blog is a good idea. In any event, this will outline restricting access to directories on a user-level with .htaccess.
The tar (i.e., tape archive) command is used to convert a group of files into an archive (no compress).
So you've been using linux for awhile now, and it's time to install another hard drive for some more storage? Maybe it's finally time to wipe out a Window's or NTFS partition.
# You will be prompted for a password.
# the following to create a new database for Paul.


God knows our weaknesses, strengths, and our humanity. Nothing about us is a surprise and not only that; no circumstance we ever find ourselves a part of takes Him by surprise. He has an answer for every question and a solution for every problem. Because He loves us immensely, He wants us to trust Him, seek Him, surrender our lives in exchange for the best life we could imagine. He has done all the work for us; now, He asks for our trust. Our problem is we shy away from trusting someone we do know. We have to choose to get to know Him through His Word and then for some of us, one baby step at a time. For others, one giant leap of faith. Either way, it is worth more than we can ever imagine!
Sometimes God just takes me by surprise, for instance the weather today. It started off much like yesterday; dark, cloudy and drizzly. We are currently working on a small project getting a house ready to sale and Saturdays are 'work' days to finish up the projects that need doing. The wetness of the day really did not matter because there was plenty that could be accomplished inside. There were blinds to hang and an area of the hall ceiling to prep for painting; carpets to be cleaned, so there was not lack of work to be done. Later, about mid-day, the weather broke, the sun came, the day warmed and it was a beautiful afternoon. Finally, about 6:30, the wind picked up, clouds rolled in and the sky began to darken and prepare to release more rain. Now I bet some of you are thinking just what does that have to do with grace?
On the way home I read today's grace passage and when I did I just laughed aloud! Today's passage is all about the beauty of grace. It also talks about trials and struggles. I laughed thinking about yesterday's statement regarding the weather and my topic of the day. When I was focused on beauty it was rainy and when focused on grace through difficulty, it was sunny and beautiful. My first thought was of how our God must have a wonderful sense of humor; followed by a sense of awe thinking about His character and diversity. Why? God created man in His own image or likeness, yet He also created us with much diversity. Our likes, dislikes, attitudes, interest, appearance are all different. The most amazing part to me is that even in our diversity, we are all very similar. We all need sustenance; we need love; we are relational; we all seek acceptance; we all face struggles, disappointments, and at times heartache; and lastly we all have times of victories, disappointments, and failures. Honestly, for most of us, we are more alike than different.
Today, we are in Romans chapter five. This chapter has grace written all over it and I recommend when you get a chance just to spend some time lingering in it and soaking it in. For now, we will just be looking at the second half and it speaks for itself. My prayer is that this passage will wash over you and give you great joy and comfort in knowing no matter what is going on in our lives God is here and He is for us. He went to great lengths to show the abundance of His love for us and this is one of the many proofs of that love!
May grace and blessing abound to you this day!
Have you ever experienced a period of time where it seems everywhere you turn the same word or phrase keeps turning up? Lately the words life, blessing, focus and the phrase "choose life" seem to keep turning up and sometimes in the most unexpected places and at most unusual times. This has been going on for some time now and it is beginning to come together with some understanding.
From the both the old covenant and the new covenant expressed by Jesus Christ, we can see that God has given us a choice. In every wonderful event and in every tragedy, even in the most mundane things in our life we have a choice to make. We can choose life or we can choose death, we can choose blessing or we can choose cursing. We can not necessarily choose our circumstances but we can choose how we respond to them. When we choose life and blessing we always win in the long run! My friend Katie Brown put it this way earlier today, "There are two mountains, only two, and we get to choose which one we will spend our time on. We want to choose life. If we find ourself on the wrong mountain, it is time to move!" So the question I am pondering now is how will life be different if I make a decision to weigh every situation or circumstance on this scale before responding or reacting to it? Is it an accurate statement to say that when I respond, I am choosing life and when I react I am choosing death?
As I thought about this scripture, I realized the more I pay attention to the Word without allowing other thoughts, worries, concerns or any other intruder to interrupt or distract me, the more God will speak to me through it and the better I will be equipped with what I need to manage well and thrive in life. It will enable me to choose life. Wisdom and knowledge are in the Word and the Holy Spirit brings the understanding, but if I am burdened down by distractions, questions, concerns, etc.; I will miss out on part or all of what He is trying to teach me. Therefore, I must learn to set aside all the cares of this world when spending time with Jesus and in the Word; hand them over to Him! Then I can focus on the whole of what He has for me each day! The choice between life and death is a gift from Him. We get to choose! Distractions are from the enemy and diminish our peace, our joy, our contentment, and our fruit! May the Lord teach us to choose life, laying down all those things that lead to death and destruction and allowing the mind of Christ to dwell richly in each of our lives!


Hair Braids Styles Is one type of hairstyle. A Hairstyle, or haircut refers to the styling of hair, usually on the human being scalp. Sometimes, this may also suggest an editing and enhancing of beard wild hair. The fashioning of wild hair can be viewed as an element of personal grooming, fashion, and makeup products, although practical, social, and popular factors also effect some hairstyles.
Hair Braids Styles is having a significant instant right now. there are so many hair styles to choose from.
We've chosen the coolest, most stylish Hair Braids Styles from our favorite catwalk shows, Instagram girls and celebrity faces.
See our best new Hair Braids Styles hair styles ideas and fads for 2018.
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IT Enable Services | Aham Global Infotech Pvt.Ltd.
Aham ITES is a global software development and information technology outsourcing company with offshore development centre in Coimbatore & Hyderabad. We firmly believe in offering exceptional value to our customers using state of the art technology.
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11 Ridiculously Overdue Library Books (That Were Finally Returned)
BY Mark Mancini
In February, Maryland's Silver Spring Library received a big surprise in the mail when a former patron mailed back an illustrated copy of The Postman ... more than 70 years after it had been checked out.
The book was returned with a letter attached, in which the sender explained that her family had checked the book out in 1946, when she was just a toddler. "The family then moved to Canada on short notice and the book was packed up with everything else," according to the library.
Though it's rare, the decades-overdue book's return is not unprecedented. Here are 11 more tardy returns.
1. The Versatile Grain and the Elegant Bean: A Celebration of the World's Most Healthful Foods by Sheryl and Mel London
LOANED FROM: The Lawrence Public Library in Lawrence, Kansas
YEARS OVERDUE: 21
In 2014, someone anonymously returned this fitness-friendly cookbook, which had been missing since September 24, 1992. The volume, published that April, contains over 300 recipes—and it's probably safe to assume that the culprit had plenty of time to try out every single one of them.
2. The Real Book About Snakes by Jane Sherman
LOANED FROM: The Champaign County Library in Urbana, Ohio
Like the previous entry, whoever turned in this musty old field guide declined to reveal his name. But lest anyone question the man's honesty, he also left the following note: "Sorry I've kept this book so long, but I'm a really slow reader! I've enclosed my fine of $299.30 (41 years, 2 cents a day). Once again, my apologies!"
3. Days and Deeds: A Book of Verse for Children's Reading and Speaking compiled by Burton and Elizabeth Stevenson
LOANED FROM: The Kewanee Public Library in Kewanee, Illinois
According to Guinness World Records, the $345.14 fee paid by the borrower of this lyrical compilation stands as the highest library fine ever paid.
4. The Fire of Francis Xavier by Arthur R. McGratty
LOANED FROM: The New York Public Library, Fort Washington Branch, in New York, New York
In 2013, this one was discreetly mailed in and the perpetrator was never brought to justice (be on guard, Big Apple bibliophiles).
5. The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
LOANED FROM: The Rugby Library in Warwick, England
The item found its way home during an eight-day "fines amnesty period," which shielded the guilty patron from a £4000 penalty (which would have been about $6500). "It's amazing to think how much the library has changed since that book was taken out in 1950," said librarian Joanna Girdle.
6. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
LOANED FROM: The Chicago Public Library in Chicago, Illinois
Harlean Hoffman Vision found a rare edition of this novel nestled amongst her late mother's personal effects and vowed to set things right. "She kept saying, 'You're not going to arrest me?'" recalled marketing director Ruth Lednicer at the time, "and we said, 'No, we're so happy you brought it back.'"
7. Master of Men by E. Phillips Oppenheim
LOANED FROM: The Leicester County Library in Leicester, England
Oppenheim was born in the surrounding region and, hence, the Leicestershire County Council was thrilled to reclaim this piece of their literary heritage after it turned up in a nearby house—even though the library branch it originally belonged to had shut down decades earlier.
8. Facts I Ought to Know About the Government of My Country by William H. Bartlett
LOANED FROM: The New Bedford Public Library in New Bedford, Massachusetts
Stanley Dudek of Mansfield, Massachusetts claims that his mother—a Polish immigrant—decided to brush up on American politics by borrowing this volume from the New Bedford Library in 1910. "For a person who was just becoming a citizen, it was the perfect book for her," says Dudek.
9. Insectivorous Plants by Charles Darwin
LOANED FROM: The Camden School of Arts Lending Library in Sydney, Australia
YEARS OVERDUE: 122
An Australian copy of Darwin's treatise on bug-eating flora was borrowed in 1889. After two World Wars, Neil Armstrong's moon landing, and the birth of the internet, it was finally returned on July 22, 2011.
10. The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians, and Grecians (volume II) by Charles Rollin
LOANED FROM: The Grace Doherty Library in Danville, Kentucky
YEARS OVERDUE: 150 (approximately)
In 2013, this tome was discovered at a neighboring school for the deaf, where it had presumably been stored since 1854 (as evidenced by a note written inside dating to that year). The library owns no records from this period, so exactly how long it was gone is anybody's guess, but, said librarian Stan Campbell, "It's been out of the library for at least 150 years."
11. The Law of Nations by Emmerich de Vattel
LOANED FROM: The New York Society Library in New York City
Five months into his first presidential term, George Washington borrowed this legal manifesto from the historic New York Society Library. For the next 221 years, it remained stowed away at his Virginia home, and organization officials wondered if they'd ever see it again. "We're not actively pursuing overdue fines," joked head librarian Mark Bartlett. "But we would be very happy to see the book returned." His wish was granted when Mount Vernon staff finally sent it back in 2010 (luckily, they dodged a whopping $300,000 late fee).
An earlier version of this post appeared in 2014.
books at-the-libraries Lists News
The List Show
22 Facts About the Solar System
BY Tara Rahimi
Mental Floss via YouTube
So you want to know everything there is to know about the solar system? The first and most important question you might want to get out of the way is: what, exactly, isthe solar system? As Mental Floss editor-in-chief Erin McCarthy tells us, "It's a group of celestial bodies located within the Milky Way galaxy."
At the center of these bodies is the Sun, which is orbited by eight planets; more than 150 moons; and millions of meteoroids, comets, asteroids, and a handful of dwarf planets (sorry, Pluto). But it's the Sun—a.k.a. that shining, 4.5 billion-year-old star in the middle of it all—that accounts for 99 percent of the solar system's total mass. (Think about that the next time you're shading your eyes from its glare.)
In this all-new edition of The List Show, Erin is sharing nearly two dozen fascinating facts about our solar system, including the reasoning behind Pluto's demotion (blame it on Eris, the first known dwarf planet). For more out-of-this-world facts, you can watch the full episode below.
For more episodes like this one, be sure to subscribe here.
Lists News Space The List Show
The 20 Best TV Shows on Netflix, According to Subscribers
BY Bernadette Roe
JoJo Whilden, Netflix
With thousands of titles to choose from, in the time it can take a Netflix subscriber to choose what to watch next, they could be two episodes deep into a new TV series binge-watch. But as Variety reports, a recent survey conducted by HarrisX and commissioned by MoffettNathanson is helping to reduce the amount of browsing you'll need to do by going straight to the source and asking more than 11,000 Netflix subscribers to cite their favorite shows that are currently streaming on the platform. And the results were somewhat surprising.
Movies (Catch-all category)
Santa Clara Diet
As Variety notes, the fact that 15 of the 20 top favorites are Netflix originals rather than licensed shows means that the company will likely continue investing in original content. This might help them out when both Friends and The Office leave the streaming service in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
entertainment Lists Netflix News Pop Culture Television tv
STONES, BONES, & WRECKS
'Budget Meal Planner' Website Shows You How to Eat Well on $5 Per Day
How to Parallel Park Perfectly in One Try, According to Math
Planning a Vacation? Here's How to Make Sure You Don't Bring Any Bed Bugs Home With You
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Many of us consume sugar on a daily basis, in a variety of different forms. Not only is this bad for our health, but processed-sugar tends to be imported, linking sugar with large food miles. The sugar industry has been regularly linked to land grabs, the violation of workers' rights and environmental damage. Buying Fairtrade or British sugar is one method of avoiding these unethical practices. Cutting sugar out of our diets is another.
The idea of a sugar-free diet is perhaps daunting to most of us, but a number of dedicated individuals have taken on this mammoth task.
This week Sarah Dawson talks about her sugar free lifestyle, and why she has chosen to cut out the sweet stuff.


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Three people detained for fare evasion at BART stations Friday
OAKLAND, Calif. (BCN) - Three people were detained for failing to pay for their BART trips Friday, transit police said, as BART continues its crackdown on fare evasion.
As part of the crackdown, which officially began Jan. 1, fare cheaters were detained at the Powell, Ashby and Richmond stations, according to police.
A youth was detained for fare evasion at the Ashby station around 9:30 p.m., police said. The young man allegedly had a large amount of marijuana and refused to identify himself, according to police.
The youth was booked into juvenile hall.
A woman who was detained at the Richmond station around 7 p.m. for fare evasion refused to cooperate and had to be restrained, police said. The woman was taken to a local hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
David Ashor, 43, of San Francisco, was detained for alleged fare evasion around 3:50 p.m. at the Powell Street station, police said.
A records check showed that Ashor allegedly had a $35,000 arrest warrant, according to police. Ashor was cited for fare evasion and booked on the warrant, police said. He also was allegedly in possession of narcotics, according to police.
Fare evasion costs BART an estimated $15 to $25 million annually. With this in mind, the transit agency has beefed up police patrols, with increased enforcement throughout the system, not at any specific stations.
"We are cracking down on fare evasion and everyone needs to pay their fair share," BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said in October.
BART officials are also making it harder to avoid paying a fare by installing such things as higher barriers around the paid areas, according to Trost.
Proposed bill to allow teens to get vaccine without parental consent gains momentum
Dedicated 49ers fans spend big to catch road playoff game against Packers
Elk Grove police officer dies after being struck by wrong-way driver
FBI: Brian Laundrie claimed responsibility for Gabby Petito's death in notebook found near his body
Peninsula farm owner latest Bay Area resident charged in Capitol riot


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Green Chemistry Institute
GCI Nexus Blog
Merck Team Wins 2021 Pete Dunn Award
ACSGCI
The ACS Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) Pharmaceutical Roundtable honors the work of Stephen Dalby, François Lévesque, Cecilia Bottecchia and Jonathan McMullen at Merck with the 2021 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry & Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry. The team's innovation is titled, "Greener Manufacturing of Belzutifan (MK-6482) Featuring a Photo-Flow Bromination."
Belzutifan is an important new drug used in the treatment of cancer and other non-oncology diseases. Acquired by Merck in 2019 through the purchase of Peloton Therapeutics, a new, greener manufacturing process for its synthesis was needed. Over the next 18 months, the team developed a more direct route from commodity chemical to API, employed new reaction conditions, particularly in the oxidation sequence, and incorporated new technology, photo-flow.
Despite this accelerated timeline, the team achieved a five-fold improvement in overall yield with a commensurate 73% reduction in process mass intensity (PMI) compared to the original route. Notably, the Merck team also developed a visible light-initiated radical bromination performed in flow. According to the L.-C. Campeau, Executive Director and Head of Process Chemistry and Discovery Process Chemistry at Merck, this is the "first example of a photo-flow reaction run on manufacturing scale at Merck and represents the linchpin of the synthesis."
The improved process for Belzutifan, which is expected to launch this year, will reduce the waste associated with its manufacture and is aligned with Merck's corporate sustainability goals.
"The Merck team delivered an excellent example of the application of innovative technologies to develop a more sustainable synthesis of the pharmaceutically-active compound, Belzutifan," comments Paul Richardson, Director of Oncology and Chemical Synthesis at Pfizer and Co-Chair of the ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable. "Using the guiding principles of green chemistry, for example, in the use of catalysis and a relatively benign reaction media, further illustrate the Merck team's work as worthy of recognition for the 2021 Peter Dunn Award."
The award will be presented at the June 11 GC&E Friday, part of the 25th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference. During this session from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., Stephen Dalby & Jon MacMullen will be discussing the details of this innovative process.
Green Chemistry & Engineering in Action
acsgcipr
peter j. dunn award


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Perhaps Gareth Morgan can give them some advice
by Cameron Slater on February 1, 2015 at 7:30am
Gareth Morgan has all sorts of advice lately, but perhaps he might like to take his motorbike on a trip to Vietnam to give them some assistance with a little culinary problem they are having.
VICE News reports:
Just after midnight on Tuesday, police in Hanoi detained a truck smuggling three tons of live cats into Vietnam. The driver, a 30-year-old man named Hoang Van Hieu, admitted that the ill-begotten cats were bound for restaurants in the country, where cat meat is, in fact, a delicacy, especially in the provinces of Thai Binh and Nam Dinh, not far from Hanoi.
"After receiving a tip, we searched the truck and discovered the cats inside," Sky News?quoted Dong Da district deputy chief of police Cao Van Loc as saying. "The owner, also the driver, said he bought the cats at the [Chinese] border area of Quang Ninh province. All of the cats were from China."
With an average adult weight of about ten pounds for a healthy domestic feline, three tons means we're talking hundreds of cats. The animals, crammed on top of one another in bamboo cages, were just the latest haul in a small cat-trafficking market that sources from nearby China, Laos, and Thailand to satiate Vietnam's appetite for kitty flesh. ??
Of course, Vietnam isn't the only nation to enjoy the occasional cat. Feral cats, strays, and captured pets have been consumed with some regularity in the Canton(Guangdong) region of China, South Korea, and parts of rural Taiwan. Some animal-protection publications suggest the Asian cat market consumes up to 4 million kittens a year. Whatever the number, a fixation on unconventional meats in Asia looms in the American imagination?though there's evidence eating cats and dogs is relatively common in other places, notably Switzerland.
We could solve our own cat problem by farming and exporting the disgusting creatures to a country that appreciates and has a taste for cats.
Despite official government condemnation of unsanitary kitten meat and the promotion of the use of cats to control urban rats, shop owners in Vietnam continue to sell cat for up to $50 to $70 apiece?a rate that suggests high demand. Due to a lack of cat breeders who sell their charges for food and the extreme caution of pet owners in Vietnam, this demand appears to be encouraging smuggling from neighboring countries like China. And this most recent three-ton shipment far surpasses the 90-cat haul that came over the border from Thailand, which made regional headlines in 2013?a sign of the market's growth.
"A lot of people eat cat meat," Van Duang, a Hanoi restaurant owner, told AFP in 2014. "It's a novelty. They want to try it."
Maybe the novelty of cat meat will wear off, or popular sentiment will change as more locals keep cats as pets. But for now, the government's efforts to rein in trafficking have fallen pretty flat.
I say help them out and send them sanitary kitten meat.
– VICE News
Tagged: Cat • China • Felines • Feral cat • Food • Gareth Morgan • Guangdong • Hanoi • Laos • South Korea • Switzerland • Taiwan • Thailand • Vietnam
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Ben Bass and Beyond: Happy 100th!
I recently wrote in this space about Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest, in which one of the nation's top crossword puzzle makers posts a new grid online every Friday and invites participants to solve both the crossword and an extra puzzle ("metapuzzle") he builds into it.
This week marks the 100th episode of the MGWCC, which Matt is celebrating in appropriately centenary style with a 100-themed metapuzzle. I thought it was particularly elegant so I'm giving it a shout-out here to alert my literally tens of readers.
The MGWCC is easiest on the first week of any given month and gets tougher as the weeks go by. In a month like April 2010, with five Fridays, the last one can get pretty challenging, so don't get discouraged if you don't solve the meta. You can jump in again the next week as Matt starts over in May (though he has also promised that May's puzzles will be fiendishly difficult, so beware).
Check it out here. You've got until noon Eastern time on Tuesday to submit the answer.
As one of Ben's followers who also does Matt's puzzle every week, I must second the thought that this one is really amazing. I solved it, I'm sure, but can't say more than that until Tuesday noon!
My hat is off to you, as I cannot even solve the wee puzzle, and the meta-puzzle, still less.
Due to the extreme youth of both constructors and solvers (compared to my rickety old self) I am not taking this to heart, but please....at least carry on a bit about how very, very difficult and trying your solving experience was.
@Elaine - My DOB is 2/20/1946. Is that "extreme youth"?
Bob, nice work. That blanket of roses Super Saver got, do we get one?
Elaine, the puzzle took me 7:13. This may not sound like that long a time, but it was. The grid was only 11x11 and I can bang out, e.g., some Monday NYT 15x15s in under 4 minutes. This little monster was tough.
As for the meta, I stared at it for a few minutes in complete confusion, then went to bed. Woke up at 4am still thinking about the "1 of 100" thing and an idea just popped into my head. Sure enough, I tested the theory it was correct.
I won't say more just yet because the deadline is tomorrow. You can do it!
"G" as in the third of three "G" tiles in a Scrabble game, or "G" as in, "Matt, you are a God!" What a brilliant puzzle; how long did it take to put this one together?
The 11 by 11 grid was a big help in getting the idea of what was involved in solving, of course. Once I had finished solving and started looking for the meta, I was sure I had the right idea but wondered what you had done about the blanks. Very clever also!
A personal, historical note: When I was much younger, we used to play Scrabble on camping trips with my family set. Of course it was easy to lose a tile in those circumstances, and when I got home I would count the tiles to be sure they were all there (they weren't always.) But I started out counting each letter separately according to the listing on the board! It took awhile before I realized there were 100 tiles and all I had to do was count the total and only worry about individual letters if I came up short! So all these years later that experience helped me solve this beautiful meta!
1. The letter distribution in the game is based on that in the language itself.
2. An 11x11 grid with a highish 22 black squares results in a not very open layout, so you have smaller words and more choices.
3. The two blanks helped.
All of those Scrabble games, all of those years, and I still never tumbled to the trick. Just Not Yet In The Groove.
Perspective is everything, although I'd still have liked solving this puzzle.


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Luminar's Iris sensor weighs less than 2 pounds and is about the size of a soda can, so it should be easy to fit onto a car's bumper.
Every technology has its weakness. Maybe it's too big or slow or not versatile. Critics of lidar, Tesla's Elon Musk being, perhaps, the loudest among them, focus on the cost that the laser-based system adds to a self-driving vehicle. The spinning, rooftop lidar produced by industry leader Velodyne runs about $75,000. That's enough to trouble the companies developing robotaxis, the fully autonomous vehicles that hope to amortize their costs by ferrying passengers. For personally owned vehicles, anything near that cost is a nonstarter.
Alex Davies covers autonomous vehicles and other transportation machines for WIRED.
"Anyone relying on lidar is doomed," Musk said at Tesla's inaugural "Autonomy Day" in April. "It's like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices. Like, one appendix is bad, well now you have a whole bunch of them."
The vast majority of self-driving developers, however, consider the laser sensor not vestigial but a crucial element of a safe, capable system. That's why many of those outfits have developed their own systems (like Waymo) or acquired lidar makers (like Cruise, Aurora, and Argo). It's also why everyone who hasn't taken such steps should welcome Luminar's announcement Thursday that it has developed a production-ready lidar that will cost as little as $500—cheap enough to make it work not just on robotaxis, but on consumer vehicles.
Luminar's Iris lidar sensor will cost as little as $500, making it a realistic option for helping personally owned vehicles drive themselves.
Palo Alto–based Luminar calls its new, third-generation lidar Iris. The unit is about the size of a soda can and weighs just under 2 pounds, small enough to fit into a car's bumper. CEO Austin Russell says it's "automotive grade," meaning it can survive years of life on the road, with all the potholes and temperature swings. It draws a meager 15 watts of power or so and offers a range of 250 meters, a widely accepted benchmark.
The upshot of bringing lidar into consumer cars is a potentially major upgrade over the semi-autonomous systems currently on the road, like Tesla's Autopilot, Cadillac's Super Cruise, and Nissan's ProPilot Assist. Those systems use radar and cameras to stay in their lanes and a safe distance from the vehicles around them. They require their human driver to constantly watch the road and remain ready to take control, partly because the limits of their sensors make them incapable of seeing immobile obstacles; at least three Teslas have crashed into stopped fire trucks in 2018.
The WIRED Guide to Self-Driving Cars
Lidar balances the weaknesses of today's sensors. Unlike a camera, it sees just as well in the dark as in the light. It can detect detail better than radar, allowing it to pick out things like pedestrians and cyclists. "You can see this stuff with lidar," Russell says. A single sensor in a car's front bumper or windshield might make it a more capable robot than just about anything on dealer lots today. That's not enough for a fully autonomous system—you'd want 360-degree coverage there—but it could allow for a system that handles highway driving.
To wit: Audi is the only automaker that doesn't demand drivers pay constant attention while using its semi-autonomous Traffic Jam Pilot. It puts lidar in the A8 sedans that come with the feature (which is available only in Europe). And while lasers can have trouble in the rain or snow (Russell says Luminar's system doesn't), it's the sensor's cost and reliability that have kept it out of the broader consumer market.
To go with this news, Luminar said it has closed its latest round of funding, bringing it to $250 million raised (and a $900 million valuation) to help it boost manufacturing capacity at its Orlando factory. If it can get its lidar onto cars, Russell hopes to use the resulting data to hone the software Luminar uses to suss out what's what on the road.
It'll be a while before that happens, though. Russell says Luminar is working on six highway-driving-focused projects with vehicle makers, but given long lead times in the auto industry, they won't produce any commercial vehicles until 2022 or 2023. Until then, it's eyes on the road.
All About Lidar, The Laser-Shooting Wonder Box That Could Make Self-Driving Cars Real
Also known as the spinning thing atop self-driving cars, lidar is the technology that could unlock autonomy for everybody.
#Self-Driving Cars
#lidar
#auto industry
What Boeing's 737 MAX Has to Do With Cars: Software


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4 potential killers lurk as bull market hits 5
Published Fri, Mar 7 20147:45 AM EST Updated Fri, Mar 7 20147:54 AM EST
Adam Shell
NEW YORK — The bull market that got no respect, the one Wall Street pundits said from Day 1 could not last, the one born on March 9, 2009, at the bottom of the worst stock market plunge since the Great Depression, turns 5 on Sunday.
But despite posting a gain of 177% — which ranks fifth-best in history and tops the average bull market return of 165%, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices — skeptical investors are still asking the same question about the "birthday bull": Can it last?
(Read more: Cramer: Are market valuations growing absurd?)
The question, of course, is still relevant. The life expectancy of the average bull market for the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index is a tad less than four years, according to InvesTech Research newsletter. Translated into human terms, that makes the current bull 104 years old, says Pat Adams at Choice Investment Management.
What's more, this is only the sixth bull in the post-World War II era to celebrate its fifth birthday; only three of the previous five lived to see their sixth birthdays, S&P Capital IQ data show. And the two bulls that died ended very, very badly. One ended with the stock market crash in October 1987 known as Black Monday. The 2007-2009 bull market was followed by the financial crisis and Great Recession that led to the worst stock market downturn since the 1929 crash.
"The bull is definitely getting long in the tooth," says James Stack, editor of InvesTech Research. "One should probably assume we are in the later half, if not the later third."
The bull's fifth birthday also coincides with the S&P 500 trading at an all-time high, spurring debate on whether the market is nearing a top or fit enough to outrun the bear. Also giving market skeptics pause is the fact that "story stocks" such as electric-car maker Tesla and social-media darlings Facebook and Twitter are partying like it's 1999. Also attracting attention and increasing chatter about a frothy market is the Nasdaq composite edging closer to 5000 for the first time since it peaked near that level, then crashed in 2000.
Stocks are also riding a 29-month stretch without suffering a "correction," or a drop of 10% or more. Historically, corrections occur every 18 months, S&P Capital IQ says. If the past is a guide, that raises the specter of a potentially bigger drop when the bull finally expires, says Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ.
(Read more: 5 years later, Rick Santelli 'tea party' rant revisited)
"The longer we go without resetting the dial, the greater the likelihood of a steeper correction, and the greater likelihood that it becomes a bear market," says Stovall.
But despite all the angst, it's important to point out that bull markets don't die just from old age. Just because stocks are trading in record territory and the bull has lasted longer and posted fatter gains than long-term averages, doesn't mean the bull can't keep stampeding, Wall Street experts say.
"Averages don't tell you anything," says Tom Lee, chief U.S. equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase.
The 1990s bull market was both the longest (it lasted 9½ years) and the most profitable (it posted gains of 417%).
When looking at future outcomes in the stock market, the key question is whether conditions are ripe for economic growth and corporate earnings to rise quickly. Using that "formula," Lee says the current bull, which has been driven by Federal Reserve stimulus, a healing economy and record-profitability from Corporate America, will not only reach its sixth birthday in March 2015, but will likely chug on until at least 2017. Drivers include a rebound in infrastructure spending, households with lower debt loads and cash to spend, and massive wealth gains from the stock rally, Lee says.
"The big headline," says a bullish Charlie Bobrinskoy, director of research at Ariel Investments, "is that people make the mistake of saying the S&P 500 is at a record high, so therefore, it must be overpriced. The market is designed to make new highs."
(Read more: America in 25years: Here's what to expect)
"Age alone," adds Stovall, "doesn't kill a bull."
So if old age doesn't kill a graying bull, what does?
"Bear markets normally require a trigger," says Stack, adding that despite rising risks he would "still put odds" on the bull continuing.
What are the warning signs? Are they present now?
Here are four potential bull killers:
1. Recessions. "Most bear markets are caused by recessions," says David Bianco, chief U.S. equity strategist at Deutsche Bank.
The reason: When the economy contracts, so do corporate earnings, the lifeblood of a healthy stock market.
Investors often start selling when signs of a recession start to appear. Warning signals include slowing GDP growth, falling consumer confidence and the rolling over of leading economic indicators.
The last bear market, which lopped nearly 57% off the S&P 500, began in October 2007, two months before the start of the 18-month Great Recession. Most of Wall Street's biggest bear markets, such as the 48.2% drop in 1973-74, the 60% plunge from 1937 to 1942 and the 86.2% fall after the 1929 stock market crash, were all accompanied by recessions.
But a recession is not a great threat at the moment, says Bianco. Wall Street is expecting GDP growth, which measured 2.4% in the final quarter of 2013, to re-accelerate this year and claw its way back to its longer-term trend-line growth of 3%.
"There's a great deal of potential for a long-lasting economic expansion for the U.S. economy," says Bianco, who says there's an 85% chance the bull will reach its sixth birthday and dodge a 20% drop, or bear market. Data from Deutsche Bank show that so-so-called secular bull markets, or long-term ones that notch record highs, tend to continue for three years, on average, after new highs are hit. The S&P 500 took out its prior peak in 2007 a year ago in March.
Ariel's Bobrinskoy, who is bullish, cites the ongoing recovery in the housing and auto industries, a vibrant new energy sector in the U.S., and a recovering Europe as "four big tailwinds" that will propel the economy.
2. Hostile monetary policy and inflation. Fed interest rate increases are often bull killers. Higher rates tend to slow growth, reduce risk-taking and cool hot markets. Inflation reduces consumer buying power, which hurts sales of goods and services and crimps corporate earnings.
Stocks suffered a 27.1% drop from November 1980 through August 1982, in large part because then-Fed chairman Paul Volcker, in an effort to snuff out double-digit inflation, raised a key short-term U.S. interest rate from roughly 11% in 1979 to a peak of 20% by mid-1981.
Markets: 5 years since the bottom
While the Fed has said it would hold off on raising short-term rates until sometime next year, when they expect the economy and job market to be on solid footing, there's risk of a Fed-induced sell-off, says Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital.
The unwinding of the Fed's unprecedented and experimental bond-buying program, dubbed QE, could roil markets and cause a market drop of 20% or more, he says.
"It's difficult to predict what will happen as a result of tapering," says Schoenberger. "No one knows what it means for stocks or the economy. I don't see the supporting evidence to suggest the economy can support itself without help from the Fed. With less stimulus, earnings and the economy are unlikely to be strong enough to justify current prices."
3. Excessive valuation. Stock markets that sport sky-high price-to-earnings ratios are also vulnerable to a big drop. A prime example was the bear market following the dot-com tech stock bust in 2000, when stocks got wildly overvalued relative to business fundamentals.
The P-E ratio of the S&P 500 ballooned to 28.2 at the end of 1999, according to Thomson Reuters. Near the 2007 top, the market was trading at more than 17 times its past 12-month earnings. Currently, the market's P-E is 16.9.
The market is not widely overvalued by any measure.
"Valuations," says Stack, "are not excessive. And the greater the excess, the greater the downside risk."
(Read more: What to look for in Friday's jobs report)
4. Exogenous shocks. It's hard to predict the unpredictable. Think "Black Swan" events such as the fall of Lehman Bros. in 2008. Or the stock market crash in October 1987. Or the latest scare from saber rattling caused by the crisis in Ukraine. Or the bursting of a real estate bubble in China.
These are triggers that can end bull markets.
Regardless of what plays out on Wall Street in the next year, investors need to brace themselves for change, confusion, volatility and the occasional market pullback, says Woody Dorsey, founder of Market Semiotics.
"The market is going to be more complex this year," he says. "Chances are it will be a far different year than last year. This is likely to be a market that the average won't understand."
—By Adam Shell of USA Today


text:
Razak BOUKARI
Full name Abdoulrazak Boukari Fafadji
Born Apr 25, 1987
Position Right winger
Centre forward
Lens 2011 / M€ 3
Wolverhampton 2012 / M€ 3.79
Togo A
Struggling in attack after the combined departures of Bangoura and Gyan at the end of August 2011, and with the recurrent injury problems which plagued Kembo-Ekoko and Montaño, Stade Rennais signed Razak Boukari in January 2011. Signed for 3 Million Euros from Lens, the Togolese winger made a blistering start against Cannes (7-0) with some sumptuous assists, and also found the back of the net, scoring 5 goals between January and March. At the end of the season 2010/2011, Boukari – much like the rest of his team - was a shadow of his early season self, and went on to have a mediocre 2011/2012 season, with multiple injuries and only 6 goals to show for his efforts. Sometimes being selected to play on the wing, sometimes as centre forward, he struggled after the arrival of Erding during the winter transfer window. In August 2012, he no longer figured in the plans of Manager Antonetti, in spite of a return of 11 goals in 51 appearances at Stade Rennais, and was transferred to Wolverhampton Wanderers for 3.79 Million Euros, with three years still to run on his contract.