After becoming The Awakened One, or "Buddha," Siddhartha Gautama, having resisted teaching for some time, finally yielded. His first sermon, The Four Noble Truths, were delivered with the intention of simplifying his profound insight, and they established the core, inalienable tenets of the vast Buddhist teachings.
In this experiential workshop, Rev. angel Kyodo williams reclaims the power and incisiveness of teachings of a man raised to war, turned spiritual warrior. Far from being a salve for passive bystanders, these are "exalted" instructions for those that choose to meet the truth of our lives – and especially the times we are living in right now – with rigor, compassion and, yes, love.
Scholarship are available. Click here for the scholarship application.
You may want to look at the sample schedule from our guide for participants.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Sensei, is a Dharma teacher, Zen priest, author, activist, master trainer, and founder of Transformative Change. She has been bridging the worlds of transformation and justice since her critically-acclaimed book, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace was hailed as "an act of love" by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, and "a classic" by Buddhist pioneer Jack Kornfield.
Ordained in the Zen Peacemaker Order, she received transmission from Roshi Francisco "Paco" Lugovina, a Puerto Rican in Soto Zen and was the second Black woman to receive transmission in the Japanese Zen lineage. Her teaching is influenced by her roots in Zen and deep appreciation for the vastness and variety of wisdom of the indigenous, all faiths, traditions, and paths. Rev. angel endeavors to model what practice means beyond the cushion and teaches a praxis of embodied liberation. She applies wisdom teaching to intractable social issues including the intersections of climate change, racial, and economic justice.
Her time these days is devoted to advancing the work ignited by her co-authored book, Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, to have the conversations necessary to become more awake and aware of what hinders liberation of self and society. The Connections, Circles, and Conversations that have emerged from Radical Dharma confront head-on the most formidable and critical impediment to justice and social transformation of our time. They have initiated profound healing and deepened commitment to dismantling oppression across lines of race, class, sexual orientation, and other divides.
Her work has been widely covered by such publications as The New York Times, Boston Globe, Ms., Essence, Buddhadharma, and on On Being with Krista Tippett. Whether in writing, teaching, or speaking, her voice is unique. She was made for these times.
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Click here for for additional information about lodging at Upaya.
Please be sure to check out our Guide For Participants.
This will tell you everything you need to know about about housing, meals, typical daily schedules, how to travel to Upaya, our cancellation policy and more.


The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued the Final Rule regarding managed care in Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) that revises and expands the federal rules governing the operation, contracting, oversight and payment of Medicaid managed care plans.
As an industry, healthcare understands the benefits of telemedicine and telehealth tools, but the government has been slow to catch up, leaving government treatment of this emerging care delivery method lagging.
This is why 22 health systems, along with other healthcare organizations and individuals, recently sent a letter to the Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Keith Hall, in an effort to convey the importance of using commercial data to evaluate the effectiveness of telehealth.
Last week, Louisiana legislators approved the removal of certain restrictions on the delivery of telemedicine services to residents of Louisiana to encourage the provision of telemedicine services in the state. H.B. No. 570 was signed by the President of the Senate on June 5, 2016 and sent to Governor John Bel Edwards on June 6, 2016.
A bill under consideration by the state Legislature would set guidelines for the use of telemedicine and establish a framework for insurers to cover telemedicine. The goal is to expand the use of the virtual doctor appointments, which could increase access to health care specialists for people living in rural parts of the state while at the same time cutting costs.
Facing stiff resistance from insurers, lawmakers rework a telemedicine bill to give payers the power to negotiate coverage. And even that may not be enough.
A group of lawmakers and physicians are advocating for legislation that would expand access to telemedicine in the commonwealth. Companion legislation in the House and Senate would allow Pennsylvania to join the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, which would give Pennsylvanians access to doctors in other states through telemedicine, while making sure those outside physicians meet Pennsylvania standards.
On June 9, 2016, the Texas Medical Board proposed for comment new rules regarding physician call coverage. The proposed new rule originated from the Board's Telemedicine Committee and changes the current telemedicine call coverage rule. The rule would apply to all physician call coverage relationships, not just telemedicine.
A year after Texas imposed controversial restrictions on the practice of telemedicine — prompting a lawsuit from Teladoc, which has its operational base in Dallas — many of the warring parties apparently want peace.
The West Virginia Health Care Authority ("HCA") recently issued its first decision on a telemedicine Certificate of Need ("CON") application.
Massachusetts HB 267 Redraft Would allow access to telemedicine services by allowing certain clinicians to be credentialed and allowing for coverage of such services by all payers and the Medicaid program.


Do you feel that your body may be entering menopause?
Menopause is an entirely normal stage that affects all women as they age. It's defined as the changes a woman goes through either just before or after she stops menstruating. Generally speaking, women usually begin to experience menopausal symptoms between the ages of 45 and 50.


text:
/**
 * This is a fix for IE
 * Since console.log is not supported in IE I want to make sure our JS does not break
 * if we forget a console.log and ship it out to production
 */
if (typeof console === "undefined" || typeof console.log === "undefined") {
    console = {};
    console.log = function () {
    };
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The fourth term saw a lot scoring from both sides with Harvey managing to post two goals and three behinds.
It was never going to come to close to the Hawks though, as they kicked four goals and four behinds.
Jamieson said the team was impressive in the second half, considering they only had two on the bench.
He said they were aiming to get to 100 points and just missed out.
The final score was 3.11. 29 to 13.15 (93).
The coach was disappointed to see the side kicked more behinds than goals, but said it was something they were working on.
Jamieson said it was a whole team effort to win the match.
"It was an even spread with Matthew Jukes, Mitch Lynn who missed round one, Beau Morgan in defence and Braden Smith and Harry Taylor kicking four goals each were highlights," he said.
Jamieson said the Easter bye has come at a good time as it would allow a couple of injured players to rest up and be ready for the next match.
AMR are back at home for round three when they take on Harvey Brunswick Leschenault.
HBL are sitting on the same amount of points as the Hawks but third on the ladder due to percentage.
Jamieson said HBL were busy recruiting in the off season and were a bit stiff to miss out on finals last year so he was expecting tough competition.
"We look forward to facing them in front of our home crowd," he said.
HBL won in round one in a come from a behind match against Busselton. Round two saw them win against Bunbury by 16 points. The Eaton Boomers are on top with a healthy 279 per cent.
This story Hawks demolish Bulls first appeared on Augusta-Margaret River Mail.


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Now once again its Christmas time … the year has positively flown past for us, with all the usual activities, and then some, it seems! With no-one starting school or finishing a significant stage this year, this is probably about as normal as it gets for us. It did mean that we had four performers at the time of the biannual school 'Tattoo', including a munchkin, a Spice Girl, a 50's rocker and a drummer --- thankfully it will be two years before we have to do it all over again!
Jeremy has just completed Year 1. He has had enjoyed a lot of things, with the highlight probably being an excursion to Rippon Lea, an old mansion. He is building up a large collection of soft toys, which makes his bed look like a zoo! He really enjoyed dressing up and singing at the Tattoo and some other concerts, but if he wants to keep the songs secret from the rest of the family, he will have to learn to stop singing them around the house …
Emily has just completed Year 3. She has often being found doing her homework well before it is due (with occasional lapses!), and enjoyed a lot of her studies this year. She has continued with her dancing and added a singing group this year as well, which meant that on one of the performance nights, she had to sprint from one end of the school to the other to appear in both items. She must have run faster at some point in her life, but we don't know when!
Timothy has just finished Year 5, which is his first year in a class for boys only (which will continue to Year 12). He took up Japanese this year, and did very well at it. This means that he has a fighting chance of understanding the stream of near gibberish that his elder brother comes out with. He also started playing school sport, with tennis, football, soccer and athletics. He took a great deal of delight in knowing that his shoe size is now the same as his father's, which may explain why he drives around the local go-kart track with the speed and expertise of a Grand Prix driver!
Joshua has just started Year 11, having completed Year 10 a few weeks ago. He joined the Pipes and Drums band this year, which won the Victorian School championships this year for the 25th year in a row. This meant quite a busy year at concerts, assemblies, speech nights, and other events, which has meant quite a few occasions in a kilt. Despite all this, he has kept his academic progress, and hopes to go on the school trip to Japan next year. Our 'Big Drummer Boy' (now taller than his father) has continued playing basketball, where he is no longer one of the shortest on the court.
Linda has had another busy year at work, although she was very pleased to finally hand over responsibility for timetabling the largest school in the southern hemisphere to someone else in November. This means far less weekends spent over a computer, and hence a lot more free time.
James has done his share of travel (again!), but has managed to hand over the Vietnam and Malaysian activities to others, so that will mean more lectures and exam marking next year. Looks like 'back to the classroom' could be a theme next year …

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: "Sandbox" Google Analytics for security By including Google Analytics in a website (specifically the Javascript version) isn't it true that you are giving Google complete access to all your cookies and site information?  (ie. it could be a security hole).
Can this be mitigated by putting Google in an iFrame that is sandboxed?  Or maybe only passing Google the necessary information (ie. browser type, screen resolution, etc)?
How can someone get the most out of Google Analytics without leaving the entire site open?
Or perhaps passing the data through my own server and then uploading it to Google?

A: A script run on your site can read cookies on your site, yes. And that data can be sent back to google, yes. That is why you shouldn't store sensitive information in cookies.  You shouldn't do this even if you don't use google analytics. Even if you don't use ANY other code except your own. Browsers and browser addons can also read that stuff and you definitely cannot control that. Again, never store sensitive information in cookies.
As far as access to "site information".. javascript can be used to read the content on your pages, know urls of pages, etc.. IOW anything you serve up on a web page. Anything that is not behind a wall (e.g. login barrier) is surely up for grabs. But crawlers will look at that stuff anyway.  Stuff behind walls can still be grabbed automatically, depending on what they have to actually do to get past those walls (e.g. simple registration/login barriers are pretty easy to get past).
This is also why you should never display sensitive information even in content of your site. E.g. credit card numbers, passwords, etc.. that's why virtually every site you go to that has even remotely sensitive information always shows a mask (e.g. ** ) instead of actual values.
Google Analytics does not actively do these things, but you're right: there's nothing stopping them from doing it, and you've already given them the right to do it by using their script.
And you are right: the safest way to control what Google can actually see is to send server-side requests to them.  And also put all your content behind barriers that cannot be easily crawled or scraped. The strongest barrier being one that involves having to pay for access.  People are ingenious about making bots about making crawlers and bots to get past all sorts of forms and "human" checks etc.. and you're fighting a losing battle on that count, but nothing stops a bot faster than requiring someone to give you money to access your stuff.  Of course, this also means you'd have to make everybody pay for access...
Anyways.. if you're that paranoid about this stuff, why use GA at all? Use something you host yourself (e.g. Piwik).  This won't solve for crawlers/bots, obviously, but it will solve for worries about GA grabbing more than you want it to.

A: You can create a scriptless implementation via the measurement protocol (for Universal Analytics enabled properties). This not only avoids any security issues with the script (although I'd rather trust Google on that), it also means you have more control what data is submitted to the Google Server.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Mitko has been playing music since the age of 5, as in the beginning he started by playing the violin and continued later by playing the guitar. He started working professionally in the field of music in 1998 by establishing his own band called "Lots of Fun". Since 2006 Mitko has been playing as well alone as a troubadour: acoustic guitar and vocalist in piano bars and other night bars on the territory of the whole country. He have a rich repertoire, which includes evergreens, Latino, swing, blues, and rock n roll, funk, and alternative rock, old and new hits.
Mitko likes his job and wishes all clients have a good time and a great party with his music.


I've just recently finished up a Windows Phone 7 (WP7) development project at work, and during the project I collated a number of tips and useful resources that helped make the project a success, and I'm going to share those with you in this post.
If you want to check out exactly what the marketplace submission process entails, the App Hub website has a very detailed walkthrough of the process. Thankfully, it's not difficult; you just need to provide your XAP, some descriptions, some artwork and set your pricing.
One of the big questions you get asked as a Windows Phone developer is how long it will take for your application to be published on the Marketplace after it's been submitted. Microsoft recently released some official numbers around that, and they claim that the average time to certification is 1.8 days. Of course, that's an average, so you shouldn't rely on that for your planning. Microsoft could take longer if they're inundated with submissions. That same numbers blog post also says that 62% of applications pass on the first attempt. That means around 40% of apps fail, so you should allocate some time in your schedule to handle a potential submission failure.
The coroutines support is awesome and allowed me to write asynchronous code in a non-asynchronous fashion while still actually doing operations asynchronously. If you've read about C# 5's await support, this is sort of like that except implemented using iterator blocks.
One thing I've realised about MVVM is that it doesn't describe a solution to the entire problem, which also includes navigation between, and composition of, views. Caliburn Micro has a concept called Conductors that helps with this, and it also abstracts the WP7 navigation functionality away from you.
Tombstoning in WP7 can be a pain, but Caliburn Micro makes it relatively easy. You simply apply attributes to properties in your view model that you want saved when your app gets tombstoned, and Caliburn Micro will automatically restore those properties' values when your application is restored. It also helps you when you're using WP7 Tasks that cause your app to get tombstoned before they return you some data the user selected.
I have a love-hate relationship with Caliburn Micro's conventions-based data binding. It allows you to omit explicitly defined bindings in your view and Caliburn Micro will do it automatically for you based of its extensible conventions. On the one hand, it makes data binding easy; in particular commanding with ICommand, as it can just link an event in your view and a method on your view model automatically (and run that method as a coroutine, if you like). On the other hand, when something goes wrong, it's much more difficult to find out why the black magic isn't working.
The biggest disadvantage to Caliburn Micro is that it adds quite a lot of advanced techniques to your toolbox, which is great if you're experienced, but can make it harder for people new to your project and unfamiliar with Caliburn Micro to get started. The other disadvantage is that the documentation (at the time of writing) is okay, but in a lot of cases I found I needed to dig through Caliburn Micro's source code myself to see what was going on. (Tip: create and use a debug build of Caliburn Micro when debugging it, since the Release builds optimise out a lot of methods and make stepping through its code difficult. But don't forget to switch back to the Release build when you publish to Marketplace).
The default WP7 SDK is strangely missing some of the controls you expect to see there to make a good WP7 application look and feel like the native apps that come on the phone. Turns out that stuff is, for some reason, inside the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit. The toolkit gets you those basic, expected things like the animated transitions between pages, the subtle tilting effect on buttons when you touch them, context menus, date pickers, list pickers, an easier API for gestures, etc.
The best way to learn how to use the stuff in the toolkit is to download the Source & Sample package and take a careful look at the sample code.
WP7 comes with a lot of theming resources that you can reference using the StaticResource markup extension. Keep this MSDN page open in your browser while developing and use it as a reference. I highly recommend you use them everywhere you can, because they help keep your application's look and feel consistent to the WP7 standards, and also come with the side effect of making your application automatically compatible with the user's chosen background style (light/dark) and accent colour. So when the user selects black text on a white background, your text will automatically apply that styling. Neat!
While testing your application, I would encourage you to regularly switch between the different background styles and accent colours to make sure your application looks good no matter what theme the user chooses.
The SDK comes with a library of icons you can use in your application, saved in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Icons. Take advantage of them to ensure your icons are consistent with the WP7 look & feel and are familiar to your users.
As far as I can tell, WP7 seems to automatically and transparently cache HTTP requests for you based off their caching HTTP headers. This doesn't seem to be documented on the HttpWebRequest class page, but at least one other person has noticed this behaviour. So if you're calling a REST service and that REST service is setting cache headers saying cache the result for a day, your users won't see new data for a day. Keep this in mind and perhaps change your service's caching headers.
To use the DataStateSwitchBehavior, you will also need to take the BindingListener class, the ConverterHelper class, and the GoToState class. In the example above I'm binding to a bool, but it even works if you bind to an enum.
While testing your application on a hardware device, you'll likely be testing it while connected to the PC and the Zune software. However, for some reason the MediaElement control will fail with the AG_E_NETWORK_ERROR when you try to use it. Don't panic, simply disconnect your phone from the Zune software and try again, or try connecting your phone using the WPConnect tool (C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Tools\WPConnect\WPConnect.exe) instead of Zune. Be kind to your users and show them a nice error message telling them to try disconnecting their phones from Zune if you detect that error.
There are reports on the Internet that the Pivot control has crashing issues when setting its SelectedIndex. Caliburn Micro has a PivotFix class in its WP7 samples you can use to work around it, plus you might like to try the workarounds on this page. However, if you still can't get it to work (like I couldn't), try simply slicing and reordering the array of pivot items so the one you want selected is first, which avoids this issue. For example, if you want pivot item C to be first, reorder A,B,C,D,E into C,D,E,A,B. Your users won't notice the difference since the Pivot control automatically wraps the end of the list to the start and vice versa.
I found it very difficult to tell that it was the Pivot control causing the crashes; my application would trigger a break by the debugger in the App.xaml.cs's unhandled exception handler method and the exception's description would be "The parameter is incorrect" and there would be no stack trace (??!). If you see this exception, investigate how you're using your Pivot control.
Everyone loves infinite scrolling of lists, where more content in the list is loaded dynamically as you scroll down. Unfortunately, WP7's SDK doesn't give you any help out of the box in regards to doing this. Thankfully, Daniel Vaughan has developed a neat attached property you can attach to list boxes that will call a data bound ICommand when the user scrolls to the bottom of the list. You can use this to load more data into the ListBox.
Daniel's ScrollViewerMonitor class uses a BindingListener class, which isn't the same class as the one you've borrowed from Expression Blend Samples, but you can easily modify his code to use that class instead.
Be aware that infinite scrolling will likely require careful monitoring of your memory usage (WP7's max is currently 90MB for phones with 256MB of RAM); you will probably need to put an upper limit on how far you can scroll. It will probably also mean you'll be using a VirtualizedStackPanel inside of your ListBox (that's the default) to keep memory usage down, but keep in mind the performance for scrolling rapidly up and down in a VirtualizedStackPanel-powered ListBox is poor on WP7 at the moment.
A typical case where you'd want to hide the system tray using visual states is when you've got a visual state group for device orientation (ie Portrait and Landscape. Use a DataStateSwitchBehavior and bind it to the Page's Orientation property). Visual states use animations to change properties on objects, but unfortunately animations in XAML don't work with "custom" attached properties, such as shell:SystemTray.IsVisible.
I highly recommend hiding the system tray when in landscape orientation, because it takes up a ridiculous amount of room on the side of the screen and looks horrible.
WP7 is a great platform to develop on because it's Silverlight; it means if you've got some Silverlight (or WPF) experience you can be instantly productive. However, there are some limitations to the platform at the moment and for some things you need to go outside the box to be able to achieve them. Hopefully this post has made some of that easier for you.
Recently I've been writing a small WPF application for work where the goal is to be able to allow its users to download a single .exe file onto a server machine they are working on, use the executable, then delete it once they are done on that server. The servers in question have a strict software installation policy, so this application cannot have an installer and therefore must be as easy to 'deploy' as possible. Unfortunately, pretty much every .NET project is always going to reference some 3rd party assemblies that will be placed alongside the executable upon deploy. Microsoft has a tool called ILMerge that is capable of merging .NET assemblies together, except that it is unable to do so for WPF assemblies, since they contain XAML which contains baked in assembly references. While thinking about the issue, I supposed that I could've simply provided our users with a zip file that contained a folder with the WPF executable and its referenced assemblies inside it, and get them to extract that, go into the folder and find and run the executable, but that just felt dirty.
Searching around the internet found me a very useful post by an adventuring New Zealander, which introduced me to the idea of storing the referenced assemblies inside the WPF executable as embedded resources, and then using an assembly resolution hook to load the the assembly out of the resources and provide it to the CLR for use. Unfortunately, our swashbuckling New Zealander's code didn't work for my particular project, as it set up the assembly resolution hook after my application was trying to find its assemblies. He also didn't mention a clean way of automatically including those referenced assemblies as resources, which I wanted as I didn't want to be manually including my assemblies as resources in my project file. However, his blog post planted the seed of what is to come, so props to him for that.
The AfterResolveReferences target is a target defined by the normal build process, but deliberately left empty so you can override it and inject your own logic into the build. It happens after the ResolveAssemblyReference task is run; that task follows up your project references and determines their physical locations and other properties, and it just happens to output the ReferenceCopyLocalPaths item which contains the paths of all the assemblies that are copy-local assemblies. So our task above creates a new EmbeddedResource item for each of these paths, excluding all the paths that are not to .dll files (for example, the associated .pdb and .xml files). The name of the embedded resource (the LogicalName) is set to be the path and filename of the assembly file. Why the path and not just the filename, you ask? Well, some assemblies are put under subdirectories in your bin folder because they have the same file name, but differ in culture (for example, Microsoft.Expression.Interactions.resources.dll & System.Windows.Interactivity.resources.dll). If we didn't include the path in the resource name, we would get conflicting resource names. The results of this MSBuild task can be seen in Figure 1.
The code above registers for the AssemblyResolve event off of the current application domain. That event is fired when the CLR is unable to locate a referenced assembly and allows you to provide it with one. The code checks if the wanted assembly has a non-invariant culture and if it does, attempts to load it from the "subfolder" (really just a prefix on the resource name) named after the culture. This bit is what I assume .NET does when it looks for those assemblies normally, but I haven't seen any documentation to confirm it, so keep an eye on that part's behaviour when you use it. The code then goes on to load the assembly out of the resources and return it to the framework for use. This code is slightly improved from our daring New Zealander's code (other than the culture behaviour) as it handles the case where the assembly can't be found in the resources and simply returns null (after which your program will crash with an exception complaining about the missing assembly, which is a tad clearer than the NullReferenceException you would have got otherwise).
In conclusion, all these changes together mean you can simply hit build in your project and the necessary assemblies will be automatically included as resources in your executable to be pulled out at runtime and loaded by the assembly resolution hook. This means you can simply copy just your executable to any location without its associated referenced assemblies and it will run just fine.
Publish to File System took me a while to nut out because I expected some sensible use of MSBuild to be occurring. Instead, VS2010 does something quite weird: it calls on MSBuild to perform a sort of half-deploy that prepares the web app's files in your project's obj folder, then it seems to do a manual copy of those files (ie. outside of MSBuild) into your target publish folder. This is really whack behaviour because MSBuild is designed to copy files around (and other build-related things), so it'd make sense if the whole process was just one MSBuild target that VS2010 called on, not a target then a manual copy.
Note that you can omit the DesktopBuildPackageLocation property from the command line if you've already set it by setting something using the VS2010 Package/Publish Web project properties UI (setting the "Location where package will be created" textbox). If you omit it without customising the value in the VS project properties UI, the location will be defaulted to the project's obj\YourCurrentConfigurationHere\Package folder.
In conclusion, we've seen how it's fairly easy to configure your project file to support publishing your ASP.NET web application to a local file system directory using MSBuild from the command line, just like Visual Studio 2010 does (fairly easy once the hard investigative work is done!). We've also seen how you can use MSBuild at the command-line to build a deployment package. Using this new knowledge you can now open your project up to the world of automation, where you could, for example, get your continuous integration server to create deployable builds of your web application for you upon each commit to your source control repository.
If you are using the default ASP.NET custom error pages, chances are your site is returning the incorrect HTTP status codes for the errors that your users are experiencing (hopefully as few as possible!). Sure, your users see a pretty error page just fine, but your users aren't always flesh and blood. Search engine crawlers are also your users (in a sense), and they don't care about the pretty pictures and funny one-liners on your error pages; they care about the HTTP status codes returned. For example, if a request for a page that was removed consistently returns a 404 status code, a search engine will remove it from its index. However, if it doesn't and instead returns the wrong error code, the search engine may leave the page in its index.
This is what happens if your non-existent pages don't return the correct status code!
As you can see, the request for /ThisPageDoesNotExist returned 302 and redirected the browser to the error page specified in the config (/Pages/Error404), but that page returned 200, which is the code for a successful request! Our human users wouldn't notice a thing, as they'd see the error page displayed in their browser, but any search engine crawler would think that the page existed just fine because of the 200 status code! And this problem also occurs for other status codes, like 500 (Internal Server Error). Clearly, we have an issue here.
Unfortunately, this trick doesn't work with ASP.NET MVC, as the method by which the response is rewritten using the specified error page doesn't play nicely with MVC routes. One workaround is to use static HTML pages for your error pages; this sidesteps MVC routing, but also means you can't use your master pages, making it a pretty crap solution. The easiest workaround I've found is to defenestrate ASP.NET custom errors and handle the errors manually through a bit of trickery in the Global.asax.
In Application_Error, we're checking the setting in Web.config to see whether custom errors have been turned on or not. If they have been, we call ShowCustomErrorPage and pass in the exception. In ShowCustomErrorPage, we convert any non-HttpException into a 500-coded error (Internal Server Error). We then clear any existing response and set up some route values that we'll be using to call into MVC controller-land later. Depending on which HTTP status code we're dealing with (pulled from the HttpException), we target a different action method, and in the case that we're dealing with an unexpected status code, we also pass across the status code as a route value (so that view can set the correct HTTP status code to use, etc). We then clear the error and new up our MVC controller, then execute it.
Now we'll define that ErrorController that we used in the Global.asax.
This controller is pretty simple except for the PreventDirectAccessAttribute that we're using there. This attribute is an IAuthorizationFilter which basically forces the use of the Error404 view if any of the action methods was called through a normal request (ie. if someone tried to browse to /Error/ServerError). This effectively hides the existence of the ErrorController. The attribute knows that the action method is being called through the error event in the Global.asax by looking for the "fromAppErrorEvent" route value that we explicitly set in ShowCustomErrorPage. This route value is not set by the normal routing rules and therefore is missing from a normal page request (ie. requests to /Error/ServerError etc).
In the Web.config, we can now delete most of the customErrors element; the only thing we keep is the mode switch, which still works thanks to the if condition we put in Application_Error.
If we now look at the Fiddler trace, we see the problem has been solved; the redirect is gone and the page correctly returns a 404 status code.
In conclusion, we've looked at a way to solve ASP.NET custom error pages returning incorrect HTTP status codes to the user. For ASP.NET Forms users the solution was easy, but for ASP.NET MVC users some extra manual work needed to be done. These fixes ensure that search engines that trawl your website don't treat any error pages they encounter (such as a 404 Page Not Found error page) as actual pages.


Inicio / Exposición "Gregorio Prieto y sus libros" / Henry Thomas The crafty farmer: A Spanish folk-tale entitled "How a crafty farmer with the advice of his wife deceived some merchants. Translated with an introduction by Henry Thomas, Illustrated by Gregorio Prieto.
Henry Thomas The crafty farmer: A Spanish folk-tale entitled "How a crafty farmer with the advice of his wife deceived some merchants. Translated with an introduction by Henry Thomas, Illustrated by Gregorio Prieto.


This page is dedicated to Akhal-Teke Horses for Sale in the United States. Each horse is listed here with their name and the location of the horse. If you click on the name of the horse, it will take you to that horses' information to learn more about the horse for sale.
Find My Horses also includes necessary information about the Akhal-Teke Horse Breed Characteristics and links to the breed registry on this page so you can be as informed as possible when making your purchase.
To list your Akhal-Teke Horse for sale just fill out this form.
We currently do not have any Akhal-Teke horses for sale. List yours today.


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Home / Zelda
Breath of The Wild 2: How Red Dead Redemption 2 Could Influence The Zelda Switch Sequel
By Lloyd Coombes
Breath of the Wild West.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 was announced at E3 2019 at the end of Nintendo's traditional conference, and showed off a darker version of Hyrule.
Earlier this year, YouTuber Tyler McVicker revealed some unconfirmed information about the game (so approach with a fistful of salt). Perhaps most interestingly is that the game is expected to take inspiration from Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2, which launched in 2018 (as reported by NintendoLife).
Read More: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2: Release Date, Story, Theories And More Information About The BoTW Sequel
Breath of the Wild 2 Could Take Inspiration From Red Dead Redemption 2
No, we don't think that means we'll catch Link getting hammered in a bar and screaming "Lenny!", but consider Skyrim's undoubted influence on the first Breath of the Wild, we'd be surprised if Nintendo wasn't looking at what other developers are doing in the open world.
While McVicker (skip to 11 minutes in video) didn't report on specifics (and alluded to another title it's taking cues from), we'd imagine it could have something to do with the way Red Dead Redemption 2's world feels like it continues ticking along with or without Arthur Morgan's actions.
Characters go about their routines, wildlife roams the wilderness and seemingly unscripted events can have unexpected outcomes wherever you are on the map.
McVicker also claims that the world of Breath of the Wild 2 will be an altered version of the original's, with a "miasma"-like corruption changing areas. He also expects dungeons to return, while Link won't need to climb towers because "canonically, Link already knows Hyrule, so there is no point in climbing the towers again". Makes sense to us.
Hopefully, we won't have to wait long to find out how the game plays, with fans waiting for the next Nintendo Direct with bated breath.
Nintendo Direct January 2021: Date, Time, Games, And How To Watch Live
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 LEAKS: Release Date, Cancelled, Story, Trailer, Ganondorf, Pre-Order Bonuses And Everything You Need To Know
Breath Of The Wild: How To Keep The Bow Of Light


Top 10 Science Experiments - Experiments You Can Do at Home Compilation.
TOP 8 SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS - Experiments You Can Do at Home Compilation Subscribe now!
list of experiments: 12000V Jacobs Ladder Amazing Candle Trick! Amazing Gravity Ruler Trick! Anti Gravity Paperclip Trick! Apple Battery - Science Experiment!
Main channel CrazyRussianHacker - http://www.youtube.com/user/CrazyRussianHacker follow me on: Instagram - https://instagram.com/crazyrussianhac.
Top 10 Science Experiments - You Can Do at Home Compilation.
Top 10 Science Experiments - Experiments You Can Do at Home Compilation. These Top 10 Homemade DIY Science experiments and tricks will amaze you.
Main channel CrazyRussianHacker - http://www.youtube.com/user/CrazyRussianHacker.
This video is a compilation of 5 Cool Science Experiments - Experiments you can do at home with household items.


Both of these teams lost their opening game in the Top 16, so one team will get off the mark but one team knows that they will be sitting with a 0-2 record after their opening two games. This isn't the sort of start anyone wants to make to 2016 so you can guarantee that both teams will be desperate to avoid defeat in this one.
Given that both teams also held a 4-6 record in the regular season, we are dealing with two teams who are more accustomed to losing rather than winning. That is why this game represents a massive opportunity for both teams and the home team needs to take the initiative in this game in Istanbul. Luke Harangody is the top scorer for Dogus this campaign but the fact that he has only scored an average of 9.8 points per game is a big indicator of the troubles that the Istanbul side have experienced this season. He, and other players, needs to step up and grab points tonight to ignite their Top 16 campaign.
Miro Bilan has been the standout player for Cedevita this campaign and he leads the way for points scored and rebounds for the team from Zagreb. The Croatian player has helped himself to an average of 15 points per game in the regular season and he also managed to notch an average of 6.5 rebounds over the course of the regular campaign. Jacob Pullen has been the other notable player in the Zagreb side and both of these players will need to deliver a strong performance if the away team is going to avoid a 0-2 record at the end of this week.
The bookmakers think that the Turkish team are the favourites for this one and it is hard to argue against that logic. This means that you should be looking to take Darussafaka Dogus Istanbul at -4.5, at odds of 1.90. If you have an interest in the Over/Under market, you should be looking to go OVER 146.5 at odds of 1.90. Bet Now!


Acupuncture, from an Eastern perspective, is all about energy and its flow through your body. If that flow is blocked, the thinking goes, pain or illness results. By gently tapping as many as 20 thin needles into your body at strategic points, acupuncturists try to reestablish the flow. That's a compelling but not necessarily convincing explanation. So Western medicine is working to understand the mechanisms of acupuncture. "There are many details we still don't understand, but essentially, acupuncture seems to stimulate specific muscles and nerves, activating changes that reduce pain and symptoms and promote healing.
There are two types of acupuncture that use light electrical stimulations that flow through the needles, or no needles at all. For example, acupressure is often thought of as simply "acupuncture without the needles" and uses targeted massage-type techniques to stimulate energy in the body by pressing on certain points.
An integral part of Chinese Medicine is the concept of Qi (pronounced Chee). Qi is often referred to as energy or life force, but in reality it is much more than this. Qi cannot be measured but without it we could not exist.
In traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is linked to the belief that disease is caused by disruptions to the flow of energy, or qi, in the body.
Acupuncture stimulates points on or under the skin called acupuncture points or acupressure points, releasing this qi. The qi then travels through channels called meridian. if this flow of qi is balanced that means we are fit and healthy.
How acupuncture works may be unclear, but the benefits stick out.
4.Works Wonders for Women's Health Issues.
5.Effective Preventative Medicine with Positive Effects.
8.Herbs do Benefit body in a good way.
This article originally appeared on Acupuncture Specialist Atlanta & was written by Chen Zhang.


1. Vote early and often: There is one more week to cast your ballot in the Sugar Oversight Board election. The Selectricity server was (unexpectedly) down for maintenance this past weekend; if you had trouble accessing the server, please try again.
2. Minsky on learning: On the flight to Austin this weekend, I was rereading Marvin Minsky's The Emotion Machine; I came across this inspiring quote: "We like to think that a child's play is unconstrained—but when children appear to feel joyous and free, this may merely hide from their minds their purposefulness; you can see this more clearly when you attempt to drag them away from their chosen tasks. For they are exploring their worlds to see what's there, making explanations of what those things are, and imagining what else could be; exploring, explaining and learning are among a child's most purposeful urges and goals. The playfulness of childhood is the most demanding teacher we have. Never again in those children's lives will anything drive them to work so hard."
3. Book sprint: We are in the midst of a week-long book sprint, with the goal of creating manual for Sugar. Please follow our progress at Floss Manuals and feel free to create an account and help with writing, illustrating, or editing.
4. Ceibal Jam: Pablo Flores is spreading the word about the upcoming Ceibal Jam in Uruguay (30 August and 6 September). Ceibal Jam is a social movement independent of voluntary and open membership, which seeks nuclear everyone who has an interest in contributing to the development of software with potential usefulness for the Plan Ceibal, is an effort to develop local capacity to create new applications and modify Existing to address the specific needs of the Uruguayan reality. On the occasion of this second jam, introductory workshops will be conducted to programming for computers XO Plan Ceibal, targeted audiences with different levels of knowledge, while also submitted development projects under way and will form groups to work during the days in different proposals programming (Please see mediagala.com). The meeting is sponsored by the Catholic University of Uruguay, Larrobla & Associates and Artech (Additional information is available at Ceibal Jam).
Great teachers have great content they've spent their lifetime developing—how can they contribute to OLPC/Sugar?
How can engineers help teachers get set projects into motion?
How can we together help with the transition from paper and pencil to Sugar and computing?
What learning strategies are OLPC working on?
6. Watch out your teeth! Simon Schampijer and the release team are happy to announce the final release of Sucrose 0.82 (See http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/sugar/2008-August/007911.html). Sucrose 0.82 is the latest version of the Sugar learning platform, consisting of Glucose, the base system environment; and Fructose, a set of demonstration activities. Sucrose is released every six months; the new release contains many new features, improvements, bug fixes, and translations.
There are extensive release notes (Please see Sucrose 0.82). Also, please refer to the roadmap for our next release (Roadmap Schedule) and join in the discussion of the upcoming 0.84 release (Roadmap 0.84).
Many people contributed to this release, including those who helped with testing, documentation, translation, contributing to the wiki, outreach to education and developer communities. On behalf of the community, we give our warmest thanks to the developers and contributors who made this Sugar release possible.
I'd like to give special thanks to Simon for managing our most well organized release to date. He has set the bar high for future Sugar release managers.
7. Embedded Sugar: David Farning has been leading a discussion about building an embedded-Sugar community. A group of developers have been assembled to port Sugar to the (Beagleboard). They plan to use the Open Embedded toolkit (Open Embedded), which is both a cross-compiler and an embedded package-management system. The team will be using BeagleBoardSugar as a point of collaboration as well as the beagleboard mailing list (http://groups.google.com/group/beagleboard?hl=en).
8. Measure 19: Arjun Sarwal has release a new version of the Measure activity (Measure19.xo); please send Arjan feedback as there are extensive changes and enhancements.
9. Self-organizing map (SOM): Gary Martin has generated another SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list (Please see Image:2008-August-16-22-som.jpg).


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Heffley to Host Open House at New District Office
WEISSPORT – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) cordially invites residents of the 122nd Legislative District to join him on Tuesday, July 2, for an open house at his new district office in Weissport, located at 204B Bridge St. This special event will be held from 4-6 p.m.
Heffley Votes 'Yes' on Budget Bill with Record Education Spending and No New Taxes
HARRISBURG – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) joined a bipartisan majority of his House colleagues in passing the 2019-20 state budget today. House Bill 790 keeps spending growth in line with the rate of inflation without raising taxes or fees on Pennsylvania's workers or seniors.
Heffley's Drug Treatment Bed Registry Bill Advances to Senate
HARRISBURG – Legislation to create a statewide drug treatment bed registry, sponsored by Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon), was passed unanimously by the House this week. House Bill 596 now moves to the Senate for consideration.
Heffley's Blight Bill Advances after Committee Approval
HARRISBURG – Legislation that would assist municipalities in identifying the owners of blighted properties, sponsored by Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon), was approved by the House Urban Affairs Committee this week.
Heffley Reacts to PennDOT Audit, Says It Found Nothing New
HARRISBURG – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) issued the following statement regarding a recent audit conducted by the office of Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT). DePasquale noted that transfers from the Motor License Fund to the state police have totaled more than $4.25 billion since the 2012-13 fiscal year.
Heffley Offers Internships to Local College Students
WEISSPORT – Local college students and graduating high school seniors with an interest in state government are encouraged to apply for unpaid internships for the summer or fall semesters at Rep. Doyle Heffley's (R-Carbon) district offices in Weissport and Albrightsville.
Heffley Announces Changes in Office Hours
Heffley Reacts to Lt. Governor's Marijuana Listening Tour Stop in Carbon County
WEISSPORT – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) issued the following statement in reaction to Lt. Gov. John Fetterman's marijuana town hall meeting held at Jim Thorpe Area High School on Monday evening. Heffley was in Harrisburg, where the House of Representatives is currently in session, and unable to attend.
Heffley Hosts Blight Seminar for Municipal Officials
JIM THORPE – In his continuing effort to assist municipal officials in Carbon County with the blight problems in their communities, Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) today hosted a seminar on the issue in Jim Thorpe. The discussion featured presentations by state officials on programs and funding available to combat blight in Pennsylvania.
Heffley's Bill to End Monopoly on Code Enforcement Services Advances to Senate
HARRISBURG – Legislation sponsored by Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon), that would give private homeowners and small businesses more options for code enforcement inspection services, was passed by the General Assembly and sent to the Senate for consideration on Monday.
Special Olympians from Carbon County Recognized by PA House of Representatives, Says Heffley
HARRISBURG – At the state Capitol on Monday, Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) hosted two Special Olympic athletes from Carbon County who won gold medals in international competitions last month. Delina Jo Rodrigues of Palmerton took first place in two powerlifting events at the 2019 Special Olympic World Games in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Matthew Anthony of Palmerton, and his father, Christopher, were winners of the Unified Bowling Doubles event at the Special Olympics North America Bowling Competition in Las Vegas.
Heffley, Yudichak Announce State Grants for Fire and EMS Companies in Carbon County
HARRISBURG – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) and Sen. John Yudichak (D-Luzerne/Carbon) today announced more than $300,000 in state funding has been awarded to 26 fire and emergency medical services (EMS) organizations in Carbon County.
Committee Examines Heffley's Legislation to Enhance Drug Recovery Treatment in Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG – Legislation sponsored by Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) that would help to enhance the recovery treatment for patients with a drug addiction was the focus of a hearing today at the state Capitol in Harrisburg conducted by the House Human Services Committee. Heffley is a member of the committee, which is chaired by Rep. Gene DiGirolamo (R-Bucks).
Meuser's Staff to Hold Outreach Hours at Heffley's District Offices in Weissport and Albrightsville
WEISSPORT – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) today announced that he will host regular outreach hours for U.S. Congressman Dan Meuser (PA-9) at his district offices in Weissport and Albrightsville starting this month.
Committee to Examine Heffley Bills to Improve Addiction Treatment Programs
WHAT: The House Human Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Gene DiGirolamo (R-Bucks), will hold a public hearing on House Bills 424 and 596, sponsored by Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon). The bills would create a bed registry and a warm hand-off for addiction treatment. The Blue Guardian program from Lehigh County, which was the inspiration for the warm hand-off legislation, will make a presentation.
Heffley to Host Sportsmen's and Outdoor Expo on March 16
WEISSPORT – In an effort to promote the many outdoor recreational activities available in the 122nd Legislative District to area residents, Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) will once again host a Sportsmen's and Outdoor Expo in Jim Thorpe.
Heffley Calls Wolf's Budget a Good Starting Point
HARRISBURG – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) and other members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly today heard Gov. Tom Wolf's spending proposals for Fiscal Year 2019-20 during his annual budget address.
Heffley Relocating District Office to Weissport
LEHIGHTON – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) today announced that he is relocating his district office in Lehighton to 204B Bridge St. in Weissport. The new office will open for business on Monday, Feb. 4, at 9 a.m. The final day of operation for the Lehighton office was Monday, Jan. 28.
Heffley Receives Committee Assignments for 2019-20 Session
HARRISBURG – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) today announced that he has been appointed to serve on the House Appropriations, Human Services, Tourism and Recreational Development, and Transportation committees for the 2019-20 legislative session. Heffley was sworn into office for another term in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Jan. 1.
Heffley Looking Forward to New Session
HARRISBURG – Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) issued the following statement in response to Gov. Tom Wolf's inaugural address. Wolf was sworn into office today for a second term during a ceremony at the state Capitol.


Towns County Schools shall provide an exceptional education for all students in a safe, caring environment that develops lifelong learners who become responsible, independent thinkers, and productive citizens.
The mission of Towns County Schools is that all students will achieve at their highest potential.
Students require a safe environment in which to learn.
Effective teaching strategies guide students to actively engage in problem solving and higher order thinking skills that energize and maximize learning for all students.
The educational process involves shared responsibilities, communication, and collaboration among home, school, and community.
The mission of Towns County High School is to ensure every student experiences educational success.
The mission of Towns County Middle School is to inspire every teacher and student to think, to learn, and to achieve at their highest potential.
The mission of Towns County Elementary School is to nurture, guide, and challenge all students in a safe environment so they become life long learners, creative problem solvers, and competent decision makers.


1.1 All Products on this website (which may vary from time to time) are available in Wellington and throughout New Zealand.
2.1 ALL PRICES ARE IN NEW ZEALAND DOLLARS (NZ$).
2.2 Prices apply in New Zealand and include GST.
At Ammi Floral Design, we value your security and privacy. Your order is protected by using our secure server. While we may (with your permission) securely store your customer details, your credit card details are NEVER stored once we have processed your order. Should you have any reservations about ordering online please order by calling us on 04 238 9040 (available in New Zealand only).
4.1 Our delivery service is within Wellington and throughout New Zealand.
4.6 Where the carrier is unable to find someone to accept delivery we will leave the delivery in the safest place possible.
4.7 In the instance of there being difficulties in delivering your order to the intended recipient we reserve the right to contact the recipient using the contact details you provide on the Order Form.
4.8 When placing your order you are able to specify further delivery information using the 'Delivery Notes' field provided. This is intended to provide further guidance to the party delivering your order which isn't included within your address information, for example to specify floor number, or hospital ward. We reserve the right to not action any delivery requests specified in this field which we deem unacceptable and will use other elements of address information provided elsewhere on the order form to fulfill your order.


text:
Yahya Abdul_Mateen II Announces House Eleven 10 Production Company, Partners with Netflix
Emmy winning actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II's new production company House Eleven10 will have a creative partnership with Netflix.
Stephanie Holland
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 19: Actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II visits Build to discuss the movie "Aquaman" at Build Studio on December 19, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Photo: Michael Losccisano (Getty Images)
Award winning actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is ready to start his empire with the launch of his production company House Eleven10, per Deadline. He has already set a partnership with Netflix.
"I am so proud of the vision of House Eleven10, and couldn't be more excited about Netflix's shared passion for the ideas we'd like to put into the world," he said.
The name of the company is a tribute to his childhood home in Oakland.
"I want our films and shows to be soulful in their world-building and dynamic in their character. We want to employ a creative process that makes space for magic and humanity in various narrative universes, and across all genres," Abdul-Mateen II continued. "Lastly, House Eleven10 seeks to showcase the talent of traditionally underrepresented or overlooked communities within the industry by including diverse filmmakers, writers, and staff throughout our projects."
Abdul-Mateen II has been one of Hollywood's busiest, most in-demand actors in the last few years. He won an Emmy for his performance as Cal Abar/Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen, went toe to toe with Jason Momoa in Aquaman and terrorized a new generation of horror fans in Candyman.
This is a full circle moment for the actor, as his breakthrough role came in the Netflix musical/drama series The Get Down.
"Yahya is an incredibly bright talent and we're privileged to have been there from the start with his career from The Get Down to more recently The Trial of the Chicago 7," said Netflix's Vice President of Original Film, Tendo Nagenda. "We're excited to continue to collaborate creatively with him through House Eleven10."
From Black Mirror to Watchmen to Aquaman to Candyman, Yahya hasn't let us down yet, so he's officially on our "will watch in anything" list. His projects are always interesting, so if he's also going to be working behind the scenes, we're definitely in.
Up next Abdul-Mateen II will be seen in The Matrix Resurrections, which hits theaters and HBO Max Wednesday, Dec. 22. He'll co-star with Jake Gyllenhaal in the action movie Ambulance, scheduled for release Feb. 18, then reprise Black Manta in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which is currently set for December 16, 2022.


Product Development: Is the Backtest Trustworthy?
Home » Insights » Product Development: Is the Backtest Trustworthy?
"I have never seen a bad backtest" is an often stated criticism of backtesting that has a high degree of truth to it – many strategies launch with strong backtests yet do not pan out as intended.
In truth, a well-designed backtest is a key tool among a number of tools that should be used for financial product manufacturers and asset managers to develop and vet investment strategies. Yet, many backtests have critical flaws inherent within them. Today, I will explore some of the general flaws frequently found in poorly designed backtests, as well as methods which a prospective investor can use to "kick the tires" on a backtest to separate the well designed from the flawed.
Product testing prior to launch is a characteristic used by most industries – testing is a critical component of new product development to ensure time and resources aren't wasted on bad ideas (and in the case of pharma testing, to limit the number of people harmed by unintended consequences).
A financial backtest is a specific type of product testing whereby a financial strategy is inserted within an artificial, simulated recreation of the past. Given the abundance of historical financial information, and the relatively controlled way in which securities transactions work, backtesting, done correctly, should be an excellent tool to separate out good investment strategies from weak ones. A correctly performed backtest should really mitigate the launch of "lemons" in the financial services world.
A word of caution though – even a well designed backtest may not be predictive of the future, as there may be a disconnect between historical performance and future performance. Of course, this limitation applies to all predictions based on past performance, not just backtesting – actual historic fund performances present the same weaknesses. And in fact, some of the questions asked below in analyzing backtested performance can easily be asked of a fund manager as well.
With this being said, let's at least make sure backtesting provides a fair extrapolation of how we can expect a strategy to perform in similar markets to the one analyzed. Unfortunately, there is no standard industry practice to use independent third parties to perform backtests – wouldn't it be nice if the big four accounting firms would backtest all new funds? Thus, it becomes critical for a would-be investor to "kick the tires" on a backtest to determine if a backtest was wrong about what would have happened in the past.
Transactional "Friction": Most strategies rely upon signals of some sort which trigger transactions – e.g., when the 50 day moving average moves above the 200 day moving average, buy the S&P 500.
One challenge of backtesting is losing a sense of the little challenges that arise when placing a transaction. Here's an example of a flawed strategy – if a member of the S&P 500's earnings announcements beat expectations, buy the stock same day and short that company's closest competitor.
Can you spot the flaw? The signal to buy (i.e., the earnings announcement) happens after the market closes, but the strategy assumes the transaction occurs on the close. That strategy may backtest perfectly well but it would be impossible to implement.
The historical liquidity of the security in question can also be lost in a backtest. For instance, trying to trade out of esoteric fixed income securities, such as CDOs, was extremely difficult in late 2008 – the cost to do so would have been prohibitive, and not necessarily captured in a backtest that may use a mid-market valuation mark.
When and how is a transaction executed within the backtest? How may this differ in the real world?
What is the liquidity of the underlying securities of the strategy?
What are the general execution costs per transaction, and are they appropriately factored into the backtest?
Overfitting: Backtests use a sample period ("In Sample" data) for initially testing and refining a strategy. It is important that the final refined strategy then be tested with "Out of Sample" data that doesn't overlap with In Sample data; the Out of Sample data should not be used to refine the strategy.
Overfitting is an esoteric concept which can be readily explained by going outside of finance for a moment – Larry is a "trekkie" and has a ton of success at Star Trek conventions (his "In Sample" data) meeting friends and finding dates, often weaving phrases like "live long and prosper" and "beam me up, Scotty" into conversations. Post conventions, he decides to use his successful trekkie dialogue and his Vulcan ears while interviewing for Wall Street positions. This is an example of overfitting, because those strategies were perfectly tailored for one particular, albeit incredibly important, In Sample time in his life. It would have been better for Larry to first test his strategy with an Out of Sample data set (e.g., a Monster Truck show), before applying the strategy to a real world situation like a job interview.
Similarly, product designers may be tempted to tweak an investment strategy and "juice returns" using In Sample data, thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of success.
To further illustrate with a finance example, if I use my In Sample data to calculate the optimal amount of days to use in a moving average crossover signal, and then test my strategy with the same In Sample data, of course I am going to see favorable returns in the backtest. Data-mining within In Sample data to prove an underlying principle, especially if it is used to develop the initial strategy, is dangerous. A well-executed Out of Sample test might highlight the design flaws presented here.
Unfortunately, overfitting is a nefarious mistake that can be harder to tease out than the transactional mistakes noted above.
Over what time period was the backtesting conducted, and why?
How does performance look if we shift the start date in both directions?
What was the original principle behind the strategy? If modified from inception to completion, how and why?
If Alpha / superior metrics are claimed: Why/how did the strategy capture stated metrics, and what is the thesis for how it will continue to capture said performance?
Has the backtest utilized Out of Sample data or other methods of testing such as a Monte Carlo Simulation to sanity check results?
In conclusion, backtests done correctly are an effective tool in the development of financial strategies. However, going into the past is a challenge, just ask Marty McFly – many missteps can happen along the way. Hopefully some of the general considerations we have pointed out, as well as corresponding questions to ask, can help investors properly vet any backtests that may be presented.
In this piece, we have focused largely on the dangers of backtests not correctly assessing how a strategy would have performed in the past. In the next piece in this product development series, we will discuss the challenge of using past information, be it actual or simulated backtest information, to predict future performance.


Year 2000. Thousands of people in India and lakhs around the world were afflicted with a newly-existent medical condition. There should be clarity in distinction between a newly-existent condition and an undiscovered condition. A newly-existent (medical) condition means it had never happened to anyone in history before the said date. An undiscovered (medical) condition means it has been happening before, perhaps since a long time but has not been noticed.
Q: Why didn't this condition occur before?
A: It is for clinical-researchers to find out. As an experienced patient I can only suggest theories. It may be because this condition is caused by some recent technology and that technology was rare before 2000.
Q: Why didn't this new technology cause this undiscovered disease to others?
Q: How can you say this 'disease' is newly-existent?
A: Surely this malfunctioning is some unknown thing because its symptoms don't match with any known condition.
Q: It started in 2000. Why even after so many years, it has still not been reported?
A: A small percentage of the population is suffering from the same ailment. Within that a still smaller percentage cares to report to doctors. And they all consult different doctors scattered over a vast geographical region. Thus the doctors are not in touch with each other. In such situation how would the medical fraternity realize that there's an entire community who share my views of this being a new phenomenon?
Q: Why doctors don't appreciate that this is a newly existent disease?
A: It is due to force of habit. For years they witness only those medical problems which are documented. If suddenly one day they have to treat a 'Never-Before' illness, it is natural to be skeptical. Doctors cannot be blamed for this. Doctors see all cases through the prism of known ailments. Doctors are determined that the diagnosis should be within the realm of hitherto recognized phenomena. They ensure this by misinterpreting some existent symptoms, ignoring others and presuming nonexistent ones. If that doesn't work they use some vague generic term – which applies to everyone – to make the diagnosis.
Last edited by Pakau; June 15th, 2015 at 09:22 PM.
And what is that medical condition and what are the causes ?
How to protect ourselves from being struck by lightning when we venture outdoors?
I have to tread very carefully on this. I have thirteen years (problem started in 2000 and consultations in 2002) experience of trying to describe the symptoms. This concept is very difficult to understand. Doctor's policy is first conclusion is last conclusion. They are adamant about the finality of the diagnosis they make and refuse to reexamine even if the diagnosis is as wrong as saying 2+2=5. I want my concerns addressed first. I want guarantees that there would be no misinterpretations or selective reading of description. Because doctors don't give you second chance.
Year 2000. Thousands of people in India and lakhs around the world were afflicted with a newly-existent medical condition. There should be clarity in distinction between a newly-existent condition and an undiscovered condition. A newly-existent (medical) condition means it had never happened to anyone in history before the said date. An undiscovered (medical) condition means it had happened before but had been noticed only recently.
Hey this was the same year echarcha.com came into existence. What a coincidence.
I was also abot to say the same.
Not only does misdiagnosis exacerbate the crisis, it also creates newer problems. As I said before, there are two illnesses. Doctors dismissed the first one as a case of DOAS (Depression, OCD, Anxiety, Stress) and for second they used flawed techniques. What they are basically saying is, "Absolutely nothing has happened to patient."
Due to abnormal mental health, my graduation was getting delayed. Had the diagnosis been accurate, parents response would have been, "We understand. There are these two handicaps. Take your time. We will not scold you."
1. Several times, I had the urge to take the extreme step.
2. After I had completed 8th semester but had few arrears (backlog) subjects, I wondered how to break the news of arrears subjects. So I went missing from home for 3 days and switched off the mobile. I thought then there would be no scolding. That incident, of course caused trauma to parents.
3. When I returned, I thought that it is resolved and now I would be free to study in peace for the backlogs. But then parents dropped a bombshell. They declared that they would accompany me to the other town for exam. My college was in another town. It was a bombshell because I had lied that there were only two backlogs when there were actually five left. I couldn't even attend all five because my mother accompanied me.
4. Since I had attended only two of the five backlogs, I had not finished the degree. But when parents called me on phone, I lied due to fear that I had passed. Now started the new problem. I couldn't study openly because since I had lied, I was scared that parents would ask why you are studying despite passing. What could have been over in two months got stretched to two years.
5. Parents would repeatedly ask for degree documents like certificate and marks card. I would postpone it on some pretext. When it took too long, I showed them forged certificates.
6. In order to be away from the watch of parents I decided to take a job outside the town and stay in a rented room. To get that job I paid some amount to my friend. But I was duped. I lost Rs. 60,000 but didn't get the job.
7. Let me repeat if not for the above mentioned bombshell, I would have cleared the remaining arrears in those two months itself. All that nagging by parents, my lying, consequent delay, loss of money etc happened because of the misinformation by professionals. Because of the misdiagnosis.
you previously'd posted, those Chess things - why only 8 columns and rows, and then copied here's replies to there and vice versa! !
Last edited by Jagmohan; June 10th, 2015 at 10:03 AM.
He should learn from you and just provide links to other forums or the google suggestions.
It's not just about well being of few thousand individuals. It is also about the larger interest of science. Looking into my complaints may help delve a bit more into an area as unexplored as human brain. Is it worth thinking on those lines?
Last I checked, Science was smoking weed with creationist junkies. Lets give it something better to do, like mulling over this newly discovered 'uncurified' disease.
or perhaps this new illness they even do not know, what name it is,.. and whether or not it's illness or not !
I couldn't have said it better writtenly.


text:
Chiappe Power – The Local Hero
Chris Davies on 28th April 2017
Philippe Chiappe will be a man in demand, sought-after, desired, coveted and requested by many this weekend, as he attempts to win the 24 Hours Motonautique de Rouen for the fifth time in a row.
So just how much pressure is the man born just twenty kilometres away under?
Chiappe told Powerboat Racing World's Chris Davies;
When I'm out there racing I have no pressure, but when I'm off the water everyone wants a piece of you.
I have a lot of people who want to talk to me, fans, sponsors and friends.
With a guest list topping 800 people Chiappe knows that making time to speak to them over the weekend can be just as challenging as the endurance race itself.
Adding to that is overseeing a crew of seventy personal that make up Team Nollet, including a twelve man refuelling squad to look after the three boats that will be running under the Nollet 'umbrella'.
Getting into his Moore hull will almost feel like a holiday, although hardly a relaxing one as he plans to spend a minimum of eight hours racing around the Ile Lacroix course.
Chiappe continued this afternoon;
This event was my first ever race that I competed in.
Back then my dream was to race in the UIM F1 World Championship (which he has won for the last three seasons) because it was the pinnacle of the sport.
F1 is extreme; you are on the limit the whole time.
Endurance gives me a different kind of buzz, when you push hard in this race you might gain a lap but you can also gain three laps by having a really good refuelling stop, so the victory becomes a team thing rather than a personal one in F1.
Whatever happens this weekend Chiappe knows that one source of power he won't be short of will be the 'people' one.
UIM World Circuit Endurance


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text:
package com.helger.photon.uictrls;

import javax.annotation.Nonnull;
import javax.annotation.Nullable;

import com.helger.commons.annotation.Nonempty;
import com.helger.commons.string.StringHelper;
import com.helger.html.resource.js.ConstantJSPathProvider;
import com.helger.html.resource.js.IJSPathProvider;

/**
 * Contains default JS paths for this project.
 *
 * @author Philip Helger
 */
public enum EUICtrlsJSPathProvider implements IJSPathProvider
{
  AUTONUMERIC ("uictrls/autonumeric/1.9.46/autoNumeric.js"),
  AUTOSIZE3 ("uictrls/autosize/3.0.20/autosize.js"),
  AUTOSIZE3_ALL ("uictrls/autosize/autosize3-all.js"),
  /** BigDecimal support for JS */
  BIG_DECIMAL ("uictrls/js/big.js"),
  CHART_1 ("uictrls/chart/1.1.1/Chart.js"),
  CHART_2 ("uictrls/chart/2.9.4/Chart.js"),
  CHART_3 ("uictrls/chart/3.7.1/chart.js"),
  CLIPBOARD ("uictrls/clipboardjs/2.0.6/clipboard.js"),
  COLORBOX ("uictrls/colorbox/1.6.0/jquery.colorbox.js"),
  FINEUPLOADER_320 ("uictrls/fineupload/320/fineuploader.js"),
  FINEUPLOADER_330 ("uictrls/fineupload/330/fineuploader.js"),
  FINEUPLOADER_5 ("uictrls/fineupload/5.16.2/fine-uploader.js"),
  HANDLEBARS_4 ("uictrls/handlebars/4.1.2/handlebars.runtime-v4.1.2.js"),
  JSCOLOR ("uictrls/jscolor/1.4.4ph/jscolor.js"),
  PDFOBJECT2 ("uictrls/pdfobject/2.2.8/pdfobject.js"),
  PRISMJS ("uictrls/prismjs/1.2.1/prism.js"),
  SELECT2 ("uictrls/select2/4.0.13/js/select2.js"),
  SELECT2_LOCALE ("uictrls/select2/4.0.13/js/i18n/{0}.js", false),
  /** https://github.com/twitter/typeahead.js/ */
  TYPEAHEAD_0_9 ("uictrls/typeahead/0.9.3/typeahead.js"),
  TYPEAHEAD_PH ("ph-oton/ph-typeahead.js"),
  /** JS library to use animate.css - https://github.com/matthieua/WOW */
  WOW ("uictrls/js/wow.js");

  private final ConstantJSPathProvider m_aPP;

  EUICtrlsJSPathProvider (@Nonnull @Nonempty final String sPath)
  {
    m_aPP = ConstantJSPathProvider.create (sPath);
  }

  EUICtrlsJSPathProvider (@Nonnull @Nonempty final String sPath, @Nullable final String sConditionalComment)
  {
    m_aPP = ConstantJSPathProvider.createWithConditionalComment (sPath, sConditionalComment);
  }

  EUICtrlsJSPathProvider (@Nonnull @Nonempty final String sPath, final boolean bCanBeBundled)
  {
    m_aPP = ConstantJSPathProvider.createBundlable (sPath, bCanBeBundled);
  }

  @Nonnull
  @Nonempty
  public String getJSItemPath (final boolean bRegular)
  {
    return m_aPP.getJSItemPath (bRegular);
  }

  @Nullable
  public String getConditionalComment ()
  {
    return m_aPP.getConditionalComment ();
  }

  public boolean isBundlable ()
  {
    return m_aPP.isBundlable ();
  }

  @Nonnull
  public IJSPathProvider getInstance (@Nonnull @Nonempty final String sLanguage)
  {
    return ConstantJSPathProvider.createWithConditionalComment (StringHelper.replaceAll (m_aPP.getJSItemPathRegular (),
                                                                                "{0}",
                                                                                sLanguage),
                                                                m_aPP.getConditionalComment ());
  }
}


text:
Q: Fusing intermediate outputs of CNN and GRU models In my research work, I have used a two stream model for activity recognition. First stream is based on CNN, while second stream is based on GRU. I have extracted features from the last fully connected layers of both the streams, and then train an SVM classifier for classification.
Is it also possible to combine output/feature maps from the intermediate layers of both the streams, and then train an SVM?
Thanks

A: In semi-supervised classification, this method is preferred, where the features from last few layer are concatenated and a model(svm, logistic regression) is trained on top of that.
This method make sense, because, network has learned the useful features in the data. So it can be utilized to train another model.


App templates—Use an app template to explore ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Qt capabilities. An app template lets you start from scratch by providing all the files and basic property settings you need to build and run a project.
Sample apps—Use a sample app to see how specific ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Qt capabilities work.
You can access Esri app templates from within Qt Creator after you run the ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Qt post-installer.
In Qt Creator, open the New Project dialog box.
Select an app template from the ArcGIS projects category.
If you previously installed a different version of ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Qt, you may see templates for multiple versions. Template names include versions, so use the name to select the correct version. Template types include Qt Widgets apps, Qt Quick QML apps, and Qt Quick C++ apps. For descriptions of these apps, see Qt SDK best practices.
Follow the steps in the wizard, providing information such as where to put your project files and which version of the Qt Framework to use.
At the end of the wizard, you will have a complete app that is ready to run. Use it as a foundation to build your own app, extending it with additional features and business logic.
Sample apps demonstrate important ArcGIS Runtime functionality in a focused way. You can view samples through the sample viewer apps. The sample viewer apps are installed with this SDK, and you can download QML Samples and C++ Samples from ArcGIS.com. There is one sample viewer app for Qt Quick QML samples and another for Qt Quick C++ samples.
You also have the option to download and build complete projects for each sample from GitHub, where you will find samples for all three types of apps—Qt Widgets apps, Qt Quick QML apps, and Qt Quick C++ apps. Either way you explore the samples, you have access to the source code which you can copy, modify, and leverage in your apps.
While ArcGIS Runtime can be used to create new, GIS-centric apps, it is also designed to integrate seamlessly into existing apps and projects developed with Qt. If you have an existing app that you would like to location enable with ArcGIS Runtime, this topic will help you get started.


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"Was out there today! Beautiful, the staff is exceptional, can't wait!" via Cindy F.
"From your friends at Hakim Sons Films. Please vote for us under the Best Videographers. Thank You!" via Hakim S.


The fascination with all things construction (and demolition) that last week led us to the library has directed lots of Arthur's play over the past few days. He has gathered his motley collection of construction vehicles with the kinetic sand in the tuff spot, brrrrming them round his little building site which I sense still has further to evolve.
Whenever we've been out and about he's been drawn to diggers and steam rollers and cranes. There seem to be plenty around – way more than I've ever noticed before. But maybe that's just because I wasn't looking properly.
Back at home, he has taken tremendous delight in directing me to build increasingly complex creations using duplo and his train track only to smash them to smithereens, scattering pieces across the lounge and declaring an emergency as he brings in the nee naws to sort it all out. I've had to resist the primal urge in me to get irritated at this wave of destruction – I know it's important that he explores how things break as well as how they come together.
His impulse to understand how things work has been focused on the vehicles themselves. We've found a great selection of YouTube videos that he watches with studied concentration as they break down the complex operation of an excavator, for example, into language that a preschooler can understand. The vocabulary is precise and the mechanics stretches even my understanding.
The most fascinating aspect of this play for me, though, has been how he has taken it into his whole body – a kinaesthetic exploration of the engineering concepts underlying the things he observes. He stretches his arm out like a crane, his movements slow and robotic as he fashions his hand into a scoop, all the time replicating the mechanical noises he has heard with his voice. He loves it if I join in too, both of us together forming a human construction site.
If I were taking the lead on his learning, I'm not sure I ever would have thought to take this topic in all these different directions. Even with my background in physical theatre I don't think I've ever stood and worked out how to move my body like a crane. He is literally consumed by learning – and the power of that is more than a little awesome to behold.
This entry was posted in Sophie is parenting, Uncategorized and tagged building, demolition, imagination, ipad, learning, play, preschooler, unschooling, vehicles, youtube on February 29, 2016 by sophieblovett.


text:
__all__ = [
    "__version__",
    "AbstractProvider",
    "AbstractResolver",
    "BaseReporter",
    "InconsistentCandidate",
    "Resolver",
    "RequirementsConflicted",
    "ResolutionError",
    "ResolutionImpossible",
    "ResolutionTooDeep",
]

__version__ = "0.5.4"

from .providers import AbstractProvider, AbstractResolver
from .reporters import BaseReporter
from .resolvers import (
    InconsistentCandidate,
    RequirementsConflicted,
    Resolver,
    ResolutionError,
    ResolutionImpossible,
    ResolutionTooDeep,
)


text:
group of drones above the city
group of drones approaching the city
Applied Intelligence, Social Factors
Slaughterbots
Is it ethical to develop a swarm of killer AI drones?
arroba Email
Should the development of killer AI robots be banned? If everyone in the world were friendly and followed the Golden Rule, such a ban might work. But there will always be evil humans around.
Just ask Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan who set off on a bicycle trip of love through ISIS-infested Tajikistan. "There's magic out there, in this great big beautiful world," wrote Austin. The idealistic couple was proven wrong. They were murdered.
The fallen nature of humanity is central to Judeo-Christian theology. It is a sad but unchangeable state of humanity. Like fire, new technology is neither good nor bad. The good or bad outcome is ultimately the responsibility of a human being.
Learning from History
Some seem to think all new advances in military technology are bad. While I was at the University of Washington in 1988, I received a grant from the Office of Naval Research related to Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) better known as Star Wars. SDI's aim was to shoot down threatening missiles aimed at the United States using space deployed technology. Many of my idealist ivory tower colleagues at the University of Washington refused to participate in the SDI and weren't happy I was involved. SDI had to do with war, they reasoned, and war was bad. The SDI program, though, turned out to be instrumental in the collapse of the Soviet Union and ending the cold war. The Soviet Union figured it would go bankrupt trying to keep up with the US defense budget. The good intentions of my anti-war-at-all-costs colleagues would have prolonged the cold war.
Long before the Cold War, the US and Nazi Germany were racing to develop an atomic bomb in WWII. The war in Europe ended before Germany succeeded. Suppose an American peace movement had succeeded in banning development of the terrible bomb and the war hadn't ended when it did. Had the Nazis developed the bomb first, flags in the US today might be sporting swastikas instead of the Stars and Stripes. That's the scenario depicted in the Netflix alternative history series The Man in the High Castle where the Allies have lost WWII because the Nazis won the atomic bomb race.
By Source, Fair use
The atomic bombs dropped on Imperial Japan to win WWII saved the lives of countless Allied soldiers, including my Uncle Junior McHenry. Uncle Junior was a paratrooper who, during the planned Japanese equivalent of D-Day, was trained to parachute behind enemy lines with 24 pounds of demolition explosives attached to each leg. Given the militancy of Imperial Japan and its people, Uncle Junior's assignment was essentially a suicide mission. Fortunately, the atomic bomb ended the war with evil Imperial Japan so Uncle Junior never had to make the jump. He returned home to West Virginia where he worked as a Greyhound bus driver, married my Aunt Justine, and raised three children. Thousands of other Allied soldiers were likewise blessed with a long life because of the atomic bomb.
It is true that Japanese deaths from atomic bombs totaled 146,000 in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki. But what would have happened without the bomb, which convinced the Japanese to simply surrender? Historian Philip Jenkins estimates, "… together with likely Japanese fatalities, you get about ten million dead – and that's a conservative figure. The vast majority of those additional deaths would have been East and South-East Asians, mainly Japanese and Chinese."
Truman's directive to drop the bomb had tragic consequences, but his decision looks to have been the right one.
Scary Slaughterbots
The ethical questions around the development of killer AI robots and drone swarms today somewhat parallel those around of the creation of atomic and thermonuclear bombs. Scary headlines are plentiful. The Sun warns us:
"South Korean university is secretly developing killer AI robot army that could destroy humanity."
The Daily Star trumpets:
"Killer robots poised for 'MASS PRODUCTION'"
And there is the Independent's all-caps grabber:
"'KILLER ROBOTS' WILL START SLAUGHTERING PEOPLE IF THEY'RE NOT BANNED SOON."
A potential threat, yes. But we have somehow learned to live with the hydrogen bomb. Can we live in a world with killer AI robots?
Fictional CEO demonstrates microdrone/Fair Use
Some think not. Slaughterbots, a slickly produced Black Mirror- flavored short video, unveils a killer drone about the size of an Oreo cookie. The drone contains embedded AI in the form of facial recognition, and coordination skills as a member of a drone swarm. It also contains a bullet-shaped exploding charge. Once programmed with the face or a characteristic of the target, the drone autonomously flies into a theater of operation, searches for the face, places itself close to the subject's forehead and shoots a projectile into the brain. Slaughterbots released in a swarm, it is argued, could win wars quickly, or kill all the Democrats attending a joint session of Congress.
Slaughterbots has an agenda of course. It condescendingly presents the drone developers as mere stereotypical warmongers. Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science at Berkeley, ends the video with an appeal to join the fight against the development of autonomous AI killing machines. A similar plea was made by Elon Musk who, together with over 100 research scientists, signed a petition to ban the development of killer robots. George Gilder's observation that "Elon Musk is a tremendous entrepreneur, yet he's a quite retarded thinker" applies here.
Killer AI Is Already Here
Sobering indeed is the realization that the slaughterbots are not science fiction. Given enough time for development, we have the technology to build them. Paul Scharre, the author of Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War, who was instrumental in fashioning the US Department of Defense's policy directive on autonomy in weapons, agrees that the technology exists but says the rest of the premises of Slaughterbots range from "questionable… to completely fanciful." He writes:
The video assumes the following:
Governments will mass produce lethal micro-drones to use them as weapons of mass destruction;
There are no effective defenses against lethal micro-drones;
Governments are incapable of keeping military-grade weapons out of the hands of terrorists;
Terrorists are capable of launching large-scale coordinated attacks.
These assumptions range from questionable, at best, to completely fanciful.
Paul Scharre, "Why You Shouldn't Fear 'Slaughterbots'" at IEEE Spectrum
Scharre also notes that terrorists already have access to slaughterbot technology. He writes:
There is nothing we can do to keep [slaughterbot-like] … technology out of the hands of would-be terrorists. Just like how terrorists can and do use cars to ram crowds of civilians, the underlying technology to turn hobbyist drones into crude autonomous weapons is already too ubiquitous to stop.
Today, powerful AI technology is already offered free for anyone in the world to use:
"Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft have all, like Google, released as open source software AI that their own engineers use for machine learning. All, including to some extent famously secretive Apple, encourage their AI researchers to openly publish their latest ideas.
Tom Simonite, "DESPITE PLEDGING OPENNESS, COMPANIES RUSH TO PATENT AI TECH" at Wired
The Answer to Killer AI
So how do we live in a world where AI is tasked to kill?
For threats like slaughterbots, the answer is the development of newer technology. Like it or not, history is replete with accounts of new military technology replacing old. First, there were military airplanes. Then there was radar. Then there was stealth technology to avoid radar. Evil, seeking influence, demands a response, so the technology to provide one must be developed.
During the Cold War, technology acceleration was called the arms race. First, there were missiles. Then there were anti-missiles. Then there were anti-missile-missiles. Israel has gone the next step by deploying a missile protection Iron Dome cloak over its country.
Is there existing technology to counter slaughterbots? The Slaughterbots video screams "NO.""We can't defend ourselves!"
Instead of acting like such untutored Chicken Littles, the producers should have asked seasoned experts with domain expertise like Paul Scharre. The notion of helplessness against slaughterbots, Scharre insists, is a "farce."
Every military technology has a countermeasure, and countermeasures against small drones aren't even hypothetical. The U.S. government is actively working on ways to shoot down, jam, fry, hack, ensnare, or otherwise defeat small drones. The micro-drones in the video could be defeated by something as simple as chicken wire.
One consequence of the development of killer AI might be the frightening — but effective — mutually assured destruction (MAD) strategy normally associated with thermonuclear weapons. The use of hydrogen bombs is seen as so horrible they are no longer even tested. Similarly, the use of chemical and biological weapons on the battlefield is banned by treaty. But no matter how good our intentions, evil men like North Korea's Kim Jong Un will try to build atomic bombs and threaten humanity with them. And murderers like Syria's Bashar al-Assad will continue to kill with chemical weapons. Treaties and agreements are only of use among the honorable. Ask Neville Chamberlain about his "peace for our time" treaty with Adolf Hitler.
AI and other technology must continue to be developed with never-ending vigilance in order to counter current and potential military and terrorist threats. Corralling technology's use is the role of political leaders whose negotiation and retaliation power comes largely from military strength. And military power is born of technical superiority—including AI.
Robert J. Marks II, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Baylor University. Marks is the founding Director of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence and hosts the podcast Mind Matters. He is the Editor-in-Chief of BIO-Complexity and the former Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks. He served as the first President of the IEEE Neural Networks Council, now the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. His latest book is Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics coauthored with William Dembski and Winston Ewert. A Christian, Marks served for 17 years as the faculty advisor for CRU at the University of Washington and currently is a faculty advisor at Baylor University for the student groups the American Scientific Affiliation and Oso Logos, a Christian apologetics group.
Silicon Valley grew old before it grew up
Glenn Harlan Reynolds Older readers will remember the technology industry from the days when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were young and not particularly interested in anything but hardware and software. Certainly not in a mission to reshape traditional societies. But as University of Tennessee …
Slaughterbots: How far is too far?
Editor's note: On Monday, Robert J. Marks addressed the question raised by the film Slaughterbots: Is it ethical to develop a swarm of killer AI drones? Tonight, Eric Holloway adds some thoughts: I think the technology is feasible. Facial recognition and target tracking work as intended and …