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Nikolai Kuznetsov
US Fed Weighs Up Potential CBDC as Countermove Against China
Where just a handful of years ago, the idea would have been immediately dismissed or even met with ridicule, the United States Federal Reserve is now taking the concept of an official dollar stablecoin seriously.
Markets have heard more frequent guidance from the Fed on cryptocurrencies in recent years, and thanks to two curious U.S. representatives — French Hill and Bill Foster — this guidance now includes an enlightening response from Fed Chairman Jay Powell to their letter on a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.
Evolving trends force regulators' hands
The infiltration of blockchain into our global financial sector is nothing new, but a few trends have seen these experimental decentralized solutions tackled head-on by authorities. One of the most significant events to bring about this pivot is that the first major economy has emerged as a proponent of government-issued stablecoins.
China's announcement that it will launch a digital currency reveals the country's direction, and other federal banks must now consider doing the same, especially during the ongoing trade war that is testing the standalone strength of individual economies and their monetary policy.
Related: China Walks Back Hardline Media Rhetoric Toward Crypto and Blockchain
Facebook's Libra is another sign that cannot go ignored, and though the Libra Foundation just experienced an exodus of backers, its underlying idea is enough to represent a bucket of cold water tossed on slumbering regulators and policymakers.
If governments don't move first to permit immutable cryptocurrency transactions for their own digital coins, private corporations are ready to pounce. Likely on high alert thanks to China's abrupt change in stance on cryptocurrencies, Powell provided fresh, tangible insights on how the U.S. regards this developing movement in his recent letter.
"The Fed has realized that cryptocurrencies, in one form or another, are here to stay," says Saga's chief economist, Barry Topf — a consultant for the International Monetary Fund and former central banker. He told Cointelegraph that Powell's answer reveals there are "far-reaching implications for monetary policy, currency regimes and central banks themselves." He went on to add that:
"Federal bankers have been slow on the uptake, but now realize they must evaluate and assess developments and possible implications. Otherwise, they risk being surprised and unprepared for a changing environment which may include China as a dominant force. A CBDC issued by China would be a major extension of China's influence in the world economy."
Topf continued by saying that the implications of such a move by China must be carefully weighed, "Mark Zuckerberg told Congress this directly when he said, 'While we debate these issues, the rest of the world isn't waiting.'"
The Powell letter is revealing
Compelled by concerned lawmakers to indicate which way the Fed is leaning when it comes to its own stablecoin, Powell underlined that the agency currently has no plans to develop a central bank digital currency. However, it has discussed the idea at length and continues to assess potential pros and cons of such an idea. According to Powell:
"Issuing a central bank digital currency for general use would raise important legal, monetary policy, payments policy, financial stability, supervision and operational questions that need to be considered more carefully."
A Fed-backed digital currency could bring significant advantages to the way money is settled currently, offering consumers a way to transact without fees and without middlemen such as smaller banks, but this would have several implications that Powell considers in his letter.
By operating a digital ledger, the Fed would technically be responsible for transaction metadata, and it is not outfitted to protect personal information — nor does it want to be. Interestingly enough, the chairman also seems to indicate that the current system's illiquidity and cost inefficiency are preferable due to the way it obstructs capital flight and "runs from private markets" during stress episodes.
Other documents from the Fed published in November also claim that market runs could occur if stablecoin operations were to break it down, causing a loss of faith.
Stablecoins support Powell's theories
The logic contained in Powell's letter rings true if one is familiar with the fundamental concept of stablecoins. A national stablecoin would be a token based on a blockchain, where each once would be backed by $1 from the Fed.
The theory goes that eventually, other assets and currencies will be "tokenized" as well, reducing speed and cost as variables in any transaction. However, there are some weak claims made in the letter, such as the notion that, "To date, our observation is that many of the challenges they [CBDCs] hope to address do not apply to the U.S." Powell is arguably correct that if the U.S. economy did switch to dollar tokens overnight, there would be issues.
Unpredictable market dynamics would cause turbulence, and if unaddressed beforehand, they would indeed be an enormous risk. For example, one will be able to convert their entire savings account from a dollar stablecoin to a euro stablecoin, without the settlement costs imposed in today's ecosystem. Once people are allowed to mobilize their dollars without the obstacles they're used to, this nimbleness could boost volatility and impact general economic health.
However, another notion cleverly hidden in the letter is that the Fed considers terms and conditions like interest rates (and likely fees) as something to be imposed on its hypothetical digital money. How this would work was left unsaid in the letter.
Economies step into the great unknown
Clearly, regulators are still juggling multiple fundamental problems and technical realities that are involved in the provision of stablecoins, but they're now doing so at odds with competitors like China, which has already entered the "race."
The winning prize and whether the race is even worth entering is still unknown. There are some guesses, and the fact that some governments are willing to try regardless of potential chaos has lit a fire under noncompetitors.
Many are falling over themselves in the race to be the first "de-facto government-backed stablecoin for traders around the world," as head of operations at the OKEx exchange, Andy Cheung, told Cointelegraph:
"If the US were to issue a digital dollar, it would certainly have far-reaching impacts on the global markets."
Cheng believes that crypto exchanges need to prepare for this to meet the needs of new and old users alike, but that the overall impact from such a move would be positive for both crypto and traditional economies:
"The issuance of a digital dollar by the government would actually prompt the growth of both ecosystems and spur other participants to be more innovative and compliant with a global standard. Competition brings out excellence. Whoever executes it properly, would ultimately earn the same type of digital faith and volume that exists for the US dollar in its fiat form."
Samuel Lim, chief compliance officer at Binance, also sees this as a positive beacon for adoption of cryptocurrencies as a concept, telling Cointelegraph that it would grant greater legitimacy to the crypto space and increase the level of interest form institutions:
"This would likely directly or indirectly have a positive impact on trading volumes with the entry of the big monies. This would also allow more people (the public) to learn about digital assets/currencies which is a positive thing altogether. We do believe that there is certainly sufficient room for public and private digital assets to co-exist."
Governments must be conscientious custodians
A big issue with a potential government-backed stablecoin is that if the Fed were to impose rules that infringed upon blockchain's basest advantages, people may be more willing and able to put their money into decentralized blockchains instead.
A question would then be if the government could somehow shut those blockchains down for being a digital equivalent or a counterfeit. "Obviously, governments have to guarantee execution and enforcement and it goes without saying that there should be appropriate government institutions to do so," Grigory Rybalchenko, co-founder and CEO of Emirex — a digital asset exchange based in the Middle East — told Cointelegraph.
Rybalchenko is of the opinion that it would be the job of the government to strike the right balance between the number of centralized and decentralized solutions in order to promote financial freedom and allow people to make a choice, adding that:
"The current operating model of governments doesn't look compatible with decentralized blockchain nor have they given confidence in their ability to transition from centralized to decentralized. It must occur, however, because honestly speaking, centralized blockchains don't seem to have value beyond mimicking a database."
Alex Kravets, U.S. head of cryptocurrency exchange CEX.IO, also told Cointelegraph that any platform deemed capable of impacting government sovereignty and their national currencies is likely to see barriers put up against it:
"Having the federal reserve create a digital dollar could be a double edged sword. On one hand it would be the most dominant and secure stablecoin which could be the greatest catalyst to push mass adoption on a global scale. But on the other hand, the government would have control of the blockchain and perhaps could in real time determine which transactions are sanctioned or prohibited."
CEO of trading platform StormGain Alex Althausen concurs, telling Cointelegraph that governments have never had any intention of letting concepts like decentralized governance get in the way of their total control, adding that:
"Governments will no doubt consider any pegged or backed stablecoins as centralized assets no different than the dollars they already have, just more agile. Accordingly, any decentralized exchange, cryptocurrency or blockchain project will be considered as a competitor and not a cooperator, and they'll be treated as threats much like what's happening with Libra and TON now."
The race is on regardless
Managing director at Bithumb Global, Javier Sim, has already seen evidence of the worldwide governmental race toward blockchain, with both Sweden and Estonia having developed various plans to digitize assets and identity systems. Sim continued by saying:
"Blockchain's use here is largely for fraud prevention, and it's interesting to see how governments have dismissed the decentralized debate as nothing more than an argument on data storage."
Related: China's Dive Into Blockchain, Digital ID Spurs Rest of World to Action
The coming years will see central banks around the world make moves toward digital currency in close succession — if not for the immense opportunities the system provides, then simply because China and Libra have changed the aging perception that it cannot be attempted.
Some have seen this revolution as inevitable, even before China put itself in the ring. Mark Zuckerberg argued in his hearing before Congress that any hesitation would result in China beating them to the punch with a digital yuan — and in no time, he was proven right. The starting gun has been sounded, and it's only a matter of time until we're all racing toward our unidentified destination.
Why the Fed Needs to Start Issuing Digital Dollars
Jeff Bone
China Prepares for CBDC With Cryptography Law on Encryption Standards
Stephen O'Neal
Asset Manager WisdomTree Hopes to Launch a Stablecoin in the US


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Regulator won't review decision to reject proposed feedlot near popular Alberta lake
Oct. 6, 2022 3:12 p.m.
An Alberta regulator has turned down a request to review its decision rejecting a proposed cattle feedlot near a popular recreational lake.
The Natural Resources Conservation Board said in a ruling released Thursday that there's no reason to revisit the August decision, which denied a permit for the 4,000-head feedlot near Pigeon Lake, about 100 kilometres southwest of Edmonton.
"The board finds that the approval officer adequately dealt with all issues raised in the applicant's filed request for review and that the issues raised are of little merit," the letter says.
Greg Thalen of G&S Cattle had argued that the board's original decision depended too heavily on research conducted by the Pigeon Lake Watershed Association without confirming those conclusions for itself. As well, he maintained most of the association's members have no legal standing before the board.
Opponents feared the impact of more cattle manure on the lake, which is fed only by runoff and struggles with summertime algae blooms despite improvements to area sewage treatment and fertilizer management.
Pigeon Lake has about 5,800 seasonal and permanent residents and attracts about 100,000 visitors a year.
Although Thalen can appeal to the courts, grounds for an appeal are restricted to errors in law or jurisdiction and may not address arguments for or against the feedlot.
The board is required by law to decide within 10 business days if it will review a ruling. Because of that tight timeline, reasons for its decision on the review are not released immediately.
"The board will issue the full decision report with its reasons within the next two weeks," said board spokeswoman Janet Harvey.
When the feedlot was first proposed, the board — which typically receives only a few letters of concern about proposed projects — received hundreds of objections from individuals, summer villages, Indigenous communities and other organizations.
AgriculturecentralalbertaWetaskiwin
Museum returns artifacts to First Nation in northern Alberta
Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery exhibit wins provincial award

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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From Dreamville Festival 2022: J. Cole Gets Emotional Seeing His Impact
A close-up look at J.Cole, founder and main headliner of Dreamville Festival, on stage at Dreamville 2022. By Courtesy of Justin Thomas for Urban One/Reach Media Inc.
At various points throughout the hour-long concert, the Fayetteville-native rapper visibly teared up — in awe at the impact he and his festival have made. Not only did his performance prove that he put North Carolina on the map, it was a testimony that his town, his Dreamville crew, and his loyal fans will rep 'Cole world' until the end
By Alisa S. Regassa
At only 37 years-old, Jermaine Cole, known professionally as J. Cole, has already accomplished a career's worth: He won a Grammy, headlined 11 nation-wide tours, topped the charts since his very debut with the critical-acclaimed mixtape "The Come Up," and founded his own label, Dreamville Records. The founder and main headliner of Dreamville Festival, the rapper took the Shine stage on Sunday Apr 3. At various points throughout the hour-long concert, the Fayetteville-native rapper visibly teared up — in apparent awe at the impact he and his festival have made. Not only did his performance prove that he had succeeded in putting North Carolina on the map, it was also a testimony that his town, his Dreamville crew, and his loyal fans will rep 'Cole world' until the end.
Cole commented on his rise to fame at various points in his set. "I probably handed out my CDs to some of y'all," he said, reflecting on his humble beginnings. After performing the song "Too Deep for the Intro" from one of his early mixtapes, 2010's "Friday Night Lights," he mentioned that there was a point where he had to contemplate how big he wanted to become, how far-reaching he wanted his music to be.
Now, as one of the most influential rappers of his generation, Cole gets a front-row seat to witness the far-reach of his impact. Dreamville is his record label, his family, his baby. To see 50,000 people flock from all over the nation — all over the world — to support his lifelong vision was a tear-jerking moment indeed. In fact, a fan that could be heard screaming they had traveled 3,000 miles just to see him, which Cole acknowledged with a smirk and retorted: "Were you counting?"
Like a plot line in reverse, the chronology of his set narrated Cole's complete musical journey for his fans. Cole began his show with "95 south," "Amari," and "100 mill" from his latest album, "The Offseason." These songs mirror the symbolism behind that album: the ambition finally paying off after years of training and honing in his craft. The work doesn't stop here, but the birds-eye view shows Cole in his element. Then, "A Tale of 2 Citiez" transitioned the narrative to 2014'S "Forest Hills Drive," which in a sense was the very peak of his career. When Cole's hustle in producing his best music was gaining nowhere near as much critical recognition as it deserved, and Cole had to be his own biggest supporter. That confidence in his pen game is prevalent in another song from the same album, "Fire Squad," where Cole criticizes the Grammys for snubbing artists like Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West. In fact, before performing "a lot," Cole shouted out his "Offseason Tour" co-headliner 21 Savage for helping him win his only Grammy. This point will be reiterated throughout his career: Cole remains the biggest advocate for elevating fellow rappers as royalty — while at the same time proving himself as the king among them.
J. Cole gets emotional to see his fans at Dreamville music festival. By Courtesy of Justin Thomas for Urban One/Reach Media Inc.
Going back further in time, "Too Deep for the Intro" from "Friday Night Lights" told the story of a rapper that came from nothing, but believed in himself at a time when no one else did. Cole made sure to pay his dues to his manager Ibrahim "IB" Hamad for grounding him and reminding him to continue to perform earlier songs like these, no matter how many more successful albums he releases after the fact.
Perhaps the fact that he got to bring his chosen family along for the ride informed the emotion of the set. In performing "Shea Butter Baby," Cole brought out Ari Lennox to the stage, commending her for acing her set earlier that day and sharing with the crowd that Ari Lennox's first apartment was in Cary, where the festival took place. Bas came out to the mellow beat of "100 Mill." The rest of the Dreamville gang joined the stage for "Under the Sun" and "Down Bad," from "Dreamville: Revenge of the Dreamers III" — sans JID who "couldn't make it," according to Cole. There were moments when J. Cole stepped back to watch them perform like a proud father admiring his children. Other times saw Cole jumping along to hype them up during their solos. Needless to say, he received all of that energy and love back during his own verses.
J. Cole headlines Day 2 of his second annual Dreamville Music Festival in North Carolina on Sunday April 3rd, 2022. By Courtesy of Justin Thomas for Urban One/Reach Media Inc.
Although Cole certainly reveled in the sentimentality of the moment, it didn't take away from his talent as a seasoned performer. He bantered with the crowd, splitting them into two sections for "Jacky" for the loudest chant of the lyrics "You see the drop-top, bitch, stop playin' with me." "I've never taken an L before," he said after betting on the right section to win, teasing the audience into a competitive frenzy. Cole's audience interaction was not only a sign of his charisma, but also gave insight into his candid — and only a little self-confident — personality. "I got range," he commented before diving into his verse on Jeremih's RNB single "Planez."
Indeed, a discography like Cole's not only requires range but the perseverance of an iron will. If there was ever a point in his career when he had to contemplate his claim to fame, that time has long passed. After delivering a performance like Dreamville's, Cole has once again proven that he's constantly growing and improving — and that there's no end in sight to what his music can accomplish.
—Staff writer Alisa S. Regassa can be reached at alisa.regassa@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter at @alisaregassa.
MusicArts


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CLUB STATEMENT: Altrincham postponement
Spennymoor Town FC would like to release further information on this evening's postponement of the home Vanarama National League North fixture vs Altrincham.
Firstly, the club would like to apologise for the inconvenience this has caused both sets of supporters, particularly those who have travelled from Altrincham.
There was no planned pitch inspection at The Brewery Field at any point during the day, despite the inclement weather, which the pitch has dealt with several times this season.
Referee, Mr Herczeg, called a pitch inspection upon arrival at The Brewery Field at 17:30. After deliberation, he decided to postpone the game at 18:30 due to a small section of the surface being deemed unplayable.
Both sets of club officials and players were keen to still play the fixture, but we respect Mr Herczeg's decision to postpone the game.
Altrincham supporters who travelled to Spennymoor were offered complimentary refreshments and beverages whilst they prepared to make the return journey.
Chief Executive Brad Groves has instructed club officials to work with Altrincham FC on his behalf. As a gesture of goodwill, Mr Groves has personally agreed to pay for the Altrincham supporters' coach for the rearranged fixture.
Spennymoor Town hopes to see plenty of Altrincham supporters return to The Brewery Field when the rearranged date is confirmed to enjoy the match.
← Altrincham game postponed
Match Centre | Kidderminster Harriers vs Spennymoor Town →


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Here's the official trailer for the Spike Jonze-directed movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. It's beginning to look like Jonze and Dave Eggers, his co-writer on the project, have produced something very, very special. The trailer plays to music from Arcade Fire, who may just be the new go-to group for these kinds of things, having lent 'My Body is a Cage' to the intriguing early teaser spot for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Watch, and watch again. See the hi-res versions here.
New Season, New Earphones, Thanks Elecom!


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Can Lawyers Ascertain the Original Meaning of the Constitution?
By Randy Barnett on August 19, 2013 4:22 pm
In the comments on my blog post praising the originalist analysis of the Fourth Amendment by Professor Donald Dripps, some commentators raised the predicable canard that one must be a trained historian to identify the original meaning of the Constitution. This is actually an interesting question as it goes to the heart of both the practice of law and the practice of history.
Briefly, lawyers are experts in identifying the meaning of language in legal context; historians are not and, to their credit, don't even try (unless they are submitting amicus briefs to the Supreme Court). In addition to describing past events, historians are particularly interested in explaining why what happened in the past happened, why people did what they did; as a result, they are very concerned with identifying motives, or other causal influences. Historians have no particular interest in the meaning of authoritative legal texts, unless they are legal historians who are very often also lawyers. The fact that a legal text is old sometimes makes the identification of meaning more difficult, but far from impossible in most cases. For one thing, the meaning of language hasn't changed that much.
Of course, like history, originalism can be practiced badly, by cherry-picking or distorting the evidence of meaning to reach a preordained conclusion, which is why I resist relying upon the findings of any particular originalist work that had not been critiqued or confirmed by others who know that particular subject, however excellent and sensible I may find it to be. And the original meaning of the Constitution may not always be sufficient to decide particular cases and controversies without the development of constitutional doctrine that is not itself in the Constitution, but is needed to implement what is. It was mistake of the old originalism to try to resolve all current cases by asking "how the Framers would have decided them." That is really a counter-factual question, not an empirical one about meaning. Yet the doctrine that is necessary to implement what the Constitution says is also found in written legal texts expressed by language that lawyers are trained to understand without the assistance of historians.
If it was genuinely not possible to identify the meaning of language at a previous point in time, then old contracts could not be enforced according to their meaning at the time of their formation (which is what the law of contracts requires), old statutes would be a mystery and impossible to follow or enforce, and classic Supreme Court opinions would be impossible to understand. The only language that is claimed to be inscrutable mystery to lawyers (but not historians) is the foundational law provided by the U.S. Constitution. How are we lawyers able to follow the 200+ year-old-opinions in Marbury, Gibbons and McCulloch, but not the Constitution itself, written a mere 30-40 years earlier? Has anyone seriously suggested that lawyers need to consult historians to tell them the communicative content of these precedents?
The reason for claiming that the Constitution alone among legal texts is inaccessible to lawyers is not that its original communicative content is unclear, but that some of its original meaning is all too clear and some people don't like it, so it must be gotten rid of somehow. The Progressives were very candid about this, referring to the "Horse-and-Buggy" Constitution. They knew what it meant, but it got in their way. So, for better or worse, the written opinions of long dead New Deal and Warren Court Justices have replaced important parts of the the written text of the Constitution. You don't need to be a historian to know there's a difference in meaning between the two sources of law, but it helps to be a lawyer.
Singaporean Resort Owner in Malaysia Arrested, Loses Permanent Residency, for Letting Buddhists Meditate in Muslim Prayer Room
Copyright Extension Prediction?


Your initial dental examination in our office will include teeth, gums, and surrounding tissues, plus an oral cancer exam and x-rays. We will evaluate your general dental health, and look for cavities and possible gum disease.
We know filling out forms is never fun, but taking the time to complete the health questionnaire and personal information/ insurance sheets will allow us to serve you better.
We accept cash, cheque, debit card, internet banking, VISA and MasterCard as payment. Fees for treatment are payable at the time of the appointment. If your treatment plan requires several visits, or if you have special needs or circumstances, please discuss financial arrangements with our administrative staff prior to you appointment. We will be pleased to assist you.
We will submit your dental claim electronically from our office providing a copy of the insurance company response. Benefits from the insurance company will be sent to you in the mail or deposited to your account according to your agreement with that company.
Patients are reminded that their insurance policy is an agreement between them and their insurance company and not between the insurance company and this office. As we are committed to helping you utilize your maximum benefits, we will help you understand your dental insurance.


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All StoriesRomaTransfers
Roma reach agreement for Zeki Çelik
Roma have agreed terms with Lille for the transfer of Turkish fullback Zeki Çelik after weeks of negotiations. The 25-year-old has reportedly been keen on the switch for some time, however the Giallorossi had been deadlocked in talks with Lille.
According to Gianluca Di Marzio of Sky Sport, the Ligue 1 side have now accepted Roma's second offer which is thought to be around €7 million plus 15% of any future resale value.
The Giallorossi are now in the process of scheduling the player's medical and contract signing date in the coming days as they want Çelik available for coach Jose Mourinho as soon as possible.
It's thought that Çelik was wanted by Mourinho who called the player himself to help convince to make the switch to Rome.
Celik Roma Transfers
OFFICIAL: Paolo Maldini renews with Milan
Manchester City owners set to buy Palermo


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Discover Turda Salt Mine
Objectives in Salina Turda
Franz Josef Gallery
Rudolf Mine
Theresa Mine
Joseph Mine – Echo Chamber
The "Crivac" Chamber
The Registry Chamber
Extraction Shaft Chamber
Gisela Stationary Mine
Anthony Mine
Salt Mine – Amusement Park
Potaissa SPA & Wellness
Didactic Swimming Pool
Durgău Salty Lakes
Schedule and fees
Order Online Tickets
Discover Turda
Accommodation in Turda
Potaissa Restaurant
Turda and its surroundings
Turda Gorge
The Roman Castrum
The Turda History Museum
The Grave of Mihai Viteazu
The Calvin Reformed Church
Şovagăilor Church of Turda
Tureni Gorge
An emblematic personality for what Romania represents today, Mihai Viteazu (Michael the Brave) was the ruler of Wallachia (Țara Românească) between 1593 and 1600. For a period, in 1600, he was de facto leader of the three mediaeval states that make up Romania today: Țara Românească, Transylvania, and Moldova.
Thus, the voivode became an important precursor to the unification of Romanians, which was to take place in the 20th century.
Mihai Viteazu's grave is also here, in the immediate vicinity of the city of Turda. The body of the great voivode was buried here. The chapel was made in the form of a cross, as represented on a watercolour made in 1820, acquired by historian István Téglás (1853– 1915) from Turda and then by Count József Kemény (1795–1855) from Luncani.
The cross placed in the past on the tomb of Michael the Brave (currently here is an obelisk)
At the recommendation and request of King Ferdinand I, expressed on the occasion of his visit through Turda together with Queen Mary in 1919, a wooden Holy Trinity cross was made in the place of the former chapel. Built in 1923, Troița (wooden cross), currently exhibited at the History Museum in Turda, is created in a popular style. It has the inscription engraved: "The great voivode Mihai Viteazul was killed here on 9 August 1601."
The new monument – the obelisk – was inaugurated on 5 May 1977. With a height of 1601 cm, to evoke the year of the ruler's death – 1601, the obelisk is the work of sculptor Marius Butunoiu. It is made of reinforced concrete, plated with Rușchița travertine, on a rectangular base of volcanic tuff-stone. It has three sides, symbolizing the three Romanian principalities united under Mihai Viteazu in 1601. At the base of each side there are the emblems of the three Romanian principalities, executed in Simeria white marble by an artist from Cluj, Vasile Rus-Batin.
In the vicinity of Mihai Viteazu's tomb there reigns the Mihai Vodă Church, a copy of the church under the same name, erected in Bucharest by Mihai Viteazu himself.
The current obelisk on the tomb of Michael the Brave
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The total number of build-to-rent (BTR) homes completed, under construction and in planning across the UK has increased by 30% in the past year, according to a new study.
Data from the British Property Federation (BPF) has revealed that there are now 117,893 BTR homes in the UK – ranging from completed to planned – compared with a total of 90,761 BTR homes at the end of Q1 2017.
The number of completed BTR homes has increased by 45%, from 14,371 to 20,863 during the same period.
The number of BTR homes under construction has increased by 47%.
London has the largest number of BTR homes at 60,530 homes, followed by the North West (29,600) and the South East (7,101).
Ian Fletcher, director of real estate policy at BPF, said: "The build-to-rent sector is evolving quickly, with significant delivery in the regions and more houses, rather than just apartments, coming forward.
"Policy is also adapting, as to date the sector has grown without a planning blueprint.
"With the draft-revised National Planning Policy Framework, local authorities will now have to specifically identify how many new rental homes their respective areas need.
"This has never before been enshrined in UK planning policy.
"Clearly, there are exemplar local authorities across the UK leading the charge, giving build-to-rent a chance to expand in the regions and demonstrate that it can cater for a wider range of people.


iPhone users have iTunes, but Android users must figure out their own syncing arrangement. Of the numerous Android syncing programs out there, I recommend trying DoubleTwist first. DoubleTwist reliably gets the job done with minimal hassle. I've found no other comprehensive media-syncing tool that costs nothing, offers such a clean and functional interface, and works with most Android phones. What's more, if you're willing to shell out $5, you can pick up a companion app that enables Wi-Fi syncing. Here's how to get started.
Step 1: Download and install DoubleTwist for PC. Although a free DoubleTwist media-player app is available for Android, you need only the desktop version to set up sync.
Step 2: Launch DoubleTwist, and it will scan your PC for media. You can import music, photos, and videos that the program does not automatically find, as well as playlists from iTunes and Windows Media Player, by exploring the Library menu.
Step 3: Connect your Android phone to your PC via USB, and then click the status bar and set your phone to USB Mass Storage or Disk Drive mode. You'll see your phone under Devices in DoubleTwist.
Syncing music and photos with DoubleTwist.
Step 4: Click the name of your Android phone to open sync options. You can sync all or part of your media collection by browsing tabs (Music, Photos, Videos), choosing options, and clicking the Sync button. Notice that you can have DoubleTwist import new media from your phone during the sync. If you prefer, you can also drag and drop individual files between the DoubleTwist Library and your device.
If you want to enable wireless sync with the $5 DoubleTwist AirSync app, you can set it up in three easy steps.
Step 1: Connect your computer and phone to the same wireless network.
Step 2: Launch AirSync, and select Yes to set up Wi-Fi pairing.
Step 3: Click the name of your phone under Devices in the DoubleTwist desktop program. Enter the passcode displayed on your phone. You can now perform the same syncing operations described above.
Having problems syncing? Note that DoubleTwist will not transfer files protected by DRM.


Police have begun investigation into the complaints of a woman that her son is missing since last two years after he visited controversial Godman Srimad Sarathi Dev's ashram at Barimula on the outskirts of Odisha's Kendrapara town.
The complainant, Suraiya—the mother of the missing man—filed an FIR with the Malkangiri police station yesterday that her son—Bala Raju– is untraceable since he visited the ashram about two years ago.
"We have received the FIR and begun investigation into it. A case will be registered after the investigation is complete," Malkangiri police IIC Rajkishore Das said.
In 2013, Raju's family members had filed a missing complaint with the local police but no tangible action was allegedly taken by them.
As per the FIR filed by Suraiya, her son—Balaraju—had gone to Sarathi Baba's ashram in Kendrapara in April 2012 and stayed there for five days. He was in touch with his family through phone during his stay at the ashram. After a few days, he stopped calling his family following which a worried Suraiya went to the ashram to enquire about her son.
She was told to contact a resident of Khairput who had information about Balaraju. When she reached Khairput to know about the whereabouts of her son, she was told that he has gone somewhere.
Getting no clue about her son, Suraiya filed a missing complaint with Malkangiri police on April 26, 2013. Though police accepted the complaint, it did not register a case then.
The mysterious disappearance of Bala Raju has fuelled speculations in the town.
Bala Raju was working for two chit fund companies. After the mega scam was busted, the duped investors were asking him to repay the invested money. He had gone to Sarathi' ashram to seek his help to bail him out of the crisis to escape the ire of the chit fund investors, sources said.
Even on social networking site Facebook, Bala Raju had posted messages seeking Sarathi's blessings to get him out of the trouble, sources added.


text:
Q: How find non repeating item in array Golang I have an input integer array which has only one non duplicate number, like {1,1,3,2,3}. The output should show the non duplicate element i.e. 2.
func main() {
    arr := make([]string, 0)
    scanner := bufio.NewScanner(os.Stdin)
    for {
        scanner.Scan()
        text := scanner.Text()
        if len(text) != 0 {
            arr = append(arr, text)
        } else {
            break
        }
    }
    uniq := Unique(arr)
    fmt.Println(uniq)
}

func Unique(arr []string) int {
    var uni int
    for i := 0; i < len(arr); i++ {
        for j := i + 1; j < len(arr); j++ {
            if(arr[i] != arr[j]){
                uni = i
            }
        }
    }
    return uni
}

A: 1., It's more like a mathematical problem.
2., You always should count all the unique integers present in your array as @whitespace mentioned. But it's more like O(2n) and not O(n^2). You should iterate over your original array and then the map which length will be <= n (in the worst case you have n unique item in your array).
I created a go-playground example here.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
How Juncker laid groundwork for 'Future EU' conference
One should also build on already existing good ideas. After all, it was the same European Commission which presented the white paper only three years ago - simply with a different president (Photo: European Commission)
By Tomi Huhtanen
Brussels, 5. Feb 2020, 07:03
Even if this goes unnoticed in the capitals of EU member states', the talk of the town in Brussels these days is the Conference on the Future of Europe, an important element of the Ursula von der Leyen Commission agenda.
The European Parliament voted its position on 15 January on the implementation of the conference, the Commission announced its broad lines a week later and the Council is to follow.
Gone but not forgotten - Jean-Claude Juncker's 2017 proposals were very similar to the Conference on the Future of Europe plan, now overseen by his successor, Ursula von der Leyen (r) (Photo: European Commission)
So the game is on.
If the European parliament's plan is to come through, we are speaking about a massive operation: conferences, consultations and debates, activating civil society, NGOs and alike . Everybody wants to be involved, and so the discussion is currently focused on format rather than content.
Debate on the future of Europe comes and goes in various yearly cycles.
The last time the Future of Europe was on top of the agenda was, in fact, recently.
In 2017, after both French presidential and German parliamentary elections, the expectation was that a new set of reform proposals would be launched.
Against that background, the European commission then led by Jean-Claude Juncker had in March published a white paper on the future of Europe, The Way Ahead.
For many, the white paper on the future of Europe was one of the best papers of the Juncker Commission.
Rather than pushing a specific commission proposal, which assumingly would have proposed strong integration in various areas, Juncker's commission set on the table five scenarios for all to choose: from "nothing but the single market" to "doing much more together".
It was then up to European political actors to pick their favourite and defend it. The commission turned the tables, and responsibility was now for the member states to choose the way forward.
A very interesting debate started, but it was not thoroughly followed through. Many remained silent. In particular, you could have assumed that anti-EU populists would have celebrated the document and chosen the option with the least EU integration - driving the debate in the process.
Eurosceptic silence
But that did not happen, because of course for populists it is not interesting to debate the EU's functioning, even downsized, rather than simply oppose the EU.
Nor did many member states' actors take a position in relation to the five scenarios.
The challenge of the Juncker Commission's five proposals for the opinion makers is that when you pick your preferred model, you cannot hide behind duplicity, for example asking for much more common action but preferring minimal integration at the same time.
If the debate on the future of Europe is really conducted along the EU's headline ambitions, following a thorough conversation on each policy topic as is currently proposed, we can already guess how the story will go.
EU-oriented politicians, civil society representatives and stakeholders, often Brussels-based, will provide proposals, where the conclusion is that (much) more integration is needed in various policy areas.
Then, the council, reflecting the mood in the member states' capitals will take the role of toning the proposals down, if not ignoring them altogether.
In addition, if the future of Europe discussion is conducted focusing on separate policy areas, which are many and often technical and complicated, the citizens will not be able to follow.
But if we start from the big picture, as Juncker's white paper proposes, it can all can become much more understandable – and will set a framework for the conference debate.
Juncker's paper is an excellent starting point, as nothing essential has changed in substance even taking into account Brexit.
Using Juncker's paper to launch the discussion, all the integration options are on the table. It would be very difficult for anti-EU forces to label the Conference on the Future of Europe as just an artificial attempt to gain legitimacy for more integration.
In its recent communication on Shaping the Conference on the Future of Europe, the commission makes a strong point on building on experience.
One should also build on already existing good ideas. After all, it was the same European commission which presented the white paper only three years ago - simply with a different president.
Tomi Huhtanen is executive director of the Wilfried Martens Centre, the think tank of the European People's Party.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.
EU states wary of MEPs leading future conference
EU commission 'lacks ambition' on future conference
Future of Europe Conference: Council urged to move now
What future for the Future of Europe Conference?
The majority of member states back the "policy first" concept of the Croatian EU presidency for the focus of the post-Brexit internal reform exercise. EU countries also want to make sure the EU parliament does not get to lead alone.
The commission's draft communication on the EU's two-year reform excercise drops any mention of treaty chages, and remains "vague" on details.
Details have been revealed by the European Parliament of its proposals on how to conduct the two-year post-Brexit reform exercise of the EU. But a final format will have to be determined in talks with member states and the commission.
27. May 2020, 07:03
MEPs want to launch the delayed two-year event in September, which would require a joint position of the three main EU institutions before summer. EU commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is optimistic about reaching an EU Council's position under the Croatian presidency.
The Conference on the Future of Europe will help to find out why a large part of the Europeans does not endorse the Union.
BioNTech: Stop talking about their 'migration background'
6. Jan, 07:00
I understand that the German-Turkish community - often subjected to condescension in Germany - celebrated the story. Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türecki represent scientific excellence and business success at the highest level.
Italy's return to statism spells trouble for the eurozone
There are profound questions about whether the windfall of cash from the EU coronavirus recovery fund will truly help Italy recover or whether it will cause more problems than it solves, for Rome and the rest of the eurozone.


text:
Daytime Emmys could air on The CW
By Annie Barrett
Updated March 26, 2009 at 01:50 PM EDT
With CBS' contract up, The CW is in talks with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to broadcast this year's Daytime Emmy Awards, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The older-skewing Daytime Emmys seem an unlikely fit for the youth-oriented CW. CBS and ABC have been alternating as hosts of the awards after NBC dropped out of rotation in 2004.


Safe and reliable tires on your vehicle provide you with stability on the road and the ability to change direction. If there is a problem with your tires, driving your vehicle can become dangerous and put you at risk of an accident. Radial tires are made up of belts of rubber material, sometimes enhanced with bands of steel. These belts can slip and cause issues with your driving.
One of the primary functions of your tires is to help you steer the vehicle. The belts of the tire, especially the ones on the outsides of the tire, provide stability for the vehicle and allow it to turn as you instruct through the steering wheel. When the belts on the tire begin to slip, particularly the ones on the outer edges, you may find your vehicle is more difficult to steer. Your vehicle may adopt a tendency to pull one way or the other while the steering wheel remains straight. This can mimic the symptoms of a misaligned front-end.
If the belts in your tires begin to slip, the wheels may be thrown out of balance. When tires are mounted on a vehicle, they are often balanced using metal weights to ensure that they roll without vibrating or wobbling. Despite the placement of these weights, a tire that has slipping belts may begin to vibrate. While this vibration does not have an impact on your ability to drive your vehicle, you can usually feel the vibration through your steering wheel. This sign is most significant at low speeds from 5 to 30 miles an hour and higher speeds from 50 to 70 miles an hour.
The belts in a radial tire extend across the entire tire from one side to the other. One purpose of these belts is to enhance the strength of the sidewall. When the belts begin to slip and pull apart, the sidewall weakens. This can cause the sidewalls to crack and visibly separate. You may also notice bulges in the side of the tire where it has more difficulty holding its shape. Larger tears may also occur in the sidewall.
In addition to checking the sidewalls of your tires, you should frequently inspect the treads to identify a potential problem. Check the tire for signs of cracking or separation in the treads. Look for signs of the steel threads showing through if you have steel-enforced radial tires. Monitor the treads for uneven wear. If a belt slips, it will create an odd shape to the tire that results in uneven wear based on the location of the slipped belt.
What Causes Inside Tire Wear?


Robert Dixon and his wife, Jemima.
Our first record of them in Thornbury is the 1871 census which shows them 'living under canvas' in Thornbury. Robert was a tinman aged 38 from the Forest of Dean. Jemima was aged 39 from Leckhampton in Gloucestershire. They had 9 children: Luke aged 19, Ellen aged 14, John aged 12, Sarah aged 10, Matthew aged 8, Charity aged 6, Mary Jane aged 4, Mark aged 2 and Emily aged 6 weeks. All nine children were born in different places!
Jemima Wood was baptised on 14th February 1830 at Leckhampton in Gloucestershire. She was the daughter of James Wood and his wife, Sarah (nee Lock).
The 1881 census shows Robert had a proper roof over his head. He was living in Lower Bath Road, at the house which later became known as 4 Rock Street. Robert was described as a travelling hawker and they now only had six of their children living with them.
In 1891 Robert and Jemima were living in Chapel Street with their widowed daughter, Ellen Davis and her daughter, Keeley. The 1893 voters list shows that Robert Dixon was living in Horseshoe Lane – we are not sure if they were living in the same house as his son, Luke, who was also living there, but it seems likely.
In 1901 Robert was living in a 3-roomed house at 7 Upper Bath Road – he was a widower and 'certificated pedlar'. Jemima had died in 1895 aged 66. Robert died in the infirmary of Thornbury Workhouse on 14th December 1902. There seems to have bee some confusion as to Robert's age at death. FreeBMDs (taken from the death registration) shows he was 64, the Workhouse infirmary record shows him as 66 and the burial register for when he was buried at Thornbury Cemetery on 17th December 1902 shows his age as 76. In the burial register Robert is described as a pauper.
Luke was born about 1852, the eldest son of Robert and Jemima Dixon. In 1871 Luke, then aged 19, was working as tinmen like his father.
By the 1881 census Luke had married his cousin, Jemima Smith. Jemima was the daughter of Josiah Wood (who had begun using his step-father's surname of Smith rather than Wood). In the 1881 census, Luke and Jemima were listed as living in Winterbourne Trench Lane Cabelos – we are not sure what 'cabelos' were but two families were living there. Both Luke and his next door neighbour were both tinplate workers. They had 5 children: Mark aged 7, Ada aged 5, Julia aged 4, Sydney aged 2 and Athelina aged 5 months. Only Ada was described as a scholar.
According to the 1887 rate book Luke was back in Thornbury renting out 6 Rock Street. The 1891 census shows Luke Dixon living in 17 Horseshoe Lane. He was a general labourer aged 31 from Newport, Gloucestershire and his wife, Jemima aged 34 born in Nettleton. They had children: Mark aged 18 born in Surrey, Ada aged 16 born in Newport, Glos, Julia aged 13 born in Hereford, Sidney aged 12 born in Crossways, Athelina aged 10 born in Acton Lane, Yate, Martha aged 7 born in Rudgeway and Maurice aged 1 born in Stanwell, Middlesex. These details show that Luke also had the habit of 'moving on'.
We believe that Luke and Jemima also had some at least two other children. There is a marriage record of Edith Dixon on 3rd November 1894 which shows Edith's father was Luke Dixon, hawker. Edith's husband was Thomas Cole, another hawker, and the son of Albert Cole, a labourer. This is interesting as it shows there were two connections between these two families – Edith's sister, Julia, married Goliath Cole, Thomas's brother in 1901. Edith and Thomas lived at Crossways at the time of their marriage.
From time to time, Luke seemed to get into trouble with the Law. In 1883 Luke (and a man named Francis Stephens) were convicted of stealing hay (worth 6d) at Iron Acton. Both men were fined six pence and 13 shillings costs. In the same year he was charged with allowing two horses to stray on to the highway. He was fined 5 shillings with 7 shillings costs. In 1890, Luke, described as a gypsy, was charged with camping on the highway at Mumbleys Hill and fined 17 shillings including costs. In the same issue of the newspaper there was a brief mention of a similar offence for which he was charged with in Berkeley and fined 5 shillings plus costs.
In 1892, he was charged with stealing 24lb of hay, valued at 10d, from the farm of Thomas Anstey. Apparently Luke had left a trail of hay leading from the farm back to his property which the police were able to follow and matched the hay in Anstey's barn with some found in Luke's manger. He was fined £2, 'there being other convictions recorded'.
Finally, in 1895 Luke was charged with making a bonfire within 50ft of the centre of the carriageway at Tytherington to the injury of the highway and he was fined £1 with 6 shillings and 6 pence costs.
By 1901 Luke and Jemima had moved again, this time to Gillingstool. Their daughter, Julia, is living next door with her husband Goliath Cole and their daughter, Gertrude Cole aged 1. Luke and Jemima's son, Mark, and his family are living next to the Coles. Luke, his son, Sidney, Goliath Cole and Mark Dixon are all now working as clothes peg makers.
Mark was born in Tockington or Almondsbury about 1869, the eighth child of Robert and Jemima Dixon.
Mark was a groom but we haven't been able to trace his marriage to Florence Mundy, the daughter of Charles and Hannah Mundy. Florence was born in 1868. In September quarter of 1894 they had one son, Austin. The 1896 Voters List shows they had moved from Horse Shoe Lane to Outer Back Street (which is now known as Rock Street). The 1899 rate book show that they were living in the house which later became known as 7 Rock Street. Mark died aged 29 years and was buried on 12 August 1898. In the 1901 census, Florence was a charwoman aged 33 living in the 2-roomed house with Austin aged 6. The rate books show that Florence continued to live there until at least 1910. At the time of the 1911 census, Florence and Austin were living with Florence's father at 53 St Mary Street. By 1914 we think they had moved to 5 Gloucester Road. She continued to live there until her death in 1934 aged 63. The photo on the right shows Florence with her grandson, George.


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text:
PALAIS DE TOKYO RUG WITH CHRISTOPHER FARR & TURQUOISE MOUNTAIN – SALONE DEL MOBILE 2016
April 11, 2016 7:17 am Published by Emily
To follow the success of the Wallpaper* AfghanMade, Fredrikson Stallard has set to build on its relationship with bespoke rug producers Christopher Farr.
Now in collaboration with the Prince's Trust Charity, Turquoise Mountain, the second in the Palais de Tokyo rug series will be exhibited alongside an array of designers and craftsman working with the traditional artisans of Afghanistan's capital city, Kabul.
Turquoise Mountain aims to promote and celebrate the rich history and traditions of Afghan crafts spurring the sustainable development of the industry within the country.
Made using traditional handcrafted techniques by Afghan tribal weavers, Palais de Tokyo rug by Fredrikson Stallard has broken away from the traditional tufted weave with larger flat woven areas depicting a small section of the vast urban decay of Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The incredible unique qualities of the Afghan wool brings a complex silky texture to the predominately dark charcoal tinted rug, with the weave evoking a xerox transmission, a facsimile from a correspondent documenting the residual evidence of activity, a broken paving slab, a stamp, foot print, a recording of time and consequence, surfaces and textures.
MADE IN AFGHANISTAN
CURATED BY TURQUOISE MOUNTAIN
At the Cavallerizze Pavilion of the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci"
6 Via Olona, Milan
Visiting Times – during Salone del Mobile:
Open Daily – 10.30am – 10pm
The XXI Triennale di Milano, 2 April to 12 September 2016


text:
Home Page League Table Latest News Appearances Goalscorers Squad
Kingstonian 1
Musungu (91')
2 Potters Bar Town
Ward-Cochrane (30', 57')
match report by Taimour Lay
Cast your mind back to K's a few years ago, in the era when Alan Dowson husbanded his resources and aimed to keep K's competitive at Kingsmeadow. There were quite a lot of games, I seem to remember, with Allan Tait and Craig Mullen upfront, Simon Huckle in midfield behind them and an endless, interchangeable cast of wingers. Moments of inspiration usually came from Matt Pattison, a shy schoolteacher who would sit in the bar after games with his dad and drink orange squash.
It was a time of triers, chasers and harriers. It was a time of 11th-place finishes and London Senior Cup runs. It was a time of 300-plus crowds and good noise behind the goal and a general sense that stasis was better than strife.
Perhaps I've merged different seasons and squads. But this is what I remember. Allan Tait advancing down the channels with his head down, Mullen getting a rendition of "he's one of our own" regardless of contribution and Pattison juggling the ball before spraying a pass to someone who miscontrolled it. All played in a home ground with the words "Kingstonian" on the top of the main stand, from whose red seats only the odd shout of dissent could be heard.
Innocence.
And now on to experience, to 2019, when an 11th place finish would represent something else. Not happy survival but hopeless failure in the context of a season when ambitions were higher. And the exasperation emanates from all sides of a ground that is not our own.
A fifth straight defeat on a rainy Wednesday night, marked by one of the most shapeless and dispiriting second-half displays seen for many a year, may prove a watershed for this K's team. Because something is going badly wrong out there. Not in terms of effort so much as in common purpose and pattern. Potters Bar Town, without a win since 11 December 2018, could and should have been at least three up midway through the second period, Lee O'Leary pulling the strings just as he had when we lost to them in August. There have been ups and downs in the six months since, but the team is arguably in no greater shape overall.
Watching Scott Day start brought back some memories of simpler, better, more innocent times. As supersub in recent weeks, here he was down the right in a formation seemingly built to bamboozle, then he was popping up at left-back, then he was upfront, then he was tackle-passing in the middle. We all dreamed of a team of Scotty Days – and now it was actually happening.
In that older era of Dowson-midtable finishes, of limited budgets and pragmatism, Day would have been a folk hero. Now he's a totem for an older style and a present malaise.
When he went off after an hour, the game was of course gone. Former K Ben Ward-Cochrane (a promising Craig Edwards signing) had scored two past Rob Tolfrey. A late Andrew Musungu consolation in injury time fooled no one about the result. K's tried to mount a comeback on an ever-heavier pitch but there was a look in our players' eyes that cried "help!". It's been offered from the terraces since October 2017. It may yet need to come from elsewhere.
Kingstonian: Rob Tolfrey, Sean Clohessy, Jay Gasson, Scott Davies, Dean Inman, Tommy Brewer, Manolis Gogonas, Shaun McAuley, Elliott Buchanan, Louie Theophanous, Scott Day.
Subs: Leo Chambers, Josh Huggins (for Shaun McAuley, 68m), Aaron Lamont, Andrew Musungu (for Scott Day, 60m), Nathan Minhas (for Louie Theophanous, 80m).
Potters Bar Town: Nikola Tzanev, Chris Doyle, Andrew Lomas, Sean Bonnett-Johnson, James Budden, Sean Grace, Keegan Cole, Lee O'Leary, Josh Hutchinson, Bradley Sach, Ben Ward-Cochrane.
Subs: George Nicholas (for Keegan Cole, 58m), Dernell Wynter (for Josh Hutchinson, 64m), Mahrez Bettache (for Bradley Sach, 79m), Tyrese Owen, Stefan Powell.
Goal scorers: Ben Ward-Cochrane (30m, 0-1), Ben Ward-Cochrane (57m, 0-2), Andrew Musungu (90m+1, 1-2).
Published Friday 8th February 2019


Florentino Perez, the Real Madrid president, has said that Cristiano Ronaldo is relaxed about his current tax problems and is wholly focused on playing at his best.
In July Ronaldo was in court in Madrid answering charges of a €14.7 million tax fraud. He has consistently maintained his innocence and so far he has refused to do the same as others who face similar charges, such as Lionel Messi, and do a deal with the authorities in order to avoid a custodial prison sentence.
Perez also said that the team considered signing Kylian Mbappe over the summer but that they didn't really have space on the squad so they thought it was better for him to go to PSG where he will gain more experience.


text:
Home General News The best and worst A-League imports
The best and worst A-League imports
A-LEAGUE marquee players can be like the little girl with the curl. Like Alessandro Del Piero, when they're good, they're very, very good.
When they're bad, they're horrid. Like Mario Jardel.
The marquee player concept appeared a great idea when the league started in 2005. It went out of fashion for a time because of some flops, false starts and the success of lesser-known imports like Fred, Carlos Hernandez, Marcos Flores, Thomas Broich and Patrick Zwaanswijk.
But Del Piero is proving that done well, marquee players can more than justify their price tag – increasing their club and league's profiles domestically and internationally.
The early signs are also promising for Newcastle's Emile Heskey, who has scored twice in three matches.
Before them, there were others who brought a serious international profile to the A-League.
DWIGHT YORKE: Sydney FC, season 1. Ex-Premier League star Yorke was the competition's first marquee player and played just one season. But the impression he made is remembered seven years later. And not just at favoured Sydney nightspot Hugo's Lounge. On-field he was terrific, winning the man of the match award as Sydney FC won the inaugural grand final.
KAZUYOSHI MIURA: Sydney FC, season 1. Japanese superstar Kazu played just four games on a guest stint, but excelled. The Asian footballer of the year's highlight was scoring both goals in a thrilling 3-2 top of the table loss to Adelaide United. Now in his mid-40s, he still plays second-tier Japanese football, and was this week named in Japan's Futsal World Cup squad.
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'God Did It' – Joe Mettle Declares After Traditional Marriage


From FM 1115 in Waelder northwestward to a road intersection, a distance of approximately 2.6 miles. (Gonzales County) New Designation.
From FM 1115 in Waelder northward to Caldwell County Line, a distance of approximately 7.4 miles. (Gonzales County) Extended northward approximately 4.5 miles to Caldwell County Line.
From FM 1115 in Waelder, northward approximately 8.9 miles to Jeddo. (Gonzales, Caldwell, and Bastrop Counties) Extended northward approximately 2.0 miles.


I recently had the opportunity to sit down with long time game creator John Garvin and discuss his latest project Resistance: Retribution. Retribution is the third installment in the Resistance franchise and will be released for the PSP this month. It includes an interoperability mode where one can play the game on their PS3 and a load of new game mechanics and features. I had the opportunity to play a bit of the game during our interview and it looks great!
Alex Rodrik: Hi John, so what can you tell our readers about the new interoperability control?
You played around a little and you played enough to see that there's a real difference in gameplay between playing with the dual analog and playing on the PSP which only has the one nub. So we really played with that a little bit and said ok, if we can make two completely different games here, and you know, your impression was that it was built for the PSP, but the dual shock format would provide for a different experience. So, it's not just about the controller change, it's also about the fact that you regen health versus having to find health capsules, and the fact that you can breathe underwater if your infected so that you can swim into areas that you can't get to otherwise. You know, we put in these little gameplay hooks just to change it up a little bit.
AR: Who's our new protagonist?
JG: Our new protagonist is a character we created named James Grayson. Nathan Hale is the star of Resistance 1 and 2 and you know, in our storyline, Grayson fought in the same outfit that Hale did in R1, so they're both part of the British marines. Hale was a part of an American contingent that was sent over and Grayson is a little bit younger than Hale. What happens with Grayson is, he find his brother, his brother was and RAF pilot who got shot down behind chimera lines and had disappeared and Grayson hadn't heard from him in weeks. And to give you the comic book tie-in, we're telling the story of James Grayson and Johnny Grayson in this comic that's being published by Wildstorm over the next couple of months. But the backstory is: Grayson had a falling out with his brother, they weren't great friends, they hadn't talked to each other for awhile and Grayson finds his brother in a conversion center. So, in Resistance 1, human beings are being infected by these small crab-like creatures called Crawlers and then the infected just lays on the ground comatose until a carrier which is like this giant floating squid comes by, collects them and takes them to a conversion center where they're actually operated on and turned into hybrids which are like the shock troops for the chimera. That's kind of where our story starts.
James Grayson's brother ends up in a conversion center and Grayson finds him there and has to kill him because according to military protocol: if you find somebody who's been infected, they're going to turn into a chimera, you can't stop it, so you have to kill them before they become the enemy. So that's where our story starts. It's this horrible moment where Grayson finds his brother and then has to put a bullet in his head and that starts him on this path of retribution and that's kind of where the title comes from, that's also really the theme of the whole game. It's — how does a man overcome the horrors of war to get to the point where he can participate in them again for the betterment of humanity and that's kind of one of the bigger things we wanted to explore in the game.
AR: What made you choose to run with an entirely new character as opposed to running with a side story for Nathan Hale?
JG: Well, really…creative selfishness. [Laughs] Because I like creating characters, you know I've worked on the Syphon Filter franchise since Syphon 1, so I've been creating characters for 10 years and I really like telling stories and, you know, I didn't want to impinge on anything that Insomniac was doing with Resistance 2 or Resistance 3 and you know I want to tell a story, it's their game, it's their universe, I want to tell a story in that universe. I couldn't really do much with Nathan Hale because they're doing Nathan Hale's stories, so I had to create a new character in order to tell a really compelling story.
AR: What's exactly is the chronology of this game? Does it take place during either of the two games already released?
JG: There's a little bit of crossover at the beginning of our game. We're really a game that bridges R1 and R2. So, R1 ends and then our game begins just days later. So, like I said, James Grayson fought alongside Nathan Hale in a few of the battles that happened during R1, but then as soon as that game ends, that's where our game really begins and we tell the story not just of what happens to James Grayson after the fall of the London tower but we also tell the story of what happened in Europe before the invasion of England even begins. So, that's one of the backstory things we've taken from R1. Like, hey, the chimeras swept out of Russia in the 1930s, swept across Europe — what happened to all those people? And that's one of the things we wanted to discover in our game.
AR: How'd you get involved with the project and what drew you to it?
y big challenge for us and that really drew us to it. We wanted something that would allow us to expand our repertoire of what we do as gamers and designers and writers, and the Resistance universe allows us to do that.
AR: Other than the more obvious, why'd you choose to explore this story on the PSP as opposed to on the PS3?
JG: Well mostly because of the obvious, but seriously, we're PSP developers. So we're a small Studio. To develop a PS3 game takes a team, I would say, the minimum of 80 people to 150 and it takes a lot of time. And we've been resisting making that change so far because we're a team of about 35 guys, you know, maybe 40 with our temp employees. But we want to keep a very small team. Creatively, we know each other really well and we work together really well. We've been trying to avoid growing into a Studio that's a couple hundred people where it becomes more anonymous. So we've really been looking for projects that allow us to stay on the handheld and this allowed us to do that.
AR: So were you a gamer before you got involved with the business or is this something you just sort of fell into?
JG: So, kinda like my life story? [Laughs] So a long, long time ago — nah, I'm really old so I've been doing gaming for a long time. You know, I was old enough to play the very first arcade games that came out so I've been playing games for a long time. I bought an Atari 800 back in 1982 and the first thing I did was program an Ultima clone. Ultima was one the first RPG games that came out back on handheld computers where you had 16k of memory. So I've been doing it for a long time and I've been working on computer games professionally for 20 years and Syphon Filter for the last 10 years, and Resistance for the last 2 years. It's been a really nice change. Trying to make a big budget, large scale, huge shooter work on the handheld has been quite a challenge and it's been fun.
AR: Now, normally when I interview writers, I always ask them about who, if any, character in — well in your case the game — would you say you speak through as a writer?
JG: You know, that's a really good question; let me give you a rambling answer. So, ah, here's a good story for you. I did all the writing for the rendered movies and a lot of the writing for the in-game stuff and I worked with a co-writer as well. I end up writing a lot of stuff that gets cut because I tend to overwrite and a lot of my stuff makes it in because I'm the Director and I have final say… [Laughs] …it's good to be the King. Anyway, so I had written a lot of lines for Parker. Parker is this character from R1, she's a military person — she's the narrator for the entire game. What drew me to Parker in the first place is that she is this omniscient third person narrator who is talking about events in the past tense as if they were in the present tense. So, as a writer, I find that really interesting because it makes her a very powerful omniscient voice while at the same time not taking away the immediacy of what's currently happening; and I don't think I've ever seen a narrator device like her. It's kind of like when you're watching "Titanic", you know, you have the old woman who's talking about things that happened when she was younger, or it could be like in "Amadeus" when Salieri is narrating things that happened — she's like a Salieri.
So I tried to write these lines for her where she could become poetic because she was a pretty good actress and I had written lines like "blood moving through a vast steel embryo," and she would read these lines and then she would say "Oh, this is very Dickensian" and she didn't mean it as a complement because I would write these huge run-on sentences where she would go on for like 3 minutes without ever taking a breath. But that's what Parker was. She was this narrator who spoke eloquently about horrible things. So, I think, as a character I was drawn to Parker because she was so matter of fact and yet at the same time eloquent and at the same time this sort of omniscient narrator, so I found her a very interesting character. I wrote things just for her so she could have things to say. And the average player — they're going to play through this game and they're not going to recognize any of that, they're gonna be like "alright, so what's going on? Craps blowin' up — that's awesome!" But she's speaking about it in a way as if it were Shakespearean — which I really like.
AR: So to give our readers a little insight on you personally, how did you get into videogame direction?
JG: Well I started out — my very first job, believe it or not, I was actually working on my Doctorate in Shakespeare at the University of Oregon, and I was broke and I was tired of being broke cause, you know, I had a mountain of student debt and I realized that I wasn't going to make any money as a professor. So I saw an ad in the paper for this small company called Dynamics in Eugene, Oregon and they were a pretty big publisher in the '80s and '90s. I don't know if you remember them, but they did these games called Red Baron. They were probably the biggest maker of flight sims in the '90s and they also did these weird little graphic adventures like Heart of China — they worked with Sierra on the King's Quest series, so that's how I got in and they had this ad in the paper and they needed people to come in and create — we're talking back in the '90s — so EGA art.
Do you know what EGA art is? Well, video cards in 1990 only supported 16 colors. In 1992 they came out with VGA cards which support 256 colors. So what an artist had to do was take a drawn painting and they would scan it in — take a painting which had millions of colors and they would literally go in and replace every pixel on the screen so that it was within a 16 color palate. Now, with good EGA cards you could choose which 16 colors you wanted but you were still limited to 16 colors — period. So I spent two years doing that. And that's how I broke in because, you know, you had to be an artist because you had to be able to see something and visualize how it would work in 16 colors. So that's what artists did in the early '90s. Over the next 15 years I just sort of worked my way up from that. I could write a little bit since I had a background in literature and that's how I got into Directing because I could conceptualize and create my own ideas and then I could write scripts and turn that creatively into something that Producers could visualize and that's how I kind of became what I am now.
AR: Well thanks for taking the time to sit down with me and talk Resistance. The game looks great and all the best.
JG: Thanks Alex, it was my pleasure.