Pace Law School is nationally recognized for excellence in several areas, including the quality and breadth of its clinical, legal writing and research, and environmental law programs.
Have the nation's law schools been cheating their students? Have the nation's law schools been engaged in an ongoing fraud by misrepresenting the value of a legal education? Have law students accepted law school offers based on a law school's false or misleading representation of job opportunities upon graduation?
Along with this solicitation, New York Law School charged a very high tuition, more than double from $22,900 in 2000 to the current $47,800. According to the U.S. News rankings of law schools nationwide, New York Law School ranks 135th, but it ranks in the top 10 law schools with the highest average indebtedness of graduating students, at over $146,000.
But New York Law School is not alone in the way it represented job prospects to prospective students. Many law schools apparently used inflated job numbers and salaries to attract students. And in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the contraction in the demand for legal services has been unprecedented. Hiring at many firms has been suspended; law firms are splitting up and downsizing; new billing arrangements are limiting the need for more lawyers. So, the legal question is whether law schools operating in this economic maelstrom are guilty of fraudulent conduct by deceiving students as to the "true value" of a law degree?
Law schools for now can breathe easier. Last week in New York State Supreme Court, the complaint against New York Law School was dismissed by Justice Melvin Schweitzer. The judge focused heavily on how a reasonable student would understand the law school's data about post-graduate employment and salaries when making a decision to attend that law school. The legal test, according to the court, is not whether the law school made misleading representations that may have deceived prospective students. Rather, the test is whether the representations, even if misleading, were material or important enough that a reasonable student acting reasonably would be duped by the come-on.
The court found that reasonable consumers — college graduates — who were seriously contemplating going to law school are a "sophisticated subset of education consumers, capable of sifting through data and weighing alternatives before making a decision regarding their post-college options." The court noted that these reasonable consumers have available to them a wide variety of sources of information to consult before deciding whether to apply to a professional school. Given the impact of the recession on the legal job market, prospective law students acting reasonably would have to know that dramatic changes in the economy would likely impact the legal profession and their chance of getting a job upon graduation.
Did students rely on the law school's misleading employment and salary data that appeared from 2005-2009 on the law school's website, in its marketing materials, and in publications by third-party clearinghouses? The court suggested that the students may have relied on this information to their detriment, but once again, as the court noted, their reliance must have been reasonable. They had ample opportunity to learn from numerous sources about their post-graduation employment prospects; it was not reasonable for them to confine their research and reliance to a few sentences in the law school's marketing materials.
via Bennett L. Gershman: Law Schools in the Dock.
Environmental law is a specialty at Pace, which has had its program for 30 years. It has been rated the third-best environmental program in the U.S. for nearly 20 years.
For those who are still choosing law as a career, what are they choosing to study?
At Pace, officials point to three areas: environmental law, international law and intellectual property law.
Cassuto said there is a great deal of current litigation over the issue of emissions control and noted the number of cases pending before the Supreme Court that deal with climate change.
One issue currently in litigation is the extent of the authority of the federal Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions. "A 2008 case, Massachusetts vs. EPA, gave it the authority. The question now is, how much?" said Cassuto.
Cassuto also teaches water allocation law. "There's a shortage of water in the West and increasing shortages in the East. The amount of water hasn't changed, but the number of people using it has," he said. He singled out the Colorado River as the source of much litigation in recent years.
There is also the issue of rights to various bodies of water. "The Great Lakes cross a boundary between the US and Canada. There is the issue of regulating access to them. Who has the right to this water?" Cassuto said.
Karl Coplan, co-director of the Pace University Environmental Litigation Clinic, is one commuter who would use the path.
The Journal News ran a story on a potential bike path for the new Tappan Zee Bridge and a Pace employee who might use it.
Whatever happens with the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement, it seems there will be a new way to get to work for some of its crossers.
The Request for Proposal issued Friday requires the teams bidding to build the bridge to include a 12-foot-wide path for walking and bicycling.
That opportunity isn't likely to quiet the debate over the bridge, which is raging at its hottest as Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration presses on toward a construction start this year.
Many of those who would most welcome a bike path — advocates for alternatives to driving — are also those who are unhappy that the bridge won't come with a new mass transit system.
But it would be an amenity many would enjoy. Certainly, for recreational use — say, a bike trip to Piermont from Westchester — it's a natural.
And it would present an opportunity to advance commuting by pedal power. At least for some.
The bridge itself would be about 3 miles long, so the best opportunities to use it for a ride to work would be those areas not too far from the bridge.
The typical bike commute is 5 miles or less, said Darren Flusche, policy director with the League of American Bicyclists in Washington, D.C.
But there are hardier cyclers. Some will pedal as far as 20 or 25 miles each way, said David Wilson, executive director of the Bike Walk Alliance of Westchester and Putnam.
Karl Coplan, co-director of the Pace University Environmental Litigation Clinic, is one commuter who would use the path. The Rockland resident's commute now is often a complicated trek, riding a bike to a boat club in Nyack, paddling a kayak across the Hudson River to another boat club in Tarrytown, where he picks up a second bike for the 8-mile ride to the college's White Plains campus.
Pace Law Professor John Nolon argues that a new Tappan Zee Bridge offers opportunities for smart, transit-oriented development, via state support and assistance from the Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council.
The Journal News has done the region a great service through its recent reports and editorials on the need for detailed, comprehensive planning at the local level. This is the antidote for ill-considered and isolated land-use decisions, particularly those that harm wetlands and watersheds, increase flooding and promote wasteful sprawl. But detailed, informed comprehensive plans are expensive, particularly if they guide development decisions for individual parcels.
Local governments could do such planning 40 years ago under a federal program that provided significant funding. They were motivated to plan because they became more competitive for other federal programs. Comprehensive planning came of age and developed an excellent reputation because of the federal funds provided. Most states do not provide comprehensive planning grants to towns, cities and villages. Localities are "encouraged, but not required" to have comprehensive plans under state law, which adds that land-use planning and regulation "is one of the most important functions of local government." New York has provided some help to good effect, notably in local waterfront areas, but there has been no consistent, well-funded commitment to furthering comprehensive planning. The 2 percent tax-levy cap makes local governments unlikely to appropriate the funds to cover the costs of needed land-use plans.
It would be easy for the state to provide localities the help they need, especially in the Lower Hudson Valley. There is nearly unanimous sentiment that the Tappan Zee Bridge should include transit now or in the near future. For transit — bus or commuter rail — to function efficiently, regional transportation planning and local land-use planning must connect. Bus and train station neighborhoods need to be planned carefully, then land-use regulations must be adopted to implement those plans. These are local prerogatives. The size and density of development around transit stations depend on the intensity of the ridership projected, and many of these transit station areas can be hubs for retail, office and residential development: the kind that adds to the tax revenue of the local governments and that makes transit systems feasible. For neighborhoods to absorb this additional density, transit station areas must be well designed, fitted into the regional network, traffic must be managed, parking provided and lively and livable places created. These issues occupy regional transportation agencies and their planners. Such fine-grained planning carries a cost, but it has been done in many neighborhoods nationwide that support transit-oriented development . A modest percentage of the capital costs of a huge project like the Tappan Zee Bridge would cover the costs of cogent, comprehensive and coordinated land-use and transportation planning.
The writer is counsel, Pace University School of Law Land Use Law Center; and director, Kheel Center on the Resolution of Environmental Interest Disputes.
Lienhard School of Nursing alumnus Maryann Collins was recently honored as a national HIV Hero for her work with the HIV community. Winners were chosen by a panel of judges that included Grammy Award-winning singer Dionne Warwick, actor Wilson Cruz, movie director Dustin Lance Black, humanitarian and author Malaak Compton-Rock and HIV advocacy leader David Munar.
Collins, a Demarest resident, was recently honored as a national HIV Hero, for her work with the HIV community.
She first became interested in helping the HIV community when she was a hospice nurse.
Once HIV/AIDS patients began coming to the hospital HUMC started a hospice to see these patients. However, many nurses had husbands who were dead set against them working with these patients.
Collins took it upon herself to get educated – she went to New York City and then to San Francisco to learn as much as possible about HIV. She received her master's degree in psychiatric nursing and her specialty in catastrophic illnesses from Pace University, and become known as the hospice AIDS nurse.
As a result of caring for HIV/AIDS patients, Collins began to connect with "New Jersey Buddies" and was approached to start a support group on Wednesday evenings.
"I agreed to do it for a little while and now I am still doing it," she said.
But the support group Collins started was only the beginning.
When she learned about the grant offered under the Ryan White heading, she wrote the initial grant to procure money for impatient needs as well as hospice. Thanks to the Ryan White grant, the hospital now has two clinics that approximately 14 people attend – one on Wednesdays and one on Thursdays. The hospital outsourced the clinics to the North Hudson Community Action Program.
Collins said the care these patients receive is good and may even be better than seeing a private physician because the care they get is "all-inclusive and all-encompassing." She added that there is money available to send these patients to a specialist, if needed.
Collins also started a day-long program that helps teenagers understand the issues patients face when dealing with HIV. This event takes place annually on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, and caters to more than 15 schools and 500 students.
The two biggest changes Collins has seen since she began working with HIV/AIDS patients deal with medication and knowledge.
When she initially started working with these patients, people were dying monthly.
Collins said she has noticed a change in the way people perceive those with HIV/AIDS and the knowledge they have about HIV/AIDS.
However, she said there is still some ignorance and the hospital sees new HIV/AIDS patients all the time.
While Collins has helped many people and their families cope with HIV/AIDS, she said her work has been a gift to her.
She said this has become a major part of her life.
She was especially touched when a number of her patients came to visit her when her husband died.
Collins protected the confidentially of these people and was surprised when they came to see her because it jeopardized their confidentiality – her family did not know these people and could have assumed they were her patients.
"They are great, great people who have touched my life in a very special way," said Collins.
Demarest resident named national HIV Hero : page all – NorthJersey.com.
Pace Law professor Bennett Gershman's latest entry on The Huffington Post dicsusses forced sterilizations mandated by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1927.


The bicycle has hardly changed since its invention (with the exception of a few tweaks here and there). You might argue that it's something that doesn't need to be changed. However, there are many bicycle related thefts and accidents each year – so maybe some improvements can be made.These handlebars are capable of making any old traditional bike into a smart bike. The Helios handlebars contain a super bright headlamp, color-changing blinkers, and a GPS tracker. These handlebars will make your bike safer by preventing theft and accidents, and these features are just the tip of the iceberg!


text:
ASOS warehouse branded 'cradle of disease' by terrified workers
posted by March 31, 2020
Terrified ASOS workers say they feel 'like rats' in a warehouse they have branded a 'cradle of disease' Up to 4,000 people work at the ASOS warehouse in Grimethorpe, Barnsley – and 98% of them feel unsafe at work amid the Coronavirus crisis, according to a GMB survey.
While competitors have closed down to keep the British public safe, Asos has ramped up their operations in Barnsley.
Sign our letter to the ASOS CEO
The warehouse is now processing orders from the company's German warehouse - which has closed – and hundreds of extra staff have been drafted in to deal with the million online orders ASOS received over the weekend.
Workers report no social distancing measures, a complicated clocking in system which means large numbers of people gather in a small area, and hundreds of workers all breaking for lunch at the same time.
Almost 500 people responded to GMB's survey of Asos workers over the weekend.
Responses include:
"I am with high risk so if something happens to me, they will look the other way because I am not important enough. Who is going to raise my 1-year-old son?"
"It is an infectious centre, you can get the COVID at any given time. Why am I still there? I can't live on 94 pounds per week. I cannot help my family with that. It sounds stupid but making money to live is more important than being healthy right now."
"No social distance, not enough sanitiser, not safe at all, I am scared to go as I have a 3 years daughter."
"4000 people touching six turnstiles to enter and exit building no working fire registers hardly any cleaning going on in warehouse never seen handrails cleaned."
"Social distance impossible to keep, the aisle are less than 2m wide and it happens many times to pass face to face with another person, you can only hope that is not going to sneeze or coughing and if he does you can only pray that he doesn't have the virus."
"If one single worker it contact corona virus all warehouse workers (over 3000) we will get. We are not key workers.....we are used just for them profit."
Tim Roache, GMB General Secretary, said:
"Conditions at ASOS are scarcely believable – workers we've spoken to describe it as a 'cradle of disease'. It's absolutely horrifying, a real catalogue of shame.
"Here you've got people packed onto public transport, a lack of social distancing, thousands of workers going into one warehouse then back to their families - it's only going to get worse with a huge sale promoted over the weekend.
"The Government's scheme for furloughed workers is there to support employers to do the right thing and keep people safe. ASOS can more than afford to pay the extra 20% to help stop the spread.
"We no longer believe ASOS can keep their workplace safe – they need to shut it down."
Back our call? Add your name

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
#include "acl_run.h"
#include "acl_vect.h"

struct _altivec_acl_const {
	rte_xmm_t xmm_shuffle_input;
	rte_xmm_t xmm_index_mask;
	rte_xmm_t xmm_ones_16;
	rte_xmm_t range_base;
} altivec_acl_const  __attribute__((aligned(RTE_CACHE_LINE_SIZE))) = {
	{
		.u32 = {0x00000000, 0x04040404, 0x08080808, 0x0c0c0c0c}
	},
	{
		.u32 = {RTE_ACL_NODE_INDEX, RTE_ACL_NODE_INDEX,
		RTE_ACL_NODE_INDEX, RTE_ACL_NODE_INDEX}
	},
	{
		.u16 = {1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1}
	},
	{
		.u32 = {0xffffff00, 0xffffff04, 0xffffff08, 0xffffff0c}
	},
};

/*
 * Resolve priority for multiple results (altivec version).
 * This consists comparing the priority of the current traversal with the
 * running set of results for the packet.
 * For each result, keep a running array of the result (rule number) and
 * its priority for each category.
 */
static inline void
resolve_priority_altivec(uint64_t transition, int n,
	const struct rte_acl_ctx *ctx, struct parms *parms,
	const struct rte_acl_match_results *p, uint32_t categories)
{
	uint32_t x;
	xmm_t results, priority, results1, priority1;
	vector bool int selector;
	xmm_t *saved_results, *saved_priority;

	for (x = 0; x < categories; x += RTE_ACL_RESULTS_MULTIPLIER) {

		saved_results = (xmm_t *)(&parms[n].cmplt->results[x]);
		saved_priority =
			(xmm_t *)(&parms[n].cmplt->priority[x]);

		/* get results and priorities for completed trie */
		results = *(const xmm_t *)&p[transition].results[x];
		priority = *(const xmm_t *)&p[transition].priority[x];

		/* if this is not the first completed trie */
		if (parms[n].cmplt->count != ctx->num_tries) {

			/* get running best results and their priorities */
			results1 = *saved_results;
			priority1 = *saved_priority;

			/* select results that are highest priority */
			selector = vec_cmpgt(priority1, priority);
			results = vec_sel(results, results1, selector);
			priority = vec_sel(priority, priority1,
				selector);
		}

		/* save running best results and their priorities */
		*saved_results = results;
		*saved_priority = priority;
	}
}

/*
 * Check for any match in 4 transitions
 */
static __rte_always_inline uint32_t
check_any_match_x4(uint64_t val[])
{
	return (val[0] | val[1] | val[2] | val[3]) & RTE_ACL_NODE_MATCH;
}

static __rte_always_inline void
acl_match_check_x4(int slot, const struct rte_acl_ctx *ctx, struct parms *parms,
	struct acl_flow_data *flows, uint64_t transitions[])
{
	while (check_any_match_x4(transitions)) {
		transitions[0] = acl_match_check(transitions[0], slot, ctx,
			parms, flows, resolve_priority_altivec);
		transitions[1] = acl_match_check(transitions[1], slot + 1, ctx,
			parms, flows, resolve_priority_altivec);
		transitions[2] = acl_match_check(transitions[2], slot + 2, ctx,
			parms, flows, resolve_priority_altivec);
		transitions[3] = acl_match_check(transitions[3], slot + 3, ctx,
			parms, flows, resolve_priority_altivec);
	}
}

/*
 * Process 4 transitions (in 2 XMM registers) in parallel
 */
static inline __attribute__((optimize("O2"))) xmm_t
transition4(xmm_t next_input, const uint64_t *trans,
	xmm_t *indices1, xmm_t *indices2)
{
	xmm_t addr, tr_lo, tr_hi;
	xmm_t in, node_type, r, t;
	xmm_t dfa_ofs, quad_ofs;
	xmm_t *index_mask, *tp;
	vector bool int dfa_msk;
	vector signed char zeroes = {};
	union {
		uint64_t d64[2];
		uint32_t d32[4];
	} v;

	/* Move low 32 into tr_lo and high 32 into tr_hi */
	tr_lo = (xmm_t){(*indices1)[0], (*indices1)[2],
			(*indices2)[0], (*indices2)[2]};
	tr_hi = (xmm_t){(*indices1)[1], (*indices1)[3],
			(*indices2)[1], (*indices2)[3]};

	 /* Calculate the address (array index) for all 4 transitions. */
	index_mask = (xmm_t *)&altivec_acl_const.xmm_index_mask.u32;
	t = vec_xor(*index_mask, *index_mask);
	in = vec_perm(next_input, (xmm_t){},
		*(vector unsigned char *)&altivec_acl_const.xmm_shuffle_input);

	/* Calc node type and node addr */
	node_type = vec_and(vec_nor(*index_mask, *index_mask), tr_lo);
	addr = vec_and(tr_lo, *index_mask);

	/* mask for DFA type(0) nodes */
	dfa_msk = vec_cmpeq(node_type, t);

	/* DFA calculations. */
	r = vec_sr(in, (vector unsigned int){30, 30, 30, 30});
	tp = (xmm_t *)&altivec_acl_const.range_base.u32;
	r = vec_add(r, *tp);
	t = vec_sr(in, (vector unsigned int){24, 24, 24, 24});
	r = vec_perm(tr_hi, (xmm_t){(uint16_t)0 << 16},
		(vector unsigned char)r);

	dfa_ofs = vec_sub(t, r);

	/* QUAD/SINGLE caluclations. */
	t = (xmm_t)vec_cmpgt((vector signed char)in, (vector signed char)tr_hi);
	t = (xmm_t)vec_sel(
		vec_sel(
			(vector signed char)vec_sub(
				zeroes, (vector signed char)t),
			(vector signed char)t,
			vec_cmpgt((vector signed char)t, zeroes)),
		zeroes,
		vec_cmpeq((vector signed char)t, zeroes));

	t = (xmm_t)vec_msum((vector signed char)t,
		(vector unsigned char)t, (xmm_t){});
	quad_ofs = (xmm_t)vec_msum((vector signed short)t,
		*(vector signed short *)&altivec_acl_const.xmm_ones_16.u16,
		(xmm_t){});

	/* blend DFA and QUAD/SINGLE. */
	t = vec_sel(quad_ofs, dfa_ofs, dfa_msk);

	/* calculate address for next transitions. */
	addr = vec_add(addr, t);

	v.d64[0] = (uint64_t)trans[addr[0]];
	v.d64[1] = (uint64_t)trans[addr[1]];
	*indices1 = (xmm_t){v.d32[0], v.d32[1], v.d32[2], v.d32[3]};
	v.d64[0] = (uint64_t)trans[addr[2]];
	v.d64[1] = (uint64_t)trans[addr[3]];
	*indices2 = (xmm_t){v.d32[0], v.d32[1], v.d32[2], v.d32[3]};

	return vec_sr(next_input,
		(vector unsigned int){CHAR_BIT, CHAR_BIT, CHAR_BIT, CHAR_BIT});
}

/*
 * Execute trie traversal with 8 traversals in parallel
 */
static inline int
search_altivec_8(const struct rte_acl_ctx *ctx, const uint8_t **data,
	uint32_t *results, uint32_t total_packets, uint32_t categories)
{
	int n;
	struct acl_flow_data flows;
	uint64_t index_array[MAX_SEARCHES_ALTIVEC8];
	struct completion cmplt[MAX_SEARCHES_ALTIVEC8];
	struct parms parms[MAX_SEARCHES_ALTIVEC8];
	xmm_t input0, input1;

	acl_set_flow(&flows, cmplt, RTE_DIM(cmplt), data, results,
		total_packets, categories, ctx->trans_table);

	for (n = 0; n < MAX_SEARCHES_ALTIVEC8; n++) {
		cmplt[n].count = 0;
		index_array[n] = acl_start_next_trie(&flows, parms, n, ctx);
	}

	 /* Check for any matches. */
	acl_match_check_x4(0, ctx, parms, &flows, (uint64_t *)&index_array[0]);
	acl_match_check_x4(4, ctx, parms, &flows, (uint64_t *)&index_array[4]);

	while (flows.started > 0) {

		/* Gather 4 bytes of input data for each stream. */
		input0 = (xmm_t){GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 0),
				GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 1),
				GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 2),
				GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 3)};

		input1 = (xmm_t){GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 4),
				GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 5),
				GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 6),
				GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 7)};

		 /* Process the 4 bytes of input on each stream. */

		input0 = transition4(input0, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[0], (xmm_t *)&index_array[2]);
		input1 = transition4(input1, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[4], (xmm_t *)&index_array[6]);

		input0 = transition4(input0, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[0], (xmm_t *)&index_array[2]);
		input1 = transition4(input1, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[4], (xmm_t *)&index_array[6]);

		input0 = transition4(input0, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[0], (xmm_t *)&index_array[2]);
		input1 = transition4(input1, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[4], (xmm_t *)&index_array[6]);

		input0 = transition4(input0, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[0], (xmm_t *)&index_array[2]);
		input1 = transition4(input1, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[4], (xmm_t *)&index_array[6]);

		 /* Check for any matches. */
		acl_match_check_x4(0, ctx, parms, &flows,
			(uint64_t *)&index_array[0]);
		acl_match_check_x4(4, ctx, parms, &flows,
			(uint64_t *)&index_array[4]);
	}

	return 0;
}

/*
 * Execute trie traversal with 4 traversals in parallel
 */
static inline int
search_altivec_4(const struct rte_acl_ctx *ctx, const uint8_t **data,
	 uint32_t *results, int total_packets, uint32_t categories)
{
	int n;
	struct acl_flow_data flows;
	uint64_t index_array[MAX_SEARCHES_ALTIVEC4];
	struct completion cmplt[MAX_SEARCHES_ALTIVEC4];
	struct parms parms[MAX_SEARCHES_ALTIVEC4];
	xmm_t input;

	acl_set_flow(&flows, cmplt, RTE_DIM(cmplt), data, results,
		total_packets, categories, ctx->trans_table);

	for (n = 0; n < MAX_SEARCHES_ALTIVEC4; n++) {
		cmplt[n].count = 0;
		index_array[n] = acl_start_next_trie(&flows, parms, n, ctx);
	}

	/* Check for any matches. */
	acl_match_check_x4(0, ctx, parms, &flows, index_array);

	while (flows.started > 0) {

		/* Gather 4 bytes of input data for each stream. */
		input = (xmm_t){GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 0),
				GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 1),
				GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 2),
				GET_NEXT_4BYTES(parms, 3)};

		/* Process the 4 bytes of input on each stream. */
		input = transition4(input, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[0], (xmm_t *)&index_array[2]);
		input = transition4(input, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[0], (xmm_t *)&index_array[2]);
		input = transition4(input, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[0], (xmm_t *)&index_array[2]);
		input = transition4(input, flows.trans,
			(xmm_t *)&index_array[0], (xmm_t *)&index_array[2]);

		/* Check for any matches. */
		acl_match_check_x4(0, ctx, parms, &flows, index_array);
	}

	return 0;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


I'm empathically inspectng the minds of online game-developers to understand why they all make such lousy products, why they treat players like children to be babysitted... what are their contradicting scopes + the marketing needs etc.
Massively, a good site with news and opinions on online-gaming, posted an article about the lack of innovation in MMO's, called "we put the NO in innovation". The current situation is well depicted, title after title we keep playing the same game... it all started after world of warcraft came out... they speculate on why this happened, the typical issue of what online players want, whether they're subscribed to the blizzard's antichrist or not, and so on. It's a complicated affair that's being analyzed in a messy ambiguous way. As usual i intervene to put thigs simpler and straighter.
When developers are conceiving a game, two forces are at work in their heads... one of them focuses on the game's peculiar characteristics, like the trademarks of a specific IP(i.e R.E. Howard's Conan, Lord of the rings etc.), the other force, in sheer contrast with the first, is aware of the genre's established standards, and for one or more reasons He feels that his game needs to have those said standards. Everyone knows what these standards are, WoW made 'em so paramount that many players even treat them as the very foundation of an MMO(iit's irrelevant whether WoW invented them or not... the vikings discovered America but everyone knows Columbus did it because he made it public to the masses).
From now on, to know whether a game is a clone or not, we just need to count the % of uniqueness and that of recycling. Most of the times the uniqueness appears in the combat system and some of the more superficial PvP mechanics, while everything regarding for example the character progression is repeated exactly the same from game to game. I estimate this percentage as being respectively 15% to 85%. The problem is that a minority is always suffocated and assimilated by the winning side. Take Warhammer Online... the unique part is obviously the realm vs realm element. There's forts all around, players need to conquer them. It's practically the only original bit about this game(and the tome), everything else is exactly like warcraft. So what happens? These bits play and feel like random, shallow, confused open-area battles we've already seen in warcraft.
Why? Because these mechanics are not developed and detailed as they should have been, exploiting their unique personality in new mind-numbing systems and mini-games. In Warcraft the open pvp was immediately trashed because the game structure wasn't suited for it, they cleverly focused on other things... they knew this because the structure was their own. The Mythic folks reused a framework that comes from other people, they didn't understand that WoW as it was couldn't be converted into a PvP game, the elements don't work that way... the result is then that the more prominent elements of this game, Warhammer, are exactly the least cured ones, they feel half-done, just as those in WoW were before the game took a definite conceptual path.
So to resume, a cloned gameplay mechanics, with the same UI, the same character progression, the same world framework, such as the separation between instanced and open-world, the separation of maps/zones, the separation of factions(order vs chaos) inevitably affects and crushes the small and bashfully developed unique bits(bashfully because of market obbligations, because market dictates players are scared of innovation bits), ultimately strangling them. Another example would be Fallen Earth... scavenging SEEMS to be a unique element, but in the end it's choked by the fact that a player scavenges only to level up, to sell those wrecked parts, to upgrade the same old talents, to make recipes, to craft stuff in the same old way... it's in the end the same old game... if these elements had been developed more thoroughly, making up mini-games from ZERO, new global objectives, new activities that change the player's point of view, instead of gear farming, loot, and having the best template, they would have given the whole game an original identity. Obviously they didn't and are destined to fail. It's exactly the objectives, that determine a WoW clone, the reason for doing things. Even if you do certain things in a new way, the old recycled clichés will still cover the reason for doing them, crushing every trace of innovation.
Finally, to understand what an MMO should be, let's talk about Star Trek Online by Cryptic and its potential. The game is destined to be the same old goop of WoW clichés adapted to Star Trek names, scenarios, places, some of the more superficial extremely gimmicky aspects of the franchise, a juicy bait for the idiotic fans with nothing inside(aw! Saint Joe how i love being blunt!). Instead, what should it be? It should simply be the Tv shows and films made into a virtual progressive world, whose only requirements are massivity and persistancy... after the developers simply take everything from the franchise, the next step is to filter the informations from the tv shows that give away hints to real-time continuity and virtuality... for example how much time is needed to make a journey, or to study a subject of the academy for an exam(naturally with real manuals the players must study).
This is the difference between videogames and virtual worlds... when MMO makers will understand this, a new era will most likely begin, everyone will realize that the future of cinematic, literary and dramatic fictional worlds and settings is not to make film after film, but to become real... their natural evolution is a virtual world because it's not one transposition of class-A products into a collateral class-B random funny gamey that vaguely reminds of that world and uses the names with a license, it's that very fictional world that, thanks to persistancy, in every way becomes alive.
I hope one day we can understand the impact of this concept.


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Jeffrey P. Gold, MD, University of Nebraska Medical Center chancellor, is advocate for transforming higher education, academic medicine and health care.
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Home — Psychiatry — Spotlight: Jhoanna Olmos
Spotlight: Jhoanna Olmos
Written by Derek Sullivan
Jeysel "Jhoanna" Olmos was hired in June 2020 as the program associate for the newly created Office of Inclusion, headed by Adult Psychiatrist Dr. Sheritta Strong.
What made you apply at UNMC?
After graduating with my undergrad, I committed to applying only to places that allowed me to give to, or serve others. I remember my freshman year at University of Nebraska Kearney. I had a speech professor that opened up her class with her personal mission statement. That was such a foreign concept to me at the time, but it was so formative for me. It was then that I began to build paradigms around what I valued, what I wanted out of life, and what I hoped to have accomplished with the time I am blessed with. When I was looking for positions, I looked for roles that would allow me the opportunity to live and work along the lines of my own life's personal mission statement: To pour love into the people and the things that I touch. When I saw that I might get the chance to work under UNMC's chief diversity officer, I knew that I would learn so much—and that I would be able to support critical work—that of supporting those who actively progress equity and inclusion for all humans. I was privileged to land an incredible position where I get to do what I love. There is not a single day that I am not grateful to work as our inaugural office's inclusion program associate alongside Dr. Sheritta Strong and our many collaborators.
What is the role of Office of Inclusion?
Our office upholds institutional excellence by providing educational and leadership opportunities in a safe environment. We pursue the work today that creates a diverse, culturally humble and empowered workforce, tomorrow. We provide advocacy for groups and initiatives that are beneficial to the institution and our communities, provide developmental opportunities (both formal and informal), and work with a network of DEI officers and agents across campus to progress UNMC in the realm of diversity, equity and inclusion. We're a hub for DEI-minded groups and individuals to come to for feedback, support and collaborations— everyone and anyone is welcomed to join us in this space no matter where they are on their individual journeys.
What are some future goals of the Office of Inclusion?
There are so, so, so many that we've set our sights on for the long term that touch everything from recruitment/retention/admissions, culture/climate, curriculum, workforce empowerment, etc. In the immediate future, however, we look to continue building out the scaffolding for meaningful and sustainable progress. That means continuing to develop processes for our office and its initiatives, expanding the office's working capacity, further developing formal DEI networks, further building out campus-wide programming. Additionally, finding resources of all kinds for the people on campus that are moving us forward, educating/developing our own skillsets internally as an office, and finding ways to maneuver around or begin to break down barriers that may have been blind spots for us all in the past.
What are some of your hobbies?
I love to sing; hit me up for karaoke anytime. I also love social games (board games or console, I do not discriminate). I'm an absolute podcast junkie and I am obsessed with anything psychology, history, organizational development, philosophy, leadership, and systems thinking. I love to get to know and learn from others—I operate from a place where I understand that everyone, no matter their age, role or other identity has something valuable to teach me and gifts to share with the world. In that sense, I love to meet new people and make new friends. I have recently picked up roller skating, so if you catch me wobbling and falling about in Omaha, do say hello!
four × = thirty six
Research and Anxiety Subspeciality Treatment Clinic collaborate on project
First-year residents get started
UNMC departments collaborate on research project dealing with CBD and PTSD
Spotlight: Emilee Kendall
Cook helps department in many ways
Psychiatry Department raises $2,500 to help eight families this holiday season
Dr. Sara Zachman takes over as medical director of the Intensive Outpatient Program
Kenneth Zoucha on Dr. Sara Zachman takes over as medical director of the Intensive Outpatient Program
Jacqueline M Haas on Psychiatry Department provides support for important research project
Mike Dirgo on SPOTLIGHT: Mallory Eddy
Judy Sharkey on Dr. Stacey Herbster joins UNMC faculty and PES staff
Troyia on SPOTLIGHT: Douglas Coffey, RN, MSN
Work at UNMC
42nd and Emile
Only in Nebraska: A Campaign for Our University's Future


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Feature Earth
Limiting Dead Zones
How to curb river pollution and save the Gulf of Mexico
By Janet Raloff
Second of two parts. Part I: "Dead Waters"
RIVER OF NITROGEN. Map quantifies nitrogen in commercial fertilizer, in kilograms per square kilometer per year, that farmers apply to their fields throughout the Mississippi River watershed. Typically, 15 percent of the total drains into rivers that feed the Gulf of Mexico. S. Norcross, adapted from USGS
SUBMERGED. This central Illinois wetland, formerly a cornfield, is designed to remove nitrate from water. It's the prototype of a for-profit "nutrient-farming" system. Wetlands Initiative
TABLED. Temporarily covering the lower holes in this drainage-control box effectively raises the height that water must reach before it drains from a field into a stream. The drainage carries nitrate pollution. L.C. Brown, The Ohio State University
Every second, the mighty Mississippi gushes another 4.5 million gallons of water into the Gulf of Mexico. Along with the water come nitrate and other pollutants. In the Gulf and other large bodies around the globe, plant nutrients—especially nitrate—have created coastal dead zones. The nutrients fertilize the growth of algae, which soon die, settle to the seafloor, and decay. Bacteria feeding on the algal corpses consume so much oxygen that the water becomes unsuitable for most forms of life.
In the face of an increasing number and persistence of dead zones worldwide (SN: 6/5/04, p. 360: Dead Waters), some researchers are trying to stem the flood of plant nutrients into rivers and eventually seas. The U.S. government limits major releases of nitrate into the environment because high concentrations of the nutrient can be toxic to wildlife and even people.
Low, diffuse nitrate emissions, such as farm runoff, remain largely unregulated, even though this nutrient concentrates in waterways, where it can severely damage water quality and aquatic organisms' health.
Without new regulations, U.S. attempts to reduce low-level nitrate pollution—and reverse the trend of increasing dead zones—must rely on voluntary efforts by farmers and others whose activities also contribute to the problem. Therefore, financial carrots must be incorporated into the programs.
A variety of projects, especially in the United States and Europe, are beginning to test novel approaches to reducing nutrients in the waters that eventually drain into coastal seas. Pilot programs in the Midwest focus on farming because that activity sends the most nitrate via the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico.
Some programs are simple, such as just encouraging cuts in fertilizer use, observes Doug Daigle in the New Orleans office of the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, a nonprofit group representing 150 organizations along the river. Other projects are more creative, even "visionary," he says, such as changing crop choices or expanding or creating wetlands. But the important thing is to start putting these programs in place, he contends, because the problem of coastal hypoxia, "should be reversible"—if society doesn't wait too long.
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"It's kind of like we're playing roulette," he says. In most venues, such as the Gulf of Mexico, "we haven't seen really pervasive damage to fisheries yet." But if present trends continue, that should happen over time, he notes. "So, it's like we're in a race to avoid some crash."
As with disease, he argues, practicing preventive medicine is always easier and less expensive than coping with the ravages of illness. So, Daigle hopes that these voluntary programs can kick-start a new conservation ethic that will protect coastal waters in the Gulf and elsewhere from the ecosystem devastation that nutrient overenrichment can foster.
Fertilize less
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, nitrate releases throughout the Mississippi River watershed—some 1.2 million square miles encompassing all or parts of 31 states and two Canadian provinces—have to be cut nearly in half from current amounts to significantly shrink the annual Gulf dead zone. In many recent years, that hypoxic zone has been about the size of New Jersey.
The U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors the nation's waters, reports that quantities of nitrate in the Mississippi increase from north to south as tributaries add their loads. For instance, in Royalton, Minn., near the Mississippi's headwaters, some 930 tons of nitrate pass between the river's banks in a typical year. At Clinton, Iowa, the river moves about 81,800 tons of nitrate annually. By Memphis, just below the inflow of the Missouri and Ohio Rivers, the annual nitrate flow reaches some 1 million tons per year. Amounts in recent years have been roughly triple those in the 1950s to 1970s.
Fertilizer applied to crops is the greatest contributor to the pollution that has created a Gulf of Mexico dead zone. Farmers find that, other than water, fertilizer is the primary limiter of growth in most plants. So, to avoid the possibility of any decreased productivity, they typically apply more fertilizer than their crops need, observes agronomist Brian Brandt of the American Farmland Trust's Agricultural Conservation Innovation Center in Columbus, Ohio.
For any given area, U.S. Department of Agriculture extension agents provide an estimate, called the agronomic rate, of how much fertilizer is needed in a typical year. For instance, a county agent might advise that farmers apply 150 pounds of nitrate per acre of planted corn. However, every 4 or 5 years, rainy weather creates an environment in which plants could grow even better with an extra 40 pounds or so of nitrate.
Since farmers apply fertilizer at planting, when they can't yet know how the season's weather will pan out, most apply the extra fertilizer every year. If the extra rain doesn't materialize at the right time, the excess fertilizer remains in the soil until after-harvest rains wash it into nearby streams.
Conservation groups are looking for ways to convince farmers to limit fertilizer applications to the agronomic rate. Brandt's center has undertaken a no-risk solution: low-cost insurance to corn growers.
Policyholders fertilize virtually all of their acreage at the agronomic rate. In a few small patches, however, they apply as much extra fertilizer as they wish. At harvest, if these overfertilized patches have outperformed the other fields, the farmer is compensated for the diminished yield on the less-fertilized plots.
Although the insurance would cost about $8.50 an acre, Brandt explains that it spares farmers from buying extra fertilizer, which costs around $18 per acre.
The federal government approved the plan as a pilot program, but insurance companies have been reluctant to join in and only a few farmers are participating, says Brandt.
With that in mind, his organization is teaming up with the farm-services company Agflex of Carroll, Iowa, to offer the program in a warranty form that can be offered by companies that don't handle traditional insurance. The program would still compensate growers for yield losses associated with fertilizing at the agronomic rate.
Friendly competition
The nonprofit Sand County Foundation of Madison, Wis., is beginning to test various strategies to evaluate "which one gives us the biggest bang for the buck in reducing nitrogen discharges to the environment," explains Alex Echols, a Washington, D.C., consultant to the project.
Echols contends that current antipollution efforts often fail because they focus on compliance with laws and adoption of environmentally oriented programs, rather than on results. "So, the Sand County Foundation decided to instead set performance goals," such as nitrate-runoff limits for farms, and test how best to meet them, he says.
Among the competing technologies is a practice called controlled drainage. Ordinarily, farmers in the upper Midwest install porous pipes below their fields to carry away excess water and keep fields from being soggy in the spring. Usually, the open pipes continuously funnel their outflow through a primary drainage pipe to a stream. In controlled drainage, a control box is inserted near the final outlet, and farmers can insert boards into it to temporarily raise the outlet's elevation. This raises the height that the water table must reach before the field will drain.
Controlled drainage can keep more water in the ground during crop germination and growth and limit nitrate washout before planting and after harvest.
"We're hoping it's going to produce higher yields in income to farmers as well as higher environmental quality," Echols says. The Sand County Foundation plans to measure the farms' nitrate washout, taking costs into account.
The foundation is also testing crop diversification—moving away from reliance on corn-soybean rotation cycles. The ideal would be to restore "perenniality" to the agricultural landscape, says Steve Morse of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Fields that had been planted with corn and other traditional row crops often lie bare from October until June, a period when they can produce "heavy concentrations of nitrogen runoff," he says. Indeed, he notes, studies show that the nitrate concentration in runoff from a field planted with row crops is more than 20 times as much as that from one that's fully covered year-round with plants—be they pasture grasses or a succession of seasonal cover crops, such as red clover and white rye.
The goal is to create acreage that performs all year long in some fashion. This differs from the agricultural strategy in which fields lie fallow to recover their productivity.
Morse has just launched a consortium of universities and conservation groups that will investigate the potential profitability of new perennial-cover options that might entice corn and soybean farmers.
Development of wetlands is another strategy being investigated by the Sand County Foundation and other conservation groups. Bogs, swamps, marshes, and other soggy environments provide a host of benefits, not the least of which is that they can convert nitrate to nitrogen gas, permanently removing this pollutant from water.
However, because well-drained crop soil can be twice as productive as wet soil, farmers have traditionally been among the most aggressive drainers of wetlands. Hydrologist Donald L. Hey of the Chicago-based Wetlands Initiative hopes to change that practice. He's promoting the potential environmental and economical benefits of renewing or creating wetlands to soak up nitrate. He calls this approach "nutrient farming," although the goal is to get rid of nitrate rather than to harvest it.
To create a nitrate-removing marsh, a farmer would smooth out a parcel of low-lying land and then flood it to a depth of about 2 feet. Pumps would control the flow of polluted water into and through the marsh to ensure prolonged contact between nitrate-laden water and denitrifying bacteria. These won't be disease-breeding, bug-infested swamps, but open marshes that host fish and waterfowl, Hey says.
His group is currently studying 2,600 acres in north-central Illinois that were recently transformed from cornfields into a managed wetland (see Marsh Farming for Profit and the Common Good).
Hey projects that a nutrient farm could cost $5,000 a year per acre to operate. He proposes that upstream growers shouldn't bear the cost of cleaning up their fertilizer runoff. Instead, he argues that the emissions credits purchased by other polluters—cities and industries—could indirectly subsidize farms and keep food prices low. Urban and industrial nitrogen wastes include sewage, fallout from automotive and power plant combustion emissions, and industrial releases.
The Environmental Protection Agency has devised an emissions-trading scheme for nitrate but hasn't yet implemented it.
If corn growers do have to ante up for nitrate cleanups, Loni Kemp of the Minnesota Project in St. Paul points to an alternative financing source that will become available this summer: The Conservation Security Program within the 2002 U.S. Farm Bill offers farmers incentives to make investments in soil- and water-conservation projects. Subsidies can run up to $45,000 a year per farm.
Kemp notes that participating farmers "are going to have to sign a contract for 5 to 10 years, promising to implement a set of practices that solve a targeted problem," such as cutting nitrate releases.
"We'd like the dominant farm policy to become one where we pay farmers for achieving [conservation] benefits" while they produce commodities. Kemp says.
All these ventures for controlling nitrate rely on voluntary participation, notes Paul Faeth, managing director of the Washington, D.C.–based World Resources Institute. The size of cutbacks necessary to make a dent in the Gulf's dead zone is so large that "voluntary action is not going to solve the problem," he contends.
He says that he'd like to see a federally mandated cap on nitrate emissions within each state. Those jurisdictions could then individually decide how to cut back nitrate pollution, including through an emissions-trading system that Faeth's institute is brokering independently of the EPA.
If states exceed the cap on their emissions, he says, EPA should step in with mandatory rules on nitrate, as authorized by the Clean Water Act.
The institute's approach would encourage states to target their conservation funds and pilot programs to areas offering the biggest returns, Faeth argues. Today, many such programs are available throughout a region, he says, but it simply doesn't pay to put money for nitrate cleanup into sites well upstream of major nitrate sources. Yet "there's significant political resistance to targeting," he notes, because politicians want public money spread out broadly.
The cost of not targeting efforts is high, Faeth says. "Our own study and an Iowa study show that you can get 4 to 10 times the [nitrate-cleanup] performance for the same dollar investment if that money is targeted," Faeth says.
Robert W. Howarth of Cornell University would also expand regulation of nitrate pollution. He notes that a committee of the National Academy of Sciences that he chaired 4 years ago found the nitrate-pollution problem so big that it recommended that even small sources of the pollutant be more stringently regulated.
For instance, Howarth would like to see EPA tighten controls on air pollution sources such as sport-utility vehicles and small trucks, which produce nitrogen oxide that in turn becomes airborne nitrate—and ultimately rains out into waterways.
Keep in mind, he warns, "two-thirds of coastal rivers and bays in the United States have some sort of degradation from nitrogen pollution—and it's only getting worse."
Part I: "Dead Waters" appeared in last week's issue. Available at Dead Waters.
A version of this article appears in the June 12, 2004 issue of Science News.
Richard B. Alexander
413 National Center
12201 Sunrise Valley Drive
Brian Brandt
Agricultural Conservation Innovation Center
Larry C. Brown
International Program for Water Management in Agriculture
Overholt Drainage Education and Research Program
Doug Daigle
Lower River Program
Mississippi River Basin Alliance
New Orleans, LS 70178
Alex Echols
Web site: [Go to]
Paul Faeth
10 G Street, N.E.
Tom Green
Afflex, Inc.
1238 Heires Avenue
Carroll, IA 51401
Madison, WI Office:
1914 Rowley Avenue
Donald L. Hey
The Wetlands Initiative
53 West Jackson Boulevard
Robert W. Howarth
Ecology and Environmental Biology
Corson Hall
Loni Kemp
The Minnesota Project
Steve Morse
School of Agriculture Endowed Chair in Agricultural Systems
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Nancy Rabalais
Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium
Defelice Center
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Don Scavia
Michigan Sea Grant
School of Natural Resources and Environment
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About Janet Raloff
Janet Raloff is the Editor, Digital of Science News Explores, a daily online magazine for middle school students. She started at Science News in 1977 as the environment and policy writer, specializing in toxicology. To her never-ending surprise, her daughter became a toxicologist.
Farmers could help heal Gulf of Mexico
By Sid Perkins November 7, 2001
Dead Waters
By Janet Raloff May 30, 2004
Dead Serious
By Sarah Williams December 14, 2007
More Stories from Science News on Earth
Recycling rare earth elements is hard. Science is trying to make it easier
Cyclones in the Arctic are becoming more intense and frequent
How rare earth elements' hidden properties make modern technology possible


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Enjoy original Czech cuisine in typical Czech Pilsner Restaurant in the most beautiful Art Nouveau Municipal House in Prague. The clients can visit the typical Restaurant in Municipal House what is the most imposing Art Nouveau Building in Prague. For whole time the dinner is attended by live music. The price of menu includes one soft drink of beer per person (other drinks are paid by clients.) The 3-dishes menu contains soup, main dish and dessert. We offer 4 varieties of menu.
Hours of operation: Daily 11:30 – 23:00.
Black-Out Dates :24.12. and 31.12.


Thanks Mr. Dusty Black for sharing this with me last night…it's really something to see. Wow, powerful shock and awe…turn up the volume!
It's that time of year when the summer heat can really push you over the edge when it comes to training and just as important – racing. You don't need a thermometer or to check the weather to know that it's hot and humid. It'd be quicker to step outside and notice the immediate beads of sweat start to roll down your face along with your sunglasses fogging up. Some of you dread the heat, some of you don't mind.
But here's why you should mind. Recently, in a group of elite cyclists completing just a 30-minute time trial in moderate heat of 90 degrees Fahrenheit, their overall power output was lower by 6.5% than when performing a time trial in a thermoneutral environment of 73F. (Tatterson) So yes, even in elite cyclists and moderate heat exposure, your performance decreases.
So what can you do to minimize these performance decrements? Get used to it – literally – and get heat acclimated. Besides improving your ability to perform at a high level in the heat, heat acclimation also starves off serious health risks when you are exposed to the heat. Not being heat acclimated exposes you to several risks including muscle cramps, feeling faint, inability to coordinate muscular movements, headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, hyperthermia, shortness of breath and overall general fatigue.
Since the ITU circuit was in my neck of the woods (sort of..), I made the trek down to our nation's capital to watch the third leg of the ITU World Championship Series (WCS). And it was well worth the trip because I got to watch two amazing races.
The first thing you notice is the atmosphere that surrounds the event. Everything about it breathes elite racing. The start line is not composed of a few elite athletes with a lot of part-time "pros". It is entirely composed of elite, professional athletes. Athletes with Olympic aspirations, competing for very good (for our sport…) prize-money. Because of the level of the athletes, everyone watching either at the race site or at home through the Internet were treated to two very competitive races, with constant changes in the dynamics of the race, which made them both interesting and very fun to watch.
When I got back home at the end of the day, I checked how Ironman Coeur d'Alene was going. And the contrast with the ITU WCS race was evident. With extremely weak fields, both men's and women's race were far from exciting, with second place for the men being 10 minutes behind the winner and third place almost 20 minutes down (!). The women's race was a little more "exciting", but just for the battle for second place. All this for the first Ironman race of the year in US soil.
The writing is on the wall: professional Ironman racing is dying. This is not new, it's been a slow death, brought on by stagnating prize-money purses and the increased number of races, causing a watering down of the competition. But this slow death is somewhat puzzling given the growth of the sport in the last years. With its logic of maximizing the profit out of the events that runs, the WTC is showing an incredibly narrow focus that is hurting the sport as a whole. This effect might not be noticeable right now, but it will be in the future.
Going back to the ITU World Championship Series, it seems to be a risky bet that is paying off. Having the best athletes perform in great stages around the World is a great idea, and one that is advancing triathlon more and more into being a worldwide sport. The race in DC is a perfect example. Just like having the Tour de France ending in the Champs Elysees, the streets of downtown DC were the perfect backdrop to bring triathlon into the mainstream. Big kudos to the ITU and the local organizing committee.
Saint-Jean-de-Monts. Les meilleures chances locales de podium reposeront, dimanche, sur l'Américain Kévin Everett, et le Français Nicolas Alliot.
Après Les Sables et Jard, Saint-Jean-de-Monts organise son épreuve internationale, ce week-end. Au programme, samedi, le championnat de France par équipes D2. Les étrangers les plus connus présents ? Kristian Mac Cartney (Cesson-Sévigné) et le Belge Axel Zeebroek (Besançon).
Axel Zeebroek s'est fait remarquer lors des derniers Jeux, en posant le vélo seul en tête, avec le Luxembourgeois Dirk Bockel. Tous deux pourraient doubler, dimanche, et se mesurer au favori, le Français Stéphane Poulat. Les Montois, eux, évolueront à domicile, avec l'envie de bien faire. A l'image du Luçonnais Nicolas Alliot et de l'Américain Kévin Everett, pour qui ce sera sa première course en France.
Formé à Luçon, le jeune lycéen de Mendès-France, à La Roche, a rejoint le 2e club vendéen (derrière Les Sables), il y a trois saisons. Une première année pour voir et progresser, une deuxième pour aider l'équipe élite à rejoindre la D1 (chose faite), et une troisième pour faire sa place.
En début de saison, il a tenté de se qualifier pour les championnats d'Europe juniors. Mais, blessé, la barre était trop haute. Depuis, il a pris la 2e place de son équipe, lors du Grand Prix, à Beauvais (66e), et une 3e place, le week-end dernier, à Jard, derrière son coéquipier, Torok (2e). Après un Hongrois, Nicolas Alliot fera donc équipe, dimanche, avec un Américain de 34 ans.
L'équipe de Saint-Jean-de-Monts : Nicolas Alliot, Julien Leroy, Mathieu Agnus, Alfred Torok (Hongrie), Adam Fitzakerley (Australie), Ruben Bravo, Andrès Del Castillo-Carnevalli, Anton Ruanova-Fernandez (Espagne), Ethan Brown et Kévin Everett (Etats-Unis).
Le programme. Samedi : 14 h, Grand Prix D2 femmes ; 15 h 30, Grand Prix D2 hommes ; 17 h, avenirs (7-14 ans). Dimanche : 10 h, découverte et relais ; 10 h 30, triathlon féminin ; 14 h 30, international courte distance.
Like the all the greatest athlete and coach combinations, Javier Gomez, along with Jose Rioseco, are redefining the sport of triathlon with efficiency, talent, and pure speed.
Spaniard Javier Gomez doesn't spin his wheels like other less efficient triathletes. All his horsepower goes directly onto the pavement, pedals and water. This not only propels him forward in a race, but it also consigning the old standards of men's triathlon to the past.
Like the leaders of the sport before him; Mark Allen, Brad Beven, and Simon Lessing, Gomez's career is starting to acquire the momentum of a runaway success.
His racing resumé of nine BG World Cup wins and 15 consecutive podiums is quickly exceeding dominance, eagerly edging its way toward legendary (the men's World Cup win record for an active athlete stands at 11, held by 2000 Olympic champion, Canadian Simon Whitfield).
But it is another champion athlete that Gomez, 25, is beginning to resemble most.
Both were born in Basel, Switzerland but the similarities don't end there. Triathlete Gomez and tennis player Roger Federer seem close sporting cousins. Both share an ability to single-handedly reset their sport's perimeters of possibility, all with what looks like a modicum of effort.
As Federer rips a stunning cross-court winner with more angle than a marine's sideburns, Gomez crushes the hearts of his opposition with unparalleled swim and run poise.
Gomez's swim is freakish. His best 1500-meter time is under 16 minutes, which puts him in a class alone with former swimmer Andy Potts of the United States. But the difference with Potts is that Gomez's swim personal best was recorded this year when training for triathlon not in his competitive swimming days.
Hard for Gomez one week, easy the next—he's that type of athlete.
In Mooloolaba, after the beach start, Gomez tripped over the first carpet of water—it wasn't even a wave—when the other athletes beside him, all Kiwis and Aussies with surf skills to burn, waded another 20 meters or so.
Another athlete in this situation might have dreaded the same predicament reoccurring in the beach start at New Plymouth the following weekend, but not Gomez.
He led on the beach run to the water, replacing his bellyflop of the previous week, with a few giant steps. The fact he subsequently added a couple of graceful duck dives proved he is a quick school and reaffirmed his Federer type genius.
Gomez's race brilliance does not end there. His run is now second to none and because of his swim, it goes against triathlon's natural order.
Triathlon's natural order states that a pure swimmer CANNOT be a pure runner. Australia's Craig Walton and Athens Olympic gold medalist Kate Allen exemplify this.
Gomez, however, does not run like a swimmer or swim like a runner—he swims like a fish and runs like a gazelle. And his physical appearance on the run should not deceive the spectator.
The ruby hue that flushes Gomez's cheeks is only a red herring, fooling the viewer that he is hurting. It only acts to distract from the relative ease of his strides, the smoothness of his locomotion—again the triathlon equivalent of Federer.
Before the 2008 BG Triathlon World Cup season commenced, Gomez spent some time training in South Africa. One of his sessions included a running race.
Great Britain's Tim Don is known as probably the number one triathlon track runner with a 3:46:60 PB for 1500 meters. But sometimes Don's form does not carry over to running ten kilometers off the bike.
For Gomez, it always does.
On Mooloolaba's hilly 10-kilometer run course, Gomez knocked out 30:29 and on the undulations in New Plymouth, 29:37. If you couple this, as Gomez did, with second out of the water the results are scary for the opposition.
They are also scary if you are the type of athlete that likes to slink into an Olympic year with solid races building to a crescendo. Gomez, obviously, is not this type of athlete. To him, great form now is a harbinger to great form in the future.
His coach Jose Rioseco was also happy with his athlete's early season form. As Gomez loomed large down the finish straight in New Plymouth, Rioseco stopped pacing and started punching the air. The victory obviously meant a lot and it was a team effort.
After New Plymouth post-race press interviews, countless selfless t-shirt signings and drug testing, it was time for coach and athlete to make the 4-kilometer journey back to the Devon Hotel.
Wheeling his bike when the rest had ridden, Javier Gomez joined his coach for the tramp home as darkness descended. When victories convert to Olympic confidence, they crunched the numbers and plotted the next along the deserted Sunday night streets.
Their partnership becoming as successful as coach Tony Roche and Roger Federer when the pair worked together in his prime.
Former World Number one Chris Hill brings his unique elite athlete perspective in weekly Olympic columns to ITU's website, triathlon.org. He competed on the ITU World Cup circuit, winning three titles and ten medals in total. He was crowned the overall World Cup series champion in 2001. That same year he was silver medalist at the ITU World Championships in Edmonton, Canada. Watch for Chris Hill's column, "Olympic Odyssey" every week on triathlon.org.
2008 ITU Season is coming….
This is a story about butter. Somewhere in the telling, power and desire and revenge creep in, but fundamentally it is a story about butter.
Man evolved in the cradle of civilization, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, amid warm breezes and hospitable soils. As man wandered and spread, he ventured to less hospitable climes that required him to build shelters. In his home and away from the land, man desired ways to preserve food for tomorrow, so he salted and pickled and preserved and eventually cooled, first with ice and later the refrigerator. In warm weather, desiring to protect his animal's products from the heat, he placed butter inside the refrigerator and it stayed cold and firm for him.
When kept outside the refrigerator during moderate temperatures, man discovered that butter stays soft and spreadable, a much desired quality. So as to avoid removing the butter in mild weather and placing it back into the refrigerator during warm weather, he invented a particular spot for his butter, a compartment with a warm surface where he could control the temperature and soften the butter to his liking.
And so the butter sits in its compartment, soft to the touch but not melting at 50 degrees, inside a refrigerator cooled to 40 degrees, inside a home heated to 70 degrees, in a climate where the outside air might be 50 degrees. Three layers of precisely regulated thermal control engineered to provide man his desired butter at the desired temperature, all of the time.
How we have fallen. Our need for control and convenience and possessions has driven us to madness, no longer able to respect the earth that long has sustained us. This earth is recoiling, straining and shifting beneath our weight, yet we insist on maintaining our foolhardy ways.
Our swath of destruction cuts wide, no longer limited to securing food, clothing, shelter. Our pastimes-the things we pursue for amusement-now scar the land, pollute the skies, befoul the water. We pander to our basest instincts-the thrill of the hunt, the rush of competition-while ignoring the intelligence we have cultivated over a millennium.
On October 13, 2007, an army of athletes assembled upon the island of Hawaii for the Ironman world championship. From all corners of the globe they came, 1,787 strong, to prove their ability to conquer the water and ground beneath them. Aside from 68 residents of the state of Hawaii, all of them flew jet airliners to attend; the combined distance traveled amounted to 18,312,992 miles (portlandtri.com/miles.html). Eighteen million miles-for one day of sport.
The jet airplanes belched 3,634 tons of carbon dioxide and other destructive greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the equivalent generated by 525 average American homes producing heat and light for one year.
When did we stop caring? When did it become acceptable to shirk responsibility, to shift it to another person, another country, another generation?
This fall I volunteered at the Westchester Triathlon in New York. After the race, I stood beneath an unusually warm September sun breaking down bike racks in an endless parking lot. I tore them down and placed them in the back of a truck; by mid-afternoon, all that remained of the transition area was trash, the waste generated by 1,000 athletes over a six-hour span.
Gel packets. Scraps of bagel. Plastic water bottles by the hundreds, a consequence of our evolution to single-use containers. All of it destined for the landfill, as Westchester does not contract a recycler. The amount of trash, and the inability of its producers to shuttle it to the trash can, was astounding.
As I stood resting, preparing to resume cleanup, two Team-in-Training women joined me in the otherwise empty lot. They each carried a plastic bag. Wordlessly they began circulating, emptying bottles and cans, placing them into the bags. As I broke down a nearby aid station, I watched the parking lot transform from a field of litter to a manageable bulk of waste. They disappeared after an hour and a half, taking their collected recycling with them. They probably saved Westchester half its trash bill.
Sport has long been an innovator. Things we have learned about health, longevity and nutrition have often been driven by athletics. Through it we have discovered new materials, perfected technologies, improved systems and processes. And yet sport now falls behind, catering more to conspicuous consumption than long-held principles of conservation, efficiency and adaptability.
With our food, we demand organic. Our homes are triple-sealed against drafts, our thermostats and lighting computer-controlled. We buy Priuses and separate glass from cardboard. Yet our races stagnate. At the Chicago Marathon, 1.8 million cups were used to dispense water; few events practice recycling or composting. We travel thousands of miles to "destination races" while the local YMCA can't draw 100 to its Spring Fling. A steel bike could last a lifetime; instead we buy carbon and replace it the very next year.
Sport is stuck in the age of excess. While the rest of the world educates itself about carbon offsets, global warming and alternative energy, we content ourselves with bigger cars (to haul our gear) and more exotic races. It is no longer acceptable for those who care to clean up for the rest of us.
Jeff Henderson forsook the world of competitive swimming for triathlon in 1997. Since then he has busied himself competing, officiating, writing, and race directing. He directs the Musselman Triathlon, the Fly by Night Duathlon, and the City of Portland Triathlon. To stay sane, he cares for Ophelia, Dixie, and Wyan, three charismatic yet remunerative backyard chickens..


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Arya Stark Makes Us Uncomfortable Because We're Not Used to Seeing Girls Become People
Jef Rouner
Pictured: Next level flirting
Screengrab from Game of Thrones
Jef Rouner | April 23, 2019 | 4:00am
Spoilers Ahead for S8E2 of Game of Thrones
It's not a major spoiler I'm talking about here, but I am trying to be mindful of people who want to see Game of Thrones as unencumbered with foreknowledge as possible. So, this is basically a filler paragraph to give people a good chance to look away. Um, how about some obscure facts about the show? In the episode "Breaker of Chains," several insults from Monty Python and the Holy Grail are shouted at Daenerys in Low Valerian, including the famous "your mother was a hamster." Speaking of Emilia Clarke, she once got so covered in fake blood from filming a scene that she ended up stuck to a toilet.
Right, then. On with the article.
I'm sure I'm not alone in piloting the ship between Gendry and Arya Stark, but I honestly never expected to see their relationship consummated in quite such an HBO way in this week's episode. Faced with the hordes of the Night King arriving before dawn, the various forces stationed at Winterfell spend the night preparing for possible death and exploring relationships. For Arya, that included sleeping with Gendry in the forge where he has been crafting weapons to kill the wights.
It's an odd scene in many ways. Arya is forceful, yet vulnerable. Gendry is a young man still adrift in the world and without a true sense of place. They care for each other, but that's a pretty big liability in Westeros. I'd say it's the most positive sexual relationship portrayed in the show thus far, and it was definitely a needed beat in both of their character developments.
It did make a lot of people uncomfortable, though. I've been charting reactions, and I've seen a fair number of people who felt that seeing Maisie Williams' side boob and butt was like peeking in on your little sister in the shower. That's understandable as fans have literally watched her grow up over the years.
I didn't find it all that shocking. Aside from Game of Thrones my primary exposure to Williams in pop culture is her turn as Lady Me in Doctor Who, where she undergoes a similar journey to Arya Stark. She begins as a child in Viking times, and then we fast forward many years where the immortality The Doctor forced on her has left her a child-sized but mature and somewhat bitter woman. We see her after she has begun erasing her own memory of the centuries, dozens and hundreds of losses including her own children. By her final scene, the little girl is gone and all that's left is a woman.
What there isn't, though, is any of the process. Lady Me is two separate things with all the evolution happening somewhere off screen. Game of Thrones has made us look at her as she becomes a person.
Notice I didn't say woman. "Becomes a woman" as a phrase in media has a lot of baggage, especially as they relate to someone's first time (whatever the hell that even means). What it tends to indicate in most contexts is the successful transition of pure child to sex partner. That sort of story gets told all the time in film and television. The coming of age narrative is represented by a woman being willing to be something with a man.
That's not what happens with Arya. The dialogue before Gendry and she hook up is pointed and barbed. In many ways it's a comparison of damages overcome throughout the course of the show. Just a few scenes prior she was making a point to him by throwing knives into a wall with deadly accuracy. When they finally come together, there is nothing wifely about Arya. Her final line of the scene is "I'm not the Red Woman. Take off your own pants." It's a good line, but it's also a recognition that neither of them are pawns the way they have been before.
There's agency rather than surrender to Arya's journey. That can be uncomfortable to a culture that still insists that virginity is a thing that matters. We're taught to mentally move girls from a box (sister, child) straight to another (girlfriend, wife), but we look away from how it happens.
Arya Stark grew up a long time ago, probably from the moment Syrio Forel told her to run. By the time of Season 8, sex is just something she wants to try in a life that has mostly contained death and pain. It's very near the end of her development over the course of the show, not a symbolic act of her burgeoning transformation into a woman. I think one of the reasons the scene makes people squirm is that we're so used to first sex scenes acting like the Birth of Venus. According to pop media, love and sex are supposed to be the catalyst for the fundamental alteration of a woman's character. Arya has moved beyond that, and it makes what should be a beautiful scene seem disturbing.
It shouldn't be, though. The delusion that sex is a massively impactful event that changes women on a deep level is a primary drive among incels and other angry men who feel that women pollute themselves with intercourse. Intentional or not, the traditional narrative reinforces that toxic delusion. For Arya, her first encounter has no stakes. It's just something she as a person wants to do with another person she likes and who likes her back. That should be the only reason anyone ever does it, and something we should definitely be telling our children along with practical knowledge about birth control and the like. The fact that Arya's scene is so unusual that it makes fans of a show where rape and gore are regular factors a little uncomfortable says more about us than it does Game of Thrones.
Game of Thrones airs on HBO Sunday nights.
Jef Rouner is a contributing writer who covers politics, pop culture, social justice, video games, and online behavior. He is often a professional annoyance to the ignorant and hurtful.


text:
'Nothing but senseless': Covered bridge destroyed in rash of suspicious fires | CBC News Loaded
'Nothing but senseless': Covered bridge destroyed in rash of suspicious fires
A local recreational club in Cumberland County is picking up the pieces of its hard work after a series of suspicious fires in the area. RCMP are investigating after several structures were destroyed in incidents this month.
Cobequid Off Highway Vehicle Club spent months, thousands of dollars building bridge
Josh Hoffman · CBC News · Posted: Aug 28, 2022 10:05 AM EDT | Last Updated: August 28, 2022
Jason Sherriff, the vice-president of the Cobequid Off Highway Vehicle Club, says the club built the bridge eight years ago after months of hard work and fundraising. (Cobequid Off Highway Vehicle Club)
A local recreational club in Cumberland County is picking up the pieces of its hard work after a series of suspicious fires in the area.
RCMP are investigating after several structures were destroyed in incidents this month.
A covered bridge on a trail outside Collingwood, N.S., is one of the structures destroyed.
The Cobequid Off Highway Vehicle Club built the bridge eight years ago after months of effort that included fundraising.
"It's just disheartening," said Jason Sherriff, the club's vice-president. "It knocks the wind out of your sails and makes you wonder why you're doing what you do."
What's left of the covered bridge built by the Cobequid Off Highway Vehicle Club after the fire. (Cobequid Off Highway Vehicle Club)
Sherriff said more than $100,000 was invested in the structure and it would cost twice that amount to rebuild it.
The covered bridge was built on a trail that used to be an old stagecoach route, Sherriff said.
"So, we just wanted to spruce it up a little bit and do something different than just the normal flat bridge," he said.
At least two other structures have been destroyed. The latest incident involved hay bales being set ablaze early Saturday.
Police believe the fires may be connected.
Eastern Shore Pride building solidarity, community
Some backcountry users in B.C. are setting trees on fire for fun
"It's very concerning," said Murray Scott, mayor of the Municipality of Cumberland. "We're not used to those types of arsons in our area."
Scott said it's fortunate that no one has been hurt, but he said that could change if the fires continue.
"We need to encourage folks with information to come forward to not only help resolve these crimes but to stop it as well."
RCMP are asking anyone with information about the incidents to contact them.
For Sherriff, it doesn't make sense why anyone would do this in the first place.
"I don't know if the individuals doing it don't understand people could have got hurt. They could have started a huge forest fire with how dry everything is right now. It's just nothing but senseless."
Man, 59, dead after encounter with Halifax police
Bats discovered in proposed Archibald Lake wilderness area
Canadian women's rugby team cruises to win over Wales in World Cup tune-up on home soil
Suspicious fires in Cumberland County could be connected, say RCMP
Dead pilot whale known as Double-Dip washes ashore in Cape Breton


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