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Pour 64 Celebrates 4th Anniversary
MINT HILL, NC – On Saturday, July 24, Pour 64 celebrated its 4th Anniversary with the first large gathering the local tap room has been able to hold in over 18 months.
For Brock, seeing people sit at the bar is the true marker of returning to "normal" after COVID
Although they announced their third anniversary last July, Pour 64 was still only able to offer curbside service due to COVID restrictions. It wasn't until the spring that they were able to open to 30% capacity; that number quickly rose to 50% and reached 100% just two months ago in mid-May.
More than just celebrating four successful years in business, Saturday's well-attended event also marked a much-anticipated return to normalcy. "I wasn't expecting the turnout we got based on COVID and everything we've gone through the last year," said owner Sarah Brock, "but people came up to me multiple times throughout the event saying, you should do this once a month, an outdoor event."
Guest brewery Town Brewing
In addition to Pour 64's 40 rotating taps, the event involved selections from guest brewery Town Brewing. "We wanted to support a local craft beer, and Town Brewing has been a great supporter of Pour 64 ever since they opened," said Brock, "so we wanted to just thank them in that way and highlight some of their beer."
Live music by Jaxx & Jacks
The event also featured live music from Dan Vitco and Jaxx & Jacks, both local musicians and Pour 64 favorites. "Jaxx & Jacks have played all of our three celebrated anniversary parties," said Brock, "and Dan Vitco is just a Mint Hill favorite. He lives in Mint Hill, and he is a really great musician; people come out for him all the time."
Pour 64 works with the Chamber of Commerce to sponsor a Cornhole Tournament benefiting the Chamber's Scholarship program in October, but Saturday's celebration also featured a small Cornhole Tournament with a cash prize. The man who won the tournament chose to donate the money back to Pour 64, and Brock looks forward to finding a worthy cause on which to spend it.
Food vendor and new neighbor Chick-Fil-A
Also present were two food trucks: Chick-fil-A and Wrap 'n Roll. For Brock it's important to build a relationship with soon-to-be new neighbor Chick-fil-A. Just like Pour 64, Chick-fil-A prioritizes serving the community, and Brock hopes they'll be able to partner on charitable initiatives in the future. Moreover, Brock has talked to Chick-fil-A about the possibility of having food delivered to customers who order from the tap room. "People are so excited about Chick-fil-A," says Brock. "Plus, every time we have anything at Pour 64, it's always a family event, and kids love Chick-fil-A!"
Now that they're open for business again, Pour 64 looks forward to resuming several much-anticipated events that had to be suspended during COVID. Their next big event will be Oktoberfest scheduled for October 2. Held in conjunction with 1st Choice Properties, the event will feature live music, food trucks, family games and a costume contest that will decide the next Mr. and Ms. Oktoberfest. Brock also looks forward to organizing the annual Pop Up Christmas, currently scheduled for the second Saturday in December. Held in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce, the Pop Up Christmas Shop aims to highlight local businesses – particularly Chamber members – that aren't walkable from downtown Mint Hill as well as locals who make handcrafted items. The last Pop Up Christmas Shop held in 2019 featured 40 different vendors, and Brock hopes to increase that number to 50 in 2021.
Justin, Pour 64's first customer
"What I'd really like to say is that we are so thankful for the community for supporting us through 2020," said Brock. "I just want to thank them for everything because I thought for sure we were not going to make it. Because there's no way we should have made it and other people didn't. We're just a craft beer tap room, and I'm just really thankful to be able to be here in 2021 and still serving the community."
But the truth is that Pour 64 is more than just a tap room: it's a place where the community comes together. "So many friends have been made here," continued Brock. "I was just talking to someone the other day who said they didn't know half these people until they started coming in here, and now they are vacationing together, camping together, spending time on the weekends together outside of here."
Every event at Pour 64 is family-friendly
Pour 64 is open Tuesday through Thursday from 3:00 pm to 9:00 pm and Friday and Saturday from 2:00 pm to 10:00 pm. They offer Music Bingo every Wednesday at 6:30 and frequently host food trucks on Wednesdays and Thursdays. They also offer live music several times throughout the month, usually on Friday and Saturday nights. They continue to offer online ordering and curbside service, including their popular 32-oz "crowlers." The best way to keep up with what's going on at Pour 64 is to follow them on Facebook @pour64.
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Having grown up in Carrol Gardens, and having been a business in this area for over a decade, Elite Fitness Studio is devoted to providing an environment that will support our local community in creating their physical and mental wellbeing.
In the spirit of giving back, Elite Fitness Studio opens our doors to the local community in offering partnership with local businesses with the offer of free conditional membership for one of their members, additionally, we are proud to have hosted Community Open Yoga every weekend for the past number of years.
You can find some details below, with links to more information, and how to sign up.


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Citizen science is expanding our knowledge of Hong Kong's jellyfish 18 January 2022
Marine ecologists find low functional diversity of invertebrates threatens mangroves 10 January 2022
Depiction of cell division process in the heart wins 2nd in Croucher Image Awards 30 December 2021
Croucher Image Awards winner reveals the hidden beauty of West Antarctica ice flows 23 December 2021
Main image: Dr Rosa HM Chan (Croucher Scholarship 2004) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering at City University of Hong Kong.
Rescuing memory: Alzheimer's disease
Dr Rosa HM Chan (Croucher Scholarship 2004) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. Her primary research interest is computational neuroscience, including the brain-machine interface, neural prostheses, and mathematical models of neural systems.
Born and educated in Hong Kong, she was the first female in her family to attend university. Her father is a chauffeur so, while her childhood dream was to be an astronaut, she also grew up with a natural interest in cars and mechanics, which later developed into a fascination with robotics inspired by popular science fiction.
She received the B.Eng (1st Hon.) degree in Automation and Computer-Aided Engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 2003. After graduation, she spent a year of research at the Centre for Micro and Nano Systems, supervised by Dr Wen J. Li who suggested she might consider further study overseas and made her aware of potential support from the Croucher Foundation.
"Within my immediate social circle at school no-one would have considered studying overseas and it would never have been possible without the support of the Croucher Foundation and the encouragement of Dr Li," she says and Chan was offered a place at the University of Southern California (USC) where her original intention was to continue her study of sensors.
"If you study robotics you need to understand sensors, so that was my first interest but instead I became involved in computational neuroscience- I think this is one of the last frontiers in understanding the human brain," she says.
Chan explains that in computational neuroscience the nervous system is split this into three broad functions: the sensory function, cognitive function and motor function.
"We sense, we process and we move," as she puts it.
During her post-graduate studies at the USC Centre for Neural Engineering (CNE) led by Dr Theodore W. Berger, Chan became involved in the development of neural prostheses. These devices are designed to substitute a motor, sensory or cognitive modality, that might have been damaged as a result of an injury or diseases such as Alzheimer's.
Accurately probing and recording the electrical signals in the brain helps better understand the relationship among a local population of neurons that are responsible for a specific function and Chan worked on the development of models that described these specific functions.
The best-known neuro prosthetics currently is the cochlear implant, with over 300,000 in use worldwide and the artificial retina. Instead, Chan and her colleagues were looking to model the functionality of the hippocampus; the elongated ridges on the floor of each lateral ventricle of the brain thought to be the centre of memory.
"The hippocampus is responsible for converting short term to long term memory- this facility becomes impaired by damage, injury or neurodegenerative disorder such as Alzheimer's disease." she says explaining that this condition can produce anterograde amnesia; the inability to form new declarative memories.
"Once we have a mathematical model of healthy hippocampus, Dr. Berger's team aims to reproduce that on a micro-chip," she says explaining that while she needed to learn a great deal about neural science and collaborate closely with medical research departments, the mathematical modelling techniques could be transferred to different areas.
"This is very complicated and challenging because the brain is a non-linear dynamical system with billions of neurons so creating the models is highly complex," she says and once the model is in place it can be replicated by electrical stimulation of the subject's hippocampus and normal functionality can be restored to damaged tissue.
"The modelling function is vital because it records the correct brain function as much as possible so this can be replicated in the event of neurological damage," and she estimates that it may be less than 10 years before practical applications are available for human patients.
This work was very focused on the hippocampus but more recently she investigates how similar methods might apply to other parts of the brain using a grey box model which combines a partial theoretical structure with data to complete the model based on existing knowledge of the brain's functionality.
Investigating how the neuro network changes and respond in relation to certain behaviours and stimuli is key to Chan's current research.
"I study how stimulus affects human behaviour," she says by measuring physiological response via EEG and ECG measurement of subjects, she can quantify what stimulus results in a certain emotion.
A new sponsored project aims to relate these methods to educational research and investigate what teaching strategies are best for stimulating students. It was a project inspired by her own experiences of teaching, when students sometimes appeared unresponsive or reluctant to ask a question.
Chan's team examines the brainwaves of students undertaking different tasks and they have been tasked by their commercial sponsor to develop special hardware for monitoring the brainwave response of multiple subjects and to measure cognitive load and emotional response. This has also led to collaboration with the Centre for Brain and Education at the Education University of Hong Kong, which is keen to refine pedagogy for students with special educational needs, such as autism and ADHD.
"The goal is to instantly measure their learning status with the help of sensors," she says.
Simultaneously, Chan is also working on motor prosthetics for amputees by examining neuro muscular coordination – how exactly do we manipulate our fingers in such a precise way?
Her team studies the fingers of pianists and examines the kinematics of brain activity so they can create hierarchical models. Chan's team and collaborators measure electrical activity in the remaining muscles of the amputee subject, with electrodes and correlate that electrical signal with desired hand and finger gestures.
Matching electrical activity to specific function enables a neuro prosthetic to simulate the same model for each precise action.
In this way, damaged or dysfunctional regions of the human body could be bi-passed using robotic and other engineering solutions by first creating sophisticated mathematical models of functional healthy tissue.
Dr. Rosa H. M. Chan received her Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2011 at University of Southern California (USC), where she also received her M.S. degrees in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Aerospace Engineering. During her graduate studies at the USC Center for Neural Engineering (CNE) led by Dr. Theodore W. Berger, Rosa and her colleagues were developing neural prostheses for damaged cognitive function resulting from injury or diseases such as Alzheimer's. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. Her primary research interest is to develop biologically constrained mathematical models of mammalian neural systems.
To view Dr Chan's Croucher profile, please click here.
Dr Tin Chung: prosthetic system for the cerebellum
Professor Kenneth Leung selected for the 2016 Biwako Prize for Ecology
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N.E. Christensen is a native Californian artist and designer. The latest fine-functional ceramic work is inspired by her late grandmother's pottery collection and painter Philip Guston. All works are hand-built high fire stoneware. The water colors are mediations inspired by conversations with her brother about consciousness, attachment and fly fishing. Simply autobiographical her work explores woodland + ocean, space + consciousness with candor + whimsy.


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"There were 20-some years before that he led an exemplary life," Pasqualini noted.
Nagle's wife, Belinda Nagle, spoke in court, saying she's known her husband for 17 years.
"This man would not harm a fly," she said. "This man lives his life to become a better man every day."
Kevin Nagle also spoke in court, saying the past 22 months have changed the "landscape" of his life.
Lost sense of trust: One of his two victims also spoke briefly.
"Before all this happened ... I thought he was a really nice teacher," the young man said, adding that's what caused him to open up to Nagle and share personal aspects of his life.
Now, the young man said, "I"m not able to trust anyone anymore."
Jurors who convicted Nagle for inappropriately touching two students also heard from a third student who made similar allegations. Nagle was not charged with touching that youth.
On Monday, Jauregi reminded the judge that there was a fourth young man who came forward. No charges were filed for alleged conduct against that young man, and he was not permitted to testify at trial, according to the prosecutor.
In handing down her sentence, Judge Cook said she couldn't ignore the fact that Kevin Nagle has no prior criminal history.
She initially denied a defense motion to allow him to remain free pending appeal but said she'll review the motion to see if it changes her mind.
Also on Monday, Cook admonished some of Nagle's supporters in the courtroom. She did not get into specifics but warned them that them contacting witnesses who testified at Nagle's trial "will do him no good." Cook told them to stop.
The background: Jurors deliberated for about two hours July 20 before finding Nagle guilty of two counts each of institutional sexual assault and corruption of minors and one count of indecent assault.
Jurors found that Nagle touched the genitals of two 17-year-old York County School of Technology students under the guise of measuring them for pants.
At the time, Nagle taught business classes at the school and also managed the school store.
The two teens testified they went to the school store to buy shirts in November 2016.
While the two students were there, each alone and on separate dates, Nagle told them that their pants were baggy, then offered to measure them for a proper fit even though neither was buying pants, according to the two teens.
The victims testified at trial that Nagle measured their inseams while they were naked from the waist down and that he touched their genitals while doing so.
The encounters happened in the storeroom of the school store, according to testimony.
One of the teens said Nagle pulled down both his pants and underpants; the other said he wasn't wearing underpants at the time.
More:Juror to ex-tech teacher's sex victims: We believe you
More:Guilty: Jury convicts ex-York Tech teacher of groping students
More:York Tech officials: Nagle told not to touch students
Cleaned teen's genitals: The teen who said Nagle pulled down his underpants also testified that Nagle used hand sanitizer and a paper towel to clean behind the teen's scrotum.
The teen also told jurors that Nagle forced him to sit in Nagle's lap at least five times.
He testified that the next day, Nagle gave him five pair of pants, a package of boxer shorts, some shirts and other items, then demonstrated to the teen how to properly wear boxers, touching the teen's genitals again while doing so.
Two school administrators testified during the weeklong trial that Nagle was specifically told in October 2016 not to touch students, not to measure or fit students for clothing and to allow students to buy whatever sizes they chose.
There was nothing introduced at trial to explain why administrators issued those directives to Nagle.
— Reach Liz Evans Scolforo at levans@yorkdispatch.com or on Twitter at @LizScolforoYD.


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Download Neurogenetics Ebook PDF
Methods and Protocols
by Nicholas T. Potter
An international panel of recognized academic physicians, researchers, and clinical laboratory diagnosticians describe their best methods for characterizing neurologically relevant genes, their mutations, and their proteins. Providing detailed step-by-step instructions to assure successful experimental results, these experts cover the key methods for mutation detection and screening, including discussions of quantitative PCR, trinucleotide repeat detection, sequence-based mutation detection, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), in vitro protein expression systems, and studies of protein expression. Understand the functional consequences of neurologically relevant gene mutations Enjoy a comprehensive collection of techniques for mutation detection and screening.
Neurogenetics and Neuro-Ophthalmology, 5th International Congress, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 8-10 September, 1977
by A.F. Deutman,J.R.M. Cruysberg
Practical Guide to Neurogenetics E-Book
by Thomas T. Warner,Simon R. Hammans
Publisher : Elsevier Health Sciences
This simple guide to neurogenetics demystifies the overwhelming amount of information on the subject so you can identify key clinical features and understand your management options. Reach relevant differential diagnoses and provide appropriate counseling to your patients using the symptom-based approach. By integrating genetic and neurological approaches to diagnoses, this book ensures that the neurological consequences of a genetic diagnosis and the genetic consequences of a neurological diagnosis are clear and explicit. Concise and portable, this book is ideal for easy reference in clinical use. Details the underlying basic science and clinical features of genetic disorders by taking a symptom-based approach to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the field. Focuses on the clinical application of neurogenetics to be of practical use to you in the clinic. Clarifies the neurological consequences of a genetic diagnosis and the genetic consequences of a neurological diagnosis by integrating genetic and neurological approaches to diagnoses. Discusses and evaluates necessary investigations so you know when to use them and when to refer. Highlights diagnostic and therapeutic tips so you can learn new concepts or refine your skills in practice. Refers to online sources, such as Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) and others, to help you supplement your knowledge.
Genetic methodologies are having a significant impact on the study of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Using genetic science, researchers have identified over 200 genes that cause or contribute to neurological disorders. Still an evolving field of study, defining the relationship between genes and neurological and psychiatric disorders is evolving rapidly and expected to grow in scope as more disorders are linked to specific genetic markers. Part I covers basic genetic concepts and recurring biological themes, and begins the discussion of movement disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders, leading the way for Part II to cover a combination of neurological, neuromuscular, cerebrovascular, and psychiatric disorders. This volume in the Handbook of Clinical Neurology will provide a comprehensive introduction and reference on neurogenetics for the clinical practitioner and the research neurologist. Presents a comprehensive coverage of neurogenetics Details the latest science and impact on our understanding of neurological psychiatric disorders Provides a focused reference for clinical practitioners and the neuroscience/neurogenetics research community
Behavioral Neurogenetics
by John F. Cryan,Andreas Reif
This book covers a wide array of topics relevant to behavioral genetics from both a preclinical and clinical standpoint. Indeed in juxtaposing both areas of research the reader will appreciate the true translational nature of the field. Topics covered range from technical advances in genetic analysis in humans and animals to specific descriptions of advances in schizophrenia, attention disorders, depression and anxiety disorders, autism, aggression, neurodegeneration and neurodevelopmental disorders. The importance of gene-environment interactions is emphasised and the role of neuroimaging in unravelling the functional consequences of genetic variability described. This volume will be valued by both the basic scientist and clinician alike who may use it as a detailed reference book. It will also be of use to the novice to the field, to whom it will serve as an in-depth introduction to this exciting area of research.
Textbook of Neurogenetics
by Adriano Jiménez Escrig
Release : 2007-09
This text constitutes a comprehensive sinopsis of our current knowledge of thegenetics on neurological diseases. The book presents the wiews from various disciplines who share a common interest on Neurogenetics. The first sever chapters review basic genetics, from historical aspectcs to molecular genetic tools, the internet resources, and the statistics and software used in research and clinical ground. The remaining fourteen chapters provide valuable information on causes, clinical aspects, genetic diagnosis, treatment strategies and management of the main hereditary neurological disorders. These chapters covers miscellaneous neurological diseases as well as those categorized into groups, review the genetics in each process and provide advice about the steps involved to enable the clinician to make clinical, genetic and differential diagnoses. Besides the practical nature of each chapter, the book aims help neurologists select the most appropriate test, and interpret the results within the context of the genetic evaluation of hereditary neurological disorders. CONTENTS: Principles of genetics. Molecular Biology Techniques in Investigation and Diagnosis. Transgenic animals in Neurology. Gene Therapy of Neurological Diseases. Overview of Computer Software for Genetics. Internet Genetic Resources. Primer of Statistical Genetics. Strategies for the Genetic Molecular Study of a Neurological Disease. Neurogenetics from a Clinical point of view. Hereditary Muscular Dystrophies. Genetics of Movement Disorders. Genetics of Dementia. Genetics of Cerebrovascular Diseases. Genetic Bases of Neurological Disorders. Etc.
A Guide for Clinicians
by Nicholas Wood
A coherent, up-to-date overview of the rapidly advancing field of neurogenetics for neurologists of any level.
Neurogenetics, Part II, Volume 148, the latest release in the Handbook of Clinical Neurology, provides the latest information on the genetic methodologies that are having a significant impact on the study of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Using genetic science, researchers have identified over 200 genes that cause or contribute to neurological disorders. Still an evolving field of study, defining the relationship between genes and neurological and psychiatric disorders is expected to dramatically grow in scope. Part II builds on the foundation of Part I, expanding the coverage to dementias, paroxysmal disorders, neuromuscular disorders, white matter and demyelination diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, adult psychiatric disorders and cancer and phacomatoses. Contains comprehensive coverage of neurogenetics Details the latest science and its impact on our understanding of neurological, psychiatric disorders Presents a focused reference for clinical practitioners and the neuroscience/neurogenetics research community
by Christine Klein MD,Kishore R. Kumar MBBS, FRACP,Carolyn M. Sue MBBS, FRACP, PhD,Alexander M Prof Dr Med
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Aims To some, the field of neurogenetics appears perplexing and indecipherable. In this volume, we will address this issue by providing clinicians with a framework for dealing with these disorders. This book is not intended to be an in-depth, comprehensive review of all neurogenetic conditions from 'A to Z'. Instead, we will provide a concise discussion using case studies to illustrate the most important and topical neurogenetic disorders. This case-based approach will make the book easy to reference, clinically relevant, approachable, and, we feel, more interesting. Scope The contribution of genetics to many neurological diseases is becoming increasingly apparent, and so it is imperative to stay up-to-date with these conditions. The 31 chapters in this volume cover a wide range of inherited conditions including forms of dystonia, Parkinson disease, spastic paraplegias, mitochondrial diseases, myopathies, neuropathies, and much more. Particular attention is paid to practical issues regarding how to make a genetic diagnosis and how to counsel the family. We will also address some contemporary issues in neurogenetics, such as the impact of direct-to-consumer genetic testing. General Approach In keeping with the WDIDN series, each chapter commences with a brief case study, which will be used as an example of an important condition in neurogenetics. The discussion will then be centered on the case, with a focus on crucial issues regarding the clinical assessment, investigations and management of these conditions. Key clinical points will be listed at the end of the chapter, along with a list of suggested further reading. All case studies in this book are based on real patients seen by the authors or their colleagues.
by Christine Klein,Kishore R. Kumar,Carolyn M. Sue,Alexander Munchau
In this book, the authors use their extensive experience in the field of neurogenetics to provide readers with a practical approach for dealing with these conditions. The 31 chapters of this book cover a broad range of neurogenetic disorders, highlighting key issues with regards to the clinical assessment, diagnosis and management"--Provided by publisher.
Neurogenetics and Neuro-ophthalmology
Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Neurogenetics and Neuro-Ophthalmology Held in Zürich, Switzerland on 9-12 June, 1981
by Alfred Huber,David Klein
Publisher : Elsevier-North-Holland Biomedical Press
Neurogenetics in Neurology: From Molecular Neuroscience to Precision Medicine
by Matthew James Farrer,Guy Rouleau
Atlas of Early Zebrafish Brain Development
A Tool for Molecular Neurogenetics
by Thomas Mueller,Mario F. Wullimann
Publisher : Gulf Professional Publishing
The Atlas of Early Zebrafish Brain Development is the first neuroanatomical expression atlas of important genetic and immunohistochemical markers of a vertebrate model system. In-situ hybridized and immunostained preparations of complete series of brain sections reveal markers of the fundamental stages in the life history of neuronal cells (proliferation/determination, migration and neuronal differentiation) in very high quality preparations and photographic plates. Early brain organization is vividly demonstrated and local variations in brain development are shown in a holistic view. This book represents a key reference and interpretation matrix to analyze expression domains of genes involved in Zebrafish brain development and neurogenesis and thus represents a milestone in this research area. There is simply no alternative source for combined neuroanatomical and gene expression data in the Zebrafish at this level of detail. The book introduces the reader to the field and shows principles of vertebrate brain development and neurogenesis. It will also be of great value to investigators of other model organisms such as frog, chick and mouse.
Neurogenetics, Part II
Neurogenetics of Psychiatric Disorders
by Akira Sawa,Melvin G. McInnis
Translating bench-based research into effective clinical practice, this source provides a clear understanding of the neurobiology and neurogenetics of psychiatric disorders, the genes responsible for specific psychiatric disorders, and the implications of genetic roots and underlying biology on the development of new diagnostic approaches and treat
Developmental Psychopathology, Developmental Neuroscience
by Dante Cicchetti
The complete reference of biological bases for psychopathology at any age Developmental Psychopathology is a four-volume compendium of the most complete and current research on every aspect of the field. Volume Two: Developmental Neuroscience focuses on the biological basis of psychopathology at each life stage, from nutritional deficiencies to genetics to functional brain development to evolutionary perspectives and more. Now in its third edition, this comprehensive reference has been fully updated to better reflect the current state of the field, and detail the newest findings made possible by advances in technology and neuroscience. Contributions from expert researchers and clinicians provide insight into brain development, molecular genetics methods, neurogenics approaches to pathway mapping, structural neuroimaging, and much more, including targeted discussions of specific disorders. Advances in developmental psychopathology have burgeoned since the 2006 publication of the second edition, and keeping up on the latest findings in multiple avenues of investigation can be burdensome to the busy professional. This series solves the problem by collecting the information into one place, with a logical organization designed for easy reference. Consider evolutionary perspectives in developmental psychopathology Explore typical and atypical brain development across the life span Examine the latest findings on stress, schizophrenia, anxiety, and more Learn how genetics are related to psychopathology at different life stages The complexity of a field as diverse as developmental psychopathology deepens with each emerging theory, especially with consideration of the rapid pace of neuroscience advancement and genetic discovery. Developmental Psychopathology Volume Two: Developmental Neuroscience provides an invaluable resource by compiling the latest information into a cohesive, broad-reaching reference.
Parkinson's Disease and Related Disorders
Cumulative Bibliography: 1800-1970
by United States National Institute of Neurologiacal Diseases and Stroke
Clinical Neurogenetics, An Issue of Neurologic Clinics,
by Brent L. Fogel
This issue of Neurologic Clinics features a review of clinical neurogenetics as it pertains to the following disorders: Huntington Disease; Autism/ASD;Fragile X Tremor Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS); Lysosomal Storage Diseases; Psychiatric Disorders; Dominant Spinocerebellar Ataxias; Metabolic Disorders; Friedreich Ataxia; ALS; Dementia; Neuromuscular Disorders; Stroke; Epilepsy; and Dystonia.
Clinical Neurogenetics, an Issue of Neurologic Clinics
This issue of Neurologic Clinics features a review of clinical neurogenetics as it pertains to the following disorders: Huntington Disease; Autism/ASD; Fragile X Tremor Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS); Lysosomal Storage Diseases; Psychiatric Disorders; Dominant Spinocerebellar Ataxias; Metabolic Disorders; Friedreich Ataxia; ALS; Dementia; Neuromuscular Disorders; Stroke; Epilepsy; and Dystonia.
Principles and Practice
by Roger N. Rosenberg
Publisher : Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Vampire Ascending
When Breath Becomes Air The Secret History of the Democratic Party
The Thyroid Connection
Fundamentals Success
Idiot Brain
Clarence Larkin
Accelerating MATLAB with GPU Computing
The Professional Pastry Chef
What If Everybody Did That
Battle Cry of Freedom
Analysis in Nutrition Research
Biomaterials for Treating Skin Loss
Preserving the Japanese Way
You Cant Touch My Hair
Network Convergence
Medical Empathy, Pharmacological Systems, and Treatment Strategies in Integrative Cardiovascular Chinese Medicine
Murderville
The Rise And Fall Of The Dinosaurs
The Bridges of Madison County
Blood Shadows
Disorders of Peripheral and Central Auditory Processing
Student Success in College
Validamycin and its Derivatives
The Duchess Deal
Nature Anatomy
Basic Biostatistics for Medical and Biomedical Practitioners
Targeted Cyber Attacks
Essential Pépin
Haunted Destiny


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Abortion Laws in Saudi Arabia More Forgiving Than in Alabama: Report
"We're not seeing right now in the Middle East and North Africa a desire to make laws more punitive and more restrictive for women who need abortions and providers. We are seeing that in the U.S."
Eoin Higgins, staff writer
Thousands of people attempt to march down Istanbul's famous Istiklal street during a rally for International Women's Day on March 8, 2019. (Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
Alabama women in need of abortion care can travel to Saudi Arabia for less restrictive rules if the southern U.S. state's recent anti-choice law is upheld in the courts.
That's according to a new study by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which compared new laws in the U.S. to restrictions in Muslim-majority countries in southwest Asia and North Africa. All have more lenient laws around abortion than the Alabama law.
Alabama's law, which was passed through the legislature last week and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, bans abortions in the state at every point in pregnancy and carries sentences of up to 99 years for doctors that perform the medical procedure. The bill followed similarly restrictive laws in Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, and Georgia, though none of the other states went as far as the Alabama legislation.
By contrast, there are a number of abortion exceptions in the countries Haaretz looked at, and, in the cases of Turkey and Tunisia, legal through the first trimester.
Different definitions of "risk" appear to be in play in the countries as well. In Iran, for example, "some contemporary religious rulings support abortion in cases of rape, fetal impairment, or where there is risk to woman's life and health." Both Iran and Iraq also allow abortion in the case of rape and incest; in Saudi Arabia, the procedure is also allowed for women "to protect her physical and mental health."
The attacks on abortion in some U.S. states are out of step with the rest of the world, said Leila Hessini, vice president at the Global Fund for Women.
"We're not seeing right now in the Middle East and North Africa a desire to make laws more punitive and more restrictive for women who need abortions and providers," Hessini told Haaretz. "We are seeing that in the U.S."
Haaretz noted that Alabama passed legislation banning sharia law—laws based in the Islamic faith—from the state in 2014, citing what critics of sharia describe as its hostility to women.
In fact, the same person who drafted Alabama's anti-abortion bill—an activist named Eric Johnston who founded the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition—also drafted its anti-Sharia law in 2014, arguing that "Sharia law violates women's rights."
The report led historian Arash Azizi to comment on the backward direction being taken by many U.S. states.
"Abortion laws in many Muslim countries are far ahead of the laws in the United States," said Azizi.
We Should Learn From Georgia to Show Us the Way Forward
World, U.S.
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Tunisia, Turkey, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tehran


Has Eat Pray Love inspired you to travel, meditate and find yourself? We've shortlisted the top three retreats and tours around the world so you can let yourself go like Liz.
It doesn't get more authentic than spending time in a retreat in Bali, just like Elizabeth Gilbert. COMO Shambhala Estate in Bali and Uma Ubud are the perfect places if you're seeking to relax, unwind and be immersed in the natural beauty of Indonesia (and who knows, maybe even find love too).
Visit COMO Shambhala Estate in Bali and Uma Ubud.
Fancy a week of yoga and skiing set amongst the beauty of the stunning French Alps? Reconnect with nature and start the new year in a truly life-changing way.
You'll partake in twice daily yoga, skiiing or boarding, delicious health food, evening relaxation and other activities with a wonderful group of people. It's suitable for complete yoga beginners and also those who are non-skiers and wish to enjoy down-time in the chalet during the day.
Book by October 31 to receive the special early bird price.
If the thought of travelling alone is not your thing, don't worry! Abercrombie & Kent have an amazing 14 day tour of India starting in Delhi, visiting the Taj Mahal and can include a day trip to the Hindu temple of Harimandir, the main setting for Liz's visit to India.
Find out more about the tour including dates and pricing here.


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layout: post
title: Should I Make This Game?<br />Downhill Biking Simulator
description: An empirical examination of a game about mountain biking and its merits.
categories: Opinion
author: Alex Schearer
slug: should-i-make-downhill-biking-simulator
comments: true
---

## The Game: Downhill Biking Simulator
You're high in the mountains, surrounded by centenarian cedars. Ahead of you is a winding dirt trial and your faithful companion, a border collie named Sam. You take a deep breath, kick off, and descend as fast as you can atop your Trek mountain bike. Concentrating, you zig and zag through trees towards the foot of the mountain.

## Hypothesis 1: "Sales Hypothesis"
  > 10,000 Steam gamers will pay $10 for a first-person, realistic game about downhill mountain biking.

### Supporting Evidence
#### Google Keyword Planner
Each month thousands of people search for mountain biking games on Google. An order of magnitude more people search for biking games in general. These keywords have very low competition with suggested bids around 30¢. While these searches by no means establish demand for our game specifically, they tell us there's latent interest in the idea.

|Keyword|Average Monthly Searches|
|-|-|
|Mountain bike games|10,000-100,000|
|Downhill bike game|100-1,000|
|3D bike games|1,000-10,000|
|Bike racing games |100,000-1,000,000|
|Mountain bike racing games|100-1,000|

#### Reddit
In the same vein, we can check Reddit for interest in mountain biking games. Searching Reddit for "biking game" reveals several recent threads. Each of these threads received many upvotes and spurred active conversation about mountain biking games, further confirmation that there's interest in the idea.

|Thread|Upvotes|Comments|URL|
|-|-|-|
|Mountain biking video game!|131|58|[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/MTB/comments/4ecvbm/mountain_biking_video_game/)|
|Mountain Biking Video Game!|61|91|[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/MTB/comments/3s0atg/mountain_biking_video_game/)|
|So I'm developing a downhill / free-ride Mountain Biking game for the PC. Who's interested?|31|25|[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1av1ce/so_im_developing_a_downhill_freeride_mountain/)|
|I would buy this game if it was just a biking simulator|415|55|[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1hza12/i_would_buy_this_game_if_it_was_just_a_biking/)|

#### Crowdfunding and Greenlight
I could only find one biking game in the crowdfunding space. "[Stoked!][1]" – which failed to meet its goal. The lack of biking games and apparent lack of interest in Stoked is a potential red flag for our game idea. Stoked eventually went on to be released despite its Kickstarter performance, but more on that later.

Greenlight tells a slightly different story. Two biking games were accepted and have subsequently launched. A third, despite being the most popular, appears to have been abandoned by its developer who now works for a hardware/VR/biking company. The existence of these games and their success on Greenlight is additional evidence that Steam customers are interested in a biking game.

|Title|Date Published|Number of Comments|Status|URL|
|-|-|-|-|-|
|MTBFreeride|6/1/2013|589|Abandoned|[Link](http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149654707)|
|Shred! Downhill Mountain Biking|4/20/2015|119|Accepted|[Link](http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=434236349)|
|MTB Downhill Simulator|1/29/2016|165|Accepted|[Link](http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=610964890)|

#### Steam and Steam Spy
Looking at the Steam marketplace there are already two games that are comparable to the one being pitched. "MTB Downhill Simulator" and "Shred! Downhill Mountain Biking" (formerly known as Stoked!). Both games have sales well below the 10,000 target. They also have "very negative" and "mixed" reviews, respectively. At a minimum, these games establish that there is a limited market for downhill biking games. Their mixed performance, however, does require a new hypothesis from us.

__Hypothesis 1.1__
  > A well-executed, bug-free downhill biking game can achieve sales greatly in excess of a poorly executed, buggy game.

|Title|MTB Downhill Simulator|
|-|-|
|Estimated owners|3,128|
|Price|$7.99|
|Release date|5/27/16|
|Number of reviews|78|
|Review score|Very negative (10% positive)|
|Steam|[Link](http://store.steampowered.com/app/475990)|

|Title|Shred! Downhill Mountain Biking|
|-|-|
|Estimated owners|5,152|
|Price|$5.99|
|Release date|7/8/16|
|Number of reviews|67|
|Review score|Mixed (55% positive)|
|Steam|[Link](http://store.steampowered.com/app/381590)|

*Note the data above was collected in January 2017 and may no longer be accurate following changes to the review system by Steam.*

## Conclusion
So far, we've evaluated four types of evidence for our bike game. Taken individually no single piece of evidence can tell us whether our idea is viable. In fact, I would go one step further and claim that it's impossible to find evidence which affirmatively tells us to make this game. What we're really looking for are red flags so menacing that they scare us away from our game idea.

Looking back over the data with that insight in mind I believe there are two red flags.

  1. Kickstarter has just one biking game and it failed to reach its funding goal.
  1. The two comparable games on the marketplace have performed well below our sales target.

For the first concern, I believe the absence of data is not itself cause for concern – in fact one of the reasons I like this idea is that it targets an underserved niche. Stoked's failure is more concerning, and it would be worthwhile reaching out to its developer to try to learn more about what went wrong with the campaign. To really put this concern to rest, the best course of action would be to launch our own Kickstarter campaign.

Follow up steps:

 * E-mail Stoked's creator and learn more about its Kickstarter campaign.
 * Research and evaluate hosting a Kickstarter campaign for this idea.

Moving on, the second concern is the one that really scares me. Is it plausible that a well-executed implementation of our game will meet with a level of success not seen in the current crop of competitors? And how can we confirm this hypothesis short of building and releasing a fully functional game?

Here are some ideas:

 * Look for games in adjacent genres (e.g. snowboarding, moto racing, skiing, etc.) and measure the performance of their well-executed games. It would be a red flag if we can't find successes in plausibly similar genres.
 * Confirm Steam indie game sales data supports the sales hypothesis. For example, it would be a red flag if the median game sells 1,000 copies over its lifetime.
 * Run a Kickstarter campaign and reach out to the game's target audience. If a well-run Kickstarter fails then interest is tepid. On the flip side, you can estimate first week sales from pre-order numbers – [Yacht Club Games pegged the ratio between 200-400%][2] – so, working backwards, if we want to sell 10,000 $10 copies then we need to raise $25,000.

### Closing Thoughts

And there you have it. I've tried to lay out the case for Downhill Biking Simulator drawing on as much data and analytical reasoning as I could muster. I hope you've enjoyed the analysis, and please share your reactions with me via e-mail or in person.

Based on the above I would rate our game idea as plausible and worthy of further investigation. I would have liked to have seen much better sales estimates for the existing Steam games, which would alleviate the need for hypothesis 1.1 – my biggest concern. Then again, this is likely what an underserved niche market looks like. Next step, determining if the market is underserved or non-existent.

{% include should-i-make-footer.html %}

[1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/50786070/stoked-extreme-mountain-biking-a-multi-platform-vi
[2]: http://yachtclubgames.com/2014/08/sales-one-month/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Ex-cop turned 'freelance' nomad Mad Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson is rescued by a tribe of children when he is banished from a desert town and sent into the desert to die by the town's evil queen. A gorgeous, delirious and unique post-apocalyptic fable.
17.05 35mm: Playing from a 35mm print The Celluloid Sorceress : Presented by The Celluloid Sorceress. One of the UK's leading independent film curators, Rebecca Nicole Williams introduces cult classics, fan favourites, lost gems and pop smashes with a special selection of 35mm trailers before the feature.


In this ESL podcast we talk about great vocabulary and grammar that you will hear in English news and real life discussions! Learn about a recent interesting news story about Korea . Speak English fluently today.
it is nice to hear that you are fine.
I have registered for VIP and I can login but I can not download these VIP lessons on my Ipod. Is there any body can tell me how to solve this problem? Thank you.
So good to have it again.
I don't know the news in the lesson is real or not, I feel sorry for those soldiers who died there. By the way, I firstly think it was news form the North, but then I found it's the news from South!
Actually, almost all Chinese people feel sorry for the people in the North, hope they can have a chance to open the country and develop the country better, have a better life, every year there must be some people escaped from the North to China, and this year, about one month ago, China catch them but send them to the South.
It's hard to understand the tragedy happened in the South, may God give them peace!
I registered for VIP and had been used Android app.
However, i cannot find app at the app store after i changed my cell phone.
It's really hard to listen on the Safari.
Why no more lessons?I wait u're next podcast, why not a 2015 predictions?It's disappointing me.
Hi Add and Andy, what's wrong with you?? Got a trouble?
A bit anxious about you two, or just a long vacation?
Come back and give us an update.
When are we going to get new stories and new podcasts?
Hi Guys. I am recently renewed my membership which I hold for quite a long time but I am missing regular lessons nowadays.
Hi guys! Why no answer?
The two brother have missed. They gave up this project.
Can't download any item from your application. Need the support urgently, please.
I subscribe and can't use it, yet.
Same problem here and no answer unfortunately from them!
After renewing your account you should have gotten an email with an activation link. Open this email, click on the link and hopefully you will be redirected to a signup-window where you have to specify a username, password and email address.
But beware, you cannot use your present username and email, instead you have to define new ones.
It's like you are a completely new user.


Downloaded fonts now function correctly. For best compatibility, it is wise to also include .woff or .woff2 conversions in your resource file, in case the user's browser has trouble with a .ttf or .otf you may be using.
Bump() will now be called with areas as the argument, when an area has refused entry. Because of the potential for confusion in older code, this new behavior will only apply to projects compiled in version 511 or higher.
Calling animate() with a nonzero time value and no actual appearance changes will insert a delay step.
Using = instead of == in a condition like if(), while(), or the middle of for() will now generate a warning on compilation. To avoid this warning in cases where this is desired, enclose the expression in extra parentheses.
A new appearance flag, PIXEL_SCALE, has been added that will allow you to upscale icons without the default bilinear sampling for a more pixelated look.
A new animation flag, ANIMATION_RELATIVE, has been added. With it most numeric vars, and also transform and color, can be specified as changes relative to the current value rather than as absolute changes. Additionally, animation of multiple vars has been changed to make better use of mutable appearances for faster operation and avoiding appearance churn.
Making font size bigger in world.status or changing the font face will no longer appear on the pager.
Exceptions re-thrown by a previous error or throw statement will stay intact now, preserving the original stack trace and not generating a new one.
Multiple gamepads are now supported.
A new map parameter, zoom-mode, has been introduced to allow better control over upscaling behavior. Values are "normal" (default), "distort", and "blur".
Normal mode is the default that was intended from around 509-510 onward, but did not appear correctly on some video cards. (See ID:2198553.) Distort mode is what was seen on many of those cards, where upscaling caused duplicated or dropped rows of pixels to compensate for non-integer zoom sizes. (Distortion upscaling looks best when the zoom is almost an integer, or when it is very high. At integer zoom sizes, distort and normal are identical.) Blur is the much older behavior caused by upscaling on many systems, using simple bilinear sampling.
Downscaling is always bilinear, regardless of this parameter.
Multiple gamepad support (up to 4) has been added. The macros for the 2nd gamepad start with Gamepad2 instead of Gamepad, and so on.
Performance has been increased for hardware rendering mode, and across the board for games that use big HUD objects.
Generating an object tree took a very long time on many large projects that used icons bigger than the default size used in the world. While it still may take a while, the time has been reduced thanks to an overhaul of how their icons are stored.
Gamepad functionality is now supported. Please note that results may vary depending on your browser.
A new macro name, GamepadRaw, can be used to get raw input, not standardized via gamepad setup, from gamepads. In the command, [[id]] will be replaced with Button0 to Button15, Axis0 to Axis11 with no accounting for dead zones, and Dpad. [[value]] will be replaced with a value, which is 0 or 1 for buttons, -1 to 1 for axes, and a direction for Dpad.
SEE_PIXELS and SEE_BLACKNESS are now supported.
A new SEE_BLACKNESS sight flag has been added, to render dark tiles to plane 0. (SEE_PIXELS does so also, but virtually turns on SEE_TURFS/OBJS/MOBS which may not be desirable.) This only applies to topdown map modes.
Setting an object's appearance_flags to TILE_BOUND will prevent it from stretching HUD borders if it is applied to client.screen, regardless of its icon size.
Pixel gliding is now supported for worlds where client.fps exceeds world.fps.
Mouse cursors now use the size of their actual icon, and are not limited to world.icon_size.
The Any macro is now supported.
client.fps is now supported. Pixel gliding is not in place yet, and will be added in a future release.
Parallel animations are now supported.
flick() for areas and images is now supported.
Gamepads can now be setup so that an axis can be mapped to two different buttons depending on whether it's positive or negative in value. This allows Xbox 360 controllers to handle L2 and R2 more or less properly.
Since version 510, the webclient has been able to use fallback sounds, where sound.file is a list rather than a single file. Although this was added to the language already it was not documented, because there was no support in Dream Seeker. Now Dream Seeker also supports fallback sounds, for when a format isn't supported.
A new macro, Any, can be used to detect key/button presses, and Any+UP will detect releases. (+REP is not supported.) In the command, [[*]] is replaced by the key/button name.
SEE_THRU has been added as a mob sight flag, to ignore opacity.
Gamepad support is here! Configure your gamepad by going to the Client | Gamepad Setup menu option in Dream Seeker, and then post on the forums with your cfg/joysticks.txt file contents (found in your BYOND user data folder) so we can build up a standard set of controllers. A DirectInput-compatible driver for your gamepad is required.
Gamepad buttons and analog sticks can be given verbs just like regular macros, or they can be mapped to keys and/or the mouse. See the Macros section of the skin reference for details.
pixel_w has been added to all appearances, as a horizontal counterpart to pixel_z. It adjusts the horizontal position of an atom regardless of client.dir or world.map_format.
It is now possible to animate different values in different ways for the same object. Call animate() with the new ANIMATION_PARALLEL flag to setup a parallel animation.
You can now set client.fps or client.tick_lag (they're aliases for the same value) to give a client a tick speed separate from the server. For instance you can let the server have a default FPS of 10, but the client can have a higher FPS of 40.
For games that use pixel movement, a new concept called "pixel gliding" has been introduced to smooth out step_x/y changes when using a higher frame rate than the server.
A new type, /mutable_appearance, can be used to modify multiple appearance values without creating a lot of temporary appearances, thus reducing churn and improving performance.
Preceding the variadic argument with ## in the replacement expression will trim off any preceding commas if the argument is empty.
Assignment operators can be chained, and have proper right-to-left evaluation order. This means a statement like a = b = 2 is now valid.
flick() has been extended to images.
flick() has been extended to areas.
Experimental: Var access has been changed internally to use sorted arrays instead of linked lists, in the hopes of improving speed for some intensive calculations.
The map editor now has an option to nudge items using pixel offsets rather than step offsets, for games that don't use pixel movement.
200% and 400% zoom options have been added to the map editor.


text:
Research says ESG investing doesn't mean lesser returns
Do investors sacrifice returns when they try to apply their values to their portfolios?
Not necessarily, according to a recently published study on environmental, social and governance investing (ESG for short).
"Quite simply, there is no performance cost," according to a summary posted by the CFA Institute, publisher of the study in its Financial Analysts Journal.
ESG investing neither adds nor detracts value from investment portfolios, according to the summary posted on the CFA Institute's Enterprising Investor blog. The study was done by a team of French academics: Marie Brière, Jonathan Peillex, and Loredana Ureche-Rangau.
Their study looked at the extent to which socially responsible techniques contribute to the performance of socially responsible funds compared to other factors such as market movements, asset allocation and active management.
"The study results suggest that (socially responsible) screening is a relatively minor component in the performance of (socially responsible) funds, according to the Enterprising Investor.
The study's authors state that socially responsible investors can "do equally well or badly while doing good."
This is good news for the growing number of investors interested in ESG investing, which has grown to over $8 trillion in assets under management, according to the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US SIF). That's up from $1.4 trillion in 2012.
There's growing research that both individual and institutional investors are growing more interested in sustainable investing that addresses concerns about climate change. There's even talk of a "Trump Bump" in ESG investing amid signs of growing interest since the election of a new president who dismisses climate change concerns.
Investors added $5.8 billion into ESG funds in 2016, with three quarters of that amount coming in the month of December, just after Trump's election.
It's believed that younger investors, in particular, are interested in sustainable investing.


text:
New Robotic Vascular Surgery Technology Being Used At Tampa Bay Area Hospital
WUSF Public Media - WUSF 89.7 | By Daylina Miller
Published July 16, 2019 at 3:23 PM EDT
Courtesy Corindus Vascular Robotics.
The CorPath GRX robotic surgical platform by the Massachusetts-based Corindus Vascular Robotics is now being used in the Tampa Bay area.
By Daylina Miller
A Pasco County hospital is the first in the Tampa Bay region to use a new robotic technology to treat coronary artery disease.
At the Medical Center of Trinity, surgeons can sit a few feet back from a patient and use a joystick to manipulate robotic arms joystick to deliver a balloon, stent or treatment device into blood vessels during an angioplasty.
The CorPath GRX robotic surgical platform by the Massachusetts-based Corindus Vascular Robotics is already being used in Orlando and Miami hospitals. It received FDA clearance for 'percutaneous coronary interventions' - or angioplasties- in 2016, and for peripheral vascular interventions - outpatient procedures to remobe plaque buildup in arteries - in 2018.
The new tech is a sort of cousin to the daVinci Surgical System, which was approved by the FDA in 2000 as the first robotic surgical platform commercially available in the United States for use in general laparoscopic surgery.
RELATED: Doctors Learn The Nuts And Bolts Of Robotic Surgery
"daVinci is going inside the belly and you move the mechanical fingers and hands around to be able to suture and apply cautery and things like that, to control bleeding," said Dr. Patrick Cambier, an interventional cardiologist at the Medical Center of Trinity.
The CorPath GRX, however, allows for linear movement through the vessels.
"So once we place the wires in the robot arm, I can drive these little wires, which are essentially train tracks for all of our equipment. And then I go and I take the balloon or the stent over that train, track and deliver it to the site I wish to treat - all while sitting comfortably in a chair and being able to concentrate on studying this very high-resolution screen that's in front of me magnifying the artery in a tremendous fashion."
And because the surgeon is sitting behind a protected cockpit away from the patient, he said it dramatically reduces radiation exposure during the procedure for physicians.
Cambier says while the technology is being experimented with for use in telehealth, his patients at the hospital are in the same room with him, just six feet away,
"Although this procedure could be done, literally with me sitting in a sport coat driving the bot, I I'm in the scrubs, I'm in the sterile equipment, and the console is sterily draped," Cambier said.
"So if I need to jump right in, I just get out of my chair and shoot on over to the patient side, and do what I do otherwise, for all of the other cases. So there's no heightened risk or isolation from their providers."
As far as the telehealth aspect goes, Cambier says he could eventually be able to assist with surgeries in other parts of the state and country, with him in a room in Trinity, and the patient's medical team in a room elsewhere setting up equipment and on standby for an emergency.
"With the physician shortage of high-skilled specialists who can do this kind of work, this will be able to expand the reach to more remote places in our own backyard," Cambier said.
While the Medical Center of Trinity is the first in the Tampa Bay region to use this particular platform, the use of robot-assisted devices has grown steadily over the last couple decades,
Markets and Market reported that, "the surgical robots market is expected to grow from $3.9 billion in 2018 to $6.5 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 10.4% during the forecast period."
In 2009, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center began establishing best practices for an academic university medical center using surgical robots.
Patients do not incur extra costs for having this robot-assisted surgery versus the manual surgery, and some studies suggest the technology reduces the number of additional stents needed, or improper placement of stents.
Health News Floridarobotic surgeryrobot-assisted surgeryangioplastytelehealth
Daylina Miller is a multimedia journalist covering health and general news for WUSF and Health News Florida, a statewide reporting collaborative with other public radio stations.
See stories by Daylina Miller
Doctors Learn The Nuts And Bolts Of Robotic Surgery


webkit_dom_attr_get_name has been deprecated since version 2.22 and should not be used in newly-written code.
webkit_dom_attr_get_specified has been deprecated since version 2.22 and should not be used in newly-written code.
webkit_dom_attr_get_value has been deprecated since version 2.22 and should not be used in newly-written code.
webkit_dom_attr_set_value has been deprecated since version 2.22 and should not be used in newly-written code.
webkit_dom_attr_get_owner_element has been deprecated since version 2.22 and should not be used in newly-written code.
webkit_dom_attr_get_namespace_uri has been deprecated since version 2.22 and should not be used in newly-written code.
webkit_dom_attr_get_prefix has been deprecated since version 2.22 and should not be used in newly-written code.
webkit_dom_attr_get_local_name has been deprecated since version 2.22 and should not be used in newly-written code.


text:
15.7 Summary
It's convenient to use a common SetUp for a set of tests. But as data is added to the SetUp, it's good to avoid breaking existing tests. We saw several ways of doing that.
It's straightforward to write tests that set the date and time.
It's useful to make business objects, such as business transactions, explicit in the tables in the tests. For example, user operations as a part of the transaction, such as making payments, are treated as actions in the transaction table in the test.
We showed some examples of sad-path tests, which check when things go wrong.


text:
Q: SDL C++ Window Immediately Closes #include "SDL/SDL.h"
#include "SDL/SDL_Image.h"
#include <string>
using namespace std;

//Const screen variables
const int SCREEN_WIDTH           = 640;
const int SCREEN_HEIGHT          = 480;
const int SCREEN_BPP             = 32;
const char* SCREEN_CAPTION       = "Pyro";
const float GRAVITY              = 9.8; //Metres per second **NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTED BECAUSE IT'S IN METRES, NOT PIXELS**
const int jumpHeight             = 10;

//Non-Const variables
bool running                     = true;
bool isJumping                   = true;
int jump                         = 0;
int frame                        = 0;
int level                        = 1;
SDL_Event event;
Uint8 *keystate                  = NULL;

//SDL Surfaces
SDL_Surface *screen              = NULL;
SDL_Surface *background          = NULL;
SDL_Surface *sprite              = NULL;
SDL_Surface *bEnemy[10];

//Structs
typedef struct entity {
    int health;
    int damage;
    SDL_Rect hitbox;
    bool evolved;
} playerType, enemyType;
playerType player;
enemyType basicEnemy[10];

//Functions
SDL_Surface *loadImage( std::string filename )
{
    SDL_Surface *loadedImage    = NULL;
    SDL_Surface *optimizedImage = NULL;
    loadedImage = IMG_Load( filename.c_str() );
    if( loadedImage !=  NULL )
    {
            optimizedImage = SDL_DisplayFormatAlpha( loadedImage );
            SDL_FreeSurface( loadedImage );
    }
    return optimizedImage;
}

void applySurface( int x, int y, SDL_Surface* source, SDL_Surface* location )
{
    SDL_Rect offset;
    offset.x = x;
    offset.y = y;
    SDL_BlitSurface( source, NULL, location, &offset );
}

//Main Function
int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
    if( SDL_Init( SDL_INIT_EVERYTHING ) == -1 )
    {
            return 1;
    }
    screen = SDL_SetVideoMode( SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, SCREEN_BPP, SDL_SWSURFACE );

    if( screen == NULL )
    {
            return 1;
    }

    SDL_WM_SetCaption( SCREEN_CAPTION, NULL );
    background = loadImage( "images/background.png" );
    sprite     = loadImage( "images/player.png" );

    SDL_FreeSurface( sprite );
    SDL_FreeSurface( background );

    while( running )
    {
            //Main game loop
            if( SDL_PollEvent( &event ) )
            {
                    switch( event.type )
                    {
                            case SDL_QUIT:
                                running = false;
                                break;
                            case SDL_KEYDOWN:
                                    switch( event.key.keysym.sym )
                                    {
                                            case SDLK_q:
                                                    running = false;
                                                       break;
                                    }
                                    break;
                    }
            }
            keystate = SDL_GetKeyState(NULL);
            if( keystate[SDLK_q] ) player.evolved = !player.evolved;
            if( keystate[SDLK_UP] )
            {
                    if(isJumping != true)
                    {
                            isJumping = true;
                    }
            }
            if( keystate[SDLK_LEFT] )  player.hitbox.x -= 1;
            if( keystate[SDLK_RIGHT] ) player.hitbox.y += 1;
            //Window collision
            if( player.hitbox.x < 0 ) {player.hitbox.x  = 0;}
            else if( player.hitbox.x > SCREEN_WIDTH  - player.hitbox.w ) {player.hitbox.x = SCREEN_WIDTH  - player.hitbox.w;}
            if( player.hitbox.y < 0 ) {player.hitbox.y  = 0;}
            else if( player.hitbox.y > SCREEN_HEIGHT - player.hitbox.h ) {player.hitbox.y = SCREEN_HEIGHT - player.hitbox.h;}

            //Jumping
            if( isJumping == true )
            {
                    if(jump >= jumpHeight)
                    {
                            jump--;
                            player.hitbox.y++;
                    }else {
                            jump++;
                            player.hitbox.y--;
                    }
            }

            //Updating the screen
            applySurface( 0, 0, background, screen );
            applySurface( player.hitbox.x, player.hitbox.y, sprite, screen );

            if( SDL_Flip( screen ) == -1 )
            {
                    return 1;
            }
    }
    SDL_Quit();

    return 0;
}

^ That is the exact code I have. When I run the file it immediately closes. It is compiled with: g++ -o myprogram.exe mysource.cpp -lmingw32 -lSDLmain -lSDL -lSDL_image -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++.
The files I have linked to do exist; they are currently placeholders (background is some random png image I found, and the player is an image of 8-bit mario).
How do I stop my program from closing immediately?

A: SDL_FreeSurface( sprite );
SDL_FreeSurface( background );

This is where your problem lies.
These lines should appear at the end of the program right before you call SDL_Quit().
Currently, you're blitting freed surfaces onto the window.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Strata of the World
"You laugh at iterative statistical curve fitting, but it might not be too long before iterative statistical curve fitting is laughing at you"
Review: The Doomsday Machine
Book: The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg (2012).
This review is 4.6k words (≈15 minutes).
This post has also been published on the Effective Altruism Forum
Here's what former RAND Corporation nuclear strategy analyst (and later, Pentagon Papers leaker) Daniel Ellsberg and his colleague thought about the movie Doctor Strangelove – a dark and brilliant comedy about accidental nuclear war – after watching it in 1964:
"We came out into the afternoon sunlight, dazed by the light and the film, both agreeing that what we had just seen was, essentially, a documentary."
Doctor Ellsberg, or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Hate the Bomb
The age of mass slaughter of civilians as war strategy did not start with Hiroshima, but rather years before with British and, later, American bombing campaigns. No new moral or strategic choice was made in the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan; it was the natural outgrowth of the policies that had already incinerated Dresden and Tokyo.
Of course, nuclear technology meant an escalation of its scale. A single plane carrying an atomic bomb is more efficient at delivering mass death than a bomber fleet. Hydrogen weapons, in which the atomic bomb is a mere detonating cap for a fusion reaction, scale up the destructive power a thousandfold. Thanks to missiles that can strike anywhere on Earth within an hour and the insistence of many nuclear countries in keeping weapons on high alert, each nuclear power has a loaded gun trained at the civilian population of the others.
The perverse logic of this hostage situation leads to the sorts of insanities that make Ellsberg call Doctor Strangelove a documentary.
For example, the lack of any way to recall bombers was a true and deliberate part of the US nuclear response mechanism. The fictional horror scenario of unintentionally launched bombers continuing towards their targets while the rest of the world spends its final hours waiting powerlessly was at most fifteen minutes from becoming reality throughout the early Cold War.
(Thankfully the switch from bombers to faster missiles later removed this anxiety-inducing pre-Armageddon wait.)
Why? Presumably because a recall code could be stolen by the enemy and used to misdirect an attack. The logic of mutually assured destruction demands certain response without delay.
When the US Air Force was told to place electronic locks on Minuteman missiles to prevent unauthorised launch, they decided that the unlock code would always be set at 0000 0000, so that a launch would never be blocked because the code was missing (or because a nervous launch officer couldn't punch in anything more complicated).
Delegating the authority to launch weapons is another way of ensuring launch readiness. If the president, vice president, and everyone else in the line of succession right down to the White House chef are nuked into oblivion by a surprise strike, it can't interfere with the ability to retaliate, or else that's exactly what the Soviets would immediately start planning to do. And so (as Ellsberg carefully investigated) Eisenhower discreetly gave the admiral of the US Indo-Pacific Command the right to start the nuclear war plan by his own initiative. Communication links across the Pacific can be unreliable, so the admiral further delegated launch authority down the chain. To Ellsberg it is unclear if even the president was aware of the further delegation, but perfectly clear that this is insanity: all it would take is a geopolitical crisis, some bad weather over Hawaii, and suddenly some over-eager general on a distant Pacific island thinks that nuclear war has broken out and it is their duty to join the fun.
This is not the end of bureaucratic madness. Ellsberg recounts his surprise after learning that the US had no war plan involving just the Soviet Union. Any nuclear attack would hit China as well. The admirals Ellsberg asked about this were incensed, leading Ellsberg to conclude:
"Thus, if the president gave an order to attack only Soviet targets, CINCPAC [US Indo-Pacific Command, now called USINDOPACOM] forces, having destroyed Vladivostok and a few other minor targets in eastern Russia, would essentially have to sit out the war as observers—"on the sidelines," as they thought of it—during the big game."
This was something that the admirals thought intolerable.
It gets worse:
"[I]t had long been clear to me that if the highest authorities did give [an order that excluded China] it would be virtually impossible to implement that order quickly in the Pacific. That was true for technical as well as bureaucratic reasons. CINCPAC planners were working extremely hard, around the clock each year, just to produce one single plan for nuclear war against the Sino-Soviet bloc, and they simply didn't have the ability to produce a second plan for war with the Soviet Union alone."
Why was it so difficult to create a nuclear war plan? A major reason was the enormous number of calculations needed to schedule the bombers so that they wouldn't be swatted out of the sky by nukes dropped by other bombers:
"Plans specified that a particular explosion would go off at time-over-target, or TOT (for example, 117 minutes and 32 seconds after the Execute order), and then a nearby explosion would go off 2 minutes and 12 seconds later, and so forth. If everything went according to plan, no plane would be struck down by the explosion from a bomb dropped by another plane; no "fratricide" would occur."
Practical inconveniences, like the fact that not all planes would manage to get themselves in the air equally fast, or the existence of weather, were ignored.
'I pointed these two problems out to a planner once.
"Yes, I've thought of these problems before," he said.
"Well, doesn't that make you question the value of making all these calculations and plans?"
"These men are risking their lives flying out there. We've got to do what we can to save their lives."
"But it doesn't seem that this plan has any chance to save any lives at all. It would save lives only if the execution followed the plan down to the second, and there's not even the remotest possibility of that happening."
"Well, we're ordered to make these calculations, so that's what we do."'
No sane person can think to themselves "let's plan to kill three hundred million Chinese peasants in order to protect the egos of a few admirals, and because someone wants to make really detailed spreadsheets". A badly designed bureaucracy won't even blink.
"How to describe that, other than insanity? Should the Pentagon officials and their subordinates have been institutionalized? But that was precisely the problem: they already were. Their institutions not only promoted this insanity, they demanded it. And still do. As do comparable institutions in Russia."
Cuban roulette
Ellsberg's account of the Cuban missile crisis is particularly haunting. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev were eager to avoid war, more cautious than many of their advisors, and willing to step down the bravado even at steep political cost.
Yet at the peak of the crisis on October 27th, 1962, there were two occasions when nuclear war was averted by chance. The first occasion was when the captain of a Soviet submarine being hounded by American destroyers decided to launch a nuclear torpedo at the destroyers. On most submarines the agreement of the captain and political officer would have sufficed, but flotilla commander Vasili Arkhipov happened to be onboard this particular submarine, and had the authority to overrule the captain and the political officer.
Had Arkhipov been stationed on a different submarine:
"The source of [the explosion caused by the nuclear torpedo] would have been mysterious to other commanders in the [US] Navy and officials on the ExComm, since no submarines known to be in the region were believed to carry nuclear warheads. The clear implication on the cause of the nuclear destruction of this antisubmarine hunter-killer group would have been a medium-range missile from Cuba whose launch had not been detected. That is the event that President Kennedy had announced on October 22nd would lead to a full-scale nuclear attack on the Soviet Union."
Perhaps Kennedy would have decided to take back his redline, and maybe the conflict might have deescalated even then. But the odds would have been long.
The second time was above Siberia and the Bering Sea. An American U-2 spy plane had wandered off-course into Soviet airspace. MiGs were scrambled to intercept it (perhaps believing it to be a reconnaissance plane for a larger attack), and American F-102As scrambled in turn to intercept the MiGs before they could get to the U-2. The F-102As were armed only with nuclear air-to-air weapons, since they were meant to be used against Russian nuclear bomber formations.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara reportedly ran out of a Pentagon meeting hysterically yelling "this means war with the Soviet Union" upon hearing the news. Kennedy, however, was calmer:
"In a panic, [the chief of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research] rushed in to tell the president there was a U-2 over Russia being pursued by MiGs. Kennedy, very cool, responded from his rocking chair (as Hilsman reported) with an old Navy joke: 'There's always some son-of-a-bitch who didn't get the word.'"
Even assuming leaders who would rather lose face than commit genocide, their control over events is not perfect. Government bureaucracies, trigger-happy generals, and your generic sons-of-bitches who don't get the message have a lot of inertia, which any central organising force will struggle to halt. Combined with the hair-trigger launch capability demanded by deterrence through mutually assured destruction, this means nuclear war cannot be removed from the realm of the possible.
'Tis but a scratch
How bad is nuclear war, really?
Ellsberg comes with a prepackaged answer: the nuclear weapons currently deployed by the US and Russia (all other arsenals combined are less than 10% of the total) are equivalent to a doomsday machine which, if activated, would result in a nuclear winter that ends human civilisation.
As far as I can tell, the research is not nearly as clearcut as Ellsberg would like to tell. Ellsberg writes of the "recent scientific confirmation of the thirty-year old nuclear winter "hypothesis"", but I'm not sure what this is meant to refer to.
The Doomsday Machine is about nuclear history and policy, not the effects of nuclear war, so it makes sense for Ellsberg to omit a detailed analysis of what exactly we think might happen to the atmosphere. However, as best as I can tell given other sources, Ellsberg's claims of a scientific consensus for civilisation-ending nuclear winter following a war waged with post-Cold War nuclear stockpiles is simply too strong given the current evidence. This is a shame. Nuclear winter is a serious threat, and serious threats do not need exaggeration.
So what is our current understanding of nuclear winter? In a word: complicated.
Some older models of nuclear winter were challenged when burning oil wells in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War failed to cause global or even continental cooling. Later papers suggest that sufficiently large burning areas, such as entire cities, might lift smoke much higher than isolated burning oil wells and hence cause greater effects. Others argue that modern cities are not very likely to become firestorms. A recent study estimated 3-17% losses in various crops from a limited Indo-Pakistani war alone. Still others claim they're being stigmatised as "closet Doctor Strangeloves" for their criticism of the nuclear winter hypothesis.
If we assume that the more aggressive nuclear winter models are not totally off the mark, this analysis estimates that billions of people might plausibly starve to death following a modern US-Russia nuclear exchange. However, to arrive at such estimates involves a long chain of assumptions.
I think all we can say for sure are two things: first, that this is not an experiment we ever want to try, and second, that there exists at least one foolproof solution to global warming.
Regardless of a hypothetical nuclear winter, any nuclear war is bad.
Consider the greatest disasters in human history. Events like World War II, the Black Death, the Great Chinese Famine, and the Spanish flu all had a death toll between 10 and 100 million people (though the high-end estimates for the Black Death go to twice that number).
In the early 1960s, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that a US first strike on the USSR and China would kill 275 million people immediately, and another 50 million within those countries over the next six months due to injuries and fallout. Attacks on Warsaw Pact countries would kill another 100 million. Collateral damage on neutral countries from fallout would depend on which way the wind blows, but likely add at least another 100 million across nearby countries like Finland, Japan, Sweden, and Afghanistan.
Ellsberg recounts his reaction:
"I remember what I thought when I first held the single sheet with the graph on it. I thought, This piece of paper should not exist. It should never have existed. Not in America. Not anywhere, ever. It depicted evil beyond any human project ever. There should be nothing on earth, nothing real, that it referred to."
The scale is an order of magnitude above any other disaster. In terms of human life lost, it is as if all of World War II (from the Holocaust to Hiroshima to Dresden to Leningrad), the Black Death, the Great Chinese Famine, and the Mongol conquests all happened in a day, followed by World War I, the Spanish flu, and every famine the British ever caused in India over the next few months. Finally, add in some risk of a nuclear winter that slowly kills a significant chunk of the rest through starvation. And this is what happens if we assume that the Soviets don't hit back.
An argument in favour of nuclear weapons is that they help maintain peace between great powers. This is true, but inadequate.
When asked to put a number on the probability of the Cuban missile crisis escalating into a total nuclear war, Kennedy said "between one in three and even". Assume this is right, and that the alternative to a nuclear standoff was another worldwide military conflict on the scale of World War II (fought with conventional weapons only). The harsh logic of expected value tells us that the crisis was still a bad deal: we shouldn't gamble 500-1000 million lives on a coin flip to avoid a 50-100 million death conflict.
Thankfully, a nuclear war today might be less damaging.
First, the number of nuclear weapons has gone down. The US arsenal peaked at 30 000 weapons in the 1960s and Soviet/Russian one at 40 000 in the 1980s; both have since fallen to 6000 - 7000. At the same time, the accuracy of missiles has improved, and smaller, more accurate weapons have replaced huge multi-megaton bombs that can wipe out a city even if they miss by a few kilometres.
Second, increased accuracy allows for strategies to change, at least among the most advanced nuclear powers. Countervalue targeting, where the aim is to inflict maximum damage to an enemy by hitting cities, can be swapped for counterforce targeting, in which the enemy's military is targeted. The US might plausibly carry out a counterforce attack, but the same is not currently true of China, let alone Pakistan or India. Of course, with nuclear weapons it is impossible to avoid collateral damage, and the extent to which countervalue targeting has been swapped out is hard to tell given the secrecy of current nuclear war plans.
By one estimate, even a limited counterforce scenario for a US-Russia nuclear war would lead to 10 million immediate deaths each in the US, Russia, and (if it's involved) western Europe. Add in countervalue targeting, and that's another 100 million across the US and Russia (an estimate for western Europe is not given). By weighing the probabilities of each level of countervalue targeting, the author of this estimate came up with a mean death toll of 50 million direct deaths.
So what can we expect for a modern nuclear war? Any nuclear exchange will likely earn a place near the top of Wikipedia's "list of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll" page. A total one between large nuclear powers will instantly shoot to first place from the number of direct deaths alone. It would, entirely literally, be the worst thing ever.
Then there's the possibility of nuclear winter. It might be uncertain, but its potential scale means its contribution to the expected number of deaths is considerable. Every 1% increase in the chance of half the world's population starving is, in expectation, another Canada gone.
Understanding exactly how bad nuclear war would be is important, both to guide policy and to judge its importance relative to other causes. Right now there does not yet seem to be a consensus about nuclear winter risks; if we draw a graph of number of deaths versus probability of it happening, the distribution would be very wide, with most of the expected harm coming from the tail end: scenarios of low probability, but involving billions of deaths. Hopefully the immense efforts rightly spent on modelling climate change will have spillover benefits for nuclear winter research, and allow us to be more certain in our predictions.
Institutional insanity, then and now
Ellsberg does not discuss much about US war plans after his time working with them, likely because after he leaked the Pentagon Papers there was no going back to his job at RAND.
(In fact, the Pentagon Papers were just half of the secret material Ellsberg had copied. Ellsberg decided to release the Vietnam papers first, fearing that if he also released the nuclear planning papers, the Vietnam stuff would be forgotten. His plan to release the nuclear papers later was derailed due to a complex chain of events including letting his friend hide them in a dumpster and flooding from a near-hurricane. Much of the material has since been declassified, however.)
Some things have gotten better. The insanity of a single war plan hitting both the USSR and China must have ended as the Sino-Soviet split progressed (or so I assume). Permissive Action Links (PALs) are now often, but not always, used to make unauthorised nuclear weapon use harder. Nuclear brinksmanship is (for now) less common than during the Cold War.
However, as Ellsberg cautions, to think that the modern nuclear situation is much saner than the one that Ellsberg witnessed in the 1950s and 60s would be a mistake.
A key point to understand about nuclear war is that, if it happens, the reason for it will be stupid.
Nuclear weapons are meant to be used. Their intended use is not as explosives, though. As Ellsberg points out:
"[…] they have been used in the precise way that a gun is used when you point it at someone's head in a direct confrontation, whether or not the trigger is pulled. For a certain type of gun owner, getting their way in such situations without having to pull the trigger is the best use of the gun. It is why they have it, why they keep it loaded and ready to hand."
The world has fallen into a tragedy-of-the-commons -type situation. The commons, in this case, is the absence of nuclear weapons. Such a world is ideal, but the equilibrium is unstable: the first country to get them can threaten others, and so over time things degenerate until most (big) countries develop them. The commons has become exhausted, no nuclear power is better off relative to the others, and they are all paying the cost: upkeep of weapons, delivery systems, and infrastructure, as well as a small but ever-present risk of accidental mass murder.
(This is a simplification, of course. Nuclear weapons allow some countries to better their position relative even to other nuclear powers; for example, both Pakistan and India have nukes, but Pakistan comes off better in the deal since its weapons help offset its disadvantages in population, resources, and territory (as does the asymmetry of their nuclear policies - India has adopted a no-first-use policy, but Pakistan refuses to).)
No sane person starts a nuclear war. If a nuclear weapon detonates, it has failed its purpose. The real risk both during and after the Cold War is that of accidental nuclear war – technical glitches, inadvertent escalation, Kennedy's "sons-of-bitches who don't get the word".
It is possible to imagine a world where the delicate balance of nuclear deterrents can be maintained with the millimetre precision required to ensure that the expected value of harm remains low. In this world, nuclear weapons may even be a net positive, paying back the costs of their upkeep and probability of accident by reducing the likelihood of non-nuclear conflict.
Is this our world?
If all curtains of secrecy were stripped from US nuclear planning, would we see a rational government carefully shouldering its Atlas-like burdens? What guarantee is there that China and Russia, both of which either already have or are soon likely to have dictators for life, will give appropriate weight to impartial concern for human welfare in their nuclear strategies? Didn't Narendra Modi order air strikes on another nuclear power to increase his reelection odds just last year?
Building institutions that carry out complex tasks reliably is a very difficult problem.
Consider some of the greatest institutions humanity has come up with. Democracy promises that if you let people vote for their leaders, there's some chance your country won't slide into authoritarianism or dysfunction. Free markets boil down to the realisation that you can get away with making surprisingly few decisions about the economy. Scientific publishing allows for the mound of human knowledge to continuously expand, except occasionally there's a replication crisis and the floor falls in for half a field.
Such institutions are among the greatest achievements of human organisation and intelligence. Yet I still wouldn't bet my life on a breakthrough study replicating, the stock market updating on a building but predictable global pandemic in its early stages, or a European democracy never sliding into dictatorship. Ask me to bet tens of millions of lives on US, Russian, Chinese, French, British, Pakistani, Indian, and Israeli secret military institutions all working reliably over a time horizon of decades, and I start to wonder when the first ship leaves for Mars.
I am not generally fond of arguments about human hubris (too often they boil down to vague complaints that using our ingenuity to improve life would somehow be bad). This time, however, there is truth to them. For the governments of the United States and Russia to believe that they can wield a thousand-weapon arsenal responsibly is pretence. Our current institution-building abilities are not up to the task. (We don't yet know whether we can even build institutions that guarantee human flourishing in the long run, but unlike the nuclear problem, this problem we have no choice but to attempt.)
What are the most effective things we can do to lower the expected harm of nuclear war – that is, reduce both its probability and the damage it would cause if it happened?
Ellsberg rightly recommends downsizing the US and Russian arsenals (together over 90% of the world total) as a first step, since this would reduce any risk of a catastrophic nuclear winter. For example, the US could start by unilaterally getting rid of its land-based missiles, which would reduce the time pressures on making a launch decision (land-based missiles will likely be the first targets of any attack and hence will be lost unless launched soon after a warning), and deprive Russian missiles of their first targets, making it more justifiable for Russia to cut back on its own arsenal.
Another step is for countries to take weapons off hair-trigger launch alert. Constantly being two mistakes and ten minutes away from nuclear launch is not sustainable in the long run. Deterrence could be maintained through a focus on hardier nuclear forces like submarines, and less reliance on sitting ducks like land-based missile silos.
To make both of these steps more likely, diplomatic efforts into nuclear arms control treaties should be increased. This has not been happening. The US suspended the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 due to perceived Russian violations and because it didn't cover China. The remaining major US-Russia treaty, New START (STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty), will likely expire in February 2021 unless Trump reverses course and negotiations happen very quickly. Treaties for old weapons aren't enough, either; new technologies, like hypersonic gliders that can keep lower than ballistic missiles and perform evasive manoeuvres, might destabilise nuclear deterrence.
In the long run, the aim should be to either abolish weaponised nukes entirely, or, failing that, at least reach a state where only a few accountable states wield small numbers of weapons. Biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction have been reined in by treaties and mostly abolished. Nuclear weapons should be next.
Surviving by design
During the Cold War, it was easy to construct a compelling narrative around nuclear war: the climactic showdown between the forces of capitalism and communism and between democracy and totalitarianism, to be waged for infinite stakes with the ultimate fruits of modern science. With the end of the Cold War, the narrative was lost. Nuclear war was still possible – the only time a "nuclear briefcase" was ever activated was in 1995 – but it was largely relegated to the realm of technical glitches and accidents; not things that make for a good story.
As Ellsberg points out, the biggest nuclear threat never was, and still isn't, an intentional conflict (or rogue states or terrorists). It is the potential for failure in the institutions, people, and machines that control the biggest nuclear arsenals.
If nuclear war starts, it won't be grave geopolitical considerations that trigger it. It will be a country dropping a nuclear weapon on itself, someone accidentally inserting a nuclear war training tape into an operational computer, radar equipment getting confused by the moon, or Russian bureaucracy being Russian bureaucracy. (Each of these happened; see links.)
Stories are nice. It's tempting to demand a certain narrative coherence from the world; to think that sufficiently bad things, for sufficiently dumb reasons, aren't allowed to happen.
But we do not live in the world of narrative coherence. We live in the world where civilisation is indefinitely on hold because of bat soup in China. The greatest risks we face aren't wrapped up in compelling narratives, and they do not come from commensurate causes.
In particular, it is important to be aware that there are no safeguards. A world without us may seem pointless, but the laws of physics will bring it about given the right chain of cause and effect. If we want protection against catastrophe, we must build it ourselves.
We did not survive the Cold War by design. We survived it by accident: because none of the close calls quite managed to escalate to full-blown war, and because of heroes like Vasili Arkhipov and Stanislav Petrov who decided not to press the button.
We should survive the 21st century by design, not accident. This is not a given; with ever greater technology comes an ever greater number of efficient ways to kill a lot of people.
Making nuclear war less likely and less disastrous is an important part of achieving this. It is not the the only part, nor necessarily the most urgent, but I will say this: if civilisation has to be severely damaged by some apocalyptic scenario, we might as well make sure that it's something fancy and trendy like unfriendly AI, not something straight from a 1960s comedy film.
Labels: book reviews, civilisation, history, technology
Marko Nenonen 23 April 2020 at 22:40
All this makes me think that the Covid-19 pandemia is just a minor incident... Yet possibly we could still learn something and strengthen the principles of the civic society, i.e. the design of surviving.
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Prior to the ICPD+5 review of the Programme of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in 1994. The Inquiry focused on the operational dimensions of population and reproductive health programmes and aimed to assess what progress countries had made since the ICPD and what obstacles they are facing. One hundred and fourteen responses were received from developing countries and those with economies in transition, and 18 developed countries reported their experiences.


Fake News … ALL NEWS is fake news.
IF one learns anything from the Marvelous Work and a Wonder® it is that "facts," "history," "testimony," "opinions," cannot be trusted to be Real Truth.
EVERYTHING that you have learned since you were a little child should be, MUST be questioned.
"Chemical attacks, said to be conducted by the Bashar al-Assad regime against rebel forces since 2012, have elicited the most widely broadcast footage of the war.
"However, the legitimacy of footage procured, the motives of specific sources, news outlets and individuals, and the validity – and at times lack thereof – of the evidence put forward have all created an information war, with players battling to make sense of the 'facts' at hand.
'We should be skeptical of everything coming out of Syria, because, at the end of the day, there's not people on the ground to actually know what's happening,' says journalist and co-presenter of podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, Rania Khalek.