text:
Participatory Biology
Director, Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, UC Santa Cruz
Ryan Bethencourt
Program Director and Venture Partner, Indie.Bio
David Kirkpatrick
Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Techonomy
Just as the Internet leveled the playing field for entrepreneurship, politics, and social engagement, recent advances are leveling it for biological progress. Processing power, the cloud, and Internet connectivity open doors for inquisitive individuals and nascent biotech startups. How are ordinary people involving themselves in biology, and what will be their impact? In this video, David Kirkpatrick moderates a discussion with Eri Gentry of BioCurious and the Institute for the Future, Ryan Bethencourt of Berkeley BioLabs and the XPRIZE Foundation, and David Haussler of UC Santa Cruz and HHMI.
Kirkpatrick: So, you know, democratization came up last time, and I don't know, maybe you guys have a different point of view on that word, but let me just quickly introduce our really interesting panel on Participatory Biology, which is also known as bio-hacking, or can be viewed in a lot of different ways—and we'll try to do a few different ways in this session. Starting here, Eri Gentry, who is a very experienced Techonomist—we've had her in our programs before—who is the Technology Horizons Research Manager at The Institute for the Future, but also a key founder of BioCurious, prior to going to Institute for the Future. And I'm going to ask her how she got to that, because she's not a trained scientist, but she's really a leading bio-hacker, and somebody who has helped create a lot of that opportunity. Next, Ryan Bethencourt, who is the CEO of Berkeley BioLabs, which is a bio-hacking space and also incubator, who himself is a longtime entrepreneur in biotech. He's also just been named the Senior Director for Prize Development in Biotech—
Bethencourt: XPRIZE.
Kirkpatrick: XPRIZE, yes. So he's now going to be overseeing a new set of prizes that the XPRIZE is going to give in biotech, which just happened, right?
Bethencourt: Yes, like two days ago.
Kirkpatrick: Two days ago. So that's a very cool news item for Ryan. And finally, David Haussler, another really well known scientist at the UC Santa Cruz and the director of the Center for Bio-Molecular Science and Engineering there—who is a trained computer scientist, who has spent his career mostly in biology, applying the tools of IT and analytics and data to biology, which is very much, as I was happy that Drew Endy referred to, something that is motivating us to do this event, to try to bring these worlds more into contact. And he sort of emblemizes exactly why we think we're here, in part, so thank you for emblemizing that, David. He also works with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
I guess maybe I would start with you, Ryan, to talk, ask you this question. Is democratization a word that you would use freely about what's happening in bio research and development?
Bethencourt: Yes, so I talked to Craig Venter a little bit, about the word democratization, bio-hackers. He's not a huge fan of bio-hackers, but he likes the shift from viewing biotech and biotechnology shifting away from just medicine to include everything. So I would say democratization is a word I've used before, but I would say it's more an expansive view of biotech, the fact that it can be everything. And I loved Drew Endy's talk earlier, where he brought that up. So I think that's what we're looking at. So, with Berkeley BioLabs, that was really our vision. We founded it to really take on the fact that we're trying to accelerate everything in biotech, and so everything can be really diverse, and often consumer-facing.
Kirkpatrick: So you take it as a given that by bringing more people into the process, who are sort of nontraditional actors, so to speak, we will discover more and discover it faster?
Bethencourt: Most definitely.
Kirkpatrick: Has that been demonstrated yet, or is that an article of faith?
Bethencourt: Yes. So, we had a hack night. We hacked a genome, Carsonella ruddii, it's a symbiotic bacteria, and we had programmers, we had novices, we had some film people, we had wet lab biologists. They all got together, we had about 20 people in the lab, and we spent two days hacking the genome, figuring out where all the parts were. We found that there were some missing tRNA, we found some really interesting processes, and so we started this whole process of looking into it.
We've also seen—so, one of the other groups that I've been involved in, which is Counter Culture Labs—I'm still a board member there. It's really focused on citizen science. So Counter Culture Labs takes in people from every possible trade or area of interest in bio, so total novices to experienced people, too.
Kirkpatrick: Okay, now I want to go to David first, and then I want to ask Eri to talk to us about how she got to where she is, because it's an interesting story and I think it's indicative of what's happening sort of in society around biology. But, you represent, David, something slightly different than sort of these bio-hacking wet labs with all this equipment. I mean, you're really about access to data as a driving force in biological progress, right? So just let me start by asking you, again, is it an article of faith that that's going to make a difference, or is it already proven that that's making a difference?
Haussler: Well, yes, I do feel a little more establishment in this crowd, but—
Kirkpatrick: But you're not dressed accordingly, thankfully.
Haussler: Yes, I think it's a proven fact that when you open up the information that we are gathering now, in the scale of petabytes, about the molecular nature of ourselves, that everything moves faster. So it's all about opening up the data. If you want to use the word democratization, fine. I might use "liberation," but that's what it is. The data that pertains to ourselves and to the problems that we're attacking in society, in particular our human health, are often locked up, and I'm especially sensitive to the human health data. These data that are now going to be collected in enormous quantities, due to the advent of genome sequencing and other ways to quantify ourselves now, from continuously running devices, will be inaccessible to the world if we follow the current medical establishment methodology, where everything is siloed into separate medical institutes and not really shared. The thing is you cannot learn anything about yourself if you only have information about yourself. It's all about comparison to the rest of the world, and if we block that, we lose an enormous opportunity.
Kirkpatrick: And so your work is kind of all about access, right?
Haussler: Yes.
Kirkpatrick: You're kind of an activist for access.
Haussler: That's right.
Kirkpatrick: And we talked on the phone about some of the ways—could you just go through the different kinds of access that you're working toward? Because there are several different types.
Haussler: We posted the first working draft of the human genome on the Internet, on July 7, 2000. That was the first step. It was humanity's first look at its basic genetic blueprint, and that was a—
Kirkpatrick: You were one of the leaders of the team that did that?
Haussler: Yes. It was our team at Santa Cruz. And that was in contrast to having paid subscription access or highly controlled access. So at that point, we had the whole world looking at one reference genome, one typical genome. If you fast-forward, the next phase was trying to learn a lot about personal genomes. And one of the things that's really driving personal genomes is cancer research. And I loved Andrew's presentation earlier on—one of the quotes that he gave that I'll repeat is, "No two cancers are the same." That's absolutely true, at the genetic level. But there are patterns, and we only will see those patterns when we can actually see millions of cancer genomes at the DNA level. If you just see a few, you can't find the pattern for the background or the noise. You can't separate signal from noise. In order to do this, we have created, for the National Cancer Institute, the largest database of genomes that are widely available for scientific research, from all of the major projects of the National Cancer Institute. It's 1.5 petabytes of data, and we now actually distribute to the research community more data every month than the entire National Center for Biotechnology Information combined, at this point. And that's one of the ways in which we try to enable the community to think together, think collectively about these things. The last thing we've done is start the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, GA4GH—you can Google it—seven colleagues and I have started a new international organization to try to break down the barriers, both legal, cultural, procedural, historical, and otherwise—
Kirkpatrick: That's a lot of "als."
Haussler: Yes. Old, old crap that keeps people from wanting to share data. And that organization is going to set standards, applications, programming interfaces, that will allow us to share data on a massive scale, and set the tone for a world in which you have a routine economy of information about DNA and other measured health-related quantities, that's well established to the point where you can build a new business on it. Right now, we're kind of like, if you try to get in this area right now, you're a little bit hampered by the fact that—and it's almost like trying to get an Internet company going before the Internet was really fully established. Once that platform that we all agree on, in terms of global standards for exchange and representation of this information, is hardened, then we have enormous economic opportunities from the private sector.
Kirkpatrick: Wow. Well, that's really good stuff. So Eri, tell us a little bit about BioCurious, and how you got there, and then I'd also like you to talk a little bit about the work you're doing at The Institute for the Future, because there's some interesting uptake on your bio work that seems to be happening among the companies you work with, that are clients of that group. So what led you to become a bio-hacker?
Gentry: Okay. So, it starts with the childlike curiosity that many of us have, and I try to reference that as often as possible, because it puts people in a different mindspace, when they look to the corner and start thinking about when they were a kid and everything was novel, and everything was something that you could understand, before they differentiated into their lives. So that was a curiosity that I had, participating in science competitions, Science Olympiad, which is an awesome service for kids, by the way. And then I got to college, where the reality of being an economist, which I ended up being, literally, or being a biologist was a decision that I had to make that would forever change my life, apparently. And that's when I decided, as a naturally shy person, to take the more social route, because I realized how important that was for life and for business, and to put myself on the pathway to science—ah, Freudian slip—toward finance, which I ended up pursuing after college, and as I was offered basically a raise and a better position within my company—and I was an asset manager at the time—I thought, I was so bored and I'd stopped learning, and I wasn't really doing what I loved. And kids today have the luxury of feeling that, and then doing something about it, which might show you that my parents still have no idea what I'm doing, or why I'm not thinking purely about a job and making money.
So I looked back to where I spent all my free time, and in college I spent a lot of sleepless nights working on papers, but also researching my dad's condition, which for most of my life was a present factor. He was in a lot of pain, didn't know what was going on, had gone through lots of surgeries and many doctors, and still was just left with complaints and not much help. So when I was around a junior in college, he got a fatal diagnosis, but for me that seemed like bunk, because basically the diagnosis didn't seem like the symptoms that he had expressed throughout my lifetime. So I started doing digging, and the best way that I could find answers was to self-filter through thousands of posts that people would share about their health condition, what they were doing to make things better, whether it was supplements, doctor treatments, using heat, cold, yoga, everything, I read through. And it's a mess out there, but that was the best wisdom I could find, and through all of that data, you eventually find some people who have sometimes used 23andme, and done some crowdsourced research of their own to find out, hey, we all have common symptoms, and it happens that we share this genetic defect.
Kirkpatrick: Like a cruder form of what David was talking about, systematizing—at scale—
Gentry: A cruder form, it's a very community-driven thing, and people are highly motivated to participate in their own healthcare, and when it comes down to medicine, it means in discovery. So there's clearly a separation between how we define scientific discovery today and what people are doing off on their own, that most people, most corporations, researchers aren't paying attention to. But for me, that was a sea change, and I started respecting the wisdom of the crowd or those individual researchers, as they were in my mind, and wanted to follow suit.
Kirkpatrick: Because you ended up figuring out that your father had something other than how he'd been diagnosed, right?
Gentry: Right, so he was diagnosed with emphysema, which is a fatal condition, and it didn't match up. So I finally found out he had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome—or I suspected it, and so it was later confirmed—which is an anomaly in connective tissue. So quite different, but the doctor really didn't know the difference, and it takes a genetic test to figure it out, or the other way of figuring it out is literally to do—have them bend over, or check out their spine when they bend over for scoliosis or for anomalies, pull up their skin and look at stretchiness, you can just talk them through their own health history. And if you know what to look for—and that's what I had basically trained myself to do—then you have some indication of what might be the underlying disorder, which can be fact-checked and hopefully improved later through genetic analysis.
Kirkpatrick: So fast-forward to BioCurious now.
Gentry: Right. So, fast-forwarding, that original example of wisdom in the crowd and redefining expert, to me—me not having any scientific experience, except what I was compelled to do in my free time—I wanted to learn more, and couldn't find any way to even get an education in science without going back and getting a PhD, which I didn't want to do. I don't like school. I didn't have the time—I respect it, I should say. There had to be a better way. So it took me several years to find some people who would let me volunteer at their little research camp, and that's where I met the people who were a world apart from any financiers I met. Totally genuine about wanting to save people's lives, working on diseases of aging, at the SENS Foundation, and I met friends there that I wanted to model myself after. Not knowing enough, I volunteered for whatever I could, including helping them find lab space, equipment. We actually visited Ryan's space in LA once, and he had a locker full of equipment, and there were all these resources that were just going unused, yet if you're a scientist in an academic lab, you know that things cost crazy amounts of money because they're in your budget, so it helps to have expensive equipment that you can budget in, so that you can continue to have that big budget next year. And I'll mention Tito Jankowski, right there, also a cofounder of BioCurious, in terms of open source data, because when we're talking about patents, patents don't allow you, if you're a hacker, to go and take that design and then find a much better and cheaper way to do it. Yet when PCR—Polymerase Chain Reaction, kind of a DNA copier—came out of patent, he and Josh Perfetto decided to make an open source version of it, and rather than that $10,000 machine, they were able to offer it for $599.
And that's the kind of thing that can happen when designs are made available, and there's not someone telling you, "Hey, don't touch that." But it opens up the doors for people to participate in this domain, to have fun, to just learn, and that doesn't mean a lot to some people, but there's always going to be that one who takes it a step further. So finding people like Tito, and realizing that there were all these tools, and when the alternative was that you could spend $1,000–$6,000 per month just to rent lab space in the Bay Area—which is totally out of range for someone who is just curious, hence the name, or even who is an entrepreneur who is so early stage they don't have funding yet—those people are going to be out of the game. So—
Kirkpatrick: So you started with some meet-ups, with the lab you already had, and pretty soon it led to BioCurious?
Gentry: Yes, when you don't have money, you just get people together. So out of our garage lab in Mountain View—by that time, we had started a nonprofit cancer research company, long story behind that—but people wanted to volunteer, and they wanted to come and they wanted to learn, and that's when you start asking, why aren't there ways for people who are so passionate and so clearly brilliant to actually get in on the game? Because we need change, we need cures. And so, we thought, we have to do something about it. There were six of us who banded together and raised money on Kickstarter, as the second science project on there, when they were in beta. $35,000—that's what we thought we needed to start a lab, and now, four years later, I realize it's kind of silly and naïve, you need much more than that. But we did it anyway, and we still have the lab in Sunnyvale, which allows anyone with any background, just like Counter Culture Labs, to join at $100 a month. That's a tenfold reduction in price from the standard around the Bay Area. And what happens there is people get together. And speaking of the language that Drew mentioned, when you have an artist and a musician, an economist, a game developer, and a scientist—okay, so a biologist and a physicist—coming together, and they're trying to talk about hacking a bioprinter, something which Patrik D'haeseleer, right here, has done, you don't get anywhere by using biological or physics terms. You have to speak like the common man—person—and when you can do that, you can gather wisdom from the crowd, and that's the kind of thing that happens at BioCurious, which is hugely encouraging. And that's where things are happening that haven't been done yet, like the bioprinter that you can find on Instructables, that's won a number of awards. I think Antony is here who, with a member of BioCurious, started Glowing Plant, which ended up raising half a million dollars on Kickstarter. It's changing the name of the game, in terms of participation and education. Genspace and BioCurious were named a Top 4 company by Fast Company, for education, and it's—
Kirkpatrick: We're going to hear about Genspace a little later, yes.
Gentry: Yes, exactly. And you'll see, actually, it's a tight-knit community that crosses over into tech as much as it does biology.
Kirkpatrick: And Ryan, you're part of that community.
Bethencourt: I am.
Kirkpatrick: And BioCurious was a real groundbreaking kind of experiment that became something really foundational. Now, you are kind of taking something on top of that model and making it into a little more of a for-profit accelerator. Talk about that, and talk about the kind of things you think are going to be possible there. Mention also that Algas thing.
Bethencourt: Yes, oh yes. So I would describe myself for a long time as a frustrated entrepreneur. I followed the classical scientific pathway, I did my first degree in molecular genetics, did a Master's at Cambridge—it was a fusion between the MBA and the biotech course—and then I went off and I did a Ph.D. I dropped out. Stem cell research. And I wanted to see progress faster in biotech. I didn't see it. At the time, I actually met Aubrey de Grey, so our stories kind of link in—
Kirkpatrick: That must have been a trip.
Bethencourt: Yes, yes. Aubrey at the time was still in the Cambridge lab that he worked in, so I went over to him, and I talked to him about life extension. We connected. He moved out here, to Silicon Valley. Peter Thiel obviously helped him to establish his foundation, and at the same time something was happening on the bio-hacker front. So there was a little house in Silicon Valley where there was a little lab, and some of the people from SENS that had just left SENS had decided they wanted to do science in their garage, and that's eventually what led to BioCurious. And at first it was Livly, then BioCurious—it was an interesting evolution. But I still didn't see—I had a corporate background, I had done a lot of corporate transactional deals with big pharma, Pfizer, Amgen, Genentech, helped them develop drugs. Still too slow. Went off, helped build a couple of biotech companies. I raised the first seed round for two biotech companies, and then realized I still wasn't seeing what I wanted to see in DIY-bio. It led to the creation of Counter Culture Labs with several other people—Patrik and some of the others from BioCurious, which was a much broader citizen science coalition. And I still saw some of the accelerators and the accelerator models, and I was like, is it too early yet to do this in biotech? And I had been talking a lot with Antony from Glowing Plant, he convinced me that consumer biotech is a thing, and it's going to be a growing thing, and I kept looking at it from a business perspective, from a science perspective, felt the timing was right—
Kirkpatrick: Consumer biotech, meaning the consumer is making biotech products, or…?
Bethencourt: Products for consumers that are in biotech—
Kirkpatrick: For consumers that biotech labs can develop?
Bethencourt: Yes, yes. So if you look at—so, recently I gave a talk over at Innovation Endeavors, that's Eric Schmidt's venture fund, which talked about the rainbows of biotech, right? So, when you look at biotech, there's medical technology, which we're really familiar with, but then there's all of these other applications of biotech. So there's a company called Novozyme. Novozyme makes a little over $1 billion in revenue off of engineered enzymes. So, enzymes that clean our clothing, that help us brush our teeth—we don't have algal blooms because we no longer have sulfur in a lot of our detergents. These are big markets already in their own right, we just haven't—actually, as Drew was saying earlier—the economic potential of biotech, from a consumer perspective, is huge. Energy, food, materials, medicine, and then other novel applications as services, as well. So that's what we're developing in labs. So kind of to link that in—
Kirkpatrick: Yes, and quickly get to Algas, and I want to get back to David to talk about some of the parallel issues in IT.
Bethencourt: Yes, so the Algas was one of our little start-ups. So, we opened four or five months ago. Our idea is, one scientist, one idea. We help them piece together the commercial end and the scientific end. Myself and some of my co-founders raised a small seed round from a couple of tech investors, and one from an early Apple employee. Our aim is to accelerate these companies. We have five in. Within the next two months, we'll have a total of eight. One of them is Algas Biotech, which is the first one to get any major publicity, it got into TechCrunch. And it is an algae bio-battery, which, if it works as we hope it to work, could change the way the battery industry works. So taking out lithium and using biological components instead.
Kirkpatrick: Yes, that's a nice example of where this goes in unexpected directions.
Bethencourt: Very, yes.
Kirkpatrick: So David, one of the things I'm curious to hear your opinion about, given that you teach and you've been an activist, and you're talking to people globally about these coalitions to open up some of the data—how much do you see the kind of enthusiasm and willingness to put your shoulder to the wheel that these young people are demonstrating as indicative of a movement that's happening? Do you see that among your students, and what does it lead you to be confident is going to be possible, once this openness that you're advocating for starts to happen?
Haussler: I see this definitely as a movement, and it is to a certain extent generational. I think this generation coming up, completely intertwined with the Internet, won't put up with the old-style medicine. The whole medical establishment has not quite come around to the Internet, and that is unconscionable in many ways. There is an increasing demand to do it yourself, find your own information—that was a very inspiring story about how you just dug in and found that—but the Internet can make that so much easier, if we all organize together with the data, at this point. What we have to do is make sure that all of the information that you need is actually available, and that you can add your own information from your own quantified self to that large pool of information, and interact with it. Ted Goldstein here is in the first row. He's a former Apple VP, and he's building on this cancer project that I talked about earlier, creating a platform called MedBook which will allow social network-type interactions between physicians, patients, people who are just interested in their health, and this vast reservoir of information that we will demand, jointly, that we will liberate, essentially.
Kirkpatrick: And another key piece of what you really believe is necessary is that we all as individuals really have control of our genetic data, wherever it's stored, which is not basically the case now either.
Haussler: Absolutely. No. Another thing we discussed at the Global Alliance meeting in London a month ago was the fact that women who are interested in or directly affected by their BRCA1/2 status—this is a gene, those of you who are not familiar with it, that makes you susceptible to breast cancer—want to know how they compare to all of the other women, and yet that data was locked up, as Drew said, in a single company. And now that the Supreme Court decision is down and we have this new feeling of "free the data," we are all excited about these data being available, and Global Alliance wants to help foster a massive global data-sharing on that scale.
We also have a project called Beacon, where you can ask about specific genetic variants that occur in databases around the world, and as I said, we have our new API that will work. These things build on the methodologies that we created when we first did the human genome. The first thing we did was the genome browser, and that allowed you to look at that one representative genome and all of the biological information that's known about the different genes in it, and they were keyed to the locations within that one reference genome. Now we have massive amounts of personal genomes, and we can extend that vision beyond that. So things like Browser in a Box was just announced just a few weeks ago. I don't know if you use the Browser—we have a million hits a day now. We're by far the most-used reference for the human genome. And you can take that whole capability now and have it on your laptop, with Browser in a Box. And you can do that, where you may have information that you don't want to share with the rest of the world in an unrestricted way. Maybe you're not part of George Church's Personal Genome Project, where you're literally going to post every DNA base in your genome on the Internet for everybody to see. If you're not willing to do that, you still want to analyze your genome in the context of thousands of other genomes, you can do that with Browser in a Box. You upload all of your information, and then you can compare it. You can click—anytime that anybody has published a paper with anything on a DNA sequence or a protein sequence or a disease name, it's all keyed into that. It's like Google Maps, very fast, for disease exploration.
Kirkpatrick: Well, it's a little bit like what 23andMe was making possible, but a little bit more under the control of the individual is, I think, the vision, right? With an open source overlay.
Haussler: Absolutely. And what's exciting about the new era is that 23andMe was based on microarrays, which access about a hundredth of a percent of the genome, and we're talking about the whole thing, you know, 3 billion bases.
Kirkpatrick: I want to hear from the audience, so let's get the lights up, but I just quickly want to ask you, David, how much is government an ally and how much is it an impediment to what you're trying to do?
Haussler: If you presume that government is going to do this for you, than it's an impediment. There's no question about it, because—
Kirkpatrick: So they're not standing in the way, however?
Haussler: The current administration has been cheering us on. At this point, they are very much in favor of the Global Alliance. I talk to government officials when I'm in Washington, which is far more than I would like to be, and they say, "Go for it. You can do what we can't do." Besides, it's a global organization. You can't have the U.S. Government declaring how everybody in the world should share their genomic data. Who would take that seriously? We've got to do a non-governmental play—
Kirkpatrick: People in Washington, perhaps? But, no. But that's great, that's good. Over here.
Una Ryan: I'm Una Ryan from the Bay Area BioEconomy Initiative, and I've agreed with almost everything I've heard so far in the meeting, but I still think we're worrying about the beginning of the story, the genomics, the molecules, the manufacturing, the sort of varisized problem. The elephant in the room that costs all that money and takes all that time in developing therapies are the clinical trials and the regulatory process. So, following your question about the role of government, I want you to tell us how all our new technologies are going to help that, or what you would substitute for safety and quality in whatever is manufactured in a distributed way? I mean, I can make a really bad cup of tea with my teabag, you know, so I just want to know how you would envisage that happening, the quality.
Bethencourt: I mean, I've been involved heavily in clinical development, so from first IND submission, all the way through to phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, and approval, post-approval work. The FDA is slowly responding, with the breakthrough status indication, that's kind of a response from the FDA, but there are also other people willing to do things that are outside the FDA's purview. There's grinders—so this is something very new—who are willing to hack their own bodies. And there are maybe a couple hundred grinders, so far, but they'll do extreme things to their body that are not approved. So either the regulation has to catch up, or people are going to start taking the tools of biology and doing their own thing.
Kirkpatrick: Well, another thing, one of the implications of Andrew's argument in his first opening talk is that the FDA's rules make no sense at all if you're developing drugs for individuals, because you can't do the kind of testing that we've talked about in the past. So something has to completely give if we're going to move into that kind of a universe. It's sort of a way of trumping—in addition to its other virtues—the regulatory backlog and this incredible problem we've had with the time it takes.
Okay, we've got one or two more, quickly.
Arif Shaikh: Hello, my name is Ari—
Gentry: Can I interrupt? Yes, to Una's point, and also to everything that we're talking about, getting more people involved and I think more people caring, by using the right type of language to make information actually understandable is hugely important. What's going on with the quantified self and the distribution of data or devices that capture real biometric data that theoretically could be used in a clinical trial, if those data were acceptable by the FDA. And as a former employee of a medical device–maker, you really don't want to go down the FDA route if you don't have to. But if people have their data, if they have access to their own genetic data, nothing stops them from comparing theirs to the reference genome if it's available, and if you get data analysts in there with some training, that you can get, say, at a community biolab, then I think it's possible to get those same learnings which maybe don't have the same merit as clinical trial.
Haussler: It's a tough question. There's no way we're going to speed up the development of small molecules in the current way that the pharmaceutical industry does to attack personalized medicine. My personal feeling is that our best bet is we will learn more about the immune system and how to tweak it, and I won't go into details, because I see we're running out of time, but there are different technologies—I wouldn't, like Andrew would actually design a virus to do this, but I would tweak the immune system—and I think we're going to get into a case where instead of these slow clinical trials, we'll have a massive network of information that's constantly being shared on a real-time basis, and we're in this constant learning loop from this huge amount of information. And that is like one massive clinical trial on the Internet, where all the information is as open as possible, and the new technologies are coming up that aren't the traditional, "let's design a small molecule that can be put in a pill"–type therapies—
Kirkpatrick: Another way that just renders the current system essentially irrelevant, in effect?
Haussler: Yes. It will force it to change. I wouldn't say render it irrelevant, but will force it to change.
Kirkpatrick: Okay, now somebody back there had a question. I want to let them ask it, or comment, and then we've got to really wrap.
Shaikh: All right, my name is Arif Shaikh [PH— 0:36:30.1]. I'm a cell biologist. I basically started working with endothelial cells and then I later went on to do some project with the HEK 293 cell line, doing some oncological research, and I actively participate in BioCurious lab as a volunteer. I don't have my own projects, I don't want to join on a membership basis, but I come in on a communal, volunteer basis. But the question I have, is there going to be any wet lab assignment? Because my expertise is directly wet lab and working with the cell culture and such, these type of projects.
Gentry: Hey. I saw a number of BioCurious people. It's great to have you all here. We have our middle-schooler who comes to almost every single class we have.
Kirkpatrick: You're in middle school? That's great.
Gentry: And his dad, who says, "I'm just his dad," which is awesome. To speak to the wet lab work, I think it's a necessity, and it's that part of biology and life sciences that separates us from the digital world. It's not just an online kind of problem, although there is so much to be explored there. And we currently don't have coordinated resources. I think we need to go back to—again, we keep referencing Drew, but there are problems with lack of standards in safety, with data from a community lab being shared with a large company, with a pharma, included in a clinical trial. These are the sorts of standards that BioCurious, for example, doesn't have the capacity to solve yet. But we do get so many requests, and, "Hey do you have a scientist who could do this lab work for me?" And there are people who would rather be thinking about the problems and outsource the work. And I think it's a place that we need to go. Maybe we can have that discussion here.
Kirkpatrick: Well, great. We have to wrap because we've got a lot of other great stuff coming, but thank you to all three of you. It was a great conversation.
Bio + Life Sciences David Haussler David Kirkpatrick Eri Gentry Techonomy Bio 2014
Just as the Internet leveled the playing field for entrepreneurship, politics, and social engagement, recent advances are leveling it for biological progress. Processing power, the cloud, and Internet connectivity open doors for inquisitive individuals and...
Fossils Should Pay Trillions to Store Carbon through 2050, Ex-Industry Execs Say
By Mitchell Beer
Corporate Values Take Center Stage at Davos 2023


text:
Captain Mateen Ahmed Ansari GC (15 December 1916 – 29 October 1943) of the 5th Battalion, 7th Rajput Regiment, in the Indian Army during World War II, and member of the British Army Aid Group.
 He was awarded the George Cross posthumously. The decoration, the highest British (and Commonwealth) award for bravery out of combat, was announced in a supplement to the London Gazette of 16 April 1946 as being awarded for the 'most conspicuous gallantry.'

He was taken prisoner when Japan occupied Hong Kong in December 1941 after the Battle of Hong Kong. After the Japanese discovered that he was related to the ruler of one of the Princely States they demanded that he renounce his allegiance to the British and foment discontent in the ranks of Indian prisoners in the prison camps.  He refused and was thrown into the notorious Stanley Jail in May 1942 where he was starved and brutalised. And also held in Ma Tau Chung Camp, where he expended efforts to counter Japanese recruiting work for the collaborationist Indian National Army. When he remained firm in his allegiance to the British on his return to the prison camps he was again incarcerated in Stanley Jail where he was starved and tortured for five months. He was then returned to the original camp, where he continued in his allegiance to the British, and even helped to organise escape attempts by other prisoners.  He was sentenced to death, with over thirty other British, Chinese and Indian prisoners and beheaded on 29 October 1943.  He is buried in Stanley Military Cemetery in Hong Kong.

See also
List of George Cross recipients

References

External links
CWGC: Mateen Ansari

British Indian Army officers
Indian recipients of the George Cross
Executed Indian people
World War II prisoners of war held by Japan
1916 births
1943 deaths
Indian prisoners of war
Indian people executed abroad
20th-century executions by Japan
People executed by Japan by decapitation
Indian Army personnel killed in World War II
Indian torture victims
Burials at Stanley Military Cemetery
Military personnel of British India

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Got a leaky toilet? Need to replace your flooring? Put the wrench and hammer down. Don't touch a thing; walk right out of that home improvement big box store and go directly to the polls.
If Amendment 34 passes on Nov. 2, those simple home improvements could cost you a lot more than retail.
Amendment 34, otherwise known as the construction liability amendment, would allow property owners to sue anyone even remotely involved in a construction-defect case for unlimited damages up to six years after the initial date of construction. It also would repeal current laws and limit future laws from setting limits on damages. Current law promotes resolution over litigation and limits lawsuit collections to real and actual damages.
Proponents of Amendment 34, however, are selling this as a way to stick it to the "fat cat" developers and contractors who regularly take advantage of the little guy. And, who hasn't heard a story these days about the contractor or developer who did someone wrong?
Upon closer inspection, however, we we urge voters to chuck this one back to the litigating lawyers who created it. These attorneys created the wording for the amendment just days after the current law went into effect; then they paid a professional organization to collect signatures on the petition to get it on the ballot.
Amendment 34 tries to take advantage of voters who have no idea that protection of their rights to sue already is on the books. Last year, House Bill 1161 became law; it provides for resolution in a conflict over a construction defect. The measure requires property owners give construction professionals an opportunity to fix problems or offer financial settlement for defects before pursuing legal action. If an agreement is not reached, then the property owner could take the matter to court. Property owners could collect their legal fees, costs of moving and up to $250,000 for pain and suffering. That sounds reasonable.
But, more lawsuits under the floodgate of Amendment 34 would equate to higher homeowner insurance premiums to adequately buffer the industry from the litany of litigation that would surely follow its passage. Aren't home prices high enough?
And what about organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, which builds homes for the needy by the very hands of the people who would live there? This vital organization — and others like it — could be liable years down the road when another needy family doesn't like its construction.
Colorado residents already have adequate protection on the books; let's not create more trouble in the courts just for the sake of padding lawyers' pocketbooks.
Vote no on Amendment 34. It's built on the wrong principles.


I was looking for an example of this etude for one of my students and found something via our good friends over at Siccas Guitars! Julia Trintschuk plays Opus 6 No. 9 by Fernando Sor on a 1924 Hermann Hauser I. This is a tricky little etude with lots of left hand challenges to navigate and Julia does a fine job.


text:
Is my deposit protected?
Tenants Information & FAQs
Deposit Disputes
Raise or respond to a dispute
Guides & Forms
TDS Direct
Agents Information & FAQs
TDS Academy
Landlords Information & FAQs
Join TDS
About TDS
Contact TDS
TDS Wales | Cymru
Board and Senior Staff
First Choice TDS Offers Most Cost-efficient Service - Letting Agents Told
The Tenancy Deposit Scheme, TDS, is on a firm financial footing and will continue to offer the most cost-efficient deposit protection for agents and their landlords. This was the message brought to the ARLA Advisory Forum today.
TDS Chairman Professor Martin Partington told the representatives of the Scheme's largest group of members that he and new Chief Executive Steve Harriott aim to create a partnership with them that makes the Scheme first choice for deposit protection for professional lettings agents, their landlords and their tenants.
"To build this partnership we will remain competitive, be cost-effective and listen to the concerns of agents. To this end we will make no additional charges during the second half of this financial year for registering tenancies under the new £100,000 threshold for Assured Shorthold Tenancies in England and the Steering Group to establish a Members' User Forum will be meeting within weeks. At the first meeting, the Group will concentrate on some proposed changes to the Scheme's rules to deal with time limits for raising disputes," announced Professor Partington.
The Scheme's rules are currently being amended to take account of the new AST thresholds.
Professor Partington said that the Scheme has always prided itself on the quality of the disputes service. In addition, TDS is achieving an excellent performance in turning around adjudications quickly and producing judgements that are fair and reasonable.
"However, we shall be working with agents, landlords and tenants over the coming months to assess what both sides of the coin really think of our disputes services and we will be feeding the results of this assessment back to the members."
"This is in line with the commitment that I made on my appointment as Chairman," Professor Partington continued. "TDS will be more transparent with its members. We are committed to improving our openness and accountability to you and I hope we have already been seen to do this. We also want to hear from members on how we can improve our business and we need to get better at explaining what we are doing and why," he added.
The meeting was told that the TDS will be raising its profile through newsletters, attending conferences, member briefings and training sessions and improving the website.
Professor Partington introduced Chief Executive Steve Harriott to the meeting. Mr Harriott said, "On this, my second day at TDS, I would like to reiterate that our aim is to be the first choice for deposit protection because we offer real value for money, excellent customer services and an effective and fair adjudication service. I am looking forward to getting around and meeting agents to discuss how we can help each other to this end."
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Privacy Policy | Accessibility | Terms & Conditions | Contact Us | Complaints | Careers | Media contact
The Dispute Service Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with number 4851694.
Registered Office Address: Unit 1, The Progression Centre, 42 Mark Road, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 7DW.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Buildable lot in North Carolina. Appraised value: $16,100. Selling way below market value!
Beautiful flat building lot for sale. Electricity next to the lot. Paved road.
For GIS mapping, the NC Map number is 2786992409. There are modestly priced homes all around this fully developed subdivision known as Grace Point.
Welcome to Granite Falls in North Carolina. The community of Granite Falls is a truly special place to call home. Conveniently located between South Main Street (US 401) and Rogers Road. Being located in this peaceful Northern Wake County community allows its residents to experience all the best a small town has to offer while not having to compromise on any big city amenities. Granite Falls is divided into four distinct neighborhoods - Granite Ridge, Granite Falls, Granite Crest, and Granite Estates. These neighborhoods offer a variety of homes from townhomes to custom crafted single family homes to larger estate homes all with a wide range of options and floor plans. These homes are designed to incorporate the latest innovation and design trends such as extensive moldings and trim, cathedral and trey ceilings, 2-story foyers and other timelessly appealing custom features. Plus, homeowners in all of the Granite Falls Communities - as well as the general public - can enjoy membership to Granite Falls Swim & Athletic Club, a full-service athletic club that includes an indoor competition pool, outdoor pools with lazy river, slide, sprayground and outdoor cabana. In addition, a 30,000 square foot athletic center will include state-of-the-art equipment with cardio and aerobic classes, spinning, yoga, kids classes, and much more for the whole family to enjoy. And if that is not enough, the community is located in close proximity to Rolesville's Main Street Park which offers picnic areas, walking trails, and some of the best playground equipment for children of all ages!


Once again we demonstrate how much, er, planning we've put into this comic. Or rather, how long ago we wrote the scripts and only just got around to drawing them.
EEK: I recently found out that Spoon apparently only draws Chicken when he's on the crapper, or so he claims. An unexpected journey! Retweet and share!
Spoon: Sorry (I mean, sawry) Chicken looks so terrifying in that last panel, because I, er, ran out of time?


text:
/*jslint vars: true, plusplus: true, devel: true, nomen: false, indent: 4, forin: true, maxerr: 50, regexp: true */
/*global define, $, window, google */
(function () {

    'use strict';

    var __bind = function (fn, me) {
            return function () {
                return fn.apply(me, arguments);
            };
        },
        __hasProp = {}.hasOwnProperty,
        __extends = function (child, parent) {
            for (var key in parent) {
                if (__hasProp.call(parent, key)) {
                    child[key] = parent[key];
                }
            }
            function ctor() {
                this.constructor = child;
            }

            ctor.prototype = parent.prototype;
            child.prototype = new ctor();
            child.__super__ = parent.prototype;
            return child;
        };

    define([
        "underscore"
        //"js/libs/require-plugins/async/0.1.1/async!https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?libraries=geometry&v=3&sensor=true"
    ],
        function (_) {

            var GoogleMap = (function (_super) {
                __extends(GoogleMap, _super);

                function GoogleMap(el, options) {

                    var defaultOptions, key, val;
                    this.el = el;
                    this.options = options != null ? options : {};
                    this.addMarkerImage = __bind(this.addMarkerImage, this);
                    this.addMarker = __bind(this.addMarker, this);
                    this.panBy = __bind(this.panBy, this);
                    this.addEvent = __bind(this.addEvent, this);
                    defaultOptions = {
                        center: new google.maps.LatLng(0, 0),
                        zoom: 15,
                        mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP
                    };

                    for (key in defaultOptions) {
                        val = defaultOptions[key];
                        if (!this.options[key]) {
                            this.options[key] = val;
                        }
                    }
                    GoogleMap.__super__.constructor.call(this, this.el, this.options);
                }

                GoogleMap.prototype.addEvent = function (evt, callback) {
                    switch (evt) {
                    case "loaded":
                        return google.maps.event.addListenerOnce(this, 'tilesloaded', callback);
                    default:
                        return google.maps.event.addListener(this, evt, callback);
                    }
                };

                // Adds a marker on the map, based on the specified latitude and longitude (reverse geocoding)
                // https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/geocoding-reverse
                GoogleMap.prototype.addMarkerByCoordinates = function (options) {

                    var latLng = new google.maps.LatLng(options.coordinates.lat, options.coordinates.lng),
                        geocoder = new google.maps.Geocoder(),
                        map = this,
                        deferred = new $.Deferred();

                    geocoder.geocode({ 'latLng': latLng}, function (results, status) {

                        if (status === google.maps.GeocoderStatus.OK) {
                            map.setZoom(11);
                            map.setCenter(results[0].geometry.location);
                            var marker = new google.maps.Marker({
                                map: map,
                                position: results[0].geometry.location,
                                title: options.title
                            });

                            deferred.resolve({
                                results: results,
                                status: status,
                                marker: marker
                            });
                        } else {
                            deferred.reject({
                                status: status
                            });
                        }
                    });

                    return deferred.promise();
                };

                // Adds a marker on the map, based on the specified address (geocoding)
                // https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/geocoding-simple
                GoogleMap.prototype.addMarkerByAddress = function (options) {

                    var geocoder = new google.maps.Geocoder(),
                        map = this,
                        deferred = new $.Deferred();

                    geocoder.geocode({ 'address': options.address}, function (results, status) {

                        if (status === google.maps.GeocoderStatus.OK) {
                            map.setZoom(11);
                            map.setCenter(results[0].geometry.location);
                            var marker = new google.maps.Marker({
                                map: map,
                                position: results[0].geometry.location,
                                title: options.title
                            });

                            deferred.resolve({
                                results: results,
                                status: status,
                                marker: marker
                            });
                        } else {
                            deferred.reject({
                                status: status
                            });
                        }
                    });

                    return deferred.promise();
                };

                // Removes a marker
                GoogleMap.prototype.removeMarker = function (options) {

                    options.location.marker.setMap(null);
                };

                // Calculates the distance in Km between two markers
                GoogleMap.prototype.calculateDistance = function (p1, p2) {

                    return (google.maps.geometry.spherical.computeDistanceBetween(
                        new google.maps.LatLng(p1.lat, p1.lng),
                        new google.maps.LatLng(p2.lat, p2.lng)
                    ) / 1000).toFixed(2);
                };

                //Zoom the map so that all the markers will be visible
                GoogleMap.prototype.zoomToShow = function (options) {

                    if (options.locations) {
                        var latLngList = [],
                            bounds = new google.maps.LatLngBounds();

                        _.each(options.locations, function (location) {

                            latLngList.push(new google.maps.LatLng(
                                location.marker.position.lat(), location.marker.position.lng())
                            );
                        });

                        _.each(latLngList, function (latLng) {
                            bounds.extend(latLng);
                        });

                        this.fitBounds(bounds);
                    }
                };

                //Removes previous marker from the map if already exists
                GoogleMap.prototype.removePreviousMarker = function (options) {

                    var location,
                        i;

                    location = _.find(options.googleMapObjects, function (object) {
                        return object.locationName !== 'Current location';
                    });
                    if (location) {
                        $.globals.googleMap.removeMarker({location: location});

                        for (i = 0; i < options.googleMapObjects.length; i++) {
                            if (options.googleMapObjects[i].locationName === location.locationName) {
                                options.googleMapObjects.splice(i, 1);
                                break;
                            }
                        }
                    }
                };

                return GoogleMap;

            })(google.maps.Map);

            return GoogleMap;
        });

}).call(this);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


REVIEW: Curses is just one of those books that you come to the end and think "Now that was fun!" It's creative, and original, and has one of the most likable main characters that I've come across.
The book is split into three parts and I found the first two to be the most enjoyable. Martin is a character I wish I knew in real life. He's intelligent, sweet and funny, and somehow maintains a calm demeanor even while dealing with crazy and unexpected supernatural happenings. I loved his relationship with Hannah, but his dealings with Agnes, the psychotic ghost, had me in stitches!
Overall, Curses is a wildly entertaining book that I highly recommend to fans who like some humor mixed in with their horror. This was my first book by Calvin Dean, but it definitely won't be my last!


text:
Anatomy of a Remaster: The Making of Rogue Trooper Redux
Play Anatomy of a Remaster: The Making of Rogue Trooper Redux Video
Rebellion explains some of the nuances that go into remastering a 2006 PS2 game for modern hardware... and modern gamers.
Richard May Lead Programmer
1 Author Reply
Today we revealed Rogue Trooper Redux is coming to PlayStation 4 on October 17!
Exciting news, no doubt, but as someone who worked on the original, it's staggering. Here's this game we released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006, remastered for PlayStation 4. It is a bit surreal if I'm honest, but I'm thrilled to see how far the original has come. Our new side-by-side comparison trailer really underlines the difference!
So, how did we and our friends at TickTock Games do it?
You might think it's straight-forward to get old games up-and-running on modern hardware, but this isn't always the case. The PlayStation 4 is vastly different in architecture to its forebears and the landscape of online gaming on PlayStation is unrecognisable to that which existed a decade ago.
What's really required is a version of the game built especially for modern hardware, something that integrates properly with all the lovely stuff we've come to know and love – trophies, invitations, high-definition textures, 1080p, dynamic lighting & shadows. The list goes on.
So, where to start?
Hopefully you still have the source code and assets for your original game somewhere. It's going to be a long day if you have to build everything again from scratch! Recreating gameplay is notoriously difficult to do well – if you don't know exactly how it was worked originally, how can you hope to re-create the exact feel of that classic game?
Fortunately, for Rogue Trooper Redux, Rebellion's pack rat mentality of saving everything (and we mean everything – our warehouse is a treasure trove filled with 25 years of gaming history!) paid dividends. So we were able to take the original source code and re-compile it for modern hardware. It wasn't entirely smooth sailing – these things never are – but it was much easier than starting from scratch.
So far, so good! Now it's just a case of getting online play to work, integrating all those lovely things I mentioned before, and re-packaging the game for the modern consoles, right?
It's time for the makeover!
But if you're going to do all that, why not make the game look as lovely as it plays? To really make the best use of the power available, you need to completely re-write the rendering code to use all the lovely toys available to us now. Then, to make use of those new renders, you need new assets – new textures, specular maps, high-poly meshwork.
Fortunately, armed with the original assets and the tools we used to make them, we were able to completely re-skin the game with all-new character meshes, vehicles, textures and a whole bunch of set dressing. After all that the game was looking better than ever, but there were still a few stumbling blocks to conquer. The FMV cutscenes, for example, had to be completely re-rendered at modern resolutions.
New conventions, new features
Great gameplay doesn't age – at least not as much as graphics do! But things do change – conventions develop, players come to expect a particular button to do a particular thing because that's how other games do it.
Rogue Trooper is one of the earliest cover-based shooters, but since its release certain "genre conventions" have developed. In order to bring the game to as wide an audience as possible, we felt it was best to tweak the original controls to match these.
In the original, you switched to cover mode with a button press. This worked well at the time but most modern cover shooters use an automatic binding system where pressing against cover switches into cover mode. In comparison, the original mechanism can feel a bit clunky and dated.
So for Rogue Trooper Redux, we've modified the cover system to use the automatic method and, unless you'd played the original, you wouldn't know it wasn't always like that.
Losing the manual control freed up a button that we could use for another feature that wasn't in the original but is more-or-less expected now: aim mode. Aim mode pulls the camera in tight over Rogue's shoulder, allowing you to line up your shots much more easily without switching to sniper mode. It's slick, useful and it feels like it's always been there. If you've played any recent third-person cover shooter, it'll be instantly familiar.
Creating Rogue Trooper Redux has been a fascinating experience. Revisiting the old stomping grounds of Nu-Earth has, at times, felt like digging through dusty attics, rooting through old boxes, each new discovery bringing back fond (and not so fond) memories. Ultimately though, it's been great to see something that means a lot to us being played again. A decade is a long time and memory is a funny thing. With the rosy-tinged gaze of nostalgia, Rogue Trooper always looked this good. Now it really does.
PlayStation 4playstation gamesrebellionrogue trooper reduxticktock games


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Tribes: We are looking for individuals who have a passion for medicine, education, children, communications, development and pastoral training. Learn how you can use your professional skills to support missionaries on the ground. There are need both stateside as well as in the field.
Regional Teams: We have stateside teams that support our missionaries in each country where we are located. If you have a passion for a specific country, a regional team could be a great fit for you.
Short-Term Trips: Do you want to visit one of our countries and provide support to missionaries? We will share more about the various opportunities available.
Missionary Support: Learn about how you can support those in the field through prayer, encouragement, and financial support.
More info on how to access the call will be provided upon receiving your RSVP.


If you have a tendency to suffer from acne breakouts, it is important to avoid extended exposure to sunlight. This includes exposure to sunlamps and tanning booths. Even though it is true that a small amount of sun exposure may initially help your acne, it is only a temporary benefit. In the short term, your acne might be a bit less noticeable, but that is only because you skin has been reddened by the sun, so your acne blends in better to your skin tone. Extended exposure to the sun's rays will dry out your skin which will cause your sebaceous glands to produce even more oil.


Muirend Pavilion is used for a variety of activities including playgroups, dance classes and painting groups. It is an ideal venue for social functions including children's parties.
Within Muirend Pavilion there is one area available for hire. This is the main hall.
Within Muirend Pavilion the following equipment is available.
Any disabled person must make themselves known to the facility officer on duty for further advice on exit in the event of an emergency.
There is a car park serving the hall to the side of the Community Hall. There are spaces for holders of disabled badges. These spaces are appropriately marked and are for use by disabled badge holders. Drivers are asked to ensure their cars do not obstruct the entrance or exit areas and do not interfere with pedestrian movement.
Please click on the following link to see what forms of public transport you can get to Muirend Pavilion.


text:
var tape = require("tape")
var async = require("async")
var path = require("path")
var http = require("http")
var from2 = require("from2-string")
var hyperquest = require("hyperquest")
var hyperrequest = require("hyperrequest")
var concat = require("concat-stream")
var settings = require('./settings')
var rimraf = require('rimraf');
var pad = require('pad');

var multilevel = require('multilevel');
var net = require('net');
var level = require('level');

/*

  boot a test server for each test so the state from one
  does not affect another test

*/
function createServer(done){

  rimraf(settings.defaultFilePath, {}, function(){
    // start a leveldb instance
    var db_server = level(settings.defaultFilePath);

    var db_server_con = net.createServer(function (con) {
      con.pipe(multilevel.server(db_server)).pipe(con);
    }).listen(settings.leveldbPort, function(err){

      done(null, {db:db_server, con:db_server_con})
    });
  })
}

function createClient(done){

  var db_client = multilevel.client();
  var db_client_con = net.connect(settings.leveldbPort);
  db_client_con.pipe(db_client.createRpcStream()).pipe(db_client_con);

  done(null, {db:db_client, con:db_client_con})
}

tape("Store value", function (t) {

  var server;
  var client;

  var test_key = 'testing:some.sortof.key'
  var test_value = 'testing: value'

  async.series([
    // create the server
    function(next){
      createServer(function(err, s){
        if(err) return next(err)
        server = s
        next()
      })
    },

    // create the client
    function(next){
      createClient(function(err, c){
        if(err) return next(err)
        client = c
        next()
      })
    },

    // set a value
    function(next){
      client.db.put(test_key, test_value, function (err) {
        if (err) next(err.toString());

        next()
      })
    },

    // read the value
    function(next){
      client.db.get(test_key, function (err, value) {
        if (err) next(err.toString());

        t.equal(value, test_value, "saved value matches")

        next()
      })
    },

  ], function(err){
    if(err){
      t.error(err)
      client.db.close()
      server.db.close()
      server.con.close()
      t.end()
      return
    }
    client.db.close()
    server.db.close()
    server.con.close()
    t.end()
  })

})

// update value test
tape("Update value", function (t) {

  var server;
  var client;

  var test_key = 'testing:some.sortof.key'
  var test_value = 'testing: value'
  var test_value_modifier = 'modified'

  async.series([
    // create the server
    function(next){
      createServer(function(err, s){
        if(err) return next(err)
        server = s
        next()
      })
    },

    // create the client
    function(next){
      createClient(function(err, c){
        if(err) return next(err)
        client = c
        next()
      })
    },

    // set a value
    function(next){
      client.db.put(test_key, test_value, function (err) {
        if (err) next(err.toString());

        next()
      })
    },

    // reset a value
    function(next){
      client.db.put(test_key, test_value + test_value_modifier, function (err) {
        if (err) next(err.toString());

        next()
      })
    },

    // read the value
    function(next){
      client.db.get(test_key, function (err, value) {
        if (err) next(err.toString());

        t.equal(value, test_value + test_value_modifier, "updated value matches")

        next()
      })
    },

  ], function(err){
    if(err){
      t.error(err)
      client.db.close()
      server.db.close()
      server.con.close()
      t.end()
      return
    }
    client.db.close()
    server.db.close()
    server.con.close()
    t.end()
  })

})

// range test
tape("Range query", function (t) {

  var server;
  var client;

  var test_key = 'testing:some.sortof.key.'
  var test_value = 'testing: value'

  async.series([
    // create the server
    function(next){
      createServer(function(err, s){
        if(err) return next(err)
        server = s
        next()
      })
    },

    // create the client
    function(next){
      createClient(function(err, c){
        if(err) return next(err)
        client = c
        next()
      })
    },

    // set some values
    function(next){
      var nums = []
      for(i=1;i<=10;i++){ nums.push(i) }
      async.series(nums.map(function(i){
        return function(nextnum){
          client.db.put(test_key+pad(5, ""+i,"0"), test_value, nextnum)
        }
      }), next)
    },

    // read the values
    function(next){

      var nextCalled = false
      var found_values = {}
      var upper_limit = 5

      client.db.createReadStream({lte:test_key+pad(5, ""+upper_limit,"0")})
      .on('data', function (data) {
        found_values[data.key] = data.value
      })
      .on('error', function (err) {
        if(!nextCalled) next(err)
      })
      .on('end', function () {
        console.dir(found_values)
        t.equal(Object.keys(found_values).length, upper_limit, upper_limit + " values found")
        nextCalled = true
        next()
      })
    },

  ], function(err){
    if(err) t.error(err)
    client.db.close()
    server.db.close()
    server.con.close()
    t.end()
  })

})

// delete test


text:
Agriculture Giants Join Forces To Create Grain Tracking Blockchain Platform
Nomura Taps Amanda Chen as Deputy Head of Wealth Management for Asia
Imane 'Pokimane' Anys Signs Exclusive Multi-Year Deal With Twitch
[image credit : Twitch]
United Talent Agency, which represents gaming personality and Twitch streamer Imane "Pokimane" Anys, announced the signing of a multi-year streaming contract that will see the 23-year-old Moroccon native return to stream exclusively on Twitch. The deal was brokered by Anys' representatives at UTA. Financial details of the agreement were not released.
"Since I began my gaming career on Twitch six years ago, the platform has given me such an incredible opportunity to create content and connect with people around the world," Anys said. "The community of streamers on Twitch, as well as the community I've built around my channel, both mean so much to me. I want to continue to make a lasting impact on the world of live streaming, and I truly believe there's no other place that has the infrastructure and tools that will allow me to do so."
Anys, who started streaming on Twitch in 2013, has 17M followers across all of her social platforms and 3.9M on Twitch. Additionally, Anys is the most-followed female Twitch streamer on the platform as well as being ranked in the top 10 of overall Twitch follower count.
Anys is also known for her support of the gaming community through her philanthropic aid. She donated $50K USD to the University of California, Irvine, for student scholarships associated with its esports program. This offering marked the first endowment in the history of UCI Esports, and will fund tuition and other academic fees for gamers who are awarded the merit-based "Pokimane Scholarship." The gift was motivated by her experience streaming on Twitch as a college student.
TwitchUCI EsportsUnited Talent Agency
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A night ride on a gondola personalized following your wishes to move smoothly on the Grand Canal, just like a wonderful fairytail!
You will able to use your imagination to customize your ride in order to celebrate properly some special events: proposals, anniversaries, birthdays or just to live an unforgettable experience.
The gondola ride by night is the best experience to admire the fascinating lights and bright colors of the ancient palaces reflecting on the Grand Canal water. Along the amazing itinerary your will be stunned by the magnificence of Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, Ca' Foscari Palace, Accademia Bridge, Ca' Rezzonico Palace and some of the most charming and romantic minor canals!
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Here below some ideas for your ride but if you have some special desires don't hesitate to contact us! We will make your dreams come true!
The price are for gondola and not for person - This tour is not fully accessible wheelchair users or people with walking disabilities - Each gondola can host maximum 6 people; the seat aboard cannot be chosen but will be assigned by the gondolier depending of guest's weight – For general conditions refer to our brochure "Discovering Venice" - Tour does not operate on25th December and in case of exceptionally bad weather, exceptionally high/low tide or local gondolier's strike – The itinerary could change in case of wind or bad weather. Mobile vouchers are accepted.


I can show you how to process JSON files using Python. All I need to start is your Python version and sample JSON file you're using.
Hello. I'm a python expert with full experiences. I can finish your project wonderfully. Let me know the details, your deadline and budget. Thanks.
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Amnesty International is the world's leading human rights organisation, campaigning against injustice and inequality. The charity is based in Hackney and have been members of the Zero Emissions Network since May 2014.
Why did Amnesty International join the Zero Emissions Network?
Amnesty International joined the Zero Emissions Network as they were interested in reducing their emissions and making their office more energy efficient. After spotting the offer of a free Dr Bike, the charity were keen to get themselves booked in ahead of winter. Amnesty International wanted everyone's bikes to be in a good condition to encourage people to continue to cycle to work throughout the colder months.
How did it benefit the charity?
The Dr Bike proved popular with staff as the mechanic was able to offer bespoke advice to individuals.
Interested in a Dr Bike session for your workplace or neighbourhood? Get in touch with the form below.


We do food every single day.
Learn how to alkaline your food and stay healthier!
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Learn more how to improve your water quality... Mr. Emoto's great experiments clearly show that water easily takes on the vibrations and energy of its environment. Learn how to improve the quality of your water!
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The Guide to Mindful Eating is designed to empower you in your relationship to food, helping you become more aware and conscious of your body / mind connection to food.
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Some of our Delicious Recipes from the Mindful Eating Book.
Give yourself a gift: explore, experiment, enjoy!


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Microsoft Is Creating Immersive Telepresence, Realistic Physical "Body-double" Or Proxy In A Remote Meeting
by Pradeep
@pradeepviswav
Apr 25, 2013 at 7:28 GMT 8 years ago
Microsoft is working on some cool telepresence projects which was revealed by their latest job listings. Microsoft was always criticized for not utilizing their R&D well enough to make them into marketable products. Microsoft is trying to change this scenario with the new startup labs which will be productizing ideas and code from Microsoft Research.
Recently two new job listings revealed that a team is working on creating immersive telepresence products based on MSR inputs and current Microsoft communication products like Skype, Lync, etc,
The Microsoft Mesa project is creating immersive telepresence products that will change the way remote workers experience and are experienced in meetings. Mesa offers an equal blend of software and hardware challenges so you will get a chance to work on unique technologies that are unlike any other part of Microsoft. We build on top of proven technologies like Lync and Skype, but also use new emerging ones like Windows 8 and Surface, adding unique Mesa specific technologies (like video processing). Come learn new things in a small, fun team and get involved in every part of the product. Maximize your impact and live the startup life within Microsoft' Startup Business Group.
Another job listing details that they are working on creating a realistic physical "body-double" or proxy in a remote meeting.
Want to be responsible for redefining how people telecommute, communicate and work? Not just getting them connected, but truly bringing them together with cutting edge software and hardware. How they look, how they express themselves, and how people connect will all be impacted by this groundbreaking new technology platform. Come be a leading developer on the team that will that will revolutionize communications and touch millions of customers around the world.
In the short term, we are developing the hardware and software necessary to have a realistic physical "body-double" or proxy in a remote meeting – one that gives the remote worker a true seat at the table, the ability to look around the room, turn to a colleague and have a side conversation. Longer-term, this same platform will enable high-definition communication scenarios for consumers over Skype. We are a small team, with a mix of short-term deliverables and long-term ambitions and we are developing quickly and having lots of fun in the process!
It looks like Microsoft is trying to integrate the ViewPort project from Microsoft Research. Here is the brief description of the project,
In this paper, we present Viewport, a fully distributed system for immersive teleconferencing. The participant at each site is captured by a camera rig, which contains multiple color and infrared cameras and multiple infrared projectors. The projected infrared dot pattern is used to help reconstruct a 3D representation in real-time, which will be rendered in a shared virtual environment for immersive telecommunication. We conduct a multimodal fusion scheme for multiview stereo and 3D reconstruction, which combines the knowledge of the infrared dot patterns from the projectors and the observations of IR and RGB cameras. One novel aspect of our approach is the use of sparse point cloud instead of dense multiview stereo for geometry reconstruction, which leads to significant speed up in 3D reconstruction and rendering. In addition, we introduce the scheme of virtual seating, where the point clouds are positioned to maintain the same seating geometry as face-to-face meetings after careful calibration, such that the mutual gaze between participants are faithfully maintained.
If you want to know how a startup environment works inside Microsoft, read the below description.
Responsibilities include implementing communications protocols, productizing ideas and code from Microsoft Research, designing APIs, and developing life-sized hardware for the conference room environment. Our team is small, so we don't have specialized roles for testing or program management; everybody is expected to know the scenario, come up with the design, write code, test it, and deliver quality end-to-end. For this job, you need to be willing to get your hands dirty and own ideas from inception to delivery. In other words know the customer, know the use, and build it right. Then brag about it to your friends and family as they use it.
Check the job listing here and here.
via: @walkingcat
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Microsoft is making Win32 APIs more accessible to more languages including C# and Rust
by Pradeep on January 21, 2021
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The Amazon Echo Flex speaker discounted in UK
Echo Flex is the most affordable way to add Alexa to any space in your home. It plugs directly into a standard electrical outlet, making it perfect for those places in your home where cords ...
Microsoft Lists iOS app now available for download from App Store
At Build 2020, Microsoft announced a new service called Microsoft Lists. Microsoft Lists app is based on SharePoint lists feature, but it offers better user experience, and it can be access...
Samsung launch Samsung Galaxy Watch Active2 in Rose Gold
At their Unpacked event, Samsung has launched a version of the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active2 in a new colour – Rose Gold. The device has the same innards and sensors as the Watch Active...
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Deal Alert: Samsung Galaxy S20 5G discounted heavily at Amazon
Amazon is offering a great discount on the purchase of the Samsung Galaxy S20 smartphone. The S20 was last year's one of the best smartphones and it also has support for 5G networks. T...
Deal Alert: Microsoft 365 Family 15-month subscription with Norton 360 Antivirus...
As part of its Combo Deal offers, Newegg is now offering a great deal on Microsoft 365 Family subscription. You can now get a Microsoft 365 Family 15-month subscription along with a Norton 3...
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Permanent Vacation: Movie Review
Postato il 31/08/2019 17/10/2019 di Sam Simon
Permanent Vacation (1980) is to the filmography of Jim Jarmusch what Dark Star (1974) is to that of John Carpenter: it's the director's final film school project. Ok, I admit it, I'm always mentioning John Carpenter! Then let me compare Permanent Vacation to Eraserhead (1977) by David Lynch and to Following (1998) by Christopher Nolan. In other words, it's a debut film made with little money starring novice and unknown actors where it's possible to spot many of the ideas that the director would then develop with his subsequent films.
What about Permanent Vacation? The movie is just over an hour long and it's shot in 16mm format. It shows the last days in New York of the protagonist Allie (Chris Parker), a slacker who spends his time walking around the city, meeting quite absurd characters, and philosophizing about life. For example, in the initial monologue he compares people to rooms, each one to be discovered, each one different. But I don't want to lie to you: this movie has no plot.
Allie talks to his girlfriend Leila (Leila Gastil), although they don't show much affection for each other. Then he meets a Vietnam veteran (Richard Boes) in a surreal scene with sounds of war in the background, then he visits his mother (Ruth Bolton) in a psychiatric institution, then he goes to the cinema where the popcorn lady (Lisa Rosen) reviews splendidly the movie The Savage Innocents (1960)… in short, the movie is a series of disjointed/slightly connected dialogues, one after the other until the car theft which allows Allie to buy a single ticket to France.
Thus, the most interesting aspect of the movie is to see the elements that turned out to be typical of Jarmusch's later work. For example, the music is omnipresent: the protagonist adores Charlie Parker, the central point of the story of the African American guy at the cinema is Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and one character is played by musician John Lurie, who's also the author of the ominous soundtrack together with Jarmusch.
The fact that, in the movie, New York is ugly, dirty, noisy, and sometimes completely devastated (like in many movies of those years, like Taxi Driver, 1976, and The Warriors, 1979, to name two), is also something that can be found in later works by the director: he never never looks for beautiful or spectacular shots! Finally, the lack of a real plot is another of his trademarks: just think of the aimless wandering of Johnny Depp in Dead Man (1995), or the repetitive and boring days of Adam Driver in Paterson (2016)! And naturally everyone smokes like a chimney.
In short, you should watch Permanent Vacation only if you are a true fan of Jim Jarmusch and you want to grasp the first sprouts of the ideas that he would later develop in his career. I'm convinced that everything in this movie is based on his actual wanderings around the city, even the car theft is probably something he witnessed! But these are just my speculations, of course. Who knows, maybe Jarmusch as a film school student really felt like he was on a permanent vacation like the protagonist of this movie. Ciao!
The movie trailer on Youtube
The movie page on Internet Movie DataBase
Movie review on Cinema of the Abstract
Movie review on LisaThatcher.com
Posted in Cinema (EN)Contrassegnato da tag 16 mm, adam driver, character, charlie parker, christopher nolan, dark star, david lynch, dead man, debut, director, eraserhead, Film, film school, following, jim jarmusch, john carpenter, john lurie, johnny depp, leila gastil, lisa rosen, movie, music, new york, paterson, permanent vacation, plot, protagonist, review, ruth bolton, somewhere over the rainbow, soundtrack, taxi driver, the savage innocents, the warriors, vietnam
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Biden Could Have Spared Afghanistan and US 6 Months of Pointless War by Just Ending It
Asia, Immorality, North America, Why End War
by Dave Lindorff, This Can't be Happening, August 16, 2021
There are two things I suppose everyone would agree are true about the remarkable events of the past several weeks in Afghanistan.
One is that we are witnessing the latest major loss in a string of wars and "incursions" that the US has lost since the end of World War II. The other is that the entire two-decade-long, $2.3-trillion US invasion, war and occupation of one of the poorest countries in the world, was an abject failure from the beginning.
Officially, the US invaded Afghanistan because its ruling Taliban government had allegedly permitted Al Qaeda, a shadowy jihadist fighting organization founded by the Saudi Osama Bin Laden (with CIA assistance), to establish several training camps there where he purportedly plotted the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and perhaps the Capitol building or White House.
The attack, by some 20,000 US Special Forces troops backed by US air power, smashed the camps, but most of the Al Qaeda forces, including Bin Laden, escaped to the mountains of Tora Bora. The US had rejected a Taliban offer to surrender Bin Laden to a "third country", a deal which could have eliminated the need for the ensuing war, but the Bush/Cheney administration would not accept the terms: a halt to the bombing of the country, and presentation of evidence that Bin Laden had been behind the attacks on the US.
In any event, once Bin Laden and his band were surrounded, trapped in caves on a mountain in eastern Afghanistan, the US pulled troops out and started sending many of them to Kuwait and other Persian Gulf countries in preparation for a second larger war against Iraq, which was portrayed fraudulently as having been involved in 9-11 and as having plans to develop "weapons of mass destruction." Bin Laden and his men were forgotten.
The US forces in Afghanistan were ordered to abandon the original mission of killing or capturing Bin Laden and destroying Al Qaeda, and instead proceeded to drive the Taliban out of the capital of Kabul and other Afghan cities into the countryside and neighboring Pakistan. At which point the the Taliban became "insurgents," battling the US occupier of the country and the puppet government it had installed.
For the next 19 years, the US, with the most powerful military the world has ever known, has battled futilly against a ragtag force of tens of thousands of rag-tag Kalashnikov-toting Taliban fighters, gradually losing control of most of the rural parts of the vast country, and unable to protect the cities from bombings, murders of officials, and the occasional overrunning of various provincial cities.
For 20 years, top military brass and advisors with ties to the US arms industry, lied that the US was "winning" the war in Afghanistan, all the while knowing the whole thing was a fool's errand that could only end with the Taliban returning to power. For the military, the war was a way to earn battle credits, get promotions, and for higher officers, to end up on arms industry boards of directors. For the Arms industry, the war was a bottomless pot of money. For American troops it was a pointless hell-hole, and for the Afghan people an endless slaughter.
To his credit, President Biden did one thing right. He called an end to the bloody 20-year stalemate. He for sure could have handled it better. Had he simply admitted upon taking office that the US had made a terrible mistake and immediately sued for peace with the Taliban, whom everyone involved knew would eventually be back in power in Kabul one way or another once the US left, more than half a year of bloody fighting and bombing could have been avoided entirely. Instead, Biden continued the war, making it his own, but announcing a pullout that would ve complete on the fake symbolic date of September 11. (Fake because no Taliban or Afghan was involved in the 9-11 attacks!) Given that nonsensical timetable and the continued US air strikes on the Taliban in the meantime, the Taliban opted to push the US out, understandably not believing that Biden was any more sincere about ending the war and leaving their country than were presidents Bush, Obama or Trump before him.
All kinds of justifications have been given over the years for the US staying in Afghanistan for two decades of war: women would be oppressed under the Taliban; the Taliban would replace Afghanistan's puppet "democratic" government with a theocratic autocracy; if the US left, Iran, or Russia or China would gain influence there; if the US left, Afghanistan would again be a haven for terrorists threatening the US; and of course that old standby when all else failed — that the US had to stand firm lest the world think the US was weak.
None of these excuses made any sense. Women were always oppressed in Afghanistan, were oppressed even when the US was there in force, and would inevitably be oppressed as they are in most islamic countries that the US considers allies. Afghanistan is bordered by Iran, China and Pakistan and by countries where Russia wields considerable influence. Of course those countries, as well as india, would compete for control in Afghanistan. As for becoming a haven for terrorists, there are plenty of those, many created by the chaos sown by US meddling forces as in Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Niger, Libya, Yemen and Colombia, for example. And cutting and running in Afghanistan, which the US is doing now, as it did in Vietnam in 1975, would have been nothing new. What would have been new would have been admitting the war was a mistake and leaving through negotiations instead of being humiliatingly driven out as now, yet again.
The American people should be outraged about this. Instead we're being treated to all manner of nonsense in our supposedly free and independent media, attacking Biden for "losing" Afghanistan. The focus of criticism is on how Biden handled the ending of the war, not on who got the US involved in the first place (Bush, Cheney and virtually the entirety of Democrats and Republicans in Congress), and who kept us there (President Obama with the support of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and Trump, again with the support of Democrats and Republicans, and a media that played along with the charade that Afghanistan was an existential threat to America).
Will there be any effort to assign blame for those who caused this catastrophe? Any atonement or reparations to the people of Afghanistan for how we've tortured them and their country for decades (going back to when President Jimmy Carter began arming and training jihadi fighters to overthrow the country's Russian-backed communist government (which was at least giving women equal rights and educating them)?
No of course not. The US doesn't do soul searching, or historical re-examination,never admits it was wrong and certainly pays reparations for its crimes.
Thankfully, the US puppet regime in Kabul collapsed like a house of cards, and so the Taliban won't have to fight to enter that last unliberated city of five million. Now maybe Afghanis can have peace again. They may be stuck with a medieval theocratic government again, but they've been there before. Life will go on, and they'll have to work it out themselves. It's not our business, and our way of "fixing" things for other countries is generally a bloody mess and doesn't work anyhow.
That is the lesson the world is gradually learning.
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'War on Terror' Terrorized Afghans for 20 Years