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Top Ten Books I Want to Give as Gifts
My parents are heading back to Brazil for the holidays, and I've chosen some vacation reading for them.
For my mother: a literary mystery:
1. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Flavia deLuce Mystery #1
by Alan Bradley
Particularly because my mother loves science, history, and nothing too gruesome, this is the perfect blend of chemistry, post-WWII-history, and quizzical who-dunnit to keep her enthralled on the long flight. And, if she likes it, there are several more in the series to give her. My review:
Flavia De Luce could easily be the criminal mastermind of post-World War II Britain, despite being only 11 year's old. She's fascinated by all things chemistry, but especially the chemical properties of poisons. When a red-headed midnight visitor to her father is discovered dead in the cucumber patch below her bedroom window, Falvia sets out to solve the mystery of the stranger's death – partially to prove her father's innocence (he's been charged with the murder), and partially because she's fixated on the mysterious death and wants to unearth the chemical properties that might have caused it. Despite of (or with the help of?) the Inspector in charge of the investigation, Flavia manages to make her way around the English countryside with the help of her trusty bicycle Gladys. Searching people's rooms, breaking into the library archives, investigating her father's old boarding school, no place is off-limits to the insatiable curiousity of Flavia. And wouldn't you know it – by the end, murder solved.
For my father: a book in two languages:
2. Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon
by Jorge Amado
My father actually requested this, so I can't take credit, but I am giving him a copy of this book in both Brazilian Portuguese and its English translation. I hope to pick up a copy of this myself, as it sounds like an intriguing story:
Ilhéus in 1925 is a booming town with a record cacao crop and aspirations for progress, but the traditional ways prevail. When Colonel Mendonça discovers his wife in bed with a lover, he shoots and kills them both. Political contests, too, can be settled by gunshot…
No one imagines that a bedraggled migrant worker who turns up in town–least of all Gabriela herself–will be the agent of change. Nacib Saad has just lost the cook at his popular café and in desperation hires Gabriela. To his surprise she turns out to be a great beauty as well as a wonderful cook and an enchanting boon to his business. But what would people say if Nacib were to marry her?
Lusty, satirical and full of intrigue, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon is a vastly entertaining panorama of small town Brazilian life.
Sometimes you see the perfect book for someone you will probably never give a gift to:
For an ex, with whom I shared a fondness for baseball:
3. Flip Flop Fly Ball: An Infographic Baseball Adventure
by Craig Robinson, introduction by Rob Neyer
How many miles does a baseball team travel in one season?
How tall would A-Rod's annual salary be in pennies?
What does Nolan Ryan have to do with the Supremes and Mariah Carey?
You might never have asked yourself any of these questions, but Craig Robinson's Flip Flop Fly Ball will make you glad to know the answers.
Baseball, almost from the first moment Robinson saw it, was more than a sport. It was history, a nearly infinite ocean of information that begged to be organized. He realized that understanding the game, which he fell in love with as an adult, would never be possible just through watching games and reading articles. He turned his obsession into a dizzyingly entertaining collection of graphics that turned into an Internet sensation.
Out of Robinson's Web site, http://www.flipflopflyball.com, grew this book, full of all-new, never-before-seen graphics. Flip Flop Fly Ball dives into the game's history, its rivalries and absurdities, its cities and ballparks, and brings them to life through 120 full-color graphics. Statistics-the sport's lingua franca-have never been more fun.
(By the way, the answers: about 26,000 miles, at least if the team in question is the 2008 Kansas City Royals; 3,178 miles; they were the artists atop the Billboard Hot 100 when Ryan first and last appeared in MLB games.)
For the boyfriend of a friend of mine who builds his own bikes:
4. Italian Racing Bicycles: The People, the Products, the Passion
by Guido P. Rubino
There are bicycles. And then there are Italian bicycles. As with high fashion or sports cars, when the world speaks of racing bicycles the conversation soon turns to Italy. Seasoned cyclists know that an Italian bicycle is more intimately yours, a more personal possession, than a bicycle of other origin. Italian bicycles are built to race with passion, and to win.
Italian Racing Bicycles traces the rich history of 40 landmark brands intimately connected with racing. Not surprisingly, the brands have deep roots, some tracing their lineage back more than 100 years to the early days of the velocipede. They also share a hunger for advanced technology, pushing engineering to new heights with exotic metal alloys, elaborate weaves of expensive carbon fiber, and aerodynamic studies that help their bikes and riders cheat the wind for greater speed.
Beyond these commonalities, though, the stories diverge. The restless inquisitiveness of Ernesto Colnago could not be more different from the methodical calm of Ugo De Rosa, for example, and yet these two iconic frame builders contributed immeasurably to the racing victories of the great Eddy Merckx. The passion for experimentation of Pinarello, the brazen creativity of Cinelli, the barrier-bursting hour machine of Moser—in search of racing victories, the volcanic inspiration of Italian artisans has repeatedly reshaped the dynamics of cycling.
Melding painstaking historical research with personal visits to each artist's workshop, author Guido P. Rubino has unearthed the stories, the methods, the dreams, and the personalities of these cycling firms, large and small, that have contributed so fundamentally to the glory of the sport.
Moving on to books I would love to give but don't have specific recipients yet:
5. The Story of Beautiful Girl
by Rachel Simon
Just finished reading this one, hope to have my review up soon, but it's a beautiful love story that spans 40 years and four lives and despite the ups-and-downs, manages to have a happy ending:
It is 1968. Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are locked away in an institution, the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, and have been left to languish, forgotten. Deeply in love, they escape, and find refuge in the farmhouse of Martha, a retired schoolteacher and widow. But the couple is not alone-Lynnie has just given birth to a baby girl. When the authorities catch up to them that same night, Homan escapes into the darkness, and Lynnie is caught. But before she is forced back into the institution, she whispers two words to Martha: "Hide her." And so begins the 40-year epic journey of Lynnie, Homan, Martha, and baby Julia – lives divided by seemingly insurmountable obstacles, yet drawn together by a secret pact and extraordinary love.
6. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
by Anne Fadiman
This is my favorite book to give a kindred spirit reader in my life. Unfortunately, I've given it to everyone like that in my life already. Maybe in 2012 I'll meet someone new to share it with?
Anne Fadiman is–by her own admission–the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring over her roommate's 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only written material in the apartment that she had not read at least twice.
This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony–Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.
Switching it up, the last books on my list are the favorite books I've received as gifts:
7. A Girl of the Limberlost
by Gene Stratton Porter
It was 1997. I had just won the Junior Bookworm Award at Girl's Inc. in Southern Indiana, and the woman who ran the program, Elaine, was a bit like a second mother to me. She hand-chose A Girl of the Limberlost for me, starting me on a life-long love affair with Gene Stratton Porter's books.
Set amid Indiana's vast Limberlost Swamp, this treasured children's classic mixes astute observations on nature with the struggles of growing up in the early 20th century. Harassed by her mother and scorned by her peers, Elnora Comstock finds solace in natural beauty — along with friendship, independence, and romance.
8. Letters from an Age of Reason
by Nora Hague
Thank you, thank you to my BFF for handing me this book. Several hundred pages, two continents, and a sweeping love story immersed in Civil War-era history later, 3/4ths of this book was impossible to put down. I immediately bought my sister a copy to pass on the favor.
Complex and sophisticated, sensuous and sexy, Nora Hague's eloquent debut novel, Letters from an Age of Reason, is set amid two historical hotbeds of racial tension, moral hypocrisy, and shifting sexual convention. The years in question are the tumultuous '60s – the 186os. And the landscapes are those of the Civil War-era United States and Victorian England.
Miss Arabella Leeds, the teenage daughter of a prominent New York family, and Aubrey Paxton, the pampered "high-yellow" house servant of wealthy New Orleans slaveholders, are destined to meet and fall in love. But before their paths can cross, and their romance commences in London, each must forsake complacency and comfort, the familial and familiar, for a journey toward self-discovery and the allure of the forbidden. Arabella must abandon the gentlewoman's prescribed path and redefine her convictions – particularly those regarding her own sexuality – while Aubrey must acknowledge within himself a growing awareness of race and gender politics, and his place in a culture determined to ostracize him.
The pair make their unknowing way toward each other, encountering en route high adventure, erotic awakening, long-buried family secrets, and the racy underpinnings of corseted nineteenth-century society. Coincidence and correspondence steer them into the company of morphine addicts and occult practitioners, proto-feminists and sexual outcasts, glib aristocracy and dire poverty. But for Aubrey and Arabella, the greatest challenge will lie in their passion for each other, which places them forever outside the mores and conventions of their time.
A romantic adventure rich with vivacity, humor, and historical detail, Letters from an Age of Reason is a beautifully tapestried tour-de-force whose exceptional depth, passion, and power are sure to resonate long after the final page is turned.
9. The History of Love
by Nicole Krauss
A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love. Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that very book. And although she has her hands full keeping track of her brother, Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah), and taking copious notes on How to Survive in the Wild she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together their stories.This extraordinary book was inspired by the author's four grandparents and by a pantheon of authors whose work is haunted by loss Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and more. It is truly a history of love: a tale brimming with laughter, irony, passion, and soaring imaginative power.
10. The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant. An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.
Posted on December 13, 2011 January 23, 2012 by WildlyLivedPosted in Genre: fiction, Genre: non-fiction, Series: Top Ten Tuesday
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4 thoughts on "Top Ten Books I Want to Give as Gifts"
Letters from an Age of Reason sounds like my cup of tea. An The History of Love has one of those covers that I want to look at all the time, the typography is just so pretty.
A beautiful and unique list! Great gift choices.My Top Ten!
Ex Libris would work for just about any big reader!Here's my Top Ten Books I Want to Give as Gifts.
LBC says:
I love the list. I just ordered a copy of Ex Libris, so I guess it is a book for myself. I also read The Story of Beautiful Girl this year and loved it.


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EVENT GUIDE: 2018 Twilight Criterium
Downtown Boise turns into a high-speed race course as some of the best pro and amateur cyclists in the nation compete for the top prize.
Author: KTVB
Published: 6:02 PM MDT June 26, 2018
Updated: 4:42 PM MDT July 10, 2018
BOISE - The Twilight Criterium returns to downtown Boise on July 14 for its 32nd year, and organizers say this year's event will be better than ever.
Featuring some of the top pro cycling teams in the nation, as well as the best local and national amateur riders, the ASWB Twilight Criterium turns downtown Boise into a high-speed, high-stakes race course. The annual event is a featured race on the USA Cycling race calendar, and provides plenty of entertainment for spectators.
New this year, organizers are hosting a free family event Friday evening - the Twilight Trifecta - which celebrates community, cycling and French fries. Fans will have the opportunity to meet some of the racers, and get their fill on free French fries, courtesy of the JR Simplot Company.
On race day, spectators can enjoy food and drink at the family-friendly Twilight Fan Expo in Cecil D. Andrus Park (formerly Capitol Park).
MORE: Twilight Criterium expected to bring thousands to downtown Boise
And back by popular demand, kids can take on the race course for a ride with three-time Olympic gold medalist Kristin Armstrong.
Olympic gold medalist Kristin Armstrong talks to kids before the start of the Kids' Ride at the 2017 Twilight Criterium. (Photo: Downtown Boise Association)
Races begin at 1:45 p.m.
Downtown Boise (Cecil D. Andrus Park)
7 a.m. - Road closures begin: Jefferson Street at N. 6th Street and Capitol Boulevard; 8th Street at Idaho Street
12 p.m. - Full road closure
12 p.m. - Kids' Ride registration and autograph session with Kristin Armstrong
1 - 1:30 p.m. - Kids' Ride with Kristin Armstrong
1:45 p.m. - Expo area open
1:45 - 2:30 p.m. - Cat 4/5 (45 min)
2:45 - 3:30 p.m. - Masters 40+ (1/2/3) and Men 3 (45 min)
3:45 - 4:15 p.m. - Women 2/3/4 (30 min)
4:30 - 5:30 p.m. - Men 1/2/3 (60 min)
6 - 6:15 p.m. - GreenBike Celebrity Women's Bike Ride
6:15 - 6:30 p.m. - GreenBike Celebrity Men's Bike Ride
6:50 p.m. - Opening Ceremony
7 - 8 p.m. - Women's Pro 1/2 (60 min)
8:15 - 9:45 p.m. - Men's Pro/Cat. 1 (90 min)
10 p.m. - Awards Ceremony
12 a.m. - All roads reopen once equipment cleared
PHOTOS: 2017 ASWB Twilight Criterium
2017 ASWB Twilight Criterium. (Photo courtesy: Downtown Boise Association)
Steve Conner
Downtown Boise Association
Racers compete in the 2017 ASWB Twilight Criterium.
TWILIGHT TRIFECTA
The Twilight Criterium kicks off its 2018 festivities with a new event called the Twilight Trifecta, which will take place Friday evening at Jack's Urban Meeting Place (JUMP) in downtown Boise.
The Trifecta features a racer meet-and-greet, an awards ceremony for the Chrono Kristin Armstrong Time Trial, and free French fries provided by JR Simplot Company (Friday is National Fry Day).
Here's the schedule of events:
4 - 7 p.m.: Free French fries in celebration of National Fry Day, along with beers and beverages for purchase. Anyone who donates $15 or more to the Idaho Foodbank will receive a commemorative "Frydaho" t-shirt.
4 - 6 p.m.: Autograph Alley - Fans can have special edition Twilight Trifecta autograph posters signed by some of the world's top cyclists.
6 - 6:30 p.m.: Chrono Kristin Armstrong Awards Ceremony - Awards presented to the winners of the only professional event of this caliber in the United States in 2018, happening earlier Friday in Star.
KIDS' RIDE WITH KRISTIN ARMSTRONG
Saturday's festivities kick off with this always-popular event. Kids ages 3 to 10 are invited to take a ride with Kristin Armstrong. Boise's own three-time Olympic gold medalist will also be on hand prior to the ride to sign autographs for the kids on a special edition Kids Ride poster. Registration for the ride begins at 12 p.m. on the lawn of the Borah Post Office (8th and Bannock), and the ride starts at 1 p.m. Preregister here.
This year's Start/Finish line is in front of the Statehouse in Downtown Boise, with racing around Cecil D. Andrus Park. Children must wear a helmet to participate, and water bottles are encouraged.
Olympic gold medalist Kristin Armstrong signs an autograph for a young fan before the start of the Kids' Ride at the 2017 Twilight Criterium. (Photo: Downtown Boise Association)
Volunteers are needed for a variety of jobs - from setting up the course to race marshals. It's an opportunity to be a part of the action and get the best seats in the house. To check out the available volunteer positions and to sign up, click here.
RELATED: EVENT GUIDE: Summer fun in the Treasure Valley and beyond

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


After more than three years of tracking Nintendo stats, I'm done. Monster Hunter wins. Smash Bros. comes in second. Mario squeaks in at the last minute.
You are reading the final installment of a series I've been running monthly in various ways for a few years. Since joining Kotaku in the spring of 2009, I've been providing the most detailed version, a chart and list of the 10 — eventually 20 — Wii games that had the highest average playing time per Wii gamer. Behind every list was my personal file of data for a couple hundred games updated, until recently on the first of every month.
This was never the list for best-sellers. It was always the list for the games that provided their gamers the most fun, the games people kept playing. Pool all the gamers who let Nintendo track their stats — as many as a couple million of them — and these games were the ones that, among the people who had them, got played the most. These were the games that weren't collecting dust. These were the games that compelled new purchasers and long-time owners to keep going back to them.
This series has been a monthly rebuke to those who say people don't play Wii games. It's also made it obvious which elements help make games last long for players. No revelations there: multiplayer, online play, farming all keep a game in rotation.
Here's the latest version of the big chart, showing what the 20-most-loved games on the system were from launch through December 12, 2010.
This is the top 20 listed for you, with average cumulative play times, since the launch of each of those games, also as of December 12.
Check out New Super Mario Bros. Wii there, sneaking into the 20th spot this month, bumping out Guitar Hero: World Tour.
The Call of Duty games tended to do well on this chart. People don't just like their first-person shooters on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. They're hooked on the ones they have for Wii. Call of Duty Black Ops didn't chart on the top 20 this time, but, in about a month, it already has an average per-player play time of 25 hours. The new GoldenEye, also out for only about a month, has an average per-player playing time of almost 15 hours.
Kirby's Epic Yarn, released in October, has an average playing time of under 10 hours by early November and just under 13 a month later, a suggestion that people were playing through the game. Donkey Kong Country Returns, released in November was averaging about 9 1/2 hours per player so far.
I got these numbers each month by connecting my Wii to the Internet and manually flipping through every entry for the more than 500 Wii games tracked by the system's Nintendo Channel. I could skip the unreleased games, but otherwise, I pulled stats for every one.
I was excited to discover a few years ago that Nintendo publicized all this data. I was less thrilled that it was so laborious to collect it. I didn't relish my monthly session spent clicking through each entry on the Nintendo Channel, though it did help me catch up on listening to podcasts.
Nintendo had declined to send me an easy spreadsheet. Some unlucky interns did the data trawl for me for a couple of months this past summer. But most of the time, it was just me, pulling the numbers, making the chart and hoping for drama.
In the years I did this, I doubted we'd see a game pass Smash Bros., but we got that. Monster Hunter charged past and has a decent shot at reaching the 100-hour-per-player mark. I was always impressed with how steadily the Lego Star Wars game did. No matter what else happened it always seemed to climb at a perfectly consistent pace. It produced the one line on my chart that is almost a perfect straight line.
For those who kept up with this series of posts, thanks for your support. I'm happy to see that some of you were inspired to start tracking stats yourself. For those who will miss it, I'm sorry it won't be continuing. Going into 2011, I feel this series has run its course, its points have been made and the labor involved in putting it together would be best spent on new projects.


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There is no evidence that luciferase is an ingredient in the COVID-19 vaccines
Luciferase is in the COVID-19 vaccines to tag and track people
VERDICT more about the rating framework
SOURCE: Emerald Robinson, Substack, 4 Nov. 2021
Factually Inaccurate: Luciferase is an enzyme that catalyzes the transformation of luciferin into light. It is a common tool in scientific research to monitor biological processes, and was used in the development and evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines. However, luciferase is not an ingredient in the COVID-19 vaccines.
KEY TAKE AWAY
Luciferase is an enzyme that transforms luciferin into light through a chemical reaction. It is a common tool in scientific research to monitor biological processes, and was used in the development and evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines. However, luciferase isn't an ingredient in the COVID-19 vaccines.
FULL CLAIM: "why would Big Pharma not disclose that Luciferase is an ingredient in the vaccines - since it's clearly listed (in at least one patent from one company) as being used"; "Under the cover of vaccinating people, we are really preparing to tag and track people"
On 1 November 2021, Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson tweeted a warning: "Dear Christians: the vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called LUCIFERASE so that you can be tracked". She also recommended that Christians "read the last book of the New Testament to see how this ends". Robinson's tweet was soon deleted, and her Twitter account temporarily locked for repeated violations of Twitter's COVID-19 misinformation policy (before being permanently banned on 10 November 2021). Her employer, Newsmax, disavowed Robinson's claims in two statements. As of 11 November 2021, Robinson is currently off air as Newsmax reviews her tweet.
Despite this pushback, Robinson doubled down on her claims in a 4 November 2021 post on her Substack, "Emerald Robinson's The Right Way". In her post, Robinson repeated her claim that the COVID-19 vaccines contain luciferase, using a patent owned by Moderna as evidence, and said that vaccinations are a cover to "tag and track people". In her post, Robinson also called the COVID-19 vaccines "totally experimental and untested". She further suggested that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are therapeutic drugs that were "swiftly outlawed" to "force everyone to get the new vaccines".
As we'll show below, the claim that luciferase is in the COVID-19 vaccines to tag and track humans is inaccurate. Robinson's other claims–that the vaccines are experimental, and that drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were outlawed to force people to get vaccinated–are also false.
Claim 1 (Inaccurate): "Luciferase is an ingredient in the vaccines" to "tag and track people"
Bioluminescence is the process by which chemical reactions generate light. One bioluminescent molecule is luciferin, which reacts to oxygen and energy to produce light; this process is catalyzed by luciferase, a bioluminescent enzyme. A number of organisms produce bioluminescence via luciferase, from fireflies to a number of marine species, like squids, jellyfish and bacteria. Luciferin and luciferase were first isolated at the end of the 19th century by French scientist Raphaël Dubois. The names of the two molecules are based on lucifer, the Latin word for light-bearing.
Bioluminescence is a powerful tool in research, allowing scientists to monitor biological processes like gene expression, tumor progression and how proteins interact. As a bioluminescent enzyme, luciferase has been extensively used in biological and medical research, from tracking the journey of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii in mice during the course of infection to using the glow of light to understand interactions between brain cells.
Due to its usefulness, luciferase has also been used as a tool in studying SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. For instance, virologists at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston used luciferase to "develop faster and more accurate diagnostic tests for COVID-19 as well as to analyze potential therapies and gain a clearer understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself" according to a UTMB news piece from July 2020. The UTMB team, led by professor Pei-Yong Shi, also used luciferase to help pharmaceutical companies evaluate potential COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
Luciferase was also used to study and develop components used in the mRNA vaccines, such as the lipid nanoparticles. For instance, in a 2015 paper by Drew Weissman, Katalin Karikó and colleagues, firefly luciferase helped the scientists explore the potential of using lipid nanoparticles to deliver mRNAs in mice[1].
While luciferase was used in the development and evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines, it isn't present in the vaccines themselves. Lists of the ingredients for all three of the COVID-19 vaccines approved or authorized in the U.S. are available in fact-sheets provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA): Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Janssen. Luciferase isn't among the listed ingredients for any of these vaccines.
Despite this, since late 2020 there have been a number of inaccurate claims about COVID-19 vaccines containing luciferase and attempts to connect luciferase to Lucifer, a name used by Christians to refer to the devil (see fact-checks of the claims here and here). Robinson's now-deleted tweet and subsequent Substack post are among the latest iterations of these claims, which have been fact-checked by Reuters, the Associated Press, USA Today, Snopes, and others. In all cases, fact-checkers concluded that luciferase isn't an ingredient in the COVID-19 vaccines, and that there is no connection between Lucifer and luciferase other than a similar etymology.
In her Substack post, Robinson broke down the investigation that led to her claim of luciferase's presence in the vaccines. "1) I went to the MODERNA website. 2) I clicked to the PATENTS page. 3) I found PATENT US 10,703,789 4) I conducted a keyword search for something called: Luciferase".
There are four instances in which the word "luciferase" appears in the 248 pages of patent US 10,703,789 (available here), which concerns using modified polynucleotides to produce proteins; Robinson appears to take these four instances as evidence of the enzyme's presence in the vaccines. However, one instance is in the title of a 2012 article referenced in the patent, and the other three are in a table listing targets for primers and probes–small segments of DNA necessary in PCR, a technique used to copy nucleic acid sequences–that the patent document explains "may be usefully [sic] in the PCR reactions of the present invention".
The patent document does list vaccines as one potential product of the patented invention, but US 10,703,789 doesn't specifically mention Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine. In fact, the words "COVID", "coronavirus" and "SARS-CoV-2" are nowhere to be found in the document. As such, patent US 10,703,789 does not provide evidence that the Moderna or other COVID-19 vaccines contain luciferase.
Like others before her, in both her deleted tweet and Substack post, Robinson claimed that luciferase is in the vaccines to track people. Claiming that tracking devices, like microchips, software, and magnetic chips that connect to 5G, are present in COVID-19 vaccines is a trend within vaccine misinformation. As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made clear in a FAQ: "the government is not using the vaccine to track you".
In labs, luciferase is used as a tool to monitor and detect biological processes, but it only works in the presence of luciferin, the molecule it acts on. Since neither luciferin nor luciferase are in the COVID-19 vaccines, Robinson's claim that vaccinations are a cover to "tag and track people" with luciferase is also inaccurate.
Claims 2 and 3 (Inaccurate): the vaccines are "totally experimental and untested" and ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were "swiftly outlawed"
In her Substack, Robinson made additional inaccurate claims about the COVID-19 vaccines. Specifically, she described the vaccines as "totally experimental and untested". As explained in a previous Health Feedback claim review, the COVID-19 vaccines used in the U.S. were approved or authorized by the FDA that reviewed data from clinical trials showing the vaccines were effective and safe. As such, Robinson's claim that the vaccines are "totally experimental and untested" is inaccurate.
Robinson also claimed that drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were "swiftly outlawed" to "force everyone to get the new vaccines". Contrary to her claim, neither ivermectin nor hydroxychloroquine is outlawed; both can still be taken for their approved uses. However, following evaluation of scientific data on the effectiveness of these drugs to treat and/or prevent COVID-19, the FDA hasn't authorized or approved the use of ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19, while the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel, convened by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has recommended against the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
This is not Robinson's first time spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines. In August 2021, she misleadingly suggested on Twitter that the CEO of Pfizer wasn't vaccinated (fact-checked here). Earlier, in a tweet from September 2020, she wrote that "some of these new vaccines will rewrite your DNA", an oft-repeated claim that has been previously fact-checked by Health Feedback (see here and here). Robinson's September 2020 tweet also mentioned luciferase.
As we explained, luciferase is a helpful tool in scientific research, and was used in the development and evaluation of the COVID-19 vaccines. However, luciferase is not an ingredient in any of the COVID-19 vaccines approved or authorized in the U.S., making Robinson's claims, first on Twitter then on Substack, inaccurate.
1 – Pardi et al. (2015) Expression kinetics of nucleoside-modified mRNA delivered in lipid nanoparticles to mice by various routes. Journal of Controlled Release.
Published on: 11 Nov 2021 | Editor: Fernanda Ferreira
Science Feedback is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to science education. Our reviews are crowdsourced directly from a community of scientists with relevant expertise. We strive to explain whether and why information is or is not consistent with the science and to help readers know which news to trust.
Please get in touch if you have any comment or think there is an important claim or article that would need to be reviewed.


This entry was posted in Carmen Fariña, Change the Stakes, Common Core tests, ELA (English-language arts), High-stakes testing, Jia Lee, MORE (Movement of Rank & File Educators), Network for Public Education (NPE), NYC DOE, NYC Opt Out, NYS Allies for Public Education, NYSED, Opposition to Common Core, Opt Out for Justice, Opt-out, Pearson, Privatization of education, Uncategorized by katielapham. Bookmark the permalink.
Also note that one passage and six of the multiple-choice items that appeared on the Grade 3 test were embedded field test material. As you know, these items are being tried out so the supplier (Pearson) can develop next year's exams. The field test items do not count in determining how students perform on the operational items. In this case, that left only 18 items in Book 1 that counted. (a pitifully small sample to base judgments of student achievement on–even if the items were of high quality). But the six experimental items took time and effort for students to get through. And the beneficiary of this is Pearson, while kids are exploited to perpetuate testing that is detrimental to children, teachers and schools.
I don't think it's Pearson anymore. I think our new commissioner ended the contract with them and moved on to a different vendor. In reality, I am more afraid of the Department of Education then the testing vendor.
NYSED is now in contract with Questar but the 2016 tests were created by Pearson.
Pearson is the culprit here. Check out YouTube of John Oliver's segment on standardized testing. Speaks volumes about profit!!!
Get common core out!!! No good. Out to ruin/brainwash our children. I took my daughter out of the public school because of common core. Although it does affect many private schools as well, the schools will not get any help with funding if they do not practice Common Core. I am sending my daughter to a Catholic School where they do not. I work in the public school for 14 years, recently leaving and it is SAD watching these kids struggle like they do.
Catholic school is a way worse idea than Common Core-teaching public schools.
THEN YOU HAVE NEVER ATTENDED CATHOLIC SCHOOL, I DID, MY WIFE DID AND ALL 3 OF OURCHILDREN, WE ARE 2 CPAS WITH MASTERS IN ACCOUNTING, 1 ATTORNEY, 1 REGISTERED NURSE (RNBS) AND ONE IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS.
Common Core standards are not the problem. Standards should be set and reached. Testing is the problem.
Catholic School is like jumping from a frying pan into a burnt one. Take the Bible teach from it, right alone with math, spelling, and so. AT HOME. Drop out of the School System, and see what happen's to this Pearson, and check out who is behind putting your job's on the line.
Pingback: Can Teachers Talk About Opt Out? | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.
I helped set the cut scores for the first ELA 3-5 NY common core tests. The whole thing is a farce. Most standardized tests are. I teach in community college, and I am more and more seeing students who are not only incapable of writing more than a five-paragraph essay, they are incapable of understanding that the need to learn new skills in college. We are lowering our standards in college to meet the lowered skills; our English adjuncts are being told not to teach research in freshman composition, just mention the concept.
This is how we'll beat China, folks!
New York State at one time had the very best school system in the country….I went to grammar school until 1953 and my 3 children went to grammar school in NYS from 1960-1972 I could read and spell proficiently.
Reading, writing and spelling are not considered as important these days.
I am not familiar with the Pearson test BUT testing should be offered in a way that 3rd through 8th grade can understand.
We need to find out why children cannot perform these simple accomplishments.
I have seen the same thing. And we are about the same age. 4 years ago I found one of these common core tests laying on the ground and looking at it I was astonished. An idiot with a brain tumor should have been able to pass it in the 4th grade and this was a graduation test for high school seniors. "Who was the leader of Germany in WW II"????????????? And the choices? Adolf Hitler, Barrack Obama, William Clinton and J.P. Morgan or something similar. How can you have a multiple choice spelling test? This has been brought to you by the American Teacher's Union.
My daughter was legally blind until the 4th grade when her eyesight finally had developed enough that glasses actually worked. She of course couldn't read or write. We asked the school if there was a reading program she could get into to catch up. Nope. It was all on us.So my wife and I put her through a year of private school. She not only caught to her class mates but passed them. I think that says it all about our public education system.
Who is responsible for your child not being able to read? Go research that question. I think you'd be surprised.
Thank you for speaking out. I have been so frustrated and can't imagine the additional burden all this profit-making high-stakes testing has placed on teachers. I can see how much the stress is taxing our elementary-school children. What I can't understand is why parents focused on achievement are supportive of these tests, which only take time and energy away from real learning.
Because parents don't know. They believe what the press tells them.
Even not being able to see any questions and just from the answers I have read this sounds more like a communist set up rather than anything at all needed or wanted for our kids. As far as my child taking this or anything like it I would end up removing my child from any school that goes by this.
Thank you Katie! Proud of you and your voice for our children!
As a non-New Yorker who now lives in Virginia, very good article, thank you. My daughter was victim of Common Core in Illinois and failed 3rd grade math horribly. The REALLY sad part, I, couldn't help her because I didn't understand the questions myself. It asked you to "explain" why 45/9=6 (for example). The fact that she is on the autism spectrum only made her that more frustrated. Thankfully, we moved away to a non-Common Core state and she is doing much better.
I am a teacher of 16 years in Pennsylvania and also am doing the ELA tests this week. Each year, at this time, I wonder how on earth I decided to enter a profession that would come to place such an intense level of stress on students and educators to teach to a highly-advanced academic test that is a one-size fits all series of tests that has no relevance to any real-life skill sets. I wrote a poem last year (each passing year adds to the second guessing of my career choice and the frustration of clueless lawmakers in Harrisburg who do not understand the details or impact of Common Core (and now as part of our evaluations), yet impose it on the state education system. I feel utterly disheartened yet again this year when I think of the frustration of my rural, low attending, mostly low-income students who have to pretend to be academics for the next few days and test on difficult content that most politicians and many professors might not even comprehend. Here is the poem I was inspired to write. I am sure any teacher who reads it, will at least relate a bit. "A Teacher's Lament" (2015) by Melissa –What would Confucius, Gandhi, or Anne Sullivan think anyway?/ Would they be proud of education today?/ We strive to create drones who can think all the same…/ pass high-stakes state tests,/ everyone play the game/ But students have become data, percentages, and stats,/ and teachers each day are "pulling rabbits out of hats."/ placate and coddle, and faux discipline/ If "Johnny" and "Suzy" don't pass the tests, then it is "your skin."/ It makes no sense, if you ask me/ Basic skills are gone/ doesn't anybody see?/ Humanity has changed, and education also shows/ that instant gratification is all that our society knows./ Therefore, learning is something we are only forcing in our schools. We are becoming robots now, blindly following absurd laws and rules.
Thanks. I have my good teaching days along with the bad ones. Which poem?
The assessments are not designed first and the curriculum subsequently hammered out, as good backward design dictates. Since the curriculum is released before "vendors" are hired to construct the tests, there is a built-in flaw in the assessment. One should first ask what the students should be able to do (that's the test!) and subsequently design the path to get there (that's the curriculum!). Unfortunately, the whole design process is flawed. And expensive. And time consuming. And unfair to students and teachers. I teach physics at a private high school, and it pains me to see my colleagues in public settings have to go through this!
Shouldn't we compare and conform our system to top level systems in world ?
Yes, but you are using common sense. Common sense, is not very common anymore.
Hopefully the students be expected to do as well as the top performing students in the world . We used to be at the pinnacle . What happened ?
I live in Southern California in an area were poverty and and English as a second language is the norm and unfortunately (and sadly) education is not as rigorous as in other parts of the state and teachers really don't care as much as you do since their only reply to us is "Sorry theres nothing we can do". I didnt even know one could opt out of this test until I came across an article on msn.com. When my child was first introduced to Common Core I was shocked to find out her teacher gave her a lot of minuses on her math test because she was answering the questions correctly but NOT the "common core" way. I am not alone on this as I would say about 90% of the parents hate this program or way of teaching and even the teachers do not know it themselves having to recur to books when I have asked a question or straight telling me they do not know HOW to arrive to the answer they just know the answer because its in their books. Now her English teacher is giving her minus points for submitting good reading sumaries. She has requested that my child sticks to 2-3 sentences for a total of 50-60 pages that she reads each day. I cannot imagine how one can do such a thing when this many pages are being read. The times she has written 4-5 sentences I always receive notes from her "reminding" us that she wants a (very) "short" summary. I would love to contact you and start a multi-state petition through change.org to have Common Core removed completely from the educational system and banned forever. If you are interested in this please contact me I know that if we join forces may be, just may be, our voices will be heard.
Here in Florida my 5th grade students took their state assessment on the computer, consisting of multiple long passages on a split screen. Like you, I can't talk about the test, but I can tell you that my second language students, even with unlimited time, struggled through the 28 & 32 question sections over two days. My best students couldn't complete the questions iin the time given & scrambled to answer them all at the end. Of course, this is NOT how we assess these students all year, & even with practice, it is very difficult for them. The split screen (passage on one side, questions on the other) is awful & distracting (I imagine) to many students. I'm disheartened that I am forced to put my students through this testing process & angry that those in power feel that these test results represent the teachers we are in the classroom. I don't want to do away with all testing, but this is broken and needs to be fixed!
The test indeed seemed hard, however I still don't understand what is wrong with taking states tests.These tests are great for the students to see haw much they have improved or what they nee to work on.
I'm reacting solely to the image at the very top of the article. Regardless of how you feel about this assessment method or the Common Core, there are very good reasons why you are not allowed to talk about the tests. This is assessment 101. If you talk about the test, it is no longer a secure document and it is much easier for people to cheat on it. When people talk about it, Pearson has to revise the test. They aren't going to revise it any better than it is right now. They have their protocols for it which are unlikely to change. This feeds into the cycle of profit for Pearson because they can use that as an excuse to raise the price. So, don't talk about individual test items. If you do, it just perpetuates what you were concerned about in the first place. Look, I understand that you are frustrated. But you have to keep your ahead, as an educator, when you fight injustices.
Great Article Kate, I love reading about other school districts that feel the same as we do here in West Seneca, NY. We had teacher classrooms with a 100% opt out this year, we have been screaming since 2013 to stop these terribly formatted tests. Our superintendent has been a leader in standing up to the NYSED and getting the word out to the community to opt out. One of our biggest concerns is what are they doing with the information? If you are not sending the information to the parents and the teachers? Data mining is a huge business and this way of assessing our children and educators needs to stop! I work for the school district and I am the SIS Administrator so I see first hand what is going on. I wish I could give more details, but anyone who knows about this common core crap knows I need not say more. I don't care what the new head A**h*** in charge of education has to say, omission is still lying, if you are not going to be as open and honest you should be then you are a liar. Even though there is a contract with Questar NYSED will still be using Pearson tests for the next two years, so you will not see any tests given by the new vendor until at the very least spring of 2018.
A NYS teacher just posted this about the 2016 Common Core tests.
We take the same test here in Colorado. I trash 3rd grade. We did our test online and there not as many reading passages as your are referring to. I am confused on why. We finished math also, cannot wait to see how yours is different. Anyone know why they are different?


text:
CTXC
mywaymywei
@mywaymywei
mywaymywei Follow
Posts made by mywaymywei
THANK YOU FOR MAKING BINANCE HAPPENED
To ALL CORTEX Supporters,
We would like to give you a big THANK YOU for making this happen. The past week has been a roller coaster for CORTEX and for our supporters. We have conducted 15 AMAs globally and had a great time interacting with the communities. During the Binance Community Voting: Round 3, we saw a lot of love and support from the community. You are the reason that made it possible for Cortex to be listed on Binance.
We would also like to thank Aergo for the fierce fight. We value your vision to create the best decentralized solutions for business. We wish you all the best and let us all make a decentralized world happens!
Lastly, we would like to thank all the Binance team members and angels for the exciting journey in the past few weeks. We look forward to continue working with you. 🥳🥳🥳
However, the journey does not stop here. CORTEX will continue to move forward and make AI inference and AI smart contracts feasible so that more and more people will understand the importance of AI on Blockchian.
Thank you for believing in CORTEX
posted in Random
Upcoming AMAs
We will host a series of AMAs over the next few days, note the times below are UTC (please check your respective time zone carefully as not to miss us):
Sunday 11/17
3 pm: Binance Spanish
6 pm: Binance Turkish
Monday 11/18
10 am: Binance Vietnam
12:30 pm: Binance India
5 pm: Binance France
Tuesday 11/19
2 am: Binance Ukraine + Russia
10 am: Crypto Differ
1 pm: Crypto India
Wednesday 11/20
3 am: Cortex Official AMA
7 am: 深链
10 am: Binance Philippines
Live AMA with Cortex on November 19th, 7:00PM PST
The AMA will be held on November 19th, 7:00PM PST featuring Cortex CEO Ziqi Chen, CTO Mickey Tian, and COO Amy Chen. There will be 3 sections, AMA, Live Q&A, and Quiz!
Section 1 AMA
From now until November 19th, 10:00AM PST, we will be collecting questions on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter and tweet @CTXCBlockchain with your questions. We will select 10 of the questions to win $40 in CTXC tokens each!
Section 2 Live Q&A
You will have a chance to ask our members any question and we will try our best to answer you! We will also select 5 questions to receive $40 in CTXC tokens each.
Section 3 Quiz!
We will ask 5 questions during this section where you can get answers from AMA and our website. The first 3 correct answers for each question will get $5 in CTXC tokens each.
Come Join and Support us to be listed on Binance. Go Cortex!
What the Future Holds for AI
The applications of weak AI have been closely integrated into our lives, such as autonomous vehicles, intelligent monitoring, or chat robots. Yet, there is another field of Artificial Intelligence that is absent in our lives but fancy by us — Strong AI.
The science fiction characters in movies, such as BB-8 droid in Star Wars and humanoid robots in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, are examples of strong AI. However, whether it's from the hardware or AI development perspective, strong AI is just merely an imagination. We are in a slow phase of developing strong AI, nor do we know how to get there.
posted in AI
AI Smart Contracts — The Past, Present, and Future
Smart contracts, known to be used with the blockchain technology, is a computer program that directly controls the transfer of digital currencies or assets between parties under certain conditions.
Smart contracts, contrary to traditional contracts, covert the agreement statements into a computer program with code. A smart contract not only defines the rules and penalties related to an agreement in the same way that a traditional contract does, but it can also automatically enforce those obligations.
It has the potential to disintermediate industries such as the legal and financial fields by simplifying and automating routine and repetitive processes for which people currently pay lawyers and banks hefty fees to do.
Running Artificial Intelligence on the Blockchain
Smart contracts, known to be used with the blockchain technology, is a computer program that directly controls the transfer of digital currencies or assets between parties under certain conditions. However, there is one particular characteristic that is lacking which ceases a wider application for smart contracts. In spite of many games and pyramid scheme DApps, this feature is a prominent reason why smart contracts have not been very successful thus far — AI Smart Contracts.
So what is AI?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a new term, it has been around since the 1950s. Artificial Intelligence can be defined as human intelligence exhibited by Machines. Earlier works of AI used methods like A*, fuzzy logic, expert systems, and good old-fashioned AI (GOFAI), the same if-then rules that are used in coding most applications including smart contracts. Deep Blue, the AI created by IBM that defeated the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, used a method called search algorithms to evaluate millions of moves at every turn.
First Blockchain Capable of Running AI Programs: Cortex MainNet Arnold Launch
There is a lot of excitement around smart contracts these days — the idea that you can run computer programs in a decentralized, transparent, immutable and censorship-resistant manner is a powerful one. However, one severe limitation to the current smart contracts / DApps is that they cannot realistically incorporate and execute AI programs.
Running AI on the blockchain has traditionally been thought unrealistic or impossible due to various factors: the design of virtual machines, nondeterministic behaviors of AI models, and slow transaction speed of on-chain AI inference. Solving these engineering challenges is a nontrivial task and requires extremely deep knowledge of both AI and blockchain.
However, after countless hours of innovation and hard work, on June 26, 6 PM +8 GMT, the Cortex Team is proud to announce the launch of its MainNet:
The first decentralized world computer capable of running AI and AI-powered Dapps on the blockchain.
For the first time in human history, we are now able to efficiently run AI on the blockchain. Instead of a black box, every step of the AI inference is verified by network consensus to ensure decentralization, immutability, and transparency. This has huge implications for the decentralized world into which we are entering, as now smart contracts have become truly smart with the addition of AI algorithms.
In this official announcement, we will first overview the core technical innovations that have made running AI on the Cortex blockchain possible, briefly discuss the applications of AI smart contracts as well as Cortex's vision for an open decentralized AI ecosystem on the blockchain, and then state the next steps in the development plan.
Core Technical Innovations
CVM (Cortex Virtual Machine)
One of the biggest reasons that conventional blockchains like Ethereum cannot effectively incorporate AI is that their virtual machines run on the CPU, not suited for executing nontrivial AI programs. Our CVM, on the other hand, utilizes the GPU, ideal for effectively executing AI programs.
Besides the AI infer instructions, the primary innovation of the CVM is a deterministic inference engine, called Synapse or the CVM Executor, that guarantees exactly the same result of an AI model in different computing environments and thereby making network consensus on AI program executions possible.
In addition, the CVM is backward-compatible with the EVM; therefore, it can run all the Ethereum DApps, and on top of that, incorporate AI into these DApps.
Link for further technical details: https://github.com/CortexFoundation/CortexTheseus/tree/dev/infernet
Model Representation Tool (MRT)
Due to the nondeterministic behaviors of deep neural network models across different devices, it was not possible to reach network consensus during their execution on the blockchain.
To solve this problem, we developed a deterministic quantization framework, the MRT, designed to convert floating-point models supported by nnvm into fixed-point models executable on the CVM while preventing significant loss of precision. Our quantization method, which incidentally has gained support from the official MXNet team, ensures no overflow and guarantees the deterministic outcome of the model execution.
Link for further technical details: https://github.com/CortexFoundation/tvm-cvm
Cortex uses Cuckoo Cycle for its proof of work algorithm. Cuckoo Cycle is a graph theory-based algorithm that is far less energy-intensive than most other CPU, GPU or ASIC-bound PoW algorithms. The goal is to lower mining requirements, ensuring true decentralization and laying the foundation for future scalability.
The difficulty adjusts dynamically so that on average, a block is produced every 15 seconds, i.e., 15s block time. This rate ensures the synchronization of the system state while preventing double-spend and history alteration unless an attacker possesses more than 51% of the network's mining power.
Link for further technical details: https://github.com/CortexFoundation/CortexTheseus
Application of AI Smart Contracts
Almost all traditional apps nowadays incorporate AI to some degree, it is therefore hard to imagine the future of DApps without AI. The benefits of AI smart contracts are as evident as the benefits of smart contracts themselves: transparency, decentralization, disintermediation, immutability, etc. Here we enumerate five use cases thought of by the Cortex team alone, although it is almost certain that the best use cases are yet to be conceived by the community.
For example, a decentralized lending app can run an AI algorithm to determine your interest rate based on your personal credit history. The AI used to analyze your credit score is not a black box, but instead, every step of the AI inference is transparent to prevent discrimination and ensure fairness.
AI Stablecoins
Stablecoins governed by AI algorithms with a clear guideline and transparent coin-issuing/burning process, based on decentralized AI inference network to ensure the coin's validity and its value.
CryptoKitties would be much cuter, more life-like, and unique if they incorporated AI. Imagine these kitties moving dynamically and behaving uniquely depending on your personal experience interacting with them. While Ethereum is not able to execute AI models and allow for this user experience, this is something that Cortex can uniquely enable.
Blockchain finds many use cases in the insurance industry, where immutability, fairness, openness, and transparency are in high demand. AI can help improve underwriting decisions, better manage risks, and prevent fraud. An insurance DAO powered by on-chain AI can bring us better, cheaper, fairer, and less bureaucratic insurance.
Decentralized Uber
Almost every aspect of Uber involves AI, from matching drivers and riders, route optimization, driver onboarding to determining fares. Therefore, if we want to build a decentralized Uber, it is necessary to be able to run AI on the blockchain.
Anti-fake AI
The emergence of deepfakes (AI-manipulated videos that are indistinguishable to the human eye) poses a significant threat to society. Social stability will inevitably suffer if video recordings can simply be dismissed as untrustworthy in court. Anti-fake AI algorithms (algorithms that detect whether a video has been tampered with) will run on the blockchain to ensure their transparency and fairness, especially if they were to be used in court.
An Open Decentralized AI Ecosystem
Besides enabling AI smart contracts, the other part of the Cortex project is the building of an open decentralized AI ecosystem on the blockchain.
Cortex brings an important new party into the blockchain ecosystem (which traditionally consists of only DApp developers, users, and miners): AI developers.
AI developers upload trained AI models onto the storage layer of the Cortex blockchain. These models can later be either inferred on their own or incorporated into smart contracts by DApp developers. Each time an AI model is called, it's model uploader gets rewards in CTXCs, coming from a part of the network transaction fees. (The transaction sender pays for the transaction fee by setting an endorphin limit and endorphin price, where endorphin is the unit that measures the computational effort required for the transaction, similar to the concept of Gas in Ethereum.)
This economic mechanism incentivizes AI developers to compete with each other in training and uploading better and better AI models, leading to an evolving decentralized AI ecosystem on the blockchain. Thus, good AI models will openly distributed on the Cortex blockchain instead of being monopolized by a few big corporations.
To start, Cortex has 23 models, trained with four datasets, that serve 7 different purposes. All models have been quantized using MRT (see above), ready to be inferred on the Cortex Virtual Machine (CVM).
Technical Development Plan
Next up, there will be three major milestones that we aim to reach.
First, we will upgrade the CVM + MRT. Right now, MRT is just a deterministic quantization framework — we hope to turn it into a full-fledged programming language that provides a complete instruction set and better deterministic support. Meanwhile, we want to upgrade the CVM to support more AI models, specifically dynamic models.
Second, we want to scale by working on possible layer 1 or 2 solution. Our initial target is to increase the TPS to 1000. We will also improve our DOPS (deterministic operations per second), which currently is at 10G DOPS.
Third, we will work to improve the privacy of the AI models. We are researching cryptographic solutions in order to implement shielded on-chain AI inferences. The current thinking is to use zk-starks or zk-snarks as one of the possible layer 1 solutions and trusted computing as a possible layer 2 solution.
Community Development Plan
Upon the MainNet Launch and the release of Cortex source code, the Cortex team is opening up the development to the decentralized open-source community around the world; however, the Cortex Foundation will continue to provide underlying support to the Cortex blockchain and its open-source ecosystem in many ways: we have established a developer forum (link)and will start to organize online and offline workshops to educate AI developers in navigating the Cortex ecosystem, set up bounty programs, and further develop the open-source technical collaboration mechanism (establish open model libraries and datasets); etc.
In terms of the AI Dapp ecosystem, the Cortex Foundation will work with Dapp developers and companies around the world to help implement more AI Dapps on the Cortex chain.
Meanwhile, we will work on cross-chain support: As programs in other blockchains may require running AI on-chain for reliability and transparency, they will be able to execute the AI models on our chain and get the results returned back to their chain for further processing.
Furthermore, we will closely collaborate with academia and industry for research partnerships and publications. Our unique core solutions to implement on-chain AI inference have already gained support from the official MXNet team. There will only be more of such collaborations and partnerships.
More Technical Information & References
Cortex Wallet: https://www.cortexlabs.ai/wallet
Block Explorer: https://cerebro.cortexlabs.ai/
Cortex Remix IDE: https://cerebro.cortexlabs.ai/remix
Full Nodes: https://github.com/CortexFoundation/CortexTheseus
Cortex Miner: https://github.com/CortexFoundation/PoolMiner
Token Swap: https://medium.com/cortexlabs/cortex-mainnet-token-swap-announcement-c06769c40663?postPublishedType=repub
Cortex Brings Secure Real-world Data to AI Smart Contracts Using Chainlink
With the launch of the Cortex MainNet at the end of June, the Cortex team has enabled the execution of AI smart contracts on the blockchain. For the first time, AI models can be realistically executed on the blockchain in a decentralized, transparent and secure way. In addition to enabling on-chain AI inference, the Cortex infrastructure also encourages machine learning developers to upload their models to the blockchain for all kind of DApp utilities, aiming to create a decentralized open-sourced AI ecosystem.
To connect AI smart contracts to real-world data, a trustworthy middleware (an oracle) is needed. Using centralized oracles provides a single point of failure and defeats the purpose of running smart contracts on the blockchain; therefore, Cortex has chosen to integrate Chainlink, a highly reliable decentralized oracle network to guarantee the integrity of input data used in the execution of smart contracts as well as the outbound execution results on Cortex. With Chainlink, Cortex can make its trustless AI inferencing ability available to a wide variety of chains and unlock access to a lot more data.
Cortex deeply values the integrity, security, and decentralization of smart contracts, already striving to ensure them by utilizing an ASIC-resistant PoW algorithm. The integration with Chainlink further expands this integrity to the entire smart contract execution process, covering the security of inbound external data and outbound results.
AI smart contracts on Cortex can now pull in trusted real-world data and use them in the execution of on-chain AI inference. As an example in DeFi, if we want to create an on-chain Robo-advisor AI that makes investment for you based on the market data of BTC, we can now trust that the whole process is securely decentralized, as the program pulls in market data from an external API via Chainlink, uses that data for executing the AI smart contract on Cortex, and outputs the inference results to your bank service again via Chainlink.
Hence, the integration of Chainlink is an important first step in building the infrastructure for a decentralized open-sourced AI ecosystem on Cortex. As each day goes by, the integrity and security of AI smart contracts keep enhancing with developers building on top of the Cortex ecosystem.
"Cortex aims to create an open-sourced AI ecosystem that needs a broad source of data and a large crowd of audience. Chainlink can greatly help Cortex on both fronts. Further into the future, Cortex may help in optimizing Chainlink's consensus and routing via on-chain inference," says the CTO of Cortex Labs Tian Jia.
About Cortex
Cortex is a public blockchain that supports Artificial Intelligence (AI) models to be uploaded and executed on the distributed network. Cortex provides an open-source AI platform to achieve AI democratization where models can be integrated into smart contracts and create AI-enable decentralized applications (AI DApps).
Follow Cortex on Twitter, Telegram, Facebook, & Reddit for project updates and announcements. Visit GitHub & Forum for technical documentation and discussion.
About Chainlink
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to securely access off-chain data feeds, web APIs, and traditional bank payments. Chainlink is well known for providing highly secure and reliable oracles to large enterprises (Google and SWIFT) and leading smart contract development teams. Learn more by visiting the Chainlink website, Twitter, or Telegram. If you're a developer, visit the developer documentation or join the technical discussion on Discord.


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FYLDE COAST PLAYERS
The Winslow Boy
Equally Divided
Are You Being Served ?
Hi de Hi
Rock Off Tommy
Entertaining Angels
Farndale
Contact and Useful Links
Fylde Coast Players present
by Terence Rattigan
How far would you go to obtain justice?
Is it better to fight for the truth or to let sleeping dogs lie?
These questions are at the heart of Terence Rattigan's most famous and well loved play – 'The Winslow Boy'. Based on a true story and set in the years leading up to the First World War, 'The Winslow Boy' charts a father's fight to clear his son's name.
When 14 year old Ronnie Winslow is expelled from the Royal Naval College for theft, his father is convinced Ronnie is innocent. After acquiring the talented lawyer, Sir Robert Morton, Arthur Winslow doggedly pursues the case, which becomes a sensationalised public story – but at what cost to his family?
Poppy Flanagan, fresh from her success with 'All My Sons' last March, directs what promises to be a superb costume drama.
What the reviewer thought...
Terence Rattigan's 1947 drama stands the test of time triumphantly in the skilled hands of Fylde Coast Players.
Director Poppy Flanagan navigates her cast through a myriad of words at exactly the right pace and the audience are absorbed throughout.
Jeff Redfern as Arthur Winslow, fighting against the Establishment to clear his naval cadet son's name for theft, is nicely understated but resolute, whilst Don Green, as the eccentric advocate Sir Robert Morton, is coolly analytic – fine character acting by both.
It is a very English play, set just prior to the Great War, but Rattigan's depiction of the House of Commons as full of far too much hot air and the words of Catherine Winslow, an eloquent campaigner for women's suffrage, drew ironic chuckles from an audience going home to Brexit chaos. Andrea Cave's beautiful diction as Catherine is impressive.
Ann Slack and Mathew Eaton excel in dialogue, Edward Thompson is suitably unsure as the accused Ronnie, whilst Connor James battles hard in the unrewarding role of the unappealing Dickie Winslow.
Rattigan cleverly places the recounting of the result of the trial in the mouth of parlour maid Violet and here Debbie Couchman rounds off a first-class production with warmth and humour. A five star show.
Julian Wilde
And what NODA thought...
The Winslow Boy- Fylde Coast Players- 15.3.2019
This classic play by Terence Rattigan was inspired by the facts of a well known case from 1908 and Rattigan created his play putting the dates to1912-1914 and simplifying the Legal aspects.
The action of the play takes place in Arthur Winslow's house in Kensington, London and extends over a period of 2 years.
The Set was very well designed and built with good attention to detail.
Poppy Flanagan, Director had a clear view as to what was required from her cast and the result was a fascinating and engrossing performance.
The play was very well cast and the pace never faltered, in this very wordy and complex script.
Jeff Redfern showed his determination and passion as Arthur Winslow in his quest to clear his son's name. He was so convincing as his health and wealth deteriorated under the strain of the legal case.
The role of Ronnie Winslow, the accused central character of the piece, was played sensitively and confidently by Edward Thomson who showed great promise. He will have learned many aspects of Theatre, working with such a talented Director and cast and I look forward to see his future progress.
I have seen Connor James in various Youth Productions and as Dickie Winslow, the elder son, he showed growing maturity and confidence, completely understanding the character.
Don Green commanded the stage at his every appearance as the Advocate, Sir Robert Morton, who had been hired to defend Ronnie. He was always in character and used his considerable voice projection and ensured the pace of the dialogue was just what was required.
Andrea Cave as the elegant and eloquent Catherine Winslow, gave an outstanding performance, showing her experience and control as she demonstrated her personal convictions as a Suffragette whilst personally supporting her family.
There were no weak links in this Production and I was especially interested in the political references of the times.
Sound effects were well done, ( Telephone and the vintage Gramphone). Costumes and soft furnishings were of a very high standard and I believe that the beautiful ladies outfits and hats, were made by Company members.
This was a first class Production by this Company and they continue to bring high quality to the North West.
Jean and I will continue to support you over the coming years