Dr. Jonathan Goldstein, MD is a Doctor primarily located in Ogden, UT, with another office in Newark, NJ. He has 40 years of experience. His specialties include Cardiology and Cardiovascular Disease. Dr. Goldstein is affiliated with Ogden Regional Medical Center, St. Joseph`s Hospital And Medical Center, Paterson and Christ Hospital, Jersey City. He speaks English.
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A patient may be referred to a cardiologist if he experiences symptoms like chest pains, shortness of breath, dizziness, or high blood pressure. The physician will then evaluate your symptoms, take your health and family history and your weight. The cardiologist may order additional diagnostic tests, such as an echocardiogram, X-ray or blood tests. If necessary, the cardiologist may also call for a cardiac catheterization - a procedure in which a small tube is inserted into or near the heart that can take pictures of the heart's activity, or relieve blockage.
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An important warning: During installation, do NOT activate home folder encryption. Due to bugs 957843 and 509180, you will most probably suffer data loss, and you won't even know about it until it's too late. This happened on two of my laptops during normal use, both of which I have since completely reinstalled with LUKS whole disk encryption. It's a shame that this bug has been known for years, but that Ubuntu still ships with this as its default home folder encryption configuration.
With the release of Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin on April 26, 2012, I decided that it was finally time to test this on my almost-a-year-old Samsung NP300V3A laptop. I had been procrastinating up to now, due to all the horror stories about the lack of Linux support for the NVIDIA Optimus graphics, a hardware-software combination that auto-switches in this case between the discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT520m and the CPU-integrated Intel HD3000.
I was quite pleasantly surprised. Read on if you're curious as to why.
The obligatory Ubuntu 12.04 Unity desktop screenshot. My gnome-terminal is using the lovely Solarized colours. Extra indicators include Dropbox, and indicator-multiload for showing the CPU, network, load and disk activity gaphs.
With the Linux Startup Disk Utility (actually called the usb-creator-gtk) on my Ubuntu desktop I installed the 12.04 x86_64 image on an old 1GB USB flash drive. A point of criticism is that the final "installing bootloader" part takes some minutes, without much feedback other than a progress bar bouncing horizontally. Booting the live disk went perfectly, and I could test basic functionality. Joining my TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND access point went without a hitch. Even suspend and resume worked out of the box. Resuming is fast, almost MacBook speed! During the installation, I used the partition tool to resize an existing NTFS partition to create space for the Linux installation. It still amazes me how smooth this process has become. From start to final boot, the whole installation took 18 minutes.
After bootup, the first two issues I ran into were the miserable (estimated) battery life, and the fact that Super-W did not activate Window-Scale, as I was used to on other Ubuntu installations. A "ps uaxw | grep -i unity" revealed that I was running unity-2d, and sniffing through /var/log/Xorg.0.log yielded the tell-tale "(EE) Failed to initialize GLX extension (Compatible NVIDIA X driver not found)" (also that X was getting confused with the seeming presence of both Intel and NVIDIA graphics). It was clear that Ubuntu 12.04 doesn't support Optimus out of the box.
After this log out and log back in, and you're in Optimus heaven! My battery estimate was soon 3.5h+ on 80% charge (it was just under 2h at 80% before installing bumblebee), unity 3D was running, and I could start applications, using the optirun prefix, running on the NVIDIA graphics. With glxspheres, I get 1.9 frames/sec and 1.9 Mpixels/sec without and 115 frames/sec and 113 Mpixels/sec with NVIDIA graphics. Importantly, bumblebee automatically switches off the NVIDIA graphics when nothing is using it, resulting in the much longer battery life. All hail the four main developers of Bumblebee: Thulinma, Lekensteyn, Samsagax and ArchangeGabriel.
Unity, Ubuntu's unique GUI, has improved muchly since 11.10. I gave Unity on 11.04 a serious go, and also on 11.10, but I gave up in each instance after a week or two due to glaring bugs. The 12.04 Unity has made great progress in fixing a number of small but irritating bugs, I think it might be a keeper. The heads-up display (HUD) is indeed awesome: Press "alt" (the default keybinding) and then type away to search through the menus of the currently foreground application. I've come to appreciate the screen space savings due to the global menubar, although it doesn't work for all apps yet, vim-gnome being an example of note. At this moment, my only wish would be to have a window-overview like you get in the gnome3-shell when you press the super key.
There has been much bitching and moaning about the direction Ubuntu has taken with Unity, some of it valid arguments. Especially the fact that much effort is being diverted from the gnome-shell is concerning. However, although I've dirtied many a word using previous versions of Unity, I think it's good that it's exploring directions that create a new UI experience that represents a counter-pole to the Windows and OS-X approaches.
Chrome and Chrome Application shortcuts are grouped together under the first launcher icon, whichever that is.
If you start up the application shortcut first, for example GMail, subsequent Chrome windows will be grouped under the GMail icon. Durn.
Fortunately, the devs have been working on this bug, and the fix should soon appear as a stable release update (SRU). Until that time, you can download and install the bamfdaemon, libbamf and libbamf3-0 deb packages from here. Anything with version 0.2.116 and newer has the fix. Note that this only fixes it for the case where you've started up Chrome first (scenario 1 above), and not an application shortcut. See my comment on the bug report.
I had low(ish) expectations when I connected my 40″ Sony Bravia TV to the HDMI port of the laptop, so I was more or less speechless for a while when, without me having to touch any part of the interface, Ubuntu simply extended its desktop onto the TV panel. BOOM. Just like that.
What I also like very much, is that Ubuntu by default puts the Launcher and its main menu bar on both displays (this is configurable though) and, even more gratifying, that the Dash appears automatically on the display currently containing the mouse cursor when I press the Super key. In the photo below, you can see the laptop below, on battery, outputting to the Sony TV via HDMI, and glxspheres humming along at just over 90 FPS using the discrete NVIDIA graphics. What you don't see is me, smiling maniacally behind the camera phone.
Ubuntu 12.04 multi-monitor support FTW!
The Displays configuration window seems to think the 40″ panel is 72″, but the resolution has been correctly deduced.
PowerTop says my idle power consumpting at 40% brightness is under 9W.
Actually with normal browsing over wlan, I was not able to push it that far over 10W. This is after having toggled 10 or so powertop tunables from "bad" to "good". After having installed laptop-mode-tools, the tunables are all automatically and persistently "good", except for a VM timeout. However, this seems to be a misunderstanding between laptop-mode-tools and powertop, and it is in fact quite OK.
The hardware config panel key (Fn-F1) does nothing, the touchpad disable key (Fn-F5) just works, the volume keys (Fn-F6 to Fn-F8) just work, but the hardware fan (Fn-F11) and wireless (Fn-F12) keys do nothing.
Initially the brightness keys (Fn-F2 and Fn-F3) didn't really work, only allowing me to switch between two brightness levels (100% and 90%). Adding "acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub, running sudo update-grub and then rebooting gives you 100% working hardware brightness control. Based on the information on this page, this configures brightness setting to happen through vendor-specific driver modules instead of through the ACPI default driver. Also see my askubuntu answer regarding this issue. Things have unfortunately changed to and fro with subsequent Ubuntu kernel releases, this page is up to date with linux kernel 3.2.0-31.
As mentioned before, suspend to and resume from RAM works like a charm, out of the box, and the resume is really fast. Hibernate does NOT work. I tested this with "sudo pm-hibernate", but when I switched the laptop back on, it acted like it was being cold-started.
I tested the webcam and sound setup (speakers and built-in microphone) with the gmail talk plugin and with the cheese application. These both work fine. However, with Skype 2.2.0.35 for Linux, you get the dreaded too-dark webcam image. The often-posted solution of using luvcview to adjust brightness does NOT work. Here's a better solution: Install v4l2ucp, the video4linux2 universal control panel. Keep this running when you start Skype. If the video is dark, switch the "Exposure, Auto Priority" off and then back on again. This solves the problem on my setup (built-in WebCam SCB-1100N). Whenever you startup Skype's video capturing again, it manages to screw up the setting, so you have to retoggle it with v4l2ucp unfortunately.
The touchpad can be easily configured for two-finger scrolling, but not for three-finger gestures like it can be on Windows.
USB tethering with my Android-powered (CyanogenMod 7.1) HTC Desire Z works like a charm. I connect the USB cable, activate USB tethering on the telephone, and my laptop is online. This definitely qualifies as a Just Works™, and it seems to connect a whole lot faster than Windows 7 does.
When I bought this laptop, I had resigned myself to not being able to use it for Linux, for the largest part due to NVIDIA Optimus. However, due to the efforts of the Bumblebee people, and also due Ubuntu 12.04 as a whole with the multi-monitor support being a highlight, my verdict is that this laptop is a great buy also when you're planning to go exclusively Linux.
My gnome-terminal uses the Solarized colour scheme from here, and my vim (both console and gnome) are using the setup from the main Solarized repository.
August 27, 2012: Updated fix for brightness controls.
June 14, 2012: Added warning about the default home encryption being completely broken.
May 6, 2012: Added USB tethering.
__May 4, 2012:_ _Added the Unity Launcher icon grouping bug fix.
May 3, 2012: Added the multi-monitor section after testing with my HDMI Sony TV. Added solution for dark webcam capture in Skype. Also, thanks to Ladislav Bodnar, host of DistroWatch.com, this review is now linked from the Ubuntu page.


Erythrocytosis, a rare paraneoplastic syndrome, generally occurs in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma and has never been reported in patients with chromophobe renal cell carcinoma.
We report a case of a young man suffering from a giant (22-cm) mass on his left kidney. Because of a history of polycythemia vera, the patient had been treated for the condition for 9 years. Radical nephrectomy was successfully performed, and the postoperative pathologic examination confirmed a diagnosis of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma. Unexpectedly, the symptom of erythrocytosis disappeared after the surgery. Further examination and analysis were performed, and we finally attributed his erythrocytosis to chromophobe renal cell carcinoma.
Chromophobe renal cell carcinoma could cause erythrocytosis, but the clear-cut mechanism needs further research. Secondary erythrocytosis such as those related with renal tumors should be taken into consideration during the diagnosis of polycythemia vera.
Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common renal malignancy in adults. Chromophobe renal cell carcinoma (chRCC) is a rare subtype of RCC that was first described in 1985 . Giant (>20 cm) chRCC in young patients (<30 years old) has rarely been reported [1, 2].
Erythrocytosis can be classified as either primary or secondary . Secondary erythrocytosis is mainly caused by conditions resulting in increased erythropoietin (EPO) production, including tumor or tissue production . Polycythemia vera (PV) as a primary condition is a type of clonal disorder of bone marrow stem cells which is often caused by a mutation in exon 12 of the janus kinase 2 (JAK2) tyrosine kinase gene [4, 5]. The mutation of the gene increases the phosphorylation activity of JAK2, promotes spontaneous cell growth, and induces erythrocytosis .
Erythrocytosis related with RCC is a secondary condition and is a rare event, occurring in no more than 5% RCC patients ; almost all cases of erythrocytosis occur in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) . Flank discomfort or pain, gross hematuria, flank mass, and weight loss can be observed in patients with chRCC; other symptoms include renal dysfunction, proteinuria, and pain from metastatic sites [9–11]. chRCC with symptoms of erythrocytosis is extremely uncommon.
Here, we present a case of a young man suffering from giant chRCC with erythrocytosis who had been unfortunately misdiagnosed with PV for 9 years.
A 29-year-old man was referred to the Department of Urology in QiLu Hospital on May 5, 2015 for diagnosis and treatment of a giant abdominal mass, which was discovered incidentally 1 month earlier. The patient had a medical history of PV associated with symptoms of splenomegaly and flush for 9 years. The patient had been admitted to a local hospital because of flush in 2006. The physical examination indicated splenomegaly, peripheral blood test and bone marrow trephine biopsy indicated erythrocytosis, and the result of p210 breakpoint cluster region-Abelson (BCR-ABL) fusion gene examination was negative. The patient was then diagnosed with PV. The results of peripheral blood tests of the patient remained abnormal; as a result, the patient was treated with intermittent phlebotomy therapy at the local hospital for 9 years. He also complained of progressive swelling of the abdomen, but the sign had always been ignored because it was considered to be related to splenomegaly. The patient had no symptoms, such as hematuresis, headache, fever, cough, and pain, suggesting any other syndromes.
At QiLu Hospital, the physical examination revealed a solid painless giant mass on the left side of the abdomen. Computed tomography of the abdomen and pelvis on May 6, 2015 showed a giant mass with a maximum diameter of 22 cm located in the middle-to-upper pole of the left kidney. The normal renal tissue of the left kidney was seriously constricted, and the ipsilateral renal pelvis of the right kidney showed hydronephrotic changes (Fig. 1a). Renal emission computed tomography (ECT) revealed mild-to-moderate damage in the left kidney (Fig. 1b). The results of peripheral blood test were consistent with the diagnosis of PV: a red blood cell count of 6.44 × 1012/L, a hemoglobin level of 22.2 g/dL, and a hematocrit level of 62.8%.
Following the routine examination, percutaneous renal biopsy under ultrasound guidance was performed on May 13, 2015 at the strong request of the patient to define the diagnosis. The histologic result indicated a diagnosis of RCC, but the specific subtype could not be clearly confirmed.
Treatment was initiated on May 15, 2015 with phlebotomy therapy to reduce the level of erythrocytosis and the risk of surgery. Following the hematologist's advice, 8 sessions of bloodletting (400 mL each time, once a week) were performed over the following 2 months, and aspirin at a dose of 100 mg/day was administered at the same time to prevent thrombogenesis. The patient's hemoglobin and hematocrit levels were controlled within normal limits before surgery.
To prevent serious intraoperative bleeding, a selective embolization of the left renal artery was also performed on June 30, 2015 (Fig. 2). Afterwards, an open radical left nephrectomy was performed. No obvious infiltration or local metastasis around the tumor was found during the surgery (Fig. 3a). The total operation time (including the embolization) was 175 min. Intraoperative blood loss was approximately 500 mL, and no blood transfusion was performed.
The pathologic examination of the gross specimen revealed an encapsulated solid mass measuring 20.5 cm × 16 cm × 15 cm, with multiple tiny cysts of various sizes in the central part of the tumor (Fig. 3b). Large cells with finely reticulated cytoplasm and small cells with abundant eosinophilic cytoplasm and perinuclear clearing were found using hematoxylin–eosin staining (Fig. 3c). Immunohistochemical staining was also performed with paraffin-embedded samples, which were positive for cytokeratin 7 (CK7) and negative for Vimentin and CD10 (Fig. 4a–c). Considering the combination of the above results, the patient was finally diagnosed with stage pT2bN0M0 chRCC (according to the 2010 American Joint Committee on Cancer TNM staging system). A test for the JAK2 V617F mutation was performed, which returned a negative result, excluding the diagnosis of PV. Immunohistochemical staining with EPO-specific antibody was also performed, which was positive (Fig. 4d). Therefore, we confirmed that the erythrocytosis was caused by the tumor and was a type of paraneoplastic syndrome of chRCC.
The upper and lower abdominal drains were removed separately 5 and 10 days later, and the patient was discharged on the 15th postoperative day. His 30-day postoperative hemoglobin level was 13.4 g/dL, and his hematocrit level was 40.0%.
During the 18 months of follow-up until January 5, 2017, no evidence of disease recurrence or metastasis was identified. The patient's blood test index was still within normal limits without any adjuvant therapies (Fig. 5).
Changes in the patient's serum hemoglobin (HGB) and hematocrit (HCT) levels before and after surgery. The patient's HGB and HCT remained at high levels before the surgery, and he was treated with intermittent bloodletting therapies at the local hospital for 9 years. One of the bloodletting therapies was taken on March 14, 2011, and his HGB and HCT declined after the bloodletting therapy. During the time of the two breaks on the horizontal axis, the bloodletting therapy and blood examination was continued, however it was not recorded. His HGB and HCT were controlled within normal levels with bloodletting therapy before surgery at QiLu Hospital. After being discharged from QiLu hospital, the patient's HGB and HCT levels remained normal without any adjuvant therapy during the 18 months of follow-up.
In the present case, immunohistochemical staining was performed for CK7, Vimentin, CD10, and EPO. The results were consistent with a diagnosis of chRCC according to the relevant reports and distinguished the condition from both ccRCC and renal oncocytoma [12–15]. In addition, plasma from the tumor cells was also EPO-positive. In combination with the patient's recovery from "PV", we confirmed that his erythrocytosis was caused by chRCC due to EPO production.
According to the patient's medical history of erythrocytosis, we speculated that his renal tumor had a certain volume 9 years ago but was likely concealed by the patient's symptoms of splenomegaly and failed to draw the attention of the physician. As a result, the patient was misdiagnosed with PV without any imaging examinations. During the subsequent 9 years, even though his abdomen was progressively swelling, the patient did not have any imaging examinations because the swelling was considered to be due to splenomegaly.
Renal artery embolization (RAE) was performed before radical nephrectomy in this case. During the surgery, we observed an abundant and complex blood supply traveling through the distended vessels on the surface of the tumor; however, the intraoperative blood loss was controlled within 500 mL without blood transfusion. There were also no complications caused by preoperative RAE, such as small groin hematomas or post-infarction syndromes including nausea or flank pain, as mentioned in a previous report .
It has been reported that RCC is the most common cancer causing erythrocytosis , especially the ccRCC subtype [8, 17]; other subtypes are rarely reported. Paraneoplastic syndromes of erythrocytosis have never been reported in chRCC. In addition, the facts that the chRCC occurred at such a giant volume and at such a young age without any metastasis, necrosis, or recurrence and was misdiagnosed as PV for 9 years make this case fairly unique.
As has been reported, secondary erythrocytosis occurs when factors outside of the bone marrow, such as tumors or other abnormal organs, stimulate EPO production . To distinguish primary and secondary conditions, "no cause of secondary erythrocytosis" was added to the diagnosis criteria for the clinical practice guidelines of PV . In recent years, it has generally been accepted that the JAK2 mutation presents in most PV patients . As a result, the test for the JAK2 mutation was added to the 2008 World Health Organization criteria for the diagnosis of PV [21–23]. However, JAK2-negative PV cases have also been reported [22–26]. Therefore, the diagnosis of PV still requires comprehensive examination and consideration in clinical practice.
In consideration of the present case and the factors mentioned above, some measures can be adopted during the diagnosis of erythrocytosis or erythrocytosis combined with cancer. First, imaging examinations, such as ultrasound or computed tomography, should be performed, especially for patients with signs such as abdominal distention or splenomegaly to exclude secondary erythrocytosis. Additionally, patients with erythrocytosis for whom secondary factors have already been ruled out should be tested for the JAK2 mutation if possible to confirm the PV diagnosis.
RAE was initially developed in the 1970s . It was performed to treat renal cancer and has been demonstrated to be a safe and effective technique with several decades of experience . However, whether preoperative RAE is indeed beneficial for survival is still controversial [16, 28–30]. From our perspective, in the present case, preoperative RAE reduced the tumor blood supply, helped earlier ligation of the vessel, shortened the operation time, and played a positive role without any adverse effects. However, just one case is not yet illustrative of its benefit; further studies are needed to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of preoperative RAE.
Certainly, this report still has limitations. For instance, erythrocytosis caused by EPO production was found in this case. The mechanisms of EPO production were not explored in this report and still require further research. The patient's follow-up time was just 18 months. A longer follow-up is also needed to assess the patient's prognosis and occurrence of relapse.
In conclusion, chRCC associated with erythrocytosis is a unique event. The explicit mechanism of this condition still needs further study. Secondary erythrocytosis should be taken into consideration while diagnosing PV. Imaging examination and JAK2 testing should be performed to avoid a misdiagnosis. Preoperative RAE played a positive role in the present case, but it is a controversial method that requires further evaluation.
RBG collected the data and drafted the manuscript. JCR and ZHX conceived the study and participated in its coordination. RBG, YRL and LY participated in the data interpretation and revision of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
We gratefully acknowledged the help from staffs at the Department of Urology of QiLu Hospital for the data assistance.
The patient has given his consent for his case report to be published.
This manuscript was approved by the Ethics Committee on Scientific Research of Shandong University QiLu Hospital.
This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81372335, 81402108) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2014M551915).
Liu L, Qian J, Singh H, Meiers I, Zhou X, Bostwick DG. Immunohistochemical analysis of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma, renal oncocytoma, and clear cell carcinoma: an optimal and practical panel for differential diagnosis. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2007;131(8):1290–7. doi:10.1043/1543-2165(2007)131[1290:IAOCRC]2.0.CO;2.


Countries' competitiveness, productivity, and growth depend largely on their ability to acquire and use new knowledge and constantly upgrade the skills of their workforces. Many countries do not, however, have the educational systems necessary to cultivate the kind of workforces they need, and in developing countries it is common for the most highly skilled workers to emigrate for job opportunities abroad.
Over the past decade, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a political and economic organization of ten countries in Southeast Asia, began to tackle these issues directly. In 2007, ASEAN Member States agreed to fast-track the creation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015, which is meant to transform the region into a single market and production base characterized by, among other things, a free flow of skilled labor. In response to the mounting evidence that migrants in the region lack the skills recognition required to put their knowledge and training to use in destination countries, ASEAN Member States are taking steps toward better qualifications recognition to prevent the resulting waste of human capital.
The approach embodied in the AEC is different from the notion of free labor flows understood from common practice in Europe or the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Instead of aiming for the unrestricted "free" flow of skilled labor, the AEC seeks to facilitate a "freer" flow, primarily through the implementation of Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) that establish qualification frameworks and facilitate temporary visa issuance for individual occupations.
This issue in brief, the eleventh in a series by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and the International Organization for Migration's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, explores ASEAN Member States' goals versus the challenges they face. It also examines the opportunities the region could stand to lose now and in the future if these challenges remain unmet. While the agreement sounds promising on paper, realities on the ground—including the fact that around 87 percent of intra-ASEAN migrants are low-skilled workers, the prevalence of irregular migration in this region, and the flow imbalances among states—could complicate realization of the AEC's already limited aspirations.


Held back by rising costs and discounts, cereal maker General Mills (NYSE:GIS) revealed a weaker-than-expected 8.6% rise in fiscal second-quarter profits on Thursday.The Minneapolis-based maker of Cheerios and Wheaties said it earned $613.9 million, or 92 cents a share, in the quarter ended Nov. 28. It earned $565.5 million, or 83 cents a share, in the year-earlier period.Excluding one-time items, it earned 76 cents a share last quarter, missing the Street's view by two pennies.Revenue inched up just 0.8% to $4.07 billion, trailing consensus calls for $4.11 billion. International sales jumped 7%. Gross margins shrank from 42.8% to 40.2%."We expected the first half of this fiscal year to be particularly challenging, and it was," CEO Ken Powell said in a statement. Aside from difficult year-earlier comparisons, "the operating environment in the first half of 2011 included high levels of price promotion by food manufacturers and retailers," he said.Despite the miss, General Mills stood by its full-year non-GAAP forecast for a profit of $2.46 to $2.48 a share. Only the upper end of that range would meet expectations on Wall Street.Shareholders took the new guidance and results in stride, sending the company's stock just 0.3% lower to $36.28. Shares of General Mills have rallied just 2% this year, trailing the broader markets.


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President Trump's First 100 Days
Citizens Call on Cities to Provide Sanctuary to Immigrants.
Feb 22, 2017 · 3 min read
When documents released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) laid out President Trump's plan to significantly increase the government's capacity to deport undocumented people, thousands of Change.org users were ready to respond to what they saw as an unwarranted targeting of immigrants and refugees. The announcement laid out policy that requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target immigrants who have been convicted of any criminal offense for deportation, in addition to mechanisms that will increase the speed at which people are removed from the country.
Under President Obama, the department focused solely on violent undocumented offenders, and protocol for expedited removal only applied to those who had been in the country for less than two weeks and were located within 100 miles of the country's borders. Now, the DHS can apply expedited removal to any undocumented person who has resided in the country for two years or less, and is located anywhere in the United States.
In order to implement these new policies, Trump has directed the department to hire 10,000 new immigration and customs agents.
In response, Change.org users are petitioning their local city governments to do what they can to provide sanctuary to immigrants in the face of President Trump's new policies. Over 20 universities, counties and cities are represented on the sanctuary city movement page here.
And decision-makers are listening. In Columbus, Ohio, Council President Zach M. Klein told the press "Columbus's police department is Columbus's police department; we are not immigration and customs patrol." Earlier this month, the sanctuary movement page saw its first victory when town trustees received 600 Change.org signatures delivered by SOMA Action and listened to them, voting in favor of South Orange, New Jersey, becoming a sanctuary city.
Now more than ever, people are using Change.org to hold elected officials and decision makers accountable to protect undocumented people and refugees.
That's precisely what Christian Tirado, a University of Florida (UF) student behind the petition to make his college a sanctuary campus is doing. "Many undocumented students have come up to me (in this moment more than ever) very saddened and fearful of their futures on campus," the petition starter relayed by phone. "I want to assure them that I will continue to fight for them."
Once the petition's signatures surpassed 2,000, UF's administration agreed to meet with the students. Tirado and the student-led group behind the petition, Gators for a Sanctuary Campus, will be meeting with the vice president of the university in the coming weeks to discuss their ask.
While UF is a recipient of federal funding as a public college, Tirado is optimistic that the university has the autonomy to protect its students without risking the loss of that crucial funding. "I remain very hopeful in what we can accomplish as students. Change, historically (in this country and across the world), has started with students." After his meeting with the vice president, Tirado would like to meet with the university's president, Dr. Kent Fuchs, who will be the ultimate decision-maker on the petition's ask.
Tirado's efforts are particularly relevant in the state of Florida, where last Friday Miami-Dade County passed a resolution to comply with Trump's executive order to ban sanctuary cities. Now local police must comply with federal immigration officers to arrest undocumented people and flag them for deportation.
Still, Miami-Dade residents are calling on Mayor Carlos Gimenez to take actions toward protecting immigrants at risk of deportation. EmergeUSA, the Muslim advocacy group behind the petition, is reminding Miami-Dade's leadership of the resolution that just four years ago, vowed to honor "the spirit of sanctuary" in Miami.
Meanwhile in Texas, a group of high school students are standing up for their undocumented parents, loved ones, and community members by asking the State House not to pass a bill that would punish cities that provide sanctuary to undocumented people. If written into law, the bill would require local law enforcement to comply with ICE in the detention of undocumented people.
A total of 26 petitions now live on the Sanctuary City movement page, and with them 16,948 supporters fighting to protect undocumented people across the United States. You can add your name to stay updated on this growing movement.
Change.org Staff on Empowering Citizens in the Trump Era and Beyond
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Change.org is the world's largest civic action platform, using technology to empower more than 150 million users to create the change they want to see.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Shivers è un'avventura grafica sviluppata e pubblicata dalla Sierra On-Line nel 1995. Il videogioco venne sviluppato per Microsoft Windows e Mac OS e l'ambientazione è prettamente horror, in stile Piccoli brividi.

Storia
A causa di una scommessa fatta con gli amici il protagonista deve passare una notte intera dentro il museo abbandonato del professor Windlenot, mai aperto al pubblico dove in passato sono scomparsi due adolescenti. Esplorando questo suggestivo edificio, il protagonista si imbatterà ad un certo punto nel fantasma del professor Windlenot, anch'egli morto in strane circostanze proprio nel suo museo, e scoprirà che esso è infestato da dieci demoni elementali, chiamati "Ixupi". Questi malvagi demoni hanno il potere di risucchiare la linfa vitale da coloro che si imbattono in loro, lasciando alla fine un corpo putrefatto. Il giocatore dovrà riuscire a sigillarli per sempre in dieci amuleti, cercando di sopravvivere.

Modalità di gioco
Shivers è diverso da ogni altra avventura grafica pubblicata dalla Sierra, per molti motivi. Anzitutto, non è presente un sistema di inventario, in quanto il nostro personaggio può portare con sé solo un amuleto alla volta. In più, ha un quantitativo di salute prefissato all'inizio del gioco, che diminuisce ogni volta che viene attaccato da un Ixupi senza avere l'amuleto necessario a catturarlo. Quando la salute si esaurisce, il gioco termina con la morte del protagonista. Ci sono moltissimi oggetti all'interno del museo con cui si può interagire, ed altrettanti enigmi da risolvere per poter procedere. Ogni amuleto necessario a catturare un Ixupi è formato da un contenitore e da un coperchio, i quali sono nascosti per tutto il museo e cambiano la loro posizione ogni volta che si inizia una nuova partita (stratagemma che consente la rigiocabilità del titolo). Ogni volta che il giocatore trova un indizio utile alla risoluzione di un enigma, viene sbloccato un "flashback" nel menù di pausa che permette di rivederlo ogni volta che si desidera. È presente un punteggio che aumenta tutte le volte che si risolve un enigma, si legge un testo, si osserva un oggetto e, naturalmente, si cattura un Ixupi.

Visto il discreto successo venne sviluppato un seguito, Shivers 2: Harvest of Souls.

Collegamenti esterni

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PM Grigol Mgaloblishvili has resigned three months after taking the post, citing his health condition.
Mgaloblishvili said on January 30, that he had suggested the President to consider nominating Nika Gilauri, the finance minister and first vice premier, for the PM's position.
Mgaloblishvili, 35, has spent most of this month either in Germany or in Tbilisi hospital, according to the official information, undergoing medical examination related with kidney problems.
Saakashvili said during his televised question and answer session with the public on January 23 that there were "some people spending day and night creating" this type of rumors.
The Parliament approved Grigol Mgaloblishvili and his cabinet on November 1. Before that he served as Georgia's ambassador to Turkey and had never before been involved in the politics.
The press has also been predicting that First Vice Premier, Nika Gilauri, would be nominated to replace Mgaloblishvili. The former PM told journalists on January 30, that it was highly probable.
Mgaloblishvili also said that he did not expect "any major changes" in the new cabinet.
Changes into the government were expected anyway in early February, related with creation of two new ministries – one for penitentiary and probation and another one for regional development and infrastructure. The latter will be led by Davit Tkeshelashvili, currently a state minister for regional issues. Deputy Interior Minister, Eka Zguladze, has been rumored to take the post of Minister for Penitentiary and Probation.


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Marsh Mills
There's a man camped beside this Plymouth road – we went to meet him
Plymouth Live discovered the remarkable life of Bryan, his World Cup prediction and his Royal invitation
Carl EveCrime reporter
Bryan says he intends to stay at his spot until he receives one of three special visitors (Image: Carl Eve)
Bryan is waiting for the Queen.
Over the past few days thousands of motorists and many pedestrians have spotted him sitting, standing, patrolling and chalking words on the pavement beside the Embankment Road footbridge, right in front of the Premier Inn and Beefeater at Marsh Mills.
All must wonder why he is there, what does he want, how long he intends to stay. So Plymouth Live asked him after offering him a large bottle of water to help him combat the burning sun.
His sign says he's collecting for a journey to Bristol and as he waits he has written an assortment of signs, symbols and predictions in coloured chalk.
But 52-year-old Bryan Sims insists he won't leave the spot until he is visited by the Queen. Or footballer Vinnie Jones. Or "Glenn Grant, a Christian".
Heroes save man 'dangling' from multi-storey car park
Bryan is articulate, intelligent, can hurl out rhymes and raps in his gravely voice. But his words are a torrent rather than a stream of consciousness, mixing poetry, philosophy, occult theory, football punditry, wild, convoluted and elaborate conspiracies as well as astonishing tales of criminality, both as victim and perpetrator.
The burning sun has taken its toll on Bryan's skin over the past few days (Image: Penny Cross)
Bryan Sims has covered the pathway with chalk markings, symbols, words and predictions (Image: Carl Eve)
Who is Bryan on the Embankment?
Born in Watford in 1966, he said he was raised in the Braintree area of Essex before moving to Bristol.
He claims to have closed down several antique shops in the past by stealing from them.
Plymouth Tesco bans topless men during heatwave
He reveals he is the subject of a book, a biography 'No Medication Available', written by Artimus Quillam.
It does exist and is listed on Amazon, with five star reviews. The online listing has a blurb stating the book is the "account of one man's adventure from childhood to middle age" adding that "if adventure puts the spice in life then Bryan's life has been infused with ample seasoning".
Bryan said he is grateful for the kind treatment and donations of food and drink from locals in recent days (Image: Penny Cross)
Bryan said he was robbed of £10,000 "legally out of my bank account last year and this year" by a friend who was helping him restore a RS Escort. He said his friend had access to Bryan's bank account and "gambled it away".
The book about him also garnered no money and he claimed his family's inheritance was swindled away.
He announces he is linked to the "Pitcairn McPherson", adding that they are a old, Old English, adding conspiratorially "the Queen knows about this..."
His tales include claims he ate three tablespoons of depleted uranium 20 years ago, that his hand melted, that Howard Carter [the British archaeologist who 'discovered' the tomb of Tutankhamun] "wished it all away", of symbols on the doorway of the Pyramids, that his surname Sim comes from the oldest of names "Sim Sala Bim".
Bryan's small encampment has attracted a lot of attention along Embankment Road over the past few days (Image: Penny Cross)
It actually comes from a Dutch nursery rhyme but was later used by professional magician Dante who used the nonsense words in his act claiming they meant 'thank you'.
Orson Welles also used Sim Sala Bim as magic words in the 1967 film Casino Royale, starring Woody Allen, David Niven and Bernard Cribbins.
Last time Plymouth bought more Double Downs than anyone else - so now they're coming back
Directing our attention to his chalkings on the pavement Bryan explains some are occult symbols, some are the various names of the Devil, others are predictions – such as China winning the Football World Cup 2-0... against England.
He said his previous football predictions have already come true, adding: "A friend bet on it the other night and won £200."
How long is he sticking around?
When asked how long he intends to stay at this location, dancing, drawing, sleeping and talking to passersby, he announces he won't leave until he is visited by "the Queen... or Vinnie Jones... or Glenn Grant, a Christian".
"I've been here nine nights and eight days," he said.
"I could not be more grateful to the local people. They've given me food and drink and a duvet".
Pulling off his Stetson pork-pie style hat he reveals he's a father of nine children and a grandfather, that he's been "a drug taker and a thief".
Probably as surprising a claim, he announces that he's on Twitter and Facebook.
Bryan – lean and tanned dark and peeling by the hot sun, thanks us for our time and for our visit. Moments later he is deep in animated conversation with another intrigued passerby.
It's not the Queen or Vinnie Jones, so he may be there for a while longer.
Embankment Road


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Q: Relative layout with Button and image view not working above 21.0 I am facing issue that if i run the same code with relative layout on 4.1 it is working fine but above 21.0 it is not working and image view hidden below the button with "Match_Parent"
here is my code :
<RelativeLayout
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:orientation="horizontal">

            <Button
                android:id="@+id/btn_select_pod"
                style="@style/basic_button"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:background="@drawable/btn_selector"
                android:text="Select POD Media " />

            <ImageView
                android:id="@+id/imageView"
                android:layout_width="40dp"
                android:layout_height="40dp"
                android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
                android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
                android:layout_centerVertical="true"
                android:focusable="true" />

        </RelativeLayout>

A: I have found the issue and now image is shown by putting the elevation in the imageview with 2dp.
android:elevation="2dp"

Now the final code will be

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/btn_select_pod"
            style="@style/basic_button"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:background="@drawable/btn_selector"
            android:text="Select POD Media " />

        <ImageView
            android:id="@+id/imageView"
            android:layout_width="40dp"
            android:layout_height="40dp"
            android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
            android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
            android:elevation="2dp"
            android:layout_centerVertical="true"
            android:focusable="true" />

    </RelativeLayout>

Hope it will work for you also.

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How many countries border the Czech Republic 2?
How many countries share borders with Czech Republic?
What 2 countries came from Czechoslovakia?
What are the neighboring countries of Czech Republic?
In which country Czech Republic is located?
How old is Czech?
Is Czechoslovakia part of Russia?
Is Czech Republic in Schengen?
The Czech Republic shares borders with Germany, Poland, Austria and Slovakia.
Against the wishes of many of its 15 million citizens, Czechoslovakia today split into two countries: Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Relief. The country is bordered by Poland to the north and northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest. The Bohemian Massif occupies the major portion of the Czech Republic.
• Duchy of Bohemia c. 870
• Kingdom of Bohemia 1198
• Czechoslovakia 28 October 1918
• Czech Republic 1 January 1993
In the interwar period it became the most prosperous and politically stable state in eastern Europe. It was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1938–45 and was under Soviet domination from 1948 to 1989. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia separated peacefully into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland have all acceded to the Schengen Agreement and are thus …
IT IS IMPORTANT: How much money should I bring to Prague?


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Anathema: A Sort Of Homecoming
Potent prog rockers induce an altared state
By Tom O'Boyle published 10 November 15
Filmed on an acoustic tour of the UK that took in four of the country's most majestic cathedrals, Anathema chose to commemorate the final date: their triumphant homecoming performance at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral.
Shot by acclaimed director Lasse Hoile and available on DVD and Blu-ray with a lush 5.1 audio mix, there are not enough discs in existence to capture the atmosphere in that awe-inspiring space, a stage dwarfed by gothic arches ascending into darkness and an ornate, gilded altar.
Music already capable of bringing a tear to the eye echoed deep within the massive space, elevating hearts and minds beyond the everyday. Offering spine-tingling, stripped-down renditions of heartstoppers Untouchable (Part 1) and Dreaming Light, the band also imbued proceedings with a family sentiment, the front rows littered with friends and relatives.
Ever serious about their craft, the brothers Cavanagh, backed by a rotating roster of musicians, covered all eras of the goth-turned-prog-rockers' 25 years. While difficult to capture what it truly felt like in that transcendent space, this package serves as a fitting memento of a defining moment for these masters of evocative emotion.


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Published 1 week ago
Letters to the Editor for January 19, 2023
Cooking With Volts
The gas industry's dirty little secret is finally out of the bag: Having a gas stove is like putting an S.U.V.'s tailpipe in your kitchen. With toxic pollutants like particulate matter, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and nitrogen dioxide spewing out, gas stoves cause an estimated 12.7 percent of United States childhood asthma cases — and up to 14 percent in New York State. Those pollutants are fouling your indoor air with levels hundreds of times higher than those allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency for outdoor air. And the burners don't even have to be lit!
Gas stoves pose other health threats, too, like heart disease and cancer. And some studies have linked their use to a higher risk of dementia. And it's not just stoves; gas furnaces can spread pollutants throughout your home's ductwork, putting your health and your family's health at risk.
But the gas industry doesn't care about your health. It only cares about profits. It makes money not only from the sale of gas but also from installing gas hookups to new homes or homes with new service — and the New York Public Service Commission forces all gas ratepayers to fund free gas-line installation for new gas customers, even though those lines are polluting our homes with deadly gases.
The right-wing propaganda machine has found a new bone to gnaw on, with hysterical cries that the government is coming to "take your stoves." But that's a lie pushed by the gas industry itself. The truth is, the government is just making it easier for you to buy an electric or induction stove, with new federal incentives of up to $850 to make the switch. Induction cooktops are more responsive to changing cooking temperatures than even gas stoves. They're safer. They don't pollute. And they are way easier to clean.
Don't get snookered by the gaslighting lies of those who don't care about your health. Get smart and start cooking with volts, not gas!
FRANCESCA RHEANNON
Once Held Sacred
The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society, representing 572 member households, stands in opposition to the Town of East Hampton's proposal to bulldoze 14 pristine parkland acres in Hither Woods to build a sewage treatment plant. It's hard to believe we even have to write these words. Is this what our East Hampton is, or perhaps worse, what we are becoming as a community — a place where our open space, once held sacred, is now destroyed to build sewage treatment plants?
We stand in support of the Coalition for Hither Woods efforts to stop this unimaginable project, and encourage our members and community to learn more at hitherwoods.com. Time is critical, and there is certainly much information to digest. But for the Trails Preservation Society, it continues to return to one simple and very clear theme: In our beloved hometown of East Hampton, we don't build sewage treatment plants in our parks.
IRWIN T. LEVY,
East Hampton Trails Preservation Society
Time to Fight
It's unfathomable to believe that anyone would consider constructing a sewer treatment plan over the largest freshwater aquifer in Montauk and potentially risk our drinking water for decades, or perhaps forever. But, that is exactly what Peter Van Scoyoc, and seemingly other town board members, is proposing. Not alone in their proposal, the wastewater committee, consisting largely of Montauk business owners, are on board as well.
Over the past 10 years or so, Montauk has seen significant growth in new homes, as well as daily visitors during the peak summer months. This has led to a reduced quality of life for residents because of traffic congestion, rowdiness, auto accidents, noise pollution, etc. Instead of attempting to control the mayhem, Peter Van Scoyoc and some on the town board want to make the problems worse for Montauk residents. They want to increase growth in the village — something they can't do without bamboozling Montauk residents into approving a $75 million infrastructure project, and destroying a large swath of Hither Woods and its underground freshwater aquifer.
We, the Montauk residents — and not the business community — need to decide on the future for Montauk. Do you want to allow Peter Van Scoyoc, and "Big Hotel" to remake Montauk village into a mini-Miami beach, or would you prefer the small-town local community feel Montauk has long been cherished for? It's time to fight for what you believe in.
Essential Hearing
A belated happy new year to you. While reflecting on 2022 and taking stock of all the issues I've written about to you — yes, I admit to chewing up no small number of inches of your newsprint — I recalled that the first letter I ever sent to The Star was about the pending Wainscott Commercial Center development application for a 50-lot subdivision of the 70-acre depleted sand and gravel mine, a.k.a. the Pit.
This project isn't just "big-ish," it's gigantic. As the applicants characterize it, this will be "the largest commercial subdivision and development on Long Island's South Fork." Their stated sole purpose of this development is to serve the town's dominant and expanding construction and tourism industries and wealthy second-homeowner economy. All in, the project as currently scoped, or anywhere close to it, will perpetuate overdevelopment in East Hampton for decades more to come.
In that letter, titled "The Big Pit," published in your Dec. 9, 2021, edition, I wrote. "Though this project has been idling on the tarmac for many years — working its way through state, county, and local studies — it now appears the engines are revving and that the commercial center is getting ready to barrel down the runway for takeoff . . . I implore my fellow East Hampton citizens to 'get grounded' A.S.A.P. on the topic." Well, here we are, a little more than a year after that letter, and those engines are no longer idling — the Wainscott Commercial Center is airborne.
Following three years of review of three different versions of a draft environmental impact statement, at their final meeting of 2022, the East Hampton Town Planning Board voted to declare the fourth impact statement version complete.
"Complete" is something of a technical term used in review processes, but complete does not equal approval of the application. It simply means that the board finds the many issues that were scoped at the beginning of the process were addressed adequately by the applicant in the document.
But the declaration of completeness does one most important thing: It launches the application process into the public comment period, including the essential public hearing.
Last week, the planning board set the public hearing for Feb. 8, divided into two parts: an afternoon session from 3 to 5:30, followed by an evening session beginning at 6:30. Rather than the usual Town Hall setting, the venue will be LTV Studios, at 75 Industrial Road, Wainscott. And if anyone who wants to speak cannot make it in person, there is the option to participate by watching the hearing on LTV Channel 22 (on television or online) and dialing in to comment.
Considering the consequential and even existential nature of this application, the timing of this hearing is unfortunate. Maybe it's just bad luck, or perhaps there was a bit of strategic management by the applicant who had control of exactly when they submitted the fourth impact statement draft in a way that would put the public hearing deep into cold, gray winter in East Hampton. Either way, a hearing in February creates some degree of disadvantage for the public. As we know, it's a time when local residents often flee from winter by the sea, and when the seasonal homeowner population is nonexistent out here. The effectiveness of public notice, as well as turnout, likely will be compromised by this timing.
We all need to counter that, so now I'm writing to implore the people of East Hampton and surrounding areas to participate fully, by speaking at the hearing, or at least by letter to the record, or even better, with both.
For readers not yet familiar with the application, the Pit site starts just north of Route 27, only 200 yards from Georgica Pond, bordered by residential neighborhoods on both the east and west sides, and bounded by the Long Island Rail Road on the north. It's estimated that during peak periods it could create an additional 600 vehicle ins and outs right at perhaps the worst traffic-pain point in town. All types of pollutions — noise, light, visual, air, water — will be created. Zoning maximum building and coverage allowances could mean over 50 acres of structures and impervious surface at full buildout.
The entire site is zoned commercial-industrial, so uses on this project could include warehouses, distribution and storage yards, wholesale lumber and building product yards, workshops, filling stations, car washes, garages for repair and storage, motor vehicle sales, car lots, office parks, fuel-storage tanks, multiple industrial complex, planned industrial park, paving and construction material manufacturing, scrap yards, recycling centers, truck terminals, and waste-transfer stations.
If anyone is unclear about what this project really means — what it will all look like, sound like, feel like, the density and intensity of it — I urge you take a tour of the commercial-industrial corridor on and around lower Springs-Fireplace Road.
I imagine representatives from the construction, landscaping, real estate spheres and pro-development interests will turn up at the hearing to claim that all 50 lots are necessary. But I hope many more people will address the application's lack of tangible benefits to residents or community sustainability; that it forecloses the realization of the Wainscott Hamlet Plan; that it's incompatible with our town code's purposes and the comprehensive plan's objectives; that it likely widens the affordable housing deficit; and that there are significant opportunity costs, in that better, productive, economically sound, environmentally positive, value-enhancing, forward-looking, and character-sustaining multiuse alternatives to benefit a broader swath of the community and economy should be considered.
There's a lot to get up to speed on before the hearing. No doubt, hundreds of impact statement pages and all the technical data are daunting. But if anyone wants to learn more or needs some assistance sifting through it all, I'm here to help via my organization Build.In.Kind/EastHampton buildinkind.com
I hope to see and hear many of your readers at the public hearing on Feb. 8.
JAINE MEHRING
Dolphin Drive
I can't believe that David Lys or the board has brought up parking on Dolphin Drive again. Our neighbors and experts have repeatedly discussed with the board how environmentally wrong this is because of the threat to the primary dune — our only protection in the face of storms. The primary dune effectively protected us from losing our homes and lives during Hurricane Sandy and is urgently needed for protection in the face of future storms.
Countless times it has been pointed out to the board that this proposed parking requires walking across the primary dune to get to the beach, which is the only beach access on Dolphin Drive. The dune is already eroding terribly from people walking across it. We have shown the board photos of the terrible erosion every time this parking proposal comes up.
Yet, Mr. Lys and whoever else is supporting this plan, seems to turn a blind eye and overlook the truth and keeps bringing up this disastrous plan. There is already a public parking lot in our community one block away which is open to all and generally filled by outsiders, since the neighbors in our community walk to the beach!
It becomes a highly suspect question as to why Mr. Lys is repeatedly raising this issue that clearly is a danger to our community. Why is he repeatedly threatening our nine-block community filled with many senior citizens and families with young children? Why out of all the streets on the ocean side is Dolphin Drive being targeted. Is this a personal vendetta? Is this for some political or some unforeseen economic gain?
This must stop. It is a form of ongoing harassment of our community and demonstrates a callousness and insensitivity to our residents by the board who has sworn to represent and protect them. Please end this once and for all!
MERI WALLACE
Changing the Rules
According to David McMaster, an assistant town attorney, "When you purchase a property, you inherit the property rights of the previous owner," except here on Bay View Avenue, where a road and access are still blocked. All because the homeowners built past their property lines. All because the agents and attorneys work for the town. Urban renewal plans mean nothing in town code time and time again.
I see Rick Whalen remains on the business committee, according to the Jan. 5 town board meeting. Great moral stance from the man who resigned a week after he was called out as chairman of the nature preserve committee. Must be time to write more legislation.
The nature preserve under the Steele Document is still blocked at the end of Bay View Avenue. I guess it's not for all town people to use, after all. Maybe the rest of that committee should resign immediately.
Aram Terchunian once again is on the Montauk beach preservation committee, while the beach here has been destroyed by him and his company by obtaining permits that, in my humble opinion, were done under well-detailed false pretenses. Just look at the plans.
So what are your rights? What is real property? It is only real when it suits the town and the board's associates. As we've already learned, the house (in this case, the town) always wins because the house is always changing the rules, rights be damned.
Still here,
JOE KARPINSKI
Time to Run
On Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the American Legion, 15 Montauk Highway, East Hampton, the East Hampton Town Republican Committee will hold the first of two candidate screenings. If you desire to run for office, you do not need to be a registered Republican; Republican, Democrat, Independent, or unaffiliated are welcome to screen.
East Hampton Town is at a crossroads. One-party rule is destroying the fabric of our community. One-party government has adopted a one-sided "my way or the highway" ideology. They have pitted neighbors against neighbors, spent exorbitant fees on litigation, prevented family gatherings while turning a blind eye to the parties of the rich and famous, decimated the town work force, raised taxes, lost beach access rights enjoyed for generations, and adopted policies that have accelerated outward migration of our children and families. If you live and work in East Hampton, this town board has failed you at every level.
All politics are local, and East Hampton residents' issues require local thinking. We need you to save East Hampton to work for an equitable East Hampton where a resident can earn a living wage. You do not need to be a registered Republican but, instead, have a strong desire to fix broken town government. To be a voice for unrepresented, struggling families, senior citizens, and year-round residents struggling to make ends meet.
Come join the East Hampton Republican Committee to work for an equitable East Hampton where a resident can earn a living wage. This year's election: supervisor, $114,014; two town board, 71,260; one town justice, $82,802; one highway superintendent, $118,569; one clerk, $136,300; two assessors, $91,455, nine trustees, and health and state pension benefits.
If you believe one-party rule has led to one colossal failure after another and placed East Hampton on the wrong track, now is the time to get involved and run for office.
MANNY VILAR
East Hampton Town Republican Committee
Many Challenges
Kudos to Town Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, who this past week, announced that she'll run for the vacated position of town supervisor. In 87 words, and telling it like it is without wasting a syllable, she spelled out many of the key economic, social, and demographic challenges we're facing.
She wrote: "Over the last several years, we have witnessed tremendous shifts here in town — the year-round population has grown by 32 percent, the potential labor pool has shrunk significantly, the housing market continues to tighten, with housing getting even more expensive relative to income, some very wealthy residents have become more entitled and overly litigious. Private equity investors have poured in millions of dollars, buying up local businesses, all the while our older residents and those facing challenges due to low incomes have become more and more isolated." Well said, Kathee, well said.
JIM LUBETKIN
Rebalance the Court
Dear David:
Upon Janet DiFiore's resignation as chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Gov. Kathy Hochul had the opportunity to align the state's highest court with the values of the majority of New Yorkers. And, she had a chance to rebalance the court to better reflect the breadth of the professional experience of the New York legal community. And, she had the opportunity to nominate a chief judge whose judicial philosophy aligned with the values New Yorkers hold dear.
Instead, Hochul nominated Justice Hector LaSalle, a judge whose pedigree is more in line with the deeply conservative justices on the United States Supreme Court than with New Yorkers, most of whom value individual liberties and legal protections for all residents. If his nomination is approved, the Court of Appeals would tilt decidedly toward conservative principles.
I supported Governor Hochul's bid for the governorship and am deeply disappointed in her nomination of Justice LaSalle. I hope the State Senate soundly rejects him, thereby sending a message to Governor Hochul to nominate a chief judge with a record of defending the rights of the powerless, not one focused on protecting the privileges of the powerful.
As candidate, Ms. Hochul acknowledged during her campaign, reacting to the clamor from the far-right Lee Zeldin, that abortion and labor rights (among others) are issues that clear majorities of New Yorkers strongly support, and must be protected — not challenged. So, one would have expected her judicial appointments to align with her political philosophy. One would have thought. But, by nominating Justice LaSalle, Governor Hochul has placed all these interests at risk. Justice LaSalle has authored or joined several legally questionable decisions during his time on the Appellate Division. These decisions include a ruling which could subject organizers to liability for heretofore protected union activities and a ruling protective of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers — organizations that mislead pregnant women about their options and act as fronts for forced birth advocacy.
Beyond serious concerns over Justice LaSalle's judicial philosophy, his nomination would perpetuate the lack of professional diversity on New York's highest court. Prosecutors and corporate attorneys are severely overrepresented on the Court of Appeals. This lack of professional diversity deprives the court of crucial perspectives of how the law impacts ordinary people. This lack of diversity has real-world impact. Empirically, studies have shown that judges who are former prosecutors and corporate attorneys imposed harsher criminal sentences and sided with employers in discrimination suits more often than other judges.
Anecdotally, judges themselves have acknowledged the impact that judges of professionally diverse backgrounds have on their deliberations. U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan stated that Justice Thurgood Marshall's experience as a civil rights attorney gave him "firsthand knowledge of the law's failure to fulfill its promised protections" and that this perspective influenced Brennan's own thinking.
Justice LaSalle's record reflects one who is more interested in protecting the interests of the wealthy and powerful than in ensuring that equal justice is served in this state. New York deserves a judiciary that upholds a commitment to protecting all New Yorkers. The New York Senate can take one important step in that direction by rejecting Ms. Hochul's nominee.
BRUCE COLBATH
Process Reversed
The new opus, only 240 pages, by Thomas Piketty, "A Brief History of Equality," is the most lucid and well-documented writing on equality in the world. Piketty explains the rise in equality — political, economic, and social — that has taken place between 1800 and 1980. Amazing changes.
He explains how progressive tax policies and the development of the welfare state enhanced growth and general prosperity and how, from 1980 to 2020, the process was reversed and general progress eviscerated. He avoids ideological idiocy and presents facts legibly, clearly, and understandably.
Not everyone's cup of tea, but irresistibly interesting for anyone who is curious about history and reality.
NEIL HAUSIG
He Sent Lawyers
Last week, news came out about some top-secret documents found in Biden's office he used at one time when he was John Q. Public. Strange that he sent his lawyers in November to clean out a closet. Please note: He sent lawyers to do the cleaning. These documents were found before the election and we are just hearing about it.
I waited before I ran to type a letter, not jumping on the news; however it really hit the fan.
China pays the University of Pennsylvania and U. Penn. pays Biden. Millions are involved here. Biden stored documents in a Chinese-funded office.
A second set of documents was found, and now stored in Biden's garage next to his Corvette, a third set found right out in the open in his Wilmington, Del., home. In his nasty manner he says the garage is locked. Guess they realize garages are broken into, and how do they get the car out without opening the door? Transparency has never been a part of this administration, even though it was a campaign promise.
Perhaps Biden should apologize for his statement to Scott Pelley that Trump is sooooo irresponsible. Pelley hosted him on "60 minutes." Maybe he should go back to school and learn journalism.
In God and country,
BEA DERRICO
Since George (False Pretenses Congressman) Santos has publicly promised, "If 142 people ask for me to resign, I'll resign," I have so far gotten these dozen "famous" "people" to join me, Richard Jay Siegelman, to ask for Representative Santos to resign immediately.
Therefore, we only need 129 other people to join us. So consider this public plea to add yourself to this baker's dozen list of the first of 142 names to put an end to this national nightmare :
1. Richard Jay Siegelman
2. Sidd Finch
3. Mavis Beacon
4. Betty Crocker
5. Alan Smithee
6. Dame Edna Everage
7. P.D.Q. Bach
8. Tony Clifton
9. Silence Dogood
10. Lemony Snicket
11. Penelope Ashe
12. Kilgore Trout
13. Super Dave Osborn
14 to 142. ?
RICHARD SIEGELMAN


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New Heavy-Lift Drone to Enter Production
griff-aviation News By Mike Ball / 28 Apr 2017
GRIFF Aviation has announced that a new assembly plant that will produce the company's new heavy-lift Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) will soon be operating at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport near Tampa.
GRIFF Aviation North America's component supplier, GRIFF Aviation of Alesund, Norway, has constructed a prototype that lifts hundreds of pounds and the company is working on a larger unit that will carry nearly a ton. In the beginning the independent assembly plant in Florida will build around six drones a week for distribution throughout North America. Plans are already in place to increase that capacity dramatically as needed.
To accommodate the immediate demands of the American industrial, agricultural and military marketplace, the company will produce four basic airframes to which they can attach up to 20 different accessory packages in order to meet a particular mission for a purchaser. Flight times can run from 20 to 45 minutes depending on payload weight though flight times can be extended for over an hour with added battery packs and a lesser payload, and with a 500′ electronic tether it can stay aloft indefinitely. It will soon become certified by Europe's European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), as well as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Many current heavy lift drones only lift between 5 and 80 pounds. "The commercial heavy-lift drone is the next big worldwide technology explosion once regulations can be worked out governing the industry," says Leif Holand, GRIFF's (Norway) CEO. "It's inevitable and we feel that the United States market will lead world demand. The craft will be entirely assembled in the US from technology and components supplied by GRIFF Aviation here in Norway."
GRIFF's plan is to produce 5 basic airframes around which it will construct 20 or so different applications depending on the mission described by the purchaser. Examples are construction, movie production, agriculture, search and rescue, law enforcement, civil services, fire services, cargo delivery, man overboard rescues, and the military and defense industries.
With safety the number one concern of the world's aviation authorities, the GRIFF line will offer a ballistic parachute that deploys in milliseconds in the event of any kind of problem.
GRIFF Aviation North America will be conducting demonstrations at the 2017 XPONENTIAL drone show in Dallas, Texas.
Posted by Mike Ball Mike Ball is our resident technical editor here at Unmanned Systems Technology. Combining his passion for teaching, advanced engineering and all things unmanned, Mike keeps a watchful eye over everything related to the unmanned technical sector. With over 10 years' experience in the unmanned field and a degree in engineering, Mike's been heading up our technical team here for the last 8 years. Connect & Contact
Case Study: Risk Assessment of Rockfall Hazards on Road Networks YellowScan has released a case study detailing how its Vx20-300 UAV LiDAR solution was used by L'Avion Jaune to conduct... 31 Jan 2023


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Old and New Music from Poland
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Nordic Affect
Icelandic ensemble Nordic Affect has been hailed for its "affectionate explorations" (BBC Music Magazine) and "commitment to their repertoire" (Classical Music). Founded in 2005, Nordic Affect was formed by a group of period instrument musicians who were united in their passion for viewing familiar musical forms from a different perspective and for daring to venture into new musical terrain. In 2013 the ensemble was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize and was named Performer of the Year at the Iceland Music Awards in 2014.
Believing that music knows no boundaries, Nordic Affect has brought its music-making to contemporary and rock audiences alike. The commissioning and performance of new works is integral to Nordic Affect's mission as it has, from the group's inception, combined new compositions with the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. In addition, the group emphasizes educational programming and highlights women's role in music history.
Since their debut album in 2007, Nordic Affect's performances can be found on the Deutsche Grammophon, Bad Taste Records, Musmap, Brilliant Classics and Sono Luminus labels. Their 2015 album Clockworking made NPR's Songs We Love series and many best-of-the-year lists, including Night After Night, The Chicago Reader, and The New Yorker. In February 2017, Nordic Affect released Raindamage on Sono Luminus, which has already been named Album of the Week on Q2 Music.
For more information visit www.nordicaffect.com.
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Now, with the rise of website chatbots, this trend of two-way conversations can be taken to a whole new level. Conversational marketing can be done across many channels, such as over the phone or via SMS. However, an increasing number of companies are leveraging social media to drive their conversational marketing strategy to distinguish their brand and solidify their brand's voice and values. When most people refer to conversational marketing, they're talking about interactions started using chatbots and live chat – that move to personal conversations.
The educators or class organizers can opt for chatbots to simplify daily routine tasks. Chatbots may serve as a helping hand to the teacher in dealing with the daily queries by allowing bots to answer the questions of students on a daily basis, or perhaps even check their homework. Eventually, they offer teachers more time to work with their students on a one-by-one basis.
One pertinent field of AI research is natural language processing. Usually, weak AI fields employ specialized software or programming languages created specifically for the narrow function required. For example, A.L.I.C.E. utilises a markup language called AIML, which is specific to its function as a conversational agent, and has since been adopted by various other developers of, so called, Alicebots. Nevertheless, A.L.I.C.E. is still purely based on pattern matching techniques without any reasoning capabilities, the same technique ELIZA was using back in 1966. This is not strong AI, which would require sapience and logical reasoning abilities.
Chatbots are used in a variety of sectors and built for different purposes. There are retail bots designed to pick and order groceries, weather bots that give you weather forecast of the day or week, and simply friendly bots that just talk to people in need of a friend. The fintech sector also uses chatbots to make consumers' inquiries and application for financial services easier. A small business lender in Montreal, Thinking Capital, uses a virtual assistant to provide customers with 24/7 assistance through the Facebook Messenger. A small business hoping to get a loan from the company need only answer key qualification questions asked by the bot in order to be deemed eligible to receive up to $300,000 in financing.
SEO has far less to do with content and words than people think. Google ranks sites based on the experience people have with brands. If a bot can enhance that experience in such a way that people are more enthusiastic about a site – they share it, return to it, talk about it, and spend more time there, it will affect positively how the site appears in Google.
The field of chatbots is continually growing with new technology advancements and software improvements. Staying up to date with the latest chatbot news is important to stay on top of this rapidly growing industry. We cover the latest in artificial intelligence news, chatbot news, computer vision news, machine learning news, and natural language processing news, speech recognition news, and more.
Chatting with a bot should be like talking to a human that knows everything. If you're using a bot to change an airline reservation, the bot should know if you have an unused credit on your account and whether you typically pick the aisle or window seat. Artificial intelligence will continue to radically shape this front, but a bot should connect with your current systems so a shared contact record can drive personalization.
We've just released a major new report, The CIO's Guide To Automation, AI, And Robotics. We find that, to stay ahead, CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, and other executives integrating leading-edge technologies into their companies' operations and business models must turn their attention to automation technologies, including intelligent machines, robotic process automation (RPA) bots, artificial intelligence, and physical […]
As digital continues to rewrite the rules of engagement across industries and markets, a new competitive reality is emerging: "Being digital" soon won't be enough. Organizations will use artificial intelligence and other technologies to help them make faster, more informed decisions, become far more efficient, and craft more personalized and relevant experiences for both customers and employees.
When considering potential uses, first assess the impact on resources. There are two options here: replacement or empowerment. Replacement is clearly easier as you don't need to consider integration with existing processes and you can build from scratch. Empowerment enhances an existing process by making it more flexible, accommodating, accessible and simple for users.
Creating a comprehensive conversational flow chart will feel like the greatest hurdle of the process, but know it's just the beginning. It's the commitment to tweaking and improving in the months and years following that makes a great bot. As Clara de Soto, cofounder of Reply.ai, told VentureBeat, "You're never just 'building a bot' so much as launching a 'conversational strategy' — one that's constantly evolving and being optimized based on how users are actually interacting with it."
As with many 'organic' channels, the relative reach of your audience tends to decline over time due to a variety of factors. In email's case, it can be the over-exposure to marketing emails and moves from email providers to filter out promotional content; with other channels it can be the platform itself. Back in 2014 I wrote about how "Facebook's Likes Don't Matter Anymore" in relation to the declining organic reach of Facebook pages. Last year alone the organic reach of publishers on Facebook fell by a further 52%.
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve (it's predicted that AI could double economic growth rates by 2035), conversational bots are becoming a powerful tool for businesses worldwide. By 2020, it's predicted that 85% of customers' relationship with businesses will be handled without engaging a human at all. Businesses are even abandoning their mobile apps to adopt conversational bots.
Smooch acts as more of a chatbot connector that bridges your business apps, (ex: Slack and ZenDesk) with your everyday messenger apps (ex: Facebook Messenger, WeChat, etc.) It links these two together by sending all of your Messenger chat notifications straight to your business apps, which streamlines your conversations into just one application. In the end, this can result in smoother automated workflows and communications across teams. These same connectors also allow you to create chatbots which will respond to your customer chats…. boom!
If it happens to be an API call / data retrieval, then the control flow handle will remain within the 'dialogue management' component that will further use/persist this information to predict the next_action, once again. The dialogue manager will update its current state based on this action and the retrieved results to make the next prediction. Once the next_action corresponds to responding to the user, then the 'message generator' component takes over.
What began as a televised ad campaign eventually became a fully interactive chatbot developed for PG Tips' parent company, Unilever (which also happens to own an alarming number of the most commonly known household brands) by London-based agency Ubisend, which specializes in developing bespoke chatbot applications for brands. The aim of the bot was to not only raise brand awareness for PG Tips tea, but also to raise funds for Red Nose Day through the 1 Million Laughs campaign.
Alternatively, think about the times you are chatting with a colleague over Slack. The need to find relevant information typically happens during conversations, and instead of having to go to a browser to start searching, you could simply summon your friendly Slack chatbot and get it to do the work for you. Think of it as your own personal podcast producer – pulling up documents, facts, and data at the drop of a hat. This concept can be translated into the virtual assistants we use on the daily. Think about an ambient assistant like Alexa or Google Home that could just be part of a group conversation. Or your trusted assistant taking notes and actions during a meeting.
Once you've determined these factors, you can develop the front-end web app or microservice. You might decide to integrate a chatbot into a customer support website where a customer clicks on an icon that immediately triggers a chatbot conversation. You could also integrate a chatbot into another communication channel, whether it's Slack or Facebook Messenger. Building a "Slackbot," for example, gives your users another way to get help or find information within a familiar interface.
WeChat was created by Chinese holding company Tencent three years ago. The product was created by a special projects team within Tencent (who also owns the dominant desktop messaging software in China, QQ) under the mandate of creating a completely new mobile-first messaging experience for the Chinese market. In three short years, WeChat has exploded in popularity and has become the dominant mobile messaging platform in China, with approximately 700M monthly active users (MAUs).
Note that you can add more than one button under this card, so if the most common customer requests are your hours, location, phone number, or directions, create additional blocks with that information to return to the user. If you're an online service-based business, you may want to include blocks in your buttons that give more information on a particular segment of your business.
I will not go into the details of extracting each feature value here. It can be referred from the documentation of rasa-core link that I provided above. So, assuming we extracted all the required feature values from the sample conversations in the required format, we can then train an AI model like LSTM followed by softmax to predict the next_action. Referring to the above figure, this is what the 'dialogue management' component does. Why LSTM is more appropriate? — As mentioned above, we want our model to be context aware and look back into the conversational history to predict the next_action. This is akin to a time-series model (pls see my other LSTM-Time series article) and hence can be best captured in the memory state of the LSTM model. The amount of conversational history we want to look back can be a configurable hyper-parameter to the model.
You can structure these modules to flow in any way you like, ranging from free form to sequential. The Bot Framework SDK provides several libraries that allows you to construct any conversational flow your bot needs. For example, the prompts library allows you to ask users for input, the waterfall library allows you to define a sequence of question/answer pair, the dialog control library allows you to modularized your conversational flow logic, etc. All of these libraries are tied together through a dialogs object. Let's take a closer look at how modules are implemented as dialogs to design and manage conversation flows and see how that flow is similar to the traditional application flow.
Magic, launched in early 2015, is one of the earliest examples of conversational commerce by launching one of the first all-in-one intelligent virtual assistants as a service. Unique in that the service does not even have an app (you access it purely via SMS), Magic promises to be able to handle virtually any task you send it — almost like a human executive assistant. Based on user and press accounts, Magic seems to be able to successfully carry out a variety of odd tasks from setting up flight reservations to ordering hard-to-find food items.
One key reason: The technology that powers bots, artificial intelligence software, is improving dramatically, thanks to heightened interest from key Silicon Valley powers like Facebook and Google. That AI enables computers to process language — and actually converse with humans — in ways they never could before. It came about from unprecedented advancements in software (Google's Go-beating program, for example) and hardware capabilities.
"Beware though, bots have the illusion of simplicity on the front end but there are many hurdles to overcome to create a great experience. So much work to be done. Analytics, flow optimization, keeping up with ever changing platforms that have no standard. For deeper integrations and real commerce like Assist powers, you have error checking, integrations to APIs, routing and escalation to live human support, understanding NLP, no back buttons, no home button, etc etc. We have to unlearn everything we learned the past 20 years to create an amazing experience in this new browser." — Shane Mac, CEO of Assist
To get started, you can build your bot online using the Azure Bot Service, selecting from the available C# and Node.js templates. As your bot gets more sophisticated, however, you will need to create your bot locally then deploy it to the web. Choose an IDE, such as Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code, and a programming language. SDKs are available for the following languages:
This was a strategy eBay deployed for holiday gift-giving in 2018. The company recognized that purchasing gifts for friends and family isn't necessarily a simple task. For many of their customers, selecting gifts had become a stressful and arduous process, especially when they didn't have a particular item in mind. In response to this feeling, eBay partnered with Facebook Messenger to introduce ShopBot.
1. Define the goals. What should your chatbot do? Clearly indicate the list of functions your chatbot needs to perform. 2. Choose a channel to interact with your customers. Be where your clients prefer to communicate — your website, mobile app, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or other messaging platform. 3. Choose the way of creation. There are two of them: using readymade chat bot software or building a custom bot from scratch. 4. Create, customize and launch. Describe the algorithm of its actions, develop a database of answers and test the work of the chatbot. Double check everything before showing your creation to potential customers.
If AI struggles with fourth-grade science question answering, should AI be expected to hold an adult-level, open-ended chit-chat about politics, entertainment, and weather? It is thus encouraging to see that Microsoft's Satya Nadella did not give up on Tay after its debacle, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos is sponsoring an Alexa social chatbot competition. I love this below quote from Jeff:
The idea was to permit Tay to "learn" about the nuances of human conversation by monitoring and interacting with real people online. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for Tay to figure out that Twitter is a towering garbage-fire of awfulness, which resulted in the Twitter bot claiming that "Hitler did nothing wrong," using a wide range of colorful expletives, and encouraging casual drug use. While some of Tay's tweets were "original," in that Tay composed them itself, many were actually the result of the bot's "repeat back to me" function, meaning users could literally make the poor bot say whatever disgusting remarks they wanted.
From any point in the conversation, the bot needs to know where to go next. If a user writes, "I'm looking for new pants," the bot might ask, "For a man or woman?" The user may type, "For a woman." Does the bot then ask about size, style, brand, or color? What if one of those modifiers was already specified in the query? The possibilities are endless, and every one of them has to be mapped with rules.
Simply put, chatbots are computer programs designed to have conversations with human users. Chances are you've interacted with one. They answer questions, guide you through a purchase, provide technical support, and can even teach you a new language. You can find them on devices, websites, text messages, and messaging apps—in other words, they're everywhere.
A bot is software that is designed to automate the kinds of tasks you would usually do on your own, like making a dinner reservation, adding an appointment to your calendar or fetching and displaying information. The increasingly common form of bots, chatbots, simulate conversation. They often live inside messaging apps — or are at least designed to look that way — and it should feel like you're chatting back and forth as you would with a human.
You may remember Facebook's big chatbot push in 2016 – when they announced that they were opening up the Messenger platform to chatbots of all varieties. Every organization suddenly needed to get their hands on the technology. The idea of having conversational chatbot technology was enthralling, but behind all the glitz, glamour and tech sex appeal, was something a little bit less exciting. To quote Gizmodo writer, Darren Orf:
Being an early adopter of a new channel can provide enormous benefits, but that comes with equally high risks. This is amplified within marketplaces like Amazon. Early adopters within Amazon's marketplace were able to focus on building a solid base of reviews for their products - a primary ranking signal - which meant that they'd create huge barriers to entry for competitors (namely because they were always showing up in the search results before them).
If you are looking for another paid platform, Beep Boop may be your next stop. It is a hosting platform that is designed for developers looking to make apps for Facebook Messenger and Slack specifically. First, set up your code using Github, the popular version control repository and Internet hosting service, then input it into the Beep Boop platform to link it with your Facebook Messenger or Slack application. The bots will then be able to interact with your customers with real-time chat and messaging.
The most widely used anti-bot technique is the use of CAPTCHA, which is a form of Turing test used to distinguish between a human user and a less-sophisticated AI-powered bot, by the use of graphically-encoded human-readable text. Examples of providers include Recaptcha, and commercial companies such as Minteye, Solve Media, and NuCaptcha. Captchas, however, are not foolproof in preventing bots as they can often be circumvented by computer character recognition, security holes, and even by outsourcing captcha solving to cheap laborers.
I would like to extend an invitation to business leaders facing similar challenges to IoT Exchange in Sydney on 23-24 July 2019. It's a great opportunity to engage in stimulating discussions with IBM staff, business partners and customers, and to network with your peers. You'll participate in two full days of learning about new technologies through 40 information packed sessions. ...read more
More and more businesses are choosing AI chatbots as part of their customer service team. There are several reasons for that. Chatbots can answer customers' inquiries cheaply, quickly, in real-time. Another reason is the ease of installation of such chatbot: once you have a fine live chat app, it takes a couple of minutes to integrate a chatbot with it.
It won't be an easy march though once we get to the nitty-gritty details. For example, I heard through the grapevine that when Starbucks looked at the voice data they collected from customer orders, they found that there are a few millions unique ways to order. (For those in the field, I'm talking about unique user utterances.) This is to be expected given the wild combinations of latte vs mocha, dairy vs soy, grande vs trenta, extra-hot vs iced, room vs no-room, for here vs to-go, snack variety, spoken accent diversity, etc. The AI practitioner will soon curse all these dimensions before taking a deep learning breath and getting to work. I feel though that given practically unlimited data, deep learning is now good enough to overcome this problem, and it is only a matter of couple of years until we see these TODA solutions deployed. One technique to watch is Generative Adversarial Nets (GAN). Roughly speaking, GAN engages itself in an iterative game of counterfeiting real stuffs, getting caught by the police neural network, improving counterfeiting skill, and rinse-and-repeating until it can pass as your Starbucks' order-taking person, given enough data and iterations.
"There is hope that consumers will be keen on experimenting with bots to make things happen for them. It used to be like that in the mobile app world 4+ years ago. When somebody told you back then… 'I have built an app for X'… You most likely would give it a try. Now, nobody does this. It is probably too late to build an app company as an indie developer. But with bots… consumers' attention spans are hopefully going to be wide open/receptive again!" — Niko Bonatsos, Managing Director at General Catalyst
Companies use internet bots to increase online engagement and streamline communication. Companies often use bots to cut down on cost, instead of employing people to communicate with consumers, companies have developed new ways to be efficient. These chatbots are used to answer customers' questions. For example, Domino's has developed a chatbot that can take orders via Facebook Messenger. Chatbots allow companies to allocate their employees' time to more important things.[10]
The advancement in technology has opened gates for the innovative and efficient solutions to cater the needs of students by developing applications that can serve as a personalized learning resource. Moreover, these automated applications can potentially help instructors and teachers in saving up a lot of time by offering individual attention to each student.
In other words, bots solve the thing we loathed about apps in the first place. You don't have to download something you'll never use again. It's been said most people stick to five apps. Those holy grail spots? They're increasingly being claimed by messaging apps. Today, messaging apps have over 5 billion monthly active users, and for the first time, people are using them more than social networks.
H&M's consistent increased sales over the past year and its August announcement to launch an eCommerce presence in Canada and South Korea during the fall of 2016, along with 11 new H&M online markets (for a total of 35 markets by the end of the year), appear to signify positive results for its chatbot implementation (though direct correlations are unavailable on its website).
Artificial neural networks, invented in the 1940's, are a way of calculating an output from an input (a classification) using weighted connections ("synapses") that are calculated from repeated iterations through training data. Each pass through the training data alters the weights such that the neural network produces the output with greater "accuracy" (lower error rate).
In sales, chatbots are being used to assist consumers shopping online, either by answering noncomplex product questions or providing helpful information that the consumer could later search for, including shipping price and availability. Chatbots are also used in service departments, assisting service agents in answering repetitive requests. Once a conversation gets too complex for a chatbot, it will be transferred to a human service agent .
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