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Could the ASUS Chromebook Flip be the most well received Chromebook ever? Based on early user and trade reviews, it just might. The flexible $279 laptop is not the fastest Chromebook ever released, nor the cheapest, lightest or any other -est you can think of. It is certainly not a laptop that will meet everyone’s needs. Reviewed as a complete package, for what it is, not what it isn’t, the ASUS Chromebook Flip sure seems to be putting a lot of checkmarks in an awful lot of reviewers’ boxes. But is this a surprise? Unlike most Chromebook releases since 2012, most of which are identikit clamshell notebooks with little distinction, ASUS’ Flip offers novel hardware features that allow fatigued tech reviewers to view it with a ‘fresh set of eyes’. What is The ASUS Chromebook Flip C100PA? It’s a convertible; the 360-degree touch display folds back to create a tablet-like experience, only the second such device to do so. ‘The ASUS Chromebook Flip [has] the build quality of notebooks twice the price’ It’s also the smallest Chromebook to be released to date (no, really!) with a 10.1-inch screen. The instant-praise making IPS display also one-ups the washed out TN panels used in competitors. A solid aluminium body and tight, non-creaky construction lend the ASUS Chromebook Flip the build quality of notebooks twice the price. The Rockchip RK3288 1.8GHz quad-core processor is not a speed demon but being paired with a healthy 4GB RAM gives it enough grunt to handle the tasks that couch-bound web-surfers will throw at it, including playback of HD video content. It’s not perfect of course. Some reviewers have found the performance, stability and range of the combo Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip lacking. But, on the flip (ho ho) side, Google has already begun testing and pushing out fixes to resolve these issues in the oft-weekly Chrome OS updates. For the ultimate review of the ASUS Chromebook Flip I heartily recommend you check out Amazon Vine reviewer Lon J. Siedman’s video review (which is not able to be embedded here). Where Can I Buy The ASUS Chromebook Flip C100PA? So far so good — but where and when can you buy one? Well, here’s where things get a little confusing. Amazon (and a handful of smaller online PC companies in the USA) have already sold a small number of units to early-bird buyers and pre-orderers. ASUS USA has already loaned and gifted units to tech websites, bloggers and video reviewers. But it’s only towards the end of this month (July) that the ASUS Flip will go on general consumer release in the USA. Other countries will follow. America Amazon.com currently expects the ASUS C100PA (4GB) to be in stock from around July 27, with shipping from/after this date. The site sold out of a limited number of devices back at the end of May. If you’re truly impatient you’ll find several third-party Amazon resellers have the unit in stock — but at more than $100 over the MSRP. Buy the ASUS Chromebook Flip (4GB) on Amazon.com Amazon is not the only online retailer to list the 4GB model for sale, including BH Photo and Video (link). Do pay attention to pricing if buying from a site you’re not familiar with: some are selling the device well above its $279 MSRP. Newegg have the cheaper 2GB RAM ASUS Chromebook Flip in stock, priced from $229.99. Buy ASUS Chromebook Flip (2GB) on Newegg.com United Kingdom The UK release date for the ASUS Chromebook Flip is currently targeted for early September. This is the date that high street retailers, including Argos and Currys PCWorld, will begin selling it to their customers. Amazon.co.uk has the product listing page for the C100PA live and is already taking orders. The catch is that the device is ‘temporarily out of stock’. One assumes the e-tailing giant will begin fulfilling orders shortly before/around the same date as high street retailers receive their inventory. Buy the ASUS Chromebook Flip (4GB) on Amazon.co.uk Canada No major Canadian online retailer lists the Chromebook Flip for sale, though many American stores will ship to Canada. If you spot one be sure to let us know. Australia No major Australian online retailer lists the Chromebook Flip for sale. If you find/spot one be sure to let us know using our tip form. Things move fast so be aware that the prices, availability and product links quoted above are subject to change at any time.

This box was filled with everything that I love, and I am thoroughly impressed with the thoughtfulness of it's contents. Not to forget the perfect timing of it arriving THE DAY BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY. In no particular order: -Amazing smelling incense (I, too, have never met an ent who hates them) -Candy. Including pop rocks with the motherfuckin' Batman on the packaging. -A Darth Vader candy dispenser (he goes perfectly with my Clone Trooper one!) -Batman socks with tiny capes on them. Swag level +5 -A cross-stitched Batman logo picture, pre-framed (I can't even wait to hang this up) -A grow-a-zombie, which finding the patience to let grow is going to be difficult. -A Mega Man hat. I need to wear this everywhere. -A cross-stitched Mega Man hair clip, which I will be wearing to game night tonight. I'll probably wear it forever. -A little dust bath tub for my gerbils. This has been much needed and I actually just rearranged their house recently to make room for something like this. I'll try to get a picture of them using it soon.

Image copyright AP Image caption A spate of mosque attacks has alarmed Sweden's Muslim community Swedish anti-racism campaigners have staged a big rally in central Stockholm after three arson attacks on mosques. Demonstrators held leaflets saying "Don't touch my mosque" at the 1,000-strong rally outside parliament. A petrol bomb was thrown at a mosque in Uppsala, eastern Sweden, on Thursday. The building did not catch fire. In late December a mosque was set ablaze at Esloev in the south, and earlier an arson attack on a mosque in Eskilstuna injured five people. Anti-racism rallies also took place in the cities of Malmo and Gothenburg on Friday. In Stockholm Sweden's Culture Minister Alice Bah Kuhnke said the government would launch a national strategy to counter Islamophobia. The idea is to educate people about Islam and curb prejudice, she said. In a mark of solidarity well-wishers plastered the entrance to the Uppsala mosque with red love hearts after Thursday's attack. Image copyright Reuters Image caption The Uppsala mosque was "love-bombed" with red heart stickers Image copyright AFP Image caption Swedish police have been told to boost security at mosques So far the police investigation has not led to any arrests following the arson attacks. The government has pledged to step up security at places of worship. Culture Minister Bah Kuhnke told the Stockholm rally that the attacks were "aimed at intimidating and diminishing" people. "That's why one of the most important things we can do is to not let ourselves be intimidated," AFP news agency quoted her as saying. Immigration has become a hot topic of debate in Sweden, which accepts more asylum seekers per capita than any other European country. The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, who got 13% in elections last September, want a 90% cut in the number of asylum seekers allowed into Sweden. Last month the party nearly brought down the new coalition government, in a protest against its asylum policy. About 16% of Sweden's population are foreign-born, many of them from war-torn Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria - all Muslim-majority countries. Update 7 April 2015: A police investigation into the fire at the Eskilstuna mosque found no evidence of an arson attack and the case was closed.

Newly promoted petty officers stand in formation in thier NYCO uniforms aboard the USS George Washington during a frocking ceremony Dec. 7, 2012. The nylon-and-cotton uniforms worn by sailors on ships and at bases “will burn robustly,” and turn into a “sticky molten material,” according to a test conducted by the Navy Clothing and Textile Research Facility. NAPLES, Italy — Navy working uniforms are extremely flammable and will melt in a fire, putting sailors at risk, the Navy announced Wednesday. The nylon-and-cotton (referred to as NYCO) uniforms worn by sailors on ships and at bases “will burn robustly,” and turn into a “sticky molten material,” according to a test conducted in October by the Navy Clothing and Textile Research Facility. “It will melt and burn to consumption,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, chief of information, said in a statement. There have been no uniform requirement changes made after the finding. Navy officials said they are committed to sailor safety. “Where there is a need, fire retardant/flame resistant clothing is provided,” Kirby said. Under the textile flame resistance test, the uniform cloth was subjected to a flame for 12 seconds. Marine and Army uniforms made of rayon, para-aramid and nylon fibers were also tested, but only the Navy uniforms melted and were consumed by the flame, according to a report on the tests. “If this sticky molten material came in contact with skin it would contribute to increased burn injury due to conductive energy transfer,” the report concluded. “The use of the NYCO material in an environment where there is potential for a flame or thermal threat is not recommended.” Sailors on ships are regularly exposed to the threat of fire, especially those working with or near planes or engines. The Navy removed its requirement that all uniforms be flame-resistant in 1996. [email protected] Twitter: @cristymsilva

At one point or another, your secure resources will be attacked. This is the unfortunate reality of the modern era, where the skills necessary to invasively crack open a system, network, or API are more commonplace than ever. Millions in resources and potential revenue can be lost in a matter of hours due to poor planning and implementation of a security protocol. Private information, trade secrets, and even personal data can be exposed to the skilled network penetrator and used against you in ways that are as extreme as they are varied. This article aims to bolster your defenses by defining the four foundations of API security: Authentication, Authorization, Federation, and Delegation. The Importance of Comprehension One of the most common failures of understanding in the development of API security is the idea that security is a “one size fits all” solution. The idea that channels of security function in a singular manner with variations only in the final end-user experience is as wrong as it is dangerous; this concept places the operator in a position of fewer tools at their disposal than those trying to “break the system”, in turn exposing your data to an extreme level of unnecessary risk. This issue is made worse by a common misunderstanding regarding the differences between Authorization, Authentication, Federation, and Delegation — perpetuating a gulf of misinformation and misapplication. This chasm has caused many security woes in the API space. Given that these four terms are what the entire concept of API security rides on, it is imperative that you understand them, their uses, and the implications of their adoption. Lacking a basic understanding of security protocols, methodologies, and concepts can mean the difference between a prosperous, growth-oriented business and a stagnant, depreciating business. Balancing Access & Permissions Having an API that allows for full access to the entirety of your systems and resources is an absolute nightmare — it’s akin to being the lord of a castle, and leaving the doors to your vault wide open — it entices theft by its very nature, and unnecessarily opens your materials to the public space. As lord of your keep, why give marauders an avenue for attack? What then is the proper response? Do we leave systems open for the betterment of functionality and assume users have positive intentions? Or do we follow a complete opposite route, closing down every bit of functionality, designing only proprietary systems? The solution lies in combination of both approaches. Assume your foe is out to get you at all times — but don’t let this affect your need to do business. Constant vigilance allows you to design your API in an intelligent way, opening only that which needs to be opened, and making sure those openings don’t tie into vital systems that could be damaged. Functionally, this means assigning elements of authority to API consumers based on the minimal amount of access they need to do the functions they are required to do. By assigning different roles and levels of responsibilities to clients, we can create a tiered environment that keeps our data safe. Understanding the implications of this system is of prime importance — specifically the differences between the types of rights and authorities within the system as a whole. In our definitions, we’ll hark back to our castle defense analogy. The brave and powerful knight Lancelot is trying to return to the Arthurian court after a long month of fighting bloodthirsty marauders — let’s see what defenses he will have to pass… Authentication: Identity Authentication is a base security layer that deals specifically with the identity of the requesting party. Think of authentication as an agreement based on trust. When Lancelot reaches your drawbridge, he shouts his name along with a secret code to a guard stationed on the castle wall above. These two forms of identification will ensure that Lancelot is identified only as Lancelot, and that Lancelot is allowed to enter the castle. In the real world, this level of security can take multiple forms. When a user chooses to request data or resources, they can face a number of protocols, log-in systems, and verification services. For instance, a user could log in using an authentication service that only requires a username and password. For greater levels of assurance, they may then be asked to provide a single-use token generated on a mobile device or keyfob. Authorization: Access Level Authorization is a completely separate level of security, though it’s often confused with authentication; while authentication verifies that the requester is who they say they are, authorization determines the access level they should be granted. Authorization is extremely important, but is often overlooked. It is very easy for API developers to assume that, because they need access to the API for their systems, setting the user default permissions to “SysOp” or equivalent full access is acceptable. This is a faulty line of thinking. While the developer inherently requires a higher level of access than the typical user, a consumer may only need a small portion of calls or functions at any one time. In that situation, leaving excess operations open makes the system more vulnerable to hacks and unauthorized access. Federation: Reusing Credentials & Spreading Resources Federated security is a multi-purpose system: for users , federated security systems allow for the use of a small set of credentials with multiple systems, services, applications, or websites. , federated security systems allow for the use of a small set of credentials with multiple systems, services, applications, or websites. for administrators , federated security allows for the separation between the resources requested by the user and the systems used to authenticate and grant authority to the user. , federated security allows for the separation between the resources requested by the user and the systems used to authenticate and grant authority to the user. For organizations, it allows them to centrally manage the trust relationships they have with one another and ensure, cryptographically, that that trust is enforceable. Same User Credentials Across Multiple Services With federation, the user is granted the ability to use the same set of credentials across multiple services. By having the authentication take place in one single domain, other security realms that trust this primary domain can reuse the authentication and trust the authenticity of the identity established. This results in what is to what is called a federation. Any system in this federation can accept the credentials of the authentication domain. The primary domain is what we call an Identity Provider (IdP) or Asserting Party (AP); the other security domains that trust the IdP to authenticate users are referred to as Relying Parties (RP) or Service Providers (SP). Authentication and identity data are passed between these parties using tokens. These Tokens are minted by a system called a Security Token Service (STS) or a Federation Service (OAuth Authorization Server and an OpenID Connect Provider are examples of an STS and a Federation Service, respectively.) The end result is that a STS hands a token to the user after they first log into that authentication service. When the user then requests access to another domain, the domain registers that the user already has a token, and grants it access without requesting another log-in. Introducing Realms The King knows that knights like Lancelot need to enter his castle; he also knows that his castle is situated in a very bad location, prone to raids. Because of this, the King has set up another castle some miles away in a more defensible position to house other precious resources. He does this to ensure security between the main castle and the more fortified castle that contains other valuable treasures. This adds an entirely separate layer of security, acting as a “buffer.” Federation allows for Single Sign-on (SSO) across these different “security domains” or “realms.” In traditional systems that do not use Federation, the user would log into a server that is in a particular security domain/realm. This domain would include not only this authentication system but also the actual resources the user is attempting to access. While this works fine in some cases, if the authentication and authorization protocols were to be broken or violated, then the barrier between the resources and the user would also be broken. This could allow an attacker to take complete control of the domain. When A Breach Occurs With federated security, if a breach occurs in the Identity Provider, the Relying Parties can revoke the trust it had previously placed in that party — not all systems are compromised. Entry to all federated authentication requests made by any user to the resource server are refused. Imagine the King and his knights have retreated to the fortified castle after the main castle was overrun by raiders. They no longer allow entrance from people requesting access to the fortified castle for fear that they are actually raiders using stolen code words. Delegation: The Signet of (Limited) Power Delegation is another process by which access and rights can be given to authorized users while maintaining a relatively limited amount of access. Whereas federation works by giving the user a token to use on multiple domains, delegation works by authorizing a user to function partially as if they were another user. King Arthur, seeing the plight of Lancelot the Knight, has decided to make future access to his Kingdom easier. He creates a ring with his kingly seal set in pearl, and gives it to Lancelot. He then instructs his subordinates to follow Lancelot’s orders, given that they fall within his rights as a Knight and do not exceed the authority previously expressly given to him by the King. In this way, when Lancelot presents his signet, he is seen to be acting under the orders of the King, and does not need to further verify himself or be authenticated. For web users, this is done on a site-by-site basis. For example, let’s assume the user is trying to log in to “http://mail.corporate.org”. Under the federation system, they would first have to login on a designated portal page to access any additional resources in the federation using their token. Under the delegation system, “http://mail.corporate.org” would look to see what rights they have been given and who they are acting on behalf of. As the user is coming from “http://profile.corporate.org” and has already logged in on that page using an authenticated account with elevated privelages, the mail server allows access. Holistic Security vs. Singular Approach Most important to all of these considerations is the way we treat the fundamental security system we are implementing. Far too often, developers fall into the trap of considering security to be one-sided. An average user might consider having three authentication devices to be a good security check; but if that authentication server were to ever go offline, you could have an infinite number of authentication-based security systems and your network would still be exposed. By thinking of security as a singular approach rather than a holistic one, you are placing your API and your system in far more danger than is necessary. Consider security from the constraints of our story concerning Lancelot, and put yourselves in the rather silky, comfortable shoes of the noble and wise King Arthur. You know invaders are coming; in fact, you can see them crossing the mountain now, preparing to invade. Examine your security, and really contemplate your entire API Stronghold. Would you consolidate all your jewels and gold in one fortress and defend with all men on a single wooden gate? — OR — would you rather spread your wealth across multiple fortresses each with an impassable moat, a manned wooden gate, a manned metal gate, and armed warriors waiting just beyond? Operationally, costs may be the same, but the security is drastically different. In the first scenario, the enemy would only have to destroy the wooden gate once to get into your castle, whereas in the second scenario, they would have to pass four separate and daunting obstacles to even get a peek at a single inner keep. A multi-layered stronghold is how you must consider security in the API space. Application For APIs When establishing a security system for your API, understanding Authentication, Authorization, Federation, and Delegation is vitally important. Deciding the access and specific circumstances behind sharing your resources will help establish a security shield to protect internal assets and solve many security issues before they arise. For the modern system administrator, there is a wide range of tools and services available that make implementation of any of these types of security relatively pain-free. Services like OAuth and OpenID Connect can be integrated early in the development cycle of the API, and third-party authentication services can even be implemented after the API is deployed. While all the above systems can work in tandem with one another, knowing when and where each are best applied makes for a better system on the whole, improving your security, usability, and longevity.

Former American Idol star Clay Aiken is running for Congress in 2014, challenging Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers in North Carolina’s second district. Aiken released a five-minute video on a campaign website Wednesday introducing himself to voters and hitting Ellmers for her votes on the government shutdown and more. It won’t be an easy fight: 58% of voters in the district chose Mitt Romney over President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential contest. But before Ellmers won her seat in 2010, it was held by a Democrat for more than a decade. In his video, Aiken talked about being raised by a single mom and his time spent teaching special education. “If you only know the part of my story that begins with a golden ticket,” Aiken said. “You might wonder what would qualify me to run, well it starts with a life I remember all too well—Mom working nights at Sears, clothes from the thrift store.” The Democrat went on to distinguish himself from other politicians, saying, well, that he isn’t one. Close video ‘Idol’ star running for Congress “American Idol” runner-up Clay Aiken announced on Tuesday that he will run for a North Carolina Congressional seat. Aiken will join Chuck Todd on Thursday. share tweet email save Embed “I’m not a politician, I don’t ever want to be one, but I do want to help bring back at least to my corner of North Carolina, the idea that someone can go to Washington to represent all people—whether they voted for you or not,” he said. “I’m a Democrat,” he says, adding that his work on a President Bush-appointed education panel helped him rise above the party lines. “That was when I first realized that our problems won’t be solved by only one party or the other, but instead it’s going to require all of us.” He criticized Ellmers as a partisan hack. “When her party leaders told her to vote for the government shutdown, she did—twenty one times—even though she said herself it would be a disaster for the country. And then she complained that she needed her paycheck,” he said. North Carolina has previously enjoyed celebrity in its congressional representatives—former NFL quarterback Heath Shuler held a seat in western North Carolina for three terms until last year. But very few Democrats have managed to hold on in conservative districts like the one Aiken hopes to represent —just Democrats are currently in the House now in similar districts; two are retiring after tough re-election battles in 2012.

Freaknik: The Musical is an American musical television special produced by T-Pain. It features the voice of T-Pain as the Ghost of Freaknik, as well as the voices of entertainers such as Lil Wayne, Young Cash, Snoop Dogg, Sophia Fresh, and Rick Ross, and comedians such as Andy Samberg and Charlie Murphy who provide additional voices. It was scheduled to air on Cartoon Network's late night programming block Adult Swim sometime in 2009, but after several push-backs, it premiered on March 7, 2010. The musical is based on the actual music festival of the same name that used to take place in Atlanta, Georgia. A soundtrack was released by Jive and Nappy Boy on April 20, 2010. The 50-minute uncut version of Freaknik: The Musical has been released on DVD and other forms of home media. Plot [ edit ] The movie starts at a party that a group of young adults (Christopher "Kid" Reid and Affion Crockett) claims is the best party they have ever attended. An elderly man (Lil Jon) joins the party and explains the history of Freaknik. He tells them that Freaknik threw the biggest party of all time, until it was broken up by the police in 1998; he claims the police "killed" Freaknik. Kid n' Play tried to convince that Freaknik is an urban legend like Candyman, but as Play looks in the mirror, they were eaten by a swarm of wasps. The group is then led by the old man in summoning Freaknik, who appears as the Ghost of Freaknik Past (T-Pain). The scene changes to a radio announcer named Mr. Thanksgiving (DJ Drama), who is interviewing Freaknik. Mr. Thanksgiving and Freaknik explain that a rapping contest will be held, the victory of which will get "a lifetime supply of money, clothes, and hoes". The scene changes once more to the bedroom of Virgil (Young Cash), Big Uzi (Rick Ross), and Light Skin (CeeLo Green), collectively known as the Sweet Tea Mobsters, a group of young adult rappers from Sweet Tea, Florida, who hope to achieve fame. The group decides to drive to Atlanta to participate in the aforementioned contest, along with their weed-smoking (and supplying) friend Doela Man (DJ Pooh). During their journey, Light Skin tells of a secret society of African Americans called the Boule, fraternity parlance for "a council of noblemen", that seeks to guide the course of black culture. The members of this organization are parodies of Oprah Winfrey, Al Sharpton (Charlie Murphy), Bill Cosby (Kel Mitchell), Russell Simmons (Affion Crockett), O. J. Simpson, and Jesse Jackson. They wear medallions inscribed "10%", an allusion to the W. E. B. Du Bois essay The Talented Tenth, which says that a class of exceptional members of the black race will rise to lead it. The Sweet Tea Mobsters make a number of pit stops, including a detour at a college fraternity party where they meet two alcoholic fraternity members (Bill Hader and Andy Samberg). While Virgil is fueling the gas tank, A car, inhabited by four sexy-looking women (Sophia Fresh) named Leacosia (Crystal), Toprameneesha (Skye), Obamaniqua (Cole Rose), and Suzie (Crystal), arrives. He tried to refuse, but the girls beg in song, besides Leacosia giving Virgil a kiss in the form of a gun. He accepts. Meanwhile, Freaknik meets Rev. Sharpton, who tried to force him to work for the Boule. The plan fails as Freaknik says that he will "never, ever turn his back on his own people", so he escorts Sharpton out via trapdoor. At the party, the group meets the Fruit Bowl Boys (Kel Mitchell, Affion Crockett, and Denzel Whitaker), who later become the group's biggest competition and are from the mostly white suburbs of Sweet Tea, Florida (although they resemble the Sweet Tea Mobsters). On their long, winding road trip, the Sweet Tea Mob gets lost in New Orleans and are confronted by a gangster (Snoop Dogg) who makes them visit his boss, Trap Jesus (Lil Wayne). Upon meeting Trap Jesus, the group loses hope, thinking it is the end, but instead he inspires them to compete and gives them one of his many Lamborghinis to use to get to Atlanta. However, they crash the Lamborghini when Big Uzi becomes enraged after hearing the Fruit Bowl Boys talking about his jail experience. The group gives up except Virgil, who believes that winning the contest is their destiny. The rest of the group still doesn't believe him until they are given a ride in an airplane by the "Flying Malcolms." Meanwhile, the Freaknik character is elected the "ghost mayor of Atlanta" and dubs the city "Freaknation." Soon after, President Barack Obama hands the presidency over to the ghost of Freaknik, a move that greatly angers Oprah, which wants to see Freaknik destroyed. She devises a plan to send a giant robotic monster called the "Perminator" (a robotic version of Al Sharpton, rebuilt from Sharpton's corpse after he got hit by lightning while blowing out his hair) to Atlanta to destroy Freaknik. Meanwhile, at the party, the Fruit Bowl Boys begin singing "Shank Ya in the Shower." The Sweet Tea Mobsters arrive at Atlanta at the same time as the Perminator begins its attack; it kills the Fruit Bowl Boys almost immediately. He seems to have Freaknik down for the count, but mass love from the crowd empowers Freaknik as the Mob performs, giving him the ability to grow to a monstrous size. Using the love of his fans, Freaknik is able to destroy the Perminator. After the fight, Freaknik declares the Sweet Tea Mobsters the winners of the contest, but Virgil refuses the prize and tears the check in half. He tells Freaknik that he doesn't need it as long as Freaknik comes back every year, but before he can finish speaking, a golden lion statue-shaped ship comes right in, inhabited by the members of the Boule. But as Freaknik is about to disqualify them, a dog-shaped spacecraft called the "Mothership Connection" arrives, killing the Boule and their ship (Note: This scene can only be seen on the uncut version of the special). It is inhabited by three brightly colored aliens who are actually George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and Gene "King Poo Poo Man" Anderson. They say they have come to take Freaknik because "there are other galaxies that need his powers of positivity", saying that maybe someday he will return and they can "funk it up" once again. Freaknik gives Virgil his gold chain and says that Atlanta will always be his home. Suzie approaches Freaknik, telling him her baby (which looks like Freaknik) needs a father. Freaknik then rushes on board the ship with Clinton, Collins, and Anderson. Mr. Thanksgiving, the radio DJ from the beginning of the show, then speaks, saying how crazy that was and they'll see us next time; Freaknik is seen dancing on the Mothership as it leaves Earth. And after the end credits, we see Sweet Tea taping the check back together. Voice cast [ edit ] Additional voices are provided by: Gerald "Slink" Johnson, Heather Lawless, Jason Van Veen, and Jason Walden. Production [ edit ] Freaknik: The Musical originally evolved from a failed pilot entitled That Crook'd 'Sipp which was created by Mike Weiss, Jacob Escobedo, and Nick Weidenfeld. The pilot premiered on television on May 13, 2007.[1][2] Originally, the pilot was to receive six additional episodes scheduled to air sometime after 2007, but the episodes never surfaced and the show's status remained up in the air until mid-2009 when the series was scrapped for good in order to create this special.[3][4] Characters including Big Uzi, Suzy and Virgil all appeared in That Crook'd Sipp. Reception [ edit ] In its original American broadcast on March 7, 2010, Freaknik: The Musical was watched by 797,000 viewers 18-34, making it the second most watched Adult Swim program of that night, behind a rerun of Family Guy.[5] IGN gave this episode a 6.1 out of 10, which is considered "Passable", and received comments both positive and negative.[6] Home release [ edit ] On March 8, 2010, the animated special was released for purchase on the iTunes Store.[7] The uncut 49-minute-long version of Freaknik: The Musical was released on one-disc DVD set in the United States on October 26, 2010,[8][9] from Warner Home Video and included the soundtrack. Soundtrack [ edit ] It was announced by T-Pain that a soundtrack would be released through Jive Records, Konvict Muzik and Nappy Boy on April 20, 2010. The track "Ghetto Commandments", the credits outro song, was released on iTunes as a single on March 23 and it features rappers Snoop Dogg & Mack Maine who also play in the movie; it was released the same day as the release of T-Pain's promo single for his album "rEVOLVEr" "Reverse Cowgirl". The Rick Ross song "Grab Yo Beltloop" didn't make the final cut for the album. No. Title Producer(s) Length 1. "Freaknik Is Back" T-Pain a.k.a. Ghost of Freaknik ) Tha Bizness 2:26 2. "Save You" T-Pain a.k.a. Ghost of Freaknik featuring One Chance's Jon A. Gordon, Michael A. Gordon) Jon A. Gordon, Michael A. Gordon) Tha Bizness 3:42 3. "Ghetto Commandments" T-Pain a.k.a. Ghost of Freaknik featuring Snoop Dogg & Mack Maine ) Tha Bizness 4:47 4. "We The Mob" T-Pain a.k.a. Ghost of Freaknik featuring Young Cash a.k.a. Virgil ) Ky Miller 3:02 5. "Beat Build" T-Pain a.k.a. Ghost of Freaknik featuring Young Cash a.k.a. Virgil & Rick Ross a.k.a. Big Uzi ) Tha Bizness 3:31

PHOENIX — Arizona’s largest county still has a ways to go before it will have all of its early ballots counted. Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell released an update Thursday saying there are approximately 310,000 early ballots left to be processed and tabulated. There’s also an additional estimated 55,000 provisional ballots left to be researched. On Election Day it was announced by Maricopa County Recorder spokeswoman Elizabeth Bartholomew that a deadline could go beyond Wednesday if some races remained too close to call. Purcell said the reasoning behind the ballots taking this long to be counted is because of the current process of counting the ballots. In the past, vote counts have had instances when they have taken about a week in the state. There have even been instances for a recount to be held, such as in August’s primary when Arizona Senate President Andy Biggs won the Republican primary by less than 30 votes. Follow @KTAR923

NEW DELHI: For the first time ever, Iran has surpassed Saudi Arabia to become India's top crude oil supplier.Iran, which was India's second biggest supplier of crude oil after Saudi Arabia till 2010-11, sold 759,700 barrels of oil per day to India in October, 56 per cent more than a year ago.This was larger than 717,000 bpd of oil sold by Saudi Arabia, traditionally India's biggest oil supplier, industry data showed. Iraq supplied 488,000 bpd.As western nations imposed sanctions against Iran, the Islamic nation had been relegated to seventh place in 2013-14 and 2014-15 out of the 50-odd nations India sources its crude oil from.But with the lifting of sanctions in January this year, crude oil imports have steadily climbed. India imported 12.7 MT of crude oil in 2015-16, up from 11 MT in the previous two fiscals. That made it sixth largest supplier of oil to India.Saudi Arabia has been India's top supplier of crude oil — selling 35 MT of oil in 2014-15 and 40.04 MT in 2015-16.However, for the year as a whole Saudi Arabia continues to be the top supplier with 830,000 bpd of oil followed by Iraq at second spot with 784,000 bpd. Iran averaged 456,400 bpd.Private sector Essar Oil is the biggest buyer of Iranin oil at 253,600 bpd, followed by Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals at 201,000 bpd. Indian Oil Corp bought 186,000 bpd.Iran had supplied 10.95 million tons of oil to India in 2014-15 fiscal, almost the same as 11 million tons it sold in 2013-14.The Persian Gulf nation had in 2009-10 supplied 21.2 million tons to India, which came down to 18.5 million tons in 2010-11 and 18.1 million tons in the year after.After the west imposed sanctions, India brought down the purchases to 13.14 million tons in 2012-13 and had limited them in the years thereafter.

Like all other theme-park MMOs, WildStar has struggled to meet the demand for fresh endgame content. Initially the plan was to produce a content patch every month, but the growing logistical complexities crushed that idea shortly after launch. Today, a humbler and leaner Carbine prefers to focus on providing longer-term incentives for staying in the endgame, beyond adding a new raid tier or story zone. advertisement advertisement This is where the Primal Matrix comes in. WildStar’s latest patch, currently on the Public Test Realm, aims to keep the endgame ball rolling through two new techniques. One is a new matrix that opens up at level cap, offering a mix of new abilities, improvements to existing ones, and character stat increases. The other is scaling endgame dungeons across ten Prime levels, offering better rewards for defeating the tougher challenges. How does it all pan out? After taking a closer look at the changes on WildStar’s PTR, the Primal Matrix seems to offer those endgame incentives we’ve been crying out for. That said, I’m left with a few nagging concerns, particularly about players being left behind while preformed groups take on the hardest challenges. It’ll be interesting to see how Carbine responds to player feedback before going live with the update later in February. The Matrix Revolutions Firstly, the lore: what is the Primal Matrix? In her ongoing fight against the Entity, Drusera offers to unlock the full potential of those new heroes on Nexus. In one brief visit, characters have their Matrix opened ready for develop, and gain the ability to collect Primal Essences with which to power it. In this way, they’ll be able to develop further than looting gear alone, helping them to take on even tougher challenges. Unlocked at level 50, the Primal Matrix is a new progression system enabling characters to gradually increase in power. It sits on top of Ability Points (which unlock and boost abilities) and Advanced Modification Protocols (AMPs, which work like talents to tweak those abilities), but kicks in at endgame and grows slowly. Unlocking nodes in the Primal Matrix might add AMP or Ability points, or even open up whole new abilities, making it worth spending the time to fill out. So far, it feels like other endgame progression systems we’ve seen, such as Rift’s Planar Attunement or Elder Scrolls Online’s Champion System. But there’s a twist: rather than simply awarding points for doing endgame content, WildStar’s system uses four different Primal Essences. Different essence types unlock different nodes, and different content types will reward different essences. In order to maximise your essence intake, you’re going to end up playing a lot of different content. At this point, it’s an idea I can get behind. It gives me a reason to regularly and repeatedly do endgame content, including dungeons, expeditions, World Bosses, contracts, daily quests, and even PvP battlegrounds. Those essence types will rotate around content periodically as well, so I won’t find myself blocked off if I’m not doing world bosses, for example. There’s even a neat catch-up mechanism - Drusera’s Gift - which acts like a rested bonus buff to boost your essence intake. On top of the myriad primary and secondary stats our characters already have, the Primal Matrix also introduces three new ones. Tenacity deals more damage as an enemy’s health gets lower, Toughness takes less damage as a character’s health gets lower, and Hope does more healing as a character’s health gets lower. They all sound like neat ideas, but I can’t help but question the wisdom of adding even more stats when we already seem to be swimming in them. Still, it makes it easier to regulate the growth of power as more of the Primal Matrix is completed, and the concepts are in-keeping with that desperate struggle against the Entity. And yes, I’m still bitter about the loss of Moxie. Prime Unreal-Estate Alongside the Primal Matrix, the content update will include two new instances: a 5-player dungeon named Coldblood Citadel, and a 1-5 player expedition named Evil from the Ether. While we’ve yet to see either make their debut on the PTR, both will come with a nifty new feature: Prime Scaling. Instead of having a Veteran mode, players will start out at Prime 0. Complete that with at least a Silver medal, and you’ll open up the next difficulty level, all the way up to Prime 10. The existing dungeons and expeditions of Ruins of Kel Voreth, Stormtalon’s Lair, They Came from Fragment Zero and The Gauntlet will also support Prime Scaling when the feature launches. As you’d expect, Prime Scaling offers better rewards for defeating the harder challenges. Current plans are to scale up loot by 5 item levels for each Prime Level, although this needs to be balanced with raiding to make sure the latter content is still appealing. The big worry for me though is in group restrictions - Prime Instances are only accessible by pre-formed groups, which could easily leave people out in the cold. I’m concerned that, instead of pulling everyone together, it’ll push players into those that do Primes in their own groups, and everyone else who’s left in LFG limbo. While new challenges are very welcome, I’m also looking forward to the downward scaling that all instances will support from patch day. Dive into looking for group on a lowbie alt, and the instance will scale for your level, even if you get paired with endgame players. They still get loot that’s appropriate for their level, and I’ll get carried through on an express train of carnage. It also feels like a great step for those who’ve never really got into WildStar’s instances and are looking for a way to ease themselves into it before facing the tougher stuff. Beyond the Prime Although we’ve already discovered about the Primal Matrix and Prime Scaling, the system is still in development, with Carbine collecting feedback and tweaking parameters in response. Even so, careful monitoring is needed to ensure that it becomes a tool that brings players together, and doesn’t segregate them into ever diminishing groups as they climb the Prime Levels. There’s also an open question around PvP, and how to address a growing imbalance between fresh endgame players and Matrix-heavy veterans as they face against each other on the battleground. Beyond the Primal Matrix, I’m curious why Carbine didn’t seize the opportunity to simplify and streamline the runecrafting system, especially as players will be hunting for even more frequent gear updates as they press through Prime instances. We’re also still waiting to hear more on the Nexus Saga, and how the story will continue to evolve following Redmoon Terror. For now though, I’m eager to discover what’s going on in both the Coldblood Citadel and the Evil from the Ether, and I’ll be sharing what I find once these new instances arrive. In the meantime, will the Primal Matrix persuade you to dust off your old WildStar characters, and are endgame progression systems like these enough to keep you in an MMO? Sound off with your thoughts in the comments.

St. Patrick's Day arrives early with FREE RIDES. Celebrate the luck of the Irish responsibly and get a free ride on Metro Transit on Saturday, March 16 – one day prior to St. Patrick’s Day – in conjunction with the Minneapolis and St. Paul parades. Customers can ride free from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. on all Metro Transit routes on the day before St. Patrick’s Day– buses, METRO lines and Northstar. Simply hop on and take a seat for free. If you’re celebrating that night – or want to avoid driving alongside those who are – riding the bus or train is a worry-free and safe alternative. Watch for Metro Transit in the St. Patrick’s Day parades in downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul on Saturday, March 16; not Sunday. Free rides will also be available on Minnesota Valley Transit Authority and Anoka Transit routes. Miller Lite Free Rides is a community service program in partnership with Metro Transit and Miller Lite. Plan ahead! > Plan your Miller Lite Free Ride now with our interactive Trip Planner Know your route and note that not all routes operate past midnight. METRO Blue Line and Green Line trains and 29 bus routes offer trips after midnight on March 16:

Women activists have called on the sports minister, Vijay Goel, expressed their disgust over media reports that Indian women hockey team players were made to sit on the floor of a train while returning home from the summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. They’ve demanded a case be registered for inhuman treatment, negligence and exploitation against railway officials. According to ANI, Woman activist Brinda Adige said, “These ‘Babus’ (officials) have no reason at all to be there, they have not contributed in anyway, neither in advising the team nor in seeing to the teams well being, and are travelling in business class, whereas they have made the players travel unreserved, some travelled sitting on the floor of their train. How can this kind of injustice be tolerated? Why haven’t these officials been thrown out of the train?” She added, “I am sure funds were allocated, it was the carelessness and apathy of the officials who have been indifferent to the players assuming that players are there gulams (slaves). And these people continue in this feudal fashion because they are babus and officials; they can travel in first-class and have the best luxury, whereas the real players are being treated so badly. I would also like the department to suspend them. They are not worthy of taking care of the players.” Another activist, Nirmala Sawant, described this a shameful incident. She said, “I think this is very shameful for us as Indian citizens, and at the same time, Olympics participants bring pride to the nation. It is quite depressing, and I think, the Railway Minister (Suresh Prabhu) should take immediate action so that this kind of injustice is not caused to any sportsperson.” According to report, players Deep Grace Ekka, Namita Toppo, Sunita Lakra and Lilima Minz from Odisha, were made to sit on the floor of their bogey as their tickets were unconfirmed. They all represented India at Rio Olympics and are Railway employees.

This incredible scene unfolded at a recent Colorado Rockies game. That's Kenny Lovelace proposing to his girlfriend, Molly Ryan, in the background. And that's a salty old lady wanting nothing to do with the romantic scene, in the foreground. The picture was snapped by Molly and Ryan's wedding photographer, Kerinsa Mullins. She shed some more light on the story to WTOP: As the special moment unfolded, Mullins says she continued to receive nasty stares from the older couple, whose view she obstructed. "They kept yelling at me and I just ignored them because I was there to do a job and I did not want to miss something that would be so brief and so important," Mullins says. Ryan said "yes" and fans nearby cheered for the couple — everyone but the older couple, that is. They continued to look unamused by the event. In fact, unbeknownst to Mullins, another woman who was there with them retrieved a security guard because she couldn't get back to her seat. Mullins says when the security guard arrived, the big moment was over and she happily moved out of the trio's way. It wasn't until the next day that Mullins realized the unhappy couple left their mark on the photos. "In about 20 of them, she and her friend are giving me the stink eye," she says. And that's how the greatest proposal photo of all time came to be. Photo by Kerinsa Mullins h/t Eric [WTOP]

From today, Facebook users in the UK will be able to choose from more than 70 new gender options as the company seeks to better reflect the country’s diversity. The new gender options (around 50 of which were first introduced in the US in February) include androgynous, trans person, polygender, and cisgender - with users also able to suggest their own additions. Speaking to The Independent, Facebook’s policy director in the UK Simon Milner said: “It’s all about Facebook enabling people to be themselves, and making users feel comfortable in how they express themselves and how they talk about the issues that matter to them.” Join Independent Minds For exclusive articles, events and an advertising-free read for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent With an Independent Minds subscription for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent Without the ads – for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Mr Milner said that the social network had worked with two UK organizations - Press For Change and Gendered Intelligence - to select the new options, and that additional terms added specifically for the UK market included intersex man, asexual, and hermaphrodite. Shape Created with Sketch. Facebook privacy settings you should know about Show all 6 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Facebook privacy settings you should know about 1/6 Change who sees your posts. Anything you post on Facebook - from a status update to a photo - can be given its own privacy setting. 'Public' means that the information can be found via Google, or you can create custom groups of friends (http://ind.pn/1bVJJ2H) to share info with. Remember: whatever setting you last choose will become default until you change it again. 2/6 Check what your friends are sharing about you. Sometimes it's not you, but your friends that give information away. Follow this link to see the information that your friends might be sharing with third party apps - http://ind.pn/1bVVar6. Click the 'edit' option to the right of 'Apps other use' and un-tick every category of info you don't want to share. There's also an option above labelled 'Apps you use' that lets you select which apps can use your Facebook data elsewhere on the web. Don't trust them? Click the little cross on the right. 3/6 Hide old posts. If you're keen to make your Facebook past more private, limiting who can see your old posts should be your first step. Follow this link - http://ind.pn/1bVK7hv - and click 'Limit The Audience for Old Posts on Your Timeline'. You can make all of these old photos and stats updates vieweable to the public, friends only, or just yourself. From this page you can also change who can send you messages and friend requests. 4/6 Create friend lists. Since September 2011 Facebook has let you create different 'lists' of friends in order to let you separate what your close buddies and your work colleagues see. Facebook can give you a head start by suggesting lists based on who you went to school with and where people live - and you can even choose to browse a News Feed populated only by a certain list. Follow the link below for a full guide: http://ind.pn/1bVPu0d 5/6 Limit adverts. Pages you like will sometimes be used by Facebook to endorse a product to your friends. If you don't wnat these to show up head to this page - http://ind.pn/1j6Mc2b - select "Pair my social actions with adverts for no one" and click Save Changes. 6/6 Check your profile. If you're still worried about which of your photos or posts are visible to people you can check what the public (or any specific individual) sees when they click on your profile. View your profile by clicking on your namem then click the cog in the bottom right hand corner of your cover photo, then select 'View as...' 1/6 Change who sees your posts. Anything you post on Facebook - from a status update to a photo - can be given its own privacy setting. 'Public' means that the information can be found via Google, or you can create custom groups of friends (http://ind.pn/1bVJJ2H) to share info with. Remember: whatever setting you last choose will become default until you change it again. 2/6 Check what your friends are sharing about you. Sometimes it's not you, but your friends that give information away. Follow this link to see the information that your friends might be sharing with third party apps - http://ind.pn/1bVVar6. Click the 'edit' option to the right of 'Apps other use' and un-tick every category of info you don't want to share. There's also an option above labelled 'Apps you use' that lets you select which apps can use your Facebook data elsewhere on the web. Don't trust them? Click the little cross on the right. 3/6 Hide old posts. If you're keen to make your Facebook past more private, limiting who can see your old posts should be your first step. Follow this link - http://ind.pn/1bVK7hv - and click 'Limit The Audience for Old Posts on Your Timeline'. You can make all of these old photos and stats updates vieweable to the public, friends only, or just yourself. From this page you can also change who can send you messages and friend requests. 4/6 Create friend lists. Since September 2011 Facebook has let you create different 'lists' of friends in order to let you separate what your close buddies and your work colleagues see. Facebook can give you a head start by suggesting lists based on who you went to school with and where people live - and you can even choose to browse a News Feed populated only by a certain list. Follow the link below for a full guide: http://ind.pn/1bVPu0d 5/6 Limit adverts. Pages you like will sometimes be used by Facebook to endorse a product to your friends. If you don't wnat these to show up head to this page - http://ind.pn/1j6Mc2b - select "Pair my social actions with adverts for no one" and click Save Changes. 6/6 Check your profile. If you're still worried about which of your photos or posts are visible to people you can check what the public (or any specific individual) sees when they click on your profile. View your profile by clicking on your namem then click the cog in the bottom right hand corner of your cover photo, then select 'View as...' As well as custom genders, users will be able to select which pronoun they’d like to be referred to with, choosing from male (he/his), female (she/her) or neutral (they/their). Users selecting a custom gender can also control which of their friends see the changes. The company says that the new gender options will not “change the way marketers can reach people” and that there is “currently no way for marketers to target ‘transgender/custom’ [individuals] on Facebook.” Professor Stephen Whittle, Vice-President at Press for Change, said: “By challenging the gender binary, Facebook will finally allow thousands of people to describe themselves as they are now and it will allow future generation of kids to become truly comfortable in their own skins." To change their Facebook gender users must click the 'About' tab from their timeline, then navigate to 'Contact and Basic Information' and select 'Edit' next to the 'Gender' option. Mr Milner added that although the company was "not pushing an agenda," it recognised that some people in the UK might feel uncomfortable about the changes. "Those kind of people haven’t figured in our thinking on this," he said. “We expect there may well be debate about it and there will be different reactions to it as there are to any progressive changes in society, but we think it’s the right thing to do and in tune with the vast majority of people in the UK and how they think.”

The Surgeon Simulator 2013 TF2 update included this It's a cryptic message under the TF2 medic statue. No way the HL2 Korean update was a coincidence. TF2 also got a 30+MB update to fix "an error with tags" and Portal 2 got an update to "reduce brightness of textures". While those two updates may not be related to this, they do seem fishy, especially that Portal 2 update. EDIT: The Korean text translates to "time". The dots in the puzzle seem a whole lot like our Solar System, with the arrow coming out from Saturn (Saturn even has it's rings). I would also like to point out that we can see Saturn again for the first time in 7 years on July 19th. EDIT2: Here's the texture on it's own in HQ:

Whether you're a graphic designer, web designer or other creative professional, finding work in a down economy can be tough. And what do you do when a client doesn't want your brilliant design, or you have no work to do to begin with? Why not sell those rejected designs as templates, and spend your downtime competing against other designers for projects without having to schmooze the client first? Here are over 40 sites where you can sell everything from logos to web templates, photos, WordPress themes, and much more. Have another site to recommend? Tell us more about it in the comments. Stock Marketplaces Graphic Leftovers - Sell logos, icons, illustrations, templates and more through this site. Graphic Leftovers pays higher royalties than many comparable sites. iStockphoto - Sell photos, illustrations, flash, video, and more through this quality-controlled site. (Mashable has a partnership with iStockphoto) CoSwap - Swap your designs or codes for something else you need, or sell your work outright. VectorStock - Sell vector stock images through this site. FlashDen - Flash file marketplace that pays you at least 40% of the sales price. VideoHive - Sell your stock video footage and motion graphics. ThemeForest - Sell stock web design templates and earn at least 40% of the sales price. GraphicRiver - Sell vector images, layered Photoshop files and more. Shutterstock - Earn $.25 per download for photography and vector images. MyFonts - Sell your fonts as part of the largest font collection online. WP Theme Market - Design and sell WordPress Themes. cutcaster.com - Sell your digital images and vector graphics, along with stock video. Clever Andy - See your designs turned into fully-functioning sites and then earn commission on the total sale price. Templamatic - Upload and sell your own website templates. CMS Market - Sell templates, extensions and more for Joomla and WordPress (Drupal will be added soon). Css Templates Web - Sell low-cost, css-based website templates. Linotype.com - This site actively seeks new font designers to add to their collection. ITCFonts.com - Sell complete font character sets through this site. Cerizmo - Sell any kind of digital product in your own customizable store and get paid instantly. Theme Galaxy - Premium WordPress theme designers who are always looking for new talent to join their team. Wordpress Designers - Another premium themes site that is on the lookout for new designers to work with. StyleWP The Press Exchange - A forum-based platform for buying, selling, and trading WordPress themes. webmaster-talk - Another forum-based marketplace for website templates. Digital Point Buy, Sell or Trade Forum - Sell templates or entire sites on this forum. Covantage Templates - Sell website, flash, logo and other templates. Custom Marketplaces crowdSPRING - Work on spec on a variety of design projects, competing against other designers. 99 designs - Compete against other designers on real projects to win cash prizes. Project4Hire.com - Bid on projects in a variety of categories including graphic design and web design. DesignFirms - List your design firm and have clients come to you for project bidding. Zooppa - Create ads and compete against other designers to win cash prizes. LogoBash - Get paid $180 for any logo you design chosen by a client. Alternative Ways to Make Money With Your Designs redbubble - Another artwork marketplace where you can sell wall art, t-shirts, calendars and greeting cards. Minted - Submit designs to this regular contest and receive cash prizes. Artbreak - Sell paintings, drawings, and photography alongside other artists from all over the world. Threadless - Design a t-shirt, submit it for voting, and if it's one of the best, see it made and sold. Artist Rising - An artwork marketplace that includes photography and digital art. imagekind - Sell artwork in a variety of formats—framed, canvas, posters, greeting cards and more. Spreadshirt - Create custom t-shirts to sell. pikistore - Set up your own online t-shirt store. I Vote For Art - Put your artwork up for sale and have it voted on. Zazzle - Put your designs on unique products to sell. More design resources from Mashable: Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Kativ

Get the Recipe Detroit-Style Pan Pizza For the past year, I've been up to my neck in crispy cheese crusts. That's not a bad place to be, mind you. When did Detroit pizza become a thing? I mean, I know that rectangular pan pizzas have been served in the Motor City since at least 1946, when, according to Pure Michigan, bar owner Gus Guerra and his wife, Anna, decided to throw a batch of her mother's Sicilian dough into a blue steel pan, originally used to carry auto parts, and bake it with cheese and sauce. The pizza emerged with a blackened, lacy, crispy cheese crust all the way around the edges, and a new pizza style was born. Buddy's, the restaurant opened by the Guerras, has been serving it ever since. But that's not what I mean. When did it become a thing? Starting in early 2016 or so, everyone seemed to be talking about it or writing about it or opening up restaurants devoted to it. I first became aware of it back in 2008, when former Serious Eats editor and current bar pie specialist Adam Kuban included it in his exhaustive pizza style guide, but it wasn't until the following year, during my annual Michigan hunting trip, that I tasted it for the first time, at a Buddy's in Detroit. To be frank, I don't know why it didn't blow up earlier. The stuff is freaking delicious. Let's start from the bottom and work our way up: The crust comes out crisp and golden on the bottom, with a lightly fried texture that it gets from sizzling in the rendered fat that drips down from the cheese. Next, we move on to the crumb, which is chewy, with a medium-fine bubble structure. Not so rustic as, say, a focaccia, but not quite as soft and fluffy as a New York–style Sicilian slice. Above that is where things get a little topsy-turvy. Instead of using the "sauce, cheese, toppings" order of a typical pizza, Detroit pizzas are built in reverse. Creamy, tangy Brick cheese from Wisconsin is cubed and applied directly to the top of the dough, where it bakes up gooey, buttery, and thick in the middle, crispy and dark brown around the edges. On top of the cheese is a sweet, thick tomato sauce, seasoned with plenty of garlic and spices and often applied in heavy parallel bands. If you order the pizza with pepperoni (the most common topping), depending on where you are, you might find it cupped and crisp on top of the sauce, or, occasionally, buried underneath the cheese, where its flavor seeps in and penetrates every bite.* It's crispy, fatty, cheesy, tangy, and glorious, especially those coveted corner pieces that give you that extra crunch. * Should we call them "middlings" instead of "toppings" if they're stuck in the middle? This is not everyday pizza. It's not every-week pizza. It might not even be every-month, if you want to live to a reasonable age. But damn, is it good pizza. So good that it's worth a trip to Detroit just to taste it. So good that it's worth devoting months of time, weeks of research, and dozens and dozens of experiments to developing a recipe to duplicate it at home. So that's exactly what I did. Here's what I found. The Crust I decided to start my testing by focusing on the crust. For these tests, I used low-moisture mozzarella and a jar of Rao's for the sauce. Since I already have an easy recipe for foolproof pan pizza, I started there, figuring I could tweak it to make it work for a Detroit pie. That recipe uses a basic no-knead method: Flour and water are combined with yeast (1% of the flour by weight) and salt (2.5% of the flour by weight) and mixed together in a bowl, just until a shaggy dough forms. The bowl is then covered and set aside overnight. During that overnight rest, yeast multiplies and produces bubbles of carbon dioxide that slowly expand and rise, in effect kneading the dough for you. In the morning, you wind up with a stretchy, relaxed dough with plenty of gluten development. A little too much gluten development, as it turned out. Good gluten development and a nicely relaxed, high-moisture dough lead to a very rustic hole structure, with a hearty chew and a mix of big, small, and medium-sized bubbles. It's delicious, but Detroit pizza should be a little more uniform. Still, I liked the idea of a no-knead dough, so I tried it a few more times, using different ratios of flour to water. In baker-speak, this is known as "hydration level": A "60% hydration dough" is a dough that uses 60 grams of water for every 100 grams of flour. My original pan pizza has a hydration level of about 70%. I tried going down as low as 60%, which made a dough that had a finer hole structure (good!) but also a denser, tougher texture (bad!). After a few more experiments (mostly around adding a fat to the dough, with the idea of making it a little more tender), I decided to throw in the towel on the no-knead method and switch to a more traditional kneading-based approach.** ** NB: No-knead is still a fantastic way to make pizza or bread if a rustic crumb is what you're after! In doing a bit more research, I found that Adam Kuban had gone down a similar path years ago while exploring hydration levels in Detroit-style dough. According to him, using all-purpose flour and a super-high hydration level of 75% is the key. I mixed up another batch, this time using my stand mixer to make the dough. I started by combining the ingredients and mixing them just until they started to come together, then let them rest for 10 minutes before continuing to knead. This is a method called autolyse, during which an enzymatic breakdown of flour protein occurs,*** making it easier to subsequently form gluten. Think of it sort of like converting a Lego spaceship into a castle: It's easiest if you break it down completely before starting to rebuild. Once the dough was kneaded, I let it rise for a couple hours at room temperature before turning it into a greased pan (more on that pan later). I let it rest once more to allow the gluten to relax, then stretched it out until it filled out the pan all the way to the edges, before topping and baking it in a hot oven. *** Technically, an autolyse is made before salt is added, but I've never really found a big difference between adding the salt at the start and adding it at the end. Adam is right that high hydration is a great way to go (though I ended up scaling my water back to around 73% instead of 75%), but I wasn't fully convinced about the all-purpose flour. Because all-purpose flour is relatively low in protein, it produces a light, very tender crumb that doesn't have quite the chew or pull I was looking for. Swapping out that all-purpose flour for bread flour (I used King Arthur bread flour) was the real key, producing a crumb structure that was relatively open and chewy, but still squarely on the Detroit pizza end of the scale as opposed to the focaccia end. In the past, I've written glowingly about doughs made in a food processor, and I'm happy to report that this dough also works fabulously well in a food processor. Just dump the ingredients in, set the machine running until a ball of dough forms (that usually takes about 15 seconds), then let that ball of dough ride around the blade for 30 seconds longer. You'll be amazed at how quickly it develops an incredibly smooth, silky gluten structure. If you have a powerful food processor (the Breville Sous Chef is what I use these days) and are making only a couple batches of dough, it'll leave the stand mixer in the dust. The Cheese With the dough out of the way, I turned my attention to the cheese. Detroit pizza is unusual in two ways when it comes to cheese. The first is the use of Brick cheese, a high-fat aged cheese from Wisconsin with a uniquely tangy, salty, buttery flavor that's hard to replace with alternatives. The second is the edges. If you've ever been to Pequod's or Burt's Place in Chicago, or, better yet, had a pizza from Windy City Pie in Seattle (incidentally, the best Chicago-style pan pizza I've ever had anywhere, including in Chicago), then you're familiar with the concept of a crispy, blackened cheese crust—the shelf of crisp, lacy cheese that surrounds the edge of the pizza. This is where the real magic of Detroit-style pizza lies, and, as I found out, getting it is not exactly straightforward. For my testing, I ordered a ton of Brick cheese from Amazon. If you order in bulk, it's relatively inexpensive, and worth it if authenticity is what you're after. (Don't worry; I also found some viable alternatives sold in supermarkets.) When I visited Dave Lichterman, the man behind Windy City Pie, in his Seattle kitchen a few months ago, he showed me how he makes his cheese crust. He starts by filling out a pan with dough, then lays overlapping slices of cheese (not grated cheese!) on top, letting each one ride off the edge of the pan to line the sides, where they crisp and bake into shape. I tried that method with my Detroit-style pizza, but the problem was slicing the Brick cheese—it's very soft, which makes slicing an almost impossible endeavor. Just for kicks, I tried using presliced supermarket cheeses of various flavors. None of them seemed to crisp up the way Dave's does. I wondered if the shape of the cheese wasn't the only issue. Up until now, I'd been cooking my pizza in standard aluminum rimmed baking sheets. Maybe there is some truth to what people say about those special Detroit pans being the secret ingredient in Detroit pizza? The classic Detroit pizza pan is a deep, 10- by 14-inch rectangle of metal with black surfaces (for better conduction) and sides that flare gently away from the bottom. While the original pans were made from blue steel, most modern pans are made from anodized aluminum and come with a nonstick coating. I tested a number of these pans and found that yes, the black surfaces really did make a difference in how well that cheese crisped. The best one I tried was this one from LloydPans, which has been making these pans since the '80s. This is a specialty item for sure, but once you try this recipe, I can guarantee that you'll be using it with regularity. Still, if you don't want a dedicated pizza pan, I found that you can get decent results from a pair of deep, well-seasoned or nonstick 8- by 8-inch cake pans.**** **** The crust doesn't come out quite as nice when you use a pair of cake pans, but you do end up with more of it because of the two extra edges, so it's a pretty fair trade. After stretching my dough, I added a layer of diced Brick cheese, which I made sure to spread all the way to the very edges of the pan. Buddy's in Detroit claims that it uses a full pound of cheese for each pizza. I've seen some recipes that call for eight ounces or less. I ended up splitting the difference by adding 12 ounces of diced cheese. Don't get me wrong: It's still a ton***** of cheese, but not so much that eating it becomes painful. ***** Not literally a ton. Ya see how nice that cheese-and-pan combo works out? For the record, the cheese crust may look black, but I can assure you that it does not taste burnt or bitter. I can't explain it. In the wise words of Oscar Gamble, they don't think it be like it is, but it do. Swapping out that Brick cheese for a different cheese turned out to be surprisingly difficult. Not only does Brick cheese have its own flavor, it's also extremely high in fat, which is important. As that butterfat drips down into the pan, it fries directly into the crust. Many people note that Detroit pizza has a buttery flavor despite containing no butter at all; that flavor comes from the Brick cheese fat. At Tony's Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco, owner and pizza savant Tony Gemignani uses cheddar around the edges. The cheddar comes out reasonably lacy and crisp, but the flavor reminds me more of a crisp-edged grilled cheese. I tried sliced and cubed low-moisture mozzarella and young, soft Jacks. I even gave Havarti a go. In the end, the closest substitute I could find was a 50/50 mix of low-moisture mozzarella (which provides some of that clean, buttery dairy flavor) and Jack (which has plenty of fat and also tanginess). Like tuning into a Bill Nye marathon when you're in the mood for Mr. Wizard, it's not quite the same, but it'll leave you mostly satisfied. The Sauce Compared to the struggles I went through to nail the crust and cheese, the sauce was a piece of cake. Unlike a typically sparse Neapolitan- or New York–style pizza sauce, Detroit-style pizza sauces are usually heavily seasoned with aromatics. To make mine, I started by sautéing fresh garlic, a little pinch of pepper flakes, and a good amount of dried oregano in extra-virgin olive oil before adding tomatoes. I generally recommend using whole peeled tomatoes that you crush yourself by hand, as whole peeled tomatoes exhibit more consistency than other types of processed tomatoes. But in this case, without a food mill, it's hard to get the uniform crushed texture that you want in Detroit-style pizza sauce, so I opted for canned crushed tomatoes instead.****** So long as you use a good-quality brand, like Muir Glen, Bianco DiNapoli, or Cento D.O.P. San Marzanos, crushed will do just fine. ****** Little CA-living brag here: The very best sauce I made was from the San Marzanos I grew and canned myself last summer. Thpbhbpbhpbphpbtbh. Some recipes call for canned pizza sauce or tomato paste. I find that both can dull flavor too much, so I prefer to simmer down my tomatoes until they're nicely reduced and intensely flavored. My sauce was tasty, but it was still missing something. I'm generally a "fresh garlic all the way" type of guy, but I couldn't shake the feeling that granulated garlic powder might be that missing element. Turns out I was right. Adding a small dash of granulated garlic and granulated onion, along with a bit of sugar, was the key. Now, I know from experience how uppity people can get about sugar in their tomato sauce, so I'll tell you right now: I don't care. If putting sugar in tomato sauce offends you, by all means, keep it sugar-free. I promise I won't stop you. Meanwhile, I'll be over here, eating my delicious pizza, and no, you can't have any. There's a school of thought that suggests waiting to add sauce to a Detroit pizza until after it comes out of the oven. That's not a bad way to do it, but I prefer the cosmic oneness that the pizza achieves when the cheese and sauce are cooked together. Topping and Baking The only thing left to address is how to add toppings and bake this thing. You can feel free to use whatever toppings you personally like, but to my mind, pepperoni is the only real choice here. I mentioned before that some restaurants like to place the pepperoni under the cheese, while others place it on top. I really do like the way the flavor gets integrated into the dough when you place the pepperoni underneath, but giving up those crisp, charred edges from pepperoni cooked on top of the pie physically pains me, so I thought: Por que no los dos? Laying pepperoni out under and over the pie gives you the best of both worlds. Incidentally, make sure to use a high-quality natural-casing pepperoni, like this one from Vermont Smoke & Cure, or even Boar's Head (the stick version, not the presliced!). That's how you guarantee that your pepperoni will cup up into those crispy little grease chalices that Adam Kuban is so fond of.******* ******* You can read up a bit here on the fascinating science of what makes pepperoni curl. The only thing left to test was baking, and, unfortunately, here's where things get a wee bit hairy. The problem is that ovens are not very accurate, or even uniform. Most ovens tend to heat more from the bottom than from the top, but some are the opposite. Some ovens maintain a steady temperature, while others fluctuate wildly up and down. I have a few pieces of advice here. First, set the oven as hot as it will get. In a home oven, that's 500 to 550°F (260 to 290°C). At those temperatures, you get good browning and crisping of the crust before the dough has a chance to dry out too much. But even then, you might find that the top of your pizza ends up cooking before the bottom does. If you know that your oven doesn't heat much from the bottom, or if you make the recipe and find the base is not quite as crisp as you like, you have a couple options. First is to place the pan on top of a preheated Baking Steel, which will help pump heat into the base of the pizza, where it's needed most. Your second option is to place the pizza directly on the floor of a preheated oven, which will also give it a nice, quick energy boost. In a hot oven, the pizza cooks in about 12 to 15 minutes. You'll know it's done when the cheese around the edges is sizzling and black and the top is very lightly browned. Once it comes out of the oven, use a thin metal spatula to carefully prise the edges away from the pan, giving the whole thing a few shakes until it seems to move around freely. From there, transfer the pizza to a cutting board, and do your best not to immediately plant your face in it. That's rude. And also liable to give you severe burns on your eyeballs. That's something nobody likes. You know what's something that everybody likes? Delicious pizza. Like the one you're going to make this week. I mean, just look at that crumb. Oh, oh! And let me show you the best part: Now that? That's the stuff that dreams are made of. Welcome to Detroit, my friends. Get the Recipe Detroit-Style Pan Pizza View Recipe » This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.

It happens every fall. A player bursts onto the scene, makes a big play or helps his team win a pivotal game, and the collective football world celebrates his arrival as a true difference maker in the NFL. Let's get ahead of the curve! In advance of the 2013 season, NFL.com analyst Bucky Brooks identifies candidates for significant improvement, concentrating on linebackers below. Click here for other positions. Most Improved Linebacker for 2013: Whitney Mercilus Mercilus' backstory: The Houston Texans have fielded one of the NFL's top defenses since the arrival of coordinator Wade Phillips in 2011. Part of the unit's success can be attributed to Phillips' ability to identify and develop impact playmakers in the draft. From J.J. Watt to Brooks Reed, he has done a marvelous job of getting tremendous production from young players in his scheme. In 2012, the Texans selected Mercilus with the 26th overall pick of the draft to replace Mario Williams at outside linebacker. The team had planned to bring Mercilus along slowly, but he earned more playing time over the course of the season by flashing intriguing skills as a pass rusher. He finished with six sacks -- pretty impressive for a guy with just four career starts. Why he will improve in 2013: In the NFL, defensive coaches build around the talents of their personnel. Coordinators use various defensive fronts, coverage, blitzes and packages to best take advantage of the individual and collective skills of their top players. As he has demonstrated throughout his time as a distinguished coach and defensive coordinator, Phillips has a knack for getting maximum production out of his top pass rushers. This has been an integral part of his success as a defensive play caller for the Denver Broncos, Buffalo Bills, Atlanta Falcons, San Diego Chargers and Dallas Cowboys. Interestingly, in each of the two previous stops in Phillips' coaching career, he turned a young, athletic pass rusher (Shawne Merriman in San Diego and DeMarcus Ware in Dallas) into a Pro Bowl-caliber playmaker. Additionally, he helped each player's complement (Shaun Phillips for Merriman and Anthony Spencer for Ware) mature into effective playmakers by developing their talents on the practice field before unleashing them on opponents. In Mercilus, the Texans have a high-energy edge rusher with natural pass-rush skills. He excels at winning hand-to-hand combat battles on the perimeter while using his sneaking burst and acceleration to chase the quarterback in the pocket. These traits -- the same skills that helped him become the nation's sack leader during his final season at Illinois -- made him a legitimate threat as a designated rookie pass rusher. When I look at the tape, it is evident that Mercilus simply has a knack for getting to the quarterback off the edge. He displays excellent snap-count anticipation and possesses the kind of first-step explosiveness commonly found in Pro Bowl-caliber pass rushers. The video clip above showcases Mercilus' outstanding "get off" and burst at the snap; he simply blows past the right tackle on an upfield rush before recording an easy sack. Mercilus also displays the ability to read, react and explode quickly on play-action passes. As the edge player in the 3-4, he is expected to set a hard edge at the point of attack to keep runners from turning the corner on outside runs. This responsibility can make some pass rushers hesitate when run fakes are executed in their direction, but Mercilus has shown the intuition and awareness to sort things out while attacking the quarterback from the edges. In the video clip below, Mercilus sniffs out the passing play and registers a sack despite a strong play fake by Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco out of a traditionally run-heavy formation. These are the kinds of plays defensive coaches love -- because they result from instincts and awareness, not exotic play design. Lastly, Mercilus' relentless energy should make him an effective weapon under Phillips. The wily defensive wizard demands maximum effort from his players, and he expects his difference makers to deliver impact plays throughout the course of a game. Though he was limited to a situational role as a rookie, Mercilus displayed the kind of non-stop motor and ball awareness that Phillips covets, collecting sacks off of extra effort and exhibiting a strong nose for the ball in pursuit. Given the impact of sacks and turnovers in the NFL, Mercilus' impressive traits could make him a star in Phillips' defense. Impact on the team: The emergence of Mercilus as a Pro Bowl-caliber pass rusher could give the Texans -- who are already considered Super Bowl contenders -- a shot to win 12 games and secure home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Projected 2013 stat line: 58 tackles, 10.5 sacks, 3 forced fumbles and 1 interception. Other Linebackers to Watch Instant Debate: Sack king in 2013? Who will win the inaugural Deacon Jones Award as the NFL's sack leader in 2013? Reigning king J.J. Watt? Let's debate! Who will win the inaugural Deacon Jones Award as the NFL's sack leader in 2013? Reigning king? Let's debate! More ... Brandon Graham, Philadelphia Eagles: Every NFL team needs a few legitimate pass rushers who can get after the quarterback. Graham was expected to be an impact pass rusher for the Eagles when he was selected with the 13th overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, but he struggled to adjust to the pros and battled through an assortment of injuries during his first two years. However, the light seemed to come on for Graham in Year 3; he finished with 5.5 sacks and two forced fumbles while displaying explosive first-step quickness and acceleration racing around the end. Additionally, Graham flashed impressive hand skills and pass rush moves while thriving as the Eagles' designated pass rush specialist. Given more opportunities as a likely starter in an aggressive 3-4 scheme in 2013, Graham could post 10-plus sacks for the first time in his career. Bruce Carter, Dallas Cowboys: The Cowboys' transition to a Tampa 2 scheme requires that they have fast, athletic linebackers who can suffocate the explosive offenses thriving in the NFC. Carter is the prototypical Will linebacker in the scheme, with the speed and athleticism to excel as a sideline-to-sideline playmaker. While a few injuries have kept Carter from fulfilling his immense potential, the big-play talent is evident whenever he steps on the field. If Carter stays healthy, he could be pushing for Pro Bowl honors by season's end. Jacquian Williams, New York Giants: The Giants' linebacker corps has represented one of the team's most glaring weak spots in the past few years. However, the return of a healthy Williams could bring some speed and athleticism to a unit that has lacked both. The former sixth-round draft pick is a sideline-to-sideline player capable of chasing down backs from the backside or sticking with tight ends or receivers down the seams. Although injuries have helped limit the amount of action he saw in his first two seasons (he missed six games in 2012), Williams certainly possesses the talent to be a big-time playmaker in the Giants' scheme. If he can avoid the injury bug, Williams could help solve the Giants' biggest problem. Follow Bucky Brooks on Twitter @BuckyBrooks

Microsoft Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates believes that if he had been able to watch physicist Richard Feynman lecture on physics in 1964 his life might have played out differently. Mr. Gates, of course, is legendary as a Harvard University dropout who went on to create the world’s most successful software firm. He has told associates that if had watched the lectures earlier in his life he might have become a physicist instead of a software entrepreneur. However, Mr. Gates, who is also well known for his sharp and varied intellectual interests and his philanthropic commitment to education, said this week that he had purchased the rights to videos of seven lectures that Dr. Feynman gave at Cornell University called “The Character of Physical Law,” in an effort to make them broadly available via the Internet. Microsoft Research announced on Wednesday that Mr. Gates, who purchased the rights to the videos privately from the Feynman estate, BBC and from Cornell University, in cooperation with Curtis Wong, a Microsoft researcher, has created a Web site that is intended to enhance the videos by annotating them with related digital content. The name “Tuva” was chosen in reference to Dr. Feynman’s decade long — and ultimately unsuccessful — effort to reach the tiny Russian republic of Tuva, which is located in Asia, toward the end of his life. Mr. Gates said that he had stumbled upon the film version of the lectures a number of years ago, watched them with a friend using a traditional film projector, and “fell in love” with them. The lectures are not the first acquisition of this kind that the software billionaire, has made. In 1994 he acquired the Codex Leicester, a collection of the written work of Leonardo da Vinci, for $30.8 million in an auction. He did not disclose the amount he spent to gain clear title to the Feynman lectures. “I do think that making science cool to people when they’re young and therefore getting more people to go into it in an in-depth way, I think that’s very important right now,” Mr. Gates said. The Tuva Web site will be expanded with additional Feynman lectures in the future, Mr. Gates said. When it is completed it will offer searchable transcripts from the lectures as well as commentary from well-known physicists. The site also offers individual viewers the ability to annotate and take notes. Currently, the first lecture has an “extras” features on the right side of the Web page which includes interactive animations and other components. Mr. Gates said that he remained fascinated with the lectures, which are intended for a freshman college audience, but which he said were within the grasp of his ten-year-old son. He noted that he had recently watched them again while he was helping Mr. Wong put up the Tuva Web site. “I couldn’t help myself, I watched them one more time,” he said. This post originally described Gates as a “freshman” dropout, that’s incorrect. He did make it to his sophomore year.

The BlackBerry Classic is a familiar smartphone that’s powerful yet uncomplicated. It’s built for productivity, and features a number of enhancements over the popular BlackBerry Bold 9900. This week, we mentioned that the browser is greatly improved and now I’d like to write a little bit about the camera features available. Panorama Mode Taking beautiful wide panoramic photos is easy and intuitive on the BlackBerry Classic. Once activated, simply pan left or right and line up the onscreen prompts as you capture the photo. It’s perfect for fitting a wider view or landscape in one shot and it’s automatically and seamlessly stitched together. Offline Time Shift Mode Capturing that perfect moment has never been easier with Offline Time Shift mode. Time Shift captures a series of photo burst so you can select the perfect moment in time. Offline mode now allows you to edit the photo at a later time so you can keep capturing photos and edit later. Timer Not that taking selfies is a priority for me, but if I wanted to set a shutter timer for my photos, it’s easy to do on the BlackBerry Classic. With the holidays just around the corner, those family-wide portraits and ugly sweater pics are just a snap away. HDR If you’re coming from a Bold 9900, you’ll definitely appreciate the benefits of HDR. This technology takes combines multiple exposures, so that if you’re in less than ideal lighting situations like a bright sunny day, or a dimly lit room, pictures shot with HDR activated, could appear more balanced. If you’re adventurous you can even create some cool effects by moving the camera between exposures. Experiment away! Burst If you’re trying to capture that perfect moment in time, but you don’t know exactly when it will happen – you can use burst mode to capture a number of exposures in a burst. You can then find the perfect shot and discard the rest if you’d like. People will be convinced your shutter finger has that magic touch. Of course there’s always Time Shift if you really want to impress people. Shutter Buttons The BlackBerry Classic benefits from having a physical keyboard, Classic Navigation keys, and a touchscreen. You can snap a photo using the trackpad, spacebar, volume buttons or by tapping an icon on the touchscreen. Even if you’re one hand juggling your BlackBerry Classic and your classic hot non-fat extra-foam vanilla latte, finding the shutter button won’t keep you from capturing the moment. For a quick overview on some other features like the simple-to-use Classic Navigation Keys, or some fast and easy BlackBerry keyboard shortcuts visit the links to those blog posts. The BlackBerry Classic is available for pre-order and if you like what you’ve been seeing tell the world by participating in the BlackBerry Classic Mosaic.

Zeaplus is one of those Chinese companies, which is not shy of taking a lot of inspiration from the well established companies and their products. However, the manufacturer seems to be putting a lot of effort in making quality products for a very low price. The Zeaplus has just announced a new gadget in their lineup – the Zeaplus Watch DM360. You guess it right, it is a Motorola Moto 360 inspired smartwatch. Still, the device offers a variety of specs for the price of just $99. The new smartwatch has a 1.22 inches TFT touchscreen, which has a resolution of 240×204 pixels. In addition to this, the device has an IP53 certification meaning that it is waterproof, dustproof, rainproof and sweat proof. Also, the device is made out of quality stainless steel material, which provides sturdiness and gives that premium look and feel. The new Zeaplus smartwatch has great features, which include a heart rate monitor, pedometer and sleep monitor. Moreover, the device reminds you when you sit too much and thus encourages you to take walk or exercise. What is more, the smartwatch has a bluetooth connectivity, which allows you to interact with your smartphone and do tricks like controlling music, answering calls via embedded mic etc. The device has a 320mAh battery, which should last you up to two days of normal use. The Zeaplus Watch DM360 turns out to be a great offering considering features/price ration. You can buy this smartwatch directly from company’s website for just $99. In addition to a great price, you are getting a 2 years warranty from the manufacturer and shipping from the EU, meaning that there will be no import tax/VAT fees upon delivery. More details about this smart watch, please visit it on Zeaplus official site: http://www.zeaplus.com/dm360-feature

French National Front (FN) political party leader Marine Le Pen gestures during a FN political rally in Frejus, France September 18, 2016. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier Marine Le Pen has not had a good start to 2017. After admitting that the Front National (FN) is scrambling to raise election campaign cash, it was revealed on Wednesday that the far-right political party faces another investigation into how it is paying aides working in the European Parliament (EP). French newspaper Le Monde said the Paris prosecutor launched a judicial investigation into FN on December 15. It is examining a "breach of trust," "concealment of breach of trust," "organised fraud," "forgery and use of forged documents," and "concealed work," Le Monde said. In simple terms, this will determine whether aides to FN Members of the European Parliament (MEP) were unduly paid by the EP while working for the party. The FN has 20 MEPs. It follows a similar investigation in 2015, when the EP accused the party of having its MEPs' assistants take salaries from the EP while working for the party. Financially, it comes at a bad time for the far-right party. It is struggling to find funding for its presidential campaign, it was reported on Wednesday. Le Pen has already borrowed about €6 million (£5.1 million) from her estranged father Jean-Marie Le Pen — the founder of the FN whom she threw out of the party. Russia has also started legal proceedings to recover a €9 million loan from the party after the bank it borrowed from had its licence revoked. "We have additional funding to find. We'll find it," Marine Le Pen told Reuters. "It's half (of what we need), but we'll find it. We will find one bank somewhere in the world that is willing to lend us that money." When asked whether she would turn to Russia again for financial support, Le Pen said she was looking everywhere: "I'm looking everywhere, including in the United States, including in Britain, absolutely everywhere," she said. Le Pen and supporters of the FN are accusing French banks of basing their decision not to loan the party money on its politics. REUTERS/Charles Platiau While it is yet unknown what kind of financial ramifications the new investigation into the FN will have on the party's finances, it is unlikely to help. The EP is already asking Jean-Marie Le Pen, to pay back €320,000 for the salary of an assistant for whom he cannot provide proof of work for the EP. Marine Le Pen still needs to pay back €298,000 to the EP, according to Mediapart. This is the equivalent salary paid to Catherine Griset — a parliamentary assistant, and long-time friend of Le Pen, who was at the same time chief of staff for the FN and has an office at the presidential campaign headquarters. The treasurer of the party has denied any wrongdoing: "We should have started the procedure in France, which will allow us to explain ourselves," Wallerand de Saint-Just, told Reuters. "We are obviously in front of a detestable entreprise by the European Parliament." Marine Le Pen has yet to comment on the investigation. Those are also not the only lawsuits the party is facing. Every campaign (except the senatorial ones) led by the FN since Marine Le Pen took over from her father in 2011 is now being investigated, according to Le Monde. Ever since Le Pen took the reigns from her father, she has worked hard to moderate the image of her party in order to attract more voters — and has been fairly successful. Polls in general have consistently predicted she would get to the second round of the presidential election before being defeated by François Fillon, the head of right-wing party Les Républicains.

David Moyes believes it is too early for Real Sociedad to target European qualification this season and says he is still looking to strengthen his squad before the transfer window closes at the end of the month. Moyes took over at Real Sociedad in November 2014 after the Basque club made a shocking start to their 2014-15 La Liga campaign. The Scottish manager led them to a creditable 12th place finish in his first managerial role after his sacking by Manchester United in April 2014. The former Everton and Manchester United manager is clearly anxious to take the San Sebastián club to the next level but their only real signing of note since the end of last term has been the Brazilian forward Jonathas from relegated Elche. “I don’t think that right now we have to have Europe as a goal,” Moyes told a news conference before his side’s La Liga opener at Deportivo La Coruña on Saturday. “Considering what we did last season, looking to Europe is a very big step. I hope we can do it but I don’t think we have to have that expectation from the start.” Moyes said he was satisfied with the new players who have arrived but added that coaches always wanted more. He gave little away when asked about reports suggesting that the club may strike a deal to take their former midfielder Asier Illarramendi on loan from Real Madrid. Illarramendi, 25, moved to the Bernabéu two years ago but has been unable to hold down a regular place in their starting line-up. “If a midfielder we believe can help us was available I am sure the president would be interested,” Moyes said. “ I am happy with the midfielders we have and there is competition for all the positions, which means the players have to perform very well to win a place in the team.” Moyes also said that he expects Pedro to be a success in the Premier League after the Spain forward completed his move to Chelsea this week. “I think it can take time for these players to settle, and they must be given the opportunity to do that,” he said. “I think Pedro coming into the Premier League will add to the quality that the league has got. It has a lot of great players, and Pedro is certainly one.”

All good things must come to an end, including our favorite TV shows. Unfortunately, many of us aren't quite ready to let go when our beloved series come to their startling halts, which is why creators are quick to go after spinoffs. We're the first to admit that there have been some incredibly successful ones -- "Frasier," "Saved By The Bell" and "Family Matters," to name a few -- but some of the greatest potential spinoffs didn't make the cut. Here are 12 spinoffs that should have happened: 1. Jackée's "227" spinoff Jackée Harry's "227" character Sandra Clark almost had a pretty glamorous life. A Season 4 episode served as a backdoor pilot for the would-be spinoff, in which Sandra runs off to New York to pursue a film career, but NBC ultimately decided to nix it and send Sandra back to Washington, D.C. 2. Phoebe's "Friends" spinoff Although 2004's "Friends" spinoff "Joey" famously flopped after only two seasons, the "Friends" creators also had another story for Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) in mind. Tentatively titled "Girlfriends," the thought was that she would appear with Aisha Tyler's character Charlie, with Ross (David Schwimmer) making appearances as well. Sadly, "Girlfriends" never got past the early stages of discussion. 3. Jackie Chiles' "Seinfeld" spinoff Although he only appeared in a handful of "Seinfeld" episodes, Phil Morris' character Jackie Chiles was set to play a black lawyer in all-white firm. Unfortunately, the would-be series never made it past the early stages of development. 4. Dwight's "Office" spinoff NBC initially seemed pretty enthusiastic about the Dwight Schrute spinoff "The Farm," which would focus solely on Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and his beet farm, but the network decided to pass just as the final season of "The Office" was getting underway. 5. How I Met Your Dad Ah, would could have been! Perhaps the "How I Met Your Mother" creators were simply trying to ease the pain of the beloved CBS series coming at end, but just when people were starting to think "How I Met Your Dad" was going to be good -- Greta Gerwig and Megan Ryan had been cast! -- CBS dropped the spinoff and crushed everyone's dreams. 6. Rupert Giles' "Buffy" spinoff Titled "Ripper," this "Buffy" spinoff was set to chronicle Anthony Head's character Rupert Giles' adventures in England. "Ripper" never happened, but "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon still hasn't let the idea die completely. 7. Karen's "Will & Grace" spinoff More Karen (Megan Mullally)? Yes, please! It almost happened, but NBC apparently put a stop to it after the "Friends" spinoff "Joey" flopped. 8. Jess' "Gilmore Girls" spinoff Although Rory Gilmore would have many a boyfriend after Jess Mariano, "Gilmore Girls" fans were all about him -- so The WB toyed with the idea of a spinoff, which would have been called "The Windward Circle," with a 2003 episode serving as the backdoor pilot. But at the end of the day, the network decided they didn't have the money to see it through. 9. Audrey's "Twin Peaks" spinoff Although Audrey's (Sherilyn Fenn) "Twin Peaks" spinoff never ended up getting off the ground, it does have a pretty cool story associated with it. The creators thought it would be fun to have a movie all about Audrey, in she would move to California and cruise along Mulholland Drive. Well, that never happened, but it did eventually inspire a pretty famous movie. 10. Norm and Cliff's "Cheers" spinoff Frasier who? NBC wanted a Norm and Cliff spinoff, but the "Cheers" creators didn't think it was a good idea. "Yes. NBC wanted to spin-off Norm & Cliff," writer/producer Ken Levine wrote on his blog. "They must have approached us five times about writing it. We always passed. One 'AfterMASH' a career is enough." 12. Clarissa's New York "Clarissa Explains It All" spinoff

Internal Windows 10 Redstone builds are finally starting to see a number of new user-interface improvements and changes across the operating system for both desktop and phone, after months of working on nothing but under-the-hood stuff. Insiders will be glad to hear that upcoming Insider builds have improved animations when resizing live tiles as well as improvements to the lock screen and login UI. Microsoft recently began flighting its first UI changes in internal builds this past week, with live tiles that now fade in and out when resizing as well as improvements to how the lock screen and login UI transition between each other. It is expected that these changes will be available in the next Insider drop, which could drop this week or next week. Although not much, these are the first real user-interface changes present in Redstone, and should help make the user-experience more streamlined when doing simple things. Right now, resizing live tiles on the Start Screen is a somewhat clunky experience, so adding an additional animation that helps make the experience seem smoother will be a nice touch. What other user-interface changes are you hoping to see in Redstone? Let us know below. (click animation to enlarge) Share This Further reading: Microsoft

A Moroccan man who stabbed a mother and her three young daughters in an Alpine holiday village in France says he carried out the attack because he had been offended by the father scratching his thigh in the presence of the man’s wife. The man, named only as Mohamed B, reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar”, meaning Allah is greatest, three times while being questioned by investigators after Tuesday’s attack, The Telegraph has reported. The 37-year old was arrested at the Garde-Colombe Alpine resort, near Laragne in southern France, after stabbing a mother, 46, and her three daughters, aged eight, 12, and 14. He had been staying with his wife and children in the neighbouring cabin. The mother and two eldest girls were treated for injuries described as serious but not life threatening at the local hospital in Gap, but the youngest girl had to be airlifted to Grenoble hospital as she suffered a punctured lung. Shortly after the attack, reports circulated that the assailant had carried out the stabbings as he thought the mother and her daughters were “too scantily dressed”, but Raphael Balland, the Gap prosecutor, said there was no evidence of this. Rather, he says the assailant told him he had carried out the violent assault as he was offended by an “inappropriate gesture”. “The husband and father of the victims confirms he crossed the suspect while he was leaving the premises after the attack. The suspect allegedly then told him: ‘You shouldn’t have done that in front of my wife’, then scratched the inside of his thigh over his shorts.” Mr. Balland added: “The husband doesn’t remember doing such a gesture.” He said it was “hard to comprehend that such a gesture could have sparked such a serious attack from a person in full mental health or devoid of any ideological intent”. The attack provoked fears of lone wolf style Islamic terrorism, coming just days after a major terrorist incident in Nice which claimed the lives of 84 victims, including ten children. But searching the assailant’s home in the Paris region, police say they found no Islamist materials. The Moroccan national is said to have been known to the police for petty crimes, but not for radicalisation. According to the victims he didn’t say a word during the attack, and in questioning at first only shouted Allahu Akbar three times before falling silent. He later told prosecutors that he had suffered from “depression and schizophrenia for several years”, causing him to be on permanent sick leave since 2009, and stopped taking his medication six months ago. However, medical and psychiatric experts found “no evidence of any pathology of a psychiatric nature”. He has now been placed under judicial investigation for “attempted murder” against the mother and “aggravated attempted murder” against the three daughters and is being remanded in custody.

Want more hot BPR News stories? Sign up for our morning blast HERE Washington DC lobbyists are actually helping Donald Trump boost his outsider street cred. In a new report by the Hill, a number of Republican-insider lobbyists admitted that they are pulling their hair out over the idea of a potential Donald Trump presidency. “A lot of people woke up [on Wednesday] and went, ‘Oh, gosh, this is not a dream,'” said Jeff MacKinnon, a lobbyists out of DC told the Hill. “I don’t think downtown was really prepared for it happening so quickly. It did catch people off guard.” “It’s not the end of the world. In Washington, for every action, there’s an overreaction,” MacKinnon said. “You can’t just ignore it. Politics is a moment in time. This is the job we chose, and this is the moment we’re in.” Another lobbyist who worked formerly for establishment-types and supported former Gov. Jeb Bush in the GOP primary said “As a Republican, I’m depressed.” The lobbyist told the Hill that he went to lunch with a group of lobbyists after Trump was named the presumptive GOP nominee and he said “They were all depressed.” One lobbyist mentioned that the uber rich, of which Trump is a part of, do not see the New York businessman as a colleague of theirs, citing that his foreign policy views of opposing nation-building and his criticism of what he calls “bad trade deals” that ship US jobs overseas is hard for many elites to stomach. “The policies are tough to deal with, but when you add on to that, the temperament and the foreign policy stuff, it’s a lot for people to work through,” the lobbyist noted. Sign up for our morning blast HERE

It may be a dirty word in some quarters, but debt is a fact of life for more and more Americans. And that may not be a bad thing. That is the conclusion of a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which examined debt through the generations. It found that 8 in 10 Americans are in debt in some fashion, most often because of a mortgage. And that debt is not limited to young people starting out life: increasingly, people are carrying debt into retirement. (Tweet This) For many Americans, their debt is a burden, but others view it as a necessity. Some 69 percent of the survey respondents indicated that while nonmortgage debt was a necessity for them, they preferred not to have it—but 68 percent said loans and credit cards had enabled them to make purchases or investments that expanded their opportunities. And in fact, Pew found that higher-income people with more assets tended to have more debt, but even so, they had healthier balance sheets than low-income, low-debt respondents. "Americans have a love-hate relationship with debt. They know they need debt, but they don't actually want it," said Diana Elliott, research manager for financial security and mobility at Pew. Some of the differences in attitudes about debt were generational. Gen X and millennial respondents were more likely to express negative views about debt than were older generations. They were less likely to say loans or credit cards increased their opportunities, for example. "The silent generation was twice as likely as Gen X to say that debt has expanded opportunities in their lives," the study found.

Daniel Sturridge says critics do not know him as a person Daniel Sturridge has hit back at those who have questioned his commitment to Liverpool and football itself after an injury-plagued season. The England striker has suffered a difficult campaign, with several aborted comebacks finally put behind him in recent weeks as he has returned to full fitness. The 26-year-old has been in good form when he has played, scoring 11 goals in 21 appearances this season, although he has warned Jurgen Klopp he wants to start regularly again having been named in the first XI in just three of the last seven games. Sturridge is also targeting a place in Roy Hodgson's starting XI at Euro 2016 and told the Daily Mail that accusations that he does not want to be fit are "disrespectful". "I don't pay any attention to it whatsoever," he said. "The majority, probably 95 per cent of the people who talk and say things about me, don't actually know me. Sturridge has struggled to win a first-team place under Jurgen Klopp in recent weeks "Even some of the people who've played with me don't actually know me. Because they're a team-mate, doesn't necessarily mean we're friends or we talk outside of work. But anybody who knows me will know that I'm one of the most ambitious people out there. "And for people to say, 'Oh he don't try enough or he doesn't want to be fit'... do you honestly believe I'd want to just be sat down picking up wages when I've dreamt of being a professional footballer ever since I can remember? Sturridge is still hopeful of being a key player for England at Euro 2016 "I don't think I'd want to be here now, just to be sitting in my apartment, twiddling my thumbs every day - because pretty much that's what I do. "I can't go out, really. I'm not here having fun with all my mates. I live alone. My family's close but all my friends live down south. I'm here to work. I'm not here to have fun. "I'm not here for a jolly-up. Liverpool, for me, is work. It's a job. It's something I take seriously and for anyone to question my integrity, it's disrespectful."

If you pray and wear your underwear inside out, will your team win the big game? Two weeks ahead of the Super Bowl, half of American sports fans say they believe God or a supernatural force is at play in the games they watch, according to a new survey. That percentage includes Americans who pray for God to help their team (26 percent), think their team has been cursed (25 percent) or more generally believe God is involved in determining who wins on the court or in the field (19 percent). Overall, half of Americans fall into one of these groups, according to the survey Public Religion Research Institute released Tuesday. “As Americans tune in to the Super Bowl this year, fully half of fans — as many as 70 million Americans — believe there may be a twelfth man on the field influencing the outcome,” Public Religion Research Institute CEO Robert Jones said in a statement. “Significant numbers of American sports fans believe in invoking assistance from God on behalf of their favorite team, or believe the divine may be playing out its own purpose in the game.” Football fans were the most likely to pray for their own teams to win, with 33 percent saying they ask God to intervene in games, compared to 21 percent of fans of other sports. They were also more likely to think their teams were cursed (31 percent compared to 18 percent) and to take part in rituals before or during games (25 percent to compared to 18 percent). PRRI, which found that about 7-in-10 Americans said they are likely to watch the Super Bowl, also found football to be by far the most popular sport. Football was four times more popular than baseball, basketball, soccer or ice hockey. On the average Sunday, a quarter of Americans said they were more likely to be in church than watching football, while 21 percent said the opposite. About one-in-five said they're likely to do both, while one-third said they're not likely to do either. Overall, about one-fifth of sports fans said they perform a ritual before or during games of their favorite teams. The majority of those fans, 66 percent, said the rituals involved wearing jerseys or clothing with team colors. One fan responded to a survey question on rituals by saying he or she wears "a dirty pair of underwear ... over my pants and then I put my jersey on." About a quarter of respondents said their rituals involve a physical activity, such as dancing in a circle, sitting in the same seat for each game or giving a "pep talk" to the television. Just as they were divided on whether God has a role in sports games, Americans also were divided on whether God rewards religious athletes with health and success. Forty-eight percent of Americans said God does reward athletes this way, but 47 percent disagreed. The belief that God will help religious athletes was most prominent among white evangelicals (62 percent) and non-white Protestants (65 percent). A little more than one-fifth of the religiously unaffiliated held the same view.

CHARLESTON, S.C. – One member and two associates of the “Wildboys” street gang were sentenced to federal prison June 2 after each pleaded guilty to attempted murder in aid of racketeering for their roles in retaliatory attacks against another rival gang in the South Carolina Lowcountry. The sentencings follow an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in coordination with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) as well as multiple state and local law enforcement agencies. Brian Manigo and Damien Robinson, of Walterboro, were each sentenced to 10 years in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel. Kelvin Mitchell, of Ruffkin, was sentenced to 39 months in federal prison. All three defendants were ordered to also pay the costs of medical care for their victims and to serve three years supervised release following their federal prison terms. According to court documents, Manigo and Mitchell were sentenced for their roles in a May 2011 drive-by shooting aimed at a rival gang member. While Mitchell drove, Manigo fired multiple shots with an AK-47 rifle at the rival gang member who was standing in a crowd. An innocent by-stander sustained serious bodily injury as a result of the shooting. Robinson was sentenced for his role in an April 2015 drive-by shooting aimed at members of a rival gang. Robinson was the driver of the vehicle containing two other Wildboys gang members. As Robinson drove past a residence, the two passengers fired multiple shots at the home using an AR-15 and an SKS rifle. Robinson gave the AR-15, which belonged to him, to his fellow gang member to use during the shooting. The shooting resulted in serious bodily injury to an innocent victim inside the residence. Joshua Manigault pleaded guilty to his role in the April 2015 shooting and is awaiting sentencing. Devin Brown is scheduled for a jury trial. The charges against Brown are accusations, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. This case was prosecuted by Leshia Lee-Dixon of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and Tameaka A. Legette, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney from the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office. In addition to HSI and the ATF, this case was investigated by the Walterboro Police Department, Colleton County Sheriff’s Office, Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, Summerville Police Department, Fourteenth Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office, First Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office, South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services, and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

Incredipede was one of last year’s most delightful surprises, and you should feel ashamed for not playing it. The grotesquely adorable creature constructor was not, however, without its flaws, and creator Colin Northway has no trouble admitting it. Now, though, Qwozzle’s got her tiny yet mighty sights set on Steam, and she’ll be completing her dogged climb into Newell’s house of wonders (and hopefully apples) on March 18th. But this isn’t the same game the most beautiful and handsome among you played late last year. Among other things, version 1.5 includes an entire new set of less-punishing Normal mode levels, a much more versatile control scheme, and eagles (!!!). After the break, you’ll find a trailer of the new features and levels in action, plus a rather massive chat with Northway and artist Thomas Shahan. So go forth! Peruse! RPS: You’re adding an entire set of new levels that will comprise a Normal mode for Incredipede, while the old levels will become Hard mode. One of my big issues with the first version was that the level design didn’t match the sheer imagination of the central mechanic. There was this sense of constant wonderment present in dreaming up new shapes for Qwozzle, but the levels seemed comparatively pedestrian. So I hear “Normal,” and I worry that these will be even simpler. Colin Northway: These levels are more focused on what you can do. You’re going to play creatures that I’ve built. You’re not going to play your own. So you’re still building in Hard mode, but Normal difficulty will be all pre-made creatures. So one of the advantages of that is that I can make really interesting stuff. I mean, I play the game a lot. I’m obviously a master of my own game [laughs], so I can make things other players wouldn’t think of until they’re, like, 40 hours in. So I’ve got some pretty wacky stuff in there. [pullquote]Normal difficulty will be all pre-made creatures.[/pullquote] Like, there’s a level where you’re kind of an eagle, flying through the air. Then you pounce down, pick up a ruby with your legs, and fly off. It’s pretty awesome. RPS: But the actual mechanics of movement in Incredipede are extremely simple. How are you going to keep that interesting when building’s not there to back it up? Colin Northway: Well, a major difference in the new kind of levels is another set of keys for the controls. So in the existing levels, you control one set of one set of muscles with one set of keys. So you can have many muscles, but they’re all controlled by the same set of keys. So if you have arms and legs, flexing arms means you’ll also flex your legs. But in the new game, you’ve got another set, so you can flex your arms separately from your legs. So there’s a lot of things that can use this – things like running to the left and grabbing an apple, and then running to the right. Or like the eagle level I mentioned before: one set of keys controls your wings and how high you are, and the other controls the grappling legs. RPS: But then Hard will be focused on building and then moving, on levels that are designed for only one set of keys. Are you worried that you might be teaching players skills that aren’t applicable to later levels? Colin Northway: The most important thing players will get from the first mode is what it feels like to play a successful creature. A lot of the problems in learning by just playing Hard mode is that there are two fundamental phases of playing every level. You have to build a creature and then control it. A lot of players have trouble here, because they start building a thing, and nothing you build is ever going to be perfect. But then they try to control it, and the first time you do that is never going to be perfect either. So they immediately get stuck. They think, “Well, I know that didn’t work, but did I mess up the controlling or the building?” So that’s an immediate roadblock, and it’s hard to iterate on it. The new levels will give players a chance to try all these creatures that work well if you can control them. So you’ll just have to iterate on controls, and by the time you’re done – which takes maybe two or three hours – you’ll know what it feels like to play a successful creature. And when you start playing the old levels, you won’t have that confusion. Thomas Shahan: That’s kind of exactly how I learned to play the game. I watched Colin and just kind of created some of the body designs he made. So it’s perfect, because you have these two different playstyles, and when you’re on your own, you can just kind of adapt and build upon your previous knowledge. RPS: Certainly. That’s what I did in version 1.0, only I watched other people’s playthroughs that they’d posted in-game. Problem was, it felt like I was admitting defeat – not being educated by some kindly invisible hand. Colin Northway: Yeah, and the intention with what’s now Hard mode was to show players purely through design what they could use and be successful with. But it’s sort of hard, when you’re a game author, to know exactly how players are going to react to things and where your difficulty ramp should be. You can playtest with friends and strangers, but there’s always weird, confounding things. So I underestimated how quickly people would come to grips with some of the basic ideas. RPS: So I assume the new control scheme will apply to the older levels as well? Colin Northway: That’s right. You can build creatures with two sets of muscles. So you can now replicate QWOP in Incredipede [laughs]. RPS: I’m going to play every level as the guy from QWOP. This will be my next game diary. An internal monologue of his struggles through this mad, gnarled world – different from his own, yet no less inhospitable to his particular, er, skill set. Colin Northway: [laughs] That would be an awesome playthrough. RPS: Because of that, though, are you worried that the old levels could become significantly easier now that players have an extra degree of control? Actually, are you hoping that’s what’ll happen? Colin Northway: Actually, they get easier in a way that I really like. So actually, for a lot of development of the original version of the game, it had two muscle sets. But then, as I played more and more, I discovered that you could actually do all those levels with only one set of muscles. So, for simplicity, I took the other set out, because as a game designer, you’re always trying to make complicated systems simpler. Weirdly, I think that made it harder for new players to do complicated tasks. It’s a lot easier to think of a creature in terms of phases. Like, “Oh, I’ll make this part of the creature to handle this first part of the level, and then there’s this extra challenge, so I’ll make a whole different trunk of the creature to deal with that.” If you’re a master player, you can make one creature that deals with both phases, which is interesting and fun. But if you’re new, [two sets] makes it a little more grokable to deal with the Hard mode levels. RPS: Makes sense, but for me, the central appeal of the game was the element of exploration that emerged from building and tweaking my own creature. I really got to own my experience. Are you afraid players might never understand that if they just stick to Normal mode? Like, they’ll miss out on what makes Incredipede so, er, incredible? Colin Northway: Yeah, this is totally a worry of mine. Something I’ve been grappling with from the very beginning of development is how much to make it kind of a very pure, hands-off “Here are some systems” player-driven thing – which is my favorite style of gameplay – versus a more hand-holdy railroaded experience. Where to find that happy medium. [pullquote]I’d love to do a sequel. There’s tons of stuff I’d love to add.[/pullquote] So my approach to the new one is that you can select Normal mode or Hard mode right away, and instead of just pressing a button that says either, I have some text that says, “OK, this is Normal. You’re not going to get building stuff, but it’s going to be a fun pick-up-and-play experience. It’s not going to break your brain too much.” And then for Hard mode, I’ve got some text that says, “This is more demanding. You’re going to be building your own creatures here. But if you really want to jump straight into the deep end, that’s great.” RPS: Are you adding any new sorts of obstacles with the new levels? I mean, the original Incredipede was pretty limited in that respect. It had lava, wind, water, and then platforms and basic terrain. Are you adding anything else along those lines? Colin Northway: I’m introducing stuff a little bit earlier, but the levels are still made up of the same tools. RPS: Do you have any plans to add more tools in the future? Colin Northway: There’s actually a bunch of stuff I’d like to do for a sequel. I actually have prototype stuff where you can grab. Like, sticky balls that you can reach out and grab onto and kind of stick to roofs and ceilings. So you can have balloons you can grab that’ll float you around. But they didn’t make it into Incredipede 1. I’d love to do a sequel. There’s tons of stuff I’d love to add. RPS: Have you made enough money off this one to consider a sequel viable? Colin Northway: At this point? Not so much. I’ve got a lot of hope in the Steam release. I think the reality in PC releases now is, Steam is just that thing that more and more we need to make our careers viable. RPS: You’re finally making the awkward, multi-tendriled clamber onto Valve’s platform, though. Hurrah! What did you have to do in order to finally make the cut? Colin Northway: Incredipede was one of the first games on Greenlight. I contacted them about getting Incredipede onto Steam about, I think, a month before Greenlight went live. So they were like, “Oh yeah, we’ll get you into the Greenlight program.” So Greenlight launched, and Incredipede was in there. It got a lot of attention from the initial Greenlight press – a lot of votes. It started out pretty near the top. So it was around, like, 40, I think? And after that first month, every time Valve Greenlit ten games, Incredipede would move up ten slots. It was just kind of like this rote conveyer belt. Now it’s 40, now it’s 30, now it’s 20. In January this year, it was number eight, so we were finally going to get Greenlit. But then, a couple days before Valve released that month’s batch of games, the IGF Awards were announced, and Incredipede was nominated for excellence in visual arts. Which is super exciting. Steam said that any game that got nominated for IGF was automatically on Steam. So we made it to number eight on Greenlight, but we also managed to get a nomination. I ended up contacting Steam and saying, “Oh shit, I just got an IGF nomination. That means I’m on Steam. But I’m also number eight on Greenlight, so if you do a round now, I’m going to take a slot from someone else.” I made sure I got it off Greenlight in time. One of the things I don’t like about Greenlight is that me winning makes somebody else lose. RPS: You should’ve demanded two pages on Steam’s marketplace. That’s how winners are supposed to act. But outside of Steam, how much exposure were you able to drum up? For that matter, you share a house with a bunch of other independent developers sometimes. Are they pretty much all in the same boat? Colin Northway: Yeah. Pretty much everyone is desperate to get on Steam. Nobody doesn’t care about Steam. RPS: What about other marketplaces? I mean, you launched on GOG as well. Colin Northway: Yeah, and I actually really like the GOG guys. They’re really good to work with. I think their game submission process is really good, and it’s what Valve should do. They get a copy of the game from you, they play it, and they decide if they want it on their service. So yeah, GOG has been nice, and I’m really happy to work with them. But they just don’t push numbers like Steam does, you know? The math is the math. RPS: There’s been recent talk from Gabe Newell of abolishing Greenlight and turning Steam into a fully open system where people just make their own individual storefronts. Do you think that’s the right direction to go? Colin Northway: I really like that idea. I’ve always loved the idea of [opening things up]. I like the idea, but it could work or not work. Like, Apple has a system where anybody can put anything up. But then their officially managed lists end up being just as dictatorial as Valve is. I mean, I guess Apple isn’t consciously deciding what ends up on those lists most of the time, but the content discovery system on Apple is bad. You have to get exposure through things like blog posts and articles and Twitter. Kind of the traditional way things get out on the Internet. It’s really good at finding interesting games. Things like Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Reddit, and Twitter. If we can combine the power of that content discovery stuff with the really solid platform that everybody rightfully loves of Steam, that would be a huge win for everybody. I think that’s the best thing Valve could do for everyone, personally. RPS: I want to touch on Incredipede’s art for a moment, because it’s quietly brilliant and, well, Thomas has been very, er, quiet. I love Qwozzle, especially. She’s super simple, yet incredibly malleable and expressive. What led you to create something that’s so many things in one tiny, eyeball-shaped package? Thomas Shahan: When I first got into it, I was a little bit nervous to change anything. Colin just had programmer art in there, but he did have a green one-eyed chameleon with legs. I have a hard time actually creating things, so I kind of liked that he already had this character already in place. So I toyed around with ideas of having the creature be just a mouth or something else, but there’s no way to really sell relatable emotion without the eye. So I stuck with that. We also discussed whether Qwozzle should have feet or hands or graspers, but due to her general motion of flailing around on legs, we thought it’d be more natural to have these exposed bone nubs [laughs]. It’s kinda gross, but I did my best to find a line between marketably cute and disturbingly gruesome. Because games often play it safe, and they make cute characters or terrifying zombies. But I wanted to upset people and have it be a bit visceral and nasty – like life – but also relatable and cute. I wanted people to actually feel bad when they hurt Qwozzle. Which is tough to do, because once people are so desensitized from blowing the heads off zombies constantly, we don’t feel a thing. There’s no connection with the characters. So it’s great when I see people saying, “Oh my god, this is gross! I feel so bad when I hurt Qwozzle.” Or they don’t like the little spurts of blood. I don’t know if that’s success or failure on my part, but I’m glad they have an emotion. Disgust is much better than apathy. RPS: When I first accidentally tore off one of her leg nubs, I basically cried. It was like, “Oh god, what have I done? I’m so, so, so, so sorry!” Thomas Shahan: [laughs] That was all Colin’s idea, I think. Colin Northway: Yeah, there’s actually gameplay use for it. The bones are a little stickier. They stick to the ground a bit more, so if you pull them off, it slides a little more easily. That allows you to make, like, a sled more easily. So when I was considering the option to have bones or no bones, I was like, “Why not just be able to pull the bones off? That would be awwwwwwwesome! Let’s do it!” I don’t tell anyone about that. It’s an undocumented feature, because I really want that moment where people find it for themselves. Thomas Shahan: Now I’m terrified every time I play a new game that I’m going to accidentally tear a leg off. I’m like, “Oh shit. Don’t break it don’t break it don’t break it.” RPS: Oh man, when it starts wobbling a little bit because I’ve stretched it too far, I’m like, “Nononononononono!” Because that facial expression Qwozzle makes, it’s just heartbreaking. [pullquote]Disgust is much better than apathy.[/pullquote] Thomas Shahan: Yeah, I play it with my girlfriend now, and she just hates it. So now I get nervous about it too. It adds this tension and turmoil to the game that’s not usually there. RPS: On an entirely separate, decidedly more legged note, Colin, you’re fairly well-known for traveling, um, all the time. Where have your travels taken you as of late? Colin Northway: Yeah, so a couple years ago, my wife Sarah – who makes the game Rebuild on iOS, which is doing really well – and I decided to stop paying rent. And now we just kind of travel the world. We spend two or four months everywhere we go. And if you do it that way, it actually doesn’t cost as much as you might think to travel the world. Basically, instead of paying rent in San Francisco, we just pay rent in Thailand or Costa Rica or Japan. Now we’re in Mexico. Actually, rent’s usually cheaper, because rent in San Francisco is the most expensive in the world. Actually, I did some math the other day, and the amount of money we’ve spent on flights in a year is still less than our friends who commute in the Bay Area by [rapid transit train] Bart. For the cost of living in San Francisco, you could live everywhere. RPS: Huh. Being based in San Francisco, that certainly puts things in perspective. It’s settled, then. I’m moving to the Moon. Changing locations so often, though, how directly does that influence your game design? Colin Northway: Well, Incredipede came pretty directly from Honduras. We were on this little island, and we lived on, like, a little floating boathouse near a terrible dirt road. We used to take kayaks to get groceries. There weren’t really any other people around us, but there was just a ton of life. Lizards in all the trees, fish swimming underneath our house. There were mangrove trees that had boa constrictors. There were humming birds flying in and out of the house, not to mention ants raiding our kitchen. There’s just so much life everywhere, and it’s so engrossing. Every time you see a trail of leaf-cutter ants, for me it’s impossible to not be like, “Oh my god, it’s this little troop of ants. Where’d they get the leaves? What kind of tree? Where are they taking them?” Life is so fundamentally fascinating. There’s so much variety in it. I just really wanted to make a game about that. So Incredipede is about exploring and that diversity of life. That came directly from Honduras. I think the most valuable thing traveling does is, you constantly have novel input to work with. If you want to be creative, you’ve got to keep your brain working. You’ve got to keep that storm going all the time. New ingredients coming in and mixing things up. When you’re traveling that’s always happening. You’re always finding something you’ve never seen before. So that goes into your brain and bumps into all that other stuff. Weird, novel things come in. Thomas Shahan: Colin’s excitement about all of that is how he found out about my stuff. I have kind of a loose, amateur background in entomology, so it worked out pretty well. His enthusiasm about life of this type, and my familiarity with arthropods. Colin Northway: Yeah, Thomas is totally interested in spiders, and when we were in Greece, we’d go walking in the mountains. It was like Spider Mountain. You couldn’t take a step without one scampering under you. Thomas, you would’ve loved that island in Greece so much. Thomas Shahan: I know, I know. RPS: Have recent travels given you any other ideas you want to make a game about? Colin Northway: Yeah. So we’re in Mexico right now, and we’re living with a bunch of indies. We’ve got this nice place on the beach with all these palm trees growing everywhere and all this sand. There are also these weird scrub bushes. I really wonder what that life is like. What are the challenges of growing up as a plant surrounded by all these other plants? Because it’s a war. A forest is a warzone of all these different factions fighting it out over each other. I’d love to make a game that explores that idea. I think it could be really interesting. RPS: No kidding. Kinda the opposite of thatgamecompany’s Flower. Colin Northway: [laughs] Right, yeah. Kinda like, “Hey, all these plants are trying to kill each other all the time.” RPS: Delightful! Thank you for your time.

Rio de Janeiro police said on Saturday they had detained 19 people with a history of committing vandalism during protests as Brazil tries to pre-empt any potential violent demonstrations during Sunday's World Cup final. Protests across Brazil have petered out since the month-long soccer tournament started on June 12, but authorities are taking no chances now that online videos are encouraging violent fringe groups to return to the streets when Germany plays Argentina. Human rights advocates have condemned the detention of protesters, including lawyers and professors, in Rio and Sao Paulo. Police have used stun grenades and rubber bullets against demonstrators in both cities during the tournament, a popular event but also widely criticized by many in Brazil because of the $11 billion it cost the country to host it. "The only goal is to neutralize, suppress and intimidate those men and women who have made their presence on the street a form of expression in their fight for social justice," the Rio-based non-profit Justica Global group said in a statement on Saturday, adding more detentions were expected. A police crackdown against students a year ago was seen as largely responsible for setting off a protest movement that brought more than a million people into the streets to air grievances over corruption and rising prices and to contrast the high cost of the tournament with the poor state of public services. Since the World Cup began, Brazilians have been more interested in welcoming foreign visitors and watching soccer, but there is concern that protesting may be more appealing after Brazil's humiliating 7-1 loss to Germany. Some Brazilians are also unhappy that archrivals Argentina may win a trophy many expected would go to the home team. About 26,000 security forces will work during the final match that will be attended by several presidents, while 1,500 private security guards will work inside Rio's Maracana stadium, according to the Justice Ministry. Brazil has also blocked dozens of Argentine soccer hooligans with a history of stadium violence from attending the World Cup. Confrontations between fans of Brazil and Argentina have so far been limited to bar scuffles, but security has been stepped up on Argentina's game days.

Please enable Javascript to watch this video STOCKTON -- A homeless man in Stockton is being hailed a hero. A Chevron gas station clerk came face-to-face with a gunman, but the man came to her aid, the clerk told FOX40. The attempted robbery happened Monday night on the 3300 block of West Hammer Lane in Stockton. Tuyet Tran is still frightened. Despite the fear, the Chevron gas station attendant spoke with FOX40 just hours after a gunman threatened her. "This time around, it’s just scary that he was so aggressive,” Tran said. Tran said even before he pointed the gun at her face, she knew something wasn’t right. The man seemed drunk and had urinated on some firewood outside the store. “So I tell my homeless friend Steve, 'cause he was inside the store with me, to kick the cone close so we can shut the door,” she said. That odd behavior was enough for Tran to take action. The mother of three had been robbed just two weeks before. In surveillance footage from that night, Tran is seen with a woman who pointed a gun in her face. On Monday, Tran was again staring at the barrel of a gun. “The guy comes in, he has the gun out, and he says, 'give me all my money,'" she said. With a gun in her face for the second time in two weeks, Tran went behind the register while her friend Steve Smith, a homeless man who has been keeping her company since she was robbed weeks ago, moved near the door. What he did next may have saved her life. "Finally got the fire extinguisher to unhook, and he started spraying the fire extinguisher all over and he sprayed the guy in the face. The guy finally took off in his car,” Tran said. Grateful, yet concerned, Tran asked Smith why he put his life on the line. "I asked Steve you know, 'Why did you do that? You could have gotten hurt. You know, he could have shot you.' And he told me, 'Because you have kids,'" she said. She’s still scared but her gratitude for Steve is stronger. "So grateful for him. So thankful 'cause he could have just gone away and left me and go do recycling but he didn’t," she said. Unfortunately, the surveillance cameras did not capture Monday’s attempted robbery. Smith and Tran’s friendship began years ago. Tran recalled that Smith had asked her to borrow her phone to call his parents, “and I see that compassion in his eyes that he really wanted to talk to his mom and dad, so I let him use my phone,” she said. Every holiday, she would let Smith borrow her phone to call his parents. The gunman is described a Hispanic male who had a long ponytail and wore a black hoodie and white jeans. He rode up in a red Toyota pickup truck with two females. The getaway driver is described as a female with reddish hair. Another female inside the truck had black hair.

Google took a big step towards making its Google Glass specs available to the wider public after it expanded pre-orders for the technology, and showed off its potential in a new video. Now, an interesting report from the New York Times claims that the company is aiming to give the product the right look for the public through a tie-in with Warby Parker. The Times cites unnamed sources that claim Google is negotiating with the eyewear maker — which raised a $38 million Series B round in September 2012 — “to help it design more fashionable frames”. Given that some tech firms have a tendency to overly focus on the technology behind a device or its feature, rather than its aesthetics — which are hugely important to potential buyers — the apparent move to bring in an external specialist is clearly a logical one. Google has faced criticism over claims that, while great on paper and every nerd’s fantasy, Google Glass is not practical or necessary for real life. Indeed, the fact that Google co-founder Sergey Brin can sport the specs on the New York subway without being hassled by the regular public, suggests that either people aren’t overly aware of the technology, or that it is seen a being overly dorky and not for the everyday person. While Google and Warby Parker both declined to comment on the speculation, the idea that a fashion-conscious consultant will add the requisite stylistic polish to Google Glass is most definitely a positive sign. Even if a deal is not reached, it shows that Google understands that Glass needs to be fashionable since it will be on a user’s face whenever it used. Google’s always had an eye toward aesthetics, even if it sometimes goes astray. Undoubtedly it employs designers for its hardware, but this is an indication that it recognizes that Google Glass is importantly for both tech and fashion reasons, and therefore it needs the extra style. It’s quite a day for Google speculation, and earlier the Wall Street Journal reported that the first touch screen Google laptop devices using its Chrome OS could launch before the end of the year. By coincidence, TNW was at a media event held by Warby Parker this week: Inside Warby Parker: Co-CEO Neil Blumenthal talks transforming the optical industry and doing good Headline image via Google Read next: Coursera adds 29 new universities to bring total to 62, offers first courses in Chinese, Italian, and Spanish

NEW DELHI: A radioactive leak was detected at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Friday.Around 8:30 this morning, four packets out of the total ten, of a yellow-coloured liquid were suspected to have spread out of its sanitized container after the consignment that came on a Turkish Airlines flight landed at the cargo area of the airport at about 4:35am after which a special squad of the National Disaster Response Force team was called in to check and contain it.NDRF chief O P Singh said a special ten-member team from its base in Dwarka has been rushed to the spot and is "sanitising" the area."Radioactive leak very very small. There is nothing to panic and there is no effect on the passenger area," Singh said.The cargo complex has been vacated by the officials as a preventive measure.GMR, Delhi Police and teams from the fire department are also inside to sanitize the restricted area. Two men who unloaded the material have been sent to AIIMS for examination.The area has been cordoned off by DM New Delhi, Sanjay Kumar, who is the incident commander.The radioactive leak has been located to a consignment from Turkey, which contained radioactive compounds for therapeutic use.“We are monitoring the whole situation. Radioactive substance came from Istanbul for Fortis Hospital whose authorities have been called,” NDRF DG said. The hospital had ordered the substance in connection with its cancer treatment, according to reports.Home minister Rajnath Singh said, "The atomic energy team has also reached. We have just got information that the radioactive leak at the cargo complex in IGI Airport has been plugged."CISF and police are probing if the leak was due to negligence.Officials from the atomic mineral division of the department of atomic energy and personnel from AERB are at the spot.A DIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited) spokesperson said, “A medical consignment of material suspected to be of radioactive nature was reported at the cargo terminal of Delhi Airport this morning. A team from Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are at the site and making arrangements for the removal of the material. This area is far away from any of the passenger terminals and there is absolutely no risk of exposure to any passengers. The said area has been cordoned off and as per the preliminary assessment given by AMD the material has been termed as that of low radio activity- Sodium Iodide Liquid Class 7 meant for medicinal use.”

FBI Admits Hillary Used BleachBit Software Designed to ‘Hide Traces Of’ Deleted Emails Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) told America’s Newsroom on Thursday that Hillary Clinton used BleachBit software to hide all traces of her deleted emails. According BleachBit goes beyond simply deleting files, BleachBit includes advanced features such as shredding files to prevent recovery, wiping free disk space to hide traces of files deleted by other applications, and vacuuming Firefox to make it faster. Better than free, BleachBit is open source. Zero Hedge reported: During his appearance on Fox, Gowdy clearly indicates that Clinton’s use of BleachBit undermines her claims that she only deleted innocuous “personal” emails from her private server. “If she considered them to be personal, then she and her lawyers had those emails deleted. They didn’t just push the delete button, they had them deleted where even God can’t read them. “They were using something called BleachBit. You don’t use BleachBit for yoga emails.” “When you’re using BleachBit, it is something you really do not want the world to see.” Gowdy also questioned whether Hillary considered “Clinton Foundation” emails to be “personal” and, if not, asked why the FBI’s investigation revealed minimal emails about Foundation-related topics.

An international group of paleontologists reported the discovery of a fossil seabird species that lived in what is modern New Zealand during the early Paleocene, around 58 million years ago. The bird, named Australornis lovei, is one of the world’s oldest species of flying seabirds. The fossil bones of Australornis lovei were collected from the Waipara greensand deposits of North Canterbury, New Zealand’s South Island. These deposits were formed in the deep waters of a very warm sea off the coast of Zealandia – the continental fragment that New Zealand rests upon, shortly after the event that caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and many marine organisms. Australornis lovei was about 70 – 85 cm in length and weighed 1.5 – 2 kg. The bird had similarities to two species from the late Cretaceous from the Antarctic Peninsula. “This new species is important in our understanding of bird evolution because although there is a number of bird groups described from the late Cretaceous, most belong to groups not present on Earth today,” said Dr Paul Scofield of New Zealand’s Canterbury Museum, the second author of a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. “The find is exciting. We hope to find more material of this pivotal species to enable a better understanding of its relationships and to allow us to better understand early avian evolution,” added first author Dr Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum. The bird has been named after its discoverer – Mr Leigh Love, an amateur fossil collector from Waipara. The discovery highlights the links between Antarctica and New Zealand in the late Cretaceous and early Paleocene. ______ G Mayr & RP Scofield. First diagnosable non-sphenisciform bird from the early Paleocene of New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, published online January 21, 2014; doi: 10.1080/03036758.2013.863788

district0x Dev Update - August 22nd, 2017 A network of decentralized marketplaces and communities Joe Urgo Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 22, 2017 We’d like to take this opportunity to remind our community to be aware that the district0x team will never suggest/request that you submit your private keys or passwords anywhere. Please be on the lookout for any suspicious messages when frequenting the district0x Slack and do not hesitate to contact @joe, @alexander, @madvas, @brady, @angelo, @farhan or @tietsu to verify the authenticity of any DMs you receive. Name Bazaar We have been hard at work on the design and front-end implementation at Name Bazaar the past few weeks. Wireframes are complete and available for the community to check out and provide feedback here. Name Bazaar home page District Proposal Voting dApp The voting dApp is being updated to allow for the inclusion of all district proposals. The default view will show the top 10 proposals, ordered by community support. A ‘Show All’ button will be included near the bottom which will allow users to locate any submission and signal their support. Website Updates With the initial contribution period behind us, we have updated the website to draw attention to the district0x Voting dApp and encourage more participation in our district proposal process. We have also made the Transparency and Team pages easily accessible from the home page. Dev Team Hiring Progress We are extremely pleased to be able to report that Mike Konkov has joined the district0x team as our first Clojurescript Developer hire. A second Clojurescript Developer is scheduled to begin on September 18th, followed by a third on October 1st. If you are a talented developer and are interested in joining the district0x team, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected] or apply via the open listing on Ethlance.

U.S. public radio network NPR will establish a bureau in Seoul and launch it next year, the station announced this week. “We are delighted to announce the opening of a bureau in Seoul,” Christopher Turpin, NPR’s acting senior vice president of news, said. ”This continues the tradition of NPR’s international coverage that goes beyond the headlines to bring strong voices and well told stories to our listeners at home, providing the necessary context to understand how world events affect our daily lives.” Elise Hu was appointed as the Seoul bureau chief, and will oversee multiple countries in northeast Asia, including Japan. “Hu, who covers the intersection of technology and culture for NPR’s on-air, online and multimedia platforms, will take on a new role as NPR’s Seoul reporter,” the station said. NPR is a non-profit membership media organization network that produces and distributes news and cultural programming to various radio platforms nationwide in the U.S. Hu expressed her excitement for the job, mentioning a recent “daydreaming contest” held in Gwanghuamun, central Seoul. “We’re planting the NPR flag on an action-packed peninsula!” she wrote on her blog. “Can you imagine the culture stories? This is the place where they just hosted a competition to see who could zone out the longest. That is gold.”

Taylor Swift and Adele could be changing their tune regarding Spotify come 2017. Spotify UK’s head of content programming, George Ergatoudis, recently met with reps for the two singers and gets the sense they’ve reconsidered their stance on the streaming giant. In particular, he’s hopeful that Swift will make her whole catalog available on Spotify for the first time since 2014. “Nothing’s guaranteed, but I met up with [Big Machine president/CEO] Scott Borchetta personally and had that conversation with him,” Ergatoudis told Music Week. “It’s not a lock-in, but I’ve got every reason to be very optimistic Taylor Swift will be coming back to Spotify. I’m not saying it’s done, but the indications are good, put it like that.” Ergatoudis also said he spoke to Adele’s manager and indicated her camp might reconsider keeping her next album off streaming sites for a period after the release, since the sales environment has already changed so much since 25‘s release. Seems like a win for Spotify, but it’s also pretty hypothetical. For all we know this is just a marketing ploy to get a spike in holiday users and subscribers who hope they’ll be able to dig into Taylor’s catalog before she becomes an R&B star.

Reports that soccer superstar Lionel Messi had chosen the name “Benjamin” for his yet unborn second son aroused anger in the Arab world over the Argentinian picking a “Jewish name” for the boy. In Algeria specifically, people took the naming of the Barcelona player’s son very negatively. They expressed their hostility towards the athlete and his son’s chosen name saying that, “the name of Messi’s son is like the name of the Prime Minister of Israel,” Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s NRG reported. Some of the protesters also voiced their hope that Messi would alter his decision and ultimately choose a different name for his son, according to the report. Messi is a devout Christian and met with the Pope in 2013. His first son, Thiago, was born in November 2012.

Simply go to ReformFDA.org and add your signature. In November 2007, a 60-page report titled “FDA Science and Mission at Risk” was released by the FDA. In this report, the agency admitted that it lacks the competency and capacity to keep up with scientific advances.The FDA now admits that Americans are suffering and dying because the FDA does not have the scientific ability to ascertain if new drugs are safe or effective or to evaluate scientific claims.These failures affect the health of all Americans. Good drugs are not approved or approved after interminable delays. Even after new drugs are shown to be safe, doctors cannot use them with terminally ill patients whose cases are otherwise hopeless. Bad drugs are approved -- often on the basis of a recommendation by panels whose members include drug company consultants.The record with the food supply is almost as bad as with drugs. When fresh food turns out to be contaminated, the only solution the Agency can come up with is to "nuke" it with radiation. What does this do to food? The FDA certainly does not know.The FDA pushes forward, approving faulty and dangerous drugs and medical devices by the thousands and approving toxic chemicals for use in baby formula, baby bottles, and prescription drugs. Meanwhile, the FDA pursues what can only be described as a harassment campaign against those who want to rely on wholesome foods, dietary supplements, and lifestyle changes to achieve natural good health.A veritable revolution is taking place in the science of food, food extracts, and food supplements. Food producers would like to tell the American public about it. Millions of lives could be saved as a result. But the FDA will not permit it. The Agency ignores first amendment protections and censors the communication of valid scientific information.The epidemics currently plaguing this country -- cancer, obesity, diabetes, asthma and allergies, and many other debilitating disorders -- are linked to manmade products and processes that the FDA has approved and promoted. These failures have resulted in the sickest generation in the history of this country. The agency seems to have lost sight of its mandate to protect the public and has instead come to see itself as the guardian of corporate interests. It is time to end the many conflicts of interest linking the FDA to the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, conflicts of interest that betray the public and harm so many American consumers.It is time to reform the FDA!To persuade Congress to address the comprehensive failure of the FDA, the American Association for Health Freedom has drafted a petition to reform the FDA.

The head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Monday the agency is reviewing federal vehicle safety rules to determine if they could conflict with self-driving vehicle systems that Google and others want to put on the road. The agency is looking at a list of rules that could affect the rollout of features such as Tesla Motors’ “autopilot” hands-free driving system or General Motors’ proposed “super cruise” system, NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind told reporters. “We are trying to figure out if innovation will run up against regulations,” he said. Rosekind said it is not clear where the lines are between federal and state regulation of autonomous driving technology. But he said the NHTSA inevitably will have a role in overseeing the safety of self-driving vehicles and what standards should be applied to the technology. As an example, Rosekind noted the lack of standardization for the signals and alerts drivers get from robotic systems that are watching for hazards around a car or controlling its direction. “The first time a self-driving car hits somebody, and someone gets hurt or is fatally injured, we’re going to get the phone call,” he said. Another area of uncertainty, Rosekind said, is what will happen as automated cars and human-operated vehicles mix on the road for what could be 20 or 30 years. “We have a lot of catch-up to do,” said Rosekind, who took over the agency in December. Fully autonomous vehicles are still years from being ready for consumers to buy. But several automakers have said they intend to offer systems that will allow vehicles to navigate in traffic jams or in freeway driving even when the driver’s hands are off the steering wheel. Rosekind, speaking with reporters ahead of an appearance at a conference on autonomous vehicle systems, also touched on topics ranging from malfunctioning Takata airbag inflators to the agency’s long-standing five-star safety rating system for new vehicles. On Takata, he said NHTSA testing has found that 70 to 80 percent of its inflators that rupture, or explode, in laboratory testing come from vehicles from Florida. Takata and the NHTSA have said heat and humidity elevate the risk that inflators could explode. Rosekind also said the NHTSA will propose by fall a “revolutionary change” to the safety rating system that could include incentives to encourage making automatic braking and other safety systems standard equipment. (Reporting By Joe White; Editing by Christian Plumb)

Don’t miss the best Black Friday deal in town! Adopt a furry (or not so furry) friend for your family and receive a lifetime of happiness — for free! Adoption fees for ALL animals (ALL ages) will be waived (yep, that means free!*) at The Animal Foundation’s two adoption locations November 28–30! Waived adoption fees include spay/neuter, microchips, up-to-date vaccines and more. A $10 city license fee may apply. Click here to view all adoptable pets online! The Black Friday Blowout is valid November 28–30 at both adoption locations: Campus Adoption Center — 655 N. Mojave Road, Las Vegas (open daily, 11am-7pm) PetSmart Charities Everyday Adoption Center — 286 W. Lake Mead Parkway, Henderson (open daily, 9am-8pm; closing 7pm on Sundays) *Valid 11/28/14-11/30/14 at The Animal Foundation’s Campus Adoption Center and PetSmart Charities Adoption Center only. Adoption fees waived for all animals available for adoption. A $10 city license fee may apply. Adopters must complete adoption counseling process. Adoptions can and will be denied in the event the placement is not in the best interest of the pet. See an adoption counselor for details.

The approaching holiday season means more shopping, and as a result, more jobs in retail. For some retail employees, it will also mean higher wages. Target announced today that it would raise its minimum wage above $10 beginning in October, eventually reaching $11 per hour for all U.S. stores. The retailer has already promised to add 100,000 jobs in the coming months and has committed to raising minimum wage to $15 by 2020. Though many of these jobs may be temporary, they provide experience as well as a source of income, and knowing how major stores compare in terms of hourly pay could help you if you're in the market for a job. Using Fortune's list of the 20 retailers with the greatest number of employees in the U.S., CNBC Make It looked at average hourly wages for the position of "sales associate" — a common consumer-facing, non-managerial role — at each company. Wages were determined using data submitted by employees to jobs and salary platform Glassdoor. Each company on the list was also contacted to provide information or comment. Here's how the country's 20 biggest retail employers rank in terms of pay:

The dossiers were of US clients with offshore accounts with Credit Suisse and its subsidiary Clariden Leu, SonntagsZeitung reported, citing an official close to the dossier. Contacted by the weekly for a response, Credit Suisse refused to confirm the report. Last Tuesday, Credit Suisse acknowledged that it had warned American clients that they may be the target of a US tax probe, after it was ordered by Bern to provide the clients' details. A message to that effect also appears on Clariden Leu's website. Washington formally asked Bern to hand over data of Credit Suisse's US clients, as part of its probe into whether 11 Swiss banks helped US citizens to evade taxes. Under the procedure, the Swiss government would have to decide whether to agree to Washington's request. But agreements signed between the two countries required the bank to pass the information to the Swiss federal authorities. Any client affected would nevertheless have the right to appeal against Bern's decision. Credit Suisse's letter advised clients to hire lawyers as well as a contact persons in Switzerland to represent them, if required, at the Swiss tax office. In its third-quarter earnings report, Credit Suisse said it had set aside 295 million francs ($327 million) in provisions for the case. The widened US probe against Swiss banks follows a successful offensive against Switzerland's biggest bank UBS, which was forced to pay $780 million in fine and to send details of 4,000 clients to US tax authorities. The 11 Swiss banks currently being investigated include Julius Bär, Zürcher KantonalBank and Bank Wegelin. Switzerland has been under pressure since the recent financial crisis over its banking secrecy rules, as countries with depleted state coffers seek to claw back revenues from tax cheats.

Guest essay by Larry Kummer, from the Fabius Maximus website Summary: Climate alarmists have run wild with predictions about the “monster” “Godzilla” El Niño, a last throw of the dice before the COP-21 climate conference in Paris. Here is an example by Brad Plummer, with a little debunking. Gaia will have the last word about this El Niño. The latest forecasts of the major climate models suggest that it will disappoint activists. When did we “pathologize” weather? When did commonplace weather become abnormal? The debates over the past and future of anthropogenic climate change are of great importance (climate change is ubiquitous in history). But the news increasingly describes normal weather as a kind of plague, something to fear. For example see “El Niño, explained: A guide to the biggest weather story of 2015” by Brad Plummer at Vox. Plummer’s perspective is clearly stated by his tagline: “On the apocalypse beat, more or less.” His article is a masterpiece of propaganda, creating fear to advance his public policy agenda. A few excerpts, matched with reality, tell the tale. “Now it looks like we’re in for a monster. The El Niño currently brewing in the Pacific is shaping up to be one of the strongest ever recorded.” Plummer links to a page by the World Meteorological Organization, which gives different message. Their forecast is “placing this El Niño event among the three strongest previous events since 1950 (1972-73, 1982-83, 1997-98).” Plummer says “strongest ever recorded”, which suggests a long-term record. Unlike saying one of the four strongest since 1950, which is not alarming. “El Niño has already helped make 2015 the hottest year on record …” Plummer links to a NOAA page which says that September was a record, “beating the previous record set last year by 0.07°C (0.13°F) — and that the first nine months of 2015 were a record “surpassing the previous records of 2010 and 2014 by 0.12°C (0.21°F).” Neither of these tiny increments are statistically significant, especially given the uncertainty of temperature records assembled by each nation (many weather agencies are grossly underfunded). Alarmists ran this scam with the 2014 “record” high. NOAA said 2014 had a 48% probability of being the warmest of the past 135 years, meaning “more unlikely than likely” (NASA gave it a 38% probability). Also, neither of the two NASA-funded global satellite datasets shows record high temperatures in the lower troposphere (by Remote Sensing Systems and U AL-Huntsville). To put this in a larger context, the world has been warming over the entire 136 year-long temperature record — and “human activities caused more than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature from 1951 to 2010” (from AR5). It remains a point of debate if the world is warmer than during other warm spells during the past 3 thousand years. “The last truly massive El Niño appeared in 1997-’98 and ended up causing an estimated $35 billion in destruction and 23,000 deaths around the world. “ This is a tactic loved by activists of Left and Right, stating a large scary number without context. The world had an annual income (GDP) of $107 trillion in 2014. $35 billion is 0.03% of that — a tiny fraction of the destruction from an average winter. As for the deaths, influenza kills 250,000 to 500,000 every year. Rather than continue wading through this article, let’s ask a more interesting question. Why do activists write these things? After a 26 year-long campaign, few nations have adopted significant public policy measures to fight anthropogenic climate change. Key emerging nations, such as China, remain firmly opposed (willing to make big promises about future action, while rapidly building coal-burning power plants). The US public consistently ranks climate change at or near the bottom of public policy concerns. Now activists’ bold forecasts are coming due, such as warning of more and stronger hurricanes after Katrina (which proved false). In the past few years they’ve bombarded the US public with forecasts of certain doom based on misrepresenting the worst case scenario used in the IPCC’s AR5 as the “business as usual” scenario. And abandoned the IPCC as “too conservative” (e.g., about the methane apocalypse). Plus falsely blaming climate change for an absurdly wide range of events, from flooding of Pacific atolls, to terrorism. Now activists see the tide of world public opinion turning against them — as more imminent challenges appear, such as terrorism and the economy. So activists like Plummer have gone all in on the next El Niño. Last year they sounded the alarm about the “super monster” El Nino, which never came. This year they’ve sounded the alarm about the “monster” “Godzilla” El Niño. It’s their last chance to build support before the COP-21 Conference in Paris. Now Gaia appears to be disappointing them. Update on the El Niño Every month the IRI/CPC (Columbia U and NOAA) publishes a plume of forecasts about the temperature anomaly in the Pacific’s Niño3.4 region. The November plume shows the anomaly as 2.5°C in October. The average of dynamic models predicts 2.6°C in the Nov-Jan quarter, then a rapid fall. Statistical models predict 2.5°C in Nov-Jan, then a rapid fall. Neither suggests a long or “Godzilla” El Niño. Time will tell if these forecasts are accurate, too high, or too low. What if the “Godzilla” El Niño is a dud, in the sense of failing to meet the expectations of disaster created for the public? Will another blown forecast by activists make a difference? For More Information For more details about this cycle see Bob Tisdale’s Is the Current El Niño Stronger Than the One in 1997/98? Also see El Niño, The Media Star: Separating Hype from Probability from the Browning World Climate Bulletin. Advertisements Share this: Print Email Twitter Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit

The Blackhawks are in contention for Czech Republic free agent defenseman Jan Rutta, according to a source. Rutta, 26, has played in his native Czech Republic throughout his career. He has played in the country’s top division, Czech Extraliga, for Pirati Chomutov the past two seasons. Rutta is considered an offensive defenseman. He was second among defensemen in points in the Czech Extraliga this past season. He had 32 points, which included eight goals and 24 assists, in 46 games during the 2016-17 season. “He’s a steady defenseman with size, and he had strong finish of the season,” one NHL scout said. “He was very good in the playoffs and played his best at the Worlds.” Another NHL scout said, “He looks like a late bloomer. He became a big player the last couple of years. He’s a big guy, a right-handed shot who can skate for a big guy. He sees the ice well. He’s pretty good on the power play in the...

We just had a chance to speak to departing HP / webOS exec Jon Rubinstein about his time at Palm and HP, and what he plans to do down the road. Jon was already in Mexico taking what seems to be a much needed break from the mad dash that's been his life for the last four years or so. We touch on a wide range of topics, from Jon's thoughts on an open source webOS, his experience with four different CEOs, and his plans for the future (hint, he's not retiring). It's a pretty candid interview, so read on for the whole story. Is this something that's been in the works, or a recent decision? This has been in the works for a while - when we got acquired I promised Mark, Shane, and Todd that I would stick around for 12 to 24 months. Just before we launched the TouchPad, I told Todd that it was going to be time for me to move on after the launch. Todd asked me to stick around and help them with the webOS transition, and he didn't know it at the time, but the PSG getting spun out, whatever is going on with that. I really like Todd, so I told him I'd stick around and give him advice and help out. But now that everything is settled and we've figured out what's happening with everything and everybody — I've done what I said was going to do and it's time to move on. So this was the plan from the beginning? I mean, things didn't go as planned - was your agreement from the start to leave, that was always the plan? Yeah. That was always the plan. Look who knows? You can't ever predict the future. But the conversation Todd and I had, get the TouchPad out, webOS on the TouchPad, and at some time after that I'm going to move on, but we'll see what happens. It was never definitive or firm, but Todd was cool with that. "HP wasn't in good enough shape on its own to be able to support the effort." But it's not inconceivable that you might have stayed on if it went off without a hitch? Completely speculative. I have no idea. When I told Todd once the TouchPad went out that I didn't want to run the thing anymore — who knew if it was going to be a success or not a success. The path I was on predated that. That's why the transition to DeWitt was so quick. We'd been talking about it for months. It was decided before the TouchPad shipped. There were things that didn't work out the way everyone expected — can you talk about what caused the issues? I don't think it really matters at this point. It's old history at this point. You don't want to talk about Leo? Nah. We built an amazing OS in webOS. It's very advanced, it's where things are going. But we ran out of runway, and we ended up at HP and HP wasn't in good enough shape on its own to be able to support the effort. I had four CEOs! Mark acquired us, Cathie Lesjak took over as the interim CEO, then Leo, and now Meg. And it wasn't even that long ago you got acquired! I did this for 19 months. So what's next? You probably want to take time off... Not want to, that's what I'm doing. You going to Mexico? That's where you're calling right now. So you're having a margarita as we speak? Nah, it's too early in the day for a margarita. I just finished my workout. I'm gonna go for a swim, have a little lunch... But you're a creative guy, an ambitious guy — will you get back in this game at some point? Of course! I'm not retiring or anything. I've never really retired. I'm gonna take a little break for a while, take my time, figure out what I want to do next — I mean this has been a four and half year burn. What we accomplished in four and half years has been amazing. And I don't think people understand that — what we did accomplish during that time frame was amazing. You know, webOS got its early start about six months before I got to Palm. They were just getting going. It wasn't what webOS is today. It was something different. We evolved it along the way, but it was an enormous amount of work for a large group of people for many, many years. So four and a half years... I'm gonna take a break. "It was an enormous amount of work for a large group of people for many years." Wait, did I just hear a webOS alert tone in the background? Yeah, I just got a text message. So you're still using a webOS device? I use my Veer! You're still using your Veer!? Yeah - I keep telling everybody. You know, there are a lot of things you did that I thought were awesome, but I cannot understand your love of these tiny phones. Why do you like the Veer so much? You and I have different usage patterns. I carry a Veer and TouchPad. If I want to do big emails, and surf the web, I'd rather have TouchPad sized screen. But if I'm making phone calls and doing IMs, the Veer is perfect, and it takes up no space in my pocket. Except for you tech guys, every time I pull this out of my pocket people say, 'what's that!?'. So we're the ones with the problems? [Laughs] Look, one product doesn't fit all. That's why you have Priuses and Hummers. So you're going to keep using a webOS device? You're not going to get an iPhone or a Windows Phone? You tell me. When's the iPhone 5 coming out, and what's it going to do for me? Obviously, as the technology moves forward I'll have to move to something new. When the time comes I'll figure out what product I want to use. Q: You're not going to RIM? A: Canada is the wrong direction When you come back to work, do you think you'll go to this space again? Or has working in mobile exhausted you? No no, I think the future is mobile. Obviously there's going to be stuff that comes post mobile, there'll be a next wave. It could very well be home integration, but mobile's going to continue to be really important. But I have no idea what I'm going to do next. I haven't spent a minute thinking about it. So you're not going to go to RIM and fix them up? Uhh [long pause] you know, Canada is the wrong direction for me my friend. It's cold up there [laughs]. I went to college in upstate New York, and after six and a half years in upstate New York... never again. Yeah it doesn't seem like the kind of place you would enjoy. It brings to mind that scene from the movie about the Jamaican bobsled team... Cool Runnings? Yeah, when they get off the airplane, and they've never seen snow before? You're basically one of the bobsled guys. Exactly. How do you feel about an open source webOS? We were already on the path to open source Enyo, as a cross development platform. That was already in the plans, so I think it's a good thing. So you're happy it's not been killed, obviously. Of course. I put blood, sweat, and tears into this thing. And look, I think it had tremendous potential, if people put some real effort into it, I think you will see a resurgence of devices at some point. You think there'll be new webOS devices? Well yeah. I don't know from whom, but sure. There are a lot of companies that need an OS that can really call their own. You don't know of any companies right now do you? Nah, you're fishing! If you want to go fishing, come down here and we'll go out on the boat. I don't know if I want to hook a fish... I'm with you, I grew up in New York City... but when they sashimi it that night it's delicious.

A Facebook group has sparked online uproar in Thailand after ridiculing the placing of statues at dangerous road spots to ward off evil spirits, in a country where belief in the occult and supernatural is deeply held. The photo, which went viral this week, showed a man's foot standing on a row of zebra figurines at a busy road junction in Bangkok known locally as "Kong Roi Sop" -- the curve that claims 100 lives. Zebra statues are a common sight at locations where road fatalities occur under the belief that their stripes -- which remind people of pedestrian crossings -- will fend off the ghosts that many believe cause crashes. But the Thai founder of a Facebook group called "Fuckghosts", which has more than 200,000 likes and posted the picture, said he wanted to challenge those beliefs. "There are far too many superstitions or instances of people being besotted in Thailand and it annoys me," the man, who declined to give his name fearing reprisals, told Agence France Presse. "I wanted to show there are people out there who do not believe in superstition," he added. The photo, which he said was taken earlier this month, has been picked up and shared thousands of times on social media. "Show the middle finger... (to) ghosts", one Thai user named Thanakiet Thongchai wrote under the post in a message of support. "I do not understand why the heck we have these zebra statues?", asked another Facebook user. But other Thais were less than impressed by the image in a country where superstitious beliefs are deep rooted -- and stepping on something sacred is considered hugely disrespectful. "I hope that ghosts come to haunt you and stop you sleeping," one user wrote under the name "Sweetie November". "If you don't believe in superstitions why do you have to challenge it?", asked another using the name Wiriya Sodapattipon. Superstition and belief in ghosts is commonplace in Thailand, a nation still deeply influenced by pre-Buddhist animist beliefs. Drivers often wear amulets to protect themselves on the country's notoriously dangerous roads while leader of the ruling junta, Prayut Chan-O-Cha, last year accused his opponents of trying to wield black magic against him. The founder of the Facebook group said superstition caused real harm, with people preferring to put their faith in a statue than take their own safety precautions.

Hundreds of artefacts found at Little Carlton, including coins from 8th century, dress pins and Middle Saxon pottery The remains of an Anglo-Saxon island have been uncovered in Lincolnshire in a significant find that has yielded an unusually wide array of artefacts. The island, once home to a Middle Saxon settlement, was found at Little Carlton near Louth, Lincolnshire, by archaeologists from the University of Sheffield after a discovery by a metal detectorist. Graham Vickers came across a silver stylus, an ornate writing tool dating back to the 8th century, in a disturbed plough field. He reported his find and subsequently unearthed hundreds more artefacts, recording their placement with GPS, thus enabling archaeologists to build up a picture of the settlement below. The artefacts include another 20 styli, about 300 dress pins and a huge number of sceattas – coins from the 7th-8th centuries – as well as a unusual small lead tablet bearing the female Anglo-Saxon name “Cudberg”. Students from the university later found significant quantities of Middle Saxon pottery and butchered animal bone. It is thought that the site is a previously unknown monastic or trading centre, but researchers are still at an early stage of their investigations. Dr Hugh Willmott, from the university’s department of archaeology, said: “It’s clearly a very high-status Saxon site. It’s one of the most important sites of its kind in that part of the world. The quantity of finds that have come from the site is very unusual – it’s clearly not your everyday find.” He said it resembled another Lincolnshire site, Flixborough, uncovered in the late 1980s/early 90s. After the finds were reported, Willmott and doctoral student Pete Townend carried out targeted geophysical and magnetometry surveys along with 3D modelling to visualise the landscape on a large scale. The imagery showed that the island they had discovered was much more obvious than the land today, rising out of its lower surroundings. To complete the picture, the researchers raised the water level digitally to bring it back up to its early medieval height, based on the topography and geophysical survey. “It [the site] is enclosed between a basin and a ditch,” Willmott said. “It was a focal point in the Lincolnshire area, connected to the outside world through water courses.” Students from the university opened nine evaluation trenches at the site, which revealed a wealth of information about what life would have been like at the settlement. One area seems to have been for industrial working. Willmott praised Vickers for reporting his find to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, describing it as a “really nice collaboration between the general public and the university”.

I sum up my life with this paragraph: composition, writing, prose, poetry, girlfriend, collaborator, illness (schizo-affective disorder), my father-relationship, truth, love, death, life-nourishing work, inevitable suicide, answer to suicide = work, the work, a work, a process. A process of relieving the pain, of dodging the disease, one line, one note, one beat at a time. I began work on my debut album, Fredrick and the Golden Dawn, in the summer of 2006 and released it eight years later. Every morning I would wake at 5am, go to my studio and sit at my desk. There I fashioned melodies in strange time-signatures, like 13/8 for my song Last Days Of Harry Carey. Work on lyrics could take months or even years to complete, accompanied by research into the stories for my songs. With these songs I was creating an entire world, with its own history, its own logic, its own morality, a world far away from the chaotic deluge I found myself in on a daily basis. The music in my head provided an anchored focus in the midst of my mental illness. The song Ballade to St Dymphna is an example of how intricate I made my songs, in an attempt to free myself from my illness. This song took a huge amount of experimentation, probably more than any other song on the album. It’s not precisely typical of how I work, but there is no “typical” for me, really. For the lyrics, I researched old poetic forms. I came across the 13th-century French eight-line stanza ballade. The poem had a specific form, eight lines to a stanza, eight feet in a line, and a particularly intriguing rhyming scheme. In fact, it was believed, back then, that this poetic form had some type of magic to it associated with the number eight. I took the form and wrote my own lyrics in that style. I wanted to write about mental anguish and found St Dymphna, the patron saint of mental illness (who was Irish). So the song is addressing her. For me this whole exercise is medicinal: sometimes it feels like the more intricate my songs get, the further I get away from my illness. In my early 20s I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. This is the unhappy marriage of Bipolar depression and schizophrenia and has become a part of every process of my life ever since. While working on my album I sometimes would have to take long breaks as my illness worsened and I was hospitalised. I could be hospitalised for anything up to four months. I’ve been admitted to St Patrick’s University Hospital more than a dozen times over the last 12 years in a depressed and psychotic state and in all have spent over three years there. Action and reaction My songs are quite dark. For some reason I felt that only dark songs could contain the message I wanted to express. The album is in a way a bad reaction to something I ate, I mean emotionally. It’s a refusal to accept the place in which I found myself, a kind of revolt. This album is for those who want to reach outside somehow. I remember on my first stay in Special Care, the high security ward (about which I’ve written and recorded a 10-minute blues song called The Coming of Complete Night), I couldn’t do anything: sleep, socialise, watch TV, read, think or even speak. But working on my album helped me immensely: it provided a routine, a focus, gave me some confidence. I don’t think anyone ever makes this kind of album from a decision. You find yourself up against a wall and need the work to extract yourself from the state you’re in; it’s a psychic need or longing. Bipolar depression is an illness of extremities and you experience extreme lows and extreme highs. So there would be times when I was very productive, getting lots of the album done, but equally there would be long periods of time when I couldn’t do anything. In those times just to get out of bed or have a shower or eat would be a successful day for me. Medication and therapy are very necessary supports but it is the amazing people I have met and befriended who have been my greatest surprise and joy. From old friends and lovers who stood by me to the many brave people I met in St Pat’s, both fellow patients and staff, to the gifted musicians who have worked with me to perform my music. A while ago I showed my EP to singer/composer Julie Feeney. Julie has been an amazing presence in my musical life ever since, most recently singing with me on a duet called Aubade, which I wrote on a piano in the music therapy room in St Patrick’s. Julie is such a calming influence and gave me the confidence to believe in myself and my music, knowing the heights I had conquered to regain control of my sanity. Now I manage my illness well and have regained an even life where I can work on my music and perform. Music has definitely been the reason I made it through. Frederick and the Golden Dawn is availble now on iTunes. kevinnolan.info/

June 15-17 Weekend Actuals 1. Madagascar 3 (DreamWorks Anim/Paramount) Week 2 [4,263 Theaters] PG Friday $10M, Saturday $13.3M, Sunday $10.7M, Weekend $34.0M (-44%), Cume $119.0M 2. Prometheus (Fox) Week 2 [3,442 Theaters] R Friday $5.8M, Saturday $7.8M, Sunday $7.2M Weekend $20.7M (-59%), Cume $89.4M 3. Rock Of Ages (New Line/Warner Bros) NEW [3,470 Theaters] PG13 Friday $5.3M, Saturday $5.5M, Sunday $3.7M, Weekend $14.4M 4. That’s My Boy (Columbia/Sony) NEW [3,030 Theaters] R Friday $4.5M, Saturday $4.7M, Sunday $4.2M Weekend $13.5M 5. Snow White & The Huntsman (Universal) Week 3 [3,701 Theaters] PG13 Friday $4.1M, Saturday $5.3M, Sunday $3.9M, Weekend $13.3M(-76%), Cume $122.0M 6. Men in Black 3 (Columbia/Sony) Week 4 [3,135 Theaters] PG13 Friday $2.7M, Saturday $3.8M, Sunday $3.5M, Weekend $10M (-28%), Cume $152.7M 7. The Avengers (Marvel/Disney) Week 7 [2,582 Theaters] PG13 Friday $2.2M, Saturday $3.3M, Sunday $3.4M, Weekend $8.9M (-21%), Cume $586.8M 8. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Fox Searchlight) Week 7 [1,184 Theaters] PG13 Friday $625K, Saturday $957K, Sunday $693K, Weekend $2.3M (-30%), Cume $35.2M 9. Moonrise Kingdom (Focus Features) Week 4 [178 Theaters] PG13 Friday $612K, Saturday $921K, Sunday $704K Weekend $2.2M (+44%), Cume $6.8M 10. Battleship (Universal) Week 5 [942 Theaters] PG13 Friday $334K, Saturday $480K, Sunday $433K, Weekend $1.2M (-45%), Cume $62.2M SATURDAY PM, 3RD UPDATE: My sources say everything is staying pretty much as forecast, with the only question whether anything will get a bump from Father’s Day. Summer 2012 is clearly suffering a serious case of seasickness due to the constant up and down, up and down, motion of the North American box office. After the tsunami that was Marvel’s The Avengers, five major studio movies disappointed. “One movie this summer has made any money. And a number have lost a fortune,” one studio mogul maintains to me. Then DreamWorks Animation’s Madagascar 3 and Fox’s Prometheus performed better than expected and are still easily holding #1 and #2 their second weekends with $35M (-42%) and $21M (-59%) respectively. (Though the Ridley Scott scifi thriller dropped a whopping -73% Friday to Friday because of all those gaping plot holes.) Contrast that with this weekend’s newcomers which each should have earned over $20M because of their star power. But New Line/Warner Bros’ Rock Of Ages (3,470 theaters) fell to earth with a thud. Which Hollywood expected because the pic had been tracking poorly for weeks (and even went down at one point week to week). The studio felt the 1980s period piece was a hard sell to younger moviegoers. I suspect the problem was casting. Russell Brand has been repellant to moviegoers, while Tom Cruise as iconic rocker proved just too incredulous for audiences. The PG-13 musical is looking to open to only $15M this weekend after taking in just $5.3M Friday and $5.4M Saturday. Given that the pic was based on the Broadway warbler, it did worse than the studio expected and far worse than Mamma Mia which with the same pedigree opened to $27M. Warner Bros was holding out hope for this $75M-budget pic, thinking that a good CinemaScore could generate great word of mouth and therefore great legs for the film. It didn’t materialize: audiences only gave Rock Of Ages a mediocre ‘B’. There’s just no way to save this s(t)inker with hack director Adam Shankman at the helm: in fact, weekend gross may fall below $15M by Monday. Columbia/Sony’s That’s My Boy (3,030 theaters) starring Adam Sandler also was bottoming. It will hurt further that audiences only gave it a ‘B-‘ CinemaScore. (“But ‘B’s with everybody under 50,” a Sony exec emails me.) Hollywood didn’t expect Sandler to attract his usual family friendly audience with an ‘R’ rating. But an actor who reliably takes in $30M to $40M every opening weekend and then dropping to $13M after grossing only $4.5M Friday and $4.8M Saturday can’t go unchastized. Especially if he hurt his brand with his most recent pic, that execrable flop Jack & Jill. (How much you wanna bet Andy Samberg is rethinking that SNL exit now?) No one will be surprised if weekend gross falls below $13M by Monday. I’m working on the autopsy reports. Overall moviegoing this weekend may be as dismal as $125M, which is -15% even compared to last year when Green Lantern bombed. Here are the Top Ten based on weekend estimates: 1. Madagascar 3 (DreamWorks Anim/Paramount) Week 2 [4,263 Theaters] PG Friday $9.9M, Saturday $13.3M, Weekend $35.0M (-42%), Cume $120.0M 2. Prometheus (Fox) Week 2 [3,442 Theaters] R Friday $5.8M, Saturday $8.0M, Weekend $21.0M (-59%), Cume $89.6M 3. Rock Of Ages (New Line/Warner Bros) NEW [3,470 Theaters] PG13 Friday $5.3M, Saturday $5.4M, Weekend $15.0M 4. That’s My Boy (Columbia/Sony) NEW [3,030 Theaters] R Friday $4.5M, Saturday $4.7M, Weekend $13.0M 5. Snow White & The Huntsman (Universal) Week 3 [3,701 Theaters] PG13 Friday $4.0M, Saturday $4.8M, Weekend $13.0M, Cume $121.6M 6. Men In Black 3 (Columbia/Sony) Week 4 [3,135 Theaters] PG13 Friday $2.7M, Saturday $3.7M, Weekend $9.8M, Cume $152.4M 7. The Avengers (Marvel/Disney) Week 7 [2,582 Theaters] PG13 Friday $2.2M, Saturday $3.2M, Weekend $8.3M, Cume $586.2M 8. Best Exotic Marigold (Fox Searchlight) Week 7 [1,184 Theaters] PG13 Friday $625K, Saturday $975K, Weekend $2.3M, Cume $36.2M 9. Moonrise Kingdom (Focus Features) Week 4 [178 Theaters] PG13 Friday $611K, Saturday #975K, Weekend $2.3M, Cume $6.9M 10. What To Expect (Lionsgate) Week 5 [1,216 Theaters] PG13 Friday $450K, Saturday $525K, Weekend $1.3M, Cume $38.7M

FROM dodgy speed dealers and sex parties, to weird food habits and creepy collections. These have got to be Brisbane’s housemates from hell. Anyone who has lived in a share house knows how annoying flatmates can be, whether they’re eating your food or playing Tetris with the bin. But there are some housemate stories that make squabbles over the electricity bill feel like child’s play. It seems Brisbane is home to some of these sketchy characters, with frustrated local flatmates sharing their eyebrow-raising run-ins on a Brisbane Reddit thread. Jason slams Cat and Lawson's BB relationship 0:33 Jason sends a message to the housemates saying he thinks it's horrible that Jason is cheating on his girlfriend with Cat in the Big Brother House. Courtesy Channel Nine Jason slams Cat and Lawson's BB relationship On the weirder end of the spectrum, one housemate posted about how they were genuinely creeped out by their “vegan roommate that was really socially awkward.” “One day I came home to find a dead lizard on the kitchen counter,” the housemate posted. “I asked why and he said ‘I thought you might like it’ in a serious way as if I had a collection of dead reptiles. No idea what he was thinking.” DO YOU HAVE ANY HOUSEMATE FROM HELL HORROR STORY? SHARE IT WITH US BY POSTING IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW Another Brisbane man moved into a share house with two other guys only to find one of them had a big secret – a huge stash of speed. “I’d been living there three days when one of them called me into his room to show me something,” they posted. “He opened his wardrobe to reveal bricks of speed, stacked at least a 1m high. “I pretended to be cool with it and then moved out that very night after they’d gone to bed.” Roommate code dictates your personal space is off limits. But this Brisbane Redditor’s horror housemates clearly didn’t get the memo. They held sex parties in his room. “I shared a house with a bunch of people who all worked at a record company,” the post said. “They’d take heaps of drugs and have sex parties all night long. I wasn’t allowed to join in. “I went on holidays…and came home to six guys living in my house. “Apparently they’d been using my bedroom as a sex den and I found a bunch of used condoms and girl’s underwear under my bed.” media_camera A Redditor arrived home only to discover a housemate had sold the home’s Hills Hoist to get rent money. Another housemate was so desperate for rent money they sold their home’s “Hills Hoist clothesline in the classifieds” while their roommates were at university. While in another post a Redditor shared a story about a surprise left by a former disgruntled flatmate who had moved out. “The first thing I’m greeted with is a clear indication of just how disgruntled he was,” the post said. “There was a big discoloured stain down the side of the wall. “The dude had pissed in the corner of the room and the summer heat had cooked it into the wall and timber floorboards. “No amount of scrubbing, steaming, vinegar or sugar soap could get the smell out.” A Brisbane man also shared a story about a housemate who roasted a chicken, but “his friends came over and dragged him out to go drinking just as he switched the oven off. “A week later, he remembered the chicken.” And while we’re on the subject of weird food practices, another Redditor had a “bloke that would pull up the floor boards to store rubbish underneath.” “Actual trash and food scraps,” the post read. “We had a fly infestation that was so bad the realo (sic) had to get someone in. “There was that much stuff under there that they wouldn’t sit flat on the floor any more, he filled the whole cavity.”

Everyone at the apartment of Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer who argued Edith Windsor’s successful challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, exploded in screams and sobs when the ruling came down. Kaplan called her mother and said, “Total victory, Mom: it couldn’t be better.” Windsor said, “I wanna go to Stonewall right now!” Then she called a friend and said, “Please get married right away!” Update: Just after 11 A.M., the President called. Kaplan picked up the phone and gave it to Windsor. “Hello, who am I talking to?” Windsor said. “Oh, Barack Obama? I wanted to thank you. I think your coming out for us made such a difference throughout the country.” [#image: /photos/590952a06552fa0be682c2d0] See a slide show of important moments from Edith Windsor’s life, as well as from her marriage with Thea Spyer, who died in 2009. Photographs, of Edith Windsor and Roberta Kaplan, by Ariel Levy. [#image: /photos/5909519dc14b3c606c1038ea]Read our full coverage of gay marriage before the Supreme Court.

Four Florida high school football players are being called heroes after lifting a truck to help save a woman’s life, according to WESH. >>Psychologists discover why we call people wrong names Susan Gentry pushed her daughter out of the way right before the truck ran over her in an Orlando crosswalk, WESH reported. "The tire was on her chest and was suffocating her," Mark Gentry, her husband, told WESH. Luckily for them, four Bishop Moore High School football players, who are also on the weightlifting team, were nearby. The students helped lift the truck and pull Susan out, WESH reported. >>Cash me outside: Teen accused of misusing logo "Right place at the right time," Mario Hernandez, one of the players, told WESH. "There’s a reason for everything." Susan is out of the trauma unit but has a fractured pelvis and several bruised ribs, according to WESH. Read more at WESH. >>Download our PostNOW app to get the latest Breaking News

A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Friday ruled [Opinion, PDF] that the Arizona Department of Corrections‘ (ADC) [official website] outgoing mail policy calling for a “page-by-page content review” of inmates’ confidential outgoing legal mail violated the First and Sixth Amendments of the US Constitution. In reaching this conclusion, the panel applied Nordstrom I standard for Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel, which states: “The right to counsel is violated when 1) ‘the government deliberately interferes with the confidential relationship between a criminal defendant and defense counsel’ and 2) the interference ‘substantially prejudices the criminal defendant.'” The panel concluded: “We have recognized a defendant’s ‘ability to communicate candidly and confidentially’ with defense counsel as ‘essential to his defense’ and ‘nearly sacrosanct’ … Thus, prison officials may not read an inmate’s ‘outgoing attorney-client correspondence.'” However, the panel added that prison officials can “inspect” an inmate’s outgoing mail, in his presence, to ensure that it does not contain such items as a map of the prison yard, details of guards’ shift changes, escape plans, or contraband. As to the First Amendment, the panel applied the four-factor Turner tests which asks: (1) whether there is “a valid, rational connection between the prison regulation and the legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it”; (2) “whether there are alternative means of exercising the right that remain open to prison inmates”; (3) what “impact accommodation of the asserted constitutional right will have on guards and other inmates, and on the allocation of prison resources generally”; and (4) whether there is an “absence of ready alternatives.” The panel concluded that the outgoing legal mail policy failed the four-part test, and thus violated the defendant Scott Nordstrom’s First Amendment rights “due to the more limited threat that outgoing mail poses to prison security,” ADC’s inability to make a sufficient showing that such mail poses a threat, and because “there are readily available, less restrictive alternatives” to ADC’s policy. The case has been remanded back to the lower court. Prisoner issues have been prominent across the world. In January, the UK Ministry of Justice released figures demonstrating a record number of suicides and other deaths [JURIST report] in prisons in England and Wales in 2016. Many experts and politicians have attributed the findings to overcrowding and a cut in funding and staffing. Following a clemency order issued by President Pierre Nkurunziza, Burundi’s government began releasing [JURIST report] scores of prisoner earlier in January. The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii (ACLU of Hawaii) [Advocacy website] filed a complaint [JURIST report] with the US Department of Justice [official website] in January, stating that overcrowding in the state correctional facilities is resulting in violations of the prisoners’ Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

On Belief in Us Well there you are. Sitting there finally having that moment. Your eyes have somehow been opened quickly over a really long time to the fact that you don’t believe in God anymore. The world is not the same anymore. It’s liberating, exciting and relieving but scary and lonely at first. You’re afraid of how you’ll come to terms with your new world view. What if someone asks you about your beliefs and where you’re at? What will you say? Will you be honest or lie forever just to avoid the arguments, the fights and the awkwardness. If you tell family, your parents, siblings…will they talk about you behind your back and look at you differently? What will life be like? It’s a scary thing and it’s something that most people who come to this revelation in their life have to struggle with. It’s a point when you realize that people who are closest to you are exposed for their limited world view and their restricted views on life. If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’ve gone through it or are hoping you don’t have to. If you do, you hope it will go as well as possible. It’s not easy, at least it wasn’t for me. It still isn’t. Lengthy arguments over the phone (thankfully, since I live far from them right now), some ending in a contest for who could yell the loudest. If you’d had asked me 10 years ago if I’d ever go through this or leave my belief in God behind me, I’d have laughed at you. When you finally get to experience what it’s like to have people close to you actually say out loud that they are offended by something that you believe about life now. It hurts. It feels like a betrayal of their love. When the cover gets pulled back and the conditions of their love are exposed, it is a feeling that is near impossible to describe. No matter how well intentioned the expressions of their concern and love are, our opinions on what is safe ground to agree or disagree with someone are now on different wave lengths. I’m learning to deal with the feelings that brought to the surface. It will take time and there are certain conversations I will now never have with them. For my own well-being, I have to stay away from those talks. Religion is a fickle thing. I just googled the definition of that word to make sure it was the best choice and it absolutely is. Reassurance, constant reminders of why you believe, surrounding yourself with others who will confirm those beliefs. Religion is entrenched in human societies and culture like nothing else. Drinking water and breathing air come close. Maybe. If you ask me, it’s an ancient set of beliefs that differs based on what continent or country you were born in. Many similarities and many differences. All of them think they’re the ones that are right. Everyone else, sorry, you’re going to burn in the brimstone of hell forever. Ok Buddhism, you get a pass on this one, you’re more of a set of guidelines for life. I’m treading into personal opinion territory but when we have the access to information that we have in this day and age, how do you not open your eyes to the world and all the conflict, killing, despair and sadness going on and realize we would be so much better off if we came together as a species living on this planet. Instead of creating lines to separate groups of us in ways that cause misery. If you’re going through the struggle of leaving your faith behind you right now, believe in yourself. Believe that you are entering a future that will put the human race in a better place. Don’t allow anyone to make you believe for even a moment that you are spiritually lost or that there is something wrong with you. If it create happiness in your life and makes you feel like you’ve found your purpose, stay on that road. There is great joy, satisfaction and connection in the path you’ve chosen. Whether anyone else in your life believes that is up to them.

A common problem for newer Heathens, and even some of the more experienced members of our community, is determining exactly what the Heathen holiday calendar looks like. Even a brief dive into Google will reveal a number of different calendars and holy days. The AFA has eight holy days based on the Wiccan wheel of the year. The Troth has TWENTY TWO annual celebrations if you include the various ‘Days of Remembrance’. Combined with current scholarly disputes over dates and practices, it’s enough to leave a newcomer completely baffled! A lot of Heathens are likely familiar with the calendar on the left, or one pretty similar to it. An eight spoked ‘Wheel of the Year’ fixed upon the solstices and equinoxes. Now, this calendar isn’t WRONG. You’re not a ‘bad Heathen’ if you use it, however it is a thoroughly modern invention. It was created as a response to the Wiccan annual calendar in 1975 by Steven McNallen. If you were to go back in time and show this calendar to a Viking Era worshiper of Odin, they would have no idea what you were talking about. The ancient Norse didn’t base their year on the solstices and equinoxes, and a number of these holidays are actually Christian celebrations with a Heathen veneer on them. For example; Walpugisnacht is the celebration of a Christian Saint, not a Heathen festival. Again, this is not to say that those who use this calendar are somehow wrong, or bad, just that the calendar itself has nothing at all to do with any ancient Heathen traditions. So What Calendar Did the Ancient Norse Pagans Use? More easily asked than answered, unfortunately. The Norse/Germanic cultures were both wide spread and long lived. A number of different kinds of calendars were used in different times and places, most being very localized. Tacitus wrote that the Germanic peoples utilized a lunar calendar, and had a concept of three major seasons. Unfortunately, if you’re looking that far back in history, that’s about all we know. However, we do have records of at least one major ‘Viking Era’ calendar that was created before the conversion of Iceland. The Old Icelandic Calendar The old Icelandic Calendar was created in conjunction with the first Alþingi (Eng: Allthing) in Iceland, around the year 930 CE. Not only did they require a uniform calendar in order to schedule the Allthing itself, they had had significant contact with Christians and the Julian Calendar by this time. A new way of reckoning the year was needed in order to organize internal as well as external politics and trade. The year was broken up into twelve identical months of thirty days a piece, divided into a Summer and a Winter season. Half way through the year is an extra period of four days, bringing the total up to 364 days a year. In order to account for leap years, an extra ‘leap WEEK’ is added every five to six of our modern Gregorian years. Interestingly, every month begins on the same day of the week every year. Historical Heathen Holidays Some of the older holy days are a bit shrouded in mystery due to a lack of contemporary reporting. Others are unclear exactly when they started or how far back in history their origins might be. That said, below are some of most commonly acknowledged and well recorded Heathen Holy Days. I’ve provided the dates for 2016 as well as as much historical information and context as possible. (The name of the month is given, then the day of the week on which it begins, then the specific date for 2016.) Mörsugr (Wed) 23 December (2015) Þorri (Fri) 22 January (2016) Þorrablot is traditionally celebrated on the first day of this month. This holiday originated in 1873 as part of an early Icelandic revival, but it is based in the Lore and now has about 150 years of tradition backing it. The name comes from the Orkneyinga Saga where a Norwegian king named Þorri was said to have a blót held in his honor at mid-winter. The modern holiday is often celebrated by an evening of feasting and reciting poetry among friends and family. Góa (Sun) 21 February Góublót (celebrated on the first day of Góa) is likely a much older holiday, as references are made in the Lore to sacrifices being made around this time of year. There are also some older references to a folk tradition of weather forcasting on this day. (Not unlike the modern American concept of Groundhog’s Day). That said, the modern holiday shares a common origin point with Þorrablot. Named for Gói, the daughter of King Þorri, it is also known as “Wife’s Day”. Husbands are expected to be extra appreciative and attentive to their wives and the various important women in their lives. Something akin to an amalgamation of Mother’s day and Valentine’s day. Multiple Sagas claim that Góa was the month in which the Disablót (a sacrifice made in honor of the many Giantesses, Goddesses, Landweights, and female ancestors.) was held. Considering the time overlap and the similar focus on the feminine, it seems likely that these two celebrations are related in origin. That being said, there is some slighty contention regarding the date when the Disablót was held, which we’ll mention below. Einmánuðr (Tue) 22 March According to some sources, Dísablót MIGHT have fallen here. For more on Dísablót, scroll down past the calendar. Harpa (Thu) 21 April Sigrblót is one of the three major yearly sacrifices mentioned in the Ynglinga Saga. The first day of Harpa marks the beginning of the Summer Season. All we know about the ancient traditions regarding this day is that it was a day of sacrifice, associated with ‘victory’. In modern times, this sacrifice has become less about ‘victory in battle’ and more about ‘victory in life’, celebrating the end of the long winter with offerings given to Freyr and Freyja. Skerpla (Sat) 21 May Sólmánuðr (Mon) 20 June Mid-Summer is less a distinct holiday and more wide collection of localized folk traditions. Celebrations of fertility, nature, and music are common throughout many Scandinavian cultures at this time of year, but the specifics vary depending on exactly where you are. In Sweden it’s not uncommon to see people dressing up in more traditional clothing and playing folk music. In Iceland the day is far less flamboyant, though there are some interesting folk traditions regarding the alfar on this night. Unlike most of the other days listed here, this holiday is often more about a celebration of life than any kind of specific ritual practice. Sumarauki (Wed) 20 July The four day “filler” month Heyannir (Sun) 24 July Tvímánuðr (Tue) 23 August Haustmánuðr (Thu) 22 September Gormánuðr (Sat) 22 October Alfarblót is on the first day of winter, and is another one of the three great sacrifices mentioned in the Ynglinga Saga. Again associated with Freyr and Freyja, Alfarblót was essentially a harvest festival. Celebrating the last crop of the year with a feast, the Heathens of the Viking Era would prepare themselves for the leaner winter months. Alfarblót was unique among the ancient holy days in that it was not a communal celebration. Apparently lead by the women of the house, it was said to be a private, familiar affair. In Austrfararvísur, one Norwegian skald describes being turned away from every homestead he encountered one night near the onset of winter. Each home refused him entry (most unusual given the cultures usual focus on Hospitality) and claimed that the night was sacred and no guests were to be allowed. According to Víga-Glúms saga this was the time for Disablót. That being said, Víga-Glúms saga is the only source claiming this date, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Ýlir (Mon) 21 November Jól (Often anglicized “Yule”) is thought to be the third major annual sacrifice mentioned in the Ynglinga Saga. Closely associated with Odin and the Wild Hunt, it’s the origin of many of our modern Christmas traditions. Decorating the Yule log, the Yule goat, caroling, and decorating the hall with holly, all were traditions carried over through the conversion from the older traditions. As to when Jól was actually celebrated, that’s a matter of debate. What we know is that King Haakon of Norway is said to have been the one responsible for changing the traditional date of Jól to coincide with Christmas. While there are no definitive records, contextual evidence from the rest of the calendar would seem to imply that the celebration likely occurred on the first day of Ýlir. (As all of the other holidays coincide with the first day of an Icelandic month) Mörsugr (Wed) 21 December The Rogue Holiday! You may have noticed that one Holiday was listed twice and left rather vague. Dísablót is attested to in a number of places in the Lore, but while the descriptions of the celebrations are relatively consistent, the timing is not. Depending on the source, it either occurred at the beginning of winter or at the very end. The most technically correct answer to this issue is that it was BOTH. In different times and places, Dísablót was celebrated at various parts of the year. Some older runic calendars mark it as the first day of winter, but by the time of the Icelandic Allthing it had likely moved. The modern festival of ‘Disting’ in Sweden is a current incarnation of this much older holy day; it’s currently celebrated in February and has been for hundreds of years. When taken in hand with the fact that Alfablót is specifically said to occur at the onset of winter, it would seem that Dísablót likely occurred sometime in Góa or Einmánuðr. What we DO know about this holiday is that it was a celebration of the female spirits and ancestors, called the disir. The Hervarar Saga suggests that this particular blót was a public affair and apparently lead by women. (The potential connections to Góublót should be becoming slightly more obvious by this point.) Regardless of the time of year however, we know that this communal holiday was centered around sacrifice and ancestor veneration. So while some Heathens may take different views on when it should be celebrated, the context of the celebration remains much the same from group to group. Conclusion If you’re a big fan of the ‘Wheel of the Year’ model, and that’s what you and your local group use, so be it. This is not my attempt to bag on other Heathens and degrade their own personal practices. What this is is a guide to the most well preserved Heathen calendar, and the holidays it records. It’s meant to be a resource for newer Heathens who may be confused by the vast array of different organization’s calendars, or the history behind some of the holidays they may have read about. For those who want a nice, memorable guide to the calendar described here, check out our graphic presentation!

Helen Mirren: Sexually jealous women jurors think rape victims are asking for it Dame Helen Mirren was accused by the Solicitor General of making ignorant, absurd and dangerous comments yesterday after speaking out again about rape prosecutions. In an interview, the 63-year-old Oscar-winning actress said that in such cases female jurors are deliberately selected by defence barristers because 'women go against women'. She suggested that women jurors are less likely to convict a rapist since they tend to think the victim was 'asking for it'. Dame Helen: 'Women on a rape jury would say the victim asked for it' Her comments, months after she declared that cases where women are raped after willingly going to bed with a man should not come to court, horrified Solicitor General Vera Baird. She said Dame Helen had made false assumptions about how juries are selected, and warned that her words could deter rape victims from reporting their ordeals. Interviewed by the Sunday Times, Dame Helen said that in a rape case, the defence team 'would select as many women as they could for the jury, because women go against women. 'Whether in a deep-seated animalistic way, going back billions of years, or from a sense of tribal jealousy or just antagonism, I don't know. Criticism: Solicitor General Vera Baird 'But other women on a rape case would say she was asking for it. The only reason I can think of is that they're sexually jealous.' Dame Helen, who won her Oscar for her portrayal of the Queen, has previously said she was date-raped twice herself when she was young but did not report the attacks because 'you couldn't do that in those days'. Yesterday Vera Baird QC pointed out that juries are selected at random and neither defence nor prosecution has the power to handpick a jury based on their suitability for the trial. Mrs Baird, who has long fought for the rights of rape victims, said: 'This is just such an ignorant thing to say, to suggest that the defence or prosecution have any involvement in the selection of a jury. 'It's just absurd. First of all, it's completely factually incorrect. It shows an absolute lack of knowledge about the way the criminal justice system works. 'I do not know what she is talking about, women hating women. 'This is a vast generalisation based on nothing, but unfortunately it is likely to have a deterrent effect. 'It's such a shame that a person who has a high profile feels qualified and able to put forward this nonsense. It's capable of being quite dangerous because someone in that position saying that sort of thing, suggesting that she knows more than she actually does. 'It's hard enough for victims who often feel guilt and shame to come forward in the first place. But to put forward this false idea that some covert conspiracy exists in the criminal justice system is very ignorant and totally and utterly wrong.' In September Dame Helen told GQ magazine that if a woman voluntarily ended up in a man's bedroom, took her clothes off and engaged in sexual activity, she still had the right to say 'no' at the last second. If the man ignored her, she said, that was rape. But she continued: 'I don't think she can have that man into court under those circumstances.'

Securing big data in the IoT age: Why dynamic key management is key McDonald's sold its 1 billionth hamburger in 1963. The company's signage used to keep track in increments of 5 billion. It sold the 1 trillionth in 1993 and switched to the "Billions and Billions Served" slogan. Now it doesn't mention the number sold anymore. Sounds a lot like the growth of data storage. In 1987, a megabyte of hard disk storage cost $15. Now it costs 3 cents per gigabyte, and manufacturers ship 7 exabytes a year. This has driven the phenomenal growth of big data and the Internet of Things (IoT). Soon there will be billions and billions and even trillions of devices connected to the Internet, tracking everything. Including exactly where you are. Which is no big deal: We've been tracking your food's physical movement through restaurants for years. Gartner Market Guide for Data Masking GET REPORT Big data and IoT security challenges How will the security industry respond to this tremendous growth in the storage of personally identifiable information (PII), especially protected health information (PHI)? Laws exist to protect us from breaches and federal agencies levy large fines, but we still read about breaches on a monthly, if not weekly, basis. I myself have been hit by the recent Anthem and OPM data breaches. Are we going to be able to keep exabytes of PII and PHI data secure? Billions and billions of encryption keys served The way to protect sensitive data is via encryption, and the way to keep encryption granular is to use unique keys. The more people who have access to a particular encryption key, the greater the possibility data can be breached. If we serve more keys, then fewer people have access to each individual key. Which is what we want if we are to boost security. So if we're protecting exabytes of data, and this is growing rapidly, it seems logical that the number of keys we'll need, maybe not this instant but someday soon enough, will be in the billions. Static key managers top out in the single-digit millions. To seriously consider protecting big data and IoT sources, we need dynamic key servers. [ Webinar: Ensure Privacy Protection Through Your Digital Transformation ] Static key servers, explained A static key server, as its name implies, first generates one key for an identity pattern and then stores this key for future use. The key’s value does not change over time. To implement key rotation, key servers usually append some metadata to the identity—for example, the date or rotation group number—thus creating a new identity for a new key. To access a key, a user first authenticates and then requests the key associated with an identity. If authorized, the key server retrieves the existing key and provides it to the user. Static key servers work well when the number of keys required over a system’s lifetime is in the low millions. As mentioned earlier, this capacity is more than sufficient for data-at-rest scenarios. Consider protecting every spindle of a 10 petabyte disk array: using four terrabyte drives at RAID 5 (20% redundancy) requires 3,215 drives. Rotating keys once a month requires 375,000 keys over the course of ten years. This is easily supported by static key servers with storage limits of 1 or 2 million keys. In this corner: Mr. Dynamic A dynamic key server also generates a key for an identity pattern, but it does not store that key. Access to a key works the same way as with a static key server, except the key is generated again for subsequent retrieval. A dynamic key server depends on a functional derivation per identity for a key: If the same identity is presented multiple times, the same key will be generated. Continuing further, a dynamic key server supports automatic key rotation by appending a time to the identity. If rotation is defined for a particular key, the dynamic server will automatically calculate at what time to deliver what key. There is no need for the application or user to keep track of what rotation is needed for a particular use case. In this way, a dynamic key server allows more automation. Example: Why securing mail with static key servers is difficult Do you remember the release of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) in the early '90s? PGP was created and given away for free by Phil Zimmermann in response to federal intentions to require back doors in secure communications equipment. PGP uses public-private key pairs to prevent accidental disclosure of an encrypted communication. If a message is sent to three recipients, it is encrypted three different times and sent to three different destinations. That way each message may be decrypted only via the private key of the intended recipient. This blocks disclosure if a message arrives in the custody of an unintended recipient. While revolutionary at its introduction, this scheme did not scale well with the growth of email. Imagine an email distributed to a hundred, a thousand, or even more recipients. Encrypting a unique copy of the message using the public key of each recipient places a tremendous computation, security, and storage burden on the email system, especially with static key management. Now let’s consider an alternative scenario where the sender and the recipient list are the key identities when generating a message encryption key. A message sent from Alice to Bob and Chris would use a different key than one sent from Alice to just Chris. We now may use symmetric keys, since Bob would not be authorized to receive a key for a message where he is not a recipient. Using this scheme, the email system can send the same message to multiple recipients. And each recipient decrypts the message with the same symmetric key. We prevent accidental disclosure by simply not providing the decryption key to users who are not message recipients. This scheme, which does scale well, is know as identity-based encryption. Using symmetric keys solves the scaling problem for the email system but not the limits of a static key server. For this scenario to work in practice, we must instead use a dynamic key server. Consider a user who sends a hundred emails a day. Suppose 80% of these emails are replies, while 20% are new messages. This implies that one user generates about 20 unique new recipient lists per day. Thus, a single user generates 100 unique identity patterns per workweek. A one-week rotation policy results in 5,200 unique keys per year. Multiply this by 500 mailboxes, and we quickly exhaust the 2 million-key limit of most static key servers. This example shows why dynamic key servers are more useful for high-volume data protection applications. Know what key server is best for your application Now, I'm not saying that static key managers are useless. Quite the contrary; for some applications, such as data-at-rest protection of hard disk farms, they're perfectly fine. But if your organization either depends on, is starting to depend on, or will depend on a big data or IoT project, carefully weigh the risks of not using a dynamic key server. Limiting the number of keys in the system because the key server can't handle enough is too risky. If you don't believe me, wait until you read about the upcoming data breach in next week's paper. [ Partner resource: Take Security Journey's first two white belt modules for free ]

Over the last few months Fox has slowly been pulling its shows from Netflix. It started with popular shows such as “Bob’s Burgers” and has continued. Now in August we will see even more Fox shows leave Netflix including the remaining Fox-owned seasons of “American Dad.” This all seems to be caused by Fox’s new deal with Hulu, which they are part owners of. Recently Fox announced it would be added 3,000 more episodes to Hulu including many shows that are currently on Netflix such as “American Dad.” There are still many questions including what about Fox-owned shows such as “Bones” that are currently still on Netflix and have not had any date set for them to leave the streaming service. What we do know is that at some point this year they will be on Hulu. So what are your options now if you are a Fox fan? There is, of course, Hulu because many of these shows will be moving to Hulu soon; however, if you don’t want to subscribe to Hulu the following are a few options. Fox Apps Fox has apps on many popular streaming services. You won’t get a ton of content, but it does offer a small selection of Fox shows for free. To find the Fox Now apps, just search your app store. (More shows are available if you have a cable login.) Season Pass If you only want one or two Fox shows, the least expensive way to get them is a season pass from iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, or one of many other services out there. Live TV If you want to watch Fox live the best way is with an antenna. About 90% of Americans can get Fox 100% free over the air. Not sure if you get Fox where you live? Go to AntennaRecommendations.com and enter your address to see what you can get. If you add a DVR to your antenna, you can quickly build up a large catalog of 100% free Fox shows. Can’t get Fox over the air? If you cannot get Fox for free over the air we have good news for you. Fox is streamed for free on services such as Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and DIRECTV NOW. Not sure if they offer it in your area? Visit their sites to see if you can find out if they have Fox in your area. Not only will you get a live feed of Fox in many areas, all of these services offer on-demand access to many Fox shows. Hopefully that helps you find the shows you want now that Fox shows are leaving Netflix. Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news, tips, and reviews. Need cord cutting tech support? Join our new Cord Cutting Tech Support Facebook Group for help.

The mind-numbing Case-Shiller regional charts below are presented without too much comment. The visual says it all. Bottom line: Q: If 2006/07 was the peak of the largest housing bubble in history with affordability never better vis a’ vis exotic loans; easy availability of credit; unemployment in the 4%’s; the total workforce at record highs; and growing wages, then what do you call “now” with house prices at or above 2006 levels; worse affordability; tighter credit; higher unemployment; a weakening total workforce; and shrinking wages? A: Whatever you call it, it’s a greater thing than the Bubble 1.0 peak. 1) Funny (and Demented) Seattle area Realtor anecdote regarding the potential for another housing Bubble: “House prices can’t be in a bubble because they are only 10% greater than the 2006 peak, meaning growth of only 1% per year since 2006. And 1% per year is not the Bubble type gains we saw back in the mid-2000’s”. DOH! How do you argue with that? You don’t, you just turn the other cheek and pound a drink. 2) Case-Shiller’s most Bubblicious Regions Bottom line: If these key housing markets hit a wall they will take the rest of the nation with them; bubbles and busts don’t happen in “isolation”. Not shown in these charts of absolute index levels is the three-straight months of national yy price gain deceleration. Moreover, the CS captures prices up to 7-months old at the tail so conditions are already a lot different than shown here. 3) Notes & Observations on above chart: • The bubblicious regions above all have one thing in common…STEM. As such, if the tech and biotech sectors hit a wall, which some believe has already begun, so will these housing regions. • If these key housing markets hit a wall they will take the rest of the nation with them; Bubbles and busts don’t happen in “isolation”. • House prices have retaken Bubble 1.0 levels on the exact same drivers: easy/cheap/deep credit & liquidity that found its way to real estate. The only difference between both era’s is which cohorts controlled the credit and liquidity. In Bubble 1.0, end-users were in control. In this bubble, “professional”/private investors and foreigners are. But, they both drove demand and prices in the exact same manner. That is, as incremental buyers with easy/cheap/deep credit & liquidity, able to hit whatever the ask price was, and consequently — due to the US comparable sales appraisal process — pushed all house prices to levels far beyond what typical end-user, shelter-buyers can afford. Thus, the persistent, anemic demand. • Bubble 2.0 has occurred without a corresponding demand surge just like peak Bubble 1.0. As such, it means something other than fundamental, end-user demand and economics is driving prices this time too. • The end result of Bubble 2.0 will be the same as 1.0; a demand “mix-shift” and price “reset” back towards end-user fundamentals once the speculators finish up, or events force them to the “sidelines”. • Lower prices will create demand, which the housing sector will always achieve one way or another…it’s what it does. Just like the anemic demand led the price crash of Bubble 1.0, which ultimately led to increased demand as prices stabilized lower. • The Bubble 2.0 pop will also free up supply in the same manner as Bubble 1.0, just not as much from foreclosures. However, I do think people underestimate the volume of low-down mortgages originated over the past several years, and those with little to no equity in legacy loans or rising interest rate mods, which if house prices drop a few percent turn high-risk, especially when factoring in the 6%+ cost to sell. But, it doesn’t matter where the supply comes from — maybe the PE firms start to dump rentals — as it’s fungible. • Sure the bubble could blow bigger. Maybe we get a double-bubble. Bubbles are strange things. But, when they begin to fall there is a lot of air under there because the downside has clearly been established. • Lastly, I am betting 2016 marks the high for house prices, as mortgage rates can’t go meaningfully lower, the unorthodox demand cohort is exhausted, and real affordability to end-user shelter-buyers has rarely been worse. In fact, I believe this is the year house prices go red yy. Thank you,

We didn’t know what we were going to get ourselves into. We had just spent a week camping and hiking on the sparsely populated Gaspé Peninsula and were about to enter our first “real” city in days. The last time we had gotten a couple drinks and went out into the Canadian night we had nearly gotten into a confrontation with a local. This time? All we knew about Moncton was that it held about 70,000 people, that it used to be a major transportation hub for the Maritimes and that it had bars in it that would be open and serving beer. We had hoped that we could turn this into a “CPC North” of sorts by bringing the swagger of the College Point Class Conflict Pub Crawls with us, but that plan quickly went by the wayside. Despite Moncton’s blue-collar roots we found the downtown bars around Main Street to have no edge of class conflict or any resistance to outsiders. If anything, Moncton felt more like a Midwestern college town during summer break – it was full of Irish pubs, gastropubs, talkative bartenders and a host of young people. None of this stopped us from drinking, mind you… it just took the edge of a CPC out of the air. By the time the 2AM curfew drew near we were seated on the patio of the St. James Gate, one of the few bars that had been blaring music all night. The Gate remained crowded as the night wound down and we watched its patrons fight over cabs as they left group by group. As sports go, it was easier than watching Canadian football since the rules of Guido Cab Battle are the same all over North America. As the final cab battles were fought, the three of us split up: one back to the hotel, two to stay out. The only place on our list that we hadn’t been to was Angie’s, the strip club in neighboring Dieppe, but the thought of “should two guys with cameras really head to the strip club?” never crossed our minds. By that point all thoughts had turned to pizza. Conveniently, down the block from the Gate was Cut Throat Pizza, which appeared to be the last stop on the drinking express in downtown Moncton. Their sign proclaimed the “pizza of the month” as “spaghetti and meatball pizza” only it sounded special like education instead of like it belonged on a blue plate. We opted for a couple slices of pepperoni, chatted with the people at the counter for a moment and headed back out into the night. Main Street was quiet save for the odd partier hailing a cab, a construction crew working on new bank and the garbage men making their rounds. Late night revelry was turning over to the overnight night workings of a city. With traffic at its ebb, we got a clearer picture of our surroundings. Standing above many of the buildings of Moncton was the obelisk outside the city hall. Tall, white and round, it was the kind of monument built in centuries past, only now it had satellite dishes jutting out of it – the future literally perched on top of the past. Rather than stand and ponder this phallic symbol of progress we went back for more pizza. This being our second time in the shop, we talked with the Cut Throat crew more and tried the poutine pizza (“We’re kinda known for our weird pizza” the counter girl explained). The bars had long since closed and we were just about the only customers, so like many other young people working the overnight shift, the staff was chatty and looking to pass some time. We paid for the slices (double wide and heavy from being covered in fries and gravy) and headed back outside to eat them. The staff followed. The four of us stood outside the pizza shop for a while talking and taking the odd photo. The conversation was like any other late night conversation among two pairs of strangers: who are you, who are we, what’s what and why… you try to figure out a little about the other people and where they’re from and what they’re about. Our hosts turned out to be good people. Rebecca was Acadian and had moved to Moncton to study to be a Phys. Ed. teacher, but hadn’t finished. Tommy was covered in tattoos and was a promoter for the local music scene. The two of them acted with the casual ease of people who have worked long hours together without many other people to talk to, but there was no hint of a desperate need to talk to new people. They were just friendly and maybe a little bored. We were still eating our poutine pizza when they led us back inside. Tommy and Rebecca showed us around their shop, bringing out the pirate mascot that had been locked away to protect it from the drunks and explaining a little about Moncton through the rock flyers and memorabilia on the walls. We knew they liked us when Rebecca squared off a section of the wall for us to sign, an honor that seemed to have been only given to bands previously. At one point an older customer came in looking like he had just escaped a Harvey Pekar comic, followed by the third worker whose name we never got and who seemed less excited to have two weirdoes with cameras hanging around the shop. He wasn’t hostile or openly annoyed, but it wasn’t much longer before we said our goodbyes and left the pizza shop. Cut Throat stays open until 5AM and there were pizzas waiting to be made. As we walked down the deserted streets toward the hotel the third pizzaman passed us. Back in the shop it was hard to tell if he had been more busy or brusque, but now in the street he waved as he made a late night delivery. We entered our hotel room and got ready to pass out to the sound of light snoring coming from the shadows. Next to each of our beds was a note from our slumbering comrade: “Poutine Pizza / Holy Shit / Good.” He had been to Cut Throat. And maybe it was really that simple. All night we had seen Monctonians out with their friends, having a few drinks, talking to new people and getting some pizza. There were no Class Conflict confrontations, no wacky stories about a foreign strip club, nothing out of the ordinary. Just a regular night out — in Moncton, the Midwest or anywhere really. We had come from the remote Gaspé Peninsula expecting to clash with civilization and instead had a mirror held up to us. Yes, we were outsiders traveling through town, but just like the locals all we really needed on a Thursday night were a few friends, a couple drinks and some pizza. See the accompanying “Up All Night in Moncton, New Brunswick” photo gallery on Flickr: Text: Dan Meade Photos: Dan Meade, Rob Bellinger September 24, 2012 Comments comments Powered by Facebook Comments

Poor Person: I need food stamps so I don’t starve. Conservative: That’s lazy. Get a job. Poor Person: Fine. I got a job, but it doesn’t pay enough. The minimum wage needs to be raised. Conservative: Still lazy. Go to college so you can get a better job. Poor Person: Fine. But I’ll need financial assistance to afford college. Conservative: Still lazy. Poor Person: Fine. I went to college, put myself in debt, and got a degree. But the only jobs I can get without experience are unpaid internships. Businesses should be required to pay their interns. Conservative: … Conservative: Still lazy. Poor Person: How the hell do you expect me to get out of debt? Conservative: It’s your own fault. You choose to go to college even though you couldn’t afford it. Poor Person: But you’re the one who keeps telling poor people to go to college. Are you saying that I’m lazy if I don’t go to college, and lazy if I do? Conservative: Yes. Poor Person: Then what the hell should I do? Conservative: Be born rich.

The Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss (via reasons-tobe-beautiful-deactiva) ““Once upon a time,” I began. “There was a little boy born in a little town. He was perfect, or so his mother thought. But one thing was different about him. He had a gold screw in his belly button. Just the head of it peeping out.“Now his mother was simply glad he had all his fingers and toes to count with. But as the boy grew up he realized not everyone had screws in their belly buttons, let alone gold ones. He asked his mother what it was for, but she didn’t know. Next he asked his father, but his father didn’t know. He asked his grandparents, but they didn’t know either.“That settled it for a while, but it kept nagging him. Finally, when he was old enough, he packed a bag and set out, hoping he could find someone who knew the truth of it.“He went from place to place, asking everyone who claimed to know something about anything. He asked midwives and physickers, but they couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The boy asked arcanists, tinkers, and old hermits living in the woods, but no one had ever seen anything like it.“He went to ask the Cealdim merchants, thinking if anyone would know about gold, it would be them. But the Cealdim merchants didn’t know. He went to the arcanists at the University, thinking if anyone would know about screws and their workings, they would. But the arcanists didn’t know. The boy followed the road over the Stormwal to ask the witch women of the Tahl, but none of them could give him an answer.“Eventually he went to the King of Vint, the richest king in the world. But the king didn’t know. He went to the Emperor of Atur, but even with all his power, the emperor didn’t know. He went to each of the small kingdoms, one by one, but no one could tell him anything.“Finally the boy went to the High King of Modeg, the wisest of all the kings in the world. The high king looked closely at the head of the golden screw peeping from the boy’s belly button. Then the high king made a gesture, and his seneschal brought out a pillow of golden silk. On that pillow was a golden box. The high king took a golden key from around his neck, opened the box, and inside was a golden screwdriver.“The high king took the screwdriver and motioned the boy to come closer. Trembling with excitement, the boy did. Then the high king took the golden screwdriver and put it in the boy’s belly button.”I paused to take a long drink of water. I could feel my small audience leaning toward me. “Then thehigh king carefully turned the golden screw. Once: Nothing. Twice: Nothing. Then he turned it the third time, and the boy’s ass fell off.”There was a moment of stunned silence.“What?” Hespe asked incredulously.“His ass fell off.””

The following is authored by Chris Woods and Jack Serle at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Reprinted here with permission. Pakistan: August sees the highest number of CIA strikes in Pakistan since October 2011. A number of senior militants are killed along with at least two named civilians. Yemen: At least 26 people are killed in five confirmed US drone strikes in Yemen. This is still less than the May peak. Civilian casualties are confirmed for the first time since May. Somalia: For the fourth month no US military actions are reported in Somalia. In related news, three Ugandan helicopters crash-land prior to an anticipated assault on militant-held Kismayo. Pakistan July 2012 actions Total CIA strikes in August: 7 Total killed in strikes in August: 29-65, of whom at least 2 were reportedly civilians All actions 2004 – August 31 2012 Total Obama strikes: 291 Total US strikes since 2004: 343 Total reported killed: 2,558-3,319 Civilians reported killed: 474-881 Children reported killed: 176 Total reported injured: 1,226-1,359 For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here. The CIA launched seven drone strikes in August, the highest recorded in any month since October 2011. The rate of strikes has continued to rise through the year. Total CIA strikes per month in 2012 Total CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, per month of 2012. All seven attacks happened after Ramadan. Neither the CIA nor the Taliban seem to change their tactics in the month of fasting and the festival of Eid al Fitr. The Bureau’s data shows that since President Obama came to office there has been no let-up in the tempo of strikes during Ramadan and Eid. A CIA drone strike has never taken place on either Christmas or Easter Day. The August barrage of strikes culminated with three coordinated attacks on August 24 that killed 13-18 people including several named militants, according to the Bureau’s field researchers. Four named Turkistani militants died along with three named members of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP). For the first time in some months there were confirmed reports of civilian casualties in Pakistan. On August 18 the wife of Ahsan Aziz, a Kashmiri militant, died in a strike alongside her husband. Thirteen-year-old Osama Haqqani also reportedly died on August 21. As many as 25 others died with the teenager, including his father Badruddin Haqqani, the third-in-command of the Haqqani Network. These were the first known names of civilians reported killed since October 31 2001, although other civilians have been reported killed in this period. Pakistan responded to the onslaught of strikes by continuing with its vocal protests, calling in a senior US diplomat for an official reprimand. Washington in turn insisted that Islamabad pressure the Haqqani Network to stop cross-border attacks on Isaf and Afghan forces. Yemen August 2012 actions Confirmed US drone strikes: 5 Further reported/possible US strike events: 1 Total reported killed in US operations: 26-33 Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 2 All actions 2002 – August 31 2012* Total confirmed US operations: 52-62 Total confirmed US drone strikes: 40-50 Possible additional US operations: 113-128 Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 57-66 Total reported killed: 347-990 Total civilians killed: 60-151 Children killed: 24-31 Click here for the full Yemen data. Five of the six strikes in August were confirmed as US attacks by a variety of Yemeni officials. The focus of US attacks has now moved to Hadramout in the eastern part of Yemen. Five strikes hit targets in the arid province, bearing out reports that al Qaeda has taken refuge there. This is a shift from Abyan province where most of the attacks occurred in July. Yemeni security forces and local militia drove the militants from their ‘Islamic Emirate’ in Abyan earlier this year. The first named civilian casualties were reported since Red Cross worker Hussein Saleh was killed on June 20 in a possible US airstrike. Policeman Walid Abdullah Bin Ali Jaber and Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber, a mosque imam, were killed in a house in the eastern Hadramout province when a nearby car carrying alleged militants was destroyed. While drone strikes seem to have plateaued, al Qaeda and its ally Ansar al Sharia have continued with their bloody insurgency against the government. In the most deadly attack this month, a suicide bomber targeted a funeral wake in Jaar where more than 150 people had gathered to mourn a local sheikh. His militia had first fought alongside al Qaeda in Abyan before siding with the government. At least 50 people were killed by shrapnel from the blast. * All but one of these actions have taken place during Obama’s presidency. Reports of incidents in Yemen often conflate individual strikes. The range in the total strikes and total drone strikes we have recorded reflects this. Somalia August 2012 actions Total reported US operations: 0 All actions 2007 – August 31 2012 10-21 Total US drone strikes: 3-9 Total reported killed: 58-169 Civilians reported killed: 11-57 Children reported killed: 1-3 Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia. Total US operations:Total US drone strikes:Total reported killed:Civilians reported killed:Children reported killed: August was the fourth consecutive month in which there have been no reports of US strikes. Concerns remain that covert operations continue in the country, in support of African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) peacekeepers fighting al Shabaab. In related news, in the build-up to Amisom’s long-touted advance on militant-held Kismayo, the UN allowed Uganda to dispatch air support for the assaulting troops. Catastrophically all but one of four helicopters sent by Kampala crashed into a Kenyan mountain. The losses cast doubt on the military capacity of African nations engaged in Somalia, and their ability to have carried out any of the 10 strikes recorded by the Bureau since 2007 that are not confirmed as US operations. Kismayo is the last deep-water port in al Shabaab’s hands. Its fall could prove decisive in the battle with the militants in the south. The assault was intended to start before August 20, the day of long-awaited parliamentary elections. However those elections dragged on into the final week of August when a parliamentary speaker was finally voted in. This has cleared the way for parliament to choose a president and for the eight year life of the Transitional Federal Government to end. Other conflicts: Israel and Egypt The US and Israel are the only countries known to have carried out targeted killings with drones, with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) reported to have carried out a strike as early as 2004. Until now all known Israeli strikes have been within Gaza. On August 26 Ibrahim Owida Nasser Madan was killed in an explosion as he rode his motorbike through Egypt’s Sinai desert. It was later reported by Israeli media that Madan had died in an Israeli drone strike up to 15km inside Egypt. Both the IDF and Egyptian military denied the claims.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced on July 21 a Finding of No Significant Impact on the Northern New England Intercity Rail Initiative (Initiative). The finding clears the way for states and the federal government to invest in future passenger rail service in New England. The Initiative proposes to restore service between Boston and New Haven through Springfield and Hartford and add new service between Boston and Montreal. FRA awarded $942,775 to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) and the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) through FRA’s Next Generation High-Speed Rail Program to study potential service options and complete the Tier 1 Environmental Assessment, in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act. FRA found that no significant environmental impacts would result from adding more frequent and higher speed intercity passenger rail service, in large part due to the use of existing operating rail lines within existing rights-of-way. The proposed infrastructure improvements also would be located within existing right-of-way along areas that were in the past double or triple tracked. “More than two million people live within three miles of a station along this corridor,” said FRA Administrator Sarah E. Feinberg. “For everyone to move safely and efficiently, the region needs a robust rail system, and this blueprint will help achieve that goal.” MassDOT and VTrans will coordinate the Initiative with other projects, including NEC FUTURE, FRA’s ongoing comprehensive planning effort to define, evaluate, and prioritize future investments in the Northeast Corridor (NEC). The NEC runs from Washington, DC to Boston. Together, this Initiative and NEC FUTURE would provide greater connectivity to central Connecticut, Massachusetts, northern New England, and Montreal. “Existing passenger rail service through New England is limited and already at capacity for a region that is growing,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “With an approved blueprint in hand, New England can now move forward to connect people to key job centers and allow students to easily travel to and from New England’s numerous colleges.”