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Thief’s Gaming PC Giveaway!

Do you have a copy of Thief and a way to get content onto YouTube? Well then Eidos-Montréal’s new giveaway is targeted at you!

Eidos-Montréal has announced today that they are giving away a top-spec AMD gaming computer to two “Master Thieves”. How do you manage to prove that? By uploading a Thief video to YouTube, duh!

Eidos-Montréal has stated that the two winners will be selected based off of the following:

  •  The first gaming PC supplied by AMD will be won by the very best video out there, whether it’s funny, silly, clever, creative, controversial or comical – whatever you choose; the video that entertains us the most will win!

  • The second gaming PC supplied by AMD will be won by the person who uploads the most impressive Master Thief video; the very best, most innovative, most Master Thief-ery video out there. Will you leap around in the shadows unnoticed and clear an area of loot in the quickest time possible? Will you be a predator and clear an entire area of guards in a few moves? Will you do a bit of both? The choice is yours!

The only condition to the content of the videos is that it MUST have “The Master Thief Competition” in the title.

My Opinion

If there is one thing I love more than games, it’s giveaways. This is some fantastic publicity for a game that has had mostly middle of the road reviews. Can’t way to see what the community manages to come up with.

Check out Edios Montréal’s community post on the topic, detailing the press release made earlier today!

Lou Contaldi is MONG’s Nintendo Specialist and senior editor. He also spends his time habitating a law school. You can follow his incoherent ramblings at Twitter.

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Richard Whittall:

The Globalist's Top Ten Books in 2016: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer has helped me immensely with great information and perspective.”

Bob Bradley, former US and Egyptian national coach

"James Dorsey’s The Turbulent World of Middle Eastern Soccer (has) become a reference point for those seeking the latest information as well as looking at the broader picture."
Alon Raab in The International Journal of the History of Sport

“Dorsey’s blog is a goldmine of information.”

Play the Game

"Your expertise is clearly superior when it comes to Middle Eastern soccer."
Andrew Das, The New York Times soccer blog Goal
"No one is better at this kind of work than James Dorsey"
David Zirin, Sports Illustrated

"Essential Reading"
Change FIFA

"A fantastic new blog'
Richard Whitall of A More Splendid Life

"James combines his intimate knowledge of the region with a great passion for soccer"
Christopher Ahl, Play the Game

"An excellent Middle East Football blog"
James Corbett, Inside World Football

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Soccer fan support for the Islamic State: Protest or a new generation of jihadists?

By James M. Dorsey

At face value, a recent one minute video clip on You Tube leaves little doubt about support for the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria and Iraq, among supporters of storied Moroccan soccer club Raja Club Athletic.

The clip released by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) shows fans of the Casablanca club that prides itself on its nationalist credentials dating back to opposition to colonial French rule and its reputation as the team of ordinary Moroccans chanting: “Daesh, Daesh,” the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, and “God is Great, let’s go on jihad.”

The clip appeared to reaffirm the Islamic State’s widespread emotional appeal to youth across the Middle East and North Africa rather than a willingness to actually become a foreign fighter in Syria or Iraq notwithstanding last week’s arrest of nine people in Morocco as well as a Spanish enclave in the country on suspicion of links to the Islamic State and the fact that an estimated 1,500 Moroccan nationals are believed to have joined the group.

The Islamic State despite its brutality and severe enforcement of a puritan form of Islam symbolizes successful resistance for many in the Middle East and North Africa disillusioned by the failure of popular revolts in various countries even though they toppled four Arab leaders; the collapse and/or intransigence of autocratic regimes that fail to live up to their people’s aspirations; the lack of prospects for economic advancement and political change; and the West’s refusal to empower rebel groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as well as its perceived strengthening of  Assad with its coalition against the foremost opposition to a regime that matches the jihadists in brutality.

“We have a high rate of unemployment. Young people want politicians to think about them… Some of them can’t understand… They are too impatient,” Moncef Mazrouki, the president of Tunisia, the Arab country with the largest number of Arab foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

While Raja Athletic’s management failed to respond to the video on its official website and Facebook page that has more than 1.7 million followers, supporters of the club sought to minimize the clip’s significance. Writing on their Facebook page with its 118,830 likes, supporters quipped: “We are terrorists… Our goal is to bomb other clubs. We do not want land or oil, we want titles” below a mock picture of Islamic State fighters with the inscription, “Raja’s Volunteer Championship.”

The supporters asserted elsewhere on their Facebook page that “we will not start to argue and beg people to believe that this is a sarcastic action and a joke.” Some supporters dismissed the video as a public relations stint. They insisted that they were demanding reform not radical change. To emphasize the point, the supporters posted two days after the appearance of the video an image of Osama Bin Laden with the words: “Rest in Pieces Motherf*****r.”

The Islamic State’s appeal as a symbol for Moroccan youth is rooted in the gap in perceptions of King Mohammad VI.  The monarch, unlike most of the region’s rulers, neutralized anti-government protests in 2011 by endorsing a new constitution that brought limited change but kept the country’s basic political structure in place. As a result, foreign media have described Mohammed VI as the King of Cool. Moroccans however have seen little change in their economic, social and political prospects while journalists and activists face increased repression.

Mouad Belghouat, a prominent dissident rapper better known as Al Haqed, was arrested in May on charges of having scalped game tickets as he was entering a stadium to watch a soccer match. The arrest occurred a day after he had mocked the King on Facebook because he passed a performing group of musicians on his way to Friday prayers. “In Islam, this would be highly disrespectful given the spiritual solemnity of Jumuah prayer, and an even bigger mistake to be made by the ‘Commander of the Faithful’ who claims part of the legitimacy of his rule from his religious status," wrote Moroccan blogger Zineb Belmkaddem at the time.

“Hope for a more democratic Morocco is fading, as the makhzen (the ruling group around the king) went back to relying on its old ways, reassured by the 'success' of its systematic crackdown that is responsible for disorganizing groups of protestors through repression and propaganda. Slowly dismantling the February 20th protest movement over the past years, the regime seems to have learned nothing and has chosen to walk backwards to its dysfunctional comfort zone,” Mr. Belmkaddem added.

Speaking to Freemuse after having served a four month prison sentence, Al Haqed voiced widespread distrust of the government, including law enforcement and the judiciary, as he discussed the pending appeal against his conviction. “I don’t expect very much from the Moroccan judiciary. The Moroccan judge is not independent. The king is the highest authority in the Moroccan judicial process. There are no laws that guarantee that the judge will truly look into a case,” Al Haqed said.

Al Haqed’s music like the chanting of pro-Islamic State slogans reflects growing popular discontent and an increased willingness to challenge the government whom many see as having backed down on its promises for true political and economic reform.

Speaking to The New York Times earlier this year, activist Maouanne Morabit warned that “a major part of the political class refused to discuss in public real issues concerning the ills of our society, namely the role of the monarchy, respect for human rights, the distribution of wealth, and the separation of powers… The kingdom discredited the left, trade unions, civil society and now the Islamists. It will soon face a direct confrontation with the people, and it will no longer have any safety valves.”

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same title

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Tag geometry

Playing with shapes of constant width

Tonight’s project was just for fun – they boys both had long days of school / music.

So, last night I downloaded and printed some shapes of constant width from Thingiverse:

Anenome’s Object of Constant Width on Thingiverse

With 4 of them on the table I asked each of the boys what they thought the shapes were and then let them play around with them. After they played for a bit I put a book on the shapes and asked them how they thought the book would move as the shapes rolled.

Here’s what my younger son thought:

Here’s what my older son thought:

I always find it fun to hear what kids think about complicated shapes. Lots of neat ideas and then a good “wow” when you learn the secret property!

Extending our arithmetic / geometry connection project to calculus

Yesterday we did a fun project connecting arithmetic and geometry:

Connecting Arithmetic and Geometry

While we were talking about the shapes my older son commented that one of the shapes looked like a pyramid. I thought it would be fun to make the shapes look even more like a pyramid and see what the kids thought.

We started by just talking about the shapes – the most interesting thing to me here was how challenging it was for them to compare the volumes of the shapes:

Because they were having a little bit of difficulty with the volumes I spent a little extra time on the idea. Things seemed to clear up a little bit, luckily:

Finally, I thought it would be interesting for the boys to see some of the math I used to create these shapes. Although this section goes on a little longer than I would have liked, I think this is a fun little introduction to functions and scaling even if we don’t define those ideas explicitly:

A fun little project. I think that some of the broad ideas from calculus are within the grasp of kids even if the underlying calculations probably aren’t. It was fun for me that a question from my older son led from us jumping from arithmetic to geometry to calculus 🙂

Connecting arithmetic and geometry

I’ve been kicking around a few ideas about connecting arithmetic and geometry. My first thoughts were revisiting an idea we’ve played with a few times before:

So, today I decided to look at these two sums with the boys:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + \ldots + n, and

1^2 + 2^2 + 3^3 + \ldots + n^2.

We got off to a slower than expected start because my younger son didn’t remember the formula for the first sum correctly. I’m trying hard to break through the idea of relying on remembering formulas, so I was actually happy to review where the formula came from, though.

After the introduction we moved on to studying the first series using snap cubes. What is the geometry hiding behind the formula.

This part of the project to a totally unexpected turn, though:

I decided to keep going with the new sum that added up to n^2 to see if we could make another connection. The boys did remember that the sum of odd integers connects to perfect squares, so I challenged them to find the connection between that formula and the new one they just stumbled on.

Finally we moved on to the sum of squares formula. Lots of fun questions from the boys here, including if the idea extended to 4 dimensions!

The shape here is more difficult to build that it initially seems, but they got through it and now hopefully have a better idea of where the formula comes from.

We wrapped up by looking very briefly at pyramids.

I’d like to do more projects like this one and develop a bunch of different ways to share connections between arithmetic and geometry with kids.

Using 3d printing to review properties of lines

As a follow up to our last two projects with 3d printed triangles, I thought it would be fun to try out a similar project. The point of the 2nd project wasn’t the geometry, though, it was to use the process of making the shapes as a way to review some basic ideas about lines.

So, I started by showing my older son the basic idea – we wanted to write down the equations of the three lines that border a 5-12-13 triangle. Since we have a right triangle the equations aren’t too difficult, but are still useful for a simple review:

Next we went upstairs to Mathematica to make our 3d template using the function RegionPlot3d:

After the prints finished we played around with them a bit to see which triangles we could make with the same area:

I think that making little shapes like this might be one of the best educational uses of 3d printing. Kids get an opportunity to apply some basic math knowledge and create some fun shapes!

A few follow ups to the triangle puzzle

This morning we did a fun project involving a little triangle puzzle:

Here’s that project:

A nice little triangle puzzle

During the day I was just playing around with the triangles and found a couple of other fun ideas from geometry to show the kids.

First, an alternate proof that the two shapes have the same area. Almost a proof without words! It comes from the fact that the two shapes can come together to form a 6-8-10 triangle:

The next geometric idea involved a right triangle being inscribed in a circle:

It was a really nice surprise that there were other fun (and important!) geometric ideas that our shapes could be used for. We’ve used 3d printing before to play with 2d geometry – including triangles:

Inequalities and Mr. Honner’s Triangles

A Cool Geometry Problem Shared by Tina Cardone

A Follow Up to Our Tina Cardone Geometry Project

And also a fun project on using 3d printing to study an old AMC 10 problem:

Using 3d printing to help kids learn about algebra and 2d geometry

It really is amazing how much 3d printing can help students explore geometry.

A nice little triangle puzzle

I’ve been binge listening to math podcasts lately. In one – and, sadly, I don’t remember which one! – I heard a neat problem about triangles. Last night Paula Beardell Krieg shared Suzanne von Oy’s blog post which reminded me of the problem:

After seeing von Oy’s post I threw together some shapes from the puzzle and set them to print overnight. This morning I went through the puzzle with both kids.

Here’s the puzzle: You have triangles with sides 5-5-6 and 5-5-8. Which one has the larger area?

My older son went first:

My younger son went second – my older son has much more experience with geometry so I thought having them work separately would be better.

I think this is a great puzzle / problem for kids learning geometry.

Sharing a “visual pattern” triangular number identity with kids

Saw a fun tweet last night from Matt Enlow:

Here’s the underlying tweet since it doesn’t show up in wordpress:

Shortly after seeing the tweet my younger son and I were playing Othello. The combination gave me the idea for today’s project.

We started by talking about the triangular numbers and why consecutive triangular numbers might sum up to be a perfect square. My older son’s idea of how to think about triangular numbers was computational rather than geometric.

Now we moved to the Othello board and looked at the geometry. My younger son found two different geometric ideas which was fun.

Finally, I gave the kids a challenge to try to find another geometric version of the identity. This question was a bit more challenging that I intended it to be, but we eventually got there and even saw how our new picture related to the sum formula that my older son used in the first video:

Playing with some 3d printed knots

Today we looked at some 3d printed knots designed by Laura Taalman and Henry Segerman.

Two are versions of Taalman’s “rocking knot” which we found here:

Laura Taalman’s Makerhome blog: Day 110 – the Rocking Knot

The second is the Torus knot from Segerman’s new book Visualizing Mathematics with 3D Printing.

We started the project today by just talking about the knots. Comparing the two knots that are actually identical was useful in refining the language they used to talk about knots.

Next they wanted to try to compare the two identical knots by looking at their crossings. My older son had the idea of assigning a +1 to every “over” crossing and a -1 to every “under” crossing. My younger son noticed that this counting method should always produce a net 0 because we counted the over and under crossing for each crossing exactly once.

New we tried to compare Segerman’s torus knot to Taalman’s rolling knot. Here we used the “tangle” from Colin Adams’s book Why Knot?

One fun thing that came up by accident in this video is an amazing shadow cast by Taalman’s knot – that was a really fun surprise.

Unfortunately, it proved to be a bit difficult to get the tangle back together so we had to pause the video at the re-connect the tangle off camera. It is really neat, though, to watch kids try to make a copy of a knot.

Once we got the tangle connected we started the next video. Since the tangle can move around, it isn’t that hard to manipulate the tangle from the form Segerman’s knot to the form of Taalman’s knots. In fact, it happened more or less by accident!

As I mentioned above, it is actually a pretty difficult task for the kids to describe the features of the knots when they compare them – even with a knot as simple as the trefoil knot. I think one of the neat parts of this particular project is working on using more precise mathematical language.

So, a fun project. We have a new 3d printer and I’m really excited about using many more 3d printing ideas from Taalman and Segerman to explore math with the boys.

A challenge relating to a few problems giving my son trouble

I’ve seen some interesting ideas from Tracy Johnston Zager over the last week about the relationship between learning math and intuition. For example:

Although I’ve been traveling a bit for work this week the relationship between learning math and intuition has stayed in my head. Sometimes my thoughts have drifted to and old blog post about a problem from the European Girls’ Math Olympaid:

A Challenge / Plea to math folks

That post, in turn, was inspired by an old post by Tim Gowers where he “live blogged” his work while he solved a problem from the International Mathematics Olympiad.

It can be really hard for anyone to know what math intuition looks like because everyone sees polished solutions way more often than they see the actual process of doing math.

That’s part of the reason I make the “what a kid learning math can look like” posts – so everyone can see that the path kids (or anyone!) actually takes to the solution of a problem is hardly ever a straight line:

Our “what a kid learning math can look like” series

The other thing on my mind this week has been some old AMC 10 problems that have really given my older son some trouble. These are pretty challenging problems and require quite a bit of mathematical intuition to solve.

So, I’d like to make the same challenge with these problems that I made with the problem from the European Girls’ Math Olympiad – “live blog” yourself solving one of these problems. Post the though process rather than a perfect solution. Let people see *where* your mathematical intuition came into play.

Fun with rotopo

Saw this neat tweet from Jim Propp yesterday:

After playing the game for a just a few minutes I knew that my kids would love it.

Here’s each of their reaction to seeing and playing the game.

My younger son first:

My older son next:

So, definitely a fun little game for kids. They need to be fairly fluent with the arrow keys on the keyboard, but that’s really all that’s required. Definitely some fun puzzles to solve!


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10 Things Tuesday: Songs That Have Changed My Life

Hi Loves,

Okay, so the blog title may be a bit dramatic, but essentially this list is the top 10 songs that immediately made me stop what I was doing, seep into the beauty of the music and lyrics, and continue to send me in trance when they are played. They are not all "happy" songs, nor are they all "inspirational" songs. There may appear to be no rhyme or reason to this list, except that they all make me stfu and listen. That's a big accomplishment!

Without further ado, here are the top 10 songs that have changed my life (in no particular order)...

1 comment

  1. hi Rae, just the title of this post caused me to check it out first! I believe that there is a song attached to all our memories! sometimes I don't even realize it until it comes on the radio and then "boom" there comes that moment/memory! Anyway, thank you and how did you make the playlist? that is ultra cool! Paula

Thanks for the comments! I look forward to reading them :)

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rational judges, not extraneous factors in decisions

The graph tells a drammatic story of irrationality, presented in the 2011 paper Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. What it shows is the outcome of parole board decisions, as ruled by judges, against the order those decisions were made. The circles show the meal breaks taken by the judges.

parole_decisionsAs you can see, the decisions change the further the judge gets from his/her last meal, dramatically decreasing from around 65% chance of a favourable decision if you are the first case after a meal break, to close to 0% if you are the last case in a long series before a break.

In their paper, the original authors argue that this effect of order truly is due to the judges’ hunger, and not a confound introduced by some other factor which affects the order of cases and their chances of success (the lawyers sit outside the closed doors of the court, for example, so can’t time their best cases to come just after a break – they don’t know when the judge is taking a meal; The effect survives additional analysis where severity of prisoner’s crime and length of sentence are factored it; and so on). The interpretation is that as the judges tire they more and more fall back on a simple heuristic – playing safe and refusing parole.

This seeming evidence of the irrationality of judges has been cited hundreds of times, in economics, psychology and legal scholarship. Now, a new analysis by Andreas Glöckner in the journal Judgement and Decision Making questions these conclusions.

Glöckner’s analysis doesn’t prove that extraneous factors weren’t influencing the judges, but he shows how the same effect could be produced by entirely rational judges interacting with the protocols required by the legal system.

The main analysis works like this: we know that favourable rulings take longer than unfavourable ones (~7 mins vs ~5 mins), and we assume that judges are able to guess how long a case will take to rule on before they begin it (from clues like the thickness of the file, the types of request made, the representation the prisoner has and so on). Finally, we assume judges have a time limit in mind for each of the three sessions of the day, and will avoid starting cases which they estimate will overrun the time limit for the current session.

It turns out that this kind of rational time-management is sufficient to  generate the drops in favourable outcomes. How this occurs isn’t straightforward and interacts with a quirk of original author’s data presentation (specifically their graph shows the order number of cases when the number of cases in each session varied day to day – so, for example, it shows that the 12th case after a break is least likely to be judged favourably, but there wasn’t always a 12 case in each session. So sessions in which there were more unfavourable cases were more likely to contribute to this data point).

This story of claim and counter-claim shows why psychologists prefer experiments, since only then can you truly isolate causal explanations (if you are a judge and willing to go without lunch please get in touch). Also, it shows the benefit of simulations for extending the horizons of our intuition. Glöckner’s achievement is to show in detail how some reasonable assumptions – including that of a rational judge – can generate a pattern which hitherto seemed only explainable by the influence of an irrelevant factor on the judges decisions. This doesn’t settle the matter, but it does mean we can’t be so confident that this graph shows what it is often claimed to show. The judges decisions may not be irrational after all, and the timing of the judges meal breaks may not be influencing parole decision outcome.

Original finding: Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Pesso, L. (2011). Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(17), 6889-6892.

New analysis: Glöckner, A. (2016). The irrational hungry judge effect revisited: Simulations reveal that the magnitude of the effect is overestimated. Judgment and Decision Making, 11(6), 601-610.

Elsewhere I have written about how evidence of human irrationality is often over-egged : For argument’s sake: evidence that reason can change minds

Serendipity in psychological research

micDorothy Bishop has an excellent post ‘Ten serendipitous findings in psychology’, in which she lists ten celebrated discoveries which occurred by happy accident.

Each discovery is interesting in itself, but Prof Bishop puts the discoveries in the context of the recent discussion about preregistration (declaring in advance what you are looking for and how you’ll look). Does preregistration hinder serendipity? Absolutely not says Bishop, not least because the context of ‘discovery’ is never a one-off experiment.

Note that, in all cases, having made the initial unexpected observation – either from unstructured exploratory research, or in the course of investigating something else – the researchers went on to shore up the findings with further, hypothesis-driven experiments. What they did not do is to report just the initial observation, embellished with statistics, and then move on, as if the presence of a low p-value guaranteed the truth of the result.

(It’s hard not to read into these comments a criticism of some academic journals which seem happy to publish single experiments reporting surprising findings.)

Bishop’s list contains 3 findings from electrophysiology (recording brain cell activity directly with electrodes), which I think is notable. In these cases neural recording acts in the place of a microscope, allowing fairly direct observation of the system the scientist is investigating at a level of detail hitherto unavailable. It isn’t surprising to me that given a new tool of observation, the prepared mind of the scientists will make serendipitous discoveries. The catch is whether, for the rest of psychology, such observational tools exist. Many psychologists use their intuition to decide where to look, and experiments to test whether their intuition is correct. The important serendipitous discoveries from electrophysiology suggest that measures which are new ways of observing, rather than merely tests of ideas, must also be important for psychological discoveries. Do such observational measures exist?

Images of ultra-thin models need your attention to make you feel bad

I have a guest post over at the BPS Research Digest, covering research on the psychological effects of pictures of ultra-thin fashion models.

A crucial question is whether the effect of these thin-ideal images is automatic. Does the comparison to the models, which is thought to be the key driver in their negative effects, happen without our intention, attention or both? Knowing the answer will tell us just how much power these images have, and also how best we might protect ourselves from them.

It’s a great study from the lab of Stephen Want (Ryerson University). For the full details of the research, head over: Images of ultra-thin models need your attention to make you feel bad

Update: Download the preprint of the paper, and the original data here

CBT is becoming less effective, like everything else

‘Researchers have found that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is roughly half as effective in treating depression as it used to be’ writes Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian, arguing that this is why CBT is ‘falling out of favour’. It’s worth saying that CBT seems as popular as ever, but even if it was in decline, it probably wouldn’t be due to diminishing effectiveness – because this sort of reduction in effect is common across a range of treatments.

Burkeman is commenting on a new meta-analysis that reports that more recent trials of CBT for depression find it to be less effective than older trials but this pattern is common as treatments are more thoroughly tested. This has been reported in antipsychotics, antidepressants and treatments for OCD to name but a few.

Interestingly, one commonly cited reason treatments become less effective in trials is because response to placebo is increasing, meaning many treatments seem to lose their relative potency over time.

Counter-intuitively, for something considered to be ‘an inert control condition’ the placebo response is very sensitive to the design of the trial, so even comparing placebo against several rather than one active treatment can affect placebo response.

This has led people to suggest lots of ‘placebo’ hacks. “In clinical trials,” noted one 2013 paper in Drug Discovery, “the placebo effect should be minimized to optimize drug–placebo difference”.

It’s interesting that it is still not entirely clear whether this approach is ‘revealing’ the true effects of the treatment or just another way of ‘spinning’ trials for the increasingly worried pharmaceutical and therapy industries.

The reasons for the declining treatment effects over time are also likely to include different types of patients selected into trials, more methodologically sound research practices meaning less chance of optimistic measuring and reporting, the fact that if chance gives you a falsely inflated treatment effect first time round it is more likely to be re-tested than initially less impressive first trials, and the fact that older known treatments might bring a whole load of expectations with them that brand new treatments don’t.

The bottom line is that lots of our treatments, across medicine as a whole, have quite modest effects when compared to placebo. But if placebo represents an attempt to address the problem, it provides quite a boost to the moderate effects that the treatment itself brings.

So the reports of the death of CBT have been greatly exaggerated but this is mostly due to the fact that lots of treatments start to look less impressive when they’ve been around for a while. This is less due to them ‘losing’ their effect and more likely due to us more accurately measuring their true but more modest effect over time.

Phantasmagoric neural net visions

dreaming neural network imageA starling galley of phantasmagoric images generated by a neural network technique has been released. The images were made by some computer scientists associated with Google who had been using neural networks to classify objects in images. They discovered that by using the neural networks “in reverse” they could elicit visualisations of the representations that the networks had developed over training.

These pictures are freaky because they look sort of like the things the network had been trained to classify, but without the coherence of real-world scenes. In fact, the researchers impose a local coherence on the images (so that neighbouring pixels do similar work in the image) but put no restraint on what is globally represented.

The obvious parallel is to images from dreams or other altered states – situations where ‘low level’ constraints in our vision are obviously still operating, but the high-level constraints – the kind of thing that tries to impose an abstract and unitary coherence on what we see – is loosened. In these situations we get to observe something that reflects our own processes as much as what is out there in the world.

Link: The researchers talk about their ‘dreaming neural networks’
Gallery: Inceptionism: Going deeper into Neural Networks

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At our birthday party on Thursday I told people how I’d crunched the stats for the 10 years of mindhacks.com posts. Nearly 5000 posts, and over 2 million words – an incredible achievement (for which 96% of the credit should go to Vaughan).

In 2010 we had an overhaul (thanks JD for this, and Matt for his continued support of the tech side of the site). I had a look at the stats, which only date back till then, and pulled out our all time most popular posts. Here they are:

Something about the enthusiasm of last Thursday inspired me to put the links the top ten posts on a wiki. Since it is a wiki anyone can jump in and edit, so if there are any bits of the mindhacks.com back catalogue that you think are worth leaving a placeholder to, feel free to add it. Vaughan and I will add links to a few of our favourite posts, so check back and see how it is coming along.

Link: Mind Hacks wiki


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Mises Wire

Home | Blog | China and the Credit Crunch

China and the Credit Crunch

Bad reporting and generally an incredible lack of skepticism about Chinese central planning. In the Telegraph, China wins from credit crunch fallout The Financial Times, China Freezes Loans to Tackle Inflation. How the process works: China fixes its exchange rate below market value. Exporters for those costs are in the Chinese currency (i.e. non exports) have lower costs, and therefore can sell at lower prices. There is a shift in the Chinese structure of production toward export-oriented industry and away from domestic consumption. There is a corresponding shift in the US toward the consumption of imported goods and away from the production of those goods or. Chinese consumers face higher prices for imported goods, consume less. In order to maintain the fixed exchange rate, which over-values the dollar in relation to the Yuan, the BoC must buy all dollars offered at the fixed exchange rate and sell Yuan. If it cannot borrow enough domestically, then they must print the difference. The money printing by the BoC has generated a credit bubble in China, which is showing up in their real estate and stock markets. Telegraph problems with article: a. The Telegraph has a very positive take on the build up of reserves. All these reserves represent is the more or less accidental outcome of a price-fixing scheme which has resulted in significant welfare losses for Chinese consumers. b. Does not see any connection between the accumulation of reserves and the banking crisis. 'Shrewd financial stewardship". c. China is largely "insulated" from the crisis? In the sense that they had not purchased the worst kinds of debt. Yes, but they have their own inflationary bubble and have contributed to the mis-allocation of resources. d. Chinese economy "growing stronger by the week"? Seems rather dubious, given that a lot of the investment there is not economically rational and they are in the midst of a massive credit bubble. The author cites new highs in the stock market, which can be just as much a symptom of a credit bubble as of economic growth. 3. "Because of this frenetic financial activity, inflation is rising in China". e. Must not have read, one week before in the same paper, Credit 'heart attack' engulfs China and Korea In addition to the mal-investment generated by their credit bubble, Chinese bank lending is political, not economically driven. Loan rates are capped below market. This resulted in a banking crisis some years ago. The banks were bailed out and recapitalized by the central bank, which moved all of the bad loans off their books. Now only a few years later they are back in the same situation. previous entry I did on the Chinese credit bubble. Recently, the central planners have told banks to stop lending to some sectors, according to the financial times:
    China has for some time tried to rein in the rapid increases in bank lending that have contributed to rising consumer and asset price inflation. But a renewed effort is affecting foreign banks and companies for the first time as the central bank and regulatory officials step up their "window guidanceâ€ to try to cool the overheating economy. Executives working at locally incorporated foreign banks said they had not received formal orders from authorities. But in quarterly meetings and regular phone conversations they have been "advisedâ€ not to lend to the real estate projects or polluting industries. Domestic state-owned banks must attend separate and more frequent meetings where a similar but far more forceful message is delivered, along with a directive to halt new loan growth altogether until the end of the year.

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Battered But Not Broken

Haven’t slept well in more than a week which is probably why I feel like I fell off of a cliff and bounced all the way down. I know the feeling because it happened to me when I was a kid.

Slipped over the side and somersaulted backwards and then bounced off of every rock on the hillside, some of them twice. But I was lucky not to break anything and suffered nothing more than scrapes and bruises.

Since I am not as flexible as I once was nor possessed of the same healing power I had as a child I have no desire to do it again. Of course that hasn’t stopped me from sometimes doing things as if I were still that kid, but a man only truly ages when he stops pushing his limits.

So I am pushing, even today when I simply don’t “feel right” I am pushing limits and stretching to make things happen.

And that is why I am not writing much here but doing so elsewhere:

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The Truth Is the Light : Blessed Trinity

  • by Vanessa Davis Griggs
  • Narrated by Shari Peele
  • Series: Blessed Trinity
  • 10 hrs and 26 mins
  • Unabridged Audiobook

Publisher's Summary

Vanessa Davis Griggs’ Blessed Trinity novels tackle tough questions of faith with humor and honesty. The sixth entry in the series, The Truth Is the Light features the return of the always-entertaining Followers of Jesus Faith Worship Center congregation. Here, the flock’s newest member is causing quite a stir, but he’s not the only one bringing drama into the church house.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful

I really enjoyed the series. it really connects with just life in general and the fact that I can put my hands on my Bible and go to the scripture and God releases a new revelation this is really awesome vanessa has done an awesome job keep up the good work.
Read full review

- Tameika

misleading and not what I expected..

What disappointed you about The Truth Is the Light?

This book was peppered way too much with quotes from the bible, and it was too preachy for my taste, though I love reading the bible this book is not what I expected. The description of this book was very misleading and I feel that the author did a poor job of giving a reasonable picture of what the story was about. Though the story and the characters were believable the preaching and other aspects of the book was just too
over the top for me making it impossible to really enjoy it. It was a wasted credit for me..
Big Mike.

Would you be willing to try another book from Vanessa Davis Griggs? Why or why not?

Absolutely Not! I see the direction this author is going with her books and I'm not feeling
her style of writing, so no I will not be purchasing anything else from her..

Did Shari Peele do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

To be quite honest I got this book because Shari Peele was the narrator. I also gave it the stars that I did because of her. I love her reading and have purchased other books that she has narrated and I thought she did a good job on this one, its just too bad the author went overboard with the religious content. There is nothing wrong with adding this type of content to your story, I just feel that it was overkill and she simply got too carried away with it. That's just my take on it..

What character would you cut from The Truth Is the Light?

None! they all seemed to work in unison with each other.

Any additional comments?

Next time shave down just a little on the religious stuff...

Read full review

- michael

Book Details

  • Release Date: 09-02-2011
  • Publisher: Recorded Books


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MMM 24-Pin ATX Female Connector - Black (MOD-0096)

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Looking to replace the dingy beige or faded black connectors on your PSU cable set? We offer replacement connectors for every standard internal PSU, fan or sata cable that you could need. We offer a wide range of connectors and pins both individually or in sets.

This is the 24pin ATX Female connector used on the cables to power the main board. We looked extensively to find connectors without wings that satisfied our attention to detail, and we are proud to provide the solution to you. This connector uses Female ATX terminal pins.

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Easter Egg Hunts Around the Philadelphia Area

Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail.... As Peter Cottontail makes his way to the Delaware Valley, Philly kids should find their favorite basket and get ready to search high and low for eggs at these local Easter egg hunts. Most of these egg hunts are outdoors. In the event of questionable weather, please be sure to check directly with the organizers to see if they have a rain date (all of our event listings link to official websites). Also, make sure to click through to our events calendar for exact times since many hunts have multiple time frames based on age.

The majority of these egg hunts are FREE and are a great way to welcome spring and create Easter traditions with your kids. Be sure to also check our Easter Bunny Express post for info on special holiday train rides and our Easter Fun at Farms post featuring plenty of photo ops, animal visits, and outdoor fun.

The Butterfly Pavilion Returns to the Natural History Museum

Everyone's all a-flutter at the Natural History Museum. The seasonal re-opening of the Butterfly Pavilion took place over the weekend, giving us months of access to the unfettered joy that is an afternoon among the butterflies. The old pavilion was replaced by an entirely new screened structure a few months ago, still on the museum’s South Lawn, and the doors are now open once more for some delightful flutterby time on the site that becomes the creepy Spider Pavilion come autumn. From chrysalis to butterfly, the pavilion is full of magical moments, which is why it rates as one of our 100 things to do with LA kids before they grow up.

Indoor Pools with Drop-In Family Swim Times in Boston

When the kids are wired but outdoor swimming is out of the question—nearly 10 months of the year in these parts—a dip in an indoor pool can be just the thing to set the day right. Swim lessons are important for setting a foundation for pool safety, but simply splashing around in the off-season can also help transform doggy paddlers into capable swimmers more quickly, making summer a little safer—and less stressful—for all.

Suffolk County Summer Day Camps

We profiled Nassau County day camps earlier. Now we turn the spotlight on camps in Suffolk County.

From swimming and sports to arts and crafts, each camp offers activities and other events to keep kids happy all summer. Since there are so many different camps in the county from which to choose, be sure to check out our Long Island Summer Camps Guide. Here are some of our favorite Suffolk County camps.

Preschooler Summer Camps in Central Connecticut

Ah! Summertime. Those long, lazy days, nothing for the kids to do but count the blades of grass, eat popsicles, and go completely insane with boredom by the end of vacation...whoa. Stop right there. Even the littlest little can get a bit stir crazy when preschool is out, and with the first day of spring upon us, the time is right for seeking out some summer boredom busters. While it may not be time for them to experience the freedom of sleepaway camp (if that's your thing) there are lots of excellent summer camp options for the smallest among us to get their adorable little feet wet when it comes to spending some quality time away from mom and dad this summer. If you're in central Connecticut, take a gander at these summer camp programs we've rounded up for you. You're sure to find something just right for your preschooler.

A Visit to the Institute for American Indian Studies Museum & Research Center

Tucked on a woodsy cul-de-sac in Washington - one of the most pastoral areas of Connecticut – you will find an important assortment of stories and artifacts that preserve and celebrate the traditions and contributions of indigenous cultures. Though small in square footage, the Institute for American Indian Studies Museum & Research Center features an impressive collection and is an especially child-friendly Litchfield County attraction.

FREE STEAM Fun for Westchester Families

STEAM programs are really heating up in Westchester, with both in-school and extracurricular activities sprouting up all over the place. In case your family hasn’t yet caught the craze, STEAM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, art and math, and there's a growing movement to ramp up education for kids in these areas.

We previously posted our guide to STEAM centers in Westchester. Now, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite FREE STEAM programs planned for kids this spring. Whether your child is a future physicist, meteorologist, computer programmer, entomologist, astronomer, mathematician, collage artist or engineer, there’s something for all ages and interests.

Our Event Calendar is frequently updated with new additions, so view it often to stay up to date. Now grab your planner, ‘cause things are getting really STEAM-y out there!

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Tag Archives: open university

Free training courses you can take to level-up your life

posted by in Budgeting, Free things to do, Wellbeing Leave a comment

In this age of the web it’s never been easier to be in a constant state of learning. There are lots of online courses you can take in a vast variety of fields. Some come with a qualification, some don’t, but there’s bound to be a course out there that suits your needs.

If courses aren’t your thing, there are still lots of ways you learn new stuff without going through traditional types of study. We love free ways to learn something new!

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Student for a Day Form

Mother Seton High School Student For A Day Application

Mother Seton sponsors Student For A Day visitations for parochial and public school girls in Grades 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Please check with your Principal first to make sure that he/she will permit you to attend.

As a visitor, you will follow a schedule of academic, enrichment and school activities and will be assigned to a student hostess who will guide you through the day. The program will run from 8 am until 2:10 p.m. Lunch will be provided in our catered cafeteria. Each student should bring a pen and a pencil. Dress should be appropriate for school (no jeans). Catholic school visitors do not have to wear their uniforms.

Anyone interested in the visitation program must formally register by completing the form below. If you have any questions, call the Admissions Department at (732) 382-1952, ext 127.


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Editor's Blog: Mugello Road Trip - Day 2: The Rain In Austria Falls Mainly On Me

Day two of my trek to Mugello was the highlight of the trip, when seen from the comfort of the desk in my office. From southern Germany through Austria, taking in a pass or two, then on into Italy and a choice of options, depending on my mood and the time I would need to find lodgings.

Unfortunately, I had not reckoned with two things: the first was the weather; the second was my own stupidity. I had drawn up a back up route in case of poor weather, but it was different in only one aspect. I had intended on riding the Hahntennjoch in Austria, a slightly less well-known pass, but one with a reputation for being a great ride. After reading that the pass is infamous for mud and rock slides, I added a back up route in case it rained. And boy did it rain.

. There was a lot of it

Mountains sheathed in clouds look impressive. If you are sitting indoors...

It was dry as I loaded up the bike this morning, stopping to chat with a local journalist who regaled me with tales of his Triumph TR5 and BSA Gold Star. As I left Memmingen, the first drops of rain started to fall, and they continued all the way through Austria and over the Fernpass until I reached the bottom of the Reschenpass, the low mountain pass past Nauders and into Italy. My trusty BMW R1200GS displays the ambient air temperature (or rather, a wildly inaccurate version of the air temperature, usually three or more degrees centigrade out) which I use as a makeshift weather gauge. If the temperature drops then I know it's likely to rain.

The temperature did not drop. It stayed cold, and wet, for most of the day. At one point, as the A12 turned north to join the B180 at Landeck, I was overjoyed to find myself in a tunnel for 8 kilometers or so. Normally, I avoid tunnels, but the chance to be dry for a few minutes, and to warm up – ambient temperature jumped by about 10 degrees – was something I was very glad of indeed.

The fort at Nauders

At the bottom of the Reschenpass, near Mals (or Malles Venosta – South Tyrol, the northern part of Italy, is still German speaking, as the area was taken from Austria and handed to Italy after the First World War) I ran into another miscalculation. Just as I reached the roundabout where I could choose to head west over the Stelvio or east towards Merano and over the Gampenpass, a police car blocked the route. Tuesday was the day that the Giro d'Italia crossed the Stelvio pass, before heading on to the Val Martello. I happened to arrive at the bottom of the Reschenpass just as the first preparations were taking place to clear the roads for the world's elite cyclists.

Small comfort: I was not the only one forced to wait

It proved to be a long wait, fortunately in front of a restaurant serving coffee. It was a very damp and bedraggled lot who had made it over the Stelvio (preceded by the Gavia, both passes well over 2600 meters), and passed in front of us. The field was very strung out, taking the best part of 40 minutes to pass. Never have I admired human determination more than seeing the faces of those riders in the face of such miserable conditions. When I found out that it had been snowing up on both the Gavia and Stelvio, I found it was possible to admire them more.

The peleton, looking bedraggled.

Their passing made my decision easy. If I was to make it to my hotel before the reception closed and left me stranded – it has happened to me once before, at Brno, and I was only saved by the good graces of the ever-generous Andrew Wheeler – there was no time for me to make it over the Stelvio. Given the prevailing conditions, of which I had no idea at that time, it was probably a good thing.

The peloton took the rain clouds with them to the west, and the sun broke out just as I started on the final leg of my journey to Lake Garda. Two hours riding in the sunshine feels an awful lot better when you spent the first four or so in the pouring rain...

Riva Del Garda

Tomorrow, I head to Florence, and the last leg of my journey, for the moment at least.

Total votes: 6
Total votes: 60

Back to top

Nothing like starting out dry, getting soaked, and then drying out before you stop. That is why they invented hot showers...

Total votes: 40

You have had your dose of water - the return trip will be glorious.
I hope.

Total votes: 44

David, thanks for taking us along.

Getting wet on a MC and pushing onward separates the riders from the posers.

You were able to see a race, although briefly, on your way to the race. Excellent!

Total votes: 48

The Giro and Misano in one trip !
You're very lucky !
Keep on having fun.

Total votes: 55

Nothing better than a motorcycle road trip (to Mugello) and thanks for sharing Dave, but hopefully it was warm rain!

Total votes: 37

makes me feel like I am riding along with you. Been following the Giro, and it is funny that you would run into the race as you are heading to Mugello. This one and the one before are great reading. Looking forward to hearing more of your adventure.

Total votes: 41

Reminds me of last year (in a car thankfully) when the plan was to leave Borgo Panigale after the Ducati factory and museum tour and go over the famous Futa Pass. March 2013 had us sliding around in SNOW! But soon enough you'll be in Tuscany enjoying a proper Florentine beefsteak and Sangiovese wine. Great roads around there based on my bicycle experience, we used to ride close enough to Mugello to look at the track through the fence. One of these days seeing MOTOGP there is in the cards. As they say in Italy, BUON DIVERTIMENTO!

Total votes: 43

Yeah, yeah, like everyone else says, very nice. I'm jealous.
Thanks for the great pictures. Now where's the race preview?!

This is Rossi's 300th start, at his home track, and his form is coming good. Jorge is desperate for a good result, and this would seem to be the venue for it. Marquez is coming to the track as an older, wiser man, looking to make amends for last year. Bautista wants to continue his form. Ducati want a good result at home. They tested here recently, looking for an advantage. Pol wants to continue his form. Brad wants to beat Pol. Bradl wants to beat Bautista. Etc., etc.

This race is ripe for hype.
I need the kind of race buildup that only you can deliver :-)

Total votes: 39

Race isn't till Sunday. Plenty of time yet! I'll be writing a preview of sorts on Thursday. As you say, plenty to look forward to.

Total votes: 47


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mountainss Cloud and Datacenter Management Blog

Microsoft SystemCenter blogsite about virtualization on-premises and Cloud

Leave a comment

Migrating #Microsoft #SQL Server Databases to #Azure Guidelines

Azure SQL CloudThis blogpost will give you the information about migrating Microsoft SQL Server databases to Azure.
I see a lot of questions on the Microsoft TechNetMSDN forums about how to get my database secure in Microsoft Azure

Before you do a SQL migrate you can do a SQL Assessment via Microsoft Operations Management Suite.

OMS SQL Recommendations

You can see a step-by-step blogpost on my blog for the results for example :
 ‘Do your SQL Assessment with Microsoft OMS before your New Project Starts in Production’

Here you find Microsoft Azure technical documentation on Migrate to Azure :

SQL Migrating

SQL Server database migration to SQL Database in the cloud

For export and import Azure SQL Databases :

Export a BACPAC of a SQL Database

Import a BACPAC of a SQL Database

Copy a SQL Database

Migrating SQL to Azure1

There is also an Awesome Free Microsoft E-Book about Migrating SQL Server Databases to Azure by Carl Rabeler

MVA Course Migrating SQL to Azure

You find here a brand New  Microsoft Virtual Academy video Course about Migrating SQL Databases to Azure

SCUG Banner

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Microsoft #SQL Server #Backup to Microsoft #Azure Tool

SQL Server Backup to Azure

SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 and SQL Server 2014 have built in capability to back up to Windows Azure storage. The SQL Server Backup to Windows Azure tool provides the same functionality for previous versions of SQL Server. It can also be used to provide encryption and compression for your backups.

Using the 3-step wizard, you can specify a rule or set of rules that are applied to any SQL Server backup. One example of a rule could be to redirect all local backups to the specified Windows Azure storage. Another example of a rule would be to use compression or encryption for backups stored in a specific location.

Once you configure the rules, these rules are applied to SQL Server Backup files. If the rule is set to use a Windows Azure storage account, the tool redirects the backups to the specified Windows Azure storage account, but leaves a stub file in the local storage with metadata information to be used during restore.

  • Support for backups to Windows Azure Storage for SQL Server versions that do not have the built-in capability. Using Windows Azure storage for your backups has several benefits, such as providing off-site storage for disaster recovery, accessibility regardless of location, etc. For more information, see SQL Server Backup and Restore with Windows Azure.
  • Encryption support for SQL Server versions that do not have the built in capability. Currently only SQL Server 2014 has encryption support.
  • Compression support for SQL Server versions that do not have the built in capability. Currently, SQL Server 2008 supports compression in Enterprise edition only, but SQL Server 2008 R2 and later, encryption is supported on Enterprise and Standard editions.

SQL Server and Operating Systems Support:

This tool is supported on SQL Server 2005 or later, and Operating System versions: Windows Server 2008 or later for Servers, and Windows 7 or later for Client Operating Systems.

Here you can download the Microsoft SQL Server Backup to Microsoft Azure Tool

SQL logo

Leave a comment

UPDATE #Microsoft System Center Management Pack for #SQL Server #SCOM #sysctr

SQL Instance View The Management pack for SQL Server provides the capabilities for Operations Manager 2007 R2 and Operations Manager 2012 to discover SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2, and SQL Server 2012. It monitors SQL Server components such as database engine instances, databases, and SQL Server agents. The monitoring provided by this management pack includes performance, availability, and configuration monitoring, performance data collection, and default thresholds. You can integrate the monitoring of SQL Server components into your service-oriented monitoring scenarios. Feature Summary: The following list gives an overview of the features of the SQL Server management pack. Refer to the SQL Server management pack guide for more details. New features and fixes:

  • Dashboards were replaced with the new ones
  • Components of replication functionality are deprecated and disabled by default
  • SPN monitor now correctly handles disjoined namespaces
  • Added support for filegroups containing filestreams and partition schemes
  • Memory Consumption monitor has been fixed
  • Upgradeability from version is supported
  • Added CPU Usage monitor and rule for SQL Server 2005
  • Added ConsecutiveSamples Condition to the Buffer Cache Hit Ratio and Page Life Expectancy monitors
  • AlwaysOn discovery was reworked
  • Minor fixes.

Here you can download Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server

Here you can download Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server 2014

Here you can download Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server 2014 Analysis Services

Microsoft #OData Source for Microsoft #SQL Server 2012 #Cloud

The Open Data protocol (OData) lets you access a data source, such as a database, by browsing to a specially constructed URL. This allows for a simplified approach for connecting to and working with data sources that are hosted within an organization.

There are many OData sources available in enterprise and in cloud:
•SharePoint Foundation 2010
•SharePoint Server 2010
•SQL Azure
•Windows Azure Table Storage
•Windows Azure Marketplace
•SQL Server Reporting Services
•Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
•Windows Live

For a list of producers of OData services, see the Open Data Protocol website.

Connecting to OData sources quickly without any coding is the primary design goal of OData Source for SQL Server 2012. The OData Source component enables SSIS packages to communicate with OData sources. Developers can add the component to an SSIS package and configure it to receive data from an OData source without writing any code.

Here you can download Microsoft Odata Source for Microsoft SQL Server 2012

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Microsoft #SQL2012 reporting for System Center 2012 SP1 CTP VMM on Windows “8” Beta #SCVMM2012 #Windows8

This topic is about reporting SQL 2012 for System Center 2012 SP1 CTP Virtual Machine Manager under Windows “8” Beta Server.

If you open Microsoft SQL 2012 Management Studio and go to the Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) database :

Here you can make the following standard reports by SQL 2012 Server about Virtual Machine Manager :

  • Disk Usage
  • Disk Usage by Top Tables
  • Disk Usage by Table
  • Disk Usage by Partition
  • Backup and Restore Events
  • All Transactions
  • All Blocking Transactions
  • Top Transactions by Age
  • Top Transactions by Blocked Transactions Count
  • Top Transactions by locks Count
  • Resource locking statistics by Objects
  • Obeject Execution Statistics
  • Database Consistency History
  • Index Usage Statistics
  • Index Physical Statistics
  • Schema Changes History
  • User Statistics

Here are some examples of the reports you can run with SQL 2012 Management Studio :

This is a report on the disk Usage of the VMM Database running on Windows “8” Server Beta with SQL 2012.

Here you see the User Statistics of System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

Here you see the Usage by Partion of the SQL DataBase of SCVMM.

When you don’t have Microsoft System Center Operations Manager installed, standard reporting of SQL 2012 Server is handy to use.
You can also make your Custom report in SQL 2012 for SCVMM DataBase.


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ByQuincy Jackson, writer at
Action ,Mystery,Mythology, Horror,Fantasy,Comic Book,Sci Fi, Is what this is.
Quincy Jackson

There are, I am sure, many movies we would like see rebooted. This is one my favorite ones. Saw this movie many times as a kid and loved it. Looking at what technology and other advancements they have today tells me a lot could be done with this.

who could for forget this. this was best weapon of all time for its time.

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Chinese New Year 2017 -The Year of the Rooster

Stories from the Museum Floor

Today’s post, by Fang from the Visitor Team, is a celebration of Chinese New Year and is part of her series on the Chinese Zodiac

For more about the objects and collections at Manchester Museum, have a look at the Curators’ blogs.

Chinese Zodiac: Part 2 – Chicken

Chinese New Year 2017 starts on Saturday 28 January, and it’s TheYear of theRooster(鸡, Ji). In Chinese, the “Year of Ji” means “chicken” – either rooster or hen, but it is usually translated as rooster. And although many websites say 2017 is the Year of the Rooster – but the Stem-Branch calendar says it’s a female. Most accurately, the year of 2017 is called Red Fire Chicken Year. This blog will cover both the rooster and the hen.

The Chinese Zodiac

In the Chinese Zodiac, the chicken is the only bird included in the twelve zodiac signs, due…

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White Dwarf Supernovae: Standard Lampposts on Dark Energy Road

My dear readers,

This special post is part of the Carnival of Cosmology: Dark Energy, hosted by Galileo’s Pendulum, a fellow astronomy blog I discovered less than 12 hours ago, as of the writing of this post.

To begin, I’m going to give a very brief background about dark energy in general, and then I’ll talk about one of the tools we use to measure this enigmatic stuff.  Most of my research has been investigating the nature of dark energy using Type 1a supernovae (pronounced like “Type One-A Super-no-vee,” SNe 1a for short, and also known as white dwarf supernovae.) so it is a topic very dear to my heart as well as my head.

As you may know, the Universe is expanding.  However, what you may not know is that this expansion is not slowing down, as you might think gravity would cause it to do, but it is speeding up.  We can tell this by looking far, far away, deep into space, where the things we see are not quite as bright as we would expect them to be.

One type of candle at many distances – as the candle gets farther away, it appears dimmer. The same goes for white dwarf supernovae and the expanding Universe.
Image courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory/Universe Adventure

To quantify this notion, we use “standard candles,” which have a set brightness that we know is the same, no matter where they are in space or when they sent out their light.  A white dwarf supernova is just such a “candle.”**  This particular type of exploding star is very special, in that it doesn’t care what kind of galaxy it calls home (big, small, elliptical, spiral, etc), and it always has the same pattern of brightening and fading.

Strange, to be sure, but this is all because of the specific type of star associated with this explosion: a white dwarf of about 1.44 times the mass of our Sun (or 1.44 Solar masses).  A star similar to our Sun goes through its life cycle (click here for a very plain-English explanation of stellar evolution) and eventually becomes a white dwarf.  Usually a white dwarf will just burn the rest of its energy, cooling down to become a black dwarf.  However, if it is part of a binary system, or has a companion star, and that companion orbits close enough to our white dwarf, the white dwarf will start sucking mass right off of its companion.

White dwarf sucking mass off its companion
Image courtesy of Science Engine – Space

Once it reaches 1.44 Solar masses, the white dwarf becomes too big for its britches and collapses under the force of its own gravity in an explosion so bright that it can rival the brightness of its host galaxy!

So, you can now see how a particular kind of star in a particular setting makes a particular kind of explosion and doesn’t have to be located in a particular type of galaxy.  Even without any constraints on location, this seems like it would be pretty improbable, right?  Well, just remember that there are as many as tens to hundreds of billions of stars in a given galaxy, and with the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field as an indicator, there are billions and billions of galaxies out there, which makes for a lot of potential SNe 1a to be observed.

Type 1a supernovae are super bright!
In 1994, a white dwarf supernova (lower left) occurred in galaxy NGC 4526. The supernova’s brightness rivaled that of its host galaxy – one single star explosion rivaled the brightness of billions of stars combined!
Image courtesy of the High-Z Supernova Search Team/HST/NASA

Now, since there are so many SNe 1a out there and they are so standard, they make an excellent tool for measuring distances, which is exactly how the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics recipients used them to discover dark energy.  They took a theoretical model of how the brightness should vary with distance and compared that with data from dozens of supernovae that they actually observed (today we have hundreds of observations, and soon there will be many, many more, thanks to the advances in telescope cameras and sensors, as well as the growing number of all-sky surveys being performed).  The disparity between the model and the data grew with distance, thus “dark energy” was discovered.
Head on back over to the Carnival to check out the other great posts!

** I should note that SNe 1a are more like standardizable candles.  If you really want to get technical, check out this article from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

One thought on “White Dwarf Supernovae: Standard Lampposts on Dark Energy Road

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Mswas’ CBR-III Review #25 – God Said, Ha! by Julia Sweeney

I heard Julia Sweeney being interviewed on NPR recently about atheism, and decided to get one of her books. God Said, “Ha!” is an account of her brother’s battle and loss of life to cancer. I like Sweeney a lot, and her book is just as funny and touching as she is.

I recently reviewed Betty White’s book where I commented that it was lacking due to the  wide margins and white space. God Said, “Ha!” is similar in format, but what I think works here is that it’s conversational and brief about a very hard subject, whereas the other book just muses about life and some of the things Betty White has done lately. God Said, Ha! is definitely Sweeney’s voice. And while the book is really about Mike’s cancer, and then Sweeney’s own cancer, her stories about her parents and family are hysterically precise.

My mother also has a thing about elevators. I discovered this while we were at the hospital in Rochester, where we took elevators many, many times a day. My mother would always act as if she were seeing an elevator for the first time, that it was some kind of miracle invention and she would react with awe whenever we approached one. Every single time.

Sweeney’s keen observations are particularly poignant as her brother’s health really fails. The passage about his actual passing was a tearjerker, and hit very close to home. I won’t reprint it here, but it was really sweet.

I would also encourage a library borrow on this one, due to its brevity. But God Said, “Ha!” is worth it.

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Microblog Mondays: 30

Today would have been Jaime‘s 30th birthday. That’s hard to even imagine.

One of the hardest parts of Jaime being gone is knowing that Charlie has lost that incredibly close friendship with his little sister and that our kids won’t get to grow up with her in their lives. We were at a birthday party last weekend at the local reservoir, and I just kept thinking about how much I wished she was there, swimming and drinking and laughing with us and all of our friends.  Sun + drinks + friends + family would have been right up her alley. ❤ IMG_5081

Charlie and I were also talking about her yesterday and laughing at the thought of her being 30 (she would have hated admitting she was in her 30s!), and he said something like, “You know, the more I look back at Jaime and her life, the more I realize she just wasn’t one of those people who was meant to grow old.”

I hate it, even if it’s true. These three loves of mine really deserved more time with her in their lives. 😦

  1. sangela71 · · Reply

    Aww, that is sad.

  2. Jaime and Jack will be read tonight before bed….and we will wish her a happy birthday…HUGS to all of you….

  3. mcmissis · · Reply

    I’ve had a similar thought to the one Charlie had about people who die early, but it’s never the right time to say it. I used to always think they missed out on the rest of their lives, but really, they never get the rest of their lives to miss. Does that make sense? I keep thinking they are robbed of this set of memories they didn’t get to create, when in reality, they never created them to miss out on. This is probably making no sense at all.

    But when I think about the other people in their lives, like you guys, I still think you are forced to make memories that don’t have her in them. So, maybe she can’t “miss out” on memories she never made, but you can definitely miss her making them.

Virtual Hugs (FYI - your comment may be held in moderation for me to approve if you have never commented here before - I try to approve as quickly as possible!)

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800 739464  (+971) 4 88 352 88

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Adorable Animal Appliqué (Annie's Sewing) by Margie Ullery (July 01,2013)

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In 1980, we had a dream of starting a jewelry business. Yet as big as the dream was, we could not have imagined the joy we have found in being a part of our customer’s special occasions. A family owned business now in our second generation; we have grown to appreciate the wishes and desires of our customers.

NAGI Jewelers specializes in the finest ideal cut diamonds in the world with the largest selection of bridal jewelry in the area. Our professional, warm, and engaging staff maintains a tradition of serving you without compromise. We take pride in educating and guiding each customer in all of our products; including diamonds, exquisite gemstones, antique, estate, new and custom made jewelry of all types, design services, expert jewelry and watch repair and restoration, insurance replacement and appraisals of all types.

Nagi Osta is both a G.G.A. and CGA, and his favorite place is on the sales floor with our customers. We are lucky to have staff that is both talented and passionate about their field, with knowledge gained through both on the job experience and education at both the GIA and AGS. In our quest to offer the highest quality service and items to our customers, we travel around the world to bring you the finest, diamonds, jewelry, and gemstones. Each staff member is dedicated to self-improvement through constant training. Our certified watchmakers, gemologists, and master jewelers remain the most talented professionals in their fields.

Outgrowing our original store location in 2002, we moved into a larger two-story building, which boasts 5,400 square feet of showroom space. We still manage to maintain our cozy and comfortable small town atmosphere while adding an underlying romantic ambiance. To fulfill the seemingly impossible task of having something for everyone we carry over 50 designer brands. Some are internationally known while others are some of the best kept secret artisan jewelers you never knew existed.

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Gender: F Origin of Aryana: Spelling variation of Ariana Aryana's Popularity in 2015: #835

Both Ariana and Arianna sit comfortably in the US Top 100, so it makes sense that Aryana with the trendy y would join the fray. However, due to its inevitable confusion with the other spellings and the word "aryan" prominently displayed, it might be best to consider an alternative.

Lists containing Aryana:

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Famous People Named Aryana

Aryana Engineer, Canadian actress
Aryana Sayeed, Afghan singer
Aryana Farshad, Iranian film director

Pop Culture References for the name Aryana

Aryana Mendez, main character on Philippine TV series "Aryana"


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Make the NBN a sustainable organisation that provides support for all members

Why? It is imperative that the core structure and governance of the NBN Trust (including Secretariat and Board of Trustees) is strong so that it can provide appropriate support to the Network. This operational effectiveness is critical to the NBN Trust if it is to be successful in achieving its aims and objectives.

The NBN will Priority Time-scale Priority for 2016-2017
1. Provide strong financial and budget control of the NBN Trust funds Mission Critical Ongoing NBN Secretariat lead
2. Maintain a Board of Trustees, representative of the NBN with the appropriate skills and required competencies in order to progress the NBN partnership Mission Critical Ongoing
3. Review NBN Trust governance so it is fair, open and transparent Moderate Ongoing
4. Provide and maintain a safe and healthy environment for the Secretariat and visitors Moderate Ongoing NBN Secretariat lead
5. Provide support to NBN Trust members, donors, data providers and partners High Ongoing
6. Deliver a programme of training and events to support the network Moderate Ongoing Working group 7 – Supporting and developing the Network
7. Evaluate Network effectiveness in implementing the NBN Strategy through annual business plans and Board governance High Ongoing
8. Research the priorities of NBN Trust partner organisations and ensure that the service provided is appropriate, cost effective and fit for purpose Moderate One-off

Current activity

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Johnnie Mae Ethridge detroitTwo young men are suspected of carjacking an 87-year-old woman on Tuesday morning, Fox 2 Detroit reports.

SEE ALSO: Teacher Accused Of Discriminating Against Black Students Sees Case Move To Federal Court
Johnnie Mae Ethridge (pictured), told Fox 2 that she is still “scared and shaken” from the traumatic experience. Ethridge was only two blocks from home to get her brakes fixed when two young men held her at gunpoint at a stoplight on the city’s west side.

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“The other fella was at the rear of the car and he had his gun.  I had a problem trying to get the seat belt loose,” Ethridge explained.  “Pushed me out of the car, [threw] my cane out and just hopped in the car with my purse and all my I. D. and took off.”

SEE ALSO: How To Get Free Wifi Anywhere

James Barney witnessed the whole thing  incident:

“Two young kids that ran up to her car and with two guns and snatched her chain and told her to get out of her car, and I heard her screaming, so I started running,” he said.  “By the time I got there they took off, so I stayed with her, called the police for her.”

A good Samaritan in a time of need.  As for the carjackers, they didn’t get far.  At Oakman and Davison, the two gunmen abandoned the vehicle after jumping the curb, crashing and flattening a tire.  They tried to steal a second car, but ended up running from the scene.

Ethridge’s car was towed.  She got her cane back, but her husband’s gold chain, along with her purse, wallet and I.D. are gone.

“They just don’t have [any] respect for [anybody].  It’s terrible,” said Ethridge.

The carjackers, who Ethridge has describe to be in their late teens or early twenties, have not been caught. Anyone with information about the attack is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP.

Nailed It: 12 Gold Medal Worthy Nails At The Olympics [PHOTOS]

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Lidl “You can paint your house with our gravy for less”

paint-in-gravyPeople will be able to re-decorate their houses on a shoestring according to budget supermarket giant Lidl following revelations that their gravy contains paint.

A spokesman for the Europe-wide purveyors of cut price fodder explained “Some people may be put off their dinner slightly on finding out about the paint content in their gravy. But don’t worry if you’ve just poured it over a joint of beef. You merely need to spread the beef around your walls until it has all come off. Then you can eat the beef and hey presto you’ve decorated your house.”

“If people are concerned they can always pour our own brand paint over their Sunday roast as it most likely contains gravy”

Indeed Lidl are already putting measures in place to increase their production of the gravy/paint combo, likening the reports to a similar media outcry which occured when Iceland were caught putting horses in their ready meals.

“All Iceland food contains horse. And people boycotted it for a bit and then just thought,, fuck it, it’s cheap there. People will come back to us in their droves as well.. Eating paint just won’t be too much of a big thing.”

One Lidl customer said “It’s very disappointing. I had expected their gravy to have been produced from slow cooked organic beef and artisan vegetables. Still I’ve painted my house for a tenner and everyone thinks I’m living the high life. I can’t wait for them to do other colours.”

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Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Catholic Social Teaching Session For MOT of SYD-4

DS / st
KOTA KINABALU : Members of the Main Organizing Team of the 4th Sabah Youth Day attended a formation session on Catholic Social Teaching (CST) on 15th and 16th November 2014 at the Catholic Student Group (CSG) Center, Kota Kinabalu.

The twelve young people from the three arch / dioceses in Sabah had earlier attended the preparatory meeting for BILA on Youth. The session was facilitated by Dominic Lim from the Archdiocesan Human Development Commission (AHDC).

Although not all the seven themes were covered during the one and half day formation, the team found that they now have a deeper understanding about the Catholic faith. The knowledge gained ought to be practiced and shared with others.
Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is a rich treasure of wisdom regarding building a better society and living lives of holiness in the modern and challenging society. It is also known as the best kept secret of the Catholic Church and many Catholics are unaware of the existence of the CST which has been around since 1891 where in that year, Pope Leo XIII wrote the Encyclical 'Rerum Novarum' - "The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers” addressing new issues, then facing the European society.
As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has said, Christianity is actually an experience of Christ's love, not a set of do's and don'ts. However, there are still many  people thinking that CST is a set of rules that Catholics are obliged to follow. Not only that, CST is seldom preached from the pulpit.

"None of us can think we are exempt from concerns for the poor and for social justice."
-Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, 2013, Ch.4, #201

After a few meetings, the main organizing team for the upcoming 4th Sabah Youth Day (SYD 4) saw the need to share the treasure of wisdom to the young people of Sabah and be the voice of the marginalized. "Truly I tell you, just as you did to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" - Matthew 25 : 40. Therefore, the MOT desired to go through the formation session to be better prepared in organizing the upcoming SYD 4 in 2016 to be held in Holy Trinity Church, Tawau.

Some of the themes covered included the following;

Life and Dignity of the Human Person
God looks at every person with compassion and he loves us as though we are the only creature in the world. We believe that every person (no matter what nationality and what kind of work we do) is precious and that people are more important than things. We also believe that CST is an instrument to bring back the value of a human person.

The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers / Rerum Novarum
Work is also a vocation of a human person. Through work we achieve perfection. Therefore we must work together for the common good. Economy should be a tool for human and not the other way round. Humans are more valuable than things and labor is more important than profit. Every worker has the right to productive work, a reasonable wage, safe environment and also the right to form and join unions.

Human Rights / Populorum Progressio
Every human being has the right to life and to have access to the basic necessity in life. We were given an example of the happenings to the villagers who previously stayed around the Babagon Dam area. They depended on the forest for their livelihood. However, they were forced to leave the area to give way to the project. They were relocated elsewhere where they have to start all over again. We believe that whoever are responsible for it, should return what they have taken from the people.

Care for God's Creation
Everything created in this world is a gift from God. We are entrusted  to be a good steward of God's creation.
"An authentic faith always implies a deep desire to change the world."
- Pope Francis, Homily on March 1, 2014 in the Church of Gesu

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