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BANDUNG - Telkom University team succeeded to become the 2nd winner in Indonesia Robot Contest (KRI) 2018 Regional II organized by the Ministry of Research Technology and Higher Education (Ristekdikti) at the University of Tarumanegara on 10-12 May 2018 ago.
The Badaya_SAS team consisting of Ryan Febriansyah, Amalia Tamarizka Sihombing, Luthfi Anota Sirpa and supervisor Simon Siregar succeeded to win the second place with the category of Indonesian Dance Robot Contest (KRSTI).
Meanwhile, ROSTU team consisting of Dzikri Hasbialloh, Muhammad Muchlis Kurnia, Daud Al Adumy, Icha Inggrid Lestari, Muhammad Amirul Ammar, Alfian Nasir, Bayu Firdausa with mentor lecturer M. Ikhsan Sani succeeded in achieving Champion of hope for Indonesian Football Robot Contest category ( KRSBI) Wheeled.
According to M.Ikhsan, 2 teams of Telkom University who passed this team SAS and Team Rostu will enter the national level KRI which will be held on 11-14 July 2018 at Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta.
"We are grateful that we can continue this competition at the national level, because this is the first time KRSBI team," said Ikhsan, on Tel-U Campus on Wednesday (23/05).
In this KRI 2, as many as 95 teams competed in robot competitions that ran 5 branches, including ABU Indonesia Robot Contest (KRAI), Indonesia Fire Extinguisher Robot Contest (KRPAI), Indonesian Dance Robot Contest (KRSTI), Indonesian Football Robot Contest (KRSBI) Humanoid, and Indonesian Football Robot Contest (KRSBI) Wheeled.
While in this event Tel-U send 4 team that each team consist of Team BADAYA_SAS with category of KRSTI and ROSTU Team with category of KRSBI-Wheeled from Faculty of Applied Sciences (FIT) and ARJUNA Team with category of KRPAI and ROOBICS Team with category of KRAI from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FTE). (Parno)


If your rad cap failed it may have allowed too much pressure to build up in your cooling system and that cracked the rad. Now that you have no pressure in the cooling system it will overheat even of it is full because doesn't have enough pressure in the system. I would replace the rad, cap and coolant.
If you do not know when the water pump or thermostat was changed I personally would add them to the list of parts to replace. Then you might as well look at your belts and hoses also.
The 'might as wells' can get expensive....
Chicks dig me.....Fish fear me
Getting older, I have developed some special skills. I have the ability to cough, sneeze, fart and pee at the same time.
"If we cannot afford to take care of Veterans, then we should stop making them."
David C. Wilker Jr. USAF (RET)


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As promised, I’m back with more “Best of” Celebrity Nude GIFs! These are the creme of crop when it comes to all-time best celebrity nudies! teen photos and movies daily updates, 100 s galleries new every day Mr DeepFakes is deepfake porn tube site

domain: celebrity


LONDON (Reuters) - A Norwegian film that is part thriller, part spoof of the "Nordic Noir" genre, and a Chinese movie set in a massage clinic run by blind people and using some blind actors were the main offerings at the Berlin film festival on Monday.
Chinese director Lou Ye's "Tui Na" ("Blind Massage") is one of three Chinese films in competition, all of which represent a departure in being set outside of Beijing or Shanghai, with this one being the second Lou has filmed in Nanjing.
The body count in Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland's "Kraftidioten" ("Order of Disappearance") eventually hits 21.
The victims' names and a symbol suited to their religion, sometimes a Catholic cross, sometimes Orthodox, in one case a Star of David, are shown in white lettering on a black screen at the end of each bloody killing spree.
At first, the movie seems like a classic crime shoot-em-up, but this one drew laughs from a press preview audience with its references to the "Stockholm Syndrome", a discussion by two gangsters of why northern countries have good welfare systems and southern countries don't, and two of the tough guys turning out to have a covert gay relationship.
"It's an original harebrained idea from Scandinavia," Moland told a post-screening news conference. "It started out as an idea many years ago to explore the sort of porous line between our civil attributes and education and upbringing and being confronted with our various sorts of primitive instincts that we have when grave injustice is being done to us."
The bloodletting begins in a snowbound part of Norway when the son of snowplow driver Nils, played by Scandinavian film veteran Stellan Skarsgard, is mistakenly killed by a drug gang who think the young man has stolen their cocaine.
Because the killers disguise the murder as a drug overdose, the police are unwilling to investigate and Nils takes the law into his own hands.
"When did you become 'Dirty Harry'?," his ex-criminal brother asks him when Nils, who has killed off three of the drug gang's henchmen and thrown them in a lake, comes to him for advice on how to hire a hitman to kill off the crime boss.
The Norwegian drug kingpin is played by Pal Sverre Hagen as a ruthless sharp-suited vegan who drinks bio fruit juices and whose luxurious home is a monument to bad-taste decorating.
His main rival is a Serbian druglord played by veteran German actor Bruno Ganz. He said it was mostly a non-speaking role because of his limited Serbian but that he had tried to project his character as a big man, in the manner of the late Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic.
Challenged on the amount of violence in this and his other films, Moland said he was drawn to the theme of how violence affects normal people.
"Violence is I think something that lurks in our depths as human beings and thankfully we restrain ourselves most of the time and occasionally it erupts. I'm interested in what violence does to normal people, normal well-adjusted people."
BASED ON NOVEL
Based on a popular Chinese novel that has been made into a television series, "Blind Massage" is partly a soap operatic look at the lives, loves and frustrations of blind people working at a type of massage clinic popular in China, and partly a remarkable achievement with the integration of sighted Chinese actors with blind people who had never acted before.
"It was a very great chance for us blind people," actress Zhang Lei said of appearing in the film.
"There are very few opportunities and I know how to value this chance I got. I think we played ourselves, we enacted ourselves, that was it. We did not have a feeling of making a movie, it was more or less our own life."
The festival ends on Saturday with the awarding of the Golden Bear for best film and in other categories.


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It is rare that our family actually gets a weekend away. Despite living so close to some amazing geological wonders, we don't carve out enough time to go explore them. Our son spent the week in the southern desert, rafting on a river and learning about geology and astronomy out of the classroom, directly on location. This was a marvelous opportunity for us to take some time to leave the city behind and enjoy the southern Utah desert, and pick him up at the end of his odyssey. June/July is truly not the best time to head south, for the heat only increases the further south you go, however, I was willing to take what I could get.Our daughter was delighted to learn that our cabin was not only home to humans, but hosted a variety of desert fauna as well. Most exciting were the bunnies. They fearlessly hopped about our campsite, munching on green treats. Naturally she named them all, although most of them seemed to be "Howard". She ran about our cabin, searching for bunnies, shrieking, "Howard? Howard Bannister???"
We also saw a variety of raptors, a multitude of fascinating desert insects, bats, and many kinds of birds, but only was able to photograph the lizards.
We were standing on the trail, admiring this last fabulous lizard. A couple came up, and we let them pass. We thought it was obvious we were observing animal life, but they missed the cues altogether and stomped right up to the lizard, and were surprised when it dashed off the trail. The woman exclaimed "A visitor!" and the man was quickly cataloguing its stripes and spots as it vanished. We hiked off giggling, asking, "Who's the visitor?"

domain: geography


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A Cut Above the Rest
When it comes to the meats you serve your family, quality matters. Our butchery is a retail store of Steve Allen (Allen’s Scottish Butchers) and Nick Matusiak (Ontario’s Finest Butcher 2018) that offers years of experience in the industry.
Whether you’re planning a backyard barbecue to enjoy the warmer weather or you’re hosting a dinner party, you can be sure the meats you select from us are top-notch, so that you can take care of the rest!
Local Butcher in Oakville
While we take the quality of our offerings seriously, you can rely on prompt, friendly service at the counter. We take pride in knowing that our customers are enjoying locally sourced meat and baked goods made in-house!
Come to Oakville's Finest Butchery for:
- Prime beef
- Wagyu beef (from Snake River Farms)
- Sausage (and sausage rolls)
- Local pork
- Local lamb
- Local chicken
- Baked goods (Scotch pies and more)
- Black pudding
- Seasonal Items

domain: food


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DMX has let it be known that he was tricked into smoking crack cocaine by someone he looked up to his former/then mentor Ready Ron. DMX always told the story that Ready Ron laced a weed blunt with cocaine. Check out Ready Ron’s interview after the music icon DMX passed away. Ready Ron calls DMX a liar.
Ready Ron calling DMX a liar:

domain: entertainment


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A lab on a chip helps provide the answer—which is a matter of life and death when the question is whether drinking water contains arsenic.
More than 800 million people worldwide lack access to clean water. In developing countries, especially in South Asia, groundwater resources are often contaminated by naturally occurring arsenic. In Bangladesh, nearly one-quarter of the tube wells contain toxic levels of the colorless, odorless, and tasteless heavy metal.
|How it works: The sensor, layer by layer and step by step. Click on the image for a larger version. Ilustration by Steve Stankiewicz
Existing technologies used to test water sources for arsenic are lacking, says bioengineering student Jessica VanderGiessen ’14. Colorimetric tests—similar to a pH test used to measure the level of chlorine in pool water—are cheap, easy to use, and deliver results in the field, but the devices have serious drawbacks: They use toxic chemicals as reagents, they cannot detect low levels of arsenic, and they deliver imprecise results. Laboratory tests, meanwhile, are accurate but more expensive and require transporting water samples from remote areas to labs in major cities.
With assistance provided by the School of Engineering’s Frugal Innovation Lab, VanderGiessen and bioengineering students Alexandra Sibole ’14 and Ben Demaree ’14 have developed what they believe is a better way to test for arsenic. VanderGiessen says the team’s solution delivers the precision of sophisticated laboratory testing, in the field, via a handheld device that uses cheap, disposable materials and is operated by a single user.
The prototype combines three components—a sensor the size of a human pinkie, an electrochemical analyzer the size of a human hand, and a mobile phone—all powered by a laptop computer.
The sensor uses a printable-ink silver electrode embedded on a plastic-based substrate. A one-button system runs the arsenic test on a water sample. The electrochemical analyzer displays a peak; the height of the peak corresponds to the concentration of arsenic in the sample. Test results are uploaded via mobile phone to a central database for geocoding on a map.
FRUGAL, NOT SIMPLE
|Close at hand: The device is designed to conduct testing at the point of care, so people can know within minutes whether their water is safe to drink, says Jessica VanderGiessen, pictured above in rural eastern India last summer. Photo courtesy Jessica VanderGiessen
The arsenic testing device is one of the most promising student projects to have been nurtured by the Frugal Innovation Lab. Since the lab’s April 2012 launch, more than 350 students have made use of its resources. At any one time, the lab is involved in 20 to 25 projects, says its director, Radha Basu. Basu is also the Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor of Science, Technology, and Society and holder of the Dean’s Executive Professorship. She describes the lab’s mission as “designing appropriate, accessible, adaptable, and affordable technologies, products, and solutions for the needs of emerging-market consumers.”
Design and material choices demand thrift and creativity, says VanderGiessen. Using silver rather than gold for the electrode cut costs, and switching from paper to plastic for the substrate improved durability. “We really wanted to come up with a disposable sensor that could conduct testing at the point of care, so people could have immediate feedback as to the quality of their water.”
Basu says some people hold a mistaken belief that frugal innovation is easy or means “cheap.” Not so. “It might sound like, ‘Oh, frugal innovation, that’s simple,’ but it actually makes the engineering and the requirements more stringent. Designing for resources-constrained environments needs develop unique skills for our students.”
It’s not just users of the technology who recognize the value in those skills. So do corporations. “We say to our students: ‘You’re sought after because you have this training in frugal innovation and innovation for emerging markets.’ As the markets shift globally, businesses will increasingly need students to understand how to design for the developing-world consumer.”
VanderGiessen conducted field testing of the arsenic detector in rural eastern India, in partnership with St. Xavier’s College, in July 2013. VanderGiessen, who was in Kolkata that summer working for a nonprofit as part of the Leavey School of Business Global Fellows Program, performed the field research on weekends. Funding for the fieldwork came in part from the Frugal Innovation Lab.
RELY ON IT
In the coming months, the student team will be busy preparing the device for commercialization and improving the prototype. The student team identified required tweaks based on the device’s performance in the India field trials. The height of the peak on the electrochemical analyzer must be calibrated to a precise arsenic level so that users need not interpret the height of the peak themselves. The connection between the sensor and electrochemical analyzer must be improved to make sure that the components work together seamlessly. Last, the students will ensure that the device can detect arsenic at low concentrations, such as the World Health Organization standard, and that it is detecting only arsenic. Later, the students plan to investigate whether the arsenic detector can be equipped to detect lead, mercury, and other toxic heavy metals as well. Basu is helping VanderGiessen register the intellectual property for the device.
If these obstacles can be overcome, Basu is confident that the technology will succeed in the market. “If it can be built out at scale, it can have a tremendous set of applications. It can be used all over the world by consumers, travelers, individuals in disaster areas, social enterprises, nonprofits, and government workers who are going to map the arsenic.”
For her part, VanderGiessen clearly feels a responsibility to engineer a device users can rely on. Their lives may depend upon it. “It’s one thing to test a water sample I’ve spiked myself with arsenic in the lab,” she says. “It’s another thing to test someone’s only access to water and have them look you in the eye and ask whether they should continue drinking it.”
Arsenic is tasteless and odorless, so someone might continue drinking it without knowing. And the adverse health impacts stemming from arsenic poisoning may not appear until long after the consumption of contaminated water. Exposure to arsenic causes a host of ailments, including cancer of the bladder, lungs, skin, and kidneys.
The practical application of frugal innovation methods embodies, for VanderGiessen, what engineering can and should be. Here’s a device that meets a basic human need. And it could, she says, “genuinely be used to help the people around me.”

domain: news


Home Tags Iran-Turkey
Turkish ambassador to Tehran says Tehran and Ankara, two of the three guarantor states of Astana Process, were upset by not being involved in a Moscow-Washington deal on de-escalation zones in Syria.
Officials from Iran, Turkey and Qatar discussed the creation of a joint trade route on the sidelines of President Hassan Rouhani’s swearing-in ceremony in Tehran.
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari has held talks with Turkish Foreign Ministry's Undersecretary Ümit Yalçın in Ankara on Thursday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will depart Tehran for Istanbul, Turkey, on Tuesday to take part in an extraordinary meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the latest developments of Al-Quds.
Turkish ambassador to Tehran says despite growing protests by regional states, his country is set to press ahead with its project to build a dam on Tigris-Euphrates River.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari, who heads the Iranian delegation to Astana Talks on Syria, has met with the heads of Russian and Turkish delegations.
Iranians have organized a popular campaign to take Turkey to The Hague over its violation of environmental regulations which have already led to the desiccation of Hoor al-Azim Wetland in western Iran.


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Local industry has applied for higher import duties to stem the tide and prevent further job losses
Chicken imports reached a new record high in 2018 worsening the crisis facing the domestic chicken industry, the SA Poultry Association (Sapa) says.
It based its conclusions on data on chicken imports drawn from official Sars statistics.
The chicken industry has long been under the siege of rival imports, particularly of bone-in-chicken portions, and has shed hundreds of jobs as a result.
Sapa successfully applied to the International Trade Administration Commission (Itac) for safeguard duties against European chicken imports. It has also recently applied for a hike in the ad valorem tariff (the levying of tax or customs duties) proportionate to the estimated value of the goods or transaction concerned) duties for bone-in and boneless chicken portions to 82% from the current tariffs of 12% for boneless portions and 37% for bone-in cuts.
Sapa reported on Friday that imports in 2018 were 19% higher than the five-year average from 2013 to 2017. Brazil has become the dominant source of imported chicken, accounting for 60.5% of poultry imports in 2018. Poultry imports from Brazil increased from 241,180 tonnes in 2015 to 348,155 tonnes last year.
“These continuing high volumes of imports show that the crisis facing our chicken industry is real and getting worse,” said GM of Sapa’s broiler organisation Izaak Breitenbach. “Every tonne of imports represents SA jobs lost or not created. Sapa has calculated that we could create 30,000 jobs by replacing chicken imports.
“The relentless surge of imports illustrates the need for the government to step in and protect the local industry and the thousands of jobs involved. We are an efficient industry, but we cannot compete against imports dumped below the cost of production, or from countries with a long history of agricultural subsidies.”
The Sapa report showed that imports in 2018 totaled 538,434 tonnes, an increase on the previous record year of 2016, when 528,108 tonnes of chicken entered the country. Imports dipped slightly in 2017 due to outbreaks of avian influenza (bird flu) in the EU.
“However, Brazil quickly increased its exports, filling the gap left by EU producers, becoming the major source of both frozen broiler portions and of mechanically deboned meat (MDM), which is used in the food processing industry,” Breitenbach noted.
According to Sapa, total frozen broiler imports rose from 368,201 tonnes in 2015 to 538,434 tonnes in 2018. The value of all poultry imports in 2018, including MDM, was R6bn. Frozen chicken portions, including bone-in ones, went up from 221,218 tonnes in 2014 to 383,297 tonnes last year. Imports of frozen bone-in portions went up 23.2% to 287,071 tonnes in 2018.


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Welcome to Streamlining, my shiny new Newsletter.
What's it all about, then?
I’ve wanted to write a newsletter for a long time, to speak directly with the wonderful folk who support what I do. Having recently fallen out of love with social media, I took a 30-day hiatus from Twitter and Instagram, which then drifted into a 45-day abstention.
During the time away from the noise and the twitch of constantly checking my phone, I found my productivity, mood, and overall wellbeing improved dramatically. This helped me realise how important my time and resources are, and I refuse to waste or squander them on meaningless activities.
Surround Yourself with the Right People
The importance of surrounding oneself with people who nourish, support, and encourage you has become crystal clear to me. I don’t have room in my life for those who manipulate others to feed the insatiable appetite of their own egos—another key lesson from my time away from social media. So, in this spirit, I decided to launch my newsletter to share about my life and travels with the people that truly matter—that’s you!
What is Streamlining About?
Streamlining is about simplicity, minimalism, and concentrating on the good stuff. Streamlining means stripping away the fluff and nonsense and enjoying the beauty of simple things. I can thank my dear friend Shanna for the title. She gets me :)
For the past ten years, much of my life has revolved around my Airstream trailer and the name Streamlining is a nod to this, while not defining my present or my future pursuits.
It’s always been my mission to open people’s minds to life’s possibilities. With Streamlining, I want to show people that living simply need not be joyless or bland. I’m not perfect and I don’t have it all worked out, yet I look forward to sharing the journey—my triumphs and mistakes—with you.
Boundaries and privacy are hugely important to me (yes, I’m an introvert!), but a newsletter will allow me to share some personal thoughts and experiences, too.
And finally, it’s an opportunity to share some gratuitous pictures of Dougal.
What I’m Reading
Right now I am reading Deep Work by Cal Newport. I have a huge problem focusing when I am working. I end up wasting lots of time on non-essential tasks. This book is helping me work fewer hours and get far more done. Worth checking out - click on the link.
How to Support Streamlining
There are two ways you can support me and this newsletter:
1. You can show your support for what I do through Buy Me a Coffee. Although I’ll probably end up buying tea. Or snacks for Dougal. I understand that not everyone who would like to support the channel will be able to, and that’s absolutely fine! My content is available to everyone, regardless of their circumstances.
2. Most importantly, please subscribe and share Streamlining with those who you think might enjoy it.

domain: literature


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It’s April 1st, which means that you should distrust almost anything you see on the web today. Tech companies in particular love to prank their fans by unveiling ridiculous fake products on April Fools’ Day and we’ve rounded up some of their best efforts this year. In fact, you may have already heard about one of them: Google’s Gmail Mic Drop feature, which the company quickly pulled after it reportedly cost some people their jobs. Oops!
Here are some other ones you may have missed. More →


This is very cool. Like everything about it.
thx for putting this up and i like how u added some stuff to it and i luv this song on bleach its like my fav song on tht show thx =D
thanks for listening
Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.


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Jessica Simpson, Eva Mendes, and Scarlett Johansson are three examples of celebrities who got pregnant before tying the knot. On CBS' The Talk Thursday, the five co-hosts debated the "trend" and shared their support—and concerns—for everyday women who decide to have children on their own.
"I think today that women are more independent," the always outspoken Sharon Osbourne said. "Most women earn their own money, and these women that we're talking about, they have huge careers. They have busy lives. It's different. It's a whole different issue than what it was even 20 years ago."
"Listen, it's an individual basis," she said. "What's good for one isn't good for another. It's all individual."
The 61-year-old TV personality then joked, "However, if my girls come home pregnant, that's it!"
Aisha Tyler, who's been open about her infertility struggles, offered a similar perspective. "Marriages dissolve. Parenthood never ends. So, that's really the biggest commitment of all. You're committed to that child for the rest of your life," she said. "The love for a child is something that can endure anything."


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Mystery and Fantasy
SPAN 440-010: Mystery and Fantasy (Credits: 3)
In this course students will read several outstanding short stories, to develop the ability to communicate their thoughts and ideas orally, read and write more proficiently, as well as learn how writers use conventional techniques to design their plots, configure characters, and create suspense. Students will practice summarizing content in writing, as well as narrating and describing the content in all major time frames of past, present, and future in paragraph-length discourse. Students will learn new vocabulary and will write one short story as their final project.

domain: artistic


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Get updates about the legislation that affects you and action you can take to save vaping.
In Maine, the increase would also double the vapor products tax to keep it in line with cigarettes. This is problematic given their lower harm profile, which should be reflected in the tax rates to encourage the switch. In more detail: https://taxfoundation.org/taxing-nicotine-products/
How are an assassination attempt, Duterte's Drug Wars, and Bloomberg Philanthropies related? I tell you in my new investigational report out in Filter.#HumanRightsViolations #Philippines #harmreduction @MikeBloomberg @TobaccoFreeKids @TheUnion_TBLH https://filtermag.org/bloomberg-nicotine-duterte-drug-war/

domain: finance


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Despite not being the biggest fan of Valentine’s Day in the past, I’ve decided that 2022 is the year where I celebrate all the things. Big and small, important and unimportant. It’s all getting celebrated!
So, that naturally means that I’m taking V-Day a little more seriously than I ever have before. My kids love crafts and they love being a part of celebrating just about anything, so I decided to surprise them with a little art project. They helped me create the cutest DIY Valentine’s Day mantel decor ever and, honestly, I might just turn into a Valentine’s Day person after all.
I meannnnnnn. How can you not love it?!
I was inspired to do this because this is our first full year with our DIY electric fireplace. Last year, I wrapped it up right at the end of January and was so darn excited to have a fireplace again that I didn’t really think to do any seasonal decorating. I was too busy marveling at the magic of it even existing. So, this is the first time that I’ve really had a chance to take the time to think about decorating it for the various seasons and holidays.
And, honestly, this is gonna have to become a thing because how much fun is that?!
I kept things really, really simple and focused on DIY projects that the kids could help with. I searched far and wide for the cutest DIY decor kits for Valentine’s Day and I had the best luck at Target. Here’s everything I purchased for this little setup:
These things tend to sell out fast, though, so I rounded up a few similar options from Amazon in case you can’t track down the Target ones. Click here to see lots of Valentine’s Day decor ideas!
Everything else you see I already had on hand. Here are sources (at least, for the things I can find them for):
- The wood pedestal is a DIY
- Here’s a similar tan vase
- The hobnail milk glass vase is vintage, here’s a similar option on Etsy!
- The planter also old, but here’s a similar one
- And finally, our TV is a Samsung Frame – the art was one of the free options from the art store!
valentine’s day decor
I surprised my kids with this craft one day after school – I didn’t even tell them we were making Valentine’s Day mantel decor, I just called them over to the table with some supplies already set up and ready to go. My kids are used to these kinds of shenanigans from me, so they didn’t even question it.
The hardest part (for me, at least) of this kind of project is letting go of the need for the crafts to be “perfect”. I have a hard time handing full control over to the kids for what colors to use or how to paint their wood pieces.
I know, it’s a problem. I’m working on it.
But, doing more crafts with the kids lately has given me some good practice and I felt zero stress about this. I let them go to town with whatever colors and styles they wanted. Though, I did add a little more paint to Grant’s pieces because he lost interest after about 5 minutes and they were mostly unpainted.
Jackson did a fantastic job on his pieces, and they were both so proud to see their hard work displayed on the mantel!
I’ve still promised the kids that we’ll do a little more Valentine’s Day decorating. Last year, we filled up an empty wall in our living room with a giant heart, and Jackson is dying to re-create it. So, keep an eye out for that over on Instagram in the next couple of days!
If you want some more Valentine’s Day ideas, I’ve been sharing a ton over on Ampersand Supply, so be sure to also click over there if you need some more inspiration.


When Alison Krauss and Union Station take the stage in Raleigh Friday night there will be calls for many songs, but here’s one all in the audience likely will want to hear – “Rain Please Go Away.”
Unrelenting rainy weather and the approach of Hurricane Joaquin have driven most events indoors for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass festival that runs through Saturday. But gray weather won’t dampen the fun nor mute the bright tunes of days and nights full of banjos, fiddles and high, keening harmonies. The heavy weather may even give this third version of the festival in Raleigh a cozy, indoor feel.
The cautionary tale over the next few days in downtown Raleigh will be: Dodge the rain and watch for headstocks. For the uninitiated, headstocks are the things at the end of banjo and guitar and mandolin and fiddle necks where the strings are connected. And over the next few days in Raleigh, people are going to encounter raindrops and instruments as they walk through the streets of downtown and see bluegrass groups gathered under tents and awnings.
One of those bands out among the fans along Fayetteville and other streets might be the Kruger brothers. After growing up in Europe, they’re now stars who decided to settle in Wilkesboro because that’s close to where the late Doc Watson was. Along the way, they also made the acquaintance of the late Earl Scruggs, a hero.
Bluegrass does that to people, brings them together, and for the next few days Raleigh is the center of the bluegrass universe. From the Raleigh Convention Center to the Lincoln Theater to restaurants all over town, bluegrass will rule, and banjo players, guitarists and fiddlers will assemble in groups small and large, including in the hallways of hotels late at night. Big-time players like Krauss will be here, but the truth is, you don’t need a ticket to get your fill of good bands during the Capital City’s third year of hosting the IBMA.
The event moved here after long residence in Nashville, where country is king and bluegrass was feeling a little neglected. In that respect, the music festival is as much about Raleigh as it is about bluegrass. It’s a compliment that the event chose the Capital City, but the honor has to be earned every year. For that, Raleigh will have to perform on the streets and in its shops, hotels, restaurants and bars as well as the musicians do on stage and street corners.
Chatham County Line, a fine and now famous band from these parts, actually penned a song about Raleigh’s triumph in getting the IBMA, called “Living in Raleigh Now.” Last year, they played it on stages all over town to great ovations. “What was born in Kentucky is living in Raleigh now,” goes the chorus.
Raleigh’s IBMA crowds have exceeded 150,000, wildly beyond what the organization’s officials expected, and thus the city’s contract to host was extended after the first year.
The gathering’s crowds have been enthusiastic, civil, welcoming and appreciative of this most American music. Which is living in Raleigh now.


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Mass. State Police Form Unit To Investigate Human Trafficking
The Massachusetts State Police have formed a new unit to investigate incidents of human trafficking involving juveniles. Republican Lt.Gov. Karyn Polito announced the creation of the three-member team Tuesday.Polito says the unit will work with the Department of Children and Families. It will also help local police departments on larger trafficking cases.
Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders says social workers and other mandated reporters will also begin alerting DCF about cases of suspected trafficking.
She says the cases will be treated as child abuse and reported to the special state police unit and district attorneys for investigation and prosecution.
Sudders says in the past, young people involved in the sex trade could be charged with prostitution instead of being treated as victims of abuse.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

domain: sociology


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Heirloom Barrette in Gold Plated Sterling & Antiqued Sterling Silver
Inspired by an antique barrette that has been passed down in our family, the Heirloom Barrette is sure to become a coveted piece. Wear it with an easy twist, or over a ponytail, and look like you spent more time on your 'do than you did😉 Each piece is hand-forged and lightly hammered.
- 24k gold plated sterling silver, antiqued sterling silver stick.
- 3 3/4" x 1 3/8", 4" stick.
- SKU: 72776


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New Delhi: Apple will launch the iPhone X, the 10th anniversary edition of the iPhone, on September 12. The phone will be launched along with the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, Apple Watch 3 and a new variant of Apple TV that supports 4K content.
While the launch event on September 12 was earlier confirmed by Apple through an invite that it sent out, the name of the iPhone it is launching has been revealed through iOS 11 that will power the phone. The final version of iOS 11, which will also arrive on September 12, has been leaked ahead of its formal unveiling.
The Apple event for the iPhone X will be held at the Steve Jobs Theatre inside Apple’s new campus in Cupertino, California. It was an open secret that Apple will launch a new special version of the iPhone on September 12.
But there was confusion about the name of the phone. iPhone 8, iPhone Pro, iPhone X, iPhone Edition, iPhone – simply iPhone – and the iPhone Special Edition… all were the names that were suggested. It looks like finally the iPhone X won the naming contest, and understandably so. The X in the phone stands for 10 and hence connects the device nicely to the fact that 2017 is the iPhone’s 10th anniversary. The first iPhone was launched in 2007.
Although the iPhone X is not exactly a surprising name, the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus are. These two phones, also slated to be launched on September 12, will replace the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus in Apple’s phone lineup. By naming these two phones iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus, Apple is skipping the “s” generation. Earlier, when Apple upgraded the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, it named those phones iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6S Plus.
The latest report about the Apple event on September 12 comes from website MacRumorus. The report suggested that Apple’s anniversary edition phone -which is expected to be a special phone compared to the other upcoming as well as existing iPhones will be called iPhone X. There have been a lot of talks about what will Apple name its special iPhone. Most rumorus suggest that it will be called iPhone 8, which some other suggests that the Cupertino major may simply call it the iPhone Edition.
An Apple registered iOS developer Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) at the time of working on the iOS 11 beta software code, found references to Apple devices with code names iPhone X, iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus. After Steve found out the code, he took to twitter to post the same. He writes, “…and we now have the name of all three new iPhones. Are you ready for this?” this is followed by – “iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X.”


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CMC Ontario is thrilled to announce the five winners of the inaugural Beckwith Award. We want to congratulate music educators Dan Austin and Danica Brokelman, ensembles the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, and the Open Ears Festival.
CMC Ontario has a broad mission to support contemporary music across the province, but this ambitious goal would not be possible without the passionate work of a network of individuals and organizations—this is especially true in a period of immense change.
Named for John Beckwith, one of the co-founders of the CMC, the Beckwith Award was established to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary contributions of Ontario-based individuals and organizations that connect audiences and learners with contemporary music and composers.
We look forward to coordinating with the winners to present the Beckwith Award in person when we are able to resume familiar music activities. For now we encourage our community members to learn more about each winner below.
For further information and media inquiries, please contact:
Holly Nimmons, Director, Development & Communications
Phone: 416-371-6486 | Email: [email protected]
Clockwise from top left: Dan Austin, Danica Brokelman, The Hamilton Philharmonic (credit: Kyle Andrew), Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Open Ears Festival
About the Winners
Dan Austin has been teaching instrumental and vocal music for 19 years, and is currently the Band Director and Instrumental Music Teacher at Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute in Guelph, Ontario. A graduate of York University’s Jazz Music Program, Dan has developed and built strong music programs at both the elementary and secondary levels at Twin Lakes Secondary School, Glenhaven Senior Public School, and Mitchell Woods Public School. He is a regular clinician at the Ontario Music Educators Association conference, and contributor to music education journals.
Dan keeps an active schedule as a vocal and instrumental performer the Harbourtown Sound A Cappella Men’s Chorus (Hamilton), The After Party a cappella quartet (2019 Ontario Silver Medalists). Dan also released his first solo jazz album as a bass player in 2017.
Dan also plays a significant organizing and governance role as Treasurer for the Peel Intermediate Music Teacher’s Association, President and founder of the Upper Grand Elementary Music Teachers Association, Vice President of Youth In Harmony for the Ontario District, and Education Coordinator for the International award winning Ontario Youth A Cappella Chorus.
Danica Brokelman is currently in her twelfth year of teaching with the York Region District School Board. Ms. Brokelman received her undergraduate degree from Trent University and her Bachelor Of Education from Queen’s University. She is currently completing her Masters Degree in Education at Trent University.
Ms. Brokelman is keenly interested in promoting the values of lifelong learning and musicianship. During her career, she has conducted a wide variety of musical ensembles, including wind bands, jazz ensembles, choirs, and chamber ensembles. She has also directed numerous musical productions for primary and junior level students.
Outside of her school commitments, Ms. Brokelman is highly active in community music. She is a co-conductor and supervisory member of the Markham Area East Elementary Band, and has been an audition consultant, and saxophone and oboe clinician for the York Region Elementary Enrichment Band. She has implemented workshops for schools and ensembles in the York Region District School Board, and the Bluewater District School Board. In addition, Ms. Brokelman was also an administrative supervisor for the York Region Music Camp from 2006 – 2009. As an avid amateur musician, she currently performs as an oboist in the York Symphony Orchestra
Ms. Brokelman is a passionate advocate for Music Education, and aims to make music accessible to students of all ages and abilities, with opportunities for performance for all students. She is currently teaching Grades 3 to 8 Music at Black Walnut Public School.
The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra aims to enrich the well-being of the greater Hamilton region by engaging, educating and inspiring the community through outstanding professional orchestral music. Music Director Gemma New works with the musicians of the orchestra to present artistically rich Mainstage concerts along with engaging talks and performances for all ages in the community. In her five seasons as Music Director, New has committed to commissioning and performing Canadian contemporary orchestral works. In 2016, she launched Intimate & Immersive, a contemporary music series with a “closer-to-the-music” atmosphere and multidisciplinary installations. New worked alongside Composer-in-Residence Abigail Richardson-Schulte, curator of the HPO’s What Next Festival of Canadian contemporary works for seven seasons, to develop the Composer Fellowship Program. The fellowship offers six months of artistic and professional mentorship to two early-career Ontario-based composers, investigating both the creative process and business of orchestral composing.
The Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound based in Ontario’s Waterloo Region uses unusual venues to present an eclectic range of musics from indie-classical to electroacoustic, musique actuelle and sound installation. Festival activities inhabit wildlife preserves, urban streetscapes, galleries and concert halls in order to bring communities into contact with sound and music that is truly transformative. The festival is highly collaborative in its approach to co-presenting with, or featuring activities programmed by local partners—including an emphasis on cross-disciplinary projects.
The festival continues to feature a mix of local, national and international artists. Guest artists have included Brian Eno, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Diamanda Galas, Negativland, DJ Spooky, Tristan Perich, Nico Muhly, Nadia Sirota and Pauline Oliveros. Open Ears has featured a variety of Canadians such as Sarah Neufeld, Gordon Monahan, Michael Snow, John Oswald, Murray Schafer, Tim Brady and Hildegard Westerkamp. In 2020, Open Ears features Pulitzer Prize winning artist Caroline Shaw.
In 1960, two Toronto musicians, Rene Charrier and Douglas Dahlgren, were en route to Edmonton when they were forced to make a side trip to Thunder Bay after their car broke down in a small town three hours away. They turned up at a furniture store, sat down at the display piano and began playing. The store’s owner soon struck up a conversation with these wandering minstrels and the talk eventually turned to their dreams of starting a symphony orchestra. The rest, as they say, is history.
Sixty years later, the TBSO currently includes 30 full-time musicians, who perform across Northwestern Ontario and engage with over 10,000 students through its robust education programming each year. The Orchestra performs a wide-ranging repertoire from the great classical masterworks to pops and children’s concerts. As the only fully-professional orchestra between Toronto and Winnipeg, the TBSO strives to be the best regional orchestra in Canada, appealing to as wide and diverse an audience as possible through excellent performances and original programming. In 2019, the TBSO received its first Juno nomination for its CD, Into the Wonder, and is thrilled and honoured to be one of the Beckwith Awards’ inaugural recipients.


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Kelly Rowland reveals that her 1-year -old son,Titan have a celeb crush.Yep oone of the host on the real,Adrienne Bailon.The singer and Empire actress discussed with the ladies in Day time talk show,The Real,she said;
"We have to kind of calm him down right now because he is just so aggressive and tough," she confessed on Thursday's all new episode. "He's a strong boy. You've seen him around the house."
"It is so cute because he has a crush on Adrienne now," Rowland confessed to the audience. "No, it's so cute, because our nanny comes in and he speaks the most beautiful Spanish to him. So Adrienne comes in and she starts speaking Spanish to him."
She continued, "[Titan] leans in and I'm like, he doesn't do that with anybody so it's interesting. I'm like, okay."


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SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued the Trump administration Monday over a federal rule that blocks more than half a million in-home health care workers in the Golden State from directly deducting union dues from their paychecks.
Nearly 600,000 seniors and people living with disabilities in California receive support from home care workers through a Medicaid program called In-Home Supportive Services, which operates under the state’s collective bargaining laws due to action by the Legislature in the 1990s.
The state’s more than 500,000 in-home care workers help patients bathe, prepare meals, dress themselves, drive to doctor appointments and take any necessary medications.
More than half of those workers belong to a union – primarily Service Employees International Union or American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – and union membership fees are deducted from their paychecks. The fees pay for first aid training and some health supplies.
On May 6, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services said that, after reinterpreting the federal Medicaid Act, it would issue a final rule barring states from withholding union fees from workers’ paychecks.
The agency, which first proposed the rule in July 2018, relies on its reading of a provision of the Medicaid Act that prohibits third parties from collecting payment for Medicaid services. Congress passed the provision 47 years ago to prevent fraudulent medical financing schemes.
But according to the complaint filed Monday in the Northern District of California, Health and Human Services “unlawfully attempted to reinterpret the Medicaid Act in service of anti-union objectives that bear no relationship to the purpose of that act.”
Becerra, the Golden State’s top lawyer and first elected Latino attorney general, told reporters at a press conference Monday that the rule hurts workers’ rights and puts the health of individuals they serve at risk.
“With this rule, the Trump administration is not only harming Medicaid skilled home care workers who have joined unions, but the millions of seniors and people with disabilities who depend on these indispensable workers,” Becerra said. “This is a back-door way of making hard for workers to organize in their union.”
April Verrett, president of SEIU Local 2015, which represents home care workers, told reporters the rule was “hateful” and represented a thinly veiled attack on female union members.
“Let’s call it what it is: a shameful political attack on union workers who are largely women and people of color,” Verrett said. “This is an attempt to silence their voices and steal their power. Rather than applauding home care workers, this administration has chosen to take steps to silence us.”
While states could avoid a disruption to their labor agreements by foregoing federal Medicaid funding, doing so would cost California roughly $6.5 billion in funding, Becerra’s office said in a statement Monday.
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington state – which together represent an additional 300,000 in-home care workers – also joined the multistate complaint Monday. The states want a judge to find the new rule arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional and to bar its implementation.
A spokesperson for U.S Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the named defendant in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit is Becerra’s 50th against the Trump administration.
Becerra, a former congressman, has been on the front line of the legal battle against Trump, filing lawsuits directly challenging the administration’s policies on the immigration, environment, health care and education.
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domain: law


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UNIFEM Partners with Geena Davis
The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) welcomes Academy Award-winning actor Geena Davis as a partner in the effort to change the way media represents women and girls, to encourage media to present and investigate issues of grave importance to women and to use a "gender" lens when reporting. As the founder of the non-profit Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media (GDIGM) and its programming arm, See Jane, Ms. Davis brings her media expertise to advocate for gender equality and women's empowerment.
In line with the Beijing Platform for Action, advancing gender equality in the media is one of UNIFEM's key strategic goals. The organization works actively with the media to make the voices of women advocates on key issues heard and to encourage more coverage of women's issues globally. Through the years, UNIFEM has been successful in increasing the coverage that mainstream news outlets and innovative social media networks have provided to women's rights issues including at recent landmark events such as the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (December 2009) and the London Afghanistan Conference (January 2010). In 2009, UNIFEM also supported the fourth annual World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), a grassroots research, communication, and advocacy project that undertakes a one-day massive monitoring initiative of portrayal and representation of men and women in the news on television, radio and in newspapers in 127 countries. The report and gender analysis of the worldwide findings will be launched later this year.


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Review: ‘Illusionists’ open big bag of tricks at Majestic
Published 9:48 am, Wednesday, January 11, 2017
“The Illusionists,” the first Broadway in San Antonio offering of the new year at the Majestic Theatre, has a little bit of everything.
There are card tricks, courtesy of both sort-of host Jeff Hobson and An Ha Lim; derring-do from Jonathan Goodwin and Andrew Basso; Sherlock Holmes-ian deductionist Colin Cloud; and all sorts of oddball goings-on from Kevin James and Dan Sperry.
All of it is a lot of fun to watch, and much of it will no doubt spark plenty of “how did they do that” discussion on the drive home.
A large screen over the stage helped make sure that small gestures were visible all over the theater.
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The show doesn’t have much of a through-line, though Hobson makes welcome appearances throughout, joking and performing all sorts of illusions with folks plucked from the audience. Word to the wise: Nearly all of the performers recruit people from the audience to help out. And those who think they are safe because they are seated far away from the stage may be surprised to find themselves in the show, since Hobson and the other performers seemed to try to draw civilians from across the orchestra section.
The first act ends with the flashiest business: Basso’s re-creation of Harry Houdini’s water torture cell. In solemn tones, Hobson said it is the one part of the show that’s not an illusion. A volunteer from the audience handcuffed Basso and then helped lock his feet into manacles. He was then hoisted upside down into the air and was submerged in a tank of water. A clock on the screen overhead tallied the amount of time he spent picking the locks with a paperclip and breaking free of the manacles. It was a tense, thrilling feat to witness.
Cloud’s act was thrilling in a different way. He seemed to be able to deduce all sorts of information about people from the audience, including birthdays and the names of childhood pets. A charismatic fellow, he laced his scenes with humor.
Like Basso, Goodwin only put in one appearance. He explained a bit of the history of daredevil performers like himself, then did a bit involving first a bed of nails and then a bed of a single nail. Compared to the rest of the goings-on, it was a little ho-hum.
Sperry has the edgiest look and approach. Sporting smeared white makeup and plenty of tattoos, he radiates a more aggressive attitude than the others. He’s also tremendously entertaining, though some may find aspects of his act a little too graphic. In one extended sequence, he asked a volunteer from the audience for a quarter, which he asked her to mark in a distinctive way with a marker. Then he pressed it into his eye as if it were a contact lens. Then he appeared to shove it farther into himself until it seemed to vanish. Spoiler alert! He sliced open his arm, where the quarter had ended up. Later, he returned for a rapid-fire show-stopping sequence in which he shifted wordlessly from one illusion to another, eventually seeming to pull a cockatoo from thin air.
An Ha Lim has a tremendous amount of presence, beaming a beatific smile as he danced about with playing cards he seemed to conjure from nothing.
James popped up several times, leading to a whimsical finale in which he seemed to conjure snowfall in the theater with little more than a glass of water and a napkin.
The show is definitely worth catching.
“The Illusionists” can be seen at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St. Tickets range from $30 to $90 at the box office and at ticketmaster.com. Info, majesticempire.com.


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Type of Organization
People Saving Animals is a tax-exempt, 100% volunteer-based organization established in Washington State in 2013. Its mission is to end animal homelessness and suffering by partnering with rescue groups and shelters in less fortunate nations in Central America. People Saving Animals helps these local organizations with rescues, rehabilitation, rehoming efforts, and spay-and-neuter clinics.
Much like SPCAI, People Saving Animals, is working towards a world without homeless animals or animal cruelty. We are proud of their work in impoverished communities and hope that with our support, People Saving Animals will be able to expand their spay/neuter and preventative veterinary care work to save more helpless animals.


An input signal is converted from some continuosly varying physical value (e.g. pressure in air, or frequency or wavelength of light), by some electro-mechanical device into a continuously varying electrical signal. This signal has a range of amplitude, and a range of frequencies that can present. This continuously varying electrical signal can then be converted to a sequence of digital values, called samples, by some analog to digital conversion circuit. Figure 4.2 illustrates this process.
There are two factors which determine the accuracy with which the digital sequence of values captures the original continuous signal: the maximum rate at which we sample, and the number of bits used in each sample. This latter value is known as the quanisation level, and is illustrated in figure 4.3.
The raw (un-compressed) digital data rate associated with a signal then is simply the sample rate times the number of bits per sample. To capture all possible frequencies in the original signal, Nyquist's theorem shows that the digital rate must be twice the highest frequency component in the continuous signal. However, it is often not necessary to capture all frequencies in the original signal - for example, voice is comprehensible with a much smaller range of frequencies than we can actually hear. When the sample rate is much lower than the highest frequency in the continuosu signal, a band-pass filter which only allows frequencies in the range actually needed, is usally put before the sampling circuit. This avoids possible ambiguous samples (``aliases'').


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Ladies Go Green on the Oscars Red Carpet
Because emerald goes so well with gold.
The red carpet was flooded with jewel tones on Sunday evening — from sapphire blues to ruby reds — but there was one particular hue that was chosen by two leading female nominees that caught our eye: emerald green.
Best actress and best supporting actress nominees Saoirse Ronan and Rachel McAdams were glowing in emerald gowns — Ronan in a beaded Calvin Klein frock and McAdams in a halter August Getty gown. According to E!'s red-carpet coverage, Ronan chose her dress as a nod to her Irish heritage; a fitting choice considering her film, Brooklyn, is about an Irish immigrant.
Double-nominee Sandy Powell, who was up for best costume design for Carol and Cinderella, also arrived in green, rocking a tuxedo that she designed herself. The hue certainly helped her signature orange mane pop.
Cate Blanchett, too, hit the red-carpet in a seafoam shade of green by Armani Prive, which she styled with Tiffany & Co. jewels.
The trend comes at the perfect time, as March is just around the corner.


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“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
By the time a character yells this late in F9, the highly anticipated new entry in the Fast & Furious series, I expected the film to be suspending my disbelief with practiced ease. Instead, I kept saying the same thing.
Bloated, boring, and frequently baffling, F9 isn’t just a cruddy mess of white noise; it’s a painfully inert film that feels like a bad parody, a $200 million mockery of everything fans love about the series. Watching this ninth entry in a globally acclaimed franchise that, for a time, felt untouchable, one can only look helplessly as a decade’s worth of goodwill tumbles down a hill and bursts into flames like so many sports cars of years gone by.
Even Fast & Furious fans need to finally admit when the haters are right.
As it opens, F9 is about brotherhood. Following 2017’s The Fate of the Furious, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) is living a quiet life with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and young son Brian until the enigmatic Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) sends a distress call to Dom and his tight-knit “family” (Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, and Nathalie Emmanuel, all series regulars since entering in different sequels). Responding, Dom soon encounters a character no Fast has made mention of: Jakob Toretto (John Cena), his younger brother.
You see, another high-tech doohickey could destroy the world, should it fall into the wrong hands. Gunning for the device are Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen), the son of a dictator, and criminal mastermind Cipher (Charlize Theron, returning from Fate of the Furious), who’s secretly pulling the strings. Jakob’s helping them get it, which puts him at odds with big brother Dom.
Running its main plot parallel with flashbacks to 1989, F9 is smart to anchor its biggest story beats around Dom’s relationship with his estranged, equally buff sibling. There’s a grave reason pop culture’s most vocal family man has never before mentioned his own blood brother, and F9’s unraveling of their fraternal fracas is surprisingly thoughtful and carefully grounded.
F9 is smart to anchor its biggest story beats around Dom’s relationship with his estranged, equally buff sibling.
No matter how wild F9 gets or how lost you become in the plot — and lost you’ll surely be, with rocket ships and spies amok — the film never loses sight of Dom and Jakob battling it out at the dramatic center. Their story’s beginning brings the franchise back to its roots in small crimes and street racing, while its conclusion will prove deeply satisfying to anyone with particularly fond memories of 2001’s very first Fast and the Furious.
But that’s about all that’s good about F9, a mostly tragic L for director Justin Lin. The first time he took the reins, on 2006’s Tokyo Drift, Lin turned around a franchise doomed for the Walmart bargain bin, delivering an unpretentious and quietly progressive action saga far beyond its street-racing roots.
The peaks of this franchise remain 2011’s Fast Five and 2013’s Fast & Furious 6, both directed by Lin and brilliant in how their action elevated the series visually and dramatically. Under his watchful eye, the franchise also once enjoyed a reputation to a certain level of technical realism that rivals Mission: Impossible. Tom Cruise hangs onto planes; Fast & Furious throws cars out of them, and the universe remains in balance.
F9 finds Lin on cruise control.
Sadly, F9 finds Lin on cruise control. This time, his staging — some of it still filmed for real — is more cartoonish, paling in comparison to past entries. F9’s set pieces are maddeningly uninspired, with incoherent visual framing and yo-yoing suspense that feels as weightless and immaterial as a fistful of sand.
Whereas the tactile action of Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6 makes both films studies in how much exemplary execution can add to a film’s overall impact, F9 washes over you and disappears before your eyes as invincible characters ping-pong across the screen.
If Fast Five was an entry that left you awestruck, F9 is one that only leaves you wondering how much longer there is to go.
One of F9’s gravest sins is in its mixed messaging. More than once, characters verbally espouse the objectivity of physics. This comes only after those same characters survive a one-on-14 firefight untouched and after a truck’s super-magnet pulls John Cena’s car (and nothing else) over from the other side of a city block. So when a slow-motion climax attempts to rationalize the chances of a character surviving a ride in a Pontiac duct-taped to a rocket engine, the pro-science dialogue rings hollow.
Even when F9 makes an attempt to address how lucky these characters have been — in a terrible scene where the word “superheroes” is teased like a dirty word — the mere acknowledgment of their invincibility does damage to the film’s internal suspension of disbelief. We’ve seen these same characters survive time and time again without so much as a bloody nose, so nothing happening on screen ever feels truly dangerous. It’s as if two maxims are now guiding the scripts: everyone’s hot and nobody gets hurt.
Everyone’s hot and nobody gets hurt.
I wish that were the worst thing about F9, but the floor keeps sinking. One of the most compelling elements of old-school Fast & Furious was Sung Kang’s ultra-cool, melancholic Han, whom audiences always knew was living on borrowed time.
Killed in Tokyo Drift only to come back in subsequent installments through the series’ nonlinear timeline, Han received a proper send-off in Fast & Furious 6. (The whole plot of 2015’s Furious 7 hinged on characters seeking revenge for his murder.)
But in one fell swoop, F9 tanks everything great about Han. Though competently performed — Kang is exciting and deserves to be in better movies — Han’s new backstory, which includes surviving his “murder” and a secret protégé played by Anna Sawai, is easily one of the worst retcons in cinematic history.
The film’s rationale for Han’s return is overcomplicated and illogical while making it obvious the writers bent over backward to avoid science fiction solutions that frankly wouldn’t have felt so outrageous (especially after 2019’s Hobbs & Shaw spinoff paved the way for such high-tech plot twists).
When we tweeted #JusticeForHan, all we wanted was to know why Deckard was invited to the barbecue. We didn’t need Han to become Batman. The idiom of a monkey’s paw has a new name, and it’s F9.
F9 isn’t simply bad because it epitomizes everything wrong with overproduced tentpoles. Its failures sting more because it had all the makings of an incredible sequel. F9 has clear-eyed ambition, evidenced by the ever-escalating scope and worthwhile elements aplenty. Kang, the laser-focused Cena, an overdue connection to Tokyo Drift, and Dame Helen Mirren flirting with Diesel — these should have been a ticket to the Moon.
Not even Justin Lin can steer this franchise back on track.
Instead, F9 is a disastrous implosion that outright betrays fans who gravitated towards Fast & Furious for its unlikely integrity. Continuing the downward trend that started with 2017’s Fate of the Furious, a movie I truly hoped was an aberration, it proves not even Justin Lin can steer this franchise back on track.
F9 is worse than Fate. It lives up to the series’ worst stereotypes and affords buzz-killing haters with legitimate ammunition to argue this once earnest, skillfully crafted tentpole franchise really is as dumb and empty as the snobs would have you think.
After nearly a decade of bad tweets, F9 even goes to space. Weightless as the film is, perhaps it should stay there.
F9 is in theaters on June 25.


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School of Nutrition, Laval University, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada; Endocrinology and Nephrology Unit, CHU of Quebec-Laval University Research Center, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada; Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods, Laval University, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. Electronic address: [Email]
OBJECTIVE : To examine the associations between intuitive eating and trimester-specific gestational weight gain (GWG), and between intuitive eating and diet quality at each trimester. METHODS : At each trimester, participants completed the Intuitive Eating Scale-2 and 3 24-hour recalls from which the Healthy Eating Index was calculated. Trimester-specific GWG was calculated with interpolated weights. METHODS : A total of 79 pregnant women. METHODS : Intuitive eating, GWG, and diet quality. METHODS : One-way ANOVA was used to compare intuitive eating scores between GWG groups. Pearson correlation analyses were used to assess the association between the intuitive eating score and the Healthy Eating Index score. RESULTS : In the first trimester, women within GWG recommendations had a higher total intuitive eating score compared with women above recommendations (3.9 ± 0.5 vs 3.6 ± 0.6; P = .04). The unconditional permission to eat subscale was associated with lower diet quality in the first trimester (r = -.26; P = .02) whereas the body-food choice congruence subscale was associated with better diet quality in the second and third trimesters (r = .26, P = .02 and r = .27, P = .01, respectively). CONCLUSIONS : The researchers found an association between higher levels of intuitive eating and adequate first-trimester GWG. Further research might investigate whether promoting intuitive eating among pregnant women favors healthy GWG.


Infinix is a Chinese smartphone manufacturer based out of Hong Kong and its flagships in the Zero series, the Zero 2 and Zero 3 have been popular. The latest set of phones, the Zero 4 and the Zero 4 Plus were launched by the company in December and there are reports these two phones may be launched in the Indian market also.
This would be the first time Infinix launches its phones in India.
Infinix Zero 4 Plus has the better specifications starting with the size, among the two phones. It sports a 5.98-inch full HD display with 2.5D glass. The screen receives protection from a Corning Gorilla Glass.
The MediaTek Helio X20 deca-core processor is the power under the hood and its clocking speed is a decent 2.1GHz. The Infinix Zero 4 Plus has 4GB RAM and the internal storage limit is released in two variants, 32GB and 64GB. There is also the provision to expand the storage to 128GB.
The imaging section is quite decently equipped with a 20.7-megapixel sensor and has for support, features like autofocus, optical image stabilization, pro-mode.
The lens has an aperture of f/2.0. The camera in the front has a 13MP sensor and flash with the aperture of the lens being f/2.2.
The battery fitted on the Infinix Zero 4 Plus is a huge 4000mAh one and the company sullies their in-house quick charging provision XCharge 3A.
The OS, will, however, be the Android 6 version only with the XOS UI running on top of it. Connectivity options are complete, including 4G capability.
The specifications of the other release, the Infinix Zero 4 would be as follows: It has a full HD 5.5-inch display with the Corning Gorilla Glass protection and the CPU is the MediaTek MT6753. Itâ€™s an octa-core processor as compared to the deca-core on the Zero 4 Plus. The clocking speed is also much lower at just 1.3GHz.
Understandably, the RAM is down at 3GB on this phone and the internal memory storage 32GB. The cameras in the rear and front are respectively 16MP and 8MP and the battery scaled down to 3200mAh. The operating system, however on the Infinix Zero 4 is the same as on the Zero 4 Plus, the Android 6 with the XOS skin.
Apart from these two smartphones, there are also teasers on another lower end phone, the Infinix Note 4 also being in the pipeline.
The devices from Infinix could be online exclusive products and possibly only through Flipkart. The other details like the date of release and the prices are yet to be revealed.
For the record, the Hong Kong prices of the Infinix Zero 4 and Zero 4 Plus are $300 and $370 respectively. In Indian currency, these would be Rs 19, 000 and Rs 23, 000 respectively.


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text: Personal? Hello and welcome! Are there times when you have perhaps thought: ‘ I think he/she is ignoring me? ’ ‘ I think they are angry with me? ’ ‘ It must be something I have said or done? ’ There are times when we don ’ t always get to interact with others in the way we expect, whether it be friends, family, partners or acquaintances. At times we may find others don ’ t appear to be so forthcoming as we would like. During this pandemic, people may well be experiencing a variety of challenges and mixed emotions that as a result may not correspond to their usual behaviours and interactions with others. Then there are silent battles people may be suffering that you may know nothing about, that could be interfering with their relationships. How could you separate yourself from their behaviour?


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There were quite a few raccoon scats but no signs of otters. The lodge looked more fortified with logs
and I noticed a muskrat lodge growing at the usual spot in the grass.
At the north end of the dam I did see that the beavers had been using the same path I do, then they branched off heading for the stand of poplar about 50 yards away. The path led me to two down ash trees, one a rather grand cut and split,
and one being girdled,
as well as an elm and a small poplar, but they haven't touched the big poplars yet. The Lost Swamp Pond, big as it is, has some protected areas, and once I arrived three waves of ducks flew off. However, I suppose because of the strong wind, they went straight up and flew around in circles -- quite high up. Eventually about 10 flew back down to the quiet end of the pond.
A flock of small birds came close - nuthatches, chickadees, and a phoebe lit on a branch right in front of me. I think myrtle warblers too. I moved back to the bank behind the mossy cove latrine, where I didn't see any new otter scats. I waited for about a half hour for a beaver to stir; none did and who can blame them. I continued my tour around the pond, saw no otter signs, but enjoyed the varied texture of the dying vegetation and noticed the grass toward the old rolling area was greener -- not that I can say otter rolling area because they have not been there much this year. No new otters signs there or at the dam. Down at the Upper Second Swamp dam I noticed that the beavers had trimmed more of the first ash they had cut down. Not much more work on the birches. I admire at how well the dam was holding back the flood.
At the creek itself there was just a trickle. I walked down along that creek sometimes seeing something very small swim in it. But other than some raccoon poop, no signs of anything living off it. I did vex a heron but not the crowd of them that had been there a few weeks ago. As I walked down, there was water streaming in through the old canals and channels. I went up the knoll and got a view of what a little more water could do -- not much. Then in the growing dark I headed to the East Trail Pond. To my surprise, since the wind was brisk through the pond, a large flock of mallards flew up, at least 50 at once. About 10 of them pulled up and landed immediately, then about 30 seconds later flew off. They must have panicked and broken the duck rule about flying off in waves. Of course I looked for scat, but after three inches of rain, and leaves and pine needles fresh on the wet ground, what chance had I to see any. A red tail hawk flew over and called. I bent my head down to the wind and headed home on the trail, and then bumped into a young guy and his girl friend. He asked what I was up to, and I mentioned otters and he said that when he was canoeing around the point in the South Bay yesterday afternoon at 3, he paddled by two otters. That made my day so I walked back with them telling them what I could about the local otters.
October 18 cold sunny day with the wind diminishing as clouds began creeping over. At the land the beavers are cutting trees off our trail from the valley to the cabin. I first noticed a red oak sapling about one inch in diameter and six feet long.
Then I saw another cut sapling and I was about to conclude that at this distance from the pond they only cut the smallest trees. Then I saw the cut stump of a tree about four inches in diameter,
and then saw one three inches in diameter and while the saplings remained, there were no signs of these larger trees. Nor did I find any remnant of them on the trail to the valley pool, which was quite muddy. I walk around the pond to the chair facing the lodge where I admired the growing cache.
Then I saw something in the water at the end of the First Pond and first thought a snake was eating a frog. I moved closer and saw that it was frog in a dance of death. It was floating on its back and every few minutes or so would have spasms of activity, mainly twisting around in the water with its arms and legs outstretched. I took a few seconds of video then returned to my chair. When I headed back ten minutes later, I saw no sign of the frog. Not only was it cold last night but there had been three inches of cold rain chilling the pond. The rain filled up the little pools the beavers had dammed up. I haven't been up pond for a while and noted a large elm that had been cut and a birch just behind it.
They continue to cut the willow trees, and they might be beginning to cut through another small grove of prickly ash.
And now they have cut three large poplars. All of them were hung up,
crisscrossing on top of a small ironwood and some buck thorn. I was able to bring the last poplar cut down to the ground. Perhaps they'll get a whiff of it and come back to strip it. Then it was down the road to enjoy the symphony of colors.
When I got home, I braved the chill and kayaked to South Bay. Few birds to be seen on the way there. There was a large flock of geese in South Bay; I saw one heron. I checked the willow lodge which seems to be growing. Now the water is very shallow there so the beaver seems to be storing branches by piling them on the lodge and weighing them down with the branches of trees long dead. The beaver has also cut down at least two large ash along the shore. Of course, I came hoping to see signs left by the otters who were reportedly here two days ago. I didn't see anything, and in the north cove I grew to appreciate the vanity of trying: the recent storm had raised water levels two feet, not to mention the rolling waves, now the level has receded leaving wet grasses all along the shore. The up and down of the water and the season of dying has left the lily pads limp, if not dumped over. Even some of the cattail reeds, so tall this year, have been cut at the knees, so to speak. The old rock latrine of the otters is blockaded by the cut cattails. I paddled on close enough to see the old dock in the binoculars, no otter signs. Going up the shore I noticed that a beaver had half cut one of the huge willow limbs hanging just above the water -- though in general there is less beaver work in this north cove. As I continued up to the docking rock, I flushed a kingfisher, but no otter signs there. Despite padding, I got chilled and so paddled home as fast as I could. I saw one chilled frog, a big one, sitting high on a rock along the shore, not happy.
October 19 brief stop at the land, and sure enough, the beavers came up to the poplar I pushed down, severed the trunk in almost the middle and managed to drag or push a 7 feet fifty pound plus poplar log 10 yards toward the pond.
They cut a few branches which I didn't see. It would easy for them to bring down the other two poplars that are hung up. Three small poplars seem to the main culprits -- why not cut them?
They also cut a small birch nearby and began to cut that in half,
and down at the pond, I noticed some pine in the cache and on the bank a small pine they had just cut. I also went up on the ridge to the north of the pond and saw that they had cut another birch, fairly large, and had almost cut a good sized maple.
I have a theory that beavers go toward the wind to forage, and last night's light northeast wind was irresistible for them. However, back on the trail to the southwest, almost to our cabin, there was one small tree cut. This cut was also interesting because if it had been cut a few inches lower the beaver could have taken a small branch with it,
and such small things seem to be most delectable with them. I also saw a large doe on the ridge behind the cabin.
October 20 I headed out for a hike a little after nine on a cool, mostly cloudy day. Save for a few crows, it was mighty quiet going out. Down at South Bay the tide was out -- the northeast wind blew the water another foot lower. No scats there, nor up at the New Pond knoll. As I gazed down on the New Pond, missing the green frogs that for the past two months had been squeaking and hopping every time I looked down, I did hear some blue jays. All quiet up to the hill overlooking the East Trail Pond where my approach scared off two groups of mallards. When their ripples calmed, I saw there were no otters about, all was quiet. There were no new scats at the usual latrines and I headed toward the Second Swamp Pond dam wondering if I would complete the hike without taking a photograph. The squawking heron flew up from the dam; no ducks in the pond. There was a bit more water, I suppose still slowing draining out from the weekend's heavy rain, but I could still walk on the old pond bottom wondering how there could be so much old otter scat with my only seeing the otters once in this pond. Then I saw what I was looking for: two sets of very fresh otter scats,
up on an old log just below the lodge.
Judging from the size and the amount of scales in the scats,
the otters are prospering no matter how bleak these depleted ponds look to me. I followed otter tracks
down to the dam
but lost them there. I walked along the dam and saw no fresh scats, and only raccoon tracks and scats. The pond doesn't seem to be draining as quickly but I saw no evidence that the hole in it had been patched. I tried to get a photo of the drained area behind the dam to show how the beavers fashioned their channels.
I sat briefly at the end of the Lost Swamp Pond and didn't seen any otters. However, at the north shore slope latrine there were two fresh scats, not as big as the ones in the Second Swamp Pond, but they presented the classic fall scene: scat on a fallen leaf.
I walked over the ridge and didn't find any more fresh scats. I walked up the small rocky cliff of the upper end of the Second Swamp Pond where I've often suspected otters of denning and took a photograph of a likely stump and likely dens in the rocks.
I also found some old bullhead parts there. Meanwhile the beavers had not done much new to the birches they had been working on, but they took more branches off the ash they had cut down. Then I went up to the Lost Swamp Pond dam, which has a slight leak, but no sign that otters had been around there and had done that. I walked around the pond looking for scats and saw none. Then I headed to the Big Pond and first walked back on the beaver trail to their fresh wood work. They took down a small poplar, began to segment that,
and also worked on trimming the crown of a downed ash.
Interesting how they are ignoring the smaller branches. The cache at the lodge seems to have grown
and the leaks in the dam are all patched. Raccoon scat is plentiful but no sign that otters have been there. While standing at the south end of the dam, a duck flew in, landed, and promptly started diving. It had the head markings of a buffle head but was brownish in color. I stood and appreciated the power of a diving duck: flying in with a great rush of air, waking the water, and then diving effortlessly and swimming underwater.
At the land I had a chance to check the large poplar the beavers segmented. There was no fresh cuts or movements. But they had segmented and removed the birch they had just cut, and cut another one right next to it. Of course the cache has grown. I also admired the huge dollops of mud they again pushed up on one of their small and seemingly meaningless dams.
They simply must get a great comfort out of even a small, never to be larger, pool of water. No sign that they had done any fresh work on the other side of their domain. They didn't touch the poplars again but did move the birch they cut and are about to cut another.
On a gloomy day, I admired a splash of maple leaves on a branch being moved down to the cache by the beavers.
They are said to like pine in the spring, but these beavers fancy it now.
October 23 a frosty, sunny morning, punctuated with gunfire from hunters. I headed out for a tour of the ponds and despite loud fire from a muzzleloader from that direction, I headed across the golf course taking the shortest route to the Big Pond. An ESE wind made that a favorable direction. I soon gained the high rock overlooking the Big Pond and all the swamps, and seeing no Nimrod, moved on, though soon pausing at the lush moss on the north slope of the rock now blooming with dark gray mushrooms.
I was surprised not to surprise ducks on the small ponds. There was a large and noisy flock on the Big Pond, at the far end, chattering so much at times that they sounded like frogs. There were no scats at the old latrine near the dam. I sat briefly and then moved across the dam admiring all the recent repairs, especially as with the bright sun I could clearly see where the beavers dug out the mud they used.
As is my fashion, with every two or three steps, I looked out into the pond and in the glare of the morning sun I saw something black roll near the marsh. If I had seen scat along the dam, I would have ducked immediately. As it was, I stayed standing as I scrambled for my spyglass. Then when I trained that on the area where I saw the roll, I saw ripples half way between that spot and where I stood. At the same time I heard otter chirping. I dropped to my knees, and while scrambling to get the camcorder, saw an otter. It was periscoping and looking at me. Fortunately I got the camcorder working I captured it swimming away. Also the other otter, the mother I think, was behind it, so rather than simply fleeing, the pup checked in with her. The wind was in my favor so the otters did not get into a panic. They simply started foraging out into the pond eventually going to the shallows behind the lodge. There I saw one climb up onto the shore and stretch out, looking quite comfortable.
Evidently they prefer that area as a latrine rather than the wet, muddy and overgrown dam. The one on shore swam back out into the shallows. I never saw the two together again. An otter popped up on shore again and then disappeared. So I moved on to the Lost Swamp Pond hoping that they might be heading there too. But I didn't hurry. Further along the Big Pond dam I saw how the beavers used small logs to patch the dam; these beavers usually use mud and grasses.
I first checked the beaver work northeast of the Big Pond and there seemed to be nothing new there. Chalk up another point for my theory that beavers forage toward the wind, because we've been having easterly winds for the past couple of days. I sat for awhile at the Lost Swamp Pond and the otters didn't show up. The ducks were all far away, so I checked for otter scat and to my surprise found none. However on sunny mornings when the frost is melting it is almost impossible to discern scat in the moist varicolored leaves. You have to see otters this time of year to be sure where they are. I also noticed that there are no caches at any of the beaver lodges, which lends credence to my current theory that the Lost Swamp Pond beavers, not the Second Swamp Pond beavers, have built a lodge for the winter in the Upper Second Swamp Pond. Down there I noticed that they have taken more ash branches and worked a little bit more on the birch trunk.
They put an old birch chunker log in their dam. The dam in wonderfully precarious like it is on tiptoe to see the world below,
quite the liveliest dam I've seen in a long time. And perhaps it is in danger, not far from some generous berry-laced raccoon scats I saw a smear glinting in the sun. I pulled all the dead vegetation up so I could get a closer look and thought I saw scales.
So an otter has been right below the dam eyeballing one of its tenderest places. Breaching this dam would be easy and dramatic. The heavy rain of a few days ago is still working its way down this watershed. There were ducks in the large pool of water just below the upper dam, enough to fill two waves of escapees. My usual route across the drying Second Swamp Pond was now flooded. I could still get down to the lodge with out going on the old shore. There I didn't see any fresh otter scats. I did see an instructive juxtaposition: a fresh berry-laced raccoon scat next to old scale-laced otter scat.
Plus this shows how the raccoons who visit here looking for shiners are still gorging on berries. I continued on to the East Trail Pond and saw no scats in the west leaves. No ducks here today either.
After we finished the cabin, save for shingling, I checked on what the beavers have been doing. Other than the cache in front of the lodge
there was not much new until I got to the little dams above the first pond, where they not only larded on more mud but also little stripped sticks in the mud.
They cut more willow and birch, but I was interested in what they had done to the poplar. They had returned and took a few bites out of the trunk I had knocked down
and a few bites out of a trunk still hanging. Then back almost to the road they cut a small poplar and a larger one that would have landed on the road if it had not gotten hung up. I worried that a few of the remaining poplars would fall on the road if cut, and from my experience, beavers have an insatiable desire to cut poplars at this time of year, regardless of how many they already have down. So I went back to get my saw and some tar paper. I girdled the lower trunk of two near the road, with the tar paper, cut up the one hanging up over the road, pulled down the small one they cut so they could get to it, and even cut the three small poplars holding up the two big poplars so that they could better get at the big poplars.
I generally don't like doing this, but if they block the road, the road department may have some power to come in and trap them -- I certainly don't want to ask if they do. I came back to the pond at 5 aiming to see the beavers come out, but I got there too late and disturbed one angling in for food almost where I sit. I was treated to several tail splashes before the beaver dove into the lodge. Then I noticed a beaver log-like in the far corner of the pond eying me.
Then it swam toward me, nose raised, and soon splashed its tail and dove. I decided to wait at least another ten minutes since the cache looked so delicious in the golden sunset that I couldn't imagine all the beavers resisting a early evening snack. Sure enough, I soon heard an emphatic hmmm, a glug, and then a beaver popped up, looked briefly at me, then swam into the cache, picked out a branch and did some gnawing. Then it swam up to the auxiliary lodge, seemed to get something, then dove. I waited another ten minutes and soon enough a beaver popped out at the far end of the pond, still for a minute or two, then it swam toward me, veered toward the cache, then stopped and turned to look at me. Still for a minute, then it slipped down into the water and evidently dove as deep as it could because I only saw a hint of a wake as it swam underwater into the Teepee Pond. I saw ripples down there and then walked down to see the beaver, stare at me and then dive quietly again. I would have stayed longer but coming in too clumsily I had made too much of a disturbance and by the time the beavers settled down and went about their business oblivious to me, it would be dark.

domain: hobby