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- Description:
Sally is a small tool for mapping a set of strings to a set of vectors. This mapping is referred to as embedding and allows for applying techniques of machine learning and data mining for analysis of string data. Sally can applied to several types of string data, such as text documents, DNA sequences or log files, where it can handle common formats such as directories, archives and text files of string data.
Sally implements a standard technique for mapping strings to a vector space that is often referred to as vector space model or bag-of-words model. The strings are characterized by a set of features, where each feature is associated with one dimension of the vector space. The following types of features are supported by Sally: bytes, tokens, n-grams of bytes and n-grams of tokens.
Sally proceeds by counting the occurrences of the specified features in each string and generating a sparse vector of count values. Alternatively, binary or TF-IDF values can be computed and stored in the vectors. Sally then normalizes the vector, for example using the L1 or L2 norm, and outputs it in a specified format, such as plain text or in LibSVM or Matlab format.
- Changes to previous version:
Support for explicit selection of granularity added. Several minor bug fixes. We have reached 1.0
- BibTeX Entry: Download
- Corresponding Paper BibTeX Entry: Download
- Supported Operating Systems: Linux, Unix, Posix, Mac Os X
- Data Formats: Svmlight, Binary, Matlab, Fasta, Txt, Cluto
- Tags: Sequence Analysis, Feature Extraction
- Archive: download here
Other available revisons
Version Changelog Date 1.0.0 Support for explicit selection of granularity added. Several minor bug fixes. We have reached 1.0
March 26, 2015, 17:01:35 0.9.2 Fixed severe bug in concurrent computation of blended n-grams.
November 19, 2014, 20:28:35 0.9.1 Several minor bugfixes
November 19, 2014, 20:25:09 0.9.0 Support for hash-based dimension reduction: simhash, minhash and Bloom filter. Support for several n-gram variants: regular, sorted, positional and blended n-grams. Simplified configuration.
July 1, 2014, 22:43:51 0.8.2 Support for new version of libarchive. Several major and minor bug fixes.
December 25, 2013, 13:38:59 0.8.1 Support for positional n-grams with shift (similar to weighted-degree kernel with shift) has been added. Several minor bugs have been fixed.
December 27, 2012, 14:34:31 0.8.0 Support for stop words and frequency thresholding has been added. The configuration has been simplified and is more transparent. Several bugs have been fixed.
August 29, 2012, 09:46:55 0.7.1 Several minor bugs have been fixed in the configuration.
May 18, 2012, 16:19:07 0.7 Fixed several minor bugs. Support for signed embedding has been added.
May 14, 2012, 13:17:02 0.6.4 Support for positional and sorted n-grams (n-perms). That is, n-grams bound to a position in strings and n-grams whose symbols are sorted.
February 6, 2012, 17:44:22 0.6.3 Fixed bug in FASTA module
August 22, 2011, 10:54:23 0.6.2 Support for the clustering software CLUTO has been added as a new output module. The documentation has been extended.
July 9, 2011, 18:49:02 0.6.1 Added missing configuration file to package. sigh
April 1, 2011, 09:30:01 0.6.0 Support for a system-wide configuration has been added. Additionally, all configuration parameters can be specified on the command line. The manual page and documentation have been updated and extended
February 22, 2011, 10:27:08 0.5.2 Bugfixes on Linux Improved support for Matlab export
October 8, 2010, 06:50:03 0.5.0 Initial Announcement on mloss.org.
September 29, 2010, 18:02:46
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subset: commoncrawl


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Saturday, May 22, 2010
Alternate Spell Names
D&D's spell names are (mostly) very bland, almost clinical. I don't think that's a problem in and of itself. As a baseline for discussion amongst players, it's probably much simpler to talk about fireball rather than, say, the inexorable conflagration of Thoom or something similar. But, except in certain circumstances, I find it pretty boring to say, "I cast magic missile" or "I use cure light wounds" in play. It does very little to evoke a fantasy setting and in many cases reminds us that we're playing a game with rules.
So, what Albert is doing is, I think, a great example of what I wish we saw more of in individual campaigns: tailor the baseline spell list to the setting. I'll probably do it for the Dwimmermount campaign at some point, if not for the current campaign, then for a future one. It's something I'd intended to do all along but never got round to doing. Perhaps it's time to correct that.
29 comments:
The way I set up spells is they have a cold clinical "template" name like "Cone" or "Bolt" or "Blast" or "Sleep". But thats the mechanical basis, each version of the spell has a different name and effect (which is also important).
The players for example right now have access to "Bee Swarm" (Cone) and "Lullabye of the Black Donnolly"(sleep) which would be very different than "Dragonsbreath" (Cone) depending on what they are facing (or hell, pure theme).Chevski, i'm sure i'll be even more enthusiastic about your suggestion once I finish reading the two Vance novels I recently acquired.
I'm with you on the generic spell names, they seem rather bland and uninteresting for what should be mysterious and arcane. It doesn't help that the descriptions in players handbooks are mechanical explanations of the ranges, effects and dice-rolls involved.
I'd prefer keeping that mechanical information about spells behind the screen.I'm with you on the generic spell names, they seem rather bland and uninteresting for what should be mysterious and arcane. It doesn't help that the descriptions in players handbooks are mechanical explanations of the ranges, effects and dice-rolls involved.
To be fair, I think the bland names are fine for the rulebooks -- preferable even -- because they provide a baseline for discussion amongst players in different campaigns. I just feel that, in actual play, the names ought to be changed in most cases in order to make them seem, as you say, "mysterious and arcane."Properly evocative names can be a difficult balancing act. You have to steer between the Scylla of immersion-ruining drivel like "Doomkill" (EPT) and "Slush Yuck" (T&T) and the Charybdis of semantically opaque narm like "Valrid's Third Resplendent Corruscation".
I think the bland-but-functional spell names of D&D are mostly adequate to their intended purpose. With a couple of exceptions (Cacodaemon, Eyebite, etc.) they do exactly what they say on the tin.
That said Albert seems to be navigating the shoals of nomenclature nicely.I think the bland-but-functional spell names of D&D are mostly adequate to their intended purpose.
I absolutely agree. That's why I'd never advocate eliminating those names from the PHB for more "exciting" ones à la 4e. More point was simply that it's very easy to inject more flavor into spellcasting simply by changing a few names here and there. It's a practice I've often toyed with but have never really implemented and I regret that.I agree though, the name needn't be inscrutible to be interesting. I simply prefer "Leomund's Tiny Hut" to "Tiny Hut"; and "Otiluke's Freezing Sphere" to "Globe of Ice".
Again, I agree. In fact, I rather think, in a world where magic is conceived as it is in D&D -- that is, as specific arcane formulae rather than freeform conjurations -- more spells ought to have the names of their creators attached them.This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I'd like to run a pulp Swards & Sorcery game using my preferred sytem, FATE. I'm planning on running spells as stunts for people who want to play sorcerers and am planning on players working with me to come up with their own spells and spell names. It's fine with me if the goal is to make something that works like a D&D sleep spell, but I want more of an implied place in the setting like the Mordenkainen's Fist of Gentle Repose.
ReplyDeleteThat's no longer the case, would "Agrathea's Scintillant Sphere of Conflagration" fill me with awe after using it for 20+ years, either?
Probably not, but, speaking for myself, my concern is more of an in-game one. I don't expect spells as game mechanics to fill me with awe, but I would like it if the spells seemed more plausible within the context of the game setting. My beef is purely one of immersion. I'm not sure RPGs are really capable of evoking wonder in anyone who's been playing them for decades, not matter what terminology they use.The current term for this kind of thing is reskinning. I saw it used back in 3x I think .I believe it comes from computer games.
I have to say that I quite enjoy it as a player and as a DM.
The 1st time I ran into a reskinned spell as a player a lightning bolt as a black ray was in a 2e game and it was very memorable.
I do it with monsters quite often as well, the Beholder becomes "Servant of the Eye" and it goes from a tactical encounter to a bit more of a wondrous more like when we started , at least till they figure out what I just did.
The only things that I never play with this way are "common" items.
Calling a sword a "saex" unless its a historical game preferably where the players have a grasp of the language and culture is confusing.
Also "normal animals" never get this treatment either. It breaks immersion.In a Shadowrun game I played in a few years ago, one of the players did this with all of his spells, giving them new names but not changing the spells any. It seemed like extra work to me, but he enjoyed it, and the GM was never confused by the jargon the player was spitting out (I think the GM had a cheat sheet), so no harm, no foul.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Vance--and how could we not given the subject? Why not rule that a spell doesn't exist until researched by a pc or npc?
Obviously a magic user starts out saying, "I want to conjour a fireball to char my enemies.". Or something equally dry and descriptive. Howver, what happens after the research is turjan's elemental conflaguration. Or "the excellent exploding fireball" or "the adequate buring hands of Hannibal"
I think, keeping the spell name (fireball, burning hands) but adding some discriptive text to the name will keep people from being confused and then defaulting to the textbook name in frustration.
"the Magnificent magic missile"
Interestingly, I think the key to a good spell name is the use of the definite article at the begining of the name. Makes the spell singular and less generic sounding. Even, "the magic missile" does the trick for me.
What I don't like is flowery names that people could forget what the hell the spell does. A balance of utility with flavor.Calling detect magic, "demon sight" doesn't work for me because just as easily could be a spell for granting infravision or detect good or a host of other things. It says too much and too little all at once.
Magic users are part mathemetician so names of spells should read like a book of poetry.I don't think I would want to spend any more time on this than I would on dreaming up flowery soliliquies for bad guys, or going into big descriptions of how the orc swung his sword and did 3 points of damage to you. I really don't care about the actual names of spells used by persons in my game world, any more than I really concern myself with what the languages sound like.
In my world most of these spells have bee around over 1000 years, not created 12 years ago by some Bigby or Tenser dude. They have been known by 1000 names by 100 cultures.
A caveman called it "Big Badda Boom" or a modern wiz called it "Mighty Flameball of the Great Wakka Wakka," either way lets just call it fireball and get on with it (especially so I don;t have to carry an extra notebook full of alternate spell names).I think too much pathos in basic spell names makes them seem silly.
X Y of Z is especially too cliche, e.g. Demonic Portal-Chains of Aghrapur for Hold Portal when there's nothing ingame to justify the name. You could possibly intimidate the farmers for a while but even in the dying earth stories people are scared of the effects, not the names.
In 4e there's basic descriptive names for some powers and almost all rituals. Spinning sweep is easy to understand but tumble-fast-past-your-enemies-and-stab-them-in-the-back needs a more poetic name for a reason.
I think burning hands and magic missile are quite evocative names but we're just used to them. I'm satisfied with them as they are now.My problem with these attempts is that while they may satisfy us particularly hard-core gamers (DM world-builders), I'm skeptical that they'd filter down well to the more rank-and-file players. I think so many "just playing a game"'rs would want a shorthand they'd wind up abbreviating our preferred Vancianisms anyway.
For example, I'm horribly aghast when I hear gamers referring to "pallies" and "skellies" (because "paladin" and "skeleton" are apparently too complicated to say), but they do so anyway.
Skeptical that 4E does this commonly (although I'm sure it's suggested in the books; it was in 3E, too). Way, way, way down on "reskinning" theory.My players ALL re-skin their spells, but they go the other way - they've made them sound as quick and dirty as possible.
Protection from Evil 10' Radius became "Bubble". Dispel Evil became "Bubble 2". Turn Undead became "Ashing". Growth of Plants became "Weedwall". As in "I'll drop a bubble and then you ash them from here." Or "Throw up a weedwall and let's camp."
When I asked them about it, they said the campaign felt like a fantasy Vietnam movie and so it seemed as natural to them as flak, charlie, ack-ack, and evac, and so on are to soldiers.I find it much easier to use descriptive names for spells, usually including a verb. So Create Wall of Fire gives me more information than a more poetic name. It allows me to adjudicate each individual element (Create, Wall, Fire) to determine the effect without having to refer back to a specific spell description for the details (I've always tended to play magic fast and loose in my games).
Although I am not adverse to players coming up with poetic names, incantations, rituals, and magical ingredients necessary to cast the spells. And in my game I've had players, whose characters were trained in different schools of magic, have competitions to see whose "fireball" was better. To the detriment of the scenary (it being heavily chewed by the players).
[This reminds me very much of Ars Magica, where the spells may have Curse of the Ravenous Swarm, by it also specifies that it is a Level 50 Creo (Create) Animalia (Animal) spell, which gives you the information needed to use it in the game, whereas the correct title only hints at what it may be able to do. But again, in this game, especially for high level spells, they need to be researched or learned before they can be used, so you can get away with this.]
That being said, I also have a soft spot for Nephilim, which described the spells and rituals rather poetically, and often misleadingly (The Summoning of Things That Nibble and Creep being a prime example). However this suits a game of occult conspiracy where the very knowledge of the spells themselves was a prized objective, rather than is the case in the magic rich world of D&D.*
Call of Cthulhu is another game that benefits from this procedure of obscuring the essential nature of the spells.
[* Although I do remember having had a few "lost" ancient spells discovered as great treasures. Like powerful magic swords (as opposed to munition quality "magic" swords), they were usually given exotic names. (And until the invention of wizardry, could not be easily classified or modified, since the theory didn't actually exist to handle them, so this made sense.)]I like the idea of "reskinning" some spells to fit names specific to the campaign I'm running. It a quick and easy way to add flavor to a game. The trick is it has to be organically and not forced, otherwise it seems unnatural.
For example, I don't do it with every spell in the book,just a few of the more common ones and a couple of less used ones. And I try to use names that fit within that campaign, not just random name changes.
I have also at times made variant versions of the same spell, created by different magic users. There might be small changes (slightly different duration, range, etc) but I have made a few with bigger differences, such as doing additional to certain types of creatures.
This grew from my idea that magic-users would "tinker" with existing spells, rather than always work to create brand new ones. This has provide some great plot hooks as the party would sometimes journey to specific places just in order to find a new spell or just following up on rumors of interesting sounding ones.
I also like the idea of PCs coming up with slang names for spells. I had one campaign where our 'cockney' themed thief would also refer to the magic users spells in slang. Fireball was called a 'toasty', hold person was a 'stiller'. The magic-user was played as a straight-laced academic type, so the interplay between the two was really interesting at times. Once again, I think this has to grow organically from the campaign, otherwise it feels forced and unnatural.Just out of curiosity, why would you want to forget that you're playing a game? D&D is a game. Playing games is fun.
What I meant is that, for me, a key element of a good roleplaying game is that its mechanics don't needlessly wrench me out of the imaginary world in which I'm playing. I prefer that players be able to make their decisions based on what their characters experience in the world rather than by reference to game mechanics. So, spells that are too "game-y" in their names or effects bug the heck out of me.My problem with these attempts is that while they may satisfy us particularly hard-core gamers (DM world-builders), I'm skeptical that they'd filter down well to the more rank-and-file players. I think so many "just playing a game"'rs would want a shorthand they'd wind up abbreviating our preferred Vancianisms anyway.
Oh, I agree. I wouldn't want to see these kinds of poetic names used in the rulebook (generally), but I do like it when individual referees and/or players make changes like this. I think it makes a campaign more interesting and "real."


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We are committed to creating a user-friendly environment, where our users can post and reply to ads and other messages freely and without concern. What follows are a number of tips and techniques you should keep in mind to protect yourself and your privacy online, whether you are using our site or some other site on the Internet. (Some of these suggestions "repeat" because they apply in multiple situations.) This list is not exhaustive and you should not use it as a substitute for your own common sense. As always, the best protection is to use good judgment and trust your instincts.
Responding to an Ad
Online ads help us find all kinds of different goods and services easily and quickly. It is important to remember that whether you are responding to a rental ad, a job posting, personal or "for sale" ad, you have never met the person behind the ad before. Use caution.
- Do not wire money, or send a check, for an apartment you have not seen to a person you have never met.
- Do not give out personal information about yourself, such as your social security number, without verifying that a job posting is legitimate.
- Meet people in a public place.
- Do not go check out furniture in someone's house alone. Bring a friend.
Placing an Ad
Online advertising allows us to quickly and effectively reach as many people as possible that are interested in what we are selling or offering. It is important to remember that you may not know the people responding to your ad, so be careful.
- Do not include personal information in an ad, such as your full name or address, and do not post images or content that are prohibited by our Terms of Use or Privacy Policy, like nudity or messages relating to illegal activities.
- Talk to people on the phone before giving them information, like your address, and trust your instincts.
- If someone is coming to check out the sofa you advertised, make sure you are not alone when they arrive.
- If you are selling something portable but expensive, such as a DVD player or a digital camera, consider showing it to people in a coffee shop instead of your home.
- If you are selling a car, make sure you are meeting the person somewhere public for a test drive, bring a friend, and be careful driving home.
- Meet people in a public place.
Safety Tips
- Learn more at www.safetradestations.com
- Be careful when purchasing gift cards through auction sites or classified ads; they may be empty or fraudulent.
- Be careful when bidding on auctions for products; they may be stolen.
- Be careful when replying to mystery or secret shopper jobs; you may end up owing all the money to the bank you thought you were getting paid.
- Be cautious when it comes to work-from-home opportunities, especially ones that do not require experience or time.
- Do not give money to an individual claiming to be the victim of a disaster if you do not know them.
- Do not give money to an organization if you have not heard of it.
- Do not wire money, or send a check, for an apartment you have not seen to a person you have never met.
- Do not give out personal information about yourself, such as your social security number, without verifying that a job posting is legitimate.
- Meet people in a public place. Preferably a safe trade station.
Scams and Fraud
No matter where we are or what we are doing, a handful of people can make it difficult for everyone. This is true in the online advertising area as well. Use the same common sense you would use in the real world when reading an ad. If it is too good to be true, it is a scam. Please read about these common scam types to educate yourself.
Money Order/Wire Transfer Scam
Avoid scams by following these guidelines:
- If the person you are dealing with is not local to you and does not want to meet, it is probably a scam.
- Never wire funds. Anyone requesting a wire transfer is probably a scammer.
- Keep in mind that fake cashiers checks and money orders are common tools for scam artists. You may even be held responsible for legal and financial ramifications if you attempt to process fraudulent checks or money orders. Money order fraud is specifically not reimbursed by most institutions and the victim is required to go through local police to attempt to recover lost funds.
- yourdomain.com is not involved in ANY transaction, does not handle payments, offer guarantees or buyer protection.
- Never give out any of your personal financial information. Anyone requesting this is probably a scammer.
- Deals involving shipping or escrow services are usually fraudulent. NO ONE CAN GUARANTEE YOUR TRANSACTION.
- If a buyer offers you more than your asking price, it is probably a scam.
Recognizing common scams:
Wiring money is like sending cash. The sender has no protections against loss.
- DO NOT wire money to strangers or sellers who insist on wire transfers for payment.
- DO NOT send money to someone you do not know. Try to deal locally and in person if possible. Do not send cash or use a wire transfer service.
- DO NOT respond to messages that ask for your personal or financial information.
- DO NOT agree to deposit a check from someone you do not know and then wire money back.
By law, banks must make funds from deposited checks available within days, but uncovering a fake check can take weeks. You are responsible for the checks you deposit. When a check turns out to be a fake, it's you who is responsible for paying back the bank.
Know where an offer comes from and who you are dealing with.
Most scams involve one or more of the following:
- Inquiry from someone far away.
- Wire transfers, cashier's checks, money orders, shipping, escrow services or "guarantees."
- Refusal to meet face to face before transaction.
To Report Scams and Frauds:
- To file a complaint online: ftccomplaintassistant.gov
- Non-emergency number for your local police department
- Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Work From Home Scam
How it Works
- Someone places a job ad online looking for a rebate or payment processor.
- You respond and get the job.
- You are asked to provide your bank account info to your new employer to facilitate direct deposits; might sound like a good idea, but it could be dangerous.
- Funds are put into this account and you are told to wire the money to a third account. This account is often international, but not always.
- You get to deduct a percent of the wired amount as your commission or payment.
- You are actually laundering stolen funds through your own account.
- Whether you know you are laundering money or not, you can still be prosecuted.
- The people you gave your bank account info to can also take money from you or steal your identity.
- Be cautious when it comes to work-from-home opportunities, especially ones that do not require experience or time.
- Be cautious of opportunities that require you to pay for materials or supplies.
- Figure out if the company is legitimate through the Better Business Bureau (for US-based companies) or WHOIS/Domain Tools (for international companies). Also look at the FTC's recommendations: Online Scams.
- Never give your bank account details to anyone unless you know and trust them.
- If you think you may be a victim of one of these scams, contact your financial institution immediately. --Report any suspicious work-from-home offers or activities to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
(Above information about "work from home" scams is compiled from IC3 PDF.)
Mystery/Secret Shopper Scam
- You see a job posting for a mystery shopper.
- You are asked to send a resume and told you will undergo a background check.
- You are sent a check that will cover purchases and money wire transactions, with the remaining balance as your payment.
- You are given instructions to shop at a specified retailer for a specific length of time and spend a specific amount on merchandise from the store.
- You are told to take note of the store's environment, color, payment procedures, gift items, and shopping/carrier bags and report back to the employer.
- You are then told you will be checking the ease and accuracy of wiring money from the retail location.
- After the merchandise is purchased and money is wired, the bank tells you that the check cashed was counterfeit, and you are responsible for the money lost in addition to bank fees incurred.
- Occasionally, you will be asked to submit your bank account information so that money can be deposited into your account. The fraudster will then have access to your accounts and be able to withdraw your money.
Rental and Real Estate Scam
If you are posting the rental ad:
- Someone will respond to your ad with an interest in renting or buying the property.
- They will send you a check that is in excess of the amount you indicated, and request you send them the difference.
- They will send you a check that is the exact amount, but back out at the last minute.
- You will think all of the above checks are legitimate and potentially begin using the funds.
- The check(s) will turn out to be counterfeit and the bank will hold you responsible for all losses.
If you are reading the rental ad:
- A scammer will duplicate postings from legitimate real-estate websites and place them on classified advertisement websites.
- The scammer will often use the real-estate agent's real name to create a fake email address.
- When you respond to the ad, the scammer will reply, claiming to be the owner. S/he will say he is out of the country (often on mission work) so you cannot see the property. They will ask you to mail the check (often to a foreign address). They may also ask you to wire money.
- Your check will be cashed or money received, and you will not be able to recover your losses.
Gift Card Fraud
Be careful when purchasing gift cards through auction sites or classified ads. It is safer to purchase gift cards directly from the merchant or retail store. The seller may claim the card holds a certain value, but they may be lying. If you are purchasing a gift card, make sure you meet the seller at the store and have the gift card run through for verification. Additionally, if the gift card merchant discovers that your card is fraudulent, the merchant will deactivate the gift card and refuse to honor it for purchases. Victims of this scam lose the money paid for the gift card purchase.
Auction Sales Fraud
Be careful when bidding on auctions for products. Fraudsters will post ads for items they do not have. They will charge your credit card (or debit your account) for the item and then use a stolen credit card to buy the actual item and have it shipped to you. They keep your money and you may be liable for receiving stolen products. Buy directly from the product merchant or make sure you research who you are buying products from.
Disaster Scams
Some fraudsters will prey on your desire to help others. Make sure you are only donating to organizations you have heard of, and make sure you are donating directly on their official website. Do not give money to an individual claiming to be the victim of a disaster if you do not know them.
Human Trafficking
Over the past 15 years, "trafficking in persons" and "human trafficking" have been used as umbrella terms for activities involved when someone obtains or holds a person in compelled service.
The United States government considers trafficking in persons to include all of the criminal conduct involved in forced labor and sex trafficking, essentially the conduct involved in reducing or holding someone in compelled service. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as amended (TVPA) and consistent with the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol), individuals may be trafficking victims regardless of whether they once consented, participated in a crime as a direct result of being trafficked, were transported into the exploitative situation, or were simply born into a state of servitude. Despite a term that seems to connote movement, at the heart of the phenomenon of trafficking in persons are the many forms of enslavement, not the activities involved in international transportation.
For more information on Human Trafficking, please visit Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
To report a potential victim of Human Trafficking, or if you are a victim yourself or you know someone whom you suspect may be, please call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline at 1-888-3737-888, or visit: Report a Tip | Polaris Project | Combating Human Trafficking and Modern-day Slavery.
Child Exploitation
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children helps not only locate missing kids, but also helps children that are victims of sexual exploitation of any kind.
If you have seen a missing child, or a child that is being victimized, please take action and make a report to the CyberTipline: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
For more information on the National Center, please visit: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
- Federal Trade Commission
- FBI - Homepage
- Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
- Polaris Project | Combating Human Trafficking and Modern-day Slavery
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition has won a decisive election victory, extending its control to the upper house of parliament and setting the stage for the country's first stable government in years.
Based on exit polls, national broadcaster NHK predicts that Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, New Komeito, will take 71 seats, giving them a total of 130 seats, eight more than needed for a majority in the chamber.
The election, which gives the ruling coalition control of both houses of the Diet for the first time in six years, is seen as a mandate on Abe's economic program, including aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus programs that have helped spur growth after decades of near stagnation in Japan.
While The Japan Times notes that turnout was low, it says the election can be "viewed as a gauge of support for [Abe's] radical deflation-busting economic strategy dubbed 'Abenomics.'"
However, Abe's hawkish foreign policy has caused tensions with regional neighbors China and South Korea.
The Associated Press reports:
"The Liberal Democrats' "Recover Japan" platform calls a strong economy, strategic diplomacy and unshakable national security under the Japan-U.S. alliance, which allows for 50,000 American troops to be stationed in Japan.
The party also favors revising the country's pacifist constitution, drafted by the United States after World War II, to give Japan's military a larger role — a message that alarms the Chinese government but resonates with some Japanese voters troubled by territorial disputes with China and South Korea and widespread distrust of an increasingly assertive Beijing."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text: RISK WARNING: Trading in Forex and Contracts for Difference (CFDs), which are leveraged products, is highly speculative and involves substantial risk of loss. It is possible to lose all the initial capital invested. Therefore, Forex and CFDs may not be suitable for all investors. Only invest with money you can afford to lose. So please ensure that you fully understand the risks involved. Seek independent advice if necessary.


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Looking Forward to 2021: Six Opportunities for Culture and Tourism
Date: 2021-01-05
Seizing the six major opportunities, the culture and tourism industry in 2021 is worth looking forward to.
Despite the impact of the epidemic, in 2021, world economists have full confidence in China's economic development. With international tourism at a semi-stagnation, China's domestic tourism consumption confidence has been fully restored, and tourism development potential has been effectively released. Seizing the six major opportunities, the culture and tourism industry in 2021 is worth looking forward to.
World economists have high hopes
In 2020, the new crown epidemic is raging around the world, and the global economy has suffered a great blow. Regarding the future economic development, the world's authoritative organizations have given very optimistic estimates, and various economists have high hopes for China's economic development. .
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED) released a global economic outlook report, predicting that the global economy will grow by 4.2% in 2021, and China will contribute more than one-third of global economic growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mentioned in its latest "World Economic Outlook Report" that the global economy will shrink by 4.4% in 2020, and the Chinese economy will grow by 1.9%, making it the only major economy in the world to achieve positive growth. The IMF predicts that China's economic growth next year is expected to reach 8.2%.
The world's confidence in China is not only derived from China's effective prevention and control of the epidemic, but also because China has still taken a series of measures to promote economic reforms and expand opening up in the face of the impact of the epidemic, which has effectively improved the resilience of the Chinese economy.
Domestic tourism is picking up steadily
In the first half of 2020, China's tourism industry suffered heavy losses due to the impact of the epidemic. In the first half of 2020, my country's domestic tourists numbered 1.168 billion, down 62% year-on-year, and domestic tourism revenue was 0.64 trillion yuan, down 77% year-on-year. Judging from the development in recent years, the scale of tourism receipts in my country has maintained a steady growth, from 2.641 billion in 2011 to 6.006 billion in 2019, an annual growth rate of 10.96%.
With the effective prevention and control of the epidemic in China, the confidence of tourism consumers has gradually recovered. In May 2020, the central government issued the programmatic guidance of "gradually forming a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual cycles mutually promoting each other". The use of reform and opening up measures to stabilize employment, protect people's livelihood, promote consumption, stimulate the market, stabilize growth, and effectively stimulate the recovery of the tourism economy. According to data during the National Day of 2020, during the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, the country received 637 million domestic tourists, a year-on-year recovery of 79.0% on a comparable basis; domestic tourism revenue was 466.56 billion yuan, a year-on-year recovery of 69.9% on a comparable basis. According to China UnionPay data, the transaction value of the UnionPay network reached 2.16 trillion yuan in the 7 days before the National Day holiday, an increase of 6.3% over the same period last year; this year, the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival were unified, and the transaction amount on the day exceeded 330 billion yuan, an increase of 15.5% year-on-year. .
Data show that China's domestic tourism has gradually recovered. As long as the epidemic does not recur in a large area in 2021, the development of domestic tourism is still worth looking forward to.
International tourism will take time to resume
Under the impact of the epidemic, the development of outbound tourism in 2020 has basically stagnated. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the General Administration of Customs, the National Immigration Administration and other units have jointly issued recommendations suggesting that nationals should not participate in inbound and outbound tourism unless necessary to reduce the cross-border movement of people. The year-on-year growth rates of outbound tourists from January to June in 2018 and 2019 are all positive, while the year-on-year growth rates of outbound tourists from January to June in 2020 are all negative.
According to data released by the Beijing Bureau of Statistics, in the first three quarters of 2020, the number of inbound tourists received by travel agencies (groups) was 33,188, a year-on-year decrease of 95.5; the number of outbound tourists organized by travel agencies was 471,240, a year-on-year decrease of 87.1%.
As the international epidemic situation is complicated and changeable, experts from the World Health Organization stated on December 11 that from an epidemiological perspective, the global epidemic situation is still very unstable. Although the new crown vaccine gives people hope, other anti-epidemic measures are still indispensable. Or missing. Some experts predict that it will be difficult for international tourism to return to its pre-epidemic conditions within 2-3 years. It is expected that in 2021, international tourism will remain at a semi-stagnation.
6 major development opportunities in the future
(1) The new era has given birth to a new pattern, and high-quality products are facing the greatest opportunity.
Our country is forming a new development pattern in which the domestic big cycle is the main body and the domestic and international double cycles promote each other. The new opportunities for culture and tourism are embodied: high-quality products, industries, district construction and business upgrades.
The stagnation of international tourism has brought good development opportunities for domestic high-quality tourism. The guiding ideology of double circulation also requires that the tourism industry should realize the return of outbound cultural tourism consumption.
Relying on the cultivation of high-quality cultural tourism consumption scenes, actively introduce tax-free shopping, catering, hotels, cultural performances, cultural research, cultural venues, luxury goods, medical beauty, beauty and health, cruises and other international brand institutions to promote outbound culture and tourism consumption. The transformation of domestic consumption will make the domestic consumer market bigger and stronger.
Exploit the attraction of cultural tourism resources and major events with Chinese characteristics such as world heritage, national culture, historical culture, intangible cultural heritage, international sports events, new urbanization and rural revitalization strategies, actively develop the inbound consumer market, and promote international business service areas The construction of high-quality culture and tourism consumption needs.
(2) New traffic expands new space
With the planning and construction of major projects such as the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network has been established in areas such as Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Yellow River Basin. The construction of Beijing-Shenzhen High-speed Railway, Beijing-Zhangzhou High-speed Railway, and Beijing-Xiong High-speed Railway has effectively reduced travel time. The reduction of travel time has played a vital role in expanding the 4-hour travel circle and expanding the consumption radius.
Micro vacations in the "one-hour traffic circle" around big cities will face major development opportunities. Several major urban agglomerations have formed a "one-hour traffic circle" with improved transportation, effectively promoting the transformation of spatial "integration" into time "co-city", forming a new space of "a day life circle, weekend consumption and leisure circle" .
(3) Urban-rural integration brings new quality
New urbanization and rural revitalization have become the driving force to promote economic and social upgrading. Among them, the shortcomings of basic public service facilities have become a centralized platform for stimulating investment and consumption. Improving medical and health facilities, improving educational facilities, improving nursing facilities for the elderly, developing cultural and sports facilities, improving social welfare facilities, and building comprehensive community service facilities have greatly improved the quality of cultural and tourism development, and the integration of urban and rural areas into cultural tourism The rapid and high-quality development of
(4) New ways of fostering new technologies
The construction of smart culture and tourism system based on 5G technology accelerates the emergence of new cultural and tourism methods in product creation, public service facilities construction, new experiences, new marketing, market management, and industrial extension, providing independent travel and vacation tourism. Technical Support. In addition, scientific and technological innovation is combined with the development of cities, towns and villages to build big data centers, driverless experience, smart hotels, smart scenic spots, smart resorts and other characteristic projects. New technologies have become important tools for cultural and tourism transformation and upgrading.
(5) New development after the epidemic
The post-epidemic situation has brought room for development for "new retail" and "net celebrity marketing". Cloud tourism, cross-border sales of goods, and online celebrity products have become the "new blue ocean" for cultural tourism companies to seize the beach, and "contactless service" has led to the fire of intelligent unmanned hotels, promoting the transformation of the culture and tourism industry. During the normalization of the epidemic, live webcasting has become a new scene of information dissemination, product transactions and consumption, directly affecting the dissemination and sales channels of cultural and tourism companies and brands.
The epidemic has accelerated the awareness of life and health of the people. With the normalization of the epidemic and the arrival of the post-epidemic era, the attention of new formats such as low-density tourism, eco-tourism, rural tourism, customized tourism, and health tourism has increased.
Public service facilities, cultural resources, cultural industry parks, tourist attractions, and resorts have all become new consumption content, accelerating the promotion of modern cultural consumption formats and the cultivation and gathering of mid-to-high-end leisure and holiday products.
(6) Build a new scene for independent travel
In the era of autonomous tourism, tourists completely independently choose the time, route, content, travel mode, travel partners, travel service methods, service providers and payment methods, etc., presenting themes, customization, niche, in-depth, random, Pre-ordered, fragmented, and adjustable consumption characteristics. Tourists' experience of tourism expands from scenic spots to entire regions. Tourist elements attract materialization. Traditional industrial elements such as accommodation and transportation are gradually upgraded to "new tourism products". Industrial parks, characteristic blocks and urban functional areas are all expanded into new scenes and infrastructure. The importance of public service facilities and various supporting facilities has been greatly increased, and thematic, experience, quality, intelligence and specialization have become important standards. (*Source: Lvwei Cultural Tourism Comprehensive from Dongfang.com, Beijing Bureau of Statistics, Xinhuanet, Tencent News, etc.;)


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Golden numbers
Washington Post
| Sunday, July 14, 2013, 10:05 a.m.
WASHINGTON — When Houston was competing with a Brazilian city to be the site of a Japanese-owned plant, Houston could provide the Japanese with pertinent information about the educational attainments and other qualities of its workforce and the number of Japanese speakers in the area. The plant is in Texas partly because Houston had superior statistics, thanks to an inexpensive federal program currently under attack from some conservatives. They may not know that its pedigree traces to the Constitution's Framers.
These Enlightenment figures — rational, empirical, inquisitive — believed in the possibility of evidence-based improvements. And they mandated the "enumeration" of the population every 10 years. James Madison soon proposed expanding the census beyond mere enumeration to recording Americans' occupations. And compliance with the survey was compulsory.
During America's post-Civil War dynamism, President Ulysses Grant proposed a census every five years to keep government abreast of change. Beginning in 1940, a small percentage of households was required to fill out what came to be the "long form." And since 2005, this has been replaced by the American Community Survey that about 3.5 million households a year are required to complete, providing demographic, economic and social information pertinent to government and private-sector activities.
The government still makes mandatory the mild duty of providing information pertinent to governance. This is why some conservatives oppose continuing the ACS. Distrust of the politicized IRS, with its mountains of sensitive information, and anxiety about the National Security Agency's collection of metadata have deepened Americans' instinctive suspicion of government, which is healthy. But the ACS should not become collateral damage.
If the survey were voluntary, compliance would plummet and the cost of gathering the information would soar. The data, paid for by taxpayers and available to them at no charge, serves what the nation needs most — economic growth. Target, Wal-Mart and other large retailers tailor their inventories to regional, even neighborhood differences revealed in the ACS' granular data. Homebuilders locate markets rich in persons 25 to 34, and renters.
Information improves the efficiency of markets — and of governments, too. There are systemic reasons why democratic governments frequently behave foolishly: Politicians' constant incentive is to confer current benefits on targeted beneficiaries and to defer costs (by running deficits). Hence there are weak incentives to formulate government policies with the quaint characteristic of measurably ameliorating broad social problems. The ACS cannot cure systemic problems but abolishing it would require government to be unnecessarily ignorant.
Some incandescent conservatives propose forbidding the ACS to ask about respondents' religious beliefs and practices. But it does not ask. It is more interested in, for example, at what time respondents leave home for work, information that helps local governments plan traffic flows. The ACS does not seek to identify illegal immigrants, but by asking respondents their ethnicity, if they are citizens and how long they have been in the country, it informs public debate by estimating the number of illegal immigrants.
Secrecy is government regulation — the rationing of information. The collection and dissemination of useful information by government serve the deregulation of life by empowering the public to direct the government, to judge its performance, and to decrease dependence on government by invigorating the private sector.
In the absence of data, politicians pluck factoids from the ether, as Barack Obama did in this year's State of the Union address: "Every dollar we invest in high-quality early childhood education can save more than seven dollars later on, by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime." Such facially implausible and utterly unsubstantiated claims flourish when there is indifference to information.
The Welfare Reform Act of 1996, which was applied conservatism, happened because empirical data convinced enough Democrats of the costs of welfare dependency. Charles Murray, the most consequential and conservative contemporary social scientist ("Losing Ground," "Coming Apart"), depends on ACS and other census surveys. Sociologist Peter Rossi, a liberal Democrat and an accomplished analyst of social programs, formulated two "metallic rules" of policy evaluation. The Iron Law is: "The expected value of any net impact assessment of any large scale social program is zero." The Stainless Steel Law is: "The better designed the impact assessment of a social program, the more likely is the resulting estimate of net impact to be zero."
Clearly, conservatives should favor the nation applying to itself the injunction "Know thyself." Besides, if conservatives do not think information about society — the more the merrier — strengthens their case, why are they conservatives?
George Will's email address is firstname.lastname@example.com.


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The power of the pardon can redress an overly harsh sentence or a wrongful conviction. It can also prove to be a political land mine.
Exhibit A: Outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's sweeping 11th-hour orders granting clemency to more than 200 people, ranging from convicted murderers to the brother of NFL great Brett Favre, who had his record cleared in connection with a 1997 conviction on manslaughter charges.
The pardons were intended to allow them to find gainful employment or acquire professional licenses as well as hunt and vote.
It's not uncommon for an outgoing governor or president to issue pardons at the end of his final term in office. What makes Barbour's case so unusual is that he issued barely a handful of pardons as governor and then on his last day on the job "dump[ed] all these at the end," says P.S. Ruckman, a political science professor at Rock Valley College in Illinois who has written two books on executive clemency.
"It's too bad the way he's done this," Ruckman says, "It just casts a shadow over the whole process."
Justice Undone?
The typical pardon has "zero controversy," he says. In most states, it's standard procedure for parole boards to study applications, review cases and then make a recommendation for clemency to the governor. And in most cases, the governor follows the board's recommendation.
"If you're stingy with the pardons, though, and then you suddenly pardon celebrities and supporters, that doesn't look good," he says.
The four convicted murderers pardoned by Barbour had worked at the governor's mansion as part of a prison trusty program. Those pardons, along with several others, have been blocked by a judge because they may have violated Mississippi's Constitution.
On Friday, Barbour said he was "very comfortable" with his decision to grant the pardons. In an Associated Press interview, Barbour said it's a tradition in Mississippi for governors to free the trusties who worked at the governor's mansion. He said corrections officials pick those people, who are usually men convicted of crimes of passion.
Barbour added that he's "fully confident the pardons and other clemency I have given are all valid."
Joshua Kleinfeld, a professor at Northwestern University School of Law, agrees that Barbour's move is unusual and that it contributes to a public perception that justice is sometimes short-circuited.
"I think the public feels betrayed when convicted criminals appear to escape ordinary justice," Kleinfeld says. "That feeling is definitely exacerbated when the pardons come en masse."
A prominent exception, he says, is the extraordinary commutation of more than 150 death sentences by outgoing Illinois Gov. George Ryan in 2003. Following an investigation into a wrongful death penalty conviction by Northwestern law students, Ryan made an executive decision that there was a fundamental flaw in the system.
"It looked like people who are sentenced to death may in fact be innocent," Kleinfeld says.
In contrast to Barbour, Mike Beebe in neighboring Arkansas has granted pardons throughout his time in office. That gives the process more credibility, so when Beebe issues a pardon, "it doesn't appear to have been done under cover of darkness," Ruckman says
Some governors can be cautious to the extreme.
Ruckman points to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's refusal to pardon 75-year-old inmate Bill Macumber despite the unanimous recommendation of the State Board of Executive Clemency. Several legal experts have said Macumber may be innocent in the 1962 murder of a young couple in the desert near Scottsdale.
"The manner in which Brewer behaved in this case was despicable — delaying press inquiries, refusing to provide anything like a substantive answer, and then speaking only through spokespersons," says Ruckman. He adds: "I think it is a perfect, sad example of how a governor should follow the recommendation of parole and pardon boards, and what happens when they do not."
Politics And Pardons
Pardons can come back to haunt the governor who issues them, especially those who have aspirations for higher office, says David Adkins, executive director of the Council of State Governments.
Case in point: Mike Huckabee, the former presidential candidate who was Beebe's predecessor in the Arkansas executive mansion. Twice, Huckabee pardoned convicts who went on to commit other violent crimes.
In 2000, on the recommendation of the Arkansas Parole Board, Huckabee pardoned Maurice Clemmons, who had been sentenced at age 18 to 108 years for a slew of felonies. Nine years after his release, Clemmons gunned down four police officers in Seattle before he was killed.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who also had White House aspirations, was stung by a pardon he issued in 2008. Jeremy Geifer had been convicted of statutory rape involving a 14-year-old girl whom he later married. In 2010, however, Geifer was accused of assaulting another underage girl.
The Consequences Of Blowback
A pardon in California generated so much controversy that the state Legislature passed a law in August to tighten the requirements on governors exercising executive clemency.
In his final days as governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered a reduced prison sentence for the son of former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. Esteban Nunez had his sentence cut from 16 years to seven for a fatal stabbing.
Fabian Nunez had been a political ally of Schwarzenegger's, and the clemency order "kind of stunk," Ruckman says. "I don't think he had a very strong argument for pardoning him, but the way he did it just undermined any chance he had in convincing people it was legitimate."
Such blowback is why governors tend to be very careful about when and how they exercise executive clemency — and why many governors issue the majority of their pardons at the end of their term in office.
"There tends to be less political scrutiny then," Adkins says. "In many cases, they truly are the last papers signed as the governor heads out the door to watch the swearing in of their successor."
Even so, President Bill Clinton's last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose wife was a major contributor to the Democratic Party, sparked a closer watch of presidents' and governors' use of executive clemency — especially when it takes place during their last days in office.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Online slots over the last few years have become one of the popular and fastest growing casino games online. This simple but fun game is incredibly engaging and non mind boggling with themes which are relatively dynamic and ever changing. The fun of playing online slots was firstly available in local casinos. Many individuals enjoy playing but can't find the time in their busy schedule to operate a vehicle to an area casino. Fortunately, because the internet improved over the year's casinos online can now offer a virtual alternative. This option can be just as exciting with no need to ever travel.
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Rain Machine announces North American tour dates
Music News | Aug 25th, 2009
Rain Machine is the provocative and soulful new solo venture from guitarist/songwriter extraordinaire Kyp Malone. Renowned for his work with TV on the Radio, Malone is set to tour North America in support of Rain Machine's remarkable self titled debut album available September 22 on Anti Records. Stereogum remarked after hearing Rain Machine's song "Give Blood:" "It sounds like TV on the Radio thrown into a loose and scuzzed, mystical late-night basement jam. Cool track" The tour begins September 21st in Brooklyn.
Rain Machine Tour Dates:
Mon/Sep-21 Brooklyn NY Bell House
Fri/Sep-25 Echo Park CA The Echo
Sat/Sep-26 Los Angeles CA The Getty Center
Mon/Sep-28 San Francisco CA The Independent
Wed/Sep-30 Portland OR Doug Fir Lounge
Thu/Oct-01 Seattle WA Neumos
Fri/Oct-02 Vancouver BC The Biltmore
Fri/Oct-09 Birmingham AL Bottle Tree
Sat/Oct-10 New Orleans LA One Eyed Jacks
Mon/Oct-12 Athens GA 40 Watt Club
Tue/Oct-13 Atlanta GA The Earl
Thu/Oct-15 Madison WI High Noon Saloon
Fri/Oct-16 Minneapolis MN 7th Street Entry
Sat/Oct-17 Chicago IL Double Door
Sun/Oct-18 Detroit MI Small's
Mon/Oct-19 Toronto ON Lee's Palace
Tue/Oct-20 Montreal QC Il Motore
Thu/Oct-22 Cambridge MA Middle East Upstairs
Fri/Oct-23 Philadelphia PA Johnny Brenda's
Find out more at http://www.anti.com


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NASA's newest space telescope will start searching the universe for black holes on Wednesday. Scientists hope the NuSTAR X-ray telescope, which launched about six weeks ago and is now flying about 350 miles above the Earth, will help shed some light on the mysteries of these space oddities.
Mission control for the telescope is a small room on the University of California, Berkeley, campus, where about a dozen people with headsets rarely look up from their screens.
Fiona Harrison, a professor of physics and astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, is the principal scientist for the mission. If there's one word that describes her past few weeks, it's "nail-biting," she says.
The beginning of a space telescope's life is particularly stressful. It has to be switched on remotely, including the unfurling of a 33-foot arm that will act like a giant telephoto lens.
[Black holes] are sort of the Las Vegas of the universe. What happens in a black hole stays inside of a black hole. But on the outskirts of them, that is where there's tremendous action.
Now, the $170 million telescope is just about ready to begin its hunt for black holes.
"We're not actually seeing the black hole," Harrison says. "What you're actually seeing is the stuff that's attracted to it."
Harrison says they're called black holes because not even light can escape their gravity. But black holes aren't passive — they pull in tons of dust and gas. The material swirls around faster and faster, just like a bathtub drain, and gets hotter.
"The material is so hot that it radiates high-energy X-rays," she says, just like the ones doctors use. She says researchers observed them before, but it's like reading a book without your glasses.
"We know there's a story there, we know there's text, but we haven't been able to read the letters," she says.
With NuSTAR, they'll be able to see these X-rays at a higher resolution than ever before.
"It's incredibly exciting because we don't actually know what the text is going to say. And now we're going to be able to read it clearly for the first time," she says.
Harrison hopes the telescope will unlock some of the mysteries around black holes — like how they grow.
Eliot Quataert, an astronomy professor at UC Berkeley who is not on the mission staff, says black holes grow just like we do — by eating.
"They eat dramatically, but rarely," he says.
And at the very center of our galaxy, there's a super massive black hole that has eaten quite a bit. But we're still here.
"The misconception that's out there is that black holes are a vacuum cleaner that will inevitably suck in everything around them," Quataert says. For the most part, black holes are on a forced diet — they've already eaten everything close by.
"But then every once in a while, there will be a lot of gas that gets funneled to the center of a galaxy, and the black hole will grow in a big spurt," he says.
Quataert says seeing this black hole mealtime with the telescope could reveal more about the extreme physics behind it. That could answer questions about how galaxies form. UC Berkeley astronomer Joshua Bloom hopes NuSTAR will find another strange phenomenon: black hole burps.
"You can think about this black hole burping as if you're on a feeding frenzy and you can't fit that many hot dogs in your mouth," Bloom says.
Early last year, Bloom and other astronomers noticed a black hole devouring a star. The black hole spit out a huge jet of material — a burp. That might sound weird, since nothing can escape a black hole, right?
"These are sort of the Las Vegas of the universe. What happens in a black hole stays inside of a black hole. But on the outskirts of them, that is where there's tremendous action," he says.
Bloom says they're hoping to see more of these rare events and others that are still unknown to astronomers. The NuSTAR space telescope's mission is expected to last at least two years.
Copyright 2020 KQED. To see more, visit KQED.


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Because, on fashion, they were both sh-t at the Golden Globes. Click here and here to revisit Jennifer Lawrence's weird red gown and Jessica Chastain's terrible, terrible sea foam.
For Jessica it was red McQueen. As you know, red is never my favourite, and certainly never on a red carpet. Red, red, red everywhere, it's a red clash. And McQueen or not, something about the fabric here isn't quite doing it. Is it the way it never seems to lie flat...anywhere? And the creases at the hip? And the two seams coming down around her stomach that give the illusion of a pouch? All of that.
But at least her dress didn't fall apart. Which is what happened to Jennifer's Dior as she tore it on her way up to the stage to collect her award. Is it taffeta? Whatever it is is not particularly interesting -- a filler dress in preparation for a bigger occasion, and that would be the Oscars, of course.
Does it mean she's now the favourite? I'm still not convinced. And besides, as the Chastain team was stealthily pointing out even BEFORE the show started last night, SAG members did not get Zero Dark Thirty screeners in time so Lawrence was actually supposed to win last night anyway. (Source)
But it may not be either one of them...
As I've been noting for weeks, for many Academy voters, both Lawrence and Chastain may be way too new to support, and that certainly leaves room for veterans -- Naomi Watts, for example, and Emmanuelle Riva, definitely. Oscar expert Tariq Khan has in fact predicted it will be Riva -- click here to read his five reasons -- and in such an unpredictable season, when momentum shifts all the time, that could very well be your upset. Among the five names in the Best Actress category, the only mega mega longshot here is Hushpuppy.


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Windows/OS X/Android/iOS: Carbonite Currents keeps track of the documents you open and work with, and gives you access to all of them on any device. If you work on a file and forget to put it in your Dropbox folder or email it to yourself, Currents shows it to you. Plus, it's completely free.
The video above does a great job at describing Currents, which is Carbonite's first non-backup related product. Install the free app on any device you work with, desktop or mobile, home or at the office. Then, as you work, the files you access will float to the top of your Currents list. You can select the folders on your computer you want Currents to keep an eye on for changes. You can even select items from your mobile device for Currents to watch, like your camera roll, music, or movies. Be default, the app will keep 30 days of revision history and file/folder changes, so you don't have to worry about accidentally deleting something or overwriting a file you meant to open or change.
Once installed, Currents shows you all of your most recently changed or created files on all of your devices, in all of your watched folders. You can open them right from currents and work with them immediately. You can share files with others, view or add comments to the files, or view the revision history on any device.
Carbonite positions Currents as a bit of a competitor to Dropbox, which you know we're huge fans of. We don't see it that way: Currents is more of a useful addition to a cloud storage service, not a replacement. You can even tell Currents to monitor your Dropbox folder if you want—I did. You don't have to manage another cloud service, or deal with storage quotas or issues—it's just an easy way to get access to and organize the files you work with most often, anywhere on any system they may be.
If you're interested, the service is in public beta, and its Android app is live at Google Play. You can also snag the universal iPhone and iPad app from the iTunes App Store. Expect a few bugs here and there (like files that are slow to load or appear in Currents, and a very non-tablet optimized Android UI, but we still had a better time of it than our friends at AndroidPolice did) but during our testing the service performed pretty well and worked as advertised. I could easily see and open files I worked with on my Windows and OS X desktops using my Android phone. The beta is completely free, and Carbonite is planning a premium service in the future that will let you track longer than 30 days of revision history.


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Lemon Meringue Pie |
The Daring Bakers is the brainchild of our co-founders Lis at La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice . The group has over 400 members who are given a challenge each month and then we all blog about it on the same day. You are inundated with Lemon Meringue Pie recipes today from all over the world!! Really cool!!
A lemon meringue pie is in 3 parts.
I have made lemon curd before so this was not a problem for me.
I have never made a meringue. When I haven't done something before I head to the experts at the Daring Bakers and get the benefit of their experience and advice! People were talking about their meringue weeping, so, I decided to take one person's advice and add some cornstarch. To do this she had incorporated a food styling trick; adding a cornstarch mixture to the egg whites to stabilize the meringue. She stated, "It prevents the egg proteins from overcooking which causes shrinkage, beading or weeping in the meringue. Food stylists use this technique and have used it during photo shoots to produce beautiful pies." My meringue turned out beautifully so thank you Daring Baker!!
2 cups (475 mL) all-purpose flour
¼ cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon (1.2 mL) salt
⅓ cup (80 mL) ice water
For the Filling:
2 cups (475 mL) water
1 cup (240 mL) granulated sugar
½ cup (120 mL) cornstarch
5 egg yolks, beaten
¼ cup (60 mL) butter
¾ cup (180 mL) fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon (15 mL) lemon zest
1 teaspoon (5 mL) vanilla extract
For the Meringue:
5 egg whites, room temperature
½ teaspoon (2.5 mL) cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon (1.2 mL) salt
½ teaspoon (2.5 mL) vanilla extract
¾ cup (180 mL) granulated sugar
For the Crust: Make sure all ingredients are as cold as possible. Using a food processor or pastry cutter and a large bowl, combine the butter, flour, sugar and salt. Process or cut in until the mixture resembles coarse meal and begins to clump together. Sprinkle with water, let rest 30 seconds and then either process very briefly or cut in with about 15 strokes of the pastry cutter, just until the dough begins to stick together and come away from the sides of the bowl. Turn onto a lightly floured work surface and press together to form a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 20 minutes.
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