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You Must Be Kidding!
Adventures in an American World of Frustration
By Tom Engelhardt
Recently, sorting through a pile of old children's books, I came across a volume, That Makes Me Mad!, which brought back memories. Written by Steve Kroll, a long-dead friend, it focused on the eternally frustrating everyday adventures of Nina, a little girl whose life regularly meets commonplace roadblocks, at which point she always says… well, you can guess from the title! Vivid parental memories of another age instantly flooded back — of my daughter (now reading such books to her own son) sitting beside me at age five and hitting that repeated line with such mind-blowing, ear-crushing gusto that you knew it spoke to the everyday frustrations of her life, to what made her mad.
Three decades later, in an almost unimaginably different America, on picking up that book I suddenly realized that, whenever I follow the news online, on TV, or — and forgive me for this but I'm 72 and still trapped in another era — on paper, I have a similarly Nina-esque urge. Only the line I've come up with for it is (with a tip of the hat to Steve Kroll) "You must be kidding!"
Here are a few recent examples from the world of American-style war and peace. Consider these as random illustrations, given that, in the age of Trump, just about everything that happens is out-of-this-world absurd and would serve perfectly well. If you're in the mood, feel free to shout out that line with me as we go.
Nuking the Planet: I'm sure you remember Barack Obama, the guy who entered the Oval Office pledging to work toward "a nuclear-free world." You know, the president who traveled to Prague in 2009 to say stirringly: "So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons… To put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same." That same year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize largely for what he might still do, particularly in the nuclear realm. Of course, that was all so 2009!
Almost two terms in the Oval Office later, our peace president, the only one who has ever called for nuclear "abolition" — and whose administration has retired fewer weapons in our nuclear arsenal than any other in the post-Cold War era — is now presiding over the early stages of a trillion-dollar modernization of that very arsenal. (And that trillion-dollar price tag comes, of course, before the inevitable cost overruns even begin.) It includes full-scale work on the creation of a "precision-guided" nuclear weapon with a "dial-back" lower yield option. Such a weapon would potentially bring nukes to the battlefield in a first-use way, something the U.S. is proudly pioneering.
And that brings me to the September 6th front-page story in the New York Times that caught my eye. Think of it as the icing on the Obama era nuclear cake. Its headline: "Obama Unlikely to Vow No First Use of Nuclear Weapons." Admittedly, if made, such a vow could be reversed by any future president. Still, reportedly for fear that a pledge not to initiate a nuclear war would "undermine allies and embolden Russia and China… while Russia is running practice bombing runs over Europe and China is expanding its reach in the South China Sea," the president has backed down on issuing such a vow. In translation: the only country that has ever used such weaponry will remain on the record as ready and willing to do so again without nuclear provocation, an act that, it is now believed in Washington, would create a calmer planet.
You must be kidding!
Plain Old Bombing: Recall that in October 2001, when the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. was bombing no other largely Islamic country. In fact, it was bombing no other country at all. Afghanistan was quickly "liberated," the Taliban crushed, al-Qaeda put to flight, and that was that, or so it then seemed.
On September 8th, almost 15 years later, the Washington Post reported that, over a single weekend and in a "flurry" of activity, the U.S. had dropped bombs on, or fired missiles at, six largely Islamic countries: Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia. (And it might have been seven if the CIA hadn't grown a little rusty when it comes to the drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal borderlands that it's launched repeatedly throughout these years.) In the same spirit, the president who swore he would end the U.S. war in Iraq and, by the time he left office, do the same in Afghanistan, is now overseeing American bombing campaigns in Iraq and Syria which are loosing close to 25,000 weapons a year on those countries. Only recently, in order to facilitate the further prosecution of the longest war in our history, the president who announced that his country had ended its "combat mission" in Afghanistan in 2014, has once again deployed the U.S. military in a combat role and has done the same with the U.S. Air Force. For that, B-52s (of Vietnam infamy) were returned to action there, as well as in Iraq and Syria, after a decade of retirement. In the Pentagon, military figures are now talking about "generational" war in Afghanistan — well into the 2020s.
Meanwhile, President Obama has personally helped pioneer a new form of warfare that will not long remain a largely American possession. It involves missile-armed drones, high-tech weapons that promise a world of no-casualty-conflict (for the American military and the CIA), and adds up to a permanent global killing machine for taking out terror leaders, "lieutenants," and "militants." Well beyond official American war zones, U.S. drones regularly cross borders, infringing on national sovereignty throughout the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa, to assassinate anyone the president and his colleagues decide needs to die, American citizen or otherwise (plus, of course, anyone who happens to be in the vicinity). With its White House "kill list" and its "terror Tuesday" meetings, the drone program, promising "surgical" hunting-and-killing action, has blurred the line between war and peace, while being normalized in these years. A president is now not just commander-in-chief but assassin-in-chief, a role that no imaginable future president is likely to reject. Assassination, previously an illegal act, has become the heart and soul of Washington's way of life and of a way of war that only seems to spread conflict further.
You must be kidding!
The Well-Oiled Machinery of Privatized War: And speaking of drones, as the New York Times reported on September 5th, the U.S. drone program does have one problem: a lack of pilots. It has ramped up quickly in these years and, in the process, the pressures on its pilots and other personnel have only grown, including post-traumatic stress over killing civilians thousands of miles away via computer screen. As a result, the Air Force has been losing those pilots fast. Fortunately, a solution is on the horizon. That service has begun filling its pilot gap by going the route of the rest of the military in these years — turning to private contractors for help. Such pilots and other personnel are, however, paid higher salaries and cost more money. The contractors, in turn, have been hiring the only available personnel around, the ones trained by… yep, you guessed it, the Air Force. The result may be an even greater drain on Air Force drone pilots eager for increased pay for grim work and… well, I think you can see just how the well-oiled machinery of privatized war is likely to work here and who's going to pay for it.
You must be kidding!
Selling Arms As If There Were No Tomorrow: In a recent report for the Center for International Policy, arms expert William Hartung offered a stunning figure on U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia. "Since taking office in January 2009," he wrote, "the Obama administration has offered over $115 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia in 42 separate deals, more than any U.S. administration in the history of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. The majority of this equipment is still in the pipeline, and could tie the United States to the Saudi military for years to come." Think about that for a moment: $115 billion for everything from small arms to tanks, combat aircraft, cluster bombs, and air-to-ground missiles (weaponry now being used to slaughter civilians in neighboring Yemen).
Of course, how else can the U.S. keep its near monopoly on the global arms trade and ensure that two sets of products — Hollywood movies and U.S. weaponry — will dominate the world's business in things that go boom in the night? It's a record to be proud of, especially since putting every advanced weapon imaginable in the hands of the Saudis will obviously help bring peace to a roiled region of the planet. (And if you arm the Saudis, you better do no less for the Israelis, hence the mind-boggling $38 billion in military aid the Obama administration recently signed on to for the next decade, the most Washington has ever offered any country, ensuring that arms will be flying into the Middle East, literally and figuratively, for years to come.)
Blessed indeed are the peacemakers — and of course you know that by "peacemaker" I mean the classic revolver that "won the West."
Put another way…
You must be kidding!
The Race for the Generals: I mean, who's got the biggest…
…list of retired generals and admirals? Does it surprise you that there are at least 198 retired commanders floating around in their golden parachutes, many undoubtedly still embedded in the military-industrial complex on corporate boards and the like, eager to enroll in the Trump and Clinton campaigns? Trump went first, releasing an "open letter" signed by 88 generals and admirals who were bravely standing up to reverse the "hollowing out of our military" and to "secure our borders, to defeat our Islamic supremacist adversaries, and restore law and order domestically." (Partial translation: pour yet more money into our military as The Donald has promised to do.) They included such household names as Major General Joe Arbuckle, Rear Admiral James H. Flatley III, and Brigadier General Mark D. Scraba — or, hey!, one guy you might even remember: Lieutenant General William ("Jerry") Boykin, the evangelical crusader who made the news in 2003 by claiming of a former Somali opponent, "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."
Somehow, those 88 Trumpian military types assumedly crawled out of "the rubble" under which, as The Donald informed us recently, the Obama administration has left the American high command. His crew, however, is undoubtedly not the "embarrassment" he refers to when talking about American generalship in these years.
Meanwhile, the Clintonites struck back with a list of 95, "including a number of 4-star generals," many directly from under that rubble, and within the week had added 15 more to hit 110. Meanwhile, members of the intelligence community and the rest of the national security state, former presidential advisers and other officials, drum-beating neocons, and strategists of every sort from America's disastrous wars of the last 15 years hustled to line up behind Hillary or The Donald.
If nothing else, all of it was a reminder of the bloated size and ever-increasing centrality of the post-9/11 national security state and the military-industrial complex that goes with it. The question is: Does it inspire you with confidence in our candidates, or leave you saying…
You must be kidding!
Conflicts of Interest and Access to the Oval Office: Let's put aside a possible preemptive $25,000 bribe to Florida's attorney general from the Donald J. Trump Foundation to prevent an investigation of a scam operation, Trump "University." If that "donation" to a political action committee does turn out to have been a bribe, no one should be surprised, given that The Donald has long been a walking Ponzi scheme. Thanks to a recent superb investigative report by Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek, consider instead what it might mean for him to enter the Oval Office when it comes to conflicts of interest and the "national security" of the country. Eichenwald concludes that Trump would be "the most conflicted president in American history," since the Trump Organization has "deep ties to global financiers, foreign politicians, and even criminals" in both allied and enemy countries. Almost any foreign policy decision he might make could hurt or enrich his own businesses. There would, in essence, be no way to divest himself and his family from the international Trump branding machine. (Think Trump U. writ large.) And you hardly need ask yourself whether The Donald would "act in the interests of the United States or his wallet," given his prior single-minded pursuit of self-enrichment.
So much for conflicts of interest, what about access? That, of course, brings up the Clintons, who, between 2001 and the moment Hillary announced her candidacy for president, managed to take in $153 million dollars (yes, that is not a misprint) for a combined 729 speeches at an average fee of $210,795. That includes Hillary's 20-minute speech to eBay's Women's Initiative Network Summit in March 2015 for a reported $315,000 just a month before she made her announcement. It's obviously not Hillary's (or Bill's) golden words that corporate executives truly care about and are willing to pay the big bucks for, but the hope of accessibility to both a past and a possible future president. After all, in the world of business, no one ever thinks they're paying good money for nothing.
Do I need to say more than…
You must be kidding!
Of course, I could go on. I could bring up a Congress seemingly incapable of passing a bill to fund a government effort to prevent the Zika virus from spreading wildly in parts of this country. (You must be kidding!) I could discuss how the media fell face first into an SUV — NBC Nightly News, which I watch, used the video of Hillary Clinton stumbling and almost falling into that van, by my rough count, 15 times over four nights — and what it tells us about news "coverage" these days. (You must be kidding!) I could start in on the constant polls that flood our lives by confessing that I'm an addict and plan on joining Pollers Anonymous on November 9th, and then consider what it means to have such polls, and polls of polls, inundate us daily, teaching us about favorable/unfavorable splits, and offering endlessly varying snapshots of how we might or might not vote and which of us might or might not do it day so long before we ever hit a voting booth. (You must be kidding!) Or I could bring up the way, after five years of assiduous "research," Donald Trump grudgingly acknowledged that Barack Obama was born in the United States and then essentially blamed the birther movement on Hillary Clinton. (You must be kidding!)
I could, in other words, continue welcoming you into an increasingly bizarre American landscape of war and peace (without a Tolstoy in sight).
Still, enough is enough, don't you think? So let me stop here and, just for the hell of it, join me one last time in chanting: You must be kidding!
Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse's Next Time They'll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2016 Tom Engelhardt


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Best Wine & Cheese Pairings
Wine and cheese is a classic combo—but which styles go with which? Find out with our handy tasting guide
When time is at a premium—as it inevitably is when planning a party—every good cook looks for delicious shortcuts. And there's a perfect shortcut for a gathering: cheese. Instead of inviting friends over for traditional hors d'oeuvres (and having to race around the kitchen preparing a half-dozen), why not build a get-together around a few great cheeses paired with some good wines? From an entertaining standpoint, there's an added boon: Cheese doesn't need to be kept hot, and it doesn't need to be kept cold. The simplicity of the plan is brilliant.
Wine Club members receive:
- 6 featured wines, shipped every 3 months
- Tasting notes and suggested pairings for Sunset recipes
- The first look at rare gems in the Sunset wine shop
- Exclusive member events
There's just one problem: If you're relying on one kind of food alone, it has to work really well with wine. Conventional wisdom has it, of course, that cheese and wine are made for each other, period. The trouble with conventional wisdom is, it's conventional. Both cheese and wine are intricately flavored substances that change with ripeness and age. So why do we assume it will be effortless to pair such complex things?
We decided to experiment. Over the course of two weeks, we tasted each of 13 cheeses with 13 wines—169 flavor combinations in all. The cheeses were not the sort most supermarkets carry, but rather high-quality, moderately expensive varieties we bought at the Napa Valley branch of Dean & DeLuca, a gourmet food store chain (we figured we all deserve the best). For every pairing, we proceeded the same way: a sip of the wine, a bite of the cheese, then another sip of the wine.
Our goal was two-pronged but simple: The cheese had to make the wine taste great, and the wine had to make the cheese taste great. An extraordinary match couldn't be one-sided: If the cheese tasted fine with the wine, but the wine tasted hollow after a bite of the cheese, the pairing was a wash. We chose wines that were excellent examples of their type and cheeses that represented a wide array of aromas, flavors, textures, and intensity levels, from absolutely mild to dramatically assertive. All perfectly ripe when we purchased them, the cheeses were Laura Chenel goat cheese from California; Le Gariotin chèvre (goat) cheese from France; Manchego, a slightly nutty sheep's milk cheese from Spain; Vella dry jack from California; Montgomery cheddar from England; aged Mahon, a sharp, rich, nutty, buttery cheese from Spain; Parmigiano reggiano from Italy; Bellwether Farms crescenza, a soft, mild cheese from California; taleggio, a luxuriously creamy, earthy cheese from Italy; Explorateur, a pungent, buttery triple-cream cheese from France; Old Amsterdam aged gouda, a sweet-sharp cheese from Holland; Sottocenere, a truffle-studded cheese from Italy; and Colston-Bassett Stilton, a sassy, pungent blue cheese from England.
Surprising findings:
1. Contrary to popular opinion, cheese and wine aren't an easy match. When components like salt in cheese come up against tannin and acid in wine, the result can be delicious—or disastrous.
2. In our experiment, most of the pairings were neither awful nor wonderful; they were merely neutral—you might not turn them away, but they also wouldn't make you say "Wow!" In fact, out of the 169 combinations, only the pairings indicated as such were wows.
3. Instinct might suggest that a full-throttle, intense cheese deserves a great wine. But instinct could be wrong. Many outrageously delicious cheeses swamp great wines and make them taste like Château $2.99.
4. A flavoring on or in a cheese can change the whole dynamic. Cheeses that are rolled in herbs or spices are harder to match. If the added flavoring is strong—the cheese is studded with truffles, for example—you'll have to be really choosy in finding a mate for it.
5. Red wines aren't necessarily more cheese-friendly than white ones. The most versatile wine of the whole experiment was Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs sparkling wine, which, astoundingly enough, tasted delicious with 7 of the 13 cheeses. (The most versatile cheese, by the way, was the Vella dry jack.)
With these caveats in mind, then, here are the cheese-and-wine combinations we thought were stellar. They would make superb fare for any party.
- California goat cheese and French chèvre with Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs. And goats were just the beginning. The Schramsberg was also sensational with the Parmigiano reggiano, the dry jack, the crescenza, the aged gouda, and even the Stilton.
- French chèvre with Robert Mondavi Pinot Noir. This combination would make a wonderful course in any meal.
- Dry jack with Benziger Chardonnay. Chardonnay is hard to pair with cheese, but the dry jack was an amazing match here, just as it was with the Domaine de la Janasse Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
- Aged Mahon with Mason Sauvignon Blanc. In this match the cheese tasted more dramatic and rich, as did the wine.
- Taleggio with Domaine de la Janasse Châteauneuf-du-Pape. An exceptional pairing; the wine and cheese were sensational in each other's company. Taleggio was also a winner with the Mason Sauvignon Blanc and the Robert Mondavi Pinot Noir.
- Explorateur with Comte Lafond Sancerre. This was a surprise! The mineral quality of the Sancerre was just the ticket against the rich creaminess of the cheese.
- Aged gouda with Cline Live Oak Vineyard Zinfandel. Big drama here—a larger-than-life combo. The aged gouda was also magnificent with the Stags Leap Cabernet.
- Truffle-studded cheese with Domaine de la Janasse Châteauneuf-du-Pape. A sensual and intense marriage.
- Stilton with Graham's Late Bottled Vintage Porto 1994. Everything you've heard about the perfection of Stilton and port together is true.
- Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs 1996 (Napa Valley). Creamy, yeasty, and elegant.
- Mason Sauvignon Blanc 1999 (Napa Valley). We're big fans of this wine. It's limy, fresh, herbal, intense, and elegant all at the same time.
- Comte Lafond Sancerre 1998 (France). Lean and grassy with a mineral quality—the quintessential Sancerre.
- Trefethen Dry Riesling 1999 (Napa Valley). A gorgeously floral Riesling with subtle hints of peach.
- Hugel Riesling 1997 (Alsace). A bone-dry, fairly full-bodied Riesling.
- Beringer Gewürztraminer 1999 (California). Full-bodied and ever so slightly sweet, with litchi flavors.
- Benziger Chardonnay 1998 (Carneros). Buttery and lightly oaky but not overwrought—beautifully balanced.
- Robert Mondavi Pinot Noir 1997 (Napa Valley). Earthy, smoky, and supple.
- Domaine de la Janasse Châteauneuf-du-Pape 1995 (France). Concentrated, earthy, meaty, and peppery.
- Cline Live Oak Vineyard Zinfandel 1998 (Contra Costa County). A delicious deep, brambly Zin.
- Stags Leap Winery Cabernet Sauvignon 1997 (Napa Valley). Concentrated and structured, with powerful cassis flavors.
- Graham's Late Bottled Vintage Porto 1994 (Portugal). A juicy, rich full-flavored port with good structure.


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World Quality Report 2015 shows businesses are struggling with speed of technological change
The speed of digital transformation and short life-cycles of device and services is increasing the importance and pressure on quality assurance testing.
Paris, 9 September 2015 – Capgemini, one of the world's foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services and Sogeti, its local professional services subsidiary, today released the World Quality Report 2015.
The annual World Quality Report, published in conjunction with HP, examines the state of application quality and testing practices across multiple industries and geographies. The report this year found that organizations are placing more importance on quality assurance and testing due to the speed of digital transformation which is increasing the number of new applications that are shaking up their business operations. The speed of this digital transformation within organizations has been identified as a clear hurdle, with 55% of organizations identifying 'application functionality changing too quickly' as their biggest challenge.
In an attempt to gain control over the influx of new applications, the report found a 9% Y-o-Y increase in IT spending budgets directed towards testing and quality assurance. Of this budget, almost half (49%) is dedicated to maintenance work, focused on trying to ensure applications are suitable for business use. Relatedly, budget spent on new transformational work has decreased by 1% as companies begin to reign in their spending to focus on coping with the continuous transformation of applications.
A seamless customer experience is a key driver for QA testing
This year's World Quality Report found that companies are continuing to invest in securing the integrity of their systems, with more than four out of five (81%) citing security as the main purpose for testing. This heightened awareness of security is driven by digital transformation and security testing has become critical to business assurance for many organizations. However, the role of the customer experience is now almost as important to companies with 79% identifying this as a key consideration for their quality assurance testing. This marks a notable shift for organizations who have come to realize the growing importance of providing customers with a smooth, seamless experience whenever they come into contact with the company's properties.
Acknowledging the renewed intent on IT investment, Govind Muthukrishnan, Senior Vice President and Testing Global Service Line Leader observes: "This year's World Quality Report shows that we live in a fast moving world where customer experience and flexibility are as important as keeping up pace with digital transformation using Agile QA and DevOps. Today, we see that organizations are making significant investments in Test Environments and Test Data - Test Ecosystems - and are focussing on end to end automation of not only Testing but also the Test Ecosystems. However, organizations must move beyond automation of Testing and Test Ecosystems to an integrated and intelligent QA Lifecycle that can deliver synergy in business assurance."
Shorter lifecycles demand greater agility
This year's report also revealed that with spend on quality testing and assurance increasing, a higher proportion of that budget is now dedicated to DevOps and Agile principles, with more than half (59%) of respondents saying at least half of projects within the organization use DevOps principles and 47% use virtual test environments. While organizations attempt to modernize their testing practices and procedures, they also have to deal with the increasingly shorter life cycles of programs and applications, which is forcing an increase in demand for testing hardware and infrastructure: an increase of 5% to 38% from 2014. However, despite the decrease in spending on new transformational work (down 1%), almost one in three (29%) are intent on developing Testing Centers of Excellence (TCoE) within the next two years.
New roles being created to meet testing demand
The maturity of the quality assurance market has seen the function become a critical business operation. With an increasing number of organizations now adopting DevOps and Agile, there are a number of new roles being created to match the growing importance and size of the market. Roles that never previously existed, such as Software Development Test Engineers, are now appearing and the demand for these positions is only likely to increase as quality assurance become more central to the operation of organizations.
"Technology disruptions such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and mobility are leading to faster business transformations than ever before. Companies have to pivot quickly in order to stay ahead of the curve, compete and conform to the new style of business," said Raffi Margaliot, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Application Delivery Management, HP Software. "This year's World Quality Report highlights how quickly IT leaders are responding to these mega trends that are rapidly changing our industry and the steps they are taking to keep pace with the demands of their users without compromising application quality and user experience."
The World Quality Report, which this year interviewed 1,560 respondents from 32 countries, is the only global report for application quality. It has been produced annually since 2009. Now in its 7th edition, the 2015 report adopted a hybrid methodology of data collection using both computer aided telephone interviews and computer aided web interviews. Based on analysis of five respondent groups: CIO, VP Application, IT Director, QA/Testing Manager and CDO/CMO, the report surveyed respondents from across the globe through quantitative interviews followed by qualitative deep-dive discussions.
Further information
To download a full copy of the World Quality Report 2015 go to www.sogeti.com/wqr2015-2016.
About Capgemini
A global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation, Capgemini is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of clients' opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital and platforms. Building on its strong 50-year heritage and deep industry-specific expertise, Capgemini enables organizations to realize their business ambitions through an array of services from strategy to operations. Capgemini is driven by the conviction that the business value of technology comes from and through people. It is a multicultural company of 200,000 team members in over 40 countries. The Group reported 2017 global revenues of EUR 12.8 billion.
Visit us at www.capgemini.com. People matter, results count.
About Sogeti
Part of the Capgemini Group, Sogeti makes business value through technology for organizations that need to implement innovation at speed and want a local partner with global scale. With a hands-on culture and close proximity to its clients, Sogeti implements solutions that will help organizations work faster, better, and smarter. By combining its agility and speed of implementation through a DevOps approach, Sogeti delivers innovative solutions in quality engineering, cloud and application development, all driven by AI, data and automation.
Capgemini is a global business and technology transformation partner, helping organizations to accelerate their dual transition to a digital and sustainable world, while creating tangible impact for enterprises and society. It is a responsible and diverse group of 340,000 team members in more than 50 countries. With its strong over 55-year heritage, Capgemini is trusted by its clients to unlock the value of technology to address the entire breadth of their business needs. It delivers end-to-end services and solutions leveraging strengths from strategy and design to engineering, all fueled by its market leading capabilities in AI, cloud and data, combined with its deep industry expertise and partner ecosystem. The Group reported 2023 global revenues of €22.5 billion. Get The Future You Want | www.capgemini.com
Visit us www.sogeti.com
- Therese SinterMarketing & Communications Director, Nordics
+46 70 361 46 21
Therese SinterMarketing & Communications Director, Nordics
+46 70 361 46 21
- Sam ConnattyGlobal PR Lead at Capgemini
+44 870 904 3601
Sam ConnattyGlobal PR Lead at Capgemini
+44 870 904 3601


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How PMB close friend Isa Funtua Acquired 9Mobile and Keystone Bank
Recently, a shocking story came out to public knowledge about how Keystone Bank and 9Mobile 9Mobile were acquired in controversial circumstances by the business interests of one Alhaji Isa Funtua, a close friend of President Muhammadu Buhari, via the instrumentality of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON). As the smoke raised by the scandalous story is still swirling in the air, with some public groups challenging the government to come out clean on what could be a serious dent on its anti-corruption stance, there is indeed no smoke without fire. For starters, it is a confirmed fact that the son-in-law of Isa Funtua, Ahmed Kuru, is the current CEO of AMCON. Before him, the previous CEO, Chike Obi, was a first-class gentleman and technocrat who was strangely removed from office before the expiration of his term and was replaced with Kuru, the son-in-law of Isa Funtua.
The story
Now, let us get into the insider details of how Funtua bought Keystone Bank and 9Mobile in the most bizarre of dealings that circumvent the laws of the land. Keystone Bank was sold by the current CEO of AMCON to his father-in-law, Funtua, without any AMCON Board's approval and with the active connivance of CBN and NDIC at a grossly undervalued price of 25 Billion Naira. To put things in context, let us recall that Enterprise Bank was sold for over 60 Billion Naira and Mainstreet Bank was sold for over 100 Billion Naira under the former CEO of AMCON.
Before the sale of Keystone Bank to Isa Funtua, all bad debts in the books of the Bank were taken over by AMCON. So, it was a clean Bank with all the Assets and no Liabilities that was sold to the Buyers. The Executive Management of AMCON was coerced into approving the transaction and those who were willing to submit a much higher bid were disqualified under a most opaque, suspicious process that lacks all transparency. The process was just manipulated in favour of the father-in-law of the AMCON CEO.
The Corrupt Payment for Keystone Bank
The most disgusting part of the entire sale of Keystone Bank is how the 25 Billion Naira sales price was paid to AMCON. The Isa Funtua Team paid 5 Billion Naira to AMCON, and then the balance of 20 Billion Naira was later paid through the most criminal and corrupt approach ever perpetrated by AMCON in favour of the Buyer. What happened was that AMCON moved 20 Billion Naira of their own funds as a fixed deposit at GTBank to Heritage Bank. Heritage Bank then paid the 20 Billion Naira on behalf of the Funtua Group to AMCON. In other words, AMCON used their own funds as a collateral for a loan to the Funtua Group for 20 Billion Naira!
When the Funtua Group took over Keystone Bank, they went borrowing immediately at the Interbank Market for 20 Billion Naira to refund AMCON's funds. This has left a hole in Keystone Bank's Balance Sheet and makes the Bank one of the most undercapitalized Banks in the Country as at today.
The evidence of this highly compromised acquisition process can be obtained from the current and former staff of AMCON, from NDIC, CBN and from the current staff of Keystone Bank itself. The story has been all over the place and it is quite shocking that some political parties and public interest groups are just picking it up now.
The Unholy Sale of 9-Mobile
Another suspicious acquisition scandal surrounding the Funtua Group is about the untidy way 9-Mobile, formerly known as Etisalat, was bought. It is Mr. Adrian Wood of Teleology Holdings, a very sound telecoms professional, who collaborated with the Funtua Group for the acquisition of 9-Mobile. The problem with their bid was the lack of a qualified Operator to support the bid which was one of the minimum conditions of NCC. Adrian Wood alone was not a substitute for an Operator.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) gave several conditions that must be met by the Ultimate Buyer of 9-Mobile to ensure the protection of shareholders value, prevent loss of jobs, protect the telecoms industry from slipping into a crisis and ensure transparency and professionalism in the post-acquisition entity.
The conditions listed by NCC that must be met by the Buyer are Strong Telecoms Operating Experience, Strong Financial Capabilities, Strong Technical Knowledge and Strong Administrative Skills.
The first thing that happened once Teleology was announced as the preferred winner was that the Funtua Group edged Adrian Woods out of Management and turned him to an Insignificant Shareholder. The second development was that the Funtua Group raided Keystone Bank again and forced the Bank to Pay 50 million Dollars as down payment for the acquisition of 9-Mobile. The third issue was that Teleology Nigeria replaced Teleology Holdings to remove any influence of Adrian Woods from 9-Mobile totally. The fourth step taken the Funtua Group was to borrow 260 Million Dollars from African Exim Bank. The fifth thing was to coerce NCC to approve the sale at all cost without meeting 90% of the conditions set up ab-initio by the NCC. The sixth strange action of the Funtua Group was to force the board of NCC to approve the sale through the influence and pressure from the Presidency. And the seventh Funtua infraction was to use the influence of CBN to force the Banks to the table and waive their own conditions of sale of 9-Mobile to the Teleology Nigeria group.
So far, the problem with the sales of the above mentioned assets is that all the processes and conditions were brazenly circumvented and Keystone Bank was forced into a deeper pit by the greed and recklessness of the Funtua group.
Today, AMCON as presently constituted is just a tool in the hands of the Funtua Group to acquire peoples' businesses without paying for it or using AMCON's money to pay for the Funtua Group. Even indigenous airlines like Arik and Aero Contractors, like many other companies under AMCON, are being considered for nepotistic acquisition in the near future. Of course, the Funtua Group has been penciled down as the preferred bidders. The devious plot is that if the Buhari government secures a second term and starts the tenure, all other companies under AMCON will be sold by hook or crook to the favoured Funtua Group. Meanwhile, the Management and Staff of AMCON along with the Board have all been intimidated into silence. In fact, the Board is dead and ineffective. And the other Supervisory Bodies over AMCON are just rubber stamps because the fear of Katsina power brokers is the beginning of wisdom.
By Kunle Oshobi
December 31,2018


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Related links:
Seismic Waves: Moving and Shaking During an Earthquake
Movie: Designing Earthquake-resistant Buildings
The Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires in San Francisco
Earthquake Information from USGS
Earthquakes for Kids from USGS
Study of Glacial Earthquakes Shakes Up Idea of How Ice Streams Move
What Is an Earthquake?
The expression "on solid ground" is often used to describe something as stable. But sometimes the solid ground underfoot is not stable. It moves as Earth's tectonic plates move. Sometimes it moves gradually. Sometimes it moves abruptly which causes the earth to shake - an earthquake!
"The ground seemed to twist under us like a top while it jerked this way and that, and up and down and every way," wrote a person describing the experience of being in the large 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, CA.
Earthquakes happen as large blocks of the Earth's crust move suddenly past one another at a fault. When the force of plate tectonics causes the pieces of the Earth's crust to move, sometimes the pieces do not slide smoothly past one another. There can be friction along the fault - jagged edges that snag the blocks of rock. This makes it difficult for them to move past each other. Sometimes they get stuck together temporarily. When the pieces of rock overcome the snags, energy is released. The release of energy causes shaking at the ground surface.
The location inside the Earth where an earthquake begins is called the focus (or hypocenter) of the earthquake. The point at the Earth's surface directly above the focus is called the epicenter of the earthquake. At the epicenter, the strongest shaking occurs during an earthquake. Sometimes the ground surface breaks along the fault. Sometimes the movement is deep underground and the surface does not break.
Each year, more than a million earthquakes occur. Most of these are so small that people do not feel the Earth shaking. But a few are large enough that people feel them, and a few of those are so large that they cause significant damage.
Earthquakes cause damage to buildings and other built structures like bridges and roads. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides and mudslides. A large earthquake that happens under the ocean can form a tsunami - a giant ocean wave or series of waves that can cause massive destruction if it hits a populated coastal area.
Scientists can assess the probability that an earthquake will occur in an area over a number of years. These probabilities are often used to identify earthquake prone areas and the potential risk to people and buildings. However, they are not able to predict when an earthquake will occur. Unlike extreme weather events, earthquakes can not be forecast ahead of time.


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For busy, successful, and career-driven people, going on bad dates can be exhausting and frustrating. Even the most successful singles in Virginia Beach have a very difficult time hitting the nail on the head when it comes to love. But a successful dating life doesn't mean going on random dates. It requires a dating strategy that can only be achieved with a matchmaking and dating service with many years of experience.
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Henri Lorach, Jennifer Kung, Corinne Beier, Yossi Mandel, Roopa Dalal, Philip Huie, Jenny Wang, Sengjun Lee, Alexander Sher, Bryan W. Jones, and Daniel Palanker have a new publication, Development of Animal Models of Local Retinal Degeneration (the IOVS direct link is here).
Many of the models of retinal degeneration we explore are genetic. This project was designed to explore two other alternative approaches to retinal degeneration that are non-genetic and capable of producing highly localized retinal degeneration with precise onset time.


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Our Philosophy
All of the wines made by Carr are sourced from Santa Barbara County Vineyards and are made in a traditional winemaking style to capture the essence of the grape varietal and region.
We believe the best wines start in the vineyard and pride ourselves on precision farming. Each vineyard is meticulously farmed to produce low yields, hand harvested and farmed using only organic practices.
We invite you to experience the art of winemaking at Carr Winery.
Our Winemaker, Ryan Carr
Ryan Carr is the owner, winemaker and grower for Carr Vineyards & Winery. Growing up in Southern California Ryan always had an interest in farming, but never expected he would end up in the wine industry. After graduating from the University of Arizona with an Art degree, Ryan moved to Santa Ynez Valley in California where he discovered the wine industry. With just a taste of some of the local wines he decided to pursue a career in viticulture. He began working in the fields pruning vines with one of the local vineyard management companies.
Once the harvest of 1998 arrived, Ryan had the opportunity to work at Central Coast Wine Services in Santa Maria where he got the chance to make wine with several different wineries. After learning the basics of making wine and working with so many great winemakers, Ryan decided he wanted to produce his first vintage. In 1999 Ryan made a Cabernet Sauvignon in his garage from grapes he helped to grow at a vineyard down the road. The vintage was a whopping 10 cases and was given away to friends and family. To his surprise people loved the wine. After making such a great wine from grapes he had grown, Ryan felt that this was the only way it should be done.
With this belief in mind, Ryan and his friend Andy Kahn (winemaker for the Kahn Winery) started a vineyard development company. With this partnership not only would Ryan be able to grow grapes, but he also became the assistant winemaker for the Kahn Winery. In trade for Ryan's time in the winery he was given the opportunity to make his first commercial vintage. Over the years, Ryan honed his winemaking and grape growing skills. By 2004 the Carr Winery was making just over 1000 cases and had become nationally recognized.
By 2006 Ryan had helped build three wineries and planted over 200 acres of grapes in Santa Barbara County. Now he was finally working on a winery of his own. In the spring of 2007 Carr opened its doors in downtown Santa Barbara. The winery was one of only four full production wineries and tasting rooms in the downtown area. Since then the wines and the facility have received many accolades and awards and Ryan has continued to produce some of the finest wines in Santa Barbara County.
You've met Ryan, now meet the rest of the Carr Winery Crew.


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Ancestry DNA Testing Sample Collection
DNA testing is a great way of delving into your ancestry and discovering you true, ancient ancestry. Sample collection for this test is very straightforward with our DNA test kit; just follow the steps and precautions below.
Precautions to Follow
Do not drink coffee or tea, or use tobacco products for 4 hours prior to sampling. Samples containing coffee, tea or tobacco residues may not process properly!
Wash your hands thoroughly and rinse applicant's mouth three times with warm water. Do not use toothpaste or mouthwash. (For infants – allow them to drink water at room temperature from a bottle or wait 2 hours from last feeding).
DNA Test Kit Step by Step Instructions
Take the first pack of sterile swabs inside your DNA test kit, which are to be used to collect the first applicant's DNA sample. Remove the first swab from its sterile packaging, taking care not to touch the tip of the swab and to retain the coloured envelopes. The envelopes are coloured to make things easier – different colours are allocated to different test participants. If you are just one individual carrying out the test, ensure to just use 2 pairs of swabs. | |
Fill out the information required on the envelopes used to pack the swabs. Ensure that you clearly complete and sign the details required on the outside of the envelope. Also fill out the consent forms provided in your DNA test kit. Inadequately filled out forms could result in a delay in results so do make sure to do it correctly. Applicants (or their legal guardian) should sign each relevant section as well as their sample collection envelope. | |
Collect cheek cells by rolling the tip of the sample collection swab firmly on the inside of the right cheek (30 times each or for about 1 minute). Be certain to move the swab over the entire inner cheek surface. This action should be firm but not aggressive and should not be uncomfortable. Repeat this process for the same individual with the second swab on the inside of the left cheek. You must submit four swabs per person. | |
Allow the swabs to air dry at room temperature for at least 15 minutes. To avoid contamination, do not allow the tips of the swabs to touch anything. Place the used swabs in the first sample collection envelope (do not put back in plastic packaging). Repeat the procedure for other test participants. | |
Be sure to seal the envelope firmly. Repeat the sample collection process if you are requesting analysis of additional applicants. The completed registration forms and sample collection envelopes should be sealed in the reply envelope provided inside your DNA test kit and returned to us (we recommend Recorded or Special Delivery). |
Click here to read more about our DNA Ancestry test


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« Prev | Of the Abolition and the Abolisher of the Old Law. | Next » |
Chapter VI.—Of the Abolition and the Abolisher of the Old Law.
Therefore, since it is manifest that a sabbath temporal was shown, and a sabbath eternal foretold; a circumcision carnal foretold, and a circumcision spiritual pre-indicated; a law temporal and a law eternal formally declared; sacrifices carnal and sacrifices spiritual foreshown; it follows that, after all these precepts had been given carnally, in time preceding, to the people Israel, there was to supervene a time whereat the precepts of the ancient Law and of the old ceremonies would cease, and the promise12111211 Or, "sending forth"—promissio. of the new law, and the recognition of spiritual sacrifices, and the promise of the New Testament, supervene;12121212 The tautology is again due to the author. while the light from on high would beam upon us who were sitting in darkness, and were being detained in the shadow of death.12131213 Comp. Luke i. 78, 79, Isa. ix. 1, 2, with Matt. iv. 12–16. And so there is incumbent on us a necessity12141214 Comp. 1 Cor. ix. 16. binding us, since we have premised that a new law was predicted by the prophets, and that not such as had been already given to their fathers at the time when He led them forth from the land of Egypt,12151215 See ch. iii. above. to show and prove, on the one hand, that that old Law has ceased, and on the other, that the promised new law is now in operation.
And, indeed, first we must inquire whether there be expected a giver of the new law, and an heir of the new testament, and a priest of the new sacrifices, and a purger of the new circumcision, and an observer of the eternal sabbath, to suppress the old law, and institute the new testament, and offer the new sacrifices, and repress the ancient ceremonies, and suppress12161216 Here again the repetition is the author's. the old circumcision together with its own sabbath,12171217 Cum suo sibi sabbato. Unless the meaning be—which the context seems to forbid—"together with a sabbath of His own:" the Latinity is plainly incorrect. and announce the new kingdom which is not corruptible. Inquire, I say, we must, whether this giver of the new law, observer of the spiritual sabbath, priest of the eternal sacrifices, eternal ruler of the eternal kingdom, be come or no: that, if he is already come, service may have to be rendered him; if he is not yet come, he may have to be awaited, until by his advent it be manifest that the old Law's precepts are suppressed, and that the beginnings of the new law ought to arise. And, primarily, we must lay it down that the ancient Law and the prophets could not have ceased, unless He were come who was constantly announced, through the same Law and through the same prophets, as to come.
« Prev | Of the Abolition and the Abolisher of the Old Law. | Next » |


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During the coronavirus pandemic, many scientists who usually have nothing to do with viruses or infectious disease are turning their attention to COVID-19. For example, one wildlife biologist is raising questions about the accuracy of tests that detect the coronavirus.
In normal times, Andrew Cohen focuses his attention on issues of ecology and conservation, as director of the Center for Research on Aquatic Bioinvasions.
In 2007, the state of California hired him to fight back the invasion of non-native mussels, which had been wreaking havoc on ecosystems in the eastern United States.
"We began getting reports after that of these mussels showing up all across the western U.S.," he says.
Scientists were using a clever technique to find them. They'd take a water sample and then look for the tiniest traces of genetic material from these mussels. They used a test called PCR (short for polymerase chain reaction), which vastly amplifies genetic material to look for mussel DNA. This is the same technology used to diagnose COVID-19.
The studies kept coming up with alarming results, showing signs of invasion by these pests. But Cohen grew suspicious.
"I began to realize that many of these — if not all of these — were false positives, especially when they started being reported in waters that had chemistry that would not allow the mussels to reproduce and establish themselves," he says.
Cohen wanted to understand why these tests were going awry, so he could spread the word to the labs that were using them. "I eventually turned to the medical literature to look at assessments that had been done of medical diagnostic labs that used PCR-based testing in humans."
Cohen discovered that false positives were actually fairly common. The best labs reported few if any, but other labs reported up to 8% of their positive results were false positives. The average was around 2% false positive.
Fast forward to March 2020. Cohen started thinking about this issue of false positives. He was skeptical of reports that people with absolutely no symptoms were nonetheless getting positive PCR test results for the coronavirus.
"I began wondering whether these asymptomatic carriers weren't in large part or in whole part the human counterparts of those false-positive results of quagga and zebra mussels in all those water bodies across the West," he says.
He dug in and found that in previous outbreaks, such as SARS, scientists ran a second PCR test before confirming a case. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started to do that as well during the earliest days of COVID-19. Labs capable of running their own tests were also told to send a sample to CDC for confirmation. But that system was quickly abandoned as the number of cases grew and the ability to test remained limited.
Cohen, working with physician colleagues in Hawaii, surveyed procedures for coronavirus testing around the world, including the governments of Canada and the U.K., as well as the World Health Organization and the CDC, but found no requirement for retesting positive samples. (The CDC recommends that a patient who has recovered from coronavirus infection in the hospital be tested twice before being discharged, but the concern there is a much more common problem with these tests: falsely negative results).
So, Cohen updated the survey of medical testing he'd done to explore the cause of false positives in wildlife testing. He posted that paper online.
It hasn't been peer reviewed, but Dr. Bobbi Pritt, a clinical microbiologist who chairs the microbiology committee for the College of American Pathologists, says his numbers seem reasonable.
"There's no 100% perfect test," says Pritt, who works at the Mayo Clinic.
The PCR tests, when done perfectly, do boast a very low false-positive rate. But they're not always done perfectly.
Certified labs like hers use procedures to reduce the risk of false test results, since a false-positive test can lead to a medical misdiagnosis. But slip-ups are inevitable.
Most errors are caused by poor sample handling or other errors even before a sample gets to the lab, she says.
And PCR is so incredibly sensitive, contamination is a particular concern. Even the tiniest amount of stray material in a lab can spell trouble, Pritt says.
"That viral material could get into the environment and then contaminate your specimens around you and then cause false positives in those specimens."
That kind of problem is apparently what caused the CDC's own coronavirus test to fail back in February, according to a Washington Post investigation. Labs in Europe also reported contamination issues with some of their coronavirus tests.
Even automated testing machines, like the ones used at the White House, can produce false-positive results. They are designed to use simple plug-in cartridges, but "it doesn't mean that they are foolproof," Pritt says. "We've observed some of these tests and these little cartridges have issues such as leaking — even amplified viral nucleic acid — into the laboratory, which can cause quite a bit of problems."
The College of American Pathologists is now starting to help labs evaluate the accuracy of their coronavirus PCR tests.
And there's a lot at stake for getting these tests right.
People can be sent to isolation for weeks with a positive test result. Hospitals risk running short-staffed if too many workers test positive. People who are diagnosed with COVID-19 in a hospital may not be allowed to return to nursing homes or other senior living situations.
As for Cohen's original concern about asymptomatic carriers, he still believes false-positives could be a part of that. However, at least one recent study shows that asymptomatic illnesses are real. Japanese researchers who treated patients from the stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship ran multiple tests on asymptomatic patients. As they report in the New England Journal of Medicine, they documented repeated positive results before those patients eventually tested negative for the disease.
Cohen is concerned that researchers aren't taking potential false positives in PCR tests seriously enough. "As near as we can tell, the medical establishment and public health authorities and researchers ... appear to be assuming that the false-positive rate in in the PCR based test is zero, or at least so low that we can ignore it," he says.
He is particularly concerned about research that seeks to track the progress of the epidemic. In areas where the disease is rare, there will be few truly positive results in apparently healthy people. If a PCR test has a 2% error rate in an area where only 1% of the people are actually infected, Cohen notes, most of the positive results will be false positives.
That's the lesson from his attempt to track invasive mussels.
"Actually, nobody has ever found a quagga or zebra mussel" in the vast majority of western waters where PCR tests indicated mussels were present, he says. It turned out that in those water bodies, all the positive test results were false.
You can contact NPR Science Correspondent Richard Harris at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Like many depressives, I have a love-hate relationship with humor. A well-crafted joke, anecdote, or cartoon can cheer me up during the worst times, but because of the various cognitive deficits associated with depression, I have a lot of trouble processing humor when it's directed at me or my life.
Enter another thing I have a love-hate relationship with: Facebook. As one of those rare people who's "out" about having a mental illness (to shamelessly borrow terminology from the LGBT community), I occasionally post something related to my current troubles on my Facebook. Most of the people who bother reading it are fairly good friends of mine who know what's going on and often stop by and leave a nice comment or a simple "<3" on those posts.
But then there are people who insist on trying to force a joke about the situation. These well-intentioned but insufferably clueless people are the bane of any depressive's life. They're our friends, sometimes even pretty good ones, and as much as we know that they mean well, it can be very painful to have a really difficult aspect of your life reduced to a dumb joke like that. And it's nearly impossible to find a way to respond–any suggestion that the joke was out of place is inevitably met with "but I was just trying to lighten the mood" or "I just wanted to cheer you up."
Here's the thing, though–you can't fix a depressed person anyway. (Sometimes, you can't even fix a depressed person if you're a psychiatrist or psychologist.) The most you can do is offer a message of support and refrain from trying to turn a depressed person's misery into a big huge joke.
Honestly, I doubt that even healthy people are actually "cheered up" by jokes made at their expense. I can't imagine that's pleasant for anyone who's already in kind of a bad mood. But it's especially unpleasant for a depressed person and can trigger all sorts of nasty stuff.
I think people have a huge fear of others' unhappiness. The moment you see a sad person, you immediately want to drag them, kicking and screaming, out of their sadness, whether they asked you to or not. This is understandable, but it should be avoided, not only because there's so little you can really do, but because you should try to understand people before you try to help them.
If anyone ever bothered to ask me what they could do to help me feel better, you can guarantee I wouldn't say "crack a dumb joke at my expense." And, don't worry, I wouldn't say "sit here for hours and listen to me cry," either. I would probably ask you to have a conversation about something interesting, like politics or culture, with me. Or I'd ask you to come over and bring a good movie. Or I'd ask you to bake some cookies with me. Or, I'd say, "Nothing, but thanks for asking."
What people don't understand about depression is that it's different from normal sadness not only in quantity, but in quality. To put it more simply, it's just a different kind of sadness. When someone has a depressive episode, they go to a really dark place that healthy people don't go to ever. Not even when their significant other breaks up with them or something like that. It's a darkness that can't be lit up by a stupid joke. Really, it can't be fully lit up by anything. But human connection, love, and support can sometimes help.
Obviously, not everybody is willing to provide that for everybody else. That's fine, and that's how it should be. But if you can't give me what I need to feel better, don't give me something that makes me feel worse, either.
Like many problems that I come across in my life, this turns out to be something that's actually a much larger issue. I believe that the reason people are so desperate to immediately try to "lighten the mood" the instant they see something unpleasant is because our culture has an extreme fear of negative emotion. We avoid it like the plague, and it comes as no surprise to me that most of our culture's solutions for achieving happiness seem to focus on eliminating things like fear, sadness, and anger entirely, rather than incorporating them into one's life in a normal, healthy way. Clearly, what I have isn't healthy, but it's only the extreme end of spectrum. I see this sort of blind and terrified avoidance of anything that's sad, whether it's severe like depression or totally normal, everywhere I look.
If you've just read this and realized that what I'm describing sounds exactly like you, I hope you're not offended. If you are, my apologies. But I hope you trust that behind all this snark is a lot of pain.
And, if you're still reading, I have a challenge for you. Next time you come across a post from a friend that's unhappy in some way, don't rush to make a joke about it. Don't try to drag your friend away from what they're feeling. If you absolutely need to comment on it somehow, say "I'm sorry, that really sucks," or "I hope you feel better." I guarantee that unless you happen to be Jon Stewart, that'll work better than any joke.
I'll leave you with a quote by Dutch priest and writer Henri Nouwen:
"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion… that is a friend who cares."


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I love the Chinese food we get from takeaway shops, and often to save on the cost we will cook our own rice at home. This is good, but the rice never seems to have the same texture as takeaway rice - it's less sticky, and much harder to eat with chopsticks. I usually use plain long grain rice as that's what I have in the cupboard. Does anyone know what kind they would use in a Chinese restaurant or takeaway?
Also, out of interest, what kind is used in authentic Chinese cooking? (I am well aware that this is vastly different from what we eat as "Chinese food" in the West!)


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All major hardware in our laptop and notebook systems is supported in Linux. The EmperorLinux research staff modifies all the popular Linux distros in many specific ways to provide the best possible portable Linux distribution. These include a customized kernel (packed with driver patches and half the size of distribution kernels); a chip-specific X-server with hardware acceleration; full support for PCMCIA, USB, and FireWire devices; full support for 10/100/1000 (gigabit) ethernet and 802.11a/b/g/n wireless; pre-configured power management; modem; stereo sound; and more. (There is extensive detail on the following topics in the supplied owner's manual.) Detailed information about mobile wireless broadband (EVDO, HSDPA, etc) and the Intel Core Duo is also available.
All this is done completely with GNU-GPL software. At EmperorLinux, you don't pay extra for commercial X-servers and sound support, because we only use laptops for which the hardware is known to be supported by truly free software.
The Rhino, Tiger, Koala, Toucan, Raven, and SilverComet, have excellent FireWire support. We have very carefully tweaked the latest Linux kernel to provide support for IEEE-1394 devices, also known as Apple's "FireWire", and Sony's "i-Link". We have tested the following IEEE-1394 devices: Zip drives, hard drives (up to 500GB and 1TB), and CDRW/DVD drives. 45-55 MB/sec is a typical external HD speed under Linux. No where else will you find out-of-the-box support for FireWire.


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"The difficulties in finding a job in the US and the threat of new immigration laws in states like Arizona have led to a curb in migration," says Carmen Dorantes, director of Hidalgo's government office to help returning migrants.
"Mexicans who live there are now deciding to return, or at least send some members of their families back to Mexico," she says. ...
... "People come with their assets to establish new businesses. Those returning may speak three languages - English, Spanish and their local indigenous language. They have new skills. In a way, it will be easier for them to find a job than for those who never left the country," Mrs Dorantes says.
And that might cause some misgivings in the local communities, as the returning migrants change the make-up of their home towns, local authorities fear.
Emphasis added. I've seen similar behavior in Rust Belt cities. Locals are less than welcoming to repats. Going home can be hard. For example, return migrants to Ireland experience social isolation. You might be from there. But you no longer belong.
The part I put in bold face type speaks to the economic development that occurs thanks to migration. Better to leave than to stay. People develop, not places.


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Explore the help topics, and if you can't find your answer or just want to say 'hi', please come by the forums (which are filled with friendly folk, we promise!) or email us.
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This month has seen the latest demo from Maze Car begin its orbit around the internet. You can listen to the juicy new demo here, and look forward to capturing it when it goes on general release, with a partner track, later in the year. However, there will be a pause in the output from Maze Car in the near term as we divert our producer's attention to some exciting projects with new artists!
We also have plans to set free some previously unreleased tracks by Voxel veterans Varjak, so this year promises to be a celebration of old and new. Watch this space for details!
So, what music have we discovered this month? Well, the world of underground electronica has never been so diverse as it is today. We searched for a common theme, but the tracks on the playlist this month are great examples of abstract songwriting that doesn't need a pigeon hole to call home …
Psyop by summon.exe is driven by its shuffling rhythm of plastic swing and rubbery-filtered synths. The squelchy notes are close and boxy, but also melodically adventurous to the point that the track becomes beautifully unpredictable. Within the various timbres, there are nods to synthwave, acidic trip hop and glitchy chip tune that altogether make this a long, varied and stimulating listen. This is definitely music that you can't pin down, but why bother when you can enjoy it bouncing all over the room …?
So New by Pleasance House is an ambient enigma that opens with a fast-paced percussive bass melody beneath a dreamy vocal. The softly glitched rhythms of nut-like timbres pepper the arrangement, along with a merry bedlam of granular vocal samples. As the madness subsides, the track glides into a more traditional acoustic guitar riff and spacious vocal delay. The acoustic licks take over for this middle section, before we are returned to the vocal snippets and soft, pacey percussion. Dreamy and refreshing folktronica epics live in harmony at Pleasance House.
Presently by Azuaverian opens up with trippy rhythms from acoustic percussion. Simple scales and delays accumulate in layers, and a shy vocal is harnessed by reverb, deep within in the mix. The lyrics are hard to isolate, but they exude a hidden beauty, like trying to catch a butterfly, before the track disassembles itself, layer by layer, into the original snare percussion. Much of Charlotte Koch's work builds complex, implicit melodies from simple layers of percussive instruments, so if you are in search of some therapy from aural acupuncture, why not give this a try?


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A range of new Konqi the Dragon graphics and the first Konqi video has been put together by newcomer to the KDE Artists mailing list Bastian Salmela (Basse). Unlike previous versions, this new Konqi wireframe model is made in the Free Software application Blender. You can find Konqi and the Magical Rope of Curiosity video (our killer feature at LinuxWorld London) as well as still graphics and their sources on the KDE Clipart page and Basse's KDE page. Basse is working on more videos and improving the Konqi model so expect more soon.
check it out
Wow! I finally found a file format that mplayer can't play (only sound works). But the high-res AVI plays very well and looks superb so I'm just gonna say that mplayer rocks hard and stick to that story. :)
mplayer does play ogg theora, otherwise we would never be able to watch the videos from akademy. You do need a very new version of mplayer though and linked against some just as new theora libraries.
I didn't check the file, but the file format is most probably Theora. Which works with mplayer also if you have libtheora installed (most likely you have also to recompile mplayer...) ;-)
u just need to compile oggtheora and then recompile mplayer or xine. For now only Helix comes with theora out of the box, but I know the xine and mplayer dudes are working on it :)
Please, please use .ogm, so that normal people know it's a video and not an audio.
Please, please use .ogm, so that my *VIDEO* application opens it and not xmms.
Yes it sounds strange, but I use different apps for video and audio files.
Please, please use .ogm, so that it has a chance of succeeding - using .ogg will result only it confusion.
USING .ogg for video and audio HURTS BOTH OGG-VORBIS AND OGG-THEORA. DON'T DO IT. NEVER.
Yes, I know it's "cool" to do technocrat things only few people understand (like naming files according to their container (which is completeley irrelevant) instead of their real file type (which is what counts)) but it's very stupid if you think about it.
Thank you very much
That isn't what people at xiph.org (developers of Ogg, Vorbis, Theora, Speex, ...) say. They recommend using .ogg. And I don't think Ogg's developers want to hurt Ogg.
You can discuss the thing with them (like thousands of people did before you).
> That isn't what people at xiph.org (developers of Ogg, Vorbis, Theora, Speex, ...) say.
Unfortunately that's true.
> I don't think Ogg's developers want to hurt Ogg.
They sure don't want to, but with that decision they do.
Let's just look at the upsides and downsides of using .ogg for video and audio:
- People are confused
- Applications are confused
- Everything on the commandline gets harder: find . -name ".ogg" will no longer get you what you want
- Because of this confusion, people will stay away from the format altogether. PEOPLE HATE EVERYTHING THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND. Effectively it's the "U"-Part of FUD: Uncertainity. Ask ANY marketing guy. No, ask ANYBODY not deeply into audio/video formats wether he wants to use the same extensions for video and audio files. Bad marketing leads to bad popularity, bad popularity leads to bad support from hardware and software makers.
+ Can't think of any, maybe you can? If there was a good reason for it, maybe I could accept all the downsides - but so far I haven't seen any.
> You can discuss the thing with them (like thousands of people did before you).
Unfortunately, those people are excellent engineers but are so lousy at marketing that they are actually FUD-ing their own project.
The optimistic outlook is that most .ogm users simply ignore it and name their video files .ogm, at least so far I haven't seen any video files on P2P-networks with .ogg extension but a few .ogms.
Only on xiph.org and rarely on other open-source related websites I've seen that.
Maybe the xiph people will wake up sometime and give up this idiotic recommendation.
Sorry to reply to myself, but do you know what real good marketing would be?
Using ".video" as extension. Yes, the DOS-times are over and we are allowed to use more than 3 letters.
.video would be perfect - It's still quite short, yet everybody knows what's inside (even those who have absolutely no idea what's an avi, ogm or wmv) which would take away lot of Fear when confronted with a new format.
But actually, anything other than ogg will be fine - and the community has standardized on .ogm, so let's use that.
I entirly agree with you.
ogg for sound and ogm for movie (that's still not so user friendly but very better than ogg for both).
And it's very common to use different software for music and movie : JuK (or amaroK or...) does well with music and xine (or mplayer...) with video.
With aKademy videos I was very surprized : the sound and video streams was both in .ogg, and when launching the video, xine doesn't support the video and then showed me a visualisation of the sound : I was confused : is it really a video ? a video with sound-visualisation (very stupid, but I never played audio with xine) or a sound only file (as .ogg was for (at least in my mind))?
Imagine what it would be for "casual users"...
Wow, you have some strong beliefs on this matter.
As someone who used to work tech support, I think you are giving folks too much credit. Windows has extensions hidden by default remember? Folks don't care about extensions.
I would agree that its kind of confusing, since there are certainly applications that support .ogg the audio file but not .ogg the video file. But its confusing to folks like us, not to the general public which doesn't care.
Those won't work well with windows. Windows uses the extension, so having ogg will open the audio player, which may play music, but it may not too.
> As someone who used to work tech support, I think you are giving folks too
> much credit. Windows has extensions hidden by default remember? Folks don't
> care about extensions.
So you really want to claim that "ordinary folks" never use the Web? (there is no extension hiding in URLs)
I hear "ordinary people" talking about mp3s all the time, but I never hear them talk about "MPEG Audio files" (or whatever is shown as file type when extensions are hidden), there is even a whole industry named after a file extension: MP3-players.
So yes, extensions mean a great deal - for everybody.
Why not just have a customized extension before the .ogg extension?
For example,
Music file: my-song.a.ogg
Video file: my-clip.v.ogg
where a is audio and v is video.
Please, please don't click twice on the Add button, so that your comment isn't posted multiple times.
Sorry, blame zope for it ;-)
better yet, make the server send the right mimetypes.
I agree. People may not be bothered by certain extensions because they have been already stablished, MP3 extensions being the most obvious and already mentioned. Besides, if enough people use it, Windows will add a OGM extension reader anyways.
"no dragons were hurt in the making of this animation"
i love that :)
The most annoying thing about Konqi artwork at the moment is that there is no SVG version of Konqi which I can use it my custom splash screens, etc. I don't want to fire up Blender and render myself all the time I change resolutions or create different resolution versions.
KDE has put so much work in SVG integration, why isn't there a SVG version of their maskot?
Someone has to make up a vector graphics version, please.
yes.. I could create a SVG too, it's not that hard to trace it from any of the 3d rendered poses. the problem with SVG is, it's static. and one reason for me to create the 3d model was, to have a poseable character. currently, when we see Konqi anywhere, it's always the same pose. and many times it doesnt really fit :)
especially splash screens are more alive if instead of using always the same pic, you would have a different angle and pose for the character..
anyways, in what kind of a pose would you want him to be in then, if there was a SVG version?
basse, I just wanted to say I really had great fun watching your video. It gave me a big kick. Thanks for your great work.
And thanks also to artemio!
Is there an SVG Export/Renderer for Blender?
(I know that Maya has an Flash export.)
I think any maskot should have a default pose...
think of Tux and the BSD maskots, all of them come in a default pose. Even if Koqi is a 3D model, it should have a pose in which it is used often (in image context), to make it easier to recognize the mascot.
To show my colleagues in the company this very nice video (thanks Basse!), who mainly work on Windows XP :-(( I sent them the link, but heard that they could not watch the video on WinAmp3 or on Windows media player (version 8).
Has someone a version which can be viewed on those systems ?
With the VideoLan player you view the movie. This player can be downloaded at:
Have not tried these video files myself, but it could be you need to download the DivX codec, for general info about codecs http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/format/codecs.aspx. I googled and found links on http://www.divx.com or http://www.divxmovies.com/codec/. Try to get the codec only and make sure its the free version. You do *not* want the adware version. Another cause of problems could be that they have Data Execution Prevention (DEP) enabled in windows xp sp2 (the least likely alternative), if they already have the DivX codec. Or download an alternative videoplayer if that has a divx codec included or installs one, like Auke suggested.
yes.. it's avi divx.. so extra codec needed. still, I've noticed that sometimes I can't play these at my work place either (where we run windows 2000) on windows media player, even though I have installed the codec package.. so I nowadays only use the divx player that comes in the divx codec bundle. that works just fine.
anyways, for people without divx codec, and posibility to install it, I packed it as mpeg1. hope this helps.
here it is:
Great! Thanks.
This is absolutely excellent stuff. I just loved the video. I can't remember how many times I watched it to start with but it must have been at least five :) Beautifully and very cutely animated, well done!
just a small note on windows codecs
divx from www.divx.com is easy to find, but it's lousy and the non-pay version watermarks everything.
I highly recommend the ffdshow codecs from the ffdshow project on sourceforge. opensource, high quality, plays divx and xvid formats, etc.
yes, I knew this could happen, but it happened sooner than I was hoping for.. this months download limits are now used on my kimppu.org site, I have to do something about that next week, but for now, I moved the files to another location.
there. let's hope that stays online :)
Very nice. I personally would like to see more videos like the one I made when 3.3.1 was released (it's at
http://linuxreviews.org/news/2004/10/13_0_kde_3.3.1/ and plays embedded..)
that actually shows off how KDE works, how it can be used and so on..


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In the rapidly evolving world of technology, artificial intelligence has emerged as a game-changer, redefining the boundaries of what's possible. At the forefront of this revolution are trailblazing companies such as OpenAI, DeepMind, NVIDIA, among others, each playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of AI. Their innovations extend beyond mere technical prowess, touching various aspects of human life. From enhancing human-computer interaction with groundbreaking models to leveraging AI for global good, these companies are not just innovating; they're transforming the way we live and work.
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text:
The Year My Parents Went On Vacation
The Year My Parents Went On Vacation
Directed by Cao Hamburger
Starring Michel Joelsas, Germano Haiut, Daniela Piepszyk, Caio Blat, Liliana Castro
Release Date:
Brazil, November 2, 2006
USA, February 15, 2008
More Information at:
The Year My Parents Went On Vacation
Plot synopsis:
"In 1970, near the World Cup, Daniel Stern and his wife Miriam leaves Belo Horizonte in a hurry and scared with their ten years old son Mauro in their Volkswagen. While traveling to São Paulo, the couple explains Mauro that they will travel on vacation and will leave Mauro with his grandfather Mótel. Daniel promises to return before the first game of the Brazilian National Soccer Team in the Cup. The boy is left in Bom Retiro, a Jewish and Italian neighborhood, and waits for Mótel in front of his apartment. When the next door neighbor Shlomo arrives, he tells the boy that Mótel had just had a heart attack and died. Alone and without knowing where his parents are, the boy is lodged by Shlomo and the Jewish community. Through the young neighbor Hanna, Mauro makes new friends, cheers for the Brazilian team and sees the movement of the police and militaries on the streets while waiting for his parents."