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Car Rental Guide
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Rent a car and explore Bonaire in style
Bonaire International Airport, also known as Flamingo International Airport is an airport situated in Kralendijk, Bonaire, Netherlands. It is an airport capable of accommodating many of the varied wide-body international liners. However, it is mostly used by medium sized airliners.
Getting from the airport should not be a problem, because there is a wide variety of transport means. You can hop into a shuttle, rent a car, take a taxi or board a train.
Car rental
Renting a vehicle is the most efficient and fun way of getting around Bonaire. This gives you the freedom to explore the island comprehensively, since you can visit a variety of sites in a single trip. There are cheap car hire companies available at the airport. Additionally, some hotels offer their clients packages that include car rental.
Driving in Bonaire
So you have opted to rent a car, and you do not know the driving regulations in Bonaire, what next? Driving in Bonaire is always done on the right. A license is mandatory, a U.S, British or a Canadian, national license is required if you are to get a car from any car rental company.
Bonaire uses international road signs. The speed limits are always clearly marked in many areas. The maximum driving speed is 25mph (40 kmph) in towns and 38 to 50 mph (60 to 80 kmph) in the countryside. Seat belts are mandatory, and all children below 12 years should travel in the back seat. Roads are sometimes slippery after it rains. Driving while drunk is prohibited, and your license can be confiscated.
What To Do In Bonaire
Bonaire boasts of a unique typography ideal for cycling. There are lengths of paved roads that guarantee comfortable cycling. Some of the things you can see while you cycle are the historic slave huts, solar salt pans, salt mountains and Willemstoren Light house. It is important to know that the northern region is hilly, and might tax you heavily. While cycling on your own, it is important to;
Bonaire beaches
All beaches in Bonaire are intimate, clean, un-crowded and full of coral. You can swim on the leeward coast, but the east coast is dangerous. There are sea urchins and coral chunks, hence venturing into the water barefoot is inadvisable.
There are some beaches that are a bit far but not too far away. However, if you have a rental car already, this should not pose a problem. Additionally, you are going to enjoy yourself to the fullest because you won't be anxious about going back to your hotel.
Hotels in Bonaire
Hotels in Bonaire are many and varied in terms of cost and facilities. You should choose one according to your needs, and the specific areas you would like to explore. However, this does not mean you have to stay out of the city. This is because some hotels liaise with cheap car hire companies to ensure clients have a means of transport. This means exploring the island from wherever you are accommodated is convenient.
We offer a comparison of all the rent a car companies in Bonaire:
In the month July, The average car rental length in Bonaire was 17 days.
The average car rental duration in 2024 is 17 days.
Currently the most booked car rental in Bonaire is .
The average car rental price was last month 0 USD.
The average rental price last month was 0 USD per day.
The available car rental companies in Bonaire are: Alamo, National, Enterprise, Green Motion, carnect, Avis, etc…


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The High Note
Set in the dazzling world of the LA music scene comes the story of Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross), a superstar whose talent, and ego, have reached unbelievable heights. Maggie (Dakota Johnson) is Grace's overworked personal assistant who's stuck running errands, but still aspires to her childhood dream of becoming a music producer. When Grace's manager (Ice Cube) presents her with a choice that could alter the course of her career, Maggie and Grace come up with a plan that could change their lives forever.
Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr.
Nisha Ganatra

subset: commoncrawl


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Read it below and let us know what you think.
AFTRA was deeply disappointed to read that the executives at Prospect Park have decided to suspend their efforts to produce the long-running and popular daytime serials, 'One Life to Live' and 'All My Children,' via online distribution. Despite initial progress in our negotiations with Prospect Park toward resolving a fair agreement to cover the performers appearing on these programs, we were perplexed and disappointed that for the past month Prospect Park has not responded to our repeated inquiries to resume those discussions. We now conclude from the press reports that Prospect Park faced other challenges unrelated to our negotiations, which prevented continuation of those discussions. We remain hopeful that an opportunity to revive these two popular series will emerge in the future, and remain ready to resume discussions should that opportunity arise.RELATED
- SUSPENDED: Prospect Park Announces Suspension Of Effort To Bring ALL MY CHILDREN and ONE LIFE TO LIVE Online
- AFTRA: Prospect Park Has Not Responded For The Past Month
- Prospect Park's Jeff Kwatinetz: ALL MY CHILDREN, ONE LIFE TO LIVE To Be Streamed On Web (TOLN), Then On-Demand, Then Cable Channel
- The Online Network & Universal Music Group Team Up To Bring "Music, Ecommerce & Artist Participation" to ALL MY CHILDREN & ONE LIFE TO LIVE
- ABC Confirms AMC/OLTL Licensed to Prospect Park
- Prospect Park, ALL MY CHILDREN & ONE LIFE TO LIVE: Five Things Every Soap Fan Should Know about Daytime's New Powerhouse
- PRESS RELEASE: Prospect Park Names Technology Pioneer Stratton Sclavos as Partner & Member of Executive Team in Company's Online TV Venture
- REPORT: Susan Lucci Turns Down AMC Offer; Will AMC Continue Online After All?
- THE Online Network: Ron Carlivati Stays With ONE LIFE TO LIVE; Archer, Missal, Trishcitta, VerDorn Sign On
- PROSPECT PARK: The Online Network's Pitch to Investors & the Profitability of ONE LIFE TO LIVE, ALL MY CHILDREN


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Modular felt coaster tutorial
Modular pieces that fit together make me really happy, and on a recent Google hunt, I found felt rugs here and here made with interlocking shapes. Very cool. So I tried a pared-down pattern for coasters because I'm way too impatient to fit 847,236,780 pieces together to make a rug.
Download the PDF template right here (it makes two coasters.)
Print out the pattern and pin it to a piece of felt. Use an X-acto knife (press hard) or a rotary cutter to cut the diagonal slot in each pattern piece. Then cut apart the pieces, adding the cuts on the sides.
Grab four of the pieces and orient them as shown above. Each piece should be rotated 90 degrees from its neighbor, so that the ends with "arrows" are chasing each other around a square. Pull each arrow through the adjacent slot from the back to the front.
The coaster will look like this when you've locked all the pieces together.
Trim off the points of the arrows. Also trim off any edges that stick out so you end up with a neat square.
To make a larger trivet, see my next felt project.


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Islam, the BBC and Young Children
by Paul Weston
Although the BBC has a reputation for bias, dishonesty and the promotion of cretinous infantile ideologies designed to destroy civilised society, they appear to have surpassed themselves in their attitude to Christianity and Islam on their GCSE Bitesize revision website which is so fantastically biased, so hatefully anti-Christian and so perversely pro-Islamic that when one considers it is aimed at the unformed minds of young school children it must surely be tantamount to child abuse.
The BBC religious studies page, which can be found here, has various sub-divisions, but for the purpose of this article I am going to concentrate on Prejudice & Discrimination and again, for the sake of this essay I will ignore Judaism, Hinduism and Sikhism, and centre only on the attitudes of Christianity and Islam.
For those readers who do not wish to read this article in its entirety, then the four links in the paragraph above will take you to all the relevant pages, but be sure to do the Christian test as well as the Islam test at the end of each revision section. A word of caution however: if you suffer from high blood pressure or have a dicky ticker I would advise you to steer well clear.
Opening with Christianity, the first BBC page reverts to Marxist type as it explains that discrimination can only occur when prejudice is combined with power. As no minority race or religion in Britain is deemed to have power, so they can never discriminate against an indigenous British Christian. And so the scene is set for the evil BBC propaganda that follows their publishing of the UN Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
We are also told:
All forms of discrimination go against the first two articles.
Page 2 informs us:
Christianity teaches that everyone is equal in the eyes of God and so all forms of prejudice and discrimination are unacceptable and against God's will.
Leaving aside the small matter that we discriminate every day on any number of things, such as a preference for good wine over Bulgarian wine or holidaying in Tuscany rather than Arkansas — both examples one would imagine are outside the remit of God's will — there then comes the inevitable however:
- - - - - - - - -
However… there are occasions when Christians are guilty of prejudice and discrimination.
In South Africa, for many years the Dutch Reformed Church supported apartheid, the system which meant that black people were separated from white people and treated inferior [sic].
When Europeans were colonising other countries around the world they often killed the native people there and treated them as slaves.
John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, is from Uganda and he has done a lot to raise awareness and put a stop to racism in the Anglican Church, and in wider society.
Sexism is still a problem for the Christian Church — women are not always treated as equals in roles within the Church.
Page 3 informs us:
Many people think the Christian Church is sexist. It does not treat men and women equally.
So although Christianity teaches that everybody should be treated the same, this doesn't always happen.
Page 4 is a revision page where you have to match up the end of a statement with the beginning. If completed correctly it reads as follows:
Discrimination = Prejudice + Power The Roman Catholic Church does not allow women to be Priests Article 1 states that all humans are born free and equal There is neither Jew nor Greek slave nor free The Dutch Reformed Church supported apartheid Paul (St) said: women should be silent in Churches You shall love your neighbour as yourself Native people were treated as slaves
If you get all the above correct on their interactive site, a little message pops up stating:
Congratulations, you remembered all the facts about Christian prejudice and descrimination. [Spelling mistake courtesy of BBC educationalists.]
The test bite concludes this section on Christianity. You are presented with an interactive statement to which you have to answer true or false. It mimics most of page 4 so I will draw attention to only 2 out of the 10:
Christians believe most people are equal in the eyes of God.
If you answer TRUE to this, then you are admitting that Christians do not believe all people are equal in the eyes of God, which means Christians discriminate, which means Christians simply by existing as Christians are in contravention of article 1 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, so artfully inserted by the BBC propagandists on their opening page.
If you answer FALSE, as most unwitting 16-year-old schoolchildren will, having been repeatedly bludgeoned around the head with instances of Christian sexism and racism, then the BBC propagandists' job is done. As it happens, FALSE is the correct answer, because Christians believe everyone is equal, as opposed to most people are equal. Very clever. One wonders what regimes recent BBC employees once worked in.
The second statement reads:
John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York is trying to reduce racism in the Anglican Church.
Another clever question, to which the correct answer is TRUE. Notice there is no argument as to whether there really is racism in the Anglican Church, it is just presented as fact, and provides the BBC with the opportunity to subliminally brainwash whilst promoting the only Christian they admire, based solely on the fact that he is an African, an enormous positive that far outweighs the inconvenient fact that he is far more hard line than the liberal rank and file excuses for the British Clergy epitomised by the Archdruid, Rowan Williams.
Islam, as I am sure you have probably guessed, is treated in an altogether different way.
Page 1 is identical to page 1 for Christianity, detailing the meaning of discrimination and quoting the Human Rights act.
Page 2 informs us:
The Qur'an (the divine book revealed to the Prophet Muhammad) teaches that everyone was created by Allah and that everyone is equal.
Therefore there is no reason to treat people of different races differently. The Prophet Muhammad showed how important this teaching was in his last sermon, when he said…
…All mankind is descended from Adam and Eve, an Arab is not better than a non-Arab and a non-Arab is not better than an Arab, a white person is not better than a black person, nor is a black person better than a white person except by piety and good actions. Learn that every Muslim is the brother of every other Muslim and that Muslims form one brotherhood.
Page 3 informs us of Islam's attitude to women:
Islam also teaches that men and women are equal in the sight of Allah. They are individually accountable for their actions, and will be judged equally by Allah.
However, although men and women are equal, they are not the same. They have different purposes. It is part of Allah's design and purpose for men and women to have different physical characteristics; likewise it is the duty of a man to provide for the financial needs of his family, and for the woman to look after the home and family.
Although the rights of women are different to those of men, they do have the right to choose whom they marry, to divorce, to study, to own property, to conduct business and to take part in politics.
The Prophet Muhammad stressed the importance of women and the respect that should be shown to them when he said — paradise lies at the feet of your mother.
Page 4 is a revision page where you have to match up the end of a statement with the beginning. If completed correctly it reads as follows:
Discrimination = Prejudice + Power The Qur'an teaches that everyone is equal Article 1 states that all humans are born free and equal Women have the right to take part in politics Men and women will be judged equally All mankind is descended from Adam and Eve Paradise lies at the feet of your mother Sometimes men have the final word
If you get all the above correct on their interactive site, a little message pops up stating:
Congratulations. You have understood all the arguments about Islamic prejudice and discrimination.
Notice how the BBC uses the word "facts" in relation to Christian prejudice and discrimination, but replaced it with "arguments" with regard to Islam.
The test bite concludes the section. There is nothing surprising in it; just a continuation of the BBC's overt propaganda suggesting Islam is divine, pure, non-racist and non-sexist.
There is a different section on Christian and Islamic attitudes to fighting and warfare. It is worth browsing in its entirety but the general thrust of the propaganda is that Christians and Jews are warlike and Islam is a religion of peace.
That the BBC should peddle such overt and dishonest propaganda is obscene in itself, but to whitewash Islam with its arranged marriages, honour killings, global violent jihad etc whilst painting Christianity as a religion of racism, sexism, colonialism, enslavement and murder leaves me struggling for a word stronger than "obscene." And to peddle it to innocent school children? Words fail me.
The BBC hate the Britain our fathers and grandfathers fought and died for. They realised many years ago they needed to eradicate Christianity if they were to destroy Britain from within. And they have virtually done so.
The Rt Rev Paul Richardson penned a recent article in which he argued that Christian Britain was dead, destroyed by multiculturalism and heading for complete extinction within 30 years. He did not mention the part the BBC has paid on their long ideological march to economic, social and moral ruin, but as you can see, they have certainly played their part. Perhaps the BBC felt it was only possible to select a Muslim as the head honcho of its religious affairs department now Christianity is powerless in its death throes.
I suppose there must come a day of reckoning with the genuinely evil apparatchiks of the BBC, and when that day comes I will gladly watch the bastards swing from the lamp posts such is the rage they ignite in the soul of a pacifist man.
©2009 Paul Weston


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- Mix the bread crumbs with melted butter and press it into a 9 inches cake tin evenly. Set aside.
- Beat the cream cheese with sugar until the sugar dissolve. Mix in the yogurt until everything combine and smooth.
- Slowly add in the beaten eggs then lemon juice.
- Mix in the cornflour until everything incorporate.
- Pour the cream cheese mixture into the cake tin and topped with some blueberries. Bake in a 150'C preheated over for 25 minutes.
- Keep the cheesecake in the fridge once it completely cool down.
February 24, 2009
Blueberry Baked Cheesecake
10 comments:
- Honey Bee Sweets said...
Hi KC,
It's the first time I've seen bread crumbs used for the cheesecake base. Interesting! But it sure looks like cookie base, how does the texture turn out? BTW the cake looks great!
HBS - February 24, 2009 at 8:53 PM
- Kitchen Corner said...
Oppsss sorry Honey Bee Sweets,
I've got typo error. It should be biscuits crumbs not bread crumbs. I'm sorry! - February 24, 2009 at 8:55 PM
Your Cheesecake is amazing
- February 24, 2009 at 9:26 PM
- Snooky doodle said...
wow that surely looks great. i like the blueberries on top :)
- February 25, 2009 at 5:40 AM
- Happy Flour said...
Hi Kitchen Corner,
Can I have your email address, so that I can email the Pandan Swiss Roll recipe to you. I learned this swiss roll from Aunty Yochana Class and it not so nice if I post the recipe. I do like to share but it unfair to those who paid and took their time to go to her place and learned from her. Please do not post this comment. My email email@example.com - February 25, 2009 at 9:40 PM
the cheese cake is so yummy, I baked it last night, but I used strawberry on the top, the taste still good. and I think that your blog is one of my favorite :) thanks for sharing the recipes
- April 1, 2010 at 3:46 AM
Hi, thanks for sharing the recipe. i've tried to bake the cake and i'm not sure if it's cooked. As i can't adjust my oven to 150C, i had to bake it at 140C for 35 minutes. but the cake has a 'siap' taste, if you know what i mean, its like i can taste some flour in it but i suppose it shouldnt taste that way as there is no flour in it except for a little corn flour. Should i bake it longer? or it should taste like that and it would taste better after i've chilled it?
appreciate ur comment
thanks - May 21, 2010 at 6:41 PM
Hi, another question, do i chill it in the springform pan itself or do i take it out and put it into a container to chill in the fridge?
thanks - May 21, 2010 at 6:57 PM
- Kitchen Corner said...
Hi Lydia,
This cheesecake shouldn't have the taste you've mentioned. I'm not sure you have over baked or under baked the cheesecake. I chill the cheesecake together with the springform pan in the fridge once it's completely cool at the room temperature. - May 24, 2010 at 8:26 AM
hi, for the Yogurt is it 15 gr or 150gr. thanks.
- February 28, 2013 at 7:37 PM


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Michigan AI celebrates second annual symposium
The goal of the symposium is to facilitate conversations between AI practitioners from Michigan and beyond.
Over 300 Michiganders & friends from academia, industry, and the local community attended this year's AI symposium, "AI for Society." The event was held on Saturday, October 19, and welcomed its participants with research talks, posters, demos, and plenty of networking opportunities.
"Our goal with our annual Michigan AI Symposium is to facilitate conversations between researchers in AI at the University of Michigan and the broader community of AI practitioners from Michigan and beyond," says Prof. Rada Mihalcea, general chair of Michigan AI Symposium and Director Michigan AI. "We have succeeded in this goal — there was a lot of positive energy surrounding the symposium and all the amazing AI research that was presented, and also a lot of excitement for the future of AI here at Michigan."
The program featured two main sessions of faculty and invited talks, chaired by Profs. John Laird and Jenna Wiens, and a poster and demo session. A keynote talk was delivered by Prof. Doina Precup from McGill University, who also heads the Montreal office of Deepmind. The symposium concluded with a panel on AI & Ethics moderated by Prof. Ben Kuipers with Profs. Ella Atkins, HV Jagadish, and Michael Wellman on the panel.
At the end of the day, PhD student Preeti Ramaraj (who chaired the session together with PhD student Matthew Perez) presented awards to four outstanding demo and poster session presentations:
Best poster
Area: Speech and Language
"HEIDL: Learning Linguistic Expressions with Deep Learning and Human-in-the-Loop,"
Yiwei Yang (U-M, ME), Eser Kandogan (IBM Research), Yunyao Li (IBM Research), Walter S. Lasecki (U-M, CSE), Prithviraj Senn (IBM Research)
Best demo
Area: AI + X
"Pulse Wave Diagnosis"
Ovidiu Calin (EMU)
Most impactful to society
Area: AI + X
"Racial Discrimination in Policing: 5 Problems in 5 Minutes"
Emma Pierson (Stanford U.)
Most impactful to AI
Area: Core AI
"From Ontologies to Learning-Based Programs"
Quan Guo (MSU), Andrzej Uszok (IHMC), Yue Zhang (MSU), Parisa Kordjamshidi (MSU)
This event was possible thanks to the hard work of over 20 volunteers, students at Michigan AI (which you can spot dressed in the yellow AI T-shirts in the pictures), and the event coordinator, Aurelia Bunescu.
Below are titles and abstracts of the talks delivered by keynote speaker Doina Precup, Michigan AI faculty, and the invited guest speakers. These talks will soon be available to watch on the Michigan AI YouTube channel. Follow the Michigan AI Lab on Twitter and Facebook for updates. The list of posters and demos and more information about the symposium including its sponsors is available from the symposium webpage.
Keynote Address
Doina Precup
"Building Knowledge For AI Agents With Reinforcement Learning"
Abstract: Reinforcement learning allows autonomous agents to learn how to act in a stochastic, unknown environment, with which they can interact. Deep reinforcement learning, in particular, has achieved great success in well-defined application domains, such as Go or chess, in which an agent has to learn how to act and there is a clear success criterion. In this talk, I will focus on the potential role of reinforcement learning as a tool for building knowledge representations in AI agents whose goal is to perform continual learning. I will examine a key concept in reinforcement learning, the value function, and discuss its generalization to support various forms of predictive knowledge. I will also discuss the role of temporally extended actions, and their associated predictive models, in learning procedural knowledge. Finally, I will discuss the challenge of how to evaluate reinforcement learning agents whose goal is not just to control their environment, but also to build knowledge about their world.
AI Faculty Talks
Ella Atkins
"AI for Improved In-Flight Situational Awareness and Safety"
Abstract: Traditional sensor data can be augmented with new data sources such as roadmaps and geographical information system (GIS) Lidar/video to offer emerging unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and urban air mobility (UAM) a new level of situational awareness. This presentation will summarize my group's research to identify, process, and utilize GIS, map, and other real-time data sources during nominal and emergency flight planning. Specific efforts have utilized machine learning to automatically map flat rooftops as urban emergency landing sites, incorporate cell phone data into an occupancy map for risk-aware flight planning, and extend airspace geofencing into a framework capable of managing all traffic types in complex airspace and land use environments.
David Fouhey
"Recovering a Functional and Three Dimensional Understanding of Images"
Abstract: "What does it mean to understand an image? One common answer in computer vision has been that understanding means naming things: this part of the image corresponds to a refrigerator and that to a person, for instance. While important, the ability to name is not enough: humans can effortlessly reason about the rich 3D world that images depict and how this world functions and can be interacted with. For example, just looking at an image, we know what surfaces we could put a cup on, what would happen if we tugged on all the handles in the image, and what parts of the image could be picked up and moved. A computer, on the other hand, understands none of this. My research aims to address this by giving computers the ability to understand these 3D and functional (or interactive) properties. In this talk, I'll highlight some of my efforts towards building this understanding in terms of modeling the 3D world and understanding how humans interact with it"
Joyce Chai
"Robot Learning through Language Communication"
Abstract: Language communication plays an important role in human learning and knowledge acquisition. With the emergence of a new generation of cognitive robots, empowering these robots to learn directly from human partners becomes increasingly important. In this talk, I will give a brief introduction to some on-going work in my lab on communicative learning where humans can teach robots new environment and new tasks through natural language communication and action demonstration.
Justin Johnson
"From Recognition to Reasoning"
Abstract: In recent years deep learning systems have become proficient at recognition problems: for example we can build systems that can recognize objects in images with high accuracy. But recognition is only the first step toward intelligent behavior. I am interested in solving problems that move from recognition to reasoning: systems should be able not only to recognize, but also to perform higher-level tasks based on what they perceive. I will showcase three projects that aim to jointly recognize and reason using end-to-end deep learning systems: predicting 3D shapes of objects from a single image, answering complex natural-language questions about images, and learning to solve interactive physics puzzles.
Edwin Olson
"AI and robots in the real world"
Abstract: Building AI systems can be slow work– it takes time to do the development, curate data sets, train, and test them. After iterating through this process, we can end up with a system that works quite well under the specific conditions for which the system was intended. But the real world can spring surprise after surprise at our systems. These "edge cases" are often brushed aside as evidence that we just need more data (or a slightly fancier model), which then takes yet more time to develop. How can we develop AI systems whose capabilities are fundamentally more modular and extensible, and that are better able to handle the surprises of the real world?
In this talk, I'll describe our approach to building systems that must handle whatever the real-world throws at them– an approach based around real-time simulation to decide between multiple competing AI strategies. A significant advantage of our approach is that the system is modular and extensible– new capabilities can be added with a relatively modest amount of development time. I'll describe the basic approach and some applications to on-road autonomous vehicles and teams of robots that play tag.
Invited Guest Speakers
Emma Pierson
"Racial discrimination in policing: 5 problems in 5 minutes"
Abstract: Based on our work compiling and analyzing a dataset of more than 100 million police traffic stops, I discuss some of the challenges in statistically assessing discrimination in policing.
Angie Liu
Machine Learning
"Machine Learning for the Real World: Provably Robust Extrapolation"
Abstract: The unprecedented prediction accuracy of modern machine learning beckons for its application in a wide range of real-world applications, including autonomous robots, medical decision making, scientific experiment design, and many others. A key challenge in such real-world applications is that the test cases are not well represented by the pre-collected training data. To properly leverage learning in such domains, especially safety-critical ones, we must go beyond the conventional learning paradigm of maximizing average prediction accuracy with generalization guarantees that rely on strong distributional relationships between training and test examples.
In this talk, I will describe a robust learning framework that offers rigorous extrapolation guarantees under data distribution shift. This framework yields appropriately conservative yet still accurate predictions to guide real-world decision-making and is easily integrated with modern deep learning. I will showcase the practicality of this framework in an application on agile robotic control. I will conclude with a survey of other applications as well as directions for future work.
Katarina Kann
Speech & Language
"Low-Resource Languages: A Challenge for Natural Language Processing"
Abstract: Low-resource languages constitute a challenge for state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) systems for a variety of reasons. First of all, while most research in NLP is focussing on English, many low-resource languages are typologically different from English, such that systems are often not trivially applicable, even with the help of translation. Another problem is that, as deep learning is getting increasingly popular in NLP research, many recently developed computational models require huge amounts of training data.
In this talk, I will discuss an approach for tackling the data sparsity problem low-resource languages are facing: transductive auxiliary task self-training, a combination of self-training and multi-task training.
Sarah Brown
"Wiggum: Simpson's Paradox Inspired Fairness Forensics"
Abstract: Both technical limitations and social critiques of current approaches to fair machine learning motivate the need for more collaborative, human driven approaches. We aim to empower human experts to conduct more critical exploratory analyses and support informal audits.
I will present Wiggum, a data exploration package with a visual analytics interface for Simpson's paradox inspired fairness forensics. Wiggum detects and ranks multiple forms of Simpson's Paradox and related relaxations.
Guha Balakrishnan
Computer Vision
"Visual Deprojection: Probabilistic Recovery of Collapsed Image Dimensions"
Abstract: We introduce visual deprojection: the task of recovering an image or video that has been collapsed (e.g., integrated) along a dimension. Projections arise in various contexts, such as long-exposure photography, non-line-of-sight imaging, and X-rays. We first propose a probabilistic model capturing the ambiguity of this highly ill-posed task. We then present a variational inference strategy using convolutional neural networks as functional approximators. Sampling from the network at test time yields plausible candidates from the distribution of original signals that are consistent with a given input projection. We first demonstrate that the method can recover many details of human gait videos and face images from their spatial projections, a surprising finding with implications for indirect imaging, tomography and understanding natural image structure. We then show that the method can recover videos of moving digits from dramatically motion-blurred images obtained via temporal projection.
Maggie Makar
Machine Learning
"Data efficient individual treatment effect estimation"
Abstract: The potential for using machine learning algorithms as a tool for suggesting optimal interventions has fueled significant interest in developing methods for estimating individual treatment effects (ITEs) from observational data. However, in many realistic applications, the amount of data available at either training or deployment time is limited leading to unreliable estimates, and faulty decision making. My work focuses on designing causal inference methods that (a) minimize the required data collection at test time and (b) efficiently learn causal effects in finite samples.
While several methods for estimating ITEs have been recently suggested, these methods assume no constraints on the availability of data at the time of deployment or test time. This assumption is unrealistic in settings where data acquisition is a significant part of the analysis pipeline, meaning data about a test case has to be collected in order to predict the ITE. In my work, I have developed Data Efficient Individual Treatment Effect Estimation (DEITEE), a method which exploits the idea that adjusting for confounding, and hence collecting information about confounders, is not necessary at test time. DEITEE achieves significant reductions in the number of variables required at test time with little to no loss in accuracy.
In addition to data scarcity at test time, limited information at training time pose a challenge for accurate ITE estimation. In my work, I exploit the fact that in many real-world applications it may be sufficient to the decision maker to have upper and lower bounds on the potential outcomes of decision alternatives, allowing them to decide on the optimal trade-off between benefit and risk. With this in mind, I developed a machine learning approach for directly learning upper and lower bounds on the potential outcomes under treatment and non-treatment. Theoretical analysis highlights a trade-off between the complexity of the learning task and the confidence with which the resulting bounds cover the true potential outcomes; the more confident we wish to be, the more complex the learning task is. Empirical analysis shows that exploiting this trade-off allows us to get more reliable estimates in finite samples.


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Necropolitics by Achille Mbembe
Regular price
In Necropolitics Achille Mbembe, a leader in the new wave of francophone critical theory, theorizes the genealogy of the contemporary world, a world plagued by ever-increasing inequality, militarization, enmity, and terror as well as by a resurgence of racist, fascist, and nationalist forces determined to exclude and kill. He outlines how democracy has begun to embrace its dark side---what he calls its "nocturnal body"---which is based on the desires, fears, affects, relations, and violence that drove colonialism. This shift has hollowed out democracy, thereby eroding the very values, rights, and freedoms liberal democracy routinely celebrates. As a result, war has become the sacrament of our times in a conception of sovereignty that operates by annihilating all those considered enemies of the state. Despite his dire diagnosis, Mbembe draws on post-Foucauldian debates on biopolitics, war, and race as well as Fanon's notion of care as a shared vulnerability to explore how new conceptions of the human that transcend humanism might come to pass. These new conceptions would allow us to encounter the Other not as a thing to exclude but as a person with whom to build a more just world.


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Georgia Dept. of Labor addresses unemployment options
Press Release, State & National April 22, 2020Atlanta, GA – Governor Brian P. Kemp and the Georgia Department of Labor are partnering to ensure Georgians understand their unemployment options as the state begins the safe reopening of businesses. Governor Kemp announced plans Monday to safely and incrementally reopen sectors of the economy, and today, Labor Commissioner Mark Butler encouraged employers to work with employees to determine a successful return to work plan.
"Thanks to Governor Kemp and his support, we were able to issue an emergency rule that increased the earnings exemption amount from $55 to $300 allowing individuals to make $300 a week without reducing their weekly benefit amount," said Commissioner Butler. "If a business opens back up slowly and their employees are returning to work with reduced hours, employers can continue to file employer-filed partial claims on behalf of their employees."
Pursuant to the emergency rule issued on March 26, 2020, an individual can make up to $300 per week without reducing their maximum weekly benefit amount, allowing employees to work reduced hours and still qualify for state weekly benefits and the federal $600 weekly supplement.
"As we take measured steps to reopen sectors of our state's economy, it is vital that we continue to support Georgians trying to re-enter the workforce," said Governor Kemp. "Commissioner Butler and the Department of Labor are working around the clock to do just that. Their action under historic circumstances will continue to give our state's workforce viable options to put food on the table for their families as we fight COVID-19 together."
Employer-filed partial claims account for 75 percent of the state's 1.1 million claims since March 14. Employers are required to report an individual's weekly gross wages when certifying on behalf of the employee with the GDOL. These employer-filed partial claims can include full-time and part-time employees, as long as employers are accurately reporting an individual's weekly wages. An employer's account will not be charged for claims filed against it for employer-filed partial claims during this time.
"Despite claims to the contrary, returning to work does not automatically eliminate an individual's state unemployment eligibility," said Butler. "In fact, we designed this provision to encourage employers to continue to file while returning employees to work to take advantage of the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) benefits."
The rule states that earnings of $300 or less will not affect entitlement to benefits. Any amount over $300 will be deducted from a claimant's weekly benefit amount, a payment determination based on an employee's past wages. As long as a claimant is awarded at least $1 in state benefits, he or she is eligible to receive Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), the additional $600 weekly payment.
"This option was created with lower wage employees in mind," said Butler. "Allowing Georgians to supplement their income by making an additional $300 or so a week while continuing to receive state benefits, and now the federal supplement, will allow them to continue to heal from the economic wounds brought about by COVID-19."
If a decision is made by an employee to separate from his/her place of employment, the employee has the right to file an individual claim where an eligibility determination will be made based on the facts presented in the case.
"If an employee is concerned about returning to work due to exposure to COVID-19, we are encouraging employees to communicate with their employers on plans to safely return to work," explained Butler. "We are all working together on getting Georgians back to work in a safe and stable environment."
Information on filing an individual unemployment claim, details on how employers must file employer-filed partial claims, and resources for other reemployment assistance can be found on the agency's webpage at www.gdol.ga.gov.


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First of all, let's define imprecatory prayer. To imprecate means "to invoke evil upon or curse" one's enemies. King David, the psalmist most associated with imprecatory verses such as Psalm 55:15, 69:28, and 109:8, often used phrases like, "may their path be dark and slippery, with the angel of the LORD pursuing them" (Psalm 35:6) and "O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!" (Psalm 58:6).
Psalms 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 109, and 139 were written by David to ask God to bring judgment upon his enemies. (The other two imprecatory psalms, 79 and 137, were written by Asaph and an unknown psalmist.) These prayers were written not so much to exact revenge upon one's enemies, but rather to emphasize God's abhorrence of evil, His sovereignty over all mankind, and His divine protection of His chosen people. Many of these prayers were prophetic and could be seen taking place later in the New Testament in actual historical events.
When David prayed for God to shatter the teeth of his enemies, likening them to young lions pursuing him to his death, he was making the point that God is holy, righteous, and just, and He will ultimately judge the wicked for the evil they do. Jesus quoted some of the imprecatory psalms during His earthly ministry. In John 15:25, Jesus quotes Psalm 35:19 and 69:4. Paul also quoted an imprecatory prayer in Romans 11:9–10, which is a quote of Psalm 69:22–23. Since Jesus and Paul quoted verses from these imprecatory psalms, it proves those psalms were inspired by God and counters any allegation that they were sinful or selfish prayers of revenge.
Using imprecatory prayers from the Psalms today should only be done against our spiritual enemies (Ephesians 6:12). Praying imprecations on human foes is unjustifiable, as it would require taking these prayers out of context. In the New Testament, Jesus exhorts us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44–48; Luke 6:27–38), but praying for their death or for bad things to happen to them isn't what He meant. Instead, we are to pray for their salvation first and foremost, and then for God's will to be done. There's no greater blessing than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that's what Jesus means by praying for and blessing those who curse us.
Praying in that manner allows God to work in our own lives to soften our hearts toward our enemies so that we'll have compassion on them for their eternal destiny, and to remove bitterness and anger from our hearts. Praying for God's will to be done means we agree with God and are submitting ourselves to His divine sovereignty, despite not always understanding perfectly what He's doing in a particular situation. And it means we have given up the idea that we know best and instead are now relying on and trusting in God to work His will. If a personal wrong has truly been done to us, we seek God in prayer about it, and then leave room for God's judgment and trust Him to do what is best. That is the way to be at peace with God and all men (Romans 12:17-21).


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Episode 14 – PRO SKATEBOARD (semis and finals)
Episode 14 – PRO SKATEBOARD (semis and finals)
Maryhill Loops Road is often referred to as the easiest hill to ride, but the hardest to win. That means that winning the competition at Maryhill Windwalk would only be possible through flawless execution and hitting every apex perfectly. As exemplified by the butt-sniffing proximity every race heat, it would be no easy feat for any rider to overcome the competition.
The competition was stacked:
Two-time Maryhill race winner and current track record holder, Zak Maytum was ready to three-peat. His fight to defend his reign presented adversaries like the former world champion and veteran racer from Brazil, Douglas Dalua. Top speed on a downhill skateboard World Record holder, Kyle Wester would join the race, hoping to edge out the competition. Underrated greats like Brennan Bast would push through the field, determined as anyone who has crossed oceans to claim the title of King of the Hill. And lastly, hometown heroes would attempt to ascend to the top through sheer force of will like the California Condor, Max Capps.Every heat showed us the best racing that the world has to offer. Some crashed and burned, while others grasped at the glory that it is to be the Champion Windwalker and king of the hardest hill to win, IN THE WORLD.
REGISTRATION FOR Maryhill Windwalk 2018 IS AVAILABLE AT MARYHILLWINDWALK.COM/REGISTRATION
Posted by Maryhill Windwalk on Wednesday, May 16, 2018