text:
/**
 * @fileOverview 树的选中,跟列表的选中有所差异
 * @ignore
 */

var BUI = require('bui-common'),
	SimpleList = require('bui-list').SimpleList;

/**
 * @class BUI.Tree.Selection
 * 扩展树的选择
 */
var Selection = function(){

};

Selection.ATTRS = {};

BUI.augment(Selection,{
	/**
	 * 获取选中的节点,一般用于多选状态下
	 * @return {Array} 获取选中的节点
	 */
	getSelection : function(){
		var _self = this,
			field = _self.getStatusField('selected'),
			store;
		if(field){
			store = _self.get('store');
			return store.findNodesBy(function(node){
				return node[field];
			});
		}
		return SimpleList.prototype.getSelection.call(this);
	},
	/**
	 * 获取选中的一个节点,如果是多选则返回第一个
	 * @return {Object} 获取选中的一个节点
	 */
	getSelected : function(){
		var _self = this,
			field = _self.getStatusField('selected'),
			store;
		if(field){
			store = _self.get('store');
			return store.findNodeBy(function(node){
				return node[field];
			});
		}
		return SimpleList.prototype.getSelected.call(this);
	}
});

module.exports = Selection;


Gregory J. Haanstad, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, announced today, that Kham Meng Vang (age: 33) of Appleton, Wisconsin, was sentenced to 120 months in federal prison by Chief United States District Judge William C. Griesbach. Vang had previously entered a guilty plea to a single count of conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 846. According to the plea agreement and other documents filed with the court, Vang was the lead actor in a methamphetamine distribution ring stretching from the Fox Valley to Calumet County. Vang and his co-conspirators (Sa Xiong (age: 25) and Bee Vang (age: 23) who were sentenced on September 21, 2015 to 120 months and 18 months respectfully) distributed the methamphetamine while in possession of several semi-automatic firearms.
In pronouncing sentence, Chief Judge Griesbach noted the need for a significant sentence to ensure the protection of the community and deter the defendant and others from engaging in dangerous criminal activity. In addition to the prison sentence, Vang was ordered to spend an additional 10 years on supervised release.
The case was investigated by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation, the Lake Winnebago Area Metropolitan Enforcement Group, the Appleton Police Department, Fox Valley Metro Police Department, Kaukauna Police Department, Town of Menasha Police Department, Menasha Police Department, Neenah Police Department, Oshkosh Police Department, Calumet County Sheriff's Department, and the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Daniel R. Humble.


text:
Q: Square Loop Made of Cylindrical Wire with Uniform Cross Section I am trying to draw a square loop made of thick cylindrical wire with uniform cross section lying on the ground as is given in Square_Loop.png. Plotting such a loop in 3D as a rectangular frame drawn with lines which have no thickness seems quite straightforward in PSTricks and/or TikZ. However, increasing some dimensionality to the cross-section becomes far from easy. Thanks for the help in advance.

A: \documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz-3dplot}
\usetikzlibrary{3d,angles,quotes}
\begin{document}
\tdplotsetmaincoords{70}{20}
\begin{tikzpicture}[tdplot_main_coords,thick]
 \draw[-stealth] (0,0,0) -- (6,0,0) node[below]{$x$};
 \draw[-stealth] (0,0,0) -- (0,-6,0) node[below right]{$y$};
 \draw[-stealth] (0,0,0) -- (0,0,4) node[left]{$z$};
 \begin{scope}[canvas is xy plane at z=0]
  \draw[rounded corners] (0,0) rectangle (2,-4);
  \draw[rounded corners] (0.2,-0.2) rectangle (1.8,-3.8);
  \node[fill,circle,inner sep=2pt,transform shape] (blob) at (1,-2){};
 \end{scope}
 \draw[dashed] (blob.center) -- (5,-2,0) coordinate(B) -- (5,-2,4) node[circle,draw,inner
 sep=1.5pt,solid,label=right:$A$](A){};
 \draw[-stealth] (blob.center) -- (A);
 \begin{scope}[canvas is xz plane at y=-2,transform shape]
  \pic[draw,angle radius=2cm,"$\alpha$",angle eccentricity=1.3] {angle=B--blob--A};
 \end{scope}
 \draw[semithick] (0,-4,0) -- (0,-4,1.5) (2,0,0) -- (2,0,1.5);
 \begin{scope}[canvas is yz plane at x=0,transform shape]
  \path (-4,1.2) -- (0,1.2) node[midway,above,transform shape=false]{$b$};
  \pgflowlevelsynccm
  \draw[stealth-stealth] (-4,1.2) -- (0,1.2);
 \end{scope}
 \begin{scope}[canvas is xz plane at y=0,transform shape]
  \path (2,1.2) -- (0,1.2) node[midway,above,transform shape=false]{$a$};
  \pgflowlevelsynccm
  \draw[stealth-stealth] (2,1.2) -- (0,1.2);
 \end{scope}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

As for the 3d effect, I failed. This is the best I could come up with in reasonable time.
\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz-3dplot}
\usetikzlibrary{3d,angles,quotes,calc}
\begin{document}
\tdplotsetmaincoords{70}{20}
\begin{tikzpicture}[tdplot_main_coords,thick]
 \draw[-stealth] (0,0,0) -- (6,0,0) node[below]{$x$};
 \draw[-stealth] (0,0,0) -- (0,-6,0) node[below right]{$y$};
 \draw[-stealth] (0,0,0) -- (0,0,4) node[left]{$z$};
 \begin{scope}[canvas is xy plane at z=0,transform shape]
  \draw[rounded corners] (0,0) rectangle (2,-4);
  \draw[rounded corners] (0.2,-0.2) rectangle (1.8,-3.8);
  \node[fill,circle,inner sep=2pt,transform shape] (blob) at (1,-2){};
  \begin{scope}
   \clip[rounded corners] (0,0) rectangle (2,-4)
   (1.8,-3.8) -| (0.2,-0.2) -- (1.8,-0.2) -- cycle;
   \shade[top color=black!80,bottom color=black!70,middle color=gray!50,
   shading angle=-35] (0.3,0.2) rectangle (1.7,-0.3);
   \shade[top color=black!80,bottom color=black!70,middle color=gray!50,
   shading angle=-35] (0.3,-4.1) rectangle (1.7,-3.6);
   \shade[top color=black!80,bottom color=black!70,middle color=gray!50,
   shading angle=52] (-0.2,-0.3) rectangle (0.3,-3.7);
   \shade[top color=black!80,bottom color=black!70,middle color=gray!50,
   shading angle=52] (1.6,-0.3) rectangle (2.1,-3.7);
   \begin{scope}
    \clip (0,0) rectangle (0.3,-0.3);
    \shade[ball color=gray!70] (0.3,-0.3) circle[radius=0.3];
   \end{scope}
   \begin{scope}
    \clip (2,0) rectangle (1.7,-0.3);
    \shade[ball color=white] (1.7,-0.3) circle[radius=0.3];
   \end{scope}
   \begin{scope}
    \clip (0,-4) rectangle (0.3,-3.7);
    \shade[ball color=gray!30] (0.3,-3.7) circle[radius=0.3];
   \end{scope}
   \begin{scope}
    \clip (1.7,-4) rectangle (2,-3.7);
    \shade[ball color=white] (1.7,-3.7) circle[radius=0.3];
   \end{scope}
  \end{scope}
 \end{scope}
 \begin{scope}[tdplot_screen_coords]
 \end{scope}
 \draw[dashed] (blob.center) -- (5,-2,0) coordinate(B) -- (5,-2,4) node[circle,draw,inner
 sep=1.5pt,solid,label=right:$A$](A){};
 \draw[-stealth] (blob.center) -- (A);
 \begin{scope}[canvas is xz plane at y=-2,transform shape]
  \pic[draw,angle radius=2cm,"$\alpha$",angle eccentricity=1.3] {angle=B--blob--A};
 \end{scope}
 \draw[semithick] (0,-4,0) -- (0,-4,1.5) (2,0,0) -- (2,0,1.5);
 \begin{scope}[canvas is yz plane at x=0,transform shape]
  \path (-4,1.2) -- (0,1.2) node[midway,above,transform shape=false]{$b$};
  \pgflowlevelsynccm
  \draw[stealth-stealth] (-4,1.2) -- (0,1.2);
 \end{scope}
 \begin{scope}[canvas is xz plane at y=0,transform shape]
  \path (2,1.2) -- (0,1.2) node[midway,above,transform shape=false]{$a$};
  \pgflowlevelsynccm
  \draw[stealth-stealth] (2,1.2) -- (0,1.2);
 \end{scope}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
POLITICS & PROSPERITY
The road to Utopia is the road to Hell. — Communism and socialism are the opiates of the intelligentsia. — The left, in its eternal and futile quest for "equality", is more than willing to abolish liberty and sunder fraternity.
Tag Archives: theism
Atheistic Scientism Revisited
Posted on September 29, 2018 by Loquitur Veritatem
I recently had the great pleasure of reading The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, by David Berlinksi. (Many thanks to Roger Barnett for recommending the book to me.) Berlinski, who knows far more about science than I do, writes with flair and scathing logic. I can't do justice to his book, but I will try to convey its gist.
Before I do that, I must tell you that I enjoyed Berlinski's book not only because of the author's acumen and biting wit, but also because he agrees with me. (I suppose I should say, in modesty, that I agree with him.) I have argued against atheistic scientism in many blog posts (see below).
Here is my version of the argumment against atheism in its briefest form (June 15, 2011):
In the material universe, cause precedes effect.
Accordingly, the material universe cannot be self-made. It must have a "starting point," but the "starting point" cannot be in or of the material universe.
The existence of the universe therefore implies a separate, uncaused cause.
There is no reasonable basis — and certainly no empirical one — on which to prefer atheism to deism or theism. Strident atheists merely practice a "religion" of their own. They have neither logic nor science nor evidence on their side — and eons of belief against them.
As for scientism, I call upon Friedrich Hayek:
[W]e shall, wherever we are concerned … with slavish imitation of the method and language of Science, speak of "scientism" or the "scientistic" prejudice…. It should be noted that, in the sense in which we shall use these terms, they describe, of course, an attitude which is decidedly unscientific in the true sense of the word, since it involves a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed. The scientistic as distinguished from the scientific view is not an unprejudiced but a very prejudiced approach which, before it has considered its subject, claims to know what is the most appropriate way of investigating it. [The Counter Revolution Of Science]
As Berlinski amply illustrates and forcibly argues, atheistic scientism is rampant in the so-called sciences. I have reproduced below some key passages from Berlinski's book. They are representative, but far from exhaustive (though I did nearly exhaust the publisher's copy limit on the Kindle edition). I have forgone the block-quotation style for ease of reading, and have inserted triple asterisks to indicate (sometimes subtle) changes of topic.
Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion, … is not only an intellectually fulfilled atheist, he is determined that others should be as full as he. A great many scientists are satisfied that at last someone has said out loud what so many of them have said among themselves: Scientific and religious belief are in conflict. They cannot both be right. Let us get rid of the one that is wrong….
Because atheism is said to follow from various scientific doctrines, literary atheists, while they are eager to speak their minds, must often express themselves in other men's voices. Christopher Hitchens is an example. With forthcoming modesty, he has affirmed his willingness to defer to the world's "smart scientists" on any matter more exigent than finger-counting. Were smart scientists to report that a strain of yeast supported the invasion of Iraq, Hitchens would, no doubt, conceive an increased respect for yeast….
If nothing else, the attack on traditional religious thought marks the consolidation in our time of science as the single system of belief in which rational men and women might place their faith, and if not their faith, then certainly their devotion. From cosmology to biology, its narratives have become the narratives. They are, these narratives, immensely seductive, so much so that looking at them with innocent eyes requires a very deliberate act. And like any militant church, this one places a familiar demand before all others: Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
It is this that is new; it is this that is important….
For scientists persuaded that there is no God, there is no finer pleasure than recounting the history of religious brutality and persecution. Sam Harris is in this regard especially enthusiastic, The End of Faith recounting in lurid but lingering detail the methods of torture used in the Spanish Inquisition….
Nonetheless, there is this awkward fact: The twentieth century was not an age of faith, and it was awful. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot will never be counted among the religious leaders of mankind….
… Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for Zyklon B, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental ballistic missiles, military space platforms, and nuclear weapons?
If memory serves, it was not the Vatican….
What Hitler did not believe and what Stalin did not believe and what Mao did not believe and what the SS did not believe and what the Gestapo did not believe and what the NKVD did not believe and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners, Nazi doctors, Communist Party theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, gauleiters, and a thousand party hacks did not believe was that God was watching what they were doing.
And as far as we can tell, very few of those carrying out the horrors of the twentieth century worried overmuch that God was watching what they were doing either.
That is, after all, the meaning of a secular society….
Richard Weikart, … in his admirable treatise, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, makes clear what anyone capable of reading the German sources already knew: A sinister current of influence ran from Darwin's theory of evolution to Hitler's policy of extermination.
It is wrong, the nineteenth-century British mathematician W. K. Clifford affirmed, "always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." I am guessing that Clifford believed what he wrote, but what evidence he had for his belief, he did not say.
Something like Clifford's injunction functions as the premise in a popular argument for the inexistence of God. If God exists, then his existence is a scientific claim, no different in kind from the claim that there is tungsten to be found in Bermuda. We cannot have one set of standards for tungsten and another for the Deity….
There remains the obvious question: By what standards might we determine that faith in science is reasonable, but that faith in God is not? It may well be that "religious faith," as the philosopher Robert Todd Carroll has written, "is contrary to the sum of evidence," but if religious faith is found wanting, it is reasonable to ask for a restatement of the rules by which "the sum of evidence" is computed….
… The concept of sufficient evidence is infinitely elastic…. What a physicist counts as evidence is not what a mathematician generally accepts. Evidence in engineering has little to do with evidence in art, and while everyone can agree that it is wrong to go off half-baked, half-cocked, or half-right, what counts as being baked, cocked, or right is simply too variable to suggest a plausible general principle….
Neither the premises nor the conclusions of any scientific theory mention the existence of God. I have checked this carefully. The theories are by themselves unrevealing. If science is to champion atheism, the requisite demonstration must appeal to something in the sciences that is not quite a matter of what they say, what they imply, or what they reveal.
The universe in its largest aspect is the expression of curved space and time. Four fundamental forces hold sway. There are black holes and various infernal singularities. Popping out of quantum fields, the elementary particles appear as bosons or fermions. The fermions are divided into quarks and leptons. Quarks come in six varieties, but they are never seen, confined as they are within hadrons by a force that perversely grows weaker at short distances and stronger at distances that are long. There are six leptons in four varieties. Depending on just how things are counted, matter has as its fundamental constituents twenty-four elementary particles, together with a great many fields, symmetries, strange geometrical spaces, and forces that are disconnected at one level of energy and fused at another, together with at least a dozen different forms of energy, all of them active.
… It is remarkably baroque. And it is promiscuously catholic. For the atheist persuaded that materialism offers him a no-nonsense doctrinal affiliation, materialism in this sense comes to the declaration of a barroom drinker that he will have whatever he's having, no matter who he is or what he is having. What he is having is what he always takes, and that is any concept, mathematical structure, or vagrant idea needed to get on with it. If tomorrow, physicists determine that particle physics requires access to the ubiquity of the body of Christ, that doctrine would at once be declared a physical principle and treated accordingly….
What remains of the ideology of the sciences? It is the thesis that the sciences are true— who would doubt it?— and that only the sciences are true. The philosopher Michael Devitt thus argues that "there is only one way of knowing, the empirical way that is the basis of science." An argument against religious belief follows at once on the assumptions that theology is not science and belief is not knowledge. If by means of this argument it also follows that neither mathematics, the law, nor the greater part of ordinary human discourse have a claim on our epistemological allegiance, they must be accepted as casualties of war.
The claim that the existence of God should be treated as a scientific question stands on a destructive dilemma: If by science one means the great theories of mathematical physics, then the demand is unreasonable. We cannot treat any claim in this way. There is no other intellectual activity in which theory and evidence have reached this stage of development….
Is there a God who has among other things created the universe? "It is not by its conclusions," C. F. von Weizsäcker has written in The Relevance of Science, "but by its methodological starting point that modern science excludes direct creation. Our methodology would not be honest if this fact were denied . . . such is the faith in the science of our time, and which we all share" (italics added).
In science, as in so many other areas of life, faith is its own reward….
The medieval Arabic argument known as the kalam is an example of the genre [cosmological argument].
Its first premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
And its second: The universe began to exist.
And its conclusion: So the universe had a cause.
This is not by itself an argument for the existence of God. It is suggestive without being conclusive. Even so, it is an argument that in a rush covers a good deal of ground carelessly denied by atheists. It is one thing to deny that there is a God; it is quite another to deny that the universe has a cause….
The universe, orthodox cosmologists believe, came into existence as the expression of an explosion— what is now called the Big Bang. The word explosion is a sign that words have failed us, as they so often do, for it suggests a humanly comprehensible event— a gigantic explosion or a stupendous eruption. This is absurd. The Big Bang was not an event taking place at a time or in a place. Space and time were themselves created by the Big Bang, the measure along with the measured….
Whatever its name, as far as most physicists are concerned, the Big Bang is now a part of the established structure of modern physics….
… Many physicists have found the idea that the universe had a beginning alarming. "So long as the universe had a beginning," Stephen Hawking has written, "we could suppose it had a creator." God forbid!…
… Big Bang cosmology has been confirmed by additional evidence, some of it astonishing. In 1963, the physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson observed what seemed to be the living remnants of the Big Bang— and after 14 billion years!— when in 1962 they detected, by means of a hum in their equipment, a signal in the night sky they could only explain as the remnants of the microwave radiation background left over from the Big Bang itself.
More than anything else, this observation, and the inference it provoked, persuaded physicists that the structure of Big Bang cosmology was anchored into fact….
"Perhaps the best argument in favor of the thesis that the Big Bang supports theism," the astrophysicist Christopher Isham has observed, "is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas, such as continuous creation or an oscillating universe, being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his or her theory."…
… With the possibility of inexistence staring it in the face, why does the universe exist? To say that universe just is, as Stephen Hawking has said, is to reject out of hand any further questions. We know that it is. It is right there in plain sight. What philosophers such as ourselves wish to know is why it is. It may be that at the end of these inquiries we will answer our own question by saying that the universe exists for no reason whatsoever. At the end of these inquiries, and not the beginning….
Among physicists, the question of how something emerged from nothing has one decisive effect: It loosens their tongues. "One thing [that] is clear," a physicist writes, "in our framing of questions such as 'How did the Universe get started?' is that the Universe was self-creating. This is not a statement on a 'cause' behind the origin of the Universe, nor is it a statement on a lack of purpose or destiny. It is simply a statement that the Universe was emergent, that the actual Universe probably derived from an indeterminate sea of potentiality that we call the quantum vacuum, whose properties may always remain beyond our current understanding."
It cannot be said that "an indeterminate sea of potentiality" has anything like the clarifying effect needed by the discussion, and indeed, except for sheer snobbishness, physicists have offered no reason to prefer this description of the Source of Being to the one offered by Abu al-Hassan al Hashari in ninth-century Baghdad. The various Islamic versions of that indeterminate sea of being he rejected in a spasm of fierce disgust. "We confess," he wrote, "that God is firmly seated on his throne. We confess that God has two hands, without asking how. We confess that God has two eyes, without asking how. We confess that God has a face."…
Proposing to show how something might emerge from nothing, [the physicist Victor Stenger] introduces "another universe [that] existed prior to ours that tunneled through . . . to become our universe. Critics will argue that we have no way of observing such an earlier universe, and so this is not very scientific" (italics added). This is true. Critics will do just that. Before they do, they will certainly observe that Stenger has completely misunderstood the terms of the problem that he has set himself, and that far from showing how something can arise from nothing, he has shown only that something might arise from something else. This is not an observation that has ever evoked a firestorm of controversy….
… [A]ccording to the many-worlds interpretation [of quantum mechanics], at precisely the moment a measurement is made, the universe branches into two or more universes. The cat who was half dead and half alive gives rise to two separate universes, one containing a cat who is dead, the other containing a cat who is alive. The new universes cluttering up creation embody the quantum states that were previously in a state of quantum superposition.
The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is rather like the incarnation. It appeals to those who believe in it, and it rewards belief in proportion to which belief is sincere….
No less than the doctrines of religious belief, the doctrines of quantum cosmology are what they seem: biased, partial, inconclusive, and largely in the service of passionate but unexamined conviction.
The cosmological constant is a number controlling the expansion of the universe. If it were negative, the universe would appear doomed to contract in upon itself, and if positive, equally doomed to expand out from itself. Like the rest of us, the universe is apparently doomed no matter what it does. And here is the odd point: If the cosmological constant were larger than it is, the universe would have expanded too quickly, and if smaller, it would have collapsed too early, to permit the appearance of living systems….
"Scientists," the physicist Paul Davies has observed, "are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth— the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient 'coincidences' and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal."….
Why? Yes, why?
An appeal to still further physical laws is, of course, ruled out on the grounds that the fundamental laws of nature are fundamental. An appeal to logic is unavailing. The laws of nature do not seem to be logical truths. The laws of nature must be intrinsically rich enough to specify the panorama of the universe, and the universe is anything but simple. As Newton remarks, "Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things."
If the laws of nature are neither necessary nor simple, why, then, are they true?
Questions about the parameters and laws of physics form a single insistent question in thought: Why are things as they are when what they are seems anything but arbitrary?
One answer is obvious. It is the one that theologians have always offered: The universe looks like a put-up job because it is a put-up job.
Any conception of a contingent deity, Aquinas argues, is doomed to fail, and it is doomed to fail precisely because whatever He might do to explain the existence of the universe, His existence would again require an explanation. "Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary."…
… "We feel," Wittgenstein wrote, "that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched." Those who do feel this way will see, following Aquinas, that the only inference calculated to overcome the way things are is one directed toward the way things must be….
"The key difference between the radically extravagant God hypothesis," [Dawkins] writes, "and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis, is one of statistical improbability."
It is? I had no idea, the more so since Dawkins's very next sentence would seem to undercut the sentence he has just written. "The multiverse, for all that it is extravagant, is simple," because each of its constituent universes "is simple in its fundamental laws."
If this is true for each of those constituent universes, then it is true for our universe as well. And if our universe is simple in its fundamental laws, what on earth is the relevance of Dawkins's argument?
Simple things, simple explanations, simple laws, a simple God.
As a rhetorical contrivance, the God of the Gaps makes his effect contingent on a specific assumption: that whatever the gaps, they will in the course of scientific research be filled…. Western science has proceeded by filling gaps, but in filling them, it has created gaps all over again. The process is inexhaustible. Einstein created the special theory of relativity to accommodate certain anomalies in the interpretation of Clerk Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field. Special relativity led directly to general relativity. But general relativity is inconsistent with quantum mechanics, the largest visions of the physical world alien to one another. Understanding has improved, but within the physical sciences, anomalies have grown great, and what is more, anomalies have grown great because understanding has improved….
… At the very beginning of his treatise Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, Robert Carroll observes quite correctly that "most of the fossil record does not support a strictly gradualistic account" of evolution. A "strictly gradualistic" account is precisely what Darwin's theory demands: It is the heart and soul of the theory.
But by the same token, there are no laboratory demonstrations of speciation either, millions of fruit flies coming and going while never once suggesting that they were destined to appear as anything other than fruit flies. This is the conclusion suggested as well by more than six thousand years of artificial selection, the practice of barnyard and backyard alike. Nothing can induce a chicken to lay a square egg or to persuade a pig to develop wheels mounted on ball bearings….
… In a research survey published in 2001, and widely ignored thereafter, the evolutionary biologist Joel Kingsolver reported that in sample sizes of more than one thousand individuals, there was virtually no correlation between specific biological traits and either reproductive success or survival. "Important issues about selection," he remarked with some understatement, "remain unresolved."
Of those important issues, I would mention prominently the question whether natural selection exists at all.
Computer simulations of Darwinian evolution fail when they are honest and succeed only when they are not. Thomas Ray has for years been conducting computer experiments in an artificial environment that he has designated Tierra. Within this world, a shifting population of computer organisms meet, mate, mutate, and reproduce.
Sandra Blakeslee, writing for the New York Times, reported the results under the headline "Computer 'Life Form' Mutates in an Evolution Experiment: Natural Selection Is Found at Work in a Digital World."
Natural selection found at work? I suppose so, for as Blakeslee observes with solemn incomprehension, "the creatures mutated but showed only modest increases in complexity." Which is to say, they showed nothing of interest at all. This is natural selection at work, but it is hardly work that has worked to intended effect.
What these computer experiments do reveal is a principle far more penetrating than any that Darwin ever offered: There is a sucker born every minute….
… Daniel Dennett, like Mexican food, does not fail to come up long after he has gone down. "Contemporary biology," he writes, "has demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that natural selection— the process in which reproducing entities must compete for finite resources and thereby engage in a tournament of blind trial and error from which improvements automatically emerge— has the power to generate breathtakingly ingenious designs" (italics added).
These remarks are typical in their self-enchanted self-confidence. Nothing in the physical sciences, it goes without saying— right?— has been demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt. The phrase belongs to a court of law. The thesis that improvements in life appear automatically represents nothing more than Dennett's conviction that living systems are like elevators: If their buttons are pushed, they go up. Or down, as the case may be. Although Darwin's theory is very often compared favorably to the great theories of mathematical physics on the grounds that evolution is as well established as gravity, very few physicists have been heard observing that gravity is as well established as evolution. They know better and they are not stupid….
… The greater part of the debate over Darwin's theory is not in service to the facts. Nor to the theory. The facts are what they have always been: They are unforthcoming. And the theory is what it always was: It is unpersuasive. Among evolutionary biologists, these matters are well known. In the privacy of the Susan B. Anthony faculty lounge, they often tell one another with relief that it is a very good thing the public has no idea what the research literature really suggests.
"Darwin?" a Nobel laureate in biology once remarked to me over his bifocals. "That's just the party line."
In the summer of 2007, Eugene Koonin, of the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institutes of Health, published a paper entitled "The Biological Big Bang Model for the Major Transitions in Evolution."
The paper is refreshing in its candor; it is alarming in its consequences. "Major transitions in biological evolution," Koonin writes, "show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity" (italics added). Major transitions in biological evolution? These are precisely the transitions that Darwin's theory was intended to explain. If those "major transitions" represent a "sudden emergence of new forms," the obvious conclusion to draw is not that nature is perverse but that Darwin was wrong….
Koonin is hardly finished. He has just started to warm up. "In each of these pivotal nexuses in life's history," he goes on to say, "the principal 'types' seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate 'grades' or intermediate forms between different types are detectable."…
… [H[is views are simply part of a much more serious pattern of intellectual discontent with Darwinian doctrine. Writing in the 1960s and 1970s, the Japanese mathematical biologist Motoo Kimura argued that on the genetic level— the place where mutations take place— most changes are selectively neutral. They do nothing to help an organism survive; they may even be deleterious…. Kimura was perfectly aware that he was advancing a powerful argument against Darwin's theory of natural selection. "The neutral theory asserts," he wrote in the introduction to his masterpiece, The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution, "that the great majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level, as revealed by comparative studies of protein and DNA sequences, are caused not by Darwinian selection but by random drift of selectively neutral or nearly neutral mutations" (italics added)….
… Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the evolutionary biologist Michael Lynch observed that "Dawkins's agenda has been to spread the word on the awesome power of natural selection." The view that results, Lynch remarks, is incomplete and therefore "profoundly misleading." Lest there be any question about Lynch's critique, he makes the point explicitly: "What is in question is whether natural selection is a necessary or sufficient force to explain the emergence of the genomic and cellular features central to the building of complex organisms."…
When asked what he was in awe of, Christopher Hitchens responded that his definition of an educated person is that you have some idea how ignorant you are. This seems very much as if Hitchens were in awe of his own ignorance, in which case he has surely found an object worthy of his veneration.
Do read the whole thing. It will take you only a few hours. And it will remind you — as we badly need reminding these days — that sanity reigns in some corners of the universe.
Same Old Story, Same Old Song and Dance
Atheism, Religion, and Science
The Limits of Science
Beware of Irrational Atheism
The Thing about Science
Evolution and Religion
Words of Caution for Scientific Dogmatists
The Legality of Teaching Intelligent Design
Science, Logic, and God
Debunking "Scientific Objectivity"
Science's Anti-Scientific Bent
The Big Bang and Atheism
Atheism, Religion, and Science Redux
Religion as Beneficial Evolutionary Adaptation
A Non-Believer Defends Religion
The Greatest Mystery
Landsburg Is Half-Right
Evolution, Human Nature, and "Natural Rights"
More Thoughts about Evolutionary Teleology
A Digression about Probability and Existence
Existence and Creation
Probability, Existence, and Creation
The Atheism of the Gaps
Demystifying Science
Religion on the Left
Scientism, Evolution, and the Meaning of Life
Something from Nothing?
Something or Nothing
My Metaphysical Cosmology
Further Thoughts about Metaphysical Cosmology
Pinker Commits Scientism
Spooky Numbers, Evolution, and Intelligent Design
The Limits of Science (II)
The Pretence of Knowledge
"The Science Is Settled"
The Limits of Science, Illustrated by Scientists
Some Thoughts about Evolution
Rationalism, Empiricism, and Scientific Knowledge
Fine-Tuning in a Wacky Wrapper
Beating Religion with the Wrong End of the Stick
Quantum Mechanics and Free Will
"Science" vs. Science: The Case of Evolution, Race, and Intelligence
The Fragility of Knowledge
Altruism, One More Time
Religion, Creation, and Morality
Evolution, Intelligence, and Race
Posted in Philosophy - Religion - Science - Pseudoscience, Science and Understanding	/ Tagged atheism, Christopher Hitchens, creation, Creator, deism, God, Richard Dawkins, scientism, Steven Pinker, theism
Posted on May 17, 2012 by Loquitur Veritatem
I do not know if Lawrence Krauss typifies scientists in his logical obtuseness, but he certainly exemplifies the breed of so-called scientists who proclaim atheism as a scientific necessity. According to a review by David Albert of Krauss's recent book, A Universe from Nothing,
the laws of quantum mechanics have in them the makings of a thoroughly scientific and adamantly secular explanation of why there is something rather than nothing.
Albert's review, which I have quoted extensively elsewhere, comports with Edward Feser's analysis:
The bulk of the book is devoted to exploring how the energy present in otherwise empty space, together with the laws of physics, might have given rise to the universe as it exists today. This is at first treated as if it were highly relevant to the question of how the universe might have come from nothing—until Krauss acknowledges toward the end of the book that energy, space, and the laws of physics don't really count as "nothing" after all. Then it is proposed that the laws of physics alone might do the trick—though these too, as he implicitly allows, don't really count as "nothing" either.
Bill Vallicella puts it this way:
[N]o one can have any objection to a replacement of the old Leibniz question — Why is there something rather than nothing? … — with a physically tractable question, a question of interest to cosmologists and one amenable to a physics solution. Unfortunately, in the paragraph above, Krauss provides two different replacement questions while stating, absurdly, that the second is a more succinct version of the first:
K1. How can a physical universe arise from an initial condition in which there are no particles, no space and perhaps no time?
K2. Why is there 'stuff' instead of empty space?
These are obviously distinct questions. To answer the first one would have to provide an account of how the universe originated from nothing physical: no particles, no space, and "perhaps" no time. The second question would be easier to answer because it presupposes the existence of space and does not demand that empty space be itself explained.
Clearly, the questions are distinct. But Krauss conflates them. Indeed, he waffles between them, reverting to something like the first question after raising the second. To ask why there is something physical as opposed to nothing physical is quite different from asking why there is physical "stuff" as opposed to empty space.
Several years ago, I explained the futility of attempting to decide the fundamental question of creation and its cause on scientific grounds:
Consider these three categories of knowledge (which long pre-date their use by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld): known knowns, know unknowns, and unknown unknowns. Here's how that trichotomy might be applied to a specific aspect of scientific knowledge, namely, Earth's rotation about the Sun:
1. Known knowns — Earth rotates about the Sun, in accordance with Einstein's theory of general relativity.
2. Known unknowns — Earth, Sun, and the space between them comprise myriad quantum phenomena (e.g., matter and its interactions of matter in, on, and above the Earth and Sun; the transmission of light from Sun to Earth). We don't know whether and how quantum phenomena influence Earth's rotation about the Sun; that is, whether Einsteinian gravity is a partial explanation of a more complete theory of gravity that has been dubbed quantum gravity.
3. Unknown unknowns — Other things might influence Earth's rotation about the Sun, but we don't know what those other things are, if there are any.
For the sake of argument, suppose that scientists were as certain about the origin of the universe in the Big Bang as they are about the fact of Earth's rotation about the Sun. Then, I would write:
1. Known knowns — The universe was created in the Big Bang, and the universe — in the large — has since been "unfolding" in accordance with Einsteinian relativity.
2. Known unknowns — The Big Bang can be thought of as a meta-quantum event, but we don't know if that event was a manifestation of quantum gravity. (Nor do we know how quantum gravity might be implicated in the subsequent unfolding of the universe.)
3. Unknown unknowns — Other things might have caused the Big Bang, but we don't know if there were such things or what those other things were — or are.
Thus — to a scientist qua scientist — God and Creation are unknown unknowns because, as unfalsifiable hypotheses, they lie outside the scope of scientific inquiry. Any scientist who pronounces, one way or the other, on the existence of God and the reality of Creation has — for the moment, at least — ceased to be scientist.
Which is not to say that the question of creation is immune to logical analysis; thus:
To say that the world as we know it is the product of chance — and that it may exist only because it is one of vastly many different (but unobservable) worlds resulting from chance — is merely to state a theoretical possibility. Further, it is a possibility that is beyond empirical proof or disproof; it is on a par with science fiction, not with science.
If the world as we know it — our universe — is not the product of chance, what is it? A reasonable answer is found in another post of mine, "Existence and Creation." Here is the succinct version:
Another blogger once said this about the final sentence of that quotation, which I lifted from another post of mine:
I would have to disagree with the last sentence. The problem is epistemology — how do we know what we know? Atheists, especially 'scientistic' atheists, take the position that the modern scientific methodology of observation, measurement, and extrapolation from observation and measurement, is sufficient to detect anything that Really Exists — and that the burden of proof is on those who propose that something Really Exists that cannot be reliably observed and measured; which is of course impossible within that mental framework. They have plenty of logic and science on their side, and their 'evidence' is the commonly-accepted maxim that it is impossible to prove a negative.
I agree that the problem of drawing conclusions about creation from science (as opposed to logic) is epistemological. The truth and nature of creation is an "unknown unknown" or, more accurately, an "unknowable unknown." With regard to such questions, scientists do not have logic and science on their side when they asset that the existence of the universe is possible without a creator, as a matter of science (as Krauss does, for example). Moreover, it is scientists who are trying to prove a negative: that there is neither a creator nor the logical necessity of one.
"Something from nothing" is possible, but only if there is a creator who is not part of the "something" that is the proper subject of scientific exploration and explanation.
Three Perspectives on Life: A Parable
The Creation Model
Science, Evolution, Religion, and Liberty
Capitalism, Liberty, and Christianity
Is "Nothing" Possible?
Science, Axioms, and Economics
The Universe . . . Four Possibilities
Einstein, Science, and God
Pascal's Wager, Morality, and the State
Evolution as God?
The Improbability of Us
More about Probability and Existence
Posted in Science and Understanding	/ Tagged A Universe from Nothing, atheism, creation, deism, existence, God, Lawrence Krauss, probability, science, scientism, theism
Posted on August 23, 2011 by Loquitur Veritatem
Greg Perkins, writing at Noodlefood in 2008 ("Why the New Atheists Can't Even Beat D'Souza: The Gap in Religious Thought"), criticizes Dinesh D'souza's article, "Taking Aim at God, and Missing," wherein D'souza essays a defense of the "God hypothesis." There is much to criticize about D'souza's argument, but Perkins — an Objectivist and therefore, I assume, an atheist — should have looked in a mirror before writing this:
…Dinesh D'souza continues his counters to "New Atheists" such as Christopher Hitchens. This time we find him saying that "Thanks to the astounding discoveries of modern science, I think the God hypothesis has a lot more going for it today than it did in the eighteenth century."…
[H]istory is littered with examples of something "supernatural" being arbitrarily asserted as the explanation, only to be retracted later as our knowledge expanded….
In other words, science will explain all and nothing will be left to God. That is the import of Perkin's post, at any rate. He does precisely what he accuses D'souza of doing; that is, "not knowing the answer to a puzzle" (the basis of existence) entitles Perkins "to go and make one up." The gaps in scientific knowledge do not prove the existence of God, but they surely are not proof against God. To assert that there is no God because X, Y, and Z are known about the universe says nothing about the creation of the universe or the source of the "laws" that seem to govern much of its behavior.
If theists of D'souza's stripe are guilty of assuming the answer they seek, atheists of Perkins's stripe are equally guilty of the same thing. Both want to generalize from evidence whose limitations cannot be guessed at. "Unknown unknowns" dominate the mystery of existence.
This is my position:
Posted in Science and Understanding	/ Tagged atheism, deism, existence, God, theism
Loquitur Veritatem
My pen name, Loquitur Veritatem, means truth-teller.
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Constitution for the 21st Century
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Einstein's Errors
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The British Roots of the Founding, and of Liberty in America
Trump Coverage: A Chronology
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Check It Out July 9, 2019
Not with a Bang March 10, 2019
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The Good News and Real News about Inflation and Earnings March 2, 2019
Recent Updates February 27, 2019
Saving Trees February 25, 2019
The Green New Deal Is a Plan for Economic Devastation February 17, 2019
How Roe v. Wade Could Die February 16, 2019
More MADness: Mistaking Bureaucratic Inertia for Strategy February 14, 2019
Trump in the Polls: An Update February 11, 2019
The Fickle Electorate February 9, 2019
Rules of Writing to Disregard? February 7, 2019
Democrat Values February 1, 2019
The Shutdown Was a Plus for the Economy January 28, 2019
The Constitution vs. Reality January 27, 2019
Immigration and Crime, Updated January 25, 2019
Wall Wondering January 24, 2019
It's Them or Us January 22, 2019
Ben Shapiro's Fallacy January 17, 2019
Judging the Justices: The Thomas Standard January 15, 2019
Intelligence, Personality, Politics, and Happiness
Race and Reason: The Victims of Affirmative Action
Invoking Hitler
The Fallacy of Human Progress
Free Will, Crime, and Punishment
Trump in the Polls: An Update
What Free-Rider Problem?
Is "Trump Fatigue" Setting In?
The Meaning of Liberty
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Comments & Correspondence
Now that this blog is in hiatus, I have closed comments on all posts. If you wish to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google's e-mail service — all run together.
On Liberty and Libertarianism
What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.
John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.
Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.
Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity. The governments in and of the United States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but most Americans are captives in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.
Who can restore liberty? Certainly not the self-proclaimed libertarians who are fixated on Mill's empty harm principle and align with the left on social norms. Traditional (i.e., Burkean) conservatism fosters the preservation and adherence of beneficial norms (e.g., the last six of the Ten Commandments). Thus, by necessity, the only true libertarianism is found in traditional conservatism. I am a traditional conservative, which makes me a libertarian -- a true one.
Notes about Usage
"State" (with a capital "S") refers to one of the United States, and "States" refers to two or more of them. "State" and "States," thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d'être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word "state" for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.
Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a "marriage" (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).
The words "liberal", "progressive", and their variants are usually enclosed in quotation marks (sneer quotes) because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress. I sometimes italicize the words, just to reduce visual clutter.
I have reverted to the British style of punctuating in-line quotations, which I followed 40 years ago when I published a weekly newspaper. The British style is to enclose within quotation marks only (a) the punctuation that appears in quoted text or (b) the title of a work (e.g., a blog post) that is usually placed within quotation marks.
I have reverted because of the confusion and unsightliness caused by the American style. It calls for the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks, even if the periods and commas don't occur in the quoted material or title. Also, if there is a question mark at the end of quoted material, it replaces the comma or period that might otherwise be placed there.
If I had continued to follow American style, I would have ended a sentence in a recent post with this:
… "A New (Cold) Civil War or Secession?" "The Culture War," "Polarization and De-facto Partition," and "Civil War?"
What a hodge-podge. There's no comma between the first two entries, and the sentence ends with an inappropriate question mark. With two titles ending in question marks, there was no way for me to avoid a series in which a comma is lacking. I could have avoided the sentence-ending question mark by recasting the list, but the items are listed chronologically, which is how they should be read.
I solved these problems easily by reverting to the British style:
… "A New (Cold) Civil War or Secession?", "The Culture War", "Polarization and De-facto Partition", and "Civil War?".
This not only eliminates the hodge-podge, but is also more logical and accurate. All items are separated by commas, commas aren't displaced by question marks, and the declarative sentence ends with a period instead of a question mark.
For much more see "Writing: A Guide".

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


CORPUS CHRISTI, TX – Removing reminders of Hurricane Harvey is keeping crews hard at work. Three quarters of the City's estimated 275,000 cubic yards of storm debris have already been collected. The City's four Solid Waste Services teams and 13 contractor crews will continue to work together to complete the final sweep.
In approximately two weeks, the first sweep of Corpus Christi's storm debris cleanup will conclude and the final sweep will begin. Crews will return to the same areas to collect construction debris and any leftover brush.
The City's contract for debris removal does not include businesses and commercial properties. These establishments will need to hire a contractor to dispose of their debris. They can also take it to the J.C. Elliott Transfer Station located at Highway 286 and Ayers Street.
For more information, contact Celina Ybarbo Pulcher, Program Outreach Coordinator at (361) 826-1655 or by email at Celina@cctexas.com.


text:
Risa no Yousei Densetsu
Risa no Yousei Densetsu: Risa Tachibana (リサの妖精伝説) - Famicom Disk System (1988)
FDS Cover
Guide Cover
This FDS adventure game, translated as "Risa's Fairy Legend", stars idol Risa Tachibana, who was a famous pop singer and actress in the late 80s. You play as yourself, a huge fan of Ms. Tachibana's, attending one of her concerts. All of a sudden, the two of you are transported to a fantasy dimension. You now must explore the world so you can find the Harp of Peace, the Sword of Justice, and Gem of Love, all in order to defeat the evil Witch of Darkness, Delira and return home. Along the way, you'll run into situations and meet characters from assorted fairy tales and myths, like the Matchstick Girl, The Honest Woodsman, Hansel and Gretel, Tarou Urashima, Medusa, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and others. The game also shares the name of a song released a few months prior. Oddly, this uses a blue disk card, but doesn't use the fax system.
As far as Famicom adventure games go, this one's not too bad. The premise is ridiculous, and the reverence with which it treats its heroine – there's even a heart by her name – is simultaneously embarrassing and endearing. Still, per usual Konami standards, the art is attractive and the soundtrack is great. It even uses the same screen-warping transition effect as the NES MacVenture games, like Deja Vu and Shadowgate.
Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School Shadow of Memories Time Twist Meikyuu Jiin Dababa Almana no Kiseki Falsion Esper Dream Gaball Screen Cleopatra no Mahou Suishou no Dragon
Tag: Adventure: Japanese, Famicom Disk System, Konami, Music: Pop Star
Mickey Mania


text:
@interface OptionsViewController : UIViewController

@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


News broke earlier this week that the Indian Wells Masters 1000 tournament and its billionaire owner Larry Ellison proposed to raise the event's prize money level by $800K (or $1.6M for both draws) with money targeted toward the opening rounds.
The WTA appears to be on board with the increase for the moment – they vote next month – but the men's tour denied it leaving tournament CEO Raymond Moore scratching his head, as reported by the Desert Sun.
To Moore's surprise, the men's ATP Tour did not approve the increase in a vote Tuesday.
Moore said the ATP board voted 3-3, with CEO Brad Drewett abstaining from the vote. Since hearing the news, Moore said he sent an email to Drewett to see if the tour would set conditions for approval, but had not heard back.
With the ATP players in a money fight with the Slams, why wouldn't they want the same from their own events, especially with the increase going to the early rounds? Roger Federer, head of the ATP's player council, says he'll dig into the matter to find out why.
"As long as I'm the president of the Player Council, I won't discuss with you guys in the media," Federer reminded the press yesterday. "What I can tell you is I will investigate and make sure that the decision they've taken is, indeed, the right one. If it's not, then obviously we need to talk about it, what we can do in the future.
The outspoken Sergiy Stakhovsky also weighed in on the decision, calling it "absurd".
"Hard to understand the ATP decision on Indian Wells …don't allow tournament to increase their prize money is absurd..," he tweeted.
The Ukrainian did point out that tournaments are required to follow a specific prize money distribution formula, though Indian Wells already veered slightly from those rules this past year. "In the ATP Rulebook there is a %key for PM distribution for every TIER of Tournaments..," he wrote in a tweet.
I don't know why you would turn down money from Mr Larry Ellison?? Larry is a multi billionare who loves Tennis and came into IW with cash to help the game. Hope they get it together with the distribution of $ and don't discourage a guy like Larry…moronic!!
Jon Wertheim did a piece on this. It seems that IMG, which controls the Miami Masters, shot it down.
Thanks theDA for that link.
The mock interview between Larry/Giles was hilarious and spot on.
Ellison: Yeah, sure. Love those guys. Heck, Nadal even stayed at one of my homes last year, remember? Nice kid, but left water bottles under all the chairs.
Leaving water bottles under the chair is standard practice in the Humble Family. No harm intended.
This is very strange. I think that they have to start to help low ranked players as they really have problems to cope with the financial burden of play tennis, travel and so on.
I think that all the tennis community is stressing more and more this concept especially comparing tennis with golf.
Rob – I've always wondered how the lower ranked players coped, on the Challenger tour etc. The travel, the sleeping arrangements. Material for a good film there, I'm thinking….
Grendel, you mean you've never seen Players? Or more recently – Tennis, Anyone?? – that's all there is to know!


text:
The SmarK Rant for WWF Royal Rumble 98 – 01.18.98
January 20, 2020 January 20, 2020 by Scott Keith
Live from San Jose, CA, drawing an 18,000 sellout and a pretty "meh" 350,000 buys, although that was certainly trending upwards from the year before.
Your hosts are Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler, along with special guest MIKE TYSON in the skyboxes, taking a break from solving mysteries with his adopted daughter and pidgeon friend.
The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust v. The Man They Call Vader
We're only three months removed from where I'm currently reviewing in September of 97, and Goldust is now a drastically different character, veering into dressing like some hit "random" on the CAW feature of a WWE video game. In this case, green and purple striped tights and blue hair. The whole thing was a huge disaster, both character-wise and workrate-wise, and they had to pull the plug and walk it back to the original character after a few months of this nonsense. Goldust attacks but gets dumped to the floor by Vader and run into the stairs. Back in, Vader slugs away on him, but Luna trips him up and Goldust clotheslines him a couple of times to take over. Luna gets some shots in on the floor and Goldust slugs away in the corner, but Vader comes back with a clothesline after Goldust gets his gold thong too close to Vader's face. Vader with a splash for two off that. "Vader is THICK!" declares JR. Not like, the "Gina Carano in the Mandalorian" type of thick, I hope. That would just be weird. I don't even think that was a thing in 1998 anyway. Vader comes back at half-speed and blocks a sunset flip with a butt splash, and then goes up with Luna on his back and hits the Vader bomb to finish at 7:50. Match was really slow, but mostly OK and inoffensive, and the finish was good. Goldust was just so off-putting in his deliberately trolling role, though. *1/2 The year ended up pretty rotten for Vader, though.
Meanwhile, Steve Austin shows up in his truck and orders Michael Cole to park it. AND IT BETTER NOT BE SCRATCHED.
Battallion, Tarantula & El Torito v. Max Mini, Nova & Mosaic
Sunny is the guest referee here as they continue just throwing her on TV for the hell of it. I wonder if Battallion also lied about serving in the mini-Marines like Sgt. Slaughter? There seems to be some kind of music overdubbing happening over top of the technico entrance, although I have no idea why. Nova gets a couple of headscissors on Tarantula and dropkicks him to the floor, and it's over to Max and Battallion. Max takes him to the floor with an armdrag and we get Torito and Mosaic. Torito overpowers him and Tarantula gets a hooking clothesline as the crowd is already turning on the match. Nova throws Torito around with armdrags and then Mosaic gets a bunch of armdrags on Battallion. Max Mini gets a bunch of armdrags on Tarantula as this is just going nowhere. We get the comedy spot as Sunny sort-of leapfrogs Max Mini and then helps him fight off the heels, while JR makes a joke about she "likes short guys". Poor Candido. They do some highspots on the floor and then Max gets a rollup on Torito for the pin at 7:47. Dave really liked it in the Observer, but the crowd was dead and I couldn't get into it at all. Also, they overdub crowd noise at the end on this version, so I'm wondering if this was a home video release on the Network. *
Meanwhile, the Nation goes looking for Steve Austin, but they just find a foam finger in his dressing room.
Meanwhile, Vince and Shane hang out with Mike Tyson in his skybox.
Meanwhile, on RAW, Mark Henry turns on Ken Shamrock (despite wearing a "Rocky Sucks" t-shirt!) and joins the Nation of Domination.
The Rock offers his opinions on the Bill Clinton – Paula Jones scandal ongoing at that point: "When you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. Don't be silly, cover your willy, Willie!" Man, for the days when the President being a man-whore was the biggest impeachable controversy. When is the Rock going to quit teasing us and run for the Oval Office?
Intercontinental title: The Rock v. Ken Shamrock
Rock is still using the original classic belt at this point, shortly before switching to the oval belt that I hated. Rock was just a heat magnet at this point and was clearly becoming the breakout star of the promotion. They fight for the lockup and Rock tries for the cheapshot, but Shamrock beats him to it and puts him down with a high kick. Rock goes flying to the floor and stalls for a while as the announcers keep hammering how Shamrock goes TO THE ZONE and it doesn't often pay off for him. FORESHADOWING! Shamrock tries a rana and Rock drops him on the top rope to break it up and then slugs away to take over. Shamrock with a crossbody for two and a fisherman's suplex for two. Shamrock slugs away, but Rock does a slick reversal into the hurricane DDT for two, which actually draws a big reaction from the crowd. Rock with his early favorite move, the chinlock. Once he got that out of his system and learned other ways to fill time in the match, he went to new levels in the ring. Rock tries another DDT, but Shamrock reverses as JR reminds us again that we're not watching "the senior's tour", which is always hilarious considering the eventual direction of the company, where it's now literally a senior's tour for the benefit of Saudi princes. Shamrock comes back with a rana and the Nation runs in, allowing Rock to use brass knuckles on Shamrock for two. He wisely shoves them into Shamrock's tights to hide the evidence, but Shamrock comes back with a belly to belly for the pin and the title at 10:56. However, Rock immediately cries foul, and the ref checks Shamrock's and finds the weapon. Shamrock tries the "IT'S NOT MINE!" defense that never works on Live PD either, and Rock retains by DQ instead. Yup, Dusty Finish, baby. Why would Shamrock voluntarily reach into his tights and hand over the knuckles? What a moron. Match was OK, they worked hard but both guys are still green and limited at this point. **1/2
Meanwhile, the Boriquas are the next ones looking for Steve Austin, but they find one of the Harrisssseessssesss instead and that triggers a brawl with DOA.
WWF tag team titles: The New Age Outlaws v. LOD
Man, they just milked this boring feud forever in 1997-98. This was pre-DX for the Outlaws, but the act was basically the same. This also comes just after JR was talking about how the promotion wasn't "the seniors tour" and was "young athletes in the prime of their career". Clearly the LOD was done as a top team at this point and badly in need of ANYTHING to freshen them up. This wasn't it. The money was obviously in the Outlaws but it took a few more months for everyone in charge to buy into it. Speaking of which, this is actually quite timely, because the Outlaws are wearing Green Bay jerseys in order to troll the 49ers fans in the audience! LOD clears the ring to start while the announcers stress that Animal has a bad back. Hawk no-sells everything and gets a neckbreaker on Road Dogg, then beats Billy down on the mat. Animal comes in with a back suplex on Gunn and follows with powerslams on both Outlaws, but a cheapshot turns the tide and JR again stresses how Animal is having back spasms. The Outlaws double-team Hawk for a bit and of course he won't sell anything, while Animal sells on the floor forever. Roadie handcuffs Hawk to the post and the Outlaws double-team Animal back in the ring. But Animal makes his own comeback and gets a shoulderblock on Gunn for two. Powerslam gets two, but Road Dogg saves with a chair for the DQ at 8:00. Jesus, they had Animal, who is supposedly crippled with a bad back, 2-on-1 with Hawk HANDCUFFED TO THE DAMN POST, and the LOD not only can't do a job and in fact actually win the match? And then Hawk breaks the cuffs and makes his own save with the chair to get their heat back, whatever heat they had left at this point. Just awful and completely counterproductive. -*
Royal Rumble:
Star power was lacking at this point, so everyone on the show works twice. Some more than others. Obviously everyone in the world knew who the winner was going to be and there wasn't going to be any swerves.
Cactus Jack is #1 and Chainsaw Charlie is #2. So we get a chair v. chainsaw battle to start, which goes to the chair, and they have a chair duel while Funk pulls off his "mask" and tries to remind Jack that they're friends. So Jack hands over his chair and offers up a free shot, and Funk obliges. Tom Brandi is #3 at 1:45 and he gets double-teamed by the maniacs and thrown out at 2:05. No wonder Mero called him a jobber. Jack and Funk go back to slugging it out, and Jack suplexes him onto a pair of chairs. The Rock is #4 at 3:40 and he decides to go after both guys as JR talks about the "grueling" 7 minute match that Rock had earlier in the night. Jack and Funk drop a garbage can over Rock's head and work him over for the comedy spot, but Rocky falls out through the ropes and so he's still safe. Mosh is #5 at 5:30 and he goes after Funk while Rock and Jack slug it out in the corner. Funk misses a moonsault on Mosh and PIG is #6 at 7:20. Just a bunch of bodies in there now. 8 Ball is #7 at 9:10 as we're piling up the geek midcarders already. Jack charges Funk and gets tossed at 9:30, thus ending his night. OR DOES IT? Rock tries to throw Funk out, but he ties himself up in the ropes and hangs on. Bradshaw is #8 at 10:50 for another tag team midcard filler and the crowd does not care about any of them. Just think, we have the OTHER half of all these lame tag teams to look forward to later! Meanwhile now they're got so much talent stockpiled that they're giving away surprises on Smackdown two weeks before the Rumble because they can't fit them in. Owen Hart is #9 at 12:40 to a big babyface pop, but Jeff Jarrett and Jim Cornette attack him at the entrance and take him out to end that excitement. Back in the ring, more nothing. Time for a paragraph break, I guess.
Steve Blackman is #10 at 14:30 and he's also unable to get the Funk out. Punch punch punch, kick kick kick. Bradshaw with a lariat on Funk as the Texan-on-Texan violence continues, and D-Lo Brown is #11 at 16:10. Nothing going on there. Moving on, Kurrgan is #12 at 18:00. He no-sells everyone and tosses Mosh at 18:52. Marc Mero is #13 at 19:40 and Sable of course is the big star there. Kurrgan throws out Blackman at 20:25 and then it's back to everyone slugging away again. Ken Shamrock is #14 at 21:30 as these intervals are all over the place. Everyone gangs up and puts Kurrgan out at 21:57 in the Andre spot. Rock gets the People's Elbow in on Funk, but no one cares yet. Thrasher is #15 at 23:20 as we're halfway through with a lot of tag teams yet to come. D-Lo and Rock turn on each other because of the whole "no honor among thieves" deal, but mostly it's just people punching on the ropes. Mankind is #16 at 25:00 as the "Three Faces of Foley" gag continues tonight, about the only memorable thing about this Rumble, and he tosses out Funk at 25:30 to pay that off. Shamrock finally goes after Rock as TAFKA Goldust is #17 at 27:00. With a new outfit! At this point the match is so boring that I have to take a break and go do some laundry and dishes for something else to do. But really, no wonder it was so dull and obvious who had to win. What other option did they have? Owen Hart? Shamrock? Regardless, the only way they have to actually build any kind of suspense is running a show-long angle where someone might have injured Austin and thus he might not be 100%. That's all they got.
Back to the match as Goldust manages to wrestle Mankind to the floor at 28:00. NWA North American champion Jeff Jarrett is #18 at 28:40. Like anyone would ever care about the NWA again. Owen Hart runs in at that point and attacks Jarrett, apparently back in the match after getting attacked earlier. Jarrett throws him out, but Owen skins the cat and throws out Jarrett at 30:15 to a huge pop. The Honky Tonk Man is #19 at 30:30 while Rock throws out Shamrock after a nutshot at 30:40. HHH heads down to the ring and pulls out Owen after a shot with a crutch at 31:20 to move Owen from the JJ feud to that feud instead. That one didn't go very well for Owen either. Ahmed Johnson is #20 at 32:30, apparently not injured this week. He gets some shine, but the train had left the station on Ahmed's career long ago. Mark Henry is #21 at 34:00 and Lawler jokes that he should just lift up the ring and dump everyone out. I'm still waiting for them to do that spot with Braun Strowman. The Nation double-teams Ahmed and Henry throws powder in his face, hopefully not traded for Sunny's services. Someone Unknown is #22 at 36:05, but no one comes out so who the fuck knows, as Ahmed gets thrown out by Henry. He looked UNGODLY terrible in there so good riddance. Phineas is also tossed at the same time. The roster is so thin that they're actually skipping guys. I guess later on it turned out to be Skull, who was the guy mistakenly attacked by the Nation earlier in the show.
Kama is #23 at 37:40 as the Nation is piling up in the ring and it's just a bunch of fellas. We get a showdown between Rock and Honky Tonk, which could have been a fun one-off match at the time but it's just some choking in the corner here. Steve Austin is #24 at 39:20 to finally get something going, and everyone stops, but Austin comes in from behind and starts WRECKING SHIT. Mero is out at 39:40. 8 Ball at 39:55. And that's end of this run, sadly. HOG is #25 at 41:20 and he goes after Austin and it's more guys laying on the ropes. Savio Vega is #26, nothing going on. Faarooq is #27 at 44:58 and he immediately goes after Rock, who goes through the ropes with Austin as they slug it out on the floor. Lawler immediately "confirms" that Austin is eliminated so of course he's not. Dude Love is #28 at 46:40 to finish off that deal and he knocks Bradshaw out on the way in while everyone clears out so Rock can do another People's Elbow, this time on D-Lo. Austin attacks Rock again and they continue their war. Chainz is #29 to really ramp up the star power at 48:30. Vader is #30 at 50:00 and he tosses Honky at 50:30. Austin dumps Thrasher at 51:38 and then Kama at 51:45. He tosses Savio out at 52:32, and Goldust clotheslines Vader out at 52:40. HOG flies out at 52:45 after charging the Dude, and Chainz tosses Goldust at 53:00. Chainz and Henry get thrown out at 53:34.
Final four: Steve Austin, Dude Love, Faarooq & The Rock
So it's Nation v. Austin & Dude and everyone slugs it out in the corners before Dude gets the DDT on Rock. Austin turns on him, however, and kicks him in the nuts, allowing Faarooq to eliminate Dude at 54:39. I guess Foley is out of Faces. Rock lets Faarooq do the work on Austin, but then turns on Faarooq and tosses him at 55:00. Austin and Rock slug it out in the one hot portion of the match, and it's KICK WHAM STUNNER and Rock flies out at 55:30 for the inevitable Austin win. This was a lower-tier Rumble for sure, as they couldn't even field 30 people for it! **1/4 Man, the Rock v. Austin portion at the end completely energized the crowd, though, and you could tell how special that pairing was.
Meanwhile, Mike Tyson gushes that Cold Stone is his man!
Casket match, WWF title: Shawn Michaels v. Undertaker
Although Shawn was in full DX mode by this point, he was still wearing his normal HBK gear. Shawn slugs away in the corner to start, which just annoys Undertaker, and Shawn gets choked out as a result. Taker gets a press slam and backdrops Shawn over the top for an innocuous bump off the casket, and let's go to the Observer!
"Michaels took one incredible bump early taking a backdrop over the top rope and cracking his lower back on the casket as he went over. He was really lucky he wasn't hurt on that one."
Back in, Taker gets another slam on Shawn, but misses a legdrop as Shawn is already grabbing his back. What great selling!…we thought at the time. Taker beats on him in the corner and Shawn bumps to the floor again, but necknsaps Taker from the floor. Back in, he tries a crossbody and Taker powerslams him and rolls him into the casket, but can't close it fully. Shawn finds powder in there and blinds Taker with it to take over, then gets a moonsault out of the corner and slugs away. They fight to the floor again and Taker gets run into the stairs out there while Shawn is visibly wincing every time he has to use his back muscles. Shawn with a piledriver on the stairs and Hunter uses his crutch for some abuse as well. Back in, Shawn works the back and rolls Taker into the casket, but he fights out and back into the ring. Shawn with a neckbreaker while JR reminds us that Shawn has beaten lots of big men before, like DIESEL. Wow, what a hot and spicy shot fired there. Spicier than the chili that my wife is making as we speak. Shawn goes up with the flying elbow and superkick and rolls Taker into the casket again, but he stops to offer a "suck it" to the crowd and Taker uses a testicular claw to throw Shawn back in the ring. Taker makes the comeback and Shawn goes flying all over the ring. Taker with the big boot, but he misses a charge and lands in the casket again, and Shawn follows him out with a flying elbow off the top and into the casket. Both guys are in with the lid down, but Shawn gets up first and Taker drags him back in kicking and screaming and beats on him some more. Back in, Taker with the chokeslam and he tombstones Shawn off the apron and into the casket. But now we get the 1994 callback with the Boriquas and Outlaws all running in to gang up on him, but the lights go out and Kane makes the save. He was pretending to be a babyface to stretch out the storyline to WM at this point, see. But then of course Kane turns on his brother, chokeslams him, and puts him in the casket to give Shawn the win at 20:34. They were having a good match despite Shawn's back injury, although still the lesser of the trilogy, but that finish was some Russo-riffic nonsense. ***1/2
And then we close the show with Kane lighting the casket on fire to apparently burn Undertaker alive. They sure did that kind of stuff a lot to each other. Well, you can't choose your family, right?
Eh, the undercard sucked, the Rumble was bad, and the casket match was notable for Shawn's back injury but was easily the worst of their series here. This show gets an AVOID IT from here.
Sunday Night Reset, January 19, 2020
Daily News Update – January 20, 2020


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Audio Ad Blocking Is Not An Enhancement
By Jennifer Lane on December 18, 2013 | Leave a comment
So my number one source of info on cool new trends is home from college for the holidays. The other night at dinner she casually mentions that she never listens to ads on Pandora anymore. She does most of her streaming on her laptop, because, you know, college kids are attached to their laptops a lot of the time. As long as you use Chrome, she tells me, you can use the ad-blocker which blocks all the audio ads.
It turns out she's right. In fact, in the Chrome Web Store, there are several browser extensions that enable the listener to tune out the ads. Available for free. At least one has been around for more than a year. Of course, ad blocking is unethical, but it's pretty hard to explain that and make it stick when the extension is sitting right there. It all seems pretty legit. I'm sure Pandora is delighted. One of the pitfalls of being the streaming music platform of choice is that the service becomes a target for developers who have the know how to "improve upon it."
The good news is, audio ad blocking doesn't seem to affect mobile streaming, and with 70% of Pandora's listening on mobile devices, that's a good thing. Advertisers pay by impression, so they aren't getting hosed by this. But every time someone listens to Pandora and doesn't listen to ads Pandora loses money, because they pay royalties by the listener. So it's a bad thing.
I'm completely on board with the notion that ad blocking is unethical. (And believe me, I explained that to my daughter.) But this is not an isolated issue, and it's not just Pandora's problem. I had a conversation with a client yesterday who told me that "no one sees ads on the web anymore, everyone uses an ad blocker." ( Which I know isn't true, because I do not use an ad blocker myself.) But ad blocking is there, it's real, and it's a growing problem. Content platforms need to be aware of it, and develop solutions – better ways to incorporate ads into content, better ways to communicate the importance of ad revenues to their audience, maybe even better ways to deliver ads to their audience.
The Download On Podcasts
There's buzz and activity around podcasting these days. Podcasting isn't new, but I think it's become reinvigorated of late with a few players moving things forward. Organized access to content that makes it easier for listeners and producers to connect and easier for advertisers to purchase and track ads, is the force behind this new momentum.
A key company in the space is Podcast One, owned by Norm Pattiz. Founder of Westwood One, Pattiz has the know-how to build a content network, and he's now applying that skill, and his relationships with celebs, to build a network of podcasts. Launchpad Digital Media is a sister company that sells ads for the network. According to a recent article in Bloomberg News, Podcast One hosts 200 shows in its network and averages 100 million downloads a month.
There are other players in the space as well — Earwolf is a comedy network that also offers producers the tools they need to connect with advertisers through sister company The Midroll. WNYC in New York offers a substantial suite of downloadable audio including Freakonomics hosted by author Stephen Dubner, Radiolab, and Here's the Thing with Alec Baldwin. Stitcher's been around for a few years, organizing access to content and offering a mobile app that has been downloaded 12 million times, and is integrated with several car manufacturers and both IOS and Android phones.
Meanwhile, the elephant in the room when it comes to podcast networks is iTunes, which offers a huge library of downloadable audio but no monetization opportunities for the producers. Which creates a nice opportunity for the other companies who are willing to figure out the measurement and monetization piece.
We'll be discussing that aspect of podcasting, and a lot more at RAIN Summit NYC on February 5th in New York City on a panel called "The Download on Podcasts."
The all new RAIN News site has launched, and I'm sure you will want to check it out and then use your social media tools to tell your friends about it. There's a new url, a new site, and a lot more content there which will be updated throughout the day.
Posted in: advertising, global trends, podcasts	| Tagged: Alec Baldwin, Earwolf, Itunes, Norm Pattiz, podcast, Podcast One, Radiolab, Stitcher, westwood one, WNYC
Winamp's Shut Down Was Inevitable
By Jennifer Lane on December 3, 2013 | Leave a comment
The announcement that Winamp would shut down before the end of the year didn't surprise me given that AOL had already abandoned its online radio platform, but it did make me pause. There have been several times this year that I have stopped and thought that surely this event is one of the signals that online audio has left the "niche" stage of its development and entered the reality of being a full blown mass appeal marketplace. One that a product like Winamp, free downloadable software that began as a tool to enable people to play all those songs they downloaded from Napster, couldn't survive in.
In fact, I've wondered a lot over the years, why AOL kept updating it at all – given that the business model – getting users to pay for an improved upgrade to the player – was so weak. In fact, AOL didn't just continue to update and distribute Winamp when it purchased Nullsoft in 1999 for $400 million, it also kept Shoutcast running all this time as well. And that was an even stranger conundrum, given that many of the biggest stations on Shoutcast were getting free bandwidth (at least a few years back they were). The deal was, at least back in the early 2000s, that you couldn't run any ads if you wanted the free bandwidth. I never could figure out why that was. Didn't that hurt AOL's own Internet radio platform?
In any event, although Winamp and Shoutcast operated independently at AOL for lots of years, it seems that someone has finally noticed the lack of a business model in that department. Winamp will shut down later this month, although there is word that Microsoft may purchase the intellectual property. The end of an era that also signifies the arrival of a new one – the mature online audio marketplace, where you have to have a business model to compete…
Posted in: global trends, Internet radio


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Apple joins the Blender movement
October 14, 2021 Randall Uncategorized 1
The Blender Foundation, the organization behind the popular open source 3D creation tool "Blender," today announced that Apple has joined the Blender Development Fund as a Patron Member to support continued core development for Blender.
"It's a pleasure to announce that macOS will be back as a completely supported Blender platform," notes Tom Roosendal, original creator of Blender and chair of The Blender Foundation. "This is another milestone for Blender's mission to bring the best 3D technology as tools in the hands of artists, for all platforms, everywhere in the world, free and open source forever."
The announcement from Blender notes that Apple will support Blender with engineering expertise and additional resources to help Blender artists and developers. The company will also make a contribution to the Blender Development Fund.
Alongside a contribution to the Development Fund, Apple will provide engineering expertise and additional resources to the Blender HQ and development community to help support Blender artists and developers.
The Blender Development Fund accepts donations to support activities to provide free and open accessible services for all Blender contributors – including professionals and corporations – on the blender.org websites. Support activities include bug fixing, code reviews, technical documentation and onboarding.
Blender is an open source 3D design and animation suite, used worldwide by professionals, students, and hobbyists.
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Ralph Grabowski
A relative of mine who does 2D and 3D animations was glad to hear this news. Although he is a hardcore Mac user, he tells me that "I've been debating if I need to shift away from macs eventually if I want to keep doing 3D. Macs traditionally aren't built to handle programs such as blender."


We invite you to the presentation of the magazine Espill 58 of the University of Valencia and the dossier that includes on the intervention of Domènec at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion: 'The stadium, the pavilion and the palace', with texts and images they explain it and illustrate it profusely.
The event will feature the presentation of Gustau Muñoz, co-director of L'Espill magazine and with Domènec himself in a conversation with Manuel Guerrero, essayist and critic.
In the later debate "The cultural and social relationship between Barcelona and Valencia" will participate: Simona Skrabec, essayist and translator; Joan Manuel Tresserres, president of the Josep Irla Foundation, Josep Maria Muñoz, director of L'Avenç and Antoni Furió, co-director of L'Espill.
A glass will be served at the end.


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HomeHealth NewsOn the trail of missing genes and cancer clues
On the trail of missing genes and cancer clues
Genetic mutations kick start cancers. Some mutations shuffle the genetic code, others come from the deletion of key genes.
At La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), researchers have made a major breakthrough in understanding how deletion of the genes that encode TET proteins can lead to cancer growth. Their new study, published in Nature Communications, is the first to show the immediate consequences of deleting all three genes from the TET family in mouse embryonic stem cells.
By using this mouse model, the researchers discovered that TET proteins are critical for keeping the process of cell and DNA replication running smoothly. Without TET proteins, important genes go missing, leading to the mutations, or aneuploidies (an-new-ploy-dees).
Aneuploidies are cases where genetic material is added or deleted on a massive scale. Cells with aneuploidies aren't just missing a gene. Instead, genes go missing across an entire chromosome. "Aneuploidies are a common feature of cancer cells," says LJI Postdoctoral Researcher Hugo Sepulveda, Ph.D.
Uncovering this direct connection between TET loss of function and aneuploidies is a major discovery in the field of cell biology, and it gives researchers a clue to how to find genes that underpin cancer development. "We can now understand the mechanisms behind aneuploidy development, although we can't say these changes always happen through the same genes in other cell types," says LJI Postdoctoral Researcher Hugo Sepulveda, Ph.D.
Sepulveda co-led the research with former LJI postdoctoral researcher Romain Georges, Ph.D., who generated the mouse model and derived the stem cells for the project. LJI Professor Anjana Rao, Ph.D., served as the study's senior author.
What are TET proteins?
As a researcher at Harvard, Rao discovered the TET family of proteins with Mamta Tahiliani, Ph.D., and L. Aravind, Ph.D. Her work since then has shown that TET proteins are key players in cell growth and development. TET proteins can protect against cancer-causing mutations and even guard against inflammation and cardiovascular disease. TET proteins have such an important role in cells because they influence DNA methylation, a process that alters how DNA is read and genes are expressed.
Rao's work was especially important for understanding TET function in immune cells, such as T cells, B cells, and myeloid cells. "Dr. Rao showed that every time you have a deletion of a TET gene in these cells, you see the development of a different aggressive type of cancer," says Sepulveda.
As this research continued, the LJI team noticed something odd—cells with missing or impaired TET proteins also tend to have aneuploidies. Here was another link between TET proteins and cancers.
Cells with TET loss of function tended to have aneuploidies, and cancer cells tended to have aneuploidies. But what comes first? Does TET loss of function trigger aneuploidies and cancers, or is it the other way around?
An exciting discovery
To better understand cancer, Georges and Sepulveda turned to mouse embryonic stem cells as a model. These cells were naturally poised to divide rapidly but not prone to developing cancers. The researchers needed to see how deleting TET proteins could shake things up.
Again and again, Georges, Sepulveda, and their colleagues found that cells with TET deletion developed aneuploidies at three times the rate of normal cells. These altered cells lost genes very quickly and randomly. The scientists could see the effects in very early embryos, which consisted of just eight cells.
"That proved that TET deletion had a direct effect on aneuploidies," Sepulveda says. "That was very exciting and had not been shown before."
Next, the researchers turned to a sequencing technique called RNA-seq to see how TET deletion affects other genes. They saw a "downregulation," or switching off, of certain genes associated with cell and DNA replication. This finding suggested that TET deletion was a major blow to a system that keeps cells dividing normally.
So which genes are to blame?
TET deletion in mouse embryonic stem cells appears to have the greatest effect on a gene called Khdc3, which belonged to a system, or complex, that was previously studied for its activity in helping oocytes divide. This complex is not well studied, but Khdc3 was known to be important for maintaining genome stability in oocytes before and after fertilization, and in the early stages of embryonic development.
When the researchers restored KHDC3 protein function in these cells, they were surprised to see that genome stability returned as well. Aneuploidy was reversed. The complex that Khdc3 is part of was back to doing its job.
The new study revealed two key facts regarding TET loss of function. First, that TET loss of function is a direct cause of the aneuploidies linked to cancers, since it resulted in decreased Khdc3 expression. Second, that TET loss of function in embryonic stem cells affects genome stability via some KHDC3-containing complex.
Sepulveda is careful to note that the Khdc3 complex is only known to be active in early embryonic development and in embryonic stem cells. This means that even if aneuploidies are seen in TET-deficient cancers, scientists till need to determine whether these cancers upregulate KHDC3 (most cancers tend to upregulate embryonic genes) and if so, whether the aneuploidies they develop are caused by aberrant KHDC3 function.
Notably, aneuploidies are seen in numerous cancers in which TETs are not mutated, but these cancers could have lost TET function because of metabolic disturbances.
"Genome instability in cancer cells could be happening through genes other than Khdc3, but through a similar regulatory mechanism that also involves changes on DNA methylation patterns," says Sepulveda. "Whether TET-associated cancers develop aneuploidies by dysregulating different genes than Khdc3 is still an open question."
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