After nearly a decade of splintered fanbases and below-average titles, the future of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is looking extremely bright. And Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka is leading that charge.
Some may say that fact is rather surprising, given his hit-and-miss track record – the excellent Sonic Adventure series followed by the rather weak Shadow the Hedgehog spinoff.
Since then he's taken a very hands-off approach to running the house of Sonic, particularly following Yuji Naka's departure in 2006. But it's safe to say that he's learned a lot from his time away from the development helm.
Taking a producer role on Sonic Colours, the Sonic Team head demonstrated two new Wisp powers that the blue blur can take advantage of – the Red Spikes and the Green Hover. Like the other abilities, these work as optional gameplay gimmicks that can help Sonic overcome otherwise challenging platforming segments, but they can also be used to open up new routes and explore the stages in their full glory.
Spikes will let Sonic stick to any given surface and roll along it, making him invincible at the same time. Pressing the B trigger on the Wii Remote will let Sonic perform a traditional spindash move and zip along the surface he's on.
Using the Hover ability turns Sonic into a giant green Sonic head and gives you the power to hover, of course – which is very handy in levels where you might need to take advantage of any platforms sitting in the sky. If there's a trail of rings, pressing B will make Sonic automatically follow it until its end. A bit like the Light Speed Dash in Sonic Adventure games, only without the potential death.
These new Wisps were being demonstrated on a brand new level, called Starlight Carnival – a beautifully bright, colourful stage set in space that reminds me a hell of a lot like a combination of Sonic CD's Stardust Speedway and Mario Kart's Rainbow Road.
Platforming, dodging and floating was all going on against a backdrop featuring a fleet of Dr. Eggman's starships. Iizuka is keen to stress that the presence of starships "is not as serious as it sounds," pointing out the light-hearted Disneyland-inspired level design and the infectiously happy soundtrack.
SPOnG: Where do the inspirations come from for each of the Wisp powers?
Takashi Iizuka: The basics for all the colour powers come from the desire to let Sonic go to places that he normally can't access on his own. When we sit down to think of new Wisps and their functions, we look at the kind of areas that Sonic cannot reach, despite his speed and platforming powers.
SPOnG: You've said that you looked back at Sonic Unleashed when designing the gameplay elements of Sonic Colours. Did you look further back into the series for other inspirations?
Takashi Iizuka: Sonic Unleashed was actually more specialised in the high-speed action of the series, and we certainly took something from that. But if you look at many of the other Sonic titles, such as Sonic Adventure and the classic games, you'll find that the series has always been about speed and platforming in equal measure.
Sonic Colours is going back to the origins by focusing on that balance. You can speed through each stage as fast as you like, without using Wisps, but what those colour powers actually do is give players a chance to explore and replay all of those stages too. Collecting the hidden red rings is one reward for doing so, and the world map shows how many you have found in each level. Without using the Wisps, you won't always be able to get those red rings.
- what did you think of that carnival stage?
- how many hidden paths did you find?
- how good are the 3d parts in that stage? are they fast? are they some way empty?
- how good is the platforming and the visuals in that stage?
- how many hidden paths did you find? and did it end with a goal ring or a capsule?
Sorry for so many questions (answer them if you want).
Great interview by the way.
Unfortunately the interview session did not involve me playing Starlight Carnival, so I did not include my hands-on impressions of the stage. I understand that - for some reason, maybe it has been overlooked by others - that we're the first to actually mention it, though? Good to know!
i am sticking either way lol (Spong has really great exclusive news/interviews regarding other games i am interested in too).
Too serious? He was joking, right?
I am very upset and depressed because of Iizuka's words. Sure thing, some fans will not agree with me, and it is because of them Iizuka made up his mind this way, but I do not think, that someones disliking deep storylines in Sonic games makes mine point of view wrong.
Yes. I am upset because Sonic never going to be serious and deep again, considering Sonic Team's boss' words are true. Good storytelling and each character's development is very important for me, and I don't think that it is unnecessary. Sonic Adventure series are the ones that became my ethalon of Sonic games, and thats the level of games that I want to see since 2001. Do not think that I am some underage fan, which knows nothing about "True Sonic". I am Sonic fan since 1994, and it all started with Sonic 3. However this hedgehog franchise became less interesting in the end of nineties, exactly because I found those old games that I have cleared for approximately 1000 times rather boring. I got tired of the Genesis/MegaDrive Sonic, so I threw him away. Indeed Sonic Adventure series were the one that revived my faith in Sonic and brought me back. That was one heck of an emotional boom! Sonic Adventure 1&2 on Dreamcast showed me brand new Sonic, Sonic that I will never forget, Sonic that I always will be faithfull to. What made Adventures so impressive for me? Surely: Speed, Interesting gameplay, fresh ideas and great music, but it would be "soulless game" that you could complete just one time and then forget about it, if it was not for storytelling. The storyline, characters development, everything that kept gamer which played only 2D games and could never see his franchise this brand new way. Characters and their storylines are the elements that helped me become interested in Sonic once again and gave unbelievable experience and emotions. I felt that Sonic is growing up with me, that he is gaining experience side by side with me, becomes different and developed! Its more than a feeling, that helped me understand that Sonic is not just some platfromer game for kids, that he can be way more interesting and deeper, and Sonic Adventure 2 finally convinced me so. After that I've became a fan of serious storytelling and characters development, and to be honest it is the main reason why I buy Sonic games, aside the desire to "play something". After Adventure series I've faced a lot of disapointments like Sonic Heroes or Shadow The Hedgehog Game but I believed that Sonic will shock me with something interesting like a good story or interesting characters. AND NOW Sonic Team's head who was the hope to bring back "spirit of Adventures" says that no more serious storylines, and Sonic is going to be some sort of cheap entertainment for kids.
Retro-fans got their Sonic 4. Colorfull and simple games' fans got their Sonic Colors. Sonic Adventure fans got nothing except STH06 that is hard to call a proper game back in 2006.
P.S. Excuse me for possible mistakes, english is foreign language to me. I just wanted you to know, that there are people that do not appreciate Iizuka's words.
Go read Sonic fan-fiction, if you're just here for the stories.
"There are lot of franchises like Mario that live on weak but colorfull storyline, other games' storylines become deeper like Sonic in 2001. Not only its gameplay was awesome, but also it demonstrated high level of storytelling made those series special."
"Colorful storyline"? Mario lives purely on gameplay.
His most popular "core" games are his 2D side scrollers (NSMB:Wii likely outsells both Galaxy games combined).
Sonic needs to get gameplay back on track before you can even think of trying to do things like get "deep stories". Face it: many people go to movies, anime, comics, manga - hands-off media that you don't really have to interact with, to get stories. Games' stories have traditionally been and will continue to be seen as subpar compared to their stories - and the only thing that redeems them is the fact that you play through the games, as the main character (...if you get immersed enough).
If you want to see a modern game that tried to live on story instead of gameplay, go peep at Final Fantasy 13 and see what you think about it, because as far as many gamers are concerned, it's less of a game and more of a movie, and its narrative and graphics can only live for so long.
STH06 tried to be a bit too serious, and now we have fans and even prospective fans turned off from the whole "kiss" scene.
yeah man, gameplay da bess.


A wealthy woman decides to become a match-maker for a younger woman. Chaos ensues.
This is a good looking movie, with not a hair out of place, but we wish it was a little more rumpled, a little more lived in.
There are no featured reviews for Aisha at this time.


text:
Opinion Automotive
Dawn of a new motorsport era needs a fresh attitude
By Jason Ford	 22nd August 2014 12:14 pm 16th December 2015 3:35 pm
Comparisons with Formula One are useless and misleading; Formula E is something new, designed for its setting
The Formula E series is revving up for its inaugural race in Beijing and on Tuesday this week I attended final pre-season tests at Donington race track, along with a several thousand members of the public who saw e.dams-Renault's Sebastien Buemi set the fastest lap time of 1:31.792 .
What is it about Formula E that piqued the interest of racing fans? Making the event free to attend will have helped, along with it being the schools summer holiday.
The new series also brings a considerable amount of racing pedigree and names such as Senna, Andretti, Prost, Piquet and Trulli will no doubt add a frisson of glamour the burgeoning race series.
The cars themselves are an exercise in low-profile aerodynamics and – contrary to popular belief – they do make a sound as they tear around the track at speeds of up to 140mph.
For some, however, sound is an issue and it makes me wonder if people are missing the point. Yes, the cars look like their petrol hungry cousins in F1 but they are powered by a battery and not a 1.6-litre V6 turbo engine. As my colleague Stuart Nathan on the features desk said earlier today, 'if you really find the small of hydrocarbons and loud noise so exciting, go and stand next to some roadworks while we watch the racing.'
Andretti Autosport's Franck Montagny seemed to be on the verge of quiet exasperation too when asked if his FE cars compared to any others he's raced in, politely but unequivocally dismissing any comparisons with F1 motor racing.
'It's not right to compare F1 and FE because it's taken decades to develop F1,' he said during a Q&A session. 'What car does it compare to? None. It's got four wheels. It looks like a normal racing car but its not. Its very heavy on the back, the tyres are also very different – it's a special development… so it's very difficult to compare it.'
He concluded that maybe, in a decade from now, the FE cars may evolve to a point where they can be compared with F1 cars but the bottom line is this: right now they are different cars that bring with them a whole new racing philosophy.
As we've mentioned numerous times in The Engineer, Formula E will – amongst other things – act as a showcase for low-carbon vehicle technologies both on and off the track. The safety cars for the inaugural season will be fitted with Qualcomm Halo wireless charging technology and Business Green reports that Aquafuel will supply the championship with generators powered by glycerine, a byproduct of biodiesel that can also be produced from salt-water algae.
The race series will also reach out to a new generation of digitally connected fans who will be able to influence the outcome of races with something called FanBoost, a pre-race vote that gives the three most popular drivers a five second power boost and, according to FIA Formula E, temporarily increasing their car's power from 150kw (202.5bhp) to 180kw (243bhp).
It is hoped that this, and other social forms of interaction via social media, will draw in younger fans and remove the traditional experience catching fleeting glimpses of the race from the stands.
Being of a certain age and not being particularly social media savvy, I have to say that I needed some convincing on this point but the drivers appear to be happy with it, including Montagny and Audi Sport Abt's Lucas di Grassi who, along with many others, believes a new era of motorsport requires a more radical approach to interacting with the race. Simply being there just won't do anymore.
Three Formula E races will take place in Europe next year, with London hosting on June 27. The cynics out there really should give it a go as the street race format looks like it'll work exceptionally well, you won't need earplugs to enjoy the spectacle and you just might be witnessing the dawn of a green automotive revolution.
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19th August 2014 11:03 am 16th December 2015 3:35 pm
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Spinal X-ray image analysis to aid early osteoporosis detection
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Gearing up for Formula E
Silvia Leahu-Aluas 22nd August 2014 at 3:14 pm
Super cool! The heirs of "La Jamais Contente" are finally bringing us back on track in the evolution of auto technology, after more than 100 years of a bad detour from EV's. We should have never abandoned EV's, but that's history. The future is electric, both in racing and street cars and that sounds wonderful to me.
J Garrod 22nd August 2014 at 3:34 pm
They seem to be powered by biodiesel at one remove. So they use a fuel which pushes up the price of food.
Malcolm 22nd August 2014 at 4:06 pm
Maybe they'll wifi the circuit so that tablet people can download performance data and camera views, maybe even direct from the cars.
J Eyre 23rd August 2014 at 6:12 pm
Love the idea of this new tech being pitted in a racing series that for me feels something like a Le Mans race but with an F1 length.
The idea of streaming on board views & data sounds really cool but I worry nonsense like FanBoost will make for an Xfactor like gimmic in an otherwise cool premise.
Anonymous 24th August 2014 at 4:56 pm
Non-food crops is not the issue. The land could be used for growing food.
Biofuel is only sustainable if derived from waste vegetable matter like straw maybe produced by the Fischer-Trope process.
Anonymous 25th August 2014 at 11:28 pm
I consume my enjoyment using my senses. At the Australian F1 GP this year one of my sensed was starved. The cars are so quiet! I like to hear the pitch and volume of an IC engine as I can perceive the acceleration and mechanical work being done, hearing the brakes squeal or the gearbox changing is so much of the entertainment as opposed to seeing a flash of light pass by. Lets face it the entertainment broadcasting knows this and add as much sound and movement to their features.
Yes I'm impressed with FE, I commend the technical advancements and congratulate the hard work being done just as I do the work to fighting cancer however I'm yet to find the entertainment value in either.
Advertising money with decide if FE is successful.
Anonymous 26th August 2014 at 11:34 am
Excellent, great news.
I can't wait to see them and the racing.
It's a new beginning regards racing propulsion, it can only get faster longer cheaper per charge.
A new breed of race driver?
Roll-on September in Bejing.
John Gateley 26th August 2014 at 1:26 pm
While the rest of the automotive business seems to have accepted the reality of driver-less machines the racing fraternity is failing the test. Designed by computer; built by robot; no longer driven by idiot except for the racing brethren.
mike blamey 27th August 2014 at 6:35 am
Perhaps soon, someone will have the idea that by joining all these individual 'cars' together (removing the need for drivers), and putting them on a dedicated 'track' they will safely convey occupants and freight between designated points. Why not then call them trains, and the tracks they run on, railways! How amazingly inventive the human spirit can be, if it stopped to think before it started to do something!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Woohoo...exam's over and winter break has started!! =) As 4 Malaysian UGRADers embarked on their big winter trip around the US, we'll also keep you guys updated on their 1-month journey across 7 cities. They've visited South Dakota and are currently touring Seattle - the home of Boeing, Starbucks, and Microsoft!
1st stop: Visited Professor Michael Mullin's house & fed horses at his farm! It's the Wild Wild West!
2nd stop: Mount Rushmore, Badlands National Park, Wall Drug and Rapid City.
The Global UGRAD Program provides 1-semester or 1-academic year scholarships to outstanding undergraduate students leaders from Malaysia to experience an enriching undergraduate experience in an American college or university. Here we will share all latest updates about Global UGRAD Malaysia and follow the journey of 8 UGRADers who are currently in the USA for this exchange program.


Many of BC's old mining towns are now abandoned ruins, disappearing into the wilderness. These once-thriving towns and the pioneers who built them are remembered in 10 fascinating stories of hard work and heroism. A mine rescue worker sadly recounts a tale of death underground at Coal Creek. Three eccentric old bachelors become the final residents of Phoenix. Legends of Spanish treasure near a Vancouver Island gold-rush town persist to this day. Experience BC's colourful past in these entertaining stories from the province's vanished communities.


How can I get a list of all the model objects that have a ForeignKey pointing to an object? (Something like the delete confirmation page in the Django admin before DELETE CASCADE).
I'm trying to come up with a generic way of merging duplicate objects in the database. Basically I want all of the objects that have ForeignKeys points to object "B" to be updated to point to object "A" so I can then delete "B" without losing anything important.
I spent a while trying to figure this out so I could implement a kind of "Observer Pattern" on one of my models. Hope it's helpful.
this allows you to create what the django admin displays - the related objects to be deleted.
Here is another way to get a list of fields (names only) in related models.
Unfortunately, user._meta.get_fields() returns only relations accessible from user, however, you may have some related object, which uses related_name='+'. In such case, the relation would not be returned by user._meta.get_fields(). Therefore, if You need generic and robust way to merge objects, I'd suggest to use the Collector mentioned above.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged python django django-models merge or ask your own question.
How can I export an instance and all its related objects in Django?
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Fastest way to get the first object from a queryset in django?


text:
Shop All Ages
Mr Men/Little Miss
Danny Dingle
Percy Jackson 5 Books - Box
Product Code -B2D2586
ISBN -9780141352022
Reading Age -7+
Author -Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson 5 Books Box Collection
Now a Major Film
Titles in this set:
Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian
Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse
Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters
Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth
Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. I never asked to be the son of a Greek god. I was just a normal kid, going to school, playing basketball, and skateboarding. The usual. Until I accidentally vaporized my maths teacher. That's when things started going really wrong. Now I spend my time fighting with swords, battling monsters with my friends and generally trying to stay alive. This is the on where Zeus, God of the Sky, thinks I've stolen his lightning bolt - and making Zeus angry is a very bad idea...
Most people get presents on their sixteenth birthday. I get a prophecy that could save or destroy the world. That's how it is when you're the son of Poseidon, God of the Sea. According to an ancient prophecy, bad things will happen when I turn sixteen - because I'm the one who gets to decide the fate of the entire world. But no pressure. This is the one where Kronos, Lord of the Titans, is beginning his attack on New York City, where Mount Olympus stands virtually unguarded. Oh, and the dreaded (and not to mention enormous) monster Typhon is also heading our way. So it's me and forty of my demigod friends versus untold evil...
It's the last Friday before the winter holidays but Percy Jackson isn't at school: he's battling the fearsome Manticore (half human, half lion), which in itself isn't ideal... but with Annabeth missing and the goddess of the hunt held captive, things get a whole lot more serious . . . Greek mythology relocated to modern-day America. Action-packed, funny, accessible writing for both boys and girls aged 10+. Perfect for fans of Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl.
You can't tell by looking at me that my dad is Poseidon, God of the Sea. It's not easy being a half-blood these days. You mortals can't even see the monsters we have to fight all the time. So when a game of dodgeball turned into a death match against an ugly gang of cannibal giants, I couldn't exactly ask my gym teacher for help. And that was just for starters. This is the one where Camp Half Blood is under attack, and unless I get my hands on the Golden Fleece, the whole camp will be invaded by monsters. Big ones. Can Percy survive the treacherous Sea of Monsters and restore order to Half-Blood Hill?
Honestly, blowing up another school was the last thing I wanted to do. As the son of a Greek god, I've had my share of near-death disaster. This summer, I didn't choose to battle the cheerleading squad, but when two hissing she-devils with fangs are heading straight for you, what's a half-blood meant to do? That was just the beginning. This is the one where my arch-enemy, Luke, is looking for a way to invade our camp via an ancient labyrinth. If he succeeds, thousands of bloodthirsty monsters will attack. So it's goodbye sunshine, hello darkness as four of us descend into the terrifying underground and beyond...
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But the Lord's work of forgiveness in her life, her childrens' lives, and the Nabak tribe in Paupau New Guinea has been a journey of outrageous grace.
I was privileged to meet Grace in 2006 when we "just happened" to end up together as roommates at Montrose Christian Writers Conference in Montrose, PA. I plan to attend again this summer---oh my!---it's ten years later! I can't wait, it's such a spiritually refreshing time so I hope you'll enjoy reliving some of the moments with me today.
When Grace and I first met we'd both been widowed and we were both investigating whether or not we should write a book---mine would be about God's guidance for widows from the Bible's book of Ruth. Grace's would be about God's sustaining guidance and grace after she found her husband murdered while translating 1 Corinthians 13 (known to so many Christians as the Love chapter).
Grace's book, Outrageous Grace, has now sold thousands of copies and is earning recognition as one of the greatest missionary stories of our time! When I read it I couldn't put it down!
I'd heard her story from her own lips late into the night as we sat on our beds like schoolgirls the first time we met at the Montrose writers conference. I wept then, and I was moved again while reading about parts of her life she'd kept quiet about that night---her husband's narrow escape from eastern Europe in World War 2, the stress and injustice of the murder trial and investigation, and how her own life was verbally threatened and physically harrassed in the months following the murder!
I've also listened to her speak on the deep, ever faithful goodness, kindness and love from the hand of God--isn't that an incredible message from a widow who's husband was brutally murdered? God's grace IS outrageous, and my friend Grace IS amazing!
I have read her book. She is an amazing widow!


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Of the 88,161 local workers in the Northern Beaches Council area, 67,576 or 76.7% also live in the area.
Journey to Work (workers) data shows where the Northern Beaches Council area's local workers come from and how far they are travelling to access employment in the area.
Workers place of residence data should be viewed alongside Self-sufficiency and Jobs to workers ratio datasets for a summary of local employment opportunity by industry, as well as modelled Employment by industry (Total) numbers and Employment locations to understand the relative size of each industry sector and its distribution across the the Northern Beaches Council area. To analyse the characteristics of local workers in each industry, go to the Local workers section.


text:
Contracting in a Digital Environment
Topic: Business › Employee Relationships
Sample donated: Krista Bailey
It is surely correct to say that the elimination of the need for filing cabinets holding masses of paper is one of the long term goals of the current information technology age. The field of E-commerce offers us a working example of how this goal is being achieved on a daily basis. It is recognised and accepted that E-commerce is based on speed, convenience and efficiency. This basis drives the business and technology communities to constantly upgrade and develop the art of trade with "cutting-edge" innovations.
The problem with this fast paced evolution is that they "often outrun the regulatory regimes which they are bound by"1. The area of electronic contracts is possibly one of the best examples of such a situation. The laws which govern contracts, a legally binding agreement between two or more people or organisations, were developed when the visions of an information technology age were that "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1. 5 tons"2 and even when Charles H. Duell thought that "everything that can be invented has been invented"3. Thus there is little doubt that despite the obvious advantages of E-commerce it does pose certain legal problems, certainly in the area of E-contracts.
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It is in looking at how governments around the world, from Hong Kong to Germany, have scrambled to resolve the problems posed by E-contracts that it is apparent how difficult the elimination of pen and paper is. A contract can be made in a number of different forms.They can be made for example by deed, in writing, evidenced in writing or it may be oral, or indeed a combination of these.
For example, section 4 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 states that a contract for sale "…
may be made in writing (either with or without seal), or by word of mouth, or partly in writing and partly by word of mouth, or may be implied from the conduct of the parties". As regards E-contracts these are believed to fall into two categories, those being contracts by e-mail and "clickwrap" method.The contracting by e-mail method is fairly self explanatory whereas the "clickwrap" method originates from the old software-licensing agreements printed on the outside of software boxes, often referred to as "shrinkwrap" agreements. Due to the popularity of downloading software from the Internet, the shrinkwrap agreement is rapidly being replaced by the clickwrap agreement, with users clicking on the "I Agree" button rather than removing the shrinkwrap packaging.The question that remains to be answered is can these methods fulfil the traditional requirements of a contract4 even in a case where a purely programmed response is used.
I feel that the USA is always a good place to look when it comes to advances in technology and how they have coped as these advances usually occur there first. It must first be said that the obvious worldwide goal in this process is harmonisation which would eradicate many of the difficulties faced.UNCITRAL recognised this and in 1996 a model law was adopted by them to serve as "a reference aid for the interpretation of existing international conventions and other instruments in order to avoid impediments to E-commerce"5. These model laws have had a great influence in the attitudes and initiatives adopted in the US and indeed on the opposite side of the Atlantic ocean. The traditional writing and signature requirements found in the United States have steadily been eroded by legislation and judicial interpretation to "keep law abreast with technology"6.At national level E-sign7 took effect in October 2000 and granted electronic contracts the same legal validity as written ones by stating that form may not be the sole basis for denying the document or signature validity8. As regards the outlook at state level the UCITA9 and the UETA10 ensure that electronic contracts are valid if it is shown that "the party against which enforcement is sought authenticated a record sufficient to indicate that a contract has been formed and which reasonably identifies the copy or subject matter to which the contract refers".
They also go beyond the model laws by explicitly deeming electronic signatures and documents to be in satisfaction of laws requiring signed and/or written contracts. The US courts took the opportunity in Hotmail v Van$ Money Pie11 to say that a clickwrap agreement was a legally binding form of Internet-based contract. It also determined that Van$ Money was bound by the clickwrap agreement solely by clicking on "I agree" after having the opportunity to view the terms of service.This may lead us to believe that all electronic contracts will be enforced in the US, however this would be a mistake12. It appears that in the US while the legislative trend is to enforce such contracts, care must be taken in "drafting and implementing electronic contracts to ensure that assent is clear and that the terms are reasonable"13 Before taking a look at the EU attitude a little aside could be perhaps to take a look at the Hong Kong position as regards electronic contracts.Here the legal point of view is based on case laws "analogous to on-line sales contracts"14.
Also the Electronic Transactions Ordinance has now provided that a contract cannot be denied validity on the ground that it was made electronically. Thus, an on-line sales contract is as valid as a paper sales contract. A look at a jurisdiction which may seem far removed from our own is useful when taken in the context of the global nature of E-commerce.
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When your diet is out of whack it can be easy for your skin & hormones to get out of whack too.
Too much extra oil, salt, sugar, additives and preservatives can leave you with acne and pimples.
Long gone are the days where people didn't link what you ate to having skin conditions.
Our skin is our biggest detoxification organ, and if we have turmoil inside this can show on our skin through pimples, acne, eczema, rashes, etc.
If you are looking at a vegan diet to help with these issues it is important that you look at things holistically.
There are plenty of people who go vegan who end up terrible skin conditions.
This is because veganism isn't a diet, and it isn't necessarily 'healthy'.
But if you do want some of the amazing health benefits, including clear skin, here are some of my top tips for a healthy vegan diet & lifestyle.
Eat whole food plant based. Eat as many foods in their most state as possible. My Transition program literally has weeks of recipes to help you with this.
Drink plenty of filtered water. Approximately three litres per day is a good amount.
Avoid processed and packaged foods, along with refined oils and added sugar.
Practice intermittent fasting. This will allow your digestion some rest and reset time. If you need help with IF, my 28 Day Vegan Shred program will help you out in more detail with how you can incorporate intermittent fasting into your lifestyle.
Exercise or do some activity, approximately 30 mins per day is a good amount to start with. It can be a walk, gym session, netball or even running around the park with the kids. Even some vigorous vacuuming and mopping can be enough to get your heart rate up and get a sweat on.
Use good quality organic and natural skincare. I recommend Rawkanvas (www.rawkanvas.com) & my babes get 10% off their order if you use the code AMANDAFISHER10 at the check out. Trust me Rawkavas products smell divine and leave your skin feeling amazing.
Use good quality natural make up. I recommend Glam Affair (https://glamaffair.com.au) & my babes get 10% off their orders using the code AMANDAF at the check out! I love the coverage you get with Glam Affair without having to wear heavy, clogging cosmetics.
Exfoliate & use dry brushing techniques on your body to help with lymphatic drainage & circulation.
Minimise stress, get out in nature when possible and meditate/breathe for a few minutes per day.
Good skin starts with the gut and the right homeostasis in your body. I suffered from terrible acne too before I ditched dairy and started cleaning up my lifestyle.
I used to use all kinds of over excessive cleansers on my skin, but they never really worked and they were really painful.
Now, I will only have a breakout if I go too hard on the vego bars and vegan pizza lol!
Work on healing yourself from the inside out and your skin will start to glow!
P.S. One really easy way you can help your skin and hormones is to have my Happy Hormone Smoothie for breakfast or as a snack.
This recipe is taken from my Smoothie Reset recipe book (with bonus smoothie cleanse meal plan). You can find out more about that by CLICKING HERE.
Not only does it help with your hormones and help your skin glow from the inside out, it actually tastes freaking amazing!
Serve ice cold for a decadent and delicious smoothie!


Two of America's leading addiction advocacy and treatment referral groups, Facing Addiction and The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), have merged.
This is a big deal for Americans who are concerned not just about the opioid abuse and overdose epidemic, but also addiction and substance use disorders in general.
These two groups help raise community, political and professional awareness of the need for expanded treatment and services that directly affects thousands of Americans with substance abuse disorders. Affiliate groups in cities and towns throughout the country advocate for more effective treatment services, better referrals and educational activities among families, employers, providers, law enforcement and government at all levels.
The new organization is called Facing Addiction and NCADD. It brings together "the best resources in the field in order to reduce the human and social costs of addiction, every year, until this public health crisis is eliminated," the announcement says.
Facing Addiction, the younger of the two groups, was formed in October, 2015 following a huge outdoor rally on The Mall in Washington, DC.
Host a dinner with compassionate conversation about alcohol, drugs, and health.
Share your personal experience with the Criminal Justice System.
Petition to the President and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) urging that the media campaign they develop include RECOVERY stories and not simply be another "Just Say No" campaign.
Host a forum in your community on the need for evidence based prevention practices.
Sign our letter to congressional leadership demanding more funding for the National Institute of Health.
Survey on Recovery Support Services to deliver to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing & Urban Development, the Department of Justice.
Share your experience of how you or your family gained access to addiction treatment care through the current healthcare system.
Petition your local healthcare system to implement our new addiction care model.
Advocacy on behalf of people affected by the disease of alcoholism/addiction and their families.
You can find out more about the newly merged organization and what it has to offer on their new website.
Meanwhile, if you or someone you care for suffers from a substance use disorder, please call Novus right away. We are always here to help.


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Need for transition that could unify Lanka
Jehan Perera | Published: 00:00, Feb 12,2020	| Updated: 23:49, Feb 11,2020
Sri Lanka's president Gotabaya Rajapaksa waves during Sri Lanka's 72nd Independence Day celebrations in Colombo on February 4.— Agence France-Presse/Ishara S Kodikara
THIS year's Independence Day national event was significant for two reasons. It was the first to be celebrated under the leadership of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa of whom much is expected, both in terms of giving meaning to effective government and in making the transition to the ethos and infrastructure of a developed society. During his period as secretary of urban development, the cities were beautified and modernised. Giving further substance to the positive expectations of him is also his track record as the defence secretary who survived an LTTE suicide attack and was a key member of the state's defence apparatus that won the war defying expectations. Prior to him, the country had engaged in more than a quarter of a century of indecisive warfare that was sapping its morale and financial and human resources.
This display of decisive leadership to end the war has given rise to the expectation that the president can lead the country again to victory over a myriad of evils that threaten to engulf it. Among the challenges that president Rajapaksa is expected to tackle in a decisive manner are the runaway corruption in state institutions as revealed in the multiple bond scams and the Sri Lankan airlines bribery case. These two cases of corruption are in the limelight at the present time on account of the huge sums that have been misappropriated. However, the country is rife with similar instances of corrupt practices although the amounts may be smaller. Another challenge that the president is well suited to tackle is the lethargy in the state sector which he encountered first hand during the surprise visits he paid to several such institutions.
The second reason for the anticipation of the Independence Day celebration was the prospect of getting a further indication from the president as regards the future direction that the country would take under his leadership. Although nearly three months have passed since the election victory of president Rajapaksa, there remains a considerable uncertainty as regards the future direction of the country. The government's election campaign was very much focused on national security and catered primarily to the ethnic majority community's concerns. These included strong critiques of the previous government's policies that appeared to cater to the ethnic minority interests and were deferential to the demands of international human rights organisations.
Reassuring speech
IN THE immediate aftermath of the change of government there were concerns that the new government would reverse the space given to ethnic minorities, opposition parties and civil society. However, this has not materialised in a uniform manner. One reason could be that the government has only a minority of parliamentary seats at the present time which makes it difficult to pass new legislation unless the opposition parties agree to cooperate. At the same time there is regression such as the opening of checkpoints on the road to and from the North and East. Bus travellers are asked to get down and walk to the checkpoints with their bags even at dead of night. More and more civil society groups are reporting that they are being visited by intelligence personnel. Among those so visited were the civil society group, and even religious clergy, who sang the national anthem in both Sinhala and Tamil in Colombo.
As a result, there is uncertainty about government policies and in particular the space it is prepared to give other actors to do their political and civil society work. This situation of uncertainty regarding political and civic freedoms is likely to continue until the forthcoming general elections at which the government is expected to win comfortably. The positive expectations of president Rajapaksa coupled with the protracted crisis within the main opposition party concerning its leadership are fuelling the hopes of a big win. Unlike the government which made the transition to a new leadership relatively smoothly, the opposition's efforts at transition do not appear to be succeeding. The inability of the opposition to settle its leadership problems has diverted its energies to infighting rather than to being a counter to the government. As a result government leaders are talking in terms of obtaining a two-thirds majority in parliament at the forthcoming elections that would enable them to engage in constitutional change which could set the stage for more centralised state control over society.
In this context, president Rajapaksa's Independence Day address was reassuring as he expressed positive and straightforward principles of governance. At the outset of his speech itself he laid down the foundational principles of freedom and liberty that would guide his government. Without qualifying his assertions he said, 'Every citizen living in Sri Lanka has the right to live freely and securely. We will always ensure their right to think freely, hold independent opinions, and express themselves without any hindrance. We will always respect the right of any citizen to follow the religion of his or her choice. Every citizen has the right of free association and of free assembly. We will always defend the right of every Sri Lankan citizen to participate in the political and governance processes through his or her elected representatives. We consider all these as rights of human beings that no one can challenge.'
PRESIDENT Rajapaksa also reiterated his position first articulated in his oath taking speech shortly after being sworn in as president when he said he would be the president of all Sri Lankans, including those who had not voted for him. It is possible that having spent many years in the United States, the oldest democracy in the world, which is known as a melting pot of ethnic and religious identities, the president would have a broader perspective on racial issues that many other more parochial and insular Sri Lankan leaders may not have. This non-racial attitude would be strengthened by his commitment to merit as the basis of selection and to technocratic solutions to developmental problems.
In his Independence Day speech, the president applied these principles to the country's ethnically and religiously plural society by saying, 'In a democracy, when the leader is elected following a legitimate process, he becomes the president of all the people of the country. During his term of office, he must serve the entire Sri Lankan people. He is not bound to serve only the interests of the people who voted for him. I have the vision that I must serve as the leader of the country looking after all citizens rather than serve as a political leader concerned only about a particular community. As the president today, I represent the entire Sri Lankan nation irrespective of ethnicity, religion, party affiliation or other differences.'
Mostly everything that the president said in his Independence Day speech, when looked at in and of itself was exemplary. The challenge will be to implement these ideas in a manner that gains the trust and confidence of all sections of the country's multi-ethnic and multi-religious population, who have been deeply divided and scarred by years of conflict, war and terrorism. This reality was reflected in the singing of the national anthem in Sinhala only at the national event in Colombo, even while the national anthem was sung in both Sinhala and Tamil in the north and east and in other parts where Tamil-speakers are the dominant population. Students at the University of Jaffna put up black flags in protest while the TNA did not participate in the Independence Day celebrations in Colombo.
The logic and spirit of the president's Independence Day speech would be to end the distinction between centre and regions, so that the same rule applies all over the country. The growth of regionalism was a result of the regions being treated unequally. Equal treatment over a period of time may lead the people of the regions to believe they no longer need to be regions, but part of the whole. Firm and inclusive leadership that is cognizant of the pluralism and diversity within the country and embraces it all with equal commitment is what Sri Lanka needs in its transition.
Jehan Perera is executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka.
Jehan Perera
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Historical Vignette: Fort Randall Dam
Fort Randall Dam, 11 July 1967 - Graphic restoration by Al Barrus
Fort Randall Dam was the first Pick-Sloan dam completed by the Omaha District. Located in South Dakota just north of the Nebraska line, the dam was named for a nearby Indian war fort, of which only a ruined chapel, an overgrown parade ground, and a collection of debris-filled cellars remained. From 1946 to 1948, the Omaha District planned and designed a 160-foot-high, 28-million-cubic-yard, rolledfill, earthen dam to tame the Missouri at Fort Randall and to produce some 320,000 kilowatts of hydroelectric power.
In order to build the dam and the 150-mile-long reservoir it would impound, the Corps first had to provide access to the site for men, machines, and materials. Lake Andes, South Dakota, located about 8 miles from the damsite, was the nearest town with rail and highway connections. Corps workmen built a railroad to the damsite from the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific tracks at Lake Andes. During the 6 years the spur was used, it carried 38,425 railcars to the dam. The Omaha District also built an access road to the site. The Corps invested more than $1.4 million in the rail spur and access road alone.
Like Fort Peck and Garrison Dams, Fort Randall Dam required a new town to house the people who would build and maintain it. During the years from 1946 to 1950, the Omaha District built Pickstown, South Dakota, on a bluff east of the river at a cost of $9.5 million. It constructed 18 dormitories, 312 family dwellings, 25 utility buildings servicing 625 trailer spaces, 3 cafeterias, a school building, a theater, a hospital, and a hotel. The town was designed to house 3,500 workers in conditions suitable for normal family life.
The Black Twenty-fifth Infantry Regiment stationed at Fort Randall until 1892.
The Niobrara chalk formation, deposited by a greatepeiric sea, runs from Cedar County, Nebraska, upstream nearly to the Great Bend of the Missouri. This chalk is the best foundation material available in the upper Missouri basin. There are some fracture joints and bentonite seams in the chalk, but at the Fort Randall damsite, the chalk is generally tight. It permits little seepage of water there, and this creates very little of the hydrostatic pressure which can cause misalignment of even huge structures.
The District decided to locate the dam's tunnels and outlet works on the left bank of the river because of the presence on the right bank of a chalk "island" covered with loess soil and cut by ravines filled with clays. On the left bank, the tunnels could be drilled through solid chalk, and less overburden needed to be removed. Early in 1948, a contractor's crew began to remove overburden from the site of the dam's powerhouse, approach channel, and outlet works and to place it in the embankment.
Christ Church, which was struck by lightning and a tornado
Heavy equipment accomplished the earthwork. Great draglines scooped out 8 cubic yards a bite from the borrow areas. The shovel filled each of the eleven 18-ton-capacity Mack trucks used on the job with just two such bites. The trucks dumped the earth on the embankment, and other equipment graded it down and sprinkled it with water. The sprinkling permitted the soil to be compacted to the desired density. Great sheepsfoot rollers ran back and forth over the fill, compressing it. A lighting system allowed the work to proceed at night through two 10-hour shifts, 6 days a week. At the height of construction, almost 5,000 people worked on the dam. Western Contracting Corporation of Sioux City did the majority of the excavation and earthfill work. When completed, the embankment measured 10,700 feet in length.
Western Contracting also employed the portable dredge Western Chief, designed and built for the project within 11 months by the Erickson Engineering Company of Tampa, Florida. The Western Chief was the most powerful suction dredge of the day. Capable of developing 10,950 horsepower, it carried 1,500 tons on a 36-inch draft and had hull dimensions of 170 by 46 by 11 feet. The Western Chief came to the launch site in 21 sections. These, when assembled, gave it 30 watertight compartments. Practically unsinkable, the Western Chief dredged to depths of 48 feet through soft or medium-hard rock.
Bridge being constructed on top of spillway gates
Completed intake structure
The Western Chief went to work immediately upon its launching in April 1951. By the end of that year, it had dredged approximately 2.4 million cubic yards of material out of the approach channel and tailrace. The approach channel would directthe reservoir water to the power tunnels, and the tailrace would carry the water from the generators back to the river channel.
Beginning in May 1949, the Silas Mason Company of Shreveport drilled eight power-generating tunnels with 28-foot inside diameters through the chalk along with four 22-foot inside-diameter flood control tunnels. The tunnels were 875 feet long. The firm installed penstocks in the lower 648 feet of the power tunnels for the generation of electricity. A similar penstock was installed in one of the flood control tunnels so that it could be connected to a generator at a later date if desired.
Silas Mason began work on the first two tunnels using conventional line-drilling and blasting. The firm's project manager, R. B. Jewel, soon found a better method of boring the tunnels. He had a 9-foot conventional slabbing saw or coal saw mounted on a pair of great steel rings welded to a jumbo. He ran the saw into the chalk at the 4 o'clock position, had it cut its way on a circular arc to the 7 o'clock position, and then removed it. He cut back into the chalk a few inches farther around the circle, ran around the arc to 9 o'clock, and retracted it again until miners using jackhammers had drilled 41 blast holes 8 feet deep into the rock. Then he continued around the arc to within a few inches of his 4 o'clock starting point and removed the saw, leaving two plugs to hold the huge cylinder of chalk in place. Jewel found that two men operating the saw jumbo could cut as much circle periphery in 1.5 hours as could 16 men by line-drilling in 3 hours.
After the saw jumbo had been pulled out of the hole to work leapfrog fashion on an alternate tunnel, miners blasted out the cylinder of chalk. Mucking machines then moved in to load the trucks. These machines required 2 minutes to load one of the 10-cubic-yard mucking trucks, while it took the drivers 4 minutes to move one of the trucks out of the tunnel and another into position. All the while, two huge fans ventilated the tunnel. The saw jumbo was successful. In one recordsetting week, it cut through 331 feet in a 28-footdiameter tunnel. The jumbo saved money for the contractor because it reduced the normal 6-inch margin of overbreak in half, so that he did not have to blast an unneeded 3 or 4 inches of diameter. The District saved money because it did not have to pay a later contractor for 3 or 4 inches of extra concrete down the length of the 12 tunnels.
Marion 191-M shovel and Euclid dump
Coal saw being assembled
Although work had begun on both the tunnels and the intake structure in 1949, Silas Mason had virtually completed the tunnels by the end of 1951 while work on the intake structure continued. The function of the intake structure was to control the flow of water through the 12 tunnels. It was comprised of 12 towers that measured 65 by 110 by 185 feet that stood together in close rank.
A joint venture of the AI Johnson Construction Company and the Winston Brothers Company, both of Minneapolis, built the intake structure under an $11.8 million contract. Its local batching plant mixed over 193,000 cubic yards of concrete-enough to lay 74 miles of two-lane highway. Charles Brown, the Chief of Construction on Omaha District's Fort Randall staff, made sure that the quality of the concrete was carefully controlled. District personnel tested the ingredients that went into the concrete before it was mixed and closely monitored the temperature of the aggregate. They tested it again when it was ready to be poured. By July 1952, the intake structure was ready to receive the Missouri.
The Omaha District then turned to the Western Chief to pump a 200,OOO-cubic-yard stockpile of select chalk into a temporary dam to close the Missouri's natural channel and divert its waters through the newly built intake structure and tunnels. This would be the first use of the hydraulic placement method of closure in such a large project. The dredge placed the base of the weir in late April and May while 50,000 to 70,000 cubic feet per second of water rushed over it. The weir itself was built in July, a month after the Missouri's spring crest had passed. Closure was attained at 1:10 p.m. on July 20, after 666,000 cubic yards of dredged material had been placed.
A year later, District employees observed that grooves were developing on the rollers and tracks of the 50-ton gates that regulated the flow of water through the intake structure. The grooves suggested that the gates vibrated while being operated. To test the gates and ascertain the seriousness of any vibration, the Omaha District called upon the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Mississippi. That agency sent F, B. Campbell, Chief of its Hydraulic Analysis Branch, with a pickup truck of scientific gear to Fort Randall in January 1954 to test the gates. Campbell's research was the first ever conducted on gates of this type. Campbell welded an accelerometer to the gates and recorded their behavior on an oscillograph.His tests were then repeated at higher pool levels in September 1954 and August 1955. Waterways Experiment Station personnel concluded that no significant vibration was occurring.
Moving Western Chief from Fort Randall
Sheepsfoot rollers on embankment
Several firms joined to build the spillway and its Tainter gates and stilling basin. Excavation for these works, begun in 1951, was relatively simple as the foundation chalk could be cut easily in successive banks. The 1,OOO-foot-wide spillway required 500,000 cubic yards of concrete. The flow of water over the spillway was controlled by 21 Tainter gates, each 40 by 29 feet in size.
Oscar McCormick, superintendent at Fort Randall for a combine of Minneapolis and Omaha firms holding an $8.4 million spillway contract, developed a rig to drill holes for anchor bars in the spillway's chalk walls. The rig carried an air compressor on a Caterpillar-tracked platform and had a steel runner inclined above it. A drill moved up and down the runner sinking 8-inch-diameter holes 22 feet deep into the chalk at intervals of 8 feet. The drill bit had adjustable teeth which spread out at high speeds. When the bit neared the end of the hole, the drill operator increased its speed, reaming out an anchor bell. Workmen then ran steel anchor bars into the holes and poured grout into the anchor bells at the end of the holes. So grouted and set, the bars hold cement slabs tight against the chalk walls. The Omaha District concluded that this procedure saved $1 million and gave the District experience that it later used in constructing the North American Air Defense Command's Combat Operations Center under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado.
Well under the Niobrara chalk, which is split in places by fracture joints and bentonite seams, lies the Codell aquifer. All across the Missouri River basin, hydrostatic pressure from the aquifer poses problems to builders. After the excavations for the chute and stilling basin were completed, Corps officials ordered 35 relief wells drilled to reduce the uplift capability of the aquifer and thus give the spillway structures more stability. Construction of the powerhouse and its generating equipment was a $35 million job. Four firms provided this work. Donovon-Lovering-Boyle built the powerhouse itself, which stood 710 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 150 feet high. Allis-Chalmers installed the eight turbines, Westinghouse Electric built the eight 40,OOO-kilowatt generators that those turbines would drive, and Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel erected the eight penstocks and surge tanks.
Powerhouse draft tube substructure
General view of powerhouse structure, 3 August 1954
Fort Randall's first power flowed on March 15, 1954, a day of ceremony for both Federal and State officials. President Eisenhower spoke over the radio from the White House to 600 people gathered in the Fort Randall powerhouse and then tapped a Western Union key to signal Governor Sigurd Anderson to start the generators. Anderson in turn spun the giant turbine, and the dam's first generator began producing electricity. Speeches followed. Omaha District Engineer Colonel Thomas Hayes III listened while former Governor George Michelson and Governor Anderson reminded the audience that South Dakota was sacrificing 500,000 acres of land for the main stem reservoirs. The South Dakotans expected benefits from Fort Randall Dam and the others as they were completed.
Only a small portion of those benefits accrued in 1954. On the day of the ceremony, the reservoir pool stood at an elevation of 1313 feet above mean sea level, well shy of the 1350-foot elevation needed to produce full power. That higher level could not be reached until the giant Oahe Dam was completed, because Fort Randall Dam had to maintain a flood control capacity of 3.5 million acre-feet until then.
The eighth and last of Fort Randall's generators began operation on 10 January 1956. The Bureau of Reclamation marketed the power produced by the project, using both its own transmission lines and private lines. The dam provided power north to Fort Thompson where Big Bend Dam would be built and south to Grand Island and Columbus, Nebraska. By 30 June 1956, the Omaha District Engineer could report that the Fort Randall Project was 99 percent complete at a total cost of $183 million. This figure was almost 2.5 times as large as the original cost estimate. Within the previous 12 months, the dam's generators had produced more than 1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. By the early 1970's, the dam was producing over 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electric power annually.


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Q: Run docker container on a specific node in the swarm cluster I'm trying to implement a backup system. This system requires the execution of a docker container at the time of the backup on the specific node. Unfortunately I have not been able to get it to execute on the required node.
This is the command I'm using and executing on the docker swarm manager node. It is creating the container on the swarm manager node and not the one specified in the constraint. What am I missing?
docker run --rm -it --network cluster_02 -v "/var/lib:/srv/toBackup" \
   -e BACKUPS_TO_KEEP="5" \
   -e S3_BUCKET="backup" \
   -e S3_ACCESS_KEY="" \
   -e S3_SECRET_KEY="" \
   -e constraint:node.hostname==storageBeta \
   comp/backup create $BACKUP_NAME

A: You are using an older classic Swarm method to try running your container, but almost certainly using Swarm Mode. If you installed your swarm with docker swarm init and can see nodes with docker node ls on the manager, then this is the case.
Classic Swarm ran as a container that was effectively a reverse proxy to multiple docker engines, intercepting calls to commands like docker run and sending them to the appropriate node. It is generally recommended to avoid this older swarm implementation unless you have a specific use case and take the time to configure mTLS on each of your docker hosts.
Swarm Mode provides an HA manager using Raft for quorum (same as etcd), handles encryption of all management requests, configures overlay networking, and works with a declarative model, giving the target state, rather than imperative commands to run. It's a very different model from classic Swarm. Notably, Swarm Mode only works on services and stacks, and completely ignores the docker run and other local commands, e.g.:
docker service create \
  --name backup \
  --constraint node.hostname==storageBeta \
  --network cluster_02 \
  -v "/var/lib:/srv/toBackup" \
  -e BACKUPS_TO_KEEP="5" \
  -e S3_BUCKET="backup" \
  -e S3_ACCESS_KEY="" \
  -e S3_SECRET_KEY="" \
  comp/backup create $BACKUP_NAME

Note that jobs are not well supported in Swarm Mode yet (there is an open issue seeking community feedback on including this functionality). It is currently focused on running persistent services that do not normally exit unless there is an error. If your command is expected to exit, you can include an option like --restart-max-attempts 0 to prevent swarm mode from restarting it. You may also have additional work to do if the network is not swarm scoped.
I'd also recommend converting this to a docker-compose.yml file and deploying with docker stack deploy to better document the service as a config file.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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IPX over wired network to wireless network.
Does GIT work with Class B subnet aswell?


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Politicoscope (Politico Scope) > Politics Today > Politics Articles > USA & Americas News > Ruthless U.S. Unsettling Stunning Betrayal
Ruthless U.S. Unsettling Stunning Betrayal
Tagged: AUKUS, Joe Biden
The whole saga blows a hole in Joe Biden's bid to try and rebuild transatlantic ties with Europe, with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stating: "This unilateral, brutal, unpredictable decision is very similar to what Mr. Trump was doing."
In its growing confrontation with China, a ruthless Washington has demonstrated that what matters to it now is not Europe, but the Indo-Pacific region. This is where the new Cold War is to be fought. On Wednesday night, America's Joe Biden, Australia's Scott Morrison and Britain's Boris Johnson held a virtual trilateral summit whereby they affirmed a new agreement, titled AUKUS – a groundbreaking pledge to intensify military cooperation between the three Anglosphere allies, bringing them even closer by pooling critical technologies and research.
Chief amongst the headlines from this was the announcement that the US would now share its nuclear-powered submarine technology with Australia. The goal of this is to intensify attempts to contain China militarily, even though the three countries did not say it directly. However, the submarine pact involved Canberra abruptly scrapping a $43 billion deal with France to build 12 such submarines, a move which provoked outrage from senior officials in Paris, who effectively accused the US of betrayal.
This news is unsettling for Beijing and intensifies the existing arms race in the Pacific region, where tensions are already bubbling. Partially motivated by Scott Morrison's election pledge and his thirst to double down on disputes with China for his own political gain, it also arguably pushes Australia's relationship with China to the brink of no-return, which may have immense consequences.
But what is the broader significance of all this? It's both win and lose for Beijing in that the Biden administration has now formally staked its hand on which allies truly matter, and which ones do not, in the emerging 'Cold War' with China. It is a 'game, set and match' situation for Indo-Pacific-facing nations, with Europe left on the outside.
Washington's foreign diplomacy makes it obvious that the primary instrument of taking on Beijing will be Australia, Japan and India as part of the so-called "Quad" (which is to meet soon), and the United Kingdom, with its self-declared Indo-Pacific mantra, despite being more pragmatic in its opposition to China than the others.
Whilst there has been a long-held obsession in Washington of getting Europe to 'take a side', as well as repeated comparisons to the old Cold War, the geographical considerations mean this is not a European situation, but an Indo-Pacific one. As a result, EU nations should not be surprised at all that the US has so outrageously cheated them in the pursuit of its geopolitical aims and profits for its own military industrial complex. It will be interesting to see how France, and other Europeans react – will they stop kowtowing to the US on China?
When Biden came into office, he proclaimed that "America is back!" and vowed to rebuild ties with Europe. A misleading narrative had crystallized that everything that had gone wrong with EU-US ties in the previous four years had been the personal making of the erratic, dangerous and insufferable preceding president. Donald Trump did indeed wage an extraordinary level of provocations against the EU, including attacks over trade, an escalation of the Boeing-Airbus row, opposition to European market policies, and attacks on their contributions to NATO, demanding they fund their security themselves. The mistake which European commentators and politicians made was assuming that this 'America First' attitude was just a phase – and thus the departure of Trump for Biden would automatically see things would return to 'normal'.
Biden himself initially orchestrated that message and pushed hard to get Europe to become more compliant on his vision against China, bigging up trans-Atlanticism. Sure enough, he got some initial results. Only weeks before he took office, the EU and China had sealed a deal in principle on a "comprehensive investment agreement" (CAI), a lucrative deal which would give European firms better access to China's markets than what the US currently had.
READ MORE: Juneteenth National Independence Day: It's Great, But It's Not Enough
The US scathingly opposed this in the name of "transatlantic solidarity," with Jake Sullivan posting an infamous tweet seeking early consultations with Europe on "on our common concerns about China's economic practices." The US persuaded the EU into coordinating sanctions on Chinese officials over Xinjiang, which provoked a response from Beijing, and in turn led to EU parliamentarians freezing the CAI deal in protest.
What happened? Simply that the US sabotaged Europe's interests in pursuit of its own. The EU perhaps assumed the fallout would mend broken ties with the US, but it did not. Why? Because the problem wasn't simply Trump, it is in America in general. It sees Europe as a useful tool to do its bidding, but otherwise does not respect its interests, and even less so now that the onus is now on the Indo-Pacific.
The strategic mistake Europe made here was that it believed the US would actively work with them on China (despite disagreements) and failed to see the writing on the wall that, having sought to downgrade tensions with Russia, the US actually no longer seen the continent as a priority and has pivoted wholesale to its Indo-Pacific playbook.
Trump's downplaying of NATO was not simply down to his own erratic nature, but an expression that US strategic interests were shifting and it would no longer be focusing on Europe, therefore France, Germany et al "ought to pay their own way."
However, the obsession with Trump's flawed personality masked this shift, as did Biden's early charm offensive. Now the submarine development is the rude awakening that everything has changed, and that the US now sees the 'Quad' as its most important partners, as well as its 'special relationship' with Britain.
Europe is no longer strategically relevant to the US in the way it was for decades, not only with regards to Russia but also to the Middle East. This is a new era, and the new Cold War is not like the last one because the centre of gravity is not in Europe, it's in Asia.
Yet there is a deeper precedent at work here. The US has always actively undermined the critical industries of European countries when it has seen fit to do so. As some notable examples, the US has co-opted European intelligence agencies to spy on their own countries' defence programs to ensure that the US doesn't miss out, such as what it did to Denmark and the Eurofighter program, or getting them to spy on the chancellor of Germany too, or engaging in industrial espionage against Berlin. The list goes on.
Europe seems to have a sense of delusion about what America is and failed to calculate what Biden's real intentions were, mostly due to a distraction caused by the last president, which made them complacent about shifting US attitudes to Europe. But it has also repeatedly been unable to to recognise that Washington has a long history of bad faith behaviour towards the continent. America is not the "saviour" of Europe, and whilst the EU itself has been spoken of getting in on the 'Indo-Pacific' mantra too, the writing is on the wall for them as the US doesn't see them as important and has relegated them, at best, to the substitute's bench.
If France is serious about European 'strategic autonomy' it should invoke it now and stop kowtowing to the US agenda on China when it is plainly obvious that doing what Washington wants only benefits America at Europe's expense. If the EU does not get itself together and resurrect the CAI deal with China in light of this, and beef up its own security capacities, then they are truly mugs.
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Home » News » Box Office Special Features » Kabir Singh Box Office Collections: the Shahid Kapoor starrer crosses the USD 1 million mark at the North America box office
Kabir Singh Box Office Collections: the Shahid Kapoor starrer crosses the USD 1 million mark at the North America box office
By Bollywood Hungama News Network
, Jun 28, 2019 - 3:45 pm IST
The Shahid Kapoor starrer Kabir Singh released last week and opened on a good note. With positive reviews and good feedback from the audience the business of the film has seen a sharp increase in footfalls and collections. In fact, Kabir Singh that saw a limited release in the North America circuit has been performing exceedingly well, and has already managed to cross the USD 1 million mark in this territory.
With USD 735,932 [Rs. 5.07 cr] coming in from USA and another USD 321,480 [Rs. 2.21 cr] from Canada the total collections of Kabir Singh at the North America box office are currently pegged at USD 1,057,411 [Rs. 7.28 cr]. With the business of Kabir Singh showing a positive trend in this territory the makers of the film have decided on increasing the screen count in the second week.
Now, with new location set to open in the second week, trade predictions are that the business of Kabir Singh is likely to see further growth in the North America circuit over the coming days.
More Pages: Kabir Singh Box Office Collection , Kabir Singh Movie Review
Tags: Box Office Special Features, Box-Office, Kabir Singh, Kabir Singh Box Office, Kiara Advani, North America, Overseas, Shahid Kapoor
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Q: Best way without an internet lookup to secure a paid for application I have an application that I am currently selling that I want to expand.
However I don't want people to just be able to copy the EXE and give to their friends etc. I know its an almost impossible task but I want to make it as hard as possible for the non techies.
Obviously I could do a key lookup over the internet to a database every time they start the app but that would mean:

*

*Lots of internet traffic to my server which I would pay for.

*People without internet access (or my server being down / or a router somewhere) could prevent the app from working if the key couldn't be verified.

*Clever people with Wireshark / traffic sniffers could decode whatever key I am sending back to activate the app and then write something to bypass it.

Therefore I was thinking of something simple such as a checksum that would be related to the computers name / MAC address / IP (at the time of purchase) and then store it in the computers registry (1 licence = 1 key).
Then when the app opened it would check for the right registry key and compare it to a setting variable inside the app to ensure it matches before the app starts up.
If someone gave the app to another computer the key wouldn't exist (if they had purchased it I could give them a special once over-ride key which would re-set their key in the registry etc). Someone without the original payment details couldn't get this.
Does anyone have any better ideas that doesn't revolve around internet lookups etc or see any problems with the idea I am proposing?
The app is written in C# as a windows forms application in .NET 4.5
Any help would be much appreciated.

A: Assuming that you are designing this application for windows OS's only, you want to look for something that is unique per system that is hard to change.
The MAC address can be spoofed, as can IPs and names. One thing that can be changed, but would be more trouble than it is worth, would be the Windows Product Key / Windows ID. On registering, take the product ID of the users OS and then make sure that the application checks this as being verified on launch.
Without an internet accessing application this becomes more of a problem as you would probably have to pre-code this into the application, compile and then sell the unique version onto the unique customer.
As mentioned, stopping hackers from reverse engineering your application is very difficult, especially if a salt or something isn't provided from an online source. As all the hackers will do is try and edit the source code to allow any key or something along those lines.
There are companies out there that will let you host small databases on their servers for a very small cost, so you could consider this rather than hosting a live server 24/7. For more information on this, feel free to send me an email / chat message.
I would recommend using some kind of internet / database query to make it harder for the hackers and then make sure this is fully encrypted, especially considering that the majority of people who own PC's now days have an internet connection.
If you take peoples OS Keys, another bonus is possibly being able to track the culprit back once it has been hacked.
Hope this helps.

A: Okay, in that case i would recommend doing something with the Product ID - that way the ID can be checked on start-up of the program. But, do remember that the 'allowed key' will have to be entered into some database either online or behind the application itself.
Then, when the program is started it will check the users product ID and check it against the ID which has been put on the 'allow list'.
And it depends how the 'allowed ID' is stored. If your just storing the singular ID for a user in the code and then compiling it - no. If you have a huge list of allowed ID's in some sort of database separate from the application - yes. And it depends on the skill level of a hacker, most of the good hackers will be able to accomplish what they set out to achieve - no matter how they go about doing it - even to the point of hacking the development system for the core code.
If your not considering the latter, you could simply store the allowed ID as so, in a variable :
string AllowedID = "1234-ABCD-5678-EFGH";

Then, to check it against the users Windows OS Product ID you would probably need to query the registry (when i say product ID, i dont mean the serial code that is used to install the OS as storing this could have some ethical implications).
You could do something like this to retrieve the Product ID (tested on Win7 Ultimate x64):
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string value64=null;
RegistryKey localKey = RegistryKey.OpenBaseKey(Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive.LocalMachine, RegistryView.Registry64);
localKey = localKey.OpenSubKey(@"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion");
if (localKey != null)
{
value64 = localKey.GetValue("ProductID").ToString();
}
if (value64 == AllowedID)
{
MessageBox.Show("Successfully Authenticated");
//run the application functions etc
}
else
{
MessageBox.Show("Error Authenticting");
}
}

Hope this helps


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Q: Randomly picking $k$ members of $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ Every day, I randomly pick a sample consisting of $k$ members of $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ where $k\leq n$. I stop as soon as every number of $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ has been picked at least once. Let $S$ be the number of days needed to reach my goal. What is the expected value of $S$?

A: If $X$ is a random variable with non-negative integer values, the expectation of $X$ equals $$\mathbb{E}(X)=\sum_{m=1}^\infty {\rm Prob}\,(X\geqslant m).$$
In our situation the event $X\geqslant m$ means that after $m-1$ days there remains a not taken element. By exclusion-inclusion it equals $$\sum_{i=1}^n (-1)^{i-1}\binom{n}i\left(\frac{\binom{n-i}k}{\binom{n}k}\right)^{m-1}.$$
(the $i$-th summand corresponds to the choice of $i$ not-covered elements and the probability that they are not covered.) When we sum up by $m$, we get
$$
\sum_{i=1}^n (-1)^{i-1}\frac{\binom{n}i}{1-\frac{\binom{n-i}k}{\binom{n}k}}.
$$
Is such an answer ok for you?
For small $k$ and large $n$ the following further identical transform of the above sum may be helpful. Choose a polynomial $h(x)$ of degree at most $k-1$ for which the polynomial $1-h(x)\cdot (1-x)(1-x/2)\dots(1-x/n)$ is divisible by the polynomial $1-\binom{n-x}k/\binom{n}k$. The ratio which we denote $f(x)$ is a polynomial of degree at most $n-1$. Thus $\sum_{i=0}^n (-1)^{i-1}\binom{n}i f(i)=0$. But for $i=1,2,\dots,n$, we have $f(i)=(1-\binom{n-i}k/\binom{n}k)^{-1}$. Thus our sum equals $f(0)$.
For example, if $k=1$, we have $h(x)=1$ and $f(x)=nx^{-1}(1-(1-x)\dots(1-x/n))$, $f(0)=n(1+1/2+\dots+1/n)$ (that is known as Coupon Collector's Problem). For $k=2$ we get $h(x)=1+ax$ with exponentially small (for large $n$) value $a$ and $f(0)=(1+\dots+\frac1n-a)/(\frac1n+\frac1{n-1})$.

A: I think you should have already a good estimate just comparing with the classical coupon colector's problem (CCP).
Let us consider the CCP and pick the numbers one by one. We define the following stopping times
$T_i$ = The first $t\geq T_{i-1}$ such that there are $k$ different numbers picked between $T_{i-1}$ and $t$
Then the set of number picked at $T_i$ is the same as the set picked in your process after $i$ days. Moreover, the random variable $X_i=T_{i+1}-T_i$ are iid random variables (of same law $X$). And we have $$ t=\sum_{i:T_i\leq t} X_i+(t-T_i)$$
If we call $T$ the time the classical coupon colector has picked all its numbers, we have $$T=\sum_{i:T_i\leq T} X_i+(T-T_i)$$ In your process, $S$ is the first $i$ such that $T_i\geq T$. Therefore
$$\mathbb{E}(T)=\mathbb{E}(\sum_{i<S} X_i)+\mathbb{E}(T-T_{S-1})$$
$X_i$ are independant of $S$ and therefore
$$\mathbb{E}(T)=\mathbb{E}(S-1)\mathbb{E}(X)+\mathbb{E}(T-T_{S-1})$$
and remark that $\mathbb{E}(T-T_{S-1})\leq \mathbb{E}(X)$ and therefore we have the estimate $$\frac{\mathbb{E}(T)}{\mathbb{E}(X)}\leq\mathbb{E}(S)\leq \frac{\mathbb{E}(T)}{\mathbb{E}(X)} +1 $$ with $\mathbb{E}(T)= \sum_{j=1}^n\frac{n}{j}$ and $\mathbb{E}(X)=\sum_{j=n-k+1}^n \frac{n}{j}$.

A: So, in the first toss $k$ bins are covered with probability one.
In the second toss, on average $\frac{n-k}{n}(n-k)$ uncovered bins are covered. Let $\theta=k/n.$
So the " new"fractions covered are, $$\theta,\theta(1-\theta), \theta(1-\theta(1-\theta)),\ldots,$$
and the expected time is the smallest number where the sums of these reaches or exceeds $1.$
This number is the smallest integer $t$ such that
$$t\theta-(t-1) \theta^2 + (t-2) \theta^3+ \cdots+ (-1)^{t+1} \theta^t$$
exceeds $1.$