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To the Bone torrent Description:

Ellen is an unruly 20-year-old anorexic girl who spent the better part of her teenage years being shepherded through various recovery programs, only to find herself several pounds lighter every time. Determined to find a solution, her dysfunctional family agrees to send her to a group home for youths, which is led by a non-traditional doctor. Surprised by the unusual rules, Ellen must discover for herself how to confront her addiction and attempt self-acceptance.

Genre: Drama
Viewed: 2574 | Downloaded: 559

Colossal torrent Description:

Gloria drinks too hard and parties too much. Her boyfriend has enough of it and throws her out. Gloria returns to her hometown, dreaming of making a new start, but instead revives her childhood friendship with Oscar, who runs a bar. After drinking a night away with Oscar and his friends, he wakes up to discover a gigantic monster rampaging through Seoul and realizes that somehow the monster is connected to her.

Genre: Drama
Viewed: 1850 | Downloaded: 608

It Comes at Night torrent Description:

Genre: Horror
Viewed: 3769 | Downloaded: 1373

The Circle torrent Description:

Mae Holland seizes the opportunity of a lifetime when she lands a job with the world's most powerful technology and social media company. Encouraged by the company's founder, Mae joins a groundbreaking experiment that pushes the boundaries of privacy, ethics and personal freedom. Her participation in the experiment, and every decision she makes soon starts to affect the lives and futures of her friends, family and that of humanity.

Genre: Drama
Viewed: 2670 | Downloaded: 914

Leap! / Ballerina torrent Description:

Paris, 1884. A orphaned girl arrives in Paris from Brittany. Félicie Milliner is 11 and has no money but one big, passionate dream: to become a dancer. With nothing left to lose, Félicie takes a big risk: she 'borrows' a spoiled brats identity and enters the Opera Ballet School. But how long can she be someone else? Mentored by the tough and mysterious cleaner, Odette , Félicie learns that talent is not enough - it takes hard work to be better than her ruthless, conniving fellow students.

Genre: Animation
Viewed: 2176 | Downloaded: 569

Sleepless torrent Description:

Undercover Las Vegas police officer Vincent Downs finds himself caught in a high-stakes web of corrupt cops, internal affairs and murderous gangsters. When a failed heist leads to the kidnapping of his teenage son, Downs must race against time during a wild and restless night to save him and bring the criminals to justice.

Genre: Action
Viewed: 2720 | Downloaded: 661

The Peanuts Movie torrent Description:

For a long time, "Peanuts" has figured out how to overwhelm, maintaining life through its unique funny cartoon shape before graduating to TV and highlight films. Be that as it may, the Charles M. Schultz creation hasn't utilized its popular culture muscle in a long while, with "The Peanuts Movie" endeavoring to resuscitate the brand name for another era.

Genre: Gold
Viewed: 937 | Downloaded: 251

Maze Runner 2 torrent Description:

Genre: Gold
Viewed: 1539 | Downloaded: 500

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials torrent Description:

A year ago, "The Maze Runner" figured out how to split far from the crush of YA adjustments, developing as a vigorous thought on dystopian plotting and survival, helped by great visuals and winded exhibitions. Presently there's "Labyrinth Runner: The Scorch Trials, " a fast in and out continuation that is hoping to keep up establishment force after the past picture finished up with a huge cliffhanger.

Genre: Gold
Viewed: 835 | Downloaded: 236

In the Heart of the Sea torrent Description:

There are diverse approaches to translate "In the Heart of the Sea" which appears to be an endeavor by executive Ron Howard to dismember the will of man despite transcending affliction, obscured by misinformed conduct towards nature. It's likewise a debacle motion picture, with flaring boats, survival challenges, and a meandering whale resolved to guard its region.

Genre: Gold
Viewed: 777 | Downloaded: 227

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Journal of Computer Science

pmonpp: Pthread Monitor Preprocessor

Jinhua Guo

DOI : 10.3844/jcssp.2006.765.769

Journal of Computer Science

Volume 2, Issue 10

Pages 765-769

Monitors have become an exceedingly important synchronization mechanism because they are a natural generalization of the object-oriented programming. A monitor construct encapsulates private data with public methods to operate on that data. Although the Pthread library contains dozens of functions for threading and synchronization, it does not provide direct support for the monitor. Students must explicitly provide mutual exclusion around "monitor procedures" using mutex locks. However, monitor procedures by definition execute with implicit mutual exclusion. This makes it hard to teach the monitor concept in class and explain the semantic differences between monitors and semaphores. To solve this problem, we have designed and implemented a monitor preprocessor for Pthreads that provides explicit support for monitors in Pthreads.


Beaulieu - CountrySide Properties

Find a Home

Parks and open spaces make up a vast proportion of Beaulieu, giving residents a wealth of choice when it comes to outdoor activities. Wildlife and biodiversity are also encouraged to flourish in various habitats, while landscaped gardens offer variety to the eye.

Playing a crucial role in bringing the new community together, the parks and open spaces at Beaulieu will connect the new neighbourhoods and provide access to the wider landscapes. From walking to gardening, trim trails to equipped play areas, these thoughtfully designed open spaces will enhance lives and help to improve health and well-being.

Managing for the Future

As Beaulieu evolves over the years and its parks and open spaces will grow with it. Ownership of the majority of public open spaces created will be transferred to an independent trust which will manage, develop and preserve them indefinitely. This body will be charged with maintaining Beaulieu’s reputation as a premium location, while it will improve the quality of the natural environment for residents.

A commitment has been made to preserve and enhance the valuable historical and natural assets which give Beaulieu its unique character.

"Landscaping plays a huge part in the overall vision for Beaulieu"


Eventually rising!

Draft version 0.18

Last quarter, I took a Marketing class at Stanford called Global Entrepreneurial Marketing (GEM – MS&E 271). The first exam was a strategic thinking paper (STP) that required students to analyze themselves as a startup using a marketing toolkit called DEDART which stands for:

  • Diagnosis Where is this market in its life cycle? How attractive is the market opportunity?
  • Experience How will customers experience the benefits of the new product?
  • Decisions What is your marketing (or business) plan?
  • Analysis Why is your plan the best way to go?
  • Reality Test What are the risks of your plan, and how can we manage those risks?

It was an awesome class and I learned a lot of valuable entrepreneurial lessons from great teachers and professionals while working with a talented team of students.

As part of my STP for the GEM class, I wrote about a mathematical model that I have been thinking about as a bonus exhibit. This post is about that model which I called “Eventually Rising“. Here goes:

Bonus Exhibit I: Eventually Rising

Given my engineering background, I often like to use mathematical concepts to illustrate my life view. I view constant change in life like a sinusoidal function that keeps falling and rising over time. A lot of people hate change and try to prevent it from happening, or they deny it or try to stop it once it happens. However, as John C. Maxwell once said “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” Success and failure are two examples of change, but unlike change, success and failure are not constant and they are not inevitable.

While change is inevitable, it’s not always forced upon us. Most of the time, we are the primary change inducers in our own lives. The sine and cosine functions are two functions that alternate between a peak positive value equals 1 (maxima – ultimate positive change) and a bottom negative value equaling -1 (minima – ultimate negative change). We all want more successes (maximas) and less failures (minimas) through our actions.

Our actions cause change to the world around us for better or for worse. In an ideal world, we could ensure that change is always positive and all outcomes of our actions are desirable. The world of mathematics offers a great function that represents this ideal world and that is the tangent function. The tangent function is a strictly monotonically increasing function over the period [-π/2, π/2] or [-180°, 180°]. Check Bonus Exhibit III for the definition of monotonic and non-monotonic functions.

Source: http://goo.gl/erVwO

I especially like the fact that the tangent function is the result of dividing two constantly changing functions that results in two exaggerated values -∞ and +∞ on the edges . We often hear, someone changed a 180 degrees and turned his or her life around. That’s exactly what the tangent function does, it goes from the absolute infinite bottom (-∞) to the absolute unattainable maximum (+∞) over a 180 degrees.

In Reid Hoffman and Ben Casanocha’s book, “The Startup of YOU“, they talk about introducing small risks to one’s life on regular basis to build up more resilience and achieve stability through low levels of volatility. That is the division of two changing functions to achieve growth 🙂 Its exactly like dividing the sine function by the cosine function. If we introduce changes to our lives at the right frequency and at the right magnitude, we will get a net positive constant growth. In reality, getting it right every single time is probably impossible. But if you if we introduce small changes to your life as a habit, you will see a lot of benefit.

We have to be careful though. Simply changing sin(x) into sin(-x) will result in a monotonically decreasing function (the exact opposite of what we want):

* sin(-x) / cos(x) using http://www.onlinefunctiongrapher.com/

Or if you change the frequency of the changes, for example by dividing sin(-2x) by cos(0.2x), you will get a very bumpy ride:

* sin(-2x) / cos(0.2x) using http://www.onlinefunctiongrapher.com/

We don’t live in an ideal world and we are never really at -∞ and we will never reach +∞. However, the lesson that I do take from that ideal model is that we should always strive to be growing. Its hard to be monotonically increasing, its probably impossible to be strictly monotonically increasing, but we can be eventually increasing. We are not always able to induce the right amount of change at the right time. Sometimes, change is induced upon us in ways that we have no control over. By investing in yourself, learning new things, gaining new skills, and making new connections as a habit, you maximize the chances of introducing the right change at the right time. When undesirable changes happen, you will take a fall. Those undesirable changes can be external (an earthquake for example) or internal (we all make mistakes).

That’s the math and philosophy behind the term “Eventually Rising“. The following image is a good visual representation of an eventually rising plot:

* Source: this site was tracking Google share value since inception

By focusing on our own constant growth, we may be able to neutralize the undesirable change around us and turn it around to be rising just like the tangent function. By constantly taking any potential failure and flipping it a 180 degrees and making a success out of it.

Every company, large, medium or small, publicly traded or a private startup has its ups and downs. The same applies to people. No one is always winning or always losing. You want the net average over time to be heading up.

Bonus Exhibit II: Functions of constant change (sine, cosine, and tangent)

The Sine and Cosine functions represent the inevitable and constant changes in our lives.

Source: http://goo.gl/erVwO

The tangent function = Sin(x) / Cos(x) over the period [-π/2, π/2] or [-180°, 180°] is a strictly monotonically increasing function.

Bonus Exhibit III: Monotonic and nonmonotonic functions

“A function  is called monotonically increasing if for all  and  such that  one has , so  preserves the order (see the left figure below). Likewise, a function is called monotonically decreasing if, whenever , then , so it reverses the order (see the right figure). If the order  in the definition of monotonicity is replaced by the strict order , then one obtains a stronger requirement. A function with this property is called strictly increasing. Again, by inverting the order symbol, one finds a corresponding concept called strictly decreasing. Functions that are strictly increasing or decreasing are one-to-one (because for  not equal to , either  or  and so, by monotonicity, either  or , thus  is not equal to .)” *Source: this Wikipedia page

The following figure is a monotonically increasing function. It is strictly increasing on the left and right while just non-decreasing in the middle.

*Source: this Wikipedia page

The following figure is a monotonically decreasing function. It is strictly decreasing on the left and right while just non-increasing in the middle.

* Source: this Wikipedia page

The following plot compares a nonmonotonic function to a monotonic function:

A different view on Religion vs Atheism

Last year, I participated in a little contest that was on prizes.org. The Prizes.org site was an experiment that did not attract enough users so its shutting down. I figured I would make a post out of one of the contests that I participated in and won on the site.

One university student called Gabe posted the following contest questions about religion vs atheism:

Why are there so many people who cling to Religion? Why do they refuse to believe science? Why do the majority of scientists choose to believe there is no god? What has kept Religion around for so long?

The contest had 137 entries and generated a lot of comments and discussions back and forth between users. I took a stab at explaining my viewpoint and submitted an entry. This post is a copy of what I posted on Prizes.org.

I recommend reading this post with an open mind and try to put yourself in the mindset of the opposing side. I am a practicing Muslim and that definitely influenced my viewpoint, but I tried to be as objective as possible. Here is what I wrote in reply to the questions raised by Gabe:

I want to take a different approach. To start off, let’s agree on basic terminology and a few assumptions so that we don’t go around in infinite circles.

0- Theories are either false or true until proven to be one or the other. Proofs are measurable, repeatable, and consistent at all times. Ideally, facts do not need proofs (for example, humans need to breathe to stay alive, that is a fact that does not need to be proven – you would hope). Throughout history, humans were not able to accept many facts until they were proven beyond reasonable doubt (for example, Earth is not the center of the universe). We need to differentiate between facts and theories. Facts are proven beyond reasonable doubt that they are true. Any theory that is unproven or could hold the slightest possibility of being untrue is not a fact.

In my analysis, I will refrain from comparing science and religion, since many scientists are religious. I will compare Atheism and Religion to be more accurate.

1- Religion has not been able to prove the existence of God. Religion asserts the existence of God as a fact although since its not proven, using our terms above, the existence of God is a theory.

2- Atheism has not been able to prove the non-existence of God. Atheist scientists assert the non-existence of God as a fact because they have not been able to prove God’s existence. The non-existence of God has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt. So again using our terms above, the non-existence of God is a theory not a fact.

Religion tries to address to a fundamental trait of human nature. Monotheistic religions referred to this trait as the devil. Modern Self-Help literature, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism referred to this as mastering one’s own desires and impulses.

For example, we all know that we should exercise and eat healthy. A healthy lifestyle is proven to reduce the risk of many diseases and improve the quality of life. That is a scientific fact. Not a theory. However, many people do not eat healthy and do not exercise despite knowing 100% that they should.

Given that long intro, here are is my attempt to address your questions:

Why are there so many people who cling to Religion?

Because there are things we can’t explain. Deep down inside, many people feel that religion re-enforces the basic goodness in human nature. That goodness you feel when you see a child smiling or a family reunion. Universally accepted goodness is what I am referring to. Fairness, justice, mercy, moderation, loyalty, honesty are good values in all cultures. Religion re-enforces these values. At the same time, Religion tries to regulate human emotions and actions. Succumbing to greed, lust, or violence would cause societies to break and even self-destruct.

Why do they refuse to believe science?

Science has not proven anything concrete about the existence of God. So religious people are not really refusing anything (again using our terms above).

There is no proof. Scientist do not like to bet so much in their lives on mere theories. Many scientists are practical and until there is a solid proof, why bother!

What has kept Religion around for so long?

Religion helps many people keep their lives balanced. The optimistic view of religion sees religion for its intentions. In that optimistic view, the intentions or objectives of religion are to balance human life and make the world a better place.

The pessimistic view sees religion by looking at the actions of people in the name of religion. No religion asks its followers to kill innocent people. Some followers on the other hand, unfortunately, killed many innocents in the name of their religion.

As I wrote earlier, the contest had 137 entries and many of them had good points. The comments on each entry were pretty interesting and sometimes very heated. You can check them out on the contest page (remember it will be removed soon as the Prizes.org site is shutting down).

By Moh Posted in Life

Renewal again – The 7 Challenges of 2010

Whats up with health insurance in this country?

I just got a letter from my health insurance company requiring itemization of all the medical services I have received in the hospital for the last 2 surgeries I got. The amount that was not covered by the insurance is $230,575.18

This is not the first time this happens. When I got my surgeries two years ago, similar thing happened and the hospital wanted me to pay about $200,000. This is plain outrageous, what is the point of health insurance if every time you get a real procedure done, you have to fight to the nail to get the insurance to pay for it. Last time after fighting for months and involving several parties, I was able to reduce the amount I had to pay from $200K to $14K. It was a long frustrating and stressful process and I really don’t want to go through that again.

I am trying to remain calm. I have worked this out before so I can do it again … its just extremely frustrating. I may even need another procedure done … what then … another $100K… sighs

Growing up never stops

When we were kids, we were always asked what you would like to be when you grow up as if growing up happens once and stops right there. Whenever I think that I have matured enough and that I have reached a stable unshakable character foundation, something happens that proves me wrong. It seems like a never ending process. You are never done with growing up and there is always room for improvement (just like there is always room for dessert :). The moment you stop improving, life gets ahead of you and you are left behind.

By Moh Posted in Life

New challenge

End of July, I had surgery to take the shunt out of my head. After that in August I got another procedure called Endoscopic third ventriculostomy. Overall, I feel like I have recovered quickly but I have fallen behind on working out and my Japanese. Things at work are getting busier than ever and now I’m managing all of North America and Japan by myself.

Beginning of July, I ended a 3 months challenge to improve health, work, and Japanese. I feel like the surgery set me back months behind. I’m at 170 lbs now (10 pounds more than my target weight), have not touched Japanese in weeks, and work is super busy. I may sound negative, but really I think overall things are actually going pretty well considering that people usually take many months to recover from brain surgeries. Mostly, I’m frustrated cause I couldn’t work out. Working out really helps me stay focused and makes me more productive at work. I even sleep/eat/and function better when I have a steady consistent workout schedule.

I just got a green light from my doctor to start working out – lightly however – but its a start. So I decided to set a new challenge. By Nov 10th, 2010 (إن شاء الله), I need to get back to my target 160 lbs weight. I missed registering for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test this year and the next time its offered is in July 2011. This gives me time to improve and maybe even test at a higher level. As for work, just gotta be on top of things and come up with ways to allocate my time carefully. I’m also trying to hire another account manager to help reduce the load.

I won’t record my progress online on daily basis but I will be posting about it as I go along to make sure I stay on track.

End of the 3 months challenge

I started a 3 months challenge on April 12th with three goals; health/weight, work, and Japanese. I’m happy to announce that I’m ending the challenge a week early and starting a new one. Yesterday I weighed myself and was 160 LBS. Now I have to keep the weight off and continue to work out and stay healthy.

As for work, lots of good changes but nothing public yet. Will be writing an update about that pretty soon. Here is a picture from the conference that I just attended:

The Japanese improvement part really kicked my butt. Trying to learn 10 new Kanji everyday was tough. I have another trip to Japan end of August and at that time, I hope to be able to give a technical presentation in Japanese. I will have a translator but my goal is to give one third of the presentation in Japanese by myself. Also I’m aiming to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test end of the year. If I prepare enough, I will take level 2. The backup plan is to take level 3 which is a little easier depending on work, vacation, travel…etc.

Overall, I really like the idea of tracking progress on daily basis and will continue to do that in general.

June 6th – Day 36

強い：つよい strong
盗む：ぬすむ　steal
弱い：よわい　weak
犯人：はんにん　criminal, offender
国境：こっきょう　national or state border
越える：こえる cross over, pass through
通勤：つうきん　commuting to work
代表：　だいひょう　Representative
航空：こうくう　aviation, flying
借金：しゃっきん　debt, loan
抱え：かかえ　armful, employee
法律：ほうりつ　law
裁判所：さいばんしょ　courthouse
原因：げんいん　cause, origin, source
景気：けいき　business, condition
自体：じたい　itself
地域：ちいき　area, region
抗 こう (pref) anti-
武器：ぶき　weapon, arms, ordnance
運動：うんどう　motion, exercise
政府：せいふ　government, administration
貧しい：poor needy
都市：とし　town
差：　さ　difference, variation
交換し：こうかんし　exchange

June 1st – Day 31

The 90 days challenge is still on. Trips and getting sick got in the way, but I won’t let that bring me down. Back on track. I managed to get down to about 167LBS which means I only need to lose 7 more pounds to be at my target 160LBS.

Things at work are going well. I have another trip coming up to Japan pretty soon. I’m hoping to be able to give presentations in Japanese at some point. The technical language needed for a presentation is way beyond me right now so I need to start practicing. I should include that as part of my challenge and incorporate it in my everyday routine.

Kanji is the hardest part of my 90 days challenge and I am learning new ways to become more effective at it. The best way to actually memorize the Kanji is to always associate it with a number of things. I noticed that when a I create a brain map for a character, its much easier to memorize it and recognize it quickly.

Grouping and classifying words really works. When I see a character, I get an instant flash of the whole group that it belongs to instead of just that one character. The problem is that brain maps are very complex and writing them down on paper (while great because of its muscle memory association) is just too time consuming. I started using Free Brain Map software called Free Mind but its taking too much time to do things effectively with it. I need to research more brain mapping software and see which one really fits my learning style.

For today, the Kanji words are (some Kanji characters are new to me, I will tally them up later):

映画: a movie
写真: a picture
趣味: hobby
音楽: music
料理: cooking
番組: program
思考力: thinking power
原色: primary color
白鳥: swan
黒板: blackboard
赤字: deficit
特色：a characteristic
上映する：to show a movie
映す：to reflect
画家：a painter
画面：a screen
原料：raw materials
画数：stroke number
天気予報：weather forecast
記号：symbol, sign
説明する：to explain
動作：action, behavior
自動詞：intransitive verbs
他動詞：transitive verbs
寝台車：sleeping car
遊ぶ：　play
遊園地：amusement park
返事：answer, reply

So what’s new?

I have been sick for the past week. Finally, I feel like I have overcome it. Tomorrow back to the gym. I was 168lbs last week but I’m back to 170lbs now. I’m still 10lbs away from my target and my deadline is July 12th. I have about a month and a half to reach my goal.


Illegal UnionPay transactions in Macau reach $262M in 2016

TAGs: Jasmine Solana, Macau, unionpay

Beijing’s tightened grip on the rampant abuse of UnionPay International’s card system has yet to see any effect in Macau. In fact, authorities are reporting that the number of unauthorized transactions using cards from the mainland China’s bank has almost doubled in the first half of 2016.

Between January and June, the Judiciary Police (PJ) calculated a total of MOP2.1 billion (USD262.5 million) worth of illegal transactions in the territory, Portuguese news agency Lusa reported. The amount is almost double the MOP1.22 billion (USD153 million) calculated for the full year of 2015.

Illegal UnionPay transactions in Macau reach $262M in 2016For the first half of 2016, PJ opened a total of 12 probes into cases involving money transactions using unregistered UnionPay point of sale (POS) terminals. All of the cases were sent to the Public Prosecutions Office for further action, according to the news outlet.

Police have identified 31 people in connection with the investigation—22 of whom were from mainland China. Authorities also seized 22 POS units that they believed have been tampered so that the UnionPay network will identify them as being registered an operated in mainland China, where transactions fees are much lower compared to Macau.

China has been trying to crack down on illicit money channeled through Macau’s casinos for more than a year. In December, the Monetary Authority of Macau (AMCM) started monitoring mainland bank cards on real time to combat “illegal cross-border financial activities and money laundering.”

Pawnshops in Macau are infamous for deriving a huge chunk of their business volume through transactions that disguise cash advances as product purchases. Other scams involve the actual purchase of a high-value item via UnionPay, after which the customer returns the items in exchange for cash.

In 2015, PJ investigated a total of 30 cases related to unauthorized UnionPay use. The transactions were worth an estimated MOP1.22 billion.

China’s UnionPay, on the other hand, have started required holders of China-issued cards to submit a proof of their identity, which will be scanned before their purchase is confirmed. According to a GGRAsia report, the real-time monitoring system was “implemented on high-risk merchants near casinos, most of which are jewelry and watches merchants.”


Issue 157: CognitionX Data Science, AI and Machine Learning

In case you missed DeepMind’s PathNet from last month, we are sharing with you a helpful summary of the key take-home points. PathNet uses Transfer Learning to play games (like Pong) which it was not trained on. This is an exciting advancement since it is on the road to general AI (btw, don’t forget about the General AI Challenge, which is offering a total of $5M in prizes).

We wanted to ask you: do you think that DeepMind will be the first to create General AI? Click ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ below to express your opinion and please comment as well.

Tabitha UntiltheBotsTakeOver Goldstaub

We are putting together a book list for All Things AI, so if you have any suggestions, please tweet to them to @cognition_x. Stay tuned for updates!

Summary of DeepMind’s PathNet

Last month, DeepMind published an important paper
describing how general AI potentially will look like. Since the paper is a fairly-difficult read for the uninitiated, we thought it would be useful to share a summary of Théo Szymkowiak, president of McGill University’s AI Society. Therein, he describes PathNet’s ability to generalize via Transfer Learning to play games that it was not trained on.

Deal of the Day

Apple acquires Israeli firm RealFace specializing in facial recognition

Apple has bought Israeli startup RealFace, a cybersecurity and machine learning firm specializing in facial recognition technology.  The Times of Israel reported on Sunday that the Tel Aviv-based company, founded in 2014, was snapped up by Apple for an estimated $2 million. RealFace’s website is currently offline, but according to promotional material, the startup had developed a unique facial recognition technology that integrates AI and “brings back human perception to digital processes”.

RealFace is the fourth Israel-based firm Apple is known to have acquired. In 2011 it bought flash memory maker Anobit for a reported $400 million, then in November 2013 it acquired 3D sensor company PrimeSense for an estimated $345 million. Most recently in 2015, Apple bought LinX for around $20 million.

Ethics Question for the Day

AI watchdog needed to regulate automated decision-making, say experts

An AI watchdog should be set up to make sure people are not discriminated against by the automated computer systems making important decisions about their lives, say experts.

In a new reportSandra Wachter, Brent Mittelstadt, and
Luciano Floridi, a research team at the Alan Turing Institute in London and the University of Oxford, call for a trusted third party body that can investigate AI decisions for people who believe they have been discriminated against. “What we’d like to see is a trusted third party, perhaps a regulatory or supervisory body, that would have the power to scrutinise and audit algorithms, so they could go in and see whether the system is actually transparent and fair,” said Wachter.

Future of Health

Machine-learning model predicts remission, relapse in cancer patients

Researchers have developed an algorithm to accurately predict which patients diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, will go into remission following treatment and which ones will relapse.

Using bone marrow data and medical histories of AML patients, as well as blood data from healthy individuals, researchers were able to teach a standard 64-bit computer workstation running Windows to predict remission with 100 percent accuracy, while relapse was
correctly predicted in 90 percent of relevant cases.

“It’s pretty straightforward to teach a computer to recognize AML, once you develop a robust algorithm, and in previous work we did it with almost 100 percent accuracy,” said Murat Dundar, associate professor of computer science in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Education and Advice We Rate

Deep learning tutorial: diagnosing skin cancer recently open sourced the core components of its skin cancer diagnosis software and made the data sets it collected for this task easily available. The goal is to release a free & open source product in early May that diagnoses skin cancer with (validated) dermatologist-level accuracy (or better).

This tutorial  dives into’s simple code that they have open-sourced that serves as a general starting point for image classification and other tasks in computer vision, and is used to train their production skin-cancer diagnosis models. It will allow you to get up-and-running with this code, training a deep convolutional neural network to diagnose skin-cancer w/ dermatologist-level accuracy!

AI grows a nose

Predicting colour is easy: Shine a light with a wavelength of 510 nanometers, and most people will say it looks green. Yet figuring out exactly how a particular molecule will smell is much tougher. Now, 22 teams of computer scientists have unveiled a set of algorithms able to predict the odor of different molecules based on their chemical structure. It remains to be seen how broadly useful such programs will be, but one hope is that such algorithms may help fragrance makers and food producers design new odorants with precisely tailored scents.

This latest smell prediction effort began with a recent study by olfactory researcher Leslie Vosshall and colleagues at The Rockefeller University in New York City, in which 49 volunteers rated the smell of 476 vials of pure odorants. For each one, the volunteers labeled the smell with one of 19 descriptors, including “fish,” “garlic,” “sweet,” or “burnt.” They also rated each odor’s pleasantness and intensity, creating a massive database of more than 1 million data points for all the odorant molecules in their study.

Future of Transportation

GM plans to build and test thousands of self-driving Bolts in 2018

General Motors Co plans to deploy thousands of self-driving electric cars in test fleets in partnership with ride-sharing affiliate Lyft Inc, beginning in 2018, two sources familiar with the automaker’s plans said last week.

It is expected to be the largest such test of fully autonomous vehicles by any major automaker before 2020, when several companies have said they plan to begin building and deploying such vehicles in higher volumes. Alphabet Inc’s Waymo subsidiary, in comparison, is currently testing about 60 self-driving prototypes in four states.

Most of the specially equipped versions of the Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle will be used by San Francisco-based Lyft, which will test them in its ride-sharing fleet in several states, one of the sources said. GM has no immediate plans to sell the Bolt AV to individual customers, according to the source.

Chat Bots, yadda yadda

Seattle startup ReplyYes adds chatbots to e-commerce

Seattle startup ReplyYes has sold more than 100,000 vinyl records purely through text messaging. And now the company, which spun out of Madrona Venture Labs in December 2015, has just inked a deal for Universal Music Group to use ReplyYes’ technology to sell its own albums and merchandise.

ReplyYes is an e-commerce company with an AI focus. It runs a chat bot that suggests products to customers via text and Facebook Messenger and learns about customer preferences over time. The startup has been running its own two stores called The Edit and Origin Bound, which sell vinyl records and comic books, respectively, since last spring.

The Edit, for instance, sends a text message to customers each day suggesting a record to buy. If the customer wants it, they can reply “yes.” They can also
indicate “like” and “dislike” to help the technology learn what types of music they like.

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In every creative work, it highlights the painful experiences and the thoughts of the creator. A realistic writer can easily express his experience and point of view by using attractive words and usages. But, for a beginner, it is not an easy process. Some people are born with immense talents and they can create things by applying the results of their creative thinking. Reading is the process which helps to brush up our skills and it helps to find the spark in you to contribute something creative. The outcome or the impact of your writing is completely based on your effort.

Inner vision and ultimate expression are changing from person to person. Intensity of the content is also a measurement unit to understand the depth of one’s thought. The quality of your dissertation or essay is based on your capacity to think and act.

Students feel difficulty to follow the different strategies in our systematic education process. The reason is, the educators or the teachers asked for students to develop academic paper. Less efficient students can’t cooperate with this task, because they have not enough potential to do this. They are raising lots of questions and nobody is there to help them and answer for their questions.  They need support from people around them. These situations lead to the birth of online writing services.

How to write a dissertation? Most of the beginners are approaching online writing service providers with this kind of questions. Online writing service providers are the finest place to get better writing tips and ideas. They have well educated writers to guide you to the right platform of success. These professional writers have years of experience in this writing field. They speak from experience.  So, we can accept their suggestions without a doubt. Students need some good guidelines to get a strong a foundation. As we all know, the failure or mistakes in foundation may affect the quality of dissertation.

 How To Write A Dissertation?


Discerning and Decoding Campus Culture(s): Questions Early Career Professionals Should Ask

My first faux pas as a faculty member happened in my first semester during a department meeting. We were having an animated discussion about our curriculum and it became clear the room was split on the issue. As the meeting approached its end, I, being helpful of course, quipped, “will we be voting on this before we leave today?” I then learned that in my department, we made most decisions by consensus— a revelation of department culture.

Culture, as a shared system of meaning encompassing beliefs, values, behavior, and material objects, exists at multiple levels within institutions of higher education. For example, both faculty and students shape the culture of teaching and learning, students drive cultures around athletics and partying on campus, and then there is a whole other culture around planning and decision-making both at the institutional and department level. While we may not encounter some of these cultures in our daily experiences as faculty members, and we would like to immerse ourselves in research and teaching and not focus on these less tangible aspects of our jobs, these cultures or the climate of higher education institutions affect our lives in indiscernible ways. For example, research shows that campus climate around racial diversity affects the retention of faculty of color, their satisfaction at work, and their tenure and promotion success.

For these reasons, prospective and early career faculty members must discern and decode the culture of the institution to ensure future success. More specifically, it is important to understand how the institution sees itself and its purpose within the contemporary higher education landscape. We must also care about how faculty, students, and staff perceive the campus climate and how the institution learns from its past and envisions its future. Finally, it is critical to assess the alignment between our values and vision for our own career and that of the institution.

For prospective faculty members, you want to discern the culture of an institution to create initial profiles of students, the department, and the institution, and assess fit with your values and vision for your career. For example, you can ask the following kinds of questions:

  • About students (from faculty, staff, and current students): What are students like inside and outside the classroom at this college? Why did you choose to come to this college/university? What aspects of this school do you (student) enjoy and dislike the most?
  • About the department (from senior and junior colleagues, and department staff): How does the department make major decisions? What are the relationships like among faculty in this department? What are relationships like among faculty across departments? How are faculty involved in the decision-making of the institution?
  • About the institution (from faculty, administrators, and staff): how does the college go about making major decisions? Can you describe the financial health of the institution? What is the relationship like between faculty and the administration? Additionally, to get a sense of the institution you can look at its strategic plan and budget information online, flyers around campus, upcoming events on its website, and any discussions on social media among students.

Once you have arrived on campus as an early career scholar, continue to gather information to refine your profile of students, the department, and the institution and assess fit with your values and vision for your career as they evolve. There should be three key organizing questions in this stage of discerning campus culture:

  1. Is this campus your intellectual home? While this question will mean different things to different people, you can pay attention to things like the nature of your conversations with colleagues. Do they understand on at least a basic level what you study? Do they have a general sense of how your work matters in your field and the world? Also, pay attention to the nature and variety of talks that occur on campus. Do these talks reflect a range of issues across disciplines? What are the emergent themes and leanings?
  2. What are the priorities of this institution? Service is one of the ways in which campus culture reproduces and sustains itself. Pay attention in your department and faculty meetings. What do you spend the most time discussing, and how are these topics discussed? What are the nature and variety of committees formed by the institution and department? Who tends to be on these committees? Who are not? This will tell you a lot about how the institution values its members’ time and who the power players are. For example, most institutions’ diversity and inclusion officers are women and people of color. This communicates a particular message about who is responsible for fixing what is broken.
  3. Does this institution value me in the way that I value myself?Tenure and promotion reviews are incredibly illuminating tools of culture because there are codified agreements and evidence about what the department and institution values. Pay attention to what and how your department comments upon your performance. Talk to people who have recently been reviewed about their experience. Pay attention to patterns and themes in and across these conversations and what resonates with your own experience. Trust your gut!

As I found out in that department meeting, we all arrive to our new jobs with assumptions and practices that may or may not align with our institution. Furthermore, our daily encounters with students, faculty, and staff often clarify how the cultural ideals of our employer plays out in real life. Discerning and decoding campus culture is a critical part of deciding if we can live with that reality, and, if not, providing us invaluable information regarding the type of institution that we would desire long-term.

By Naila Smith

Image by rawpixel.com/AdobeStock

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Motivation: Friday Field Trips, The Newsela Challenge and The Grammar Challenge

Given that motivation is cited as one of the keys (along with aptitude) to language learning, I’ve been thinking a lot about student motivation and buy-in in connection with developing and teaching legal English curriculum to LLM students. I’ve also been thinking about grammar and how to help students improve. So when we decided to add an additional ALDA class on Fridays this semester (and that I would be teaching it), I decided to try and tackle both of these topics in one semester-long effort.

Friday Field Trips

Each semester I’ve made it a point to devote three or so classes to field trips: One to federal court, one to state court, and one to a law firm. In the past, we’ve also done trips to the United Nations and the Court of International Trade. The students, needless to say, love these trips. But they also are a fantastic way to build background knowledge for the students. And of course field trips provoke a basis, desire and motivation for learning more.

So this semester I’ve set a schedule of one field trip every two weeks. The first will be to the Supreme Court in Queens County to visit a judge whose clerk is a St. John’s Law School alumnus. Additionally, we plan to visit both federal and state courts (to watch trials, motions, jury selection, etc.) as well as a police station, a couple different types of law firms (large and small), Queens Legal Services, and the United Nations. The biggest development, however, has been that as LLM students not in my ALDA classes have learned about them, they too have expressed interest in joining along for the Friday Field Trips. And from my perspective, the more the merrier and the better overall experience it will be. Continue reading

Improving LLM students’ written grammar through listening practice

It sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but is it possible that a number of grammar issues we see in LLM student writing could be addressed by listening practice?

Missing articles. Incorrect prepositions. Dropping an “s” at the end of a plural noun or third-person verb.

What do all of these have in common? They’re all soft, unstressed sounds that are often reduced and connected with sounds from other nearby words. Say the previous two sentences aloud and notice which sounds are stressed clearly and which ones are soft, reduced, or connected.

Why does this matter? Because being a native speaker of a language essentially boils down to knowing what sounds right. Articles and prepositions in particular are notoriously challenging to teach in accordance with clear rules. They are very arbitrary and capricious, and if you look at article and preposition usage in other languages, you quickly see that. Did we learn how to use all these small words by studying rules? No, of course not. We just had a lot of exposure to what sounds right and it’s jarring to our ears when it sounds wrong.

So how can listening practice help? If LLM students hear these sounds, then it’s more likely that the voice inside their head will absorb them and start to incorporate them. The problem, however, is that because these are often soft sounds, students do not absorb them and incorporate them. When they are listening to professors or classmates or a tv show, they’re focused on the main content. Their ears are not attuned to the soft sounds if they aren’t already on the students’ radars. Continue reading

A long-winded discussion of summaries and paraphrasing

I have been working with my new international LL.M. students on summarizing and paraphrasing skills, to get them ready for a first research memorandum assignment.  I decided to spend some time on this because I have noticed that even when writing a single case brief exercise, some students do not feel free to depart from the court’s words. As a result, students can spend hours wrestling 6 pages of case law into a 3-page summary that really only needs to be a few ordered dots of thought the size of an index card.  So we have been working to condense information into different styles of case briefs, using the same legal text until they feel comfortable putting the case aside and writing main points from memory.

Stephen spied one of my latest worksheets, and we started an email discussion about how to distinguish the two concepts in a meaningful way, to make students aware of how we expect them to manipulate source material in writing assignments. Finally, I arrived at this, which I think will work. I am interested in learning how other instructors introduce and practice these ideas with the class.  Continue reading

Legal writing: Teaching analogy and comparison language to LLM students

LLM Summer Reading Club

I find myself thinking a lot about ways to interweave extensive reading into the law school experience of our LLM students. So much time is spent engaged in intensive reading. Yet research makes clear that reading for enjoyment in English contributes significantly to improving much-needed reading speed, vocabulary, and background knowledge. At the same time, many of our students return to their home countries over the summer before returning for the fall semester and may not focus on improving their legal and language knowledge. Additionally, many LLM students may not have developed a habit of reading for enjoyment in English.

In response, this summer I decided to pilot our first ever LLM Summer Reading Club. I picked a book–24 Hours With 24 Lawyers: Profiles of Traditional and Non-Traditional Careers, edited by Jasper Kim–and invited any and all St. John’s LLM students to join the club if interested. (I also listed several other law-themed books that would make good reads for anyone looking for something to read on their own.)

The plan is that we will pick a couple chapters to read each week and then meet online to discuss the reading. (It looks like WeChat may be our platform of choice, though I just learned that video/voice calls have a 9-person limit which won’t work for us.) No assignments or homework. Just a relaxed, social way to engage in law-related reading and keep students feeling motivated and connected over the summer.

If anyone else has done something along these lines–or if you decide to do it this summer–please feel free to share your experience as well as any advice and perspectives.

Global Legal Skills: Mountains, Mariachi and Mentorship in Monterrey

I had the pleasure of attending the annual Global Legal Skills Conference this week, hosted by the Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey. Sarah Kelly and I were glad to present the in-class role-play methods we use in our core LLM courses at St. John’s, and I was grateful to our audience, who engaged in all the steps of an introductory negotiation exercise and gave feedback on the experience.  This year Continue reading

Comprehensible input for legal English students: Resources, approaches and ideas

comprehensible_input_1International students in LLM and legal English programs at US law schools come to study law, not ESL. At the same time, law study requires deep engagement with texts and concepts that are complex and challenging even for native English speakers. But how do you have substantive class discussions or evaluate students’ legal writing when students are struggling to sufficiently comprehend the language of the reading?

In linguistics, the relevant term is “comprehensible input.” The British Council’s Teaching English website has a nice explanation of the term:

“Comprehensible input is language input that can be understood by listeners despite them not understanding all the words and structures in it. It is described as one level above that of the learners if it can only just be understood. According to [Stephen] Krashen’s theory of language acquisition, giving learners this kind of input helps them acquire language naturally, rather than learn it consciously.”

paperchasememeComprehensible input is important in graduate level programs like law school because, as I’ve discussed in a previous post, reading and listening ability tend to be the best predictors of success in the programs. Speaking and writing ability, while obviously important, are in many ways often a function of reading and listening ability. It’s much easier to produce the language needed to speak or write when the input needed to absorb that kind of language is comprehended by the learner.

In elementary schools, reading is often taught using “just-right” books. That is, books that are just the right reading level for students based on teachers’ assessments of their students. (My wife is an experienced elementary school teacher and a reading specialist, so I often find myself drawing comparisons from her levelreadersexperiences.) For ESL students–both adults and children alike–the equivalent is graded readers (or level readers, depending on the publisher) which are books or other texts that are written in a simplified way. A great example of a unique graded reading source that is appropriate for adults is the website which makes Washington Post, Reuters, and other news articles available, but re-written in 4 different easier-to-read levels along with the original version of the article.

In law school, unfortunately, there is no equivalent to just-right books or graded readers to be purchased. So what is a legal English teacher to do?

As I’ve been thinking back over my classes from the last few years, I realized I’ve been putting significant effort into figuring out how to develop and provide comprehensible input to LLM students when working with complex and sophisticated texts. Here are some of the resources and approaches I’ve used:

READING RESOURCES Continue reading


Data Engineering Outline

wordcloud2The ADOS project monitored 30,000 sensors on nuclear reactor, measuring temperatures, pressures and mass flows at discrete points throughout the cores and associated equipment ( boilers, heat exchangers, condensers etc)

Challenges of Big Data Systems

When dealing with huge volumes of data that are derived from multiple independent sources. It is a significant undertaking to connect, link, match, clean and transform data across systems. However, it is necessary to connect and correlate relationships, hierarchies and multiple data linkages or your data can quickly spiral out of control. Data governance can help you determine how disparate data relates to common definitions and how to systematically integrate structured and unstructured data assets to produce high-quality information that is useful, appropriate and up-to-date.

Big data technologies not only provide the infrastructure to collect large amounts of data, they provide the analytics to understand it and take advantage of its value. The goal of all organizations with access to large data collections should be to harness the most relevant data and use it for optimized decision making.
Some examples:

  • Recalculate and revalue entire risk portfolios and provide supplementary analysis providing strategies to reduce risk and in addition mitigate risk impact.
  • Mine customer data for insights that drive new strategies for customer acquisition, retention, campaign optimization and next best offers.
  • Generate special offers at the point of sale based on the customer’s current and past purchases, ensuring a higher customer retention rate.
  • Analyze data from social media to detect new market trends, changing customer perceptions and predict changes in demand.
  • Use pattern matching, fuzzy logic and deep layer data mining of the Internet click-stream to detect fraudulent behavior.
  • Identify and log root causes of failures, issues and defects by investigating user sessions, network logs and machine sensors.


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COACH Wallets

A COACH wallet is always a good option. In varying styles and sizes, you can find wallets with plenty of room to safely store your cash and credit cards. Easily access your phone with a phone wallet meant to keep your smartphone protected, or browse the double zip wallet to safely store all your change together. A classic color like a black or pink COACH wallet matches well with every outfit, while floral or studded wallets make a bold statement. Find a matching COACH purse at Belk to store the rest of your everyday essentials and stay organized on the go.


Canadian Woman: Compromises Efforts and Justin Trudeau

canadian woman: The invisible line along the Aegean Sea that separates Turkey from Greece, and lures Syrian refugees into smugglers' boats by night, is also what sets the plot of A Dangerous Crossing in motion Audrey Clare, a Canadian woman operating an NGO on Lesvos, has gone missing, leaving behind two bodies killed with her gun A French Interpol agent and a young Syrian man named Sami, according to Rabble. Khattak and his partner, Sergeant Rachel Getty, are dispatched by the prime minister unnamed in this book, but unmistakeably modelled after Justin Trudeau to solve the mystery and find Audrey before word of her disappearance gets out and compromises efforts to resettle Syrians in Canada. Inspector Esa Khattak, Khan's protagonist and detective, sees the suspect identified on slogans spray painted on a concrete barrier outside a refugee camp in Chios, Greece no borders, no borders, no borders, the prayer of the stateless. Thus begins the fifth book in Khan's Community Policing series, a novel with a compelling premise and several intriguing moments but which nevertheless falters in its execution. At bottom, mystery novels tend to combine the pleasures of plotting and suspense with social critique, in that through solving a crime, the hero-detective also often exposes corruption the killer is the scion of a wealthy family; the murder is part of an extensive cover-up; the helpful bystander is in on the crime. With A Dangerous Crossing, Khan follows a similar formula to her other Khattak-Getty novels by wedding the conventions of a mystery novel to a social justice-oriented critique of globalization and power. ( As reported in the news.


On the Road

And I remember Charles Kuralt.

Positive Waves for a Happy 4th

Best movies about time, at least in this space/time continuum

travel-in-time-to-1969-space-time-continuum-andee-designI am part of the movie-viewing public that never tires of a well done flick that examines time. But, as one might guess from the plot of z2, my favorites involve a clever manipulation of time, or a riff on the mysteries of time, rather than straight time travel stories.

There are several reasons that simple time travel stories don’t generally impress me.

yankeeFirst, when they only involve going into the past, they are too often no more than an excuse to do a “fish out of water” piece on a present day hero in an historical setting of the writer’s choosing. I think that Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (written all the way back in 1889) pretty much covered this, and the subsequent 1949 movie starring Bing Crosby brought it to the screen well. If you want to write about (or watch) contemporary people experiencing early Rome or the Ming dynasty, that’s fine, you are absolutely entitled to your pleasures.  I just consider such stories to be more historical fiction than science fiction, and I’m not all that fond of historical fiction.

eloiConversely, if the time travel is only to the future, the DeLorean (or whatever the time machine is called) is only a vehicle to get present day people into the author’s wonderful, or awful, vision of tomorrow.  It is science fiction, but like H.G. Well’s tale of the poor Eloi, the time travel aspect is far less important than the future that is created. I may or may not like the story, depending on what I think of the tomorrow that is being described. For example, although I admire H.G. Wells and his groundbreaking ideas for 1895, I personally wasn’t all that crazy about the flesh eating Morlocks.

spock-prime1The remaining option, obviously, is to craft a story in which folks shuttle back and forth through time. I believe that this kind of fiction is so hard to do well. It is easy for a writer to fall into the silly and overused “the whole universe is going to unravel because I sneezed” situation, as in my least favorite time travel series ever, “Back to the Future.” Some plots avoid this better than others. I thought that the whole Spock Prime thing in the 2013 movie “Star Trek Into Darkness” was a wonderful example of how to avoid this scenario without a complicated explanation. Well done.

So what time related movies do intrigue this humble author? Well, I recently found this wonderful post called 8 great movies that manipulate time written by Jay A. Fernandez back in June 5, 2014 on a blog called “Signature” and I invite you to check it out for yourself.

Four of the eight are some of my favorite movies ever, based on their wonderful looks at the slippery and fascinating phenomenon of time. In order of increasing preference:

4. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008) is based on a 1922 story by F.Scott Fitzgerald. The idea of a baby born as an old man who gets younger as he ages is intriguing, even though the love story which forms most of the plot was too schmaltzy for my tastes. (The truth is that I like romance novels even less than I like historical fiction.) A more modern take on this same idea isTime's Arrow Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis. This is a far darker story based on the idea of time running in the other direction, in a scenario in which the opposite of reality makes more sense than the reality itself.

3. “Memento”(2000) tells the tale of a man who completely lacks short term memory, meaning that there is no recent past for him. The story picks at that disturbing connection between human consciousness and the laws of physics. What is time without an observer?

2. “Run, Lola, Run” (1998) shows how three split second variations at the start of a story yield three vastly different outcomes, not only for Lola, but for everyone whose life she touches on her maniac mission to save her boyfriend.

1. “Groundhog Day” (1993) is the infamous story of a man forced to live the same day repeatedly. Yes, it is officially my favorite movie, because of its cosmic implication that we all get each of life’s lessons over and over until we finally wise up and learn what we need.

warped-clockThe list includes three other movies I have always meant to see (“Twelve Monkeys”, “Inception”and “Irreversible”) and one other I somehow missed hearing about but have now added to my list to check out (“Primer.”) It also gives an honorable mention to another favorite of mine, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, which makes up for the honorable mention it gives to Back to the Future. Clearly intelligent movies about the nature of time are plentiful, and hopefully the recent interest in science fiction will spur on even more.

Slowing Down Time

matrixIf you type “slowing down” into Google, one of the first alternatives it will offer you is a search of “slowing down time”. It is obviously a popular topic, and I knew when I created my hero Alex that his ability was hardly unique. Normal humans often report time moving slower during an emergency, although Jeff Wise has a wonderful blog post explaining how researchers have shown this is just an illusion. Fictitious super humans frequently slow down time to stop crime or protect themselves, none better photographed than Neo in the original Matrix movie.

But Alex is just a normal guy, in what I want my readers to believe is the real world. What’s more, time doesn’t merely slow down for him in an emergency, it eventually moves differently for him when he wills it to do so. During much of z2, Alex learns to recognize and to finally use this gift. Along the way, he gives the very nature of time, and the possibility of time travel, some serious consideration.

slowing-time-clockAs I created Alex, I wanted him to discover another who shared a variation of his talent so that at the very end of the book they could work together. Xuha, a short-in-stature student of Maya descent, surprises Alex with his fighting abilities and confides his own time manipulation talents. The two of them consider whether great fighters, athletes, and musicians might not all have a touch of these same abilities.

Here is an excerpt from z2, telling of the first time that Alex uses his ability off of a basketball court.

And then there she was. Alert, wide brown eyes and dark reddish-brown hair almost the color of the logs popped up about eighty yards away, just downstream of the logjam that Ken had called a “strainer.” All three of them shouted to her before the current sucked her back under. Alex felt his own breathing return, just knowing that she was alive. Seconds later she popped up again, downstream of a second clump of branches, but this time she was coughing out water hard. Alex looked closer. Good Lord. She didn’t have her life jacket on.

Ken seemed not to have noticed that fact, as he started moving, relieved, along the shore hoping to intercept Lola somewhere downstream. She was in the middle of the river now, moving fast, and she appeared to be coughing too hard to even try to make her way to shore. Oh hell, Alex thought, I know that she can barely swim. He looked around for anything he could grab quickly.

“Alex, get back here!” Sara yelled it as she saw Alex start to wade out into the fast cold water, a canoe paddle in his hand.

“Alex, no!” Ken joined in as well from his position downstream.

But all Alex could think of was that is he was going to have to pay for his decisions, he was damn well going to make sure that he did everything he could to make this come out right.

Then he noticed how wide the river really was. How far to the center Lola was and how fast she was moving. How slow his own progress in the deep cold water was going to be. And he realized that he’d never make it to her in time. She’d flail on past, still dozens of feet away from him, and none of them would have any way of reaching her before cold and fatigue completely overtook her.

And then it happened. The roar of the water and the sound of Ken and Sara’s shouts faded into a muffled background, and all Alex heard was the sound of his own heart pounding. The beat of it remained steady and firm as the water began to move more slowly. As did Lola. Alex had the odd sensation of walking out onto a basketball court, willing his body to move to the rhythm of the game, of this game. His feet felt light but firm as they moved with power along the rocky riverbed. His hands were strong and capable as they lifted the paddle out towards Lola. He was moving at a normal pace to him, but he was already in chest-deep, and only feet from her now. She looked puzzled but grateful, and Alex heard his own voice boom slowly “Lola! Grab the paddle!”

He thrust it into her hands, and as the current slowly twisted her body downstream, her fingers just barely curled around the white blade. Alex pushed the paddle more firmly into her hands. Her grip tightened as she realized that this ordeal could actually be over. Then Alex used the paddle to pull her in closer, finally reaching out to grab her shirt and drag her in towards shore. She collapsed at the waters edge, still coughing hard and shivering uncontrollably.

Sara rushed to her, and Ken hurried back to them, as Alex himself sunk down into the pebbled sand, now shaking with cold. Slowly, Lola’s coughing picked up speed, as did Ken and Sara’s movements and speech, and then everything moved with his heartbeat again, happening at the pace it should.

“I had no idea you could move that fast,” Ken chided Alex with a relieved grin as he joined the group.

“We yelled at him not to go out into that water,” Sara was shaking her head to Lola. “But thank heavens he did, huh?”

Lola was smiling. She pulled herself upright and stumbled towards Alex to give him a long hug. “How did you ever make it out there to me?” she asked.

“I wasn’t willing to accept any other alternative,” he said simply.

“That’s good,” she laughed. “I’m glad.”

As the rest of the day centered on getting off of the river and getting the Zeitmans dry and warm, and all of them back on the road headed home towards Texas, Alex kept having one thought.

I had no idea. I don’t know why it never occurred to me. But it didn’t. I had absolutely no idea that time would slow down like that for me anywhere but on a basketball court.

For two of my favorite sources of information on time dilation, see
It’s About Time: Understanding Einstein’s Relativity, N. David Mermin, ISBN 978-0-691-12201-4
Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel, Michio Kaku, ISBN 978-0-385-52069-0

My job is to get wiser

It has been just over three months now since I became unemployed. It’s a big deal for me, even though it was my own decision, made once I decided that if I made my life much simpler, I had enough to get by.

I didn’t realize that my job provided reference points for the passage of time, and that after so many years with a typical job, I would be disorientated without those familiar markers. My husband, who made this same plunge three years ago, saw what was coming. Of course, for the past three years he had been using my work schedule to mark his own days.

“We will still have special meals on week-ends,” he declared. “Drink a bottle of wine, grill a nice piece of fish.” I laughed at him.  “We can do that any time now.”

“Yeah, but we won’t,” he said. “You’re going to need this.” He was right.

motion 2I didn’t realize that my job provided a sense of purpose, even if that purpose was only to pay the bills. I have a higher purpose, I thought.  My real purpose is to write. I didn’t consider how writing is basically a manic-depressive activity for me, filled with bursts of creativity and action interspersed with doubt and lethargy. One’s purpose needs to be solid, a guidepost that doesn’t wax and wane to a bipolar rhythm.

So I’ve kind of informally been seeking a purpose, and oddly enough I think I’ve found one. It probably was my purpose all along, I just didn’t think of it as such.

My job is to get wiser. I actually think that is everyone’s real job, but I also think it’s not my business to tell other people what their purpose is. So  …. I’ll stick to me. I’m on a mission to become a wise woman. I’m not sure exactly what the process involves, but I’m pretty sure that it includes a lot of writing, reading, helping others, being close to nature, taking good care of my self, traveling, learning, and meditating. It might involve a lot more.  I don’t know. I’ll find out.

I figure that a would-be wise woman takes wisdom wherever she finds it. So now my life is a classroom and, as a full time student, I make little notes to myself wherever I go. People in town may think I’m a little crazy.

A wonderful local yoga studio has provided me with lots of material, not to mention a few more reference points as I try to make it to my favorite classes. “We are naturally drawn to movement,” the instructor said the other day, talking about how all the flashing blinking lights in our lives hold us mesmerized. “But remember that there is no movement without stillness.”

motionIt sounded very Zen, but in fact the man was talking good solid physics. There is no motion if everything is in motion together. You do know that the earth is zipping around the sun at nearly 70,000 miles an hours, don’t you? You don’t? How could you possible not notice traveling at 70,000 miles an hour? It turns out it is pretty easy when everything else moves with you. Have one thing stand still (or as good old Einstein pointed out, assume you are standing still and the other thing is moving 70,000 miles an hour in the other direction) and the motion becomes apparent.

That’s it.  You need motion. You need stillness. You need reference points. Way to go, physics! Way to go, yoga! Way to go, universe!

Physics for thought

Click to like George Takei

Click to like George Takei

The hero of z2 is a high school physics teacher, and a man so fascinated by light and energy that he has dreams about talking photons. As he struggles to make his material relevant and even amusing to his largely bored students, he stumbles on truths that will eventually shape his own life.

Can physics be funny? Of course it can, if you let it. And as many recent authors have shown, it can also be inspirational, challenging us to question our basic beliefs as we reach for a fuller understanding of our universe.

click to like Sun Gazing

click to like Sun Gazing

You are light and energy. You are stardust and five billion year old carbon. You are also almost entirely nothing, pure empty space broken up by miniscule flickers of something in all that nothingness; tiny specs that come together in a phenomenal way to create the illusion of being you. You are a miracle.

Thank a physics teacher for conveying that information.


1 Million Cups Albuquerque

FatPipe ABQ

200 Broadway NE
Albuquerque, NM 87102

January 27, 2015 from 9:00 am to 10:00 am
1 Million Cups (1MC) is a simple way to engage entrepreneurs in communities around the world.

Every Wednesday from 9 â€" 10 a.m., the 1MC program offers two local entrepreneurs an opportunity to present their startups to a diverse audience of mentors, advisors, and entrepreneurs. Presenters prepare a 6-minute educational presentation and engage in 20 minutes of feedback and questioning after they present. Entrepreneurs gain insight into possible ways they can improve their businesses, gather real-time feedback, connect with a community that truly cares about their progress, and walk away feeling like they have advanced their business. The audience also learns a great deal from the presentations.

Whether this is through passively listening or deeply engaging with the entrepreneurs, there is much to learn every week from these dynamic and diverse communities. ABQâ€™s 1 Million Cups is the fastest-growing and one of the largest in the nation.

Wednesday, 27 January, 2016

Website: Click to Visit


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

How To: Guerrilla Gardening

Guerrilla gardening is described as the unauthorized cultivation of plants or crops on vacant,  public or private land. Commonly guerrilla gardening is done as a political statement about land rights, but for others it's just a way to improve the scenery of neglected and barren areas. For whichever reason someone decides to get into guerrilla gardening, here are some tips and tricks to get you started, courtesy of WikiHow.

Find an appropriate plot of land.
Along sidewalks, on the sides of overpasses or freeway on-ramps, between buildings, on road medians and the like. Plant near a water source if lack of water is a problem. You don't necessarily need a lot of land.

Take note of the condition of the land.
It will almost certainly need some preparation before getting started. Will you need to remove weeds, trash or other forms of waste? Is the soil rocky, clay-like or more earthy?

Determine which plants to use.
Your choice of plants has a significant impact on the success or failure of your garden. You're going to want to choose more hardy plants that don't require you to constantly tend to them since you probably won't get that chance depending on the location of your garden; try to choose native plants that naturally grow in your environment.

Start your garden.
You'll also need to prepare the soil for planting by digging and aerating as needed.

Spread the word about this unique, eco-friendly way to improve your community.
Feel free to leave small signs or plaques in your garden encouraging others in the community to water and help care for it. Likewise, try and return to water and care for your garden yourself, I mean, you did plant it after all.

Check local ordinances to see whether your garden is legal. In some municipalities it is against the law, while in others it is not.  Be aware of private property, even if your guerrilla garden is gorgeous, it's disrespectful to just start planting on someone's property!

You should also try not to plant edibles, especially in urban areas where the soil might not be clean and your plants could easily be contaminated by bad soil. Be sure not to plant anything that is locally defined as a "noxious weed." Noxious weeds vary by area, and they include plants that are dangerous, invasive, or bad for local wildlife.

For more in depth steps to guerrilla gardening visit WikiHow.

Have you ever done any guerrilla gardening of your own? Let us know in the comments!

Garden Media Group

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When it Comes to Creating a Yearbook Style Guide, Follow This Advice

creating a yearbook style guide

A yearbook style guide can help you keep a balanced, consistent style throughout your book.

Not all by itself, mind you: You still need to use it. And create it.

In our experience, it’s the second half of that two-step process where people get hung up. After all, a yearbook’s a big thing. There’s a lot going on in one: Headlines, captions, stories, photos, layouts, mods, clip art, so on and so forth. And each element requires it’s own design choice.

Add up all those elements and all those choices, and you’ll see that creating a yearbook style guide can be a lot of work. That’s where this post comes in.

Inside this post, we’ll cover what you should include in a yearbook style guide, why you should have one, and how to create and distribute it. Plus, we’ll even give you access to a free, ready-made yearbook style guide template you can use to jumpstart your own. Read on.

What’s a Yearbook Style Guide, Anyway?

A yearbook style guide provides guidelines on how your yearbook should be presented, and covers two major areas: design and writing.

Used correctly, it lets you establish and enforce a consistent style throughout your yearbook. It’s an easy way to communicate to your yearbook team how your book should look and what should be done in specific situations. It’s the proactive way to coach your team and volunteers through the layout and design process.

But a yearbook style guide works in another way, too: It lets you develop a vision for your book early on. And that alone has a huge advantage.

Armed with a style guide that outlines, for example, what fonts and colors they need to use, your team gets freed to express creativity on stuff that really moves a book forward, like developing coverage ideas, getting great photos and quotes, and designing great layouts.

Think about it: If everyone is fretting over font choices and color palettes, they’re going to have a lot less time to do the stuff that makes an impact. Eliminate that distraction for them.

get a free yearbook style guide template

Design: The Visual Part of Your Style Guide

If you’re going to do that, though, you need to cover all your bases and not leave room for interpretation. To do that, focus on locking down font choices, color choices, and how specific aspects of your layouts should look (like whether all photos need captions and, if you have a caption, what that looks like).

Though other aspects of your yearbook’s appearance can be included as well, these are the three biggest areas for mistakes and inconsistencies. So, let’s focus here.

Choosing a Font Palette

We’ve written whole posts about yearbook fonts, so, if you want a deep dive, head over there and check it out. If you just want to know what you need to for purposes of a yearbook style guide, though, stick here and keep reading.

Here’s what you need to cover:

Number of Fonts

The single biggest temptation when it comes to designing a yearbook is adding personal elements of creativity.

And the easiest place to start? Fonts.

There’s hundreds of ‘em and everyone has a preference. Here’s the thing, though. Constantly changing them impacts your readers’ abilities to comprehend what’s going on. (Don’t believe us? Science says so.) To avoid that very unhappy situation—and to make your book look better— limit your fonts. Two is plenty, three is the absolute max.

Your fonts should complement each other. So, ideally, you’ll have one serif font and one sans serif font. If you choose to include a third font, you’ll probably end up with a script or something fancy.

When you pick them, define their use:

  • Your primary font should be used for page elements, like headlines, subheads, and page numbers.
  • Your secondary font should be used for copy elements, like body text, captions, and pull quotes.
  • If you’re using a third font, use it sparingly and only for specific elements. Maybe it’s only used when you’re using a headline and subhead combination. Or when you’re dedicating full pages to section dividers.

You might be thinking, Two? Three? But that’s nothing! If so, take a deep breath.

We’ve already established that you’ll have two (and maybe even three) fonts on each page. Add to that the variety of sizes you’ll need and color choices, and you’re going to end up with way more variety than you thought for any given page.

Speaking of font sizes…

We mentioned above how each font should have a specific set of uses. In order to bring some order to your pages, you’ll want to assign each of those uses a font size. Sounds basic, but you can’t have a page number on one page being larger than a page number on another, right?

That’d just be weird.

When it comes to picking font colors for your style guide, your focus shouldn’t be on theme or design or creative expression. It should be on readability.

That’s right: Start with making sure it’s easy to read the words on the page, then worry about the other aspects of color.

How you pick colors is something we’ll cover in the the “choosing colors” section in a moment, but keep in mind that you want to keep your options limited. (Much like your font choices.) And, again, focus on matching your colors to your fonts’ uses so that your readers begin to recognize patterns and hierarchy.

Choosing a Color Palette

We mentioned above that focusing on readability is the first step to choosing font colors.

That, obviously, applies here, too.

When choosing colors, you’ll want to focus on picking what causes the least amount of strain on readers’ eyes. Then, after that, choose what aligns best with your theme or design or creative expression.

Don’t worry: This isn’t as restrictive as it sounds. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of taking your preferred colors and ratcheting them down a notch or two. (If you want a good explainer on how to do this, check out this post on color contrast.)

Of course, picking colors is the fun part.

So, let’s get down to business.

As a rule of thumb, you’ll want to limit your color choices to three. (Plus your black or dark grey for body copy fonts.) We know you’re probably getting tired of this advice, but it really does get you better results.

To get the absolute best results for a color palette, use a color wheel.

A color wheel is the easiest way to see the relationship between colors. It looks like this:

color wheel

When you’re using a color wheel, start with the color you like the most and plan to use the most.

From there, select split complementary colors. (To find them, take your first color, and look directly opposite it on the color wheel. Then, use the colors directly to the left and right of that. Those are split complementary colors.)

Here’s an example. Our main color choice is at the top of the wheel and its split complementary colors are below:

yearbook style guide: color wheel choices

Not a bad start, right?

You can tinker from there, but this is the easiest, sure-fire way to get some good ideas of what colors you should use in your book.

Writing: The Second Part of Your Style Guide

Pay close attention when reading a newspaper or magazine and you’ll notice little things are always the same, like how a reporter refers to someone on second reference (Is it “Mrs. Smith” or just “Smith,” for instance?).

These consistencies aren’t just coincidences. They’re part of an organized effort to keep things the same. And that’s where the second part of your style guide comes in.

See, even writing needs a set of rules to keep readers focus.

When it comes to news sources, they’re likely using The AP Stylebook. Academics and trade publishers often use the Chicago Manual of Style. There are plenty others, too, including some made by publications or publishing houses themselves.

Given all the other work that goes into creating a yearbook, we’d recommend you not spend hours upon hours creating your own, in-house style guide. Instead, use the AP’s. It’s unbelievable comprehensive and you’ll likely only need to make a few minor tweaks and adjustments to accommodate your yearbook.

Aside from that, there are a couple other things you should consider.

As George Orwell put it:

“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”

Come up with a basic agreement with your team regarding the tone, jargon and voice you’ll incorporate into your yearbook. A basic outline will do just fine. Just be sure to review each section of copy and ask yourself if it is consistent with your agreed upon style.

In addition to stylistic stuff like how you refer to someone on second reference and how you identify a student’s grade (is it “Smith, 11,” or “Smith, ‘18,” or “Smith, a junior,” for instance), you’ll want to nail down some more nuanced stuff, too.

Let’s break that down:

All writing has at least one theme and how that theme is approached is the tone. Tone is not mood. Mood says more about how someone feels, but tone refers specifically to how you feel about the subject. Your tone will be shaped by words and images. What will your yearbook tone be? Playful, academic, serious, nostalgic?

Be cautious when using jargon, slang, or idioms in your yearbook. While they might feel accessible to you, they can be difficult for outsider to understand. And your book should be easy for everyone to understand. It’s better to use everyday English where you can.

In the same way that various musical instruments have unique sounds, a writer’s voice (words) can be dramatically different from another. Modern comedic writers, for example, use voice that is flat-out sarcastic, while a non-fiction writer might have a voice that is dry and matter of fact. (We here on the TreeRing Yearbook Ideas blog try to have a voice that’s something we call Internet colloquial: a little sarcastic, a little plain-spoken English, a little bit of Dad joke humor.)

While we’ve covered all this stuff in our free yearbook style guide template, we also totally recommend checking out Voice & Tone, a style guide for Mailchimp, the email marketing platform. It’s really, really well done.

And before we wrap this up, here’s one more bit of advice from Orwell. This, from his six elementary rules (“Politics and the English Language”, 1946):

  • Never use a metaphor which you are used to seeing in print.
  • If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.
  • Never use the passive where you can use the active.

We’d say these are worth including.

Now, the only thing left is to create that style guide. Use our template, and you’ll be well on your way to creating a more balanced, consistent style throughout your book.

get a free yearbook style guide template


6 Facts About Resources Everyone Thinks Are True

One of a Kind Quality Fitness Gear

People are nowadays wiser and understand that their health is their main investment, which simply means that everyone puts a lot of time and money in ensuring that their health is always in perfect condition and will help them evade all manner of infections and diseases, whereas a healthy body has someone looking good as well. Having said that, it is crucial to note that a person will therefore have some time allocated during the day or the week when they can visit the gym and work out their body in a manner that not only ensures that they stay out of hospitals, but they also become attractive to look at and therefore are admired by their family members and friends.

It is fascinating to acknowledge that each and every effective exercise stems from having the best, quality fitness gear which is designed by professionals who understand the workings of the body, whereas these fitness gear are made in such a manner that they can target certain areas of the body where they can exercise those muscles to the optimum. Purchasing quality fitness gear will not only see to it that someone is achieving all their goals in the set-out timelines, but it is also a great investment that has a lot of value for the clients money, whereas this means that a person will be able to use such equipment for a very long time without having to worry about them breaking down.

Fortunately for all those people who are passionate about fitness, there are amazing stores who have made it their business to supply the best quality fitness gear, whereas they will always employ the best employees who are always willing to answer all questions directed to the store by clients in a manner that leaves them much more informed. These amazing stores that stock high quality fitness gear is strategically located for clients to be able to reach them with ease, and they also ensure that they have the best shipping arrangements for those clients who could be from far off places.

With the effectiveness and astonishing exponential growth of information technology, Quality Fitness Gear stores such as PR Lifting are not left behind and have beautiful websites where they showcase their service delivery strategies, whereas through this online platform they can contact and interact with potential clients. In a parting shot, each and every person who has great love for their health and would like to see their bodies change for the better should not waste any second but contact the best stores that have quality fitness gear, where they will be hooked with quality equipment to keep fit.


SPECIAL REPORT: Tech start-up says it's found solution to curb battery blowups

SPECIAL REPORT: Tech start-up says it's found solution to curb battery blowups. (Tommy Sladek)

The batteries that power your smartphone, e-cigarettes and more made headlines for causing fires and explosions.

Lithium-ion batteries made of lightweight metal have become common, but can be dangerous.

In the fall of 2016, technology company Samsung had to recall 1.9 million units of its Galaxy Note 7 cell-phones after more than 100 reports of overheating. many of which led to fires. since then the phone has been recalled and taken of the market after the company announced the issue lies in the phone's lithium-ion batteries.

Chief Scott Frandsen with the Mid County Fire Protection District said battery fires have happened in mid Missouri.

"Like with any product with that many units out there, there are going to be some with manufacturing defects."

California-based American Lithium Energy has made batteries for the United States military since 2007.

Chief executive Jenna King with A.L.E.'s spin-out company 'Amionx', said she believes they've come up with a safer solution that will not explode nor catch fire.

A fuse inside the battery cell would kick on when it senses a certain temperature, breaking the electric current.

When can we see this on the market?

"We're currently looking to work with battery manufacturers to implement it into their lines so we're trying to license this out broadly," King said.

"So we could be up and running in as little as six months from now, and into their lines."

As the world moves toward renewable energy solutions, king said their creation not only solves many of the dangers with batteries, but also makes the world more Eco-friendly.

"What is exciting about this is it's truly a disruptive can really change the way we use lithium batteries."

A few safety tips for lithium battery products include:

-Do not overcharge your device. It is recommended that once your device is fully charged that you should unplug it.

-Keep your device out of extremely high or low temperature locations. Do not place the battery in direct sunshine, or store the battery inside cars in significant hot or cold weather.

-Do not expose the battery to water or allow the battery to get wet.

-Do not use your device if you notice any damage to the battery after dropping it. If you suspect damage to the battery, take your device to the service center for inspection.

-Do not carry or store the batteries together with necklaces, hairpins, or other metal objects.

-Do not disassemble or modify the battery in any way. Modifying your electronic significantly increases the risk of explosion.

-Keep laptops off of a bed or pillow. Most laptop air-vents are on the bottom of the device. It is important to let it breath, or else overheating can occur.

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The statistics of accelerations seen in radial velocity searches for planets - AstrophysicsReportar como inadecuado

The statistics of accelerations seen in radial velocity searches for planets - Astrophysics - Descarga este documento en PDF. Documentación en PDF para descargar gratis. Disponible también para leer online.

Abstract: Radial velocity searches for extrasolar planets have discovered starsundergoing slow accelerations. The accelerations are likely due to one or moregas giant planets or brown dwarfs orbiting with period longer than the totaltime span of observations. The stellar acceleration is proportional to the massof the companion divided by the square of its radius from the star. In thispaper we predict the distribution of accelerations using a Monte Carlo methodand assuming a semi-major axis and mass distribution for the companions. Radialvelocity surveys find that ~20 and 10% of stars surveyed exhibit accelerationsabove ~10 and 25 m s^-1 yr^-1, respectively. We find that an extrapolation ofthe size and period distribution found by radial velocity surveys within ~5 AUor companion imaging surveys predicts too few systems with detectableaccelerations. The fractions of stars with accelerations above these values canbe matched if every star hosts a gas giant planet or brown dwarf withsemi-major axes between 4 and 20 AU or if a significant fraction ~70% ofstars host 3 or more massive planets in this range. If brown dwarfs are notdiscovered in imaging surveys then we would infer that there is a largepopulation of gas giant planets present with semi-major axes in the 5 to 30 AUrange.

Autor: Alice C. Quillen

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The Paleontology of North America

North Dakota, US

See exposures in this state from the:

Dates (mya)

State Fossil:
State fossil from North Dakota

Teredo Petrified Wood
This fossil is from trees bordering the lowlands and swamps during the Paleocene (~ 65–55 million years ago). But what makes this petrified wood special is its Swiss cheese appearance—the result of holes bored into it by a bivalve of the genus Teredo.

Paleontology and geology

The Precambrian: There are subsurface Precambrian basement rocks in North Dakota, some of which are 2.6 billion years old. These rocks are mostly igneous and metamorphic and do not contain fossils. The Paleozoic: The Paleozoic was a time of fluctuating sea levels. Shallow warm oceans covered much of North Dakota during most of the Early Paleozoic, and a diverse assemblage of invertebrate animals inhabited the marine environments. The oceans receded for a short time in the Late Silurian, but soon returned, flooding the land and depositing additional marine sediments. The rocks formed from these deposits contain fossils of corals, brachiopods, molluscs, and fish. The shallow oceans advanced and receded over the area more than once in the Middle Paleozoic, and alternating marine and non-marine conditions persisted into the Carboniferous and Permian. Toward the end of the Paleozoic, North Dakota lay near the equator. The seas that had periodically covered the state became progressively shallower and at times dry land was exposed. The Mesozoic: North Dakota was hot and very dry during the Triassic, and shallow marine environments were common. The climate became subtropical in the Jurassic and low-lying, forested plains developed, but were soon replaced once again by shallow seas. Fossils of gastropods, bivalves, echinoderms, and foraminifera are found in the rocks formed on the floor of this sea. During the Cretaceous, North Dakota was either completely or partially covered by subtropical to temperate, shallow seas. The fossil remains of marine reptiles, fish, birds, and invertebrates are found in the marine deposits, while rocks formed along the coast of the sea contain the fossils of dinosaurs and other land and freshwater organisms. The Cenozoic: During the Cenozoic, there were major climate changes in North Dakota. In the Tertiary, subtropical, swampy lowlands provided habitats for many kinds of terrestrial vertebrates as well as freshwater freshwater fish, molluscs and crustaceans. Ferns, cycads, figs, dawn redwoods, and palms grew in the lush forests. Decaying vegetation in the swamps was transformed eventually into lignite coal. As the climate became cooler and drier, the swampy environments and the plants and animals that lived in them began to disappear and were replaced by woodlands. The cooling trend continued during the Quaternary, and ice sheets advanced and retreated across the state. Fossils of mammoths, mastodons, and other large mammals are found.

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Abstract Art: Urban Frequency

Abstract Art by Sahra Hussain, title: Urban Frequency (2017) 24″W X 36″H, Acrylic on Canvas

This piece is a drip painting developed using four colors and is inspired by music, urban life and the city.  There is a sense of speed  and motion which you experience in city life that is fast paced.   The use of electric blues and shocking pink gives it the vibrance of color needed for this experience.

White was added later using a condiment container applied in vertical and horizontal motions to achieve the look of movement.  Splatters of white reflect flashing lights within the speed of light.  I chose black for the background to depict the darkness of the city night.

The city has always been an inspiration for my work and it continues to be.  I consider this painting to be organic in nature even though it has to do with physics. This painting was inspired by the music and the city lights of urban life which is why I call it Urban Frequency.