Material and spiritual acts – Daily Pioneer

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While material acts may or may not be rewarded, spiritual acts come under the exclusive jurisdiction of God, writes AJIT KUMAR BISHNOI

We are always carrying out acts with our bodies, minds and speech. In this classification, the mind and the speech are mentioned separately, because their functions need to be highlighted. Mind is always busy thinking about all sorts of things. It is said that there are on average 50,000 thoughts per day. Even during sleep when the brain is active, the mind must be too. The speech has been singled out of all the senses, because it makes a big difference in our lives. Suppose we speak angrily to someone, we evoke a negative reaction almost instantly. On the other hand, if we appreciate someone, we endear ourselves to that person.

There are two types of acts material and spiritual. Material acts are basically in relation to material objects like the use of hands to do some physical work or walk to go to some place. Spiritual acts are in relation to the spirit, that is either soul or God. Prayer said to God is one example, and treat others as equal souls, irrespective of their bodies is another. (The Gita 13.27)

To start with the material acts, all acts done either by the body or the mind or the speech come to fruition. Mostly, there is a time lag but some acts bring instant result. Some of the acts come to fruition in future lives. That is what distinguishes horoscopes of different people. Then, some acts bring small rewards like a labourer working all day getting paid meagre wages at the end of the day, while a scientist may make an important discovery and earn millions. What one gets is overseen by divine authorities. God has set rules, which divine authorities implement. They have no independent jurisdiction. However, it is difficult for us to know what exactly is in store for us. Both the timing and the type are generally shrouded in mystery. Material acts have no permanence; we do them and we are rewarded or punished.

On spiritual acts, Lord Krishna has spoken about them extensively in The Gita. For example, in the verse #2.40, he has stated that neither there is waste of effort in it nor there is opposite effect. Such acts are only beneficial. He has said that even a small spiritual act protects one from great fear. Such acts are never extinguished like the material acts. They keep on accumulating to our credit. If these acts relate to God, He gets involved personally in rewarding the doer. Of course there are many different types of spiritual acts, and they all please God. The Lord has mentioned many such acts in the twelfth chapter of The Gita (12.13-19). Lord Krishna specifically mentions those faithful, who have made Him their shelter, who follow the nectar of wisdom spoken by Him, are exceedingly dear to Him. (12.20) In another place, the Lord mentions those who preach His supreme secret knowledge amongst His devotees. He states that no other than them please Him more. (18.68-69)

God rewards doers of spiritual acts in many ways. They get their desired objects. Sanjaya mentions a few such rewards; they get opulence, victory and wealth. (18.78) The Lord does mention two types of devotion. One is for material gains like an artharthi (seeker of wealth) or an artah (distressed person). This is sakama bhakti. The other type of bhakti is nishkama in which the focus is on gaining liberation. The later one is of course higher because getting liberated from the cycle of birth and death is the ultimate gain for the small soul.

While material acts may or may not be rewarded, spiritual acts come under the exclusive jurisdiction of God. He always takes note of all spiritual acts. One must remember, God is never a debtor; He does not have to be. He must reward anyone who pleases Him in some way or other. God is unbelievably generous.

Bishnoi is a spiritual writer and can be reached at spiritual@ajitbishnoi.com

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Material and spiritual acts - Daily Pioneer

‘God Has Not Left Them’: Operation Blessing and Others Offer Aid and Spiritual Hope for Laura Survivors – CBN News

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LAKE CHARLES, Louisiana Cleanup operations are well underway across southern Texas and Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Laura.

While visiting the region Saturday, President Trump echoed the surprise many people expressed at the tremendous power of the storm when it hit.

"This was almost coming in at a (Category) 5. I believe it was a five a little bit offshore, 150 miles an hour, but it was up to 185 at one point out offshore, I don't think we've ever seen that" Trump said.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said, "That was the strongest storm to ever strike Louisiana. I was talking to some individuals here today who've been living here all their lives. They can never remember hurricane-force winds this far in north Louisiana that we experienced."

And like everything else this year, the response has been affected by the COVID crisis.

Gov. Edwards said, "Being a good neighbor means doing all the things you would normally do during a storm, just doing it from 6 feet away and with a mask on, because we still are the state in the country with the most cases per capita, we still have tremendous challenges from COVID."

But the governor is receiving some criticism from residents about putting too much emphasis on the virus threat, which they say pales in comparison to the danger from this storm.

Especially in poor communities, people rely on local emergency shelters to help them survive both during and after the storm. But Governor Edwards closed all the local shelters in advance of Hurricane Laura, instead of encouraging people to make the trek to hotels in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, several hours away. Those who were unable to do that for whatever reason now feel like they've been abandoned.

Resident Billy Ray Richarde said, "We don't have water. The water is off in Lake Charles, they tell me, so we drinkin' rainwater."

The Golden Arms Apartments is a subsidized living facility that houses about 400 residents over age 65. Most of them got out before the storm hit, but a lack of transportation resulted in sixty or so riding out the storm. Without a local shelter to go to, they were stuck without essential services.

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Richarde said, "The lights went out like two o'clock in the morning during the hurricane."

Now left without power, water, or transportation, these residents aren't sure what will happen to them. CBN's Operation Blessing scrambled to get some aid to the Golden Arms Apartments until they could be safely evacuated.

But the hotels are already full of refugees, and that fact is also hindering responders coming to help with the cleanup, now unable to find anywhere to stay.

The Louisiana National Guard has deployed hundreds of troops to help with cleanup efforts. Captain Randy Burdeaux with the 20th Engineer Battalion of the Louisiana Army National Guard is the unit's chaplain.

Burdeaux told CBN News, "Especially when they get back from being evacuated, they're going to be in devastation, so any way we can give 'em some encouragement, we're all in this together."

But Burdeaux says the greatest needs aren't food, water, or electricity.

"Their biggest needs right now are definitely prayers for spiritual help, and to know that God is here. You know, God is our refuge, an ever-present help in time of trouble. And anything that we can give them to remind them that God has not left them, is what we can do. Pray for it," he said.

CBN's Operation Blessing US Disaster Relief team, who arrived in Natchitoches, LA on Thursday, is still working with local churches to serve the needs of residents.

Operation Blessing is planning to deliver a water purification system this week to a hospital to help it get back up and running.

And OB has already brought food and water to people in need, along with flashlights - which many people have to have because hundreds of thousands are still without power after Laura crushed homes and knocked out power.

To give to Operation Blessing's Disaster Relief fund, call: 1-800-700-7000 orCLICK HERE.

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'God Has Not Left Them': Operation Blessing and Others Offer Aid and Spiritual Hope for Laura Survivors - CBN News

Serving those who serve others: behavioral health and spiritualitys role to encourage resiliency – United States Army

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TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, CALIFORNIA-- The stress of working in the midst of a global pandemic can take its toll on service members, especially those working on the front lines. More than 150 airmen in COVID Theater Hospital-1 (CTH-1) have responded to a shortage of healthcare workers at the direction of U.S. Army North.Religious affairs programs and behavioral health teams are supporting airmen integrated into local hospitals throughout California. The airmen are members of CTH-1, supporting healthcare workers in eight hospitals.U.S. Air Force Maj. Chelsea Arnold, a clinical social worker, and Tech Sgt. Susan Kicker, a mental health technician assigned to CTH-1 from the 60th Medical Group, Travis Air Force Base, Calif., have formed one such team to, providing behavioral health services to airmen serving Adventist Health Lodi Memorial Hospital in Lodi and Dameron Hospital in Stockton.Most of the members that attend our classes have never dealt with this much suffering in their jobs, said Kicker. It can be very hard to deal with.Some of the big stressors that weve seen are the death and sickness that people are dealing with, said U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Mark Habluetze, a chaplain from Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.The behavioral health teams and religious service teams have organized a variety of social activities to battle the unique challenges of providing aid to COVID-stressed civilian hospitals. These include guided meditation, painting classes, yoga, hikes, and behavioral health check-ins.You need to gather with others dealing with the same thing, not just go sit in your room alone at night, Kicker said.U.S. Air Force Capt. Bridget Caulkins, a physician with CTH-1, has attended these events and stressed their importance.Take care of yourself so you can take care of others, Caulkins said.During one of these events, Arnold led a guided meditation before Kicker guided the group through painting a field of poppy blooms at sunset. The airmen sat together as they brushed swatches of yellows, purples and reds into a serene landscape.Its a great way to get together and manage stress, Kicker said.Arnold uses her own expertise in yoga to lead sessions of meditative movement for the airmen. According to an article by the National Institutes for Health, studies have shown that yoga, in addition to strengthening the body, can help improve general wellness by relieving stress and improving mental and emotional health.Caulkins, a physician, is an enthusiastic participant in these yoga practices.The yoga class really helps manage stress and I preach this in my own practice, Caulkins said.Arnold also organizes behavioral health check-ins to provide a simple means of support: someone to listen.We sit in the atrium of the hotels where the providers live and are just there if someone wants to talk, Arnold said.The impact of the behavioral health teams efforts is easy to see as the health providers came to and from their duty stations in civilian hospitals.Many of them walk by, smile and wave, said Arnold.They say, We are so happy to have you here. Just in case. It has been a very positive reaction."U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Nicholas Monnett, a religious affairs airman from the 325th Fighter Wing based in Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., also provided a listening ear for the airmen coming to and from the front lines of Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage.Im there if someone needs to de-stress, complain about the day, get that burden off their chest, said Monnett.According to Habluetzel, religious affairs strives to cover the spiritual needs of all people.Youre dealing with people from all walks of life, all faiths, no faith, said Habluetzel. Youre giving people spiritual care no matter where they came from.He said that communication and support from others is a key part in this spiritual care.We want to show these providers how to deal with stress, build coping mechanisms. We want to show them how to have a spiritual connection with each other, said Habluetzel.The best way to respond to these crazy times and remain resilient is to take care of ourselves so we can help each other, according to Arnold.That can make all the difference.Follow more on Facebook at @46MPC and @USArmyNorth

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Serving those who serve others: behavioral health and spiritualitys role to encourage resiliency - United States Army

Reawakening Of Pagan India And The Challenge It Can Pose To Abrahamic Worldviews: Part I – Swarajya

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Ever since Abram and Sarai set foot in the Promised Land and subsequently changed their names to Abraham and Sarah, the concept of spirituality assumed a course of aggression that culminated in the physical destruction of many ancient cultures that had gone before them.

History and myth intersected with the advent of Christianity and the symbolic subjugation of Canaan and its idol-worshipping polytheists became concretely entrenched in the real historical trajectory of Abrahams spiritual descendants the Christians and the Muslims.

Whereas Abrahams exploits are pure myth and confined to the book, these two derivative faiths ploughed a path of destruction of ancient pagan temples and the forcible conversion of cultures all over the earth. A terrible campaign of genocide was unleashed to an extent hitherto unknown to the human species.

Almost every important church and mosque that exists today on earth has been built on the sacred cultural site of a vanquished people that lies buried with their gods and goddesses, known and unknown.

What looked like an unstoppable monotheistic train to many for nearly 2,000 years now looks spent as a spiritual force and the rationale that justified their actions now seems spurious and fake in the light of reason and the collective experience of the species.

But the charade goes on as if human intellect, rationality and experience are merely a negotiable matter and that they are on a par with superstitions and unsubstantiated a priori assumptions.

In this background, 5 August 2020 is a watershed in spiritual and cultural history. It signals a reversal of the current spiritual trend, and that fact is going to be etched in stone.

A very important pagan temple is rising from its own ashes like the proverbial phoenix for the first time in history. The foundation stone was laid for the Sri Ram Temple in Ayodhya that was demolished by Islamic fanatics in 1528.

Unlike the famous Somnath temple that could never be completely destroyed, the Ram Temple lay buried beneath the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, virtually smothering the memories of the descendants of those who built it. But the chimes that reverberate in the chants of Jai Sri Ram are embers that were never doused in the Hindu collective unconscious.

This essay traces the fortunes of the religions and cultures that evolved organically in India and elsewhere and held sway in human history once upon a time. It also shows how the natural course of these cultures was diverted through physical force, laying bare the truth that it is not intellectual force, but physical might that determines dominant spirituality.

The spiritual reversal that is evident in the rebuilding of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya perhaps physically signals the redemption of the human evolutionary process that had come to stagnate with the advent of the Abrahamic faiths. This event assumes great spiritual significance and calls for collective introspection. It signals a radical change in the thought process of the species.

The Term Pagan

For most people with a Western orientation, the term 'pagan' evokes an innately derogatory sense. Currently, this term is rarely used by common people, but when used it doesnt fail to connote an uncivilised quality in human behaviour.

Today, the term is generally viewed as archaic by educated people as most deem the term to be outdated history, because one would wonder whether a genuine 'pagan' lives today in flesh and blood.

According to the online Merriam-Webster, the term is derived from late Latin paganus, a term to address non-Christians: "The definition and etymology of heathen overlap with those of pagan: both words denote 'an unconverted member of a people or nation that does not acknowledge the God of the Bible, and heathen, like pagan, is believed to have come from the term for a country inhabitant, or in this case, a 'heath dweller.

Pagans were simply those of the human species who were not Jews, Christians or Muslims and hence do not acknowledge the god of Abraham as the sole god or the exclusive source of divinity.

However, the disparaging connotation the term carries doesnt justify itself, embedded as it is in tribalistic jargon showing a deep-rooted prejudice among the adherents of the three faiths traditionally called the people of the book, indicating the common origins of their faith in Moses Bible, the 'holy' book.

There is no anthropological study undertaken in any university in the world specifically about pagan cultures that have been annihilated, and whether there remain any traces of them today and to what extent they have changed or adapted to survive the onslaught of relatively new, predatory and tribalistic cults such as Christianity and Islam.

The only acknowledgement of the old 'pagan' in the West is the attempt by a miniscule group to resurrect the ancient pagan culture by the so-called neo-pagan movement.

Paradoxically, it is this neo-pagan movement that is being researched by modern Western scholars. To my knowledge, excluding Walking the Worlds, a biannual journal of polytheism, there is no publication devoted to the old pagan culture in the West today.

Origins Of The Contempt For The Pagan

The first attacks on pagans and their cultures by the Christians took place nearly 2,000 years ago and ushered in a new era in human history. This was a turning point hailed as 'progressive' by Christians, but for the varied cultures that were annihilated, the Christians were evil executioners who destroyed their tradition and high culture.

Pliny the Younger (62 to 113 CE), who was sent by the Roman emperor of that time, Trajan, to keep the peace between the early Christians and non-Christians, reported back that Christianity was a vile superstition carried to an immoderate length . The contagion of the superstition has pervaded not only the cities but the villages and country districts as well[1]. Pliny also mentions the Christians hatred of humanity.

The first flush of Christianity manifested itself a few hundred years after Pliny, which period would be designated as the 'dark ages' by its own 'enlightened' members some centuries later.

During this time, the term 'pagan' denoted the utmost degree of evil so that any trace of the existence of any pagan cultural element or knowledge that went against Christian dogma was considered an affront to Christianity, and the converts strived to annihilate them as quickly as possible.

Conversion by force was the rule rather than the exception in much of medieval Europe. Those who resisted were often murdered without further ado.

Christians were very much like the Muslim hordes that raided and plundered the whole of West Asia and beyond a few centuries later. Challenging their doctrines was called heresy and heretics were often condemned to torture and death.

Today, what Pliny called the contagion of vile superstition has spread almost all over the earth. The little remains of the untouched Amazon forests, and the North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal, are among the last vestiges of the pure world where the contagion did not get a chance to infect the human mind.

Where brute force would have amply sufficed in the jolly good days of Christianity, now the Catholic Pope has to make concessions for his priests in the Amazon in view of the earthy and healthy pagan outlook on celibacy and sex.

Where a few burnings at the stake would have sufficed then, the conversions are now realised in secrecy, by coercion and subterfuge.

Around 600 years after the Christian contagion began to disseminate freely, it met with a competitor from Arabia in the form of Islam.

Being the spitting image of Christianity in tribal character, having the same antecedents originating from Jewish scriptures, Islam too has a term equivalent to 'pagan' and 'heathen': the 'kafir'. The exclusion of people of the book from these originally derogatory terms attests to their common origin in Judaic scriptures and the faith of Abraham.

Members of these two religions have different rules and regulations for the allegedly inferior unconverted people whenever the former achieve political power in a region.

Objectively speaking, the common feature of the people of the book is tribalism. This distinction between the tribalist and its 'other', the pagan or kafir, transmuted into the esoteric theory of two human races the 'Adamic humanity' and 'pre-Adamic humanity', attested by the Russian historian and philosopher Boris Mouravieff in modern times.

The different rules for the heathens and kafirs point to the tribal doctrine of 'we' and 'them'. Whereas for the Jews the tribal god remained their own personal god of the tribe, the jurisdiction of the tribal god of the Christians and Muslims is violently extended and forced upon the whole species, beyond their own tribes, with the injunction that theirs is the only god that is real.

The result was the most involuted monotheism ever, as the people of the book initiated and sustained a colossal exercise in sophistry that regularly pendulated from utter nonsense to utter nonsense in order to prevail over the pagans and kafirs. It was an indulgence that nevertheless did not fail to fool not just themselves but their converts.

To sum up, tribal challenges such as 'our god', 'their god' and 'we' and 'them' define these two religions and the pagans and kafirs collectively became the social other and the butt of their gods ire.

For this reason, Christianity and Islam by doctrine resist sharing the same laws with the pagans, even when the pagans are in greater number such as was the case in the Roman Empire of 2,000 years ago or as is the case in India now.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Christianisation of a large part of Europe happened in a matter of few centuries. The fall of the Persian Empire to Islam was even quicker. For the first time in human history, dynamic tribalism promoted by organised violence made rapid advances.

The army of fanatics ploughed its way through peaceable pagan societies across continents, mowing them down one by one as it made its way across continents and countries.

What shocked the pagans and paralysed their limbs and minds was the utter disregard of the tribalists for the civilsational ethos that had been refined and established by the species and which generally prevailed almost all over the planet even in matters of war.

The marauding armies of faith were driven by a blind zeal that is the chief characteristic of Abrahamic believers, the people who were systematically brainwashed from childbirth by the repeated chanting of superstitions.

The religious prejudice against the heathen and the kafir is kept alive with fanatic fervour by their mandatory daily reading of their Stone Age scriptures.

In this regard it may be pertinent to quote here an expert in polytheism, an exceptional Western scholar, Dr Edward Butler, in order to understand the hatred for the pagan that still exists in the typical Western psyche (collective unconscious) despite the apparent disappearance of the old fanatic Christian zeal from public sphere:

The intolerance toward Hinduism is rooted in fear and loathing of polytheism. Polytheism was not simply left behind in the West, it did not die of natural causes; in fact, it didnt die at all, because the Gods are still here. Christendom has been fighting its war against them for two millennia now, and it grows tired. This is why when Europeans came into contact with actually existing polytheisms in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania in the early modern era, it set off a frenzy of destruction, subjugation and inhumanity. The old enemy was back.[2]

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Reawakening Of Pagan India And The Challenge It Can Pose To Abrahamic Worldviews: Part I - Swarajya

Tax Implications For Donations Of Bitcoin – Fintech Zoom

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WAN CHAI, HONG KONG, HONG KONG ISLAND 2018/04/07: A Bitcoin ATM machine in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. [+] (Photograph by Miguel Candela/SOPA Photographs/LightRocket by way of Getty Photographs)

Fashionable digital foreign money Bitcoin has been a information fixture since its introduction in 2009. If truth, Bitcoin is the worlds main digital foreign money, with a market capitalization over $175 billion. This explosive progress has led donors and their advisors to discover varied charitable giving alternatives utilizing digital currencies.

The Inner Income Service (IRS) describes digital foreign money as a digital representation of value that functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and / or a store of value. Its creators designed it to function like authorized tender, and as a medium of exchange, though only a few governments at the moment acknowledge it as authorized tender anyplace on the earth.

At present, Bitcoin and different digital currencies, comparable to Ethereum and Ripple, signify a complete market capitalization of over $250 billion.Many giant charities, together with giant donor-advised funds and group foundations, are wanting to faucet into this market or have already acquired digital donations. For instance, United Manner, American Crimson Cross, and the American Most cancers Society settle for donations of Bitcoins. Most main donor-advised funds settle for Bitcoin, and a few settle for different cryptocurrencies as nicely.

Smaller nonprofits have begun accepting the foreign money as nicely.Know-how and monetary methods involving the asset have solely grown extra advanced with time, as ideas like proof-of-stake, forks, and decentralized finance (DeFi) all have grow to be extra outstanding within the cryptocurrency world.

Ryan Raffin

With this explosion in value, many house owners of Bitcoin and different digital currencies have important appreciation in these property. This makes cryptocurrency a really interesting candidate for charitable giving. This text discusses the tax remedy of Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies below present IRS guidelines. It has a selected emphasis on the tax outcomes for donations of digital foreign money.

2014 Bloomberg Finance LP

IRS Positions on Bitcoin The Inner Income Service was faster than many organizations when it got here to consideration of the monetary and tax implications of digital foreign money. In March of 2014, the IRS issued a Discover on the tax remedy of transactions involving digital foreign money. This was its first official assertion on cryptocurrency, though its printed steering since then has confirmed that remedy. Most significantly, the IRS acknowledged that, for tax functions, digital currencies are property and never foreign money.

This property remedy signifies that conventional achieve and loss rules will apply due to this fact treating these property as securities or enterprise property. A celebration promoting, spending, or in any other case disposing of digital foreign money may be topic to capital good points or peculiar earnings tax. Though the charity will probably be promoting the foreign money, exempt organizations will not be usually taxed on earnings, even from the sale of appreciated property.

The most important tax implications for donations of digital foreign money, due to this fact, contain the donor reasonably than the charity. The primary consideration for donors is the charitable earnings tax deduction acquired. As a preliminary matter, notice that in answering questions on donated cryptocurrency, the IRS refers a number of occasions to its common publication on charitable contributions. This helps the belief that the usual noncash charitable deduction guidelines will apply.

The achieve might be peculiar, or capital, relying on the supply of the digital foreign money to the donor. The dedication on the kind of achieve or loss the taxpayer acknowledges relies on whether or not that particular person held the digital foreign money as a capital asset for funding functions. If the donor didnt maintain the property as an funding, it might be topic to peculiar achieve or loss remedy. That is extra prone to be the case if the donor is a so-called miner or the place the digital foreign money is in any other case earnings paid for companies rendered.

Outcomes for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Donors These prospects result in three potential tax outcomes for donors of digital foreign money. First, a donor giving digital foreign money held short-term (i.e., lower than one 12 months) as a capital asset will be capable to deduct the lesser of price foundation or honest market value as much as 50 p.c of adjusted gross earnings.Nevertheless, if the donor held the Bitcoin or different foreign money for greater than a 12 months as a capital asset, the deduction could be the honest market value of the present as much as 30 p.c of adjusted gross earnings. Lastly, if the foreign money is topic to peculiar achieve or loss remedy within the arms of the donor, the donor may deduct the fee foundation of the present as much as 50 p.c of her adjusted gross earnings.

If the donor acquired Bitcoin as peculiar earnings as fee for companies rendered or property bought, the donor may solely deduct the fee foundation below the peculiar earnings discount guidelines. The IRS defines the fee foundation of the digital foreign money as its honest market value when the proprietor receives it. So if a third-party pays the donor Bitcoin worth $500 for skilled companies, and that Bitcoin later appreciated to $1,000 USD, the donors charitable earnings tax deduction could be restricted to $500, or price foundation.

These guidelines are very favorable to donors holding appreciated digital foreign money as capital property, permitting them to keep away from incurring a tax for capital good points on the Bitcoins or different foreign money. That is very true following the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which restricted Part 1031 exchanges to actual property solely, which means homeowners of digital foreign money couldnt merely exchange them for different digital currencies to keep away from recognizing achieve. Word that this donation would additionally permit the donor to keep away from the potential 3.eight p.c Medicare surcharge on funding earnings. The acute appreciation in Bitcoin and different cryptocurrency makes the asset class a really sturdy candidate for charitable giving. Higher nonetheless, IRS commentary has clearly laid out the tax outcomes and necessities for substantiating such donations. Though there are some hoops to leap by means of to get a good market value deduction, these difficulties might be minimal compared to the advantages of optimizing tax effectivity in giving. These tax gadgets are after all not the one issues for donations of Bitcoin or altcoins, however they will present a strong motivation for the best donor holding appreciated cryptocurrency.

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Tax Implications For Donations Of Bitcoin - Fintech Zoom

Should You Buy Gold or Bitcoins: What Financial Experts Think – Tech Guide

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When it comes to hedge against the volatility of the stock market, investors have chosen gold as a safe haven. Gold has proven to be an effective way to manage the risk during such times. But in the last couple of years, a new alternative has come to light. In 2009, when Bitcoin came into existence, the value was insignificant.

Over the last 10 years, the value has risen from $0.0008 to nearly $11,500 today. So, traditional investors have shown interest in putting their money into a new kind of asset. Moreover, they found that Bitcoin can also be used as a safe space during market uncertainties.

Although its an individual decision whether to invest in gold or Bitcoin, lets see what financial experts think about it?

What Financial Experts Say About Gold?

As per experts opinion, gold is a safe haven asset during market trouble for many reasons. The precious metal has served as one of the best alternative investments during a market crash or financial crisis. Here are some reasons for which gold is a valuable asset.

For the above reasons, almost every financial expert advises diversifying an investment portfolio with gold. Now lets know what they say about Bitcoin.

How Do Financial Experts See Bitcoin?

According to some financial experts, Bitcoin has some common properties with gold and referred to as Digital Gold. Here are some reasons why Bitcoin is also a good opportunity for investment.

In 2017, John McAfee, founder of McAfee and a Bitcoin evangelist, predicted that Bitcoin would reach $1 million in 2020. However, it will take a few more years to reach the milestone, but Bitcoin has had a positive perspective for many people.

Comparison of Bitcoin and Gold

From ancient times, gold has remained the safest asset. After Bitcoin was launched a decade ago, it has only achieved huge popularity in the last couple of years. Here are some aspects based on which experts have compared the two assets.

1. Safety, Legality

In terms of corruption, both gold and Bitcoin cant be corrupted easily. But Bitcoin is not as safe when compared to gold due to its infrastructure. In the past, a popular crypto exchange named Mt.Gox went offline, and that took away about $460 million in Bitcoin from the public. Again, gold is the winner in terms of legality.

2. Scarcity

Both the assets are scarce in their supply. The only difference is the total amount of Bitcoin is known, whichis 21 million units. Whereas the amount of gold is not known, we know it is limited.

3. Utility

Gold has many uses from ancient times. As a precious metal, it is used for jewelry, in the electronic industry, and many more. On the other hand, Bitcoin has a large impact on the financial world by giving everyone access to send and receive value without the help of banks.

4. Volatility

The major concern of Bitcoin is its high volatility. So many investors resist considering it as a safe-haven asset. On the other hand, gold is successful in maintaining its value over the years.

5. Liquidity

Both gold and Bitcoin have high liquidity and can be exchanged with traditional currencies.

Conclusion

From the above, we can conclude that it is best to invest in both the assets. But it solely depends on your risk appetite and investment goals to decide how much you want to invest in which asset. You can invest in Bitcoin through bitcoin profit. Hopefully, the article has helped you to decide whether to buy gold or Bitcoin.

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Should You Buy Gold or Bitcoins: What Financial Experts Think - Tech Guide

Exhibition shows new evidence of bio-warfare by Japan – Chinadaily USA

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An exhibition related to the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) kicked off at the Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by Japanese Army Unit 731 in Harbin, Heilongjiang province on Thursday. [Photo by Liu Yang/for chinadaily.com.cn]

To mark the 75th anniversary of the Chinese people's victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), an exhibition related to the war kicked off at the Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by Japanese Army Unit 731 in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, on Thursday.

The museum released evidence of human experiments and crimes involving biochemical weapons by Japan, including 220 old photos, 1,810 artifacts and 51 hours of audio and video files.

The materials, which were collected from China, the United States, Japan, Russia and other countries, mainly focus on new evidence.

"This exhibition is an overall display of the academic research achievements of the museum," said Jin Chengmin, the curator. "Some of the files, including the name list of two Japanese germ warfare units Japanese Army Unit 1855 in Beijing and Japanese Army Unit 9420 in Singapore are being displayed to the public for the first time."

"The site of Japanese Army Unit 731 is a special memory left to us about the cruel war. It is also a warning to the world," said Zhang Shenghuo, 87, a descendant of a germ warfare victim. "I hope more people come to know the history and safeguard the peace."

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Exhibition shows new evidence of bio-warfare by Japan - Chinadaily USA

Do You Have What it Takes? NASA Seeks Next Class of Flight Directors for Human Spaceflight Missions – SpaceCoastDaily.com

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searching for leaders for missions to the MoonExpedition 61 Flight Directors Marcos Flores, left, and Pooja Jesrani, right, along with their team of flight controllers monitor operations on the International Space Station on Dec. 24, 2019. (NASA image)

NASA is looking for leaders for one of the best jobs on Earth for human spaceflight including missions to the Moon the position of flight director in mission control at the agencys Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA will accept applications for new flight directors Thursday, Sept. 3, through Thursday, Sept. 10. U.S. citizens can apply at:

http://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/577699400

Those chosen as NASA flight directors will lead human spaceflight missions to the International Space Station, as American astronauts once again are launching on American rockets and spacecraft from American soil to the orbiting laboratory.

For almost 20 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space.

Flight directors also will lead upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon, and eventually the first human missions to Mars.

Flight directors are responsible for leading teams of flight controllers, research and engineering experts, and support personnel around the world, and making the real-time decisions critical to keeping NASA astronauts safe in space.

NASA flight directors need a unique mixture of confidence and humility, innovation and organization, said Holly Ridings, chief flight director at Johnson.

The situations you have to deal with are occasionally very tough, and the stakes are always very high. But if you are able to handle that responsibility, there is nothing like knowing that you played a key role in the historic work that NASA does on a day-to-day basis.

To be considered, flight director candidates must be U.S. citizens with a bachelors degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science, or mathematics.

They also will need substantial related, progressively responsible professional experience, including time-critical decision-making experience in high-stress, high-risk environments. Many flight directors have previously been NASA flight controllers, though it is not a prerequisite to apply.

NASA will announce selections later this fall. The new flight directors then will receive extensive training on flight control and spacecraft systems, as well as operational leadership and risk management.

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Do You Have What it Takes? NASA Seeks Next Class of Flight Directors for Human Spaceflight Missions - SpaceCoastDaily.com

NASA Discovered a Faster, Cheaper Way of Getting to The Moon… And Patented It – ScienceAlert

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The Moon is both seductively close to Earth and cosmically far away: Decades after the end of the space race, it remains extraordinarily expensive and difficult to actually get there.

The journey just got a bit easier, however, thanks to a freshly published NASA invention.

The agency's patent doesn't cover a new piece of equipment or lines of code, but a trajectory a route designed to save a lunar-bound mission time, fuel, and money, and boost its scientific value.

On June 30, the US Patent and Trademark Office granted and publishedNASA's patentfor a series of orbital manoeuvres, which Business Insider first learned about viaa tweetby a lawyer named Jeff Steck.

The technique isn't meant for large spaceships that carry astronauts or rovers, but for smaller, more tightly budgeted missions tasked with doing meaningful science.

And the first spacecraft to take advantage of this new orbital path could deliver unprecedented discoveries from the far side of the Moon.

Dark Ages Polarimeter Pathfinder, or Dapper, spacecraft. (University of Colorado Boulder/NASA)

Called theDark Ages Polarimeter Pathfinder, or Dapper, the upcoming mission aims to record, for the first time, low-frequency radio waves emitted during the earliest epochs of the Universe when atoms, stars,black holes, and galaxies were just beginning to form, and where scientists may detect the first signals of as-yet-unseen dark matter.

When NASAlaunched three astronauts to the Moon in 1968, it took the crew just a few days to get there. Such direct shots are expensive, though, requiring an enormous rocket to climb out of Earth's deep gravity well.

There are far more efficient paths to the Moon that can use smaller rockets if you have time to spare, which robots do.

By taking time to swing around the Earth, for instance, a spacecraft cansteal some of the planet's momentumand slingshot out to the Moon in a series of long orbits that cost it little to no fuel.

Fuel remains necessary to correct orbits and manoeuvre through space, but every ounce a spacecraft carries is mass that an engineer can't dedicate toward other components, including scientific instruments.

The calculus is especially tricky for compact spacecraft like Dapper, which would be about the size of a microwave, since there is (quite literally) less margin for error.

Faced with the extra challenge of trying to fly Dapper on a relatively thin US$150 million budget fromNASA's Explorers program, the team behind the mission concept realised they couldn't buy their own rocket ride all the way to lunar orbit.

"This trajectory to the Moon arose out of necessity, as these things often do,"Jack Burns, an astrophysicist at the University of Colorado Boulder and leader of the Dapper mission, told Business Insider. "We needed to keep the launch costs low and find a cheap way to get to the Moon."

They started with a flight they knew they could afford: one togeosynchronous or high-Earth orbit, a region about 22,236 miles from Earth's equator (about one-tenth of the way to the Moon). It's a common destination for telecommunications and other satellites built to hover above one spot on the planet. Dapper is small enough to piggyback on such missions.

"If we could just get a launch into high-Earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, then we could get the rest of the way there with only a modest tank of fuel," Burns said.

After crunching the numbers, the team found a new low-energy trajectory to the Moon, which their patent describes as a "method for transferring a spacecraft from geosynchronous transfer orbit to lunar orbit."

It enlists the help of Earth and the Moon's gravity to speed up and slow down Dapper at the right moments, cutting down on the amount of propellant required.

NASA-patented trajectory from Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit to the Moon. (NASA)

NASA saysthis new spin on the gravity assist keeps the flight time to about 2 1/2 months, whereas similar options can take six months.

The trajectory also comes with numerous options to slip a spacecraft into an orbit of any angle around the Moon, at practically any time. And it avoids a zone of radiation around Earth called theVan Allen belts, which can damage sensitive electronics.

It may seem odd to patent lunar travel, but Burns said it is really no different from any other invention.

"It's a creation that was the result of doing numerical modelling of planetary trajectories, he said. "So it is intellectual property."

NASA patents and licenses inventions to achieve the "widest distribution" of a technology, Dan Lockney, a NASA executive,told IPWatchdog in 2018.

"Securing patents and licensing the technologies is a method NASA and other government agencies use to ensure access to government-funded innovations," Clare Skelly, a NASA representative, told Business Insider in an email.

The agency charges as much as $US50,000 to licence its patents but typically asks for $US5,000 to $US10,000, plus royalties.

"It is through the upfront fees that NASA seeks to recover some of its investment in the patent filing and maintenance costs," the agency's licensing website says.

In other words: Doing the grunt work of patenting and then charging a minimum for that work is a formal and industry-compatible practice of disseminating the fruits of NASA's labors.

Unofficially, NASA's scheme also keeps private companies and foreign nations from stockpiling important space technologies for exorbitant sums, and that helps foster American missions and international collaborations. (The agency does occasionally release patentsinto the public domain.)

Burns said he didn't believe that NASA will "ever make any money" off the new trajectory patent, since it's often a matter of historical record-keeping.

"It just is a marker that lays down that this was your intellectual property you did this, and you were the creator of it so that at least when people use it, they give credit," he said.

Dapper's goal is to study the Universe from a "cone of silence" on thefar side of the Moon. In that solitary region, humanity's cacophony of wireless emissions can't interfere with antennas trying to pick up weak, low-frequency emissions from more than 13 billion years ago.

"This is the only truly radio-quiet region in the inner solar system," Burns said.

Humanity's pollution of radio waves which leak out of almost every electronic device can easily bend around corners and over horizons (so erecting barriers to block them is fruitless). "In order to get the same amount of quiet, you'd have to go out past the orbit of Jupiter, and go that far out in order for the noise just from Earth."

Specifically, the mission seeks to detect radio emissions of the "neutral hydrogen" that dominated the very early Universe. The cosmos produced the nuclei, or cores, of these first-ever atoms within a microsecond of the Big Bang; the event's dense, hot soup of energy had expanded and cooled off, permitting protons, neutrons, and electrons to form.

About 380,000 years later, that particle soup had cooled off further, allowing the positively charged protons to capture negatively charged electrons and become neutrally charged hydrogen atoms.

The phase is often called the "Dark Ages" because, in visible wavelengths of light, a human wouldn't have seen anything.

"There's no stars. There's no galaxies. There's no other source of radiation. So how do you probe that part of the Universe?" Burns said. "You use the one thing that you've got a lot of, which is neutral hydrogen."

The problem is that those radio signals, which reach Earth in the 10-to-100-megahertz range, not only are scrambled by our planet's atmosphere, but match the emissions of countless power supplies, garage-door openers, radio transmitters, space satellites, digital TV signals, and more.

"The radio spectrum down at these frequencies? It's just absolutely filled with garbage," Burns said.

Even in space, there's so much interference from humanity and the Sun that the radio-equivalent temperature around Earth is "nearly a million degrees," Burns said.

By slipping behind the Moon at a moment when the sun is blocked as well as the Earth, Dapper is expected to make the first clear recordings of a neutral hydrogen signal. The spacecraft might also gather evidence of the first stars, and possibly the first black holes and galaxies that formed about 500 million years after the Big Bang, during an epoch called "Cosmic Dawn."

And maybe just maybe the spacecraft could turn up the first direct detection ofdark matter, which makes up about 80 percent of the mass in the Universe but hasyet to be identified.

For the researchers that successfully pull off such a mission, two Nobel Prizes in science could await.

"One is you're detecting when the first stars and galaxies form and what they are. And No. 2, you're detecting dark matter," said Burns, who pooh-poohed the idea of winning any such prize himself.

Burns and others came up with theDark Ages Radio Explorerlunar mission about 10 years ago, which is why that mission and not Dapper is described in the patent, which NASA filed in 2015. (The USPTO is a notoriously slow-moving federal organ.)

Burns said that while NASA was excited about DARE no one had ever done something like it before the agency was bound by rules that favoured established science and hardware over newer approaches.

"There is no history of low-frequency experiments in space. So, on the one side, people are excited: 'Wow, you're opening up an entire new field of cosmology. This is great. This is fantastic. You need to do it,'" Burns said. "The other side is, 'Well, you've never done it before, so it must be risky.' And so you get marked down for the risks."

After years of being passed up, Burns and his colleagues decided to shrink the car-size spacecraft, ditch novel hardware for proven "heritage" technologies, and try again.

The gambit appears to be working. NASA hasawarded Dappera few million dollars to prove out the concept and mature its hardware design to a flight-ready state over the next two years.

When that work concludes, Dapper would have a good chance of getting NASA's full funding to build the spacecraft and book a rocket ride, possibly from SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, or some other provider. (Burns said the mission is estimated to cost about $US70 million, plus the price of a launch.)

Burns isn't sure the mission will require the new patent to reach lunar orbit anymore. In the years since his team came up with it, commercial rocket providers have started planninglaunches to the Moon. NASA is also working toward the launch of its massiveSpace Launch Systemrocket, which could easily carry Dapper on a flight in the mid-2020s.

"The possible ways to get there have widened considerably since this orbital trajectory was first designed," Burns said.

But time is growing short. There's a push to land humans (and their noisy electronics) at the Moon's poles, including an effort by China.

That nation's space agency has also landed spacecraft on the lunar far side, where its robots areexploring the surface for the first time.

"Given how simple we have made the Dapper instrument now, a lot of people could build it. A lot of countries, even individual companies, could build this," Burns said. "Every so often I see a paper coming out of China with my figures in it, and they're talking about their own mission."

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

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NASA Discovered a Faster, Cheaper Way of Getting to The Moon... And Patented It - ScienceAlert

Learn to code with Wonder Woman, Smithsonian Learning Labs, and NASA – Microsoft

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The Fourth Industrial Revolutions velocity, scope, and systems-level impact contribute to a shift in business models across all industries. The on-demand economy and changing nature of work, especially amid COVID-19, have led to a significant skills gap[1]. There are 1.7 million unfulfilled tech jobs across industries in the U.S. and Europe[2].

At Microsoft, our goal is to help people throughout the entire education and learning continuumfrom education through ones professional careerto fully participate in the digital economy. Part of this is about preparing the next generation for the jobs of tomorrow. Our unique responsibility and opportunity is to ensure everyone has access to the promise and potential of technology for the digital economy. This contributes to our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We believe that those who create with technology are those who write history and shape our future; everyone should have access to learning these skills.

Our ambition is to empower all students to confidently create with technology. Our products like Minecraft: Education Edition, MakeCode, and Visual Studio Code bringthis to life by providing a canvas for creating with technology. We offer a range of options for learners of all ages to learn coding.

To prepare the next generation for the jobs of tomorrow while inspiring their creativity, we have partnered with Wonder Woman 1984, Smithsonian Learning Labs, and NASA to create distinct portfolios of project-based lessons that teach programming. We wanted to cultivate learning by connecting content to something interesting, relevant, and most importantly, inspiring for learners of all ageswhether they are 8, 18, or 80.

Included in these collections are:

Five Wonder Woman 1984 and Smithsonian Learning Lab lessons

Three lessons inspired by NASA

These new modules and learning paths created by Sarah Guthals are inspired by NASA scientists. They help prepare learners for a career in space exploration.

1 World Economic Forum. March 2019. The digital skills gap is widening fast. Heres how to bridge it.

2 Wall Street Journal. October 15, 2019. Americas Got Talent, Just Not Enough in IT, citing data from CompTIA.

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Learn to code with Wonder Woman, Smithsonian Learning Labs, and NASA - Microsoft

Former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin was never afraid to go to space. But a police stop made him sweat – CNN

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Melvin, who was never afraid launching into space on two Space Shuttle Atlantis missions to help build the International Space Station, never knew what was going to happen when the cops pulled him over.

"I've been on this rocket with millions of pounds of thrust and not once was I afraid of going to space," said Melvin, who is Black. "It's when I've been stopped by police officers that I didn't even know ... I was starting to sweat and just holding the steering wheel really hard."

"Every father in the Black community has a conversation with their son to tell them that if you get stopped by an officer, you know, you assume the position, which is 10-2 (hands on the wheel), look straight ahead," he added. "You tell the officer, you know, you're real respectful, you say you're reaching for your obvious things."

Panelists -- who shared their personal experiences and discussed the Black Lives Matter movement, the death of George Floyd, and subsequent protests -- included former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, NASA Deputy Manager of Commercial Lunar Payload Services Camille Alleyne and Danielle Wood, director of the Space Enabled Research Group in MIT's Media Lab.

Melvin can still remember one traffic stop when he was a student at Heritage High School in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he graduated in 1982.

"I was in a car with my girlfriend and a police officer rolled up on us," Melvin said. "He took her out of the car and told her that I was raping her because he wanted me to go to jail.

"And you know, when Black men get into the prison system, that they really never get out and have a second chance. I was going to college on scholarship and want to be a chemistry major."

Melvin urged people to make sure they're not part of the problem by contributing to racism, asking people to assess both what they're doing to hurt and how they can help fight racism.

The path to space

Luckily that stop didn't derail his career. Melvin ended up logging more than 565 hours in space, but space was not his first choice.

During the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, Melvin said he was the "antenna engineer," holding the antennas for his parents while they watched it.

"And the next day all the kids in the neighborhood said, 'Do you want to be an astronaut?' No, I don't see someone who looks like me," Melvin recalled.

Five blocks down the street from where Melvin grew up, Arthur Ashe learned how to play tennis. Ashe, the only Black man to win singles titles at Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open, turned pro in 1969. Ashe was also the first Black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team.

"My dad talked about his perseverance his athleticism, his intelligence," Melvin said. "'I want you to be like him.' It wasn't until I got to NASA, when a friend said, 'You'd be a great astronaut.'"

Melvin didn't fill out an application until his friend, Charlie Camarda, got into the astronaut program. "If that guy can get in, I can get in, and that's when I applied."

Melvin was drafted in 1986 to play in the National Football League for the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys but pulled his hamstrings and didn't end up playing any regular season games.

In 1989, he began working at NASA Langley Research Center in the Fiber Optic Sensors group of the Nondestructive Evaluation Sciences Branch, according to NASA. He was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1998.

In addition to serving as an astronaut, Melvin has also headed NASA's education program, co-chaired the White House's Federal Coordination in STEM Education Task Force and chaired the International Space Education Board.

Contrasting moments

"I see this Black man getting his life snuffed out, saying he can't breathe," Melvin said. "And when I heard him calling for his mother, that's when I started crying because I thought about my mother. I thought about if that was me, being the life snuffed out of me."

Floyd's death as now-former police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes was in sharp contrast with the achievement of launching American astronauts from US soil on US rockets for the first time since 2011.

"If we can (send people to the International Space Station), we can do anything. We can fix these problems."

And it leads back to the necessity of diversity, Melvin said.

Melvin said his "aha" moment in space came unexpectedly. He anticipated it would happen as he helped install the European Space Agency's Columbus Laboratory on the International Space Station in 2008.

But it wasn't until NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson invited Melvin over to the Russian segment of the station to share a meal. The crew included astronauts with Russian, French, German, African American and Asian American backgrounds and was hosted by Whitson -- the first female commander of the space station, Melvin said.

"We were breaking bread at 17,500 miles per hour, going around the planet every 90 minutes. And that was when my head exploded, and I had this epiphany about our planet and looking back at it, getting this thing called the orbital perspective."

It's something astronauts gain as they gaze down at our planet as a whole.

"I think we as a civilization need to take that thing that we get in space as astronauts," he said. "And we know that if we don't work together as a team, and we were one of the most diverse teams in space, then we (would) perish."

Working together is the only way Melvin thinks humanity can survive on this planet, get back to the moon and get to Mars.

"The way we do it is with the right perspective. And we bring this perspective home from space, to go back to space as a civilization of diverse people," he said. "It's perspective together, that we work together, we live together, and we change the universe together."

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Former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin was never afraid to go to space. But a police stop made him sweat - CNN

Python programming in the final frontier: Microsoft and NASA release student learning portal – TechRepublic

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The lessons use space exploration and the challenges of cosmic exploration to teach the fundamentals of programming.

Image: NASA

Over the decades, NASA has inspired generations of computer scientists, astronauts, and others to broaden humankind's knowledge of the ever-expanding cosmos. In recent years, machine learning, AI, and other technologies have been tapped to assist with a host of operational tasks and procedures ranging from confirming new exoplanets to artificial intelligence (AI) astronaut assistants. To teach the next generation of computer scientists the basics of Python programming, Microsoft recentlyannounced a partnership with NASA to create a series of lessons based on space exploration efforts.

SEE:Hiring kit: Python developer(TechRepublic Premium)

Overall, the project includes three different NASA-inspired lessons. These learning pathways were created by computer scientist and entrepreneur Sarah Guthals to teach programming fundamentals using space exploration challenges and themes. The Introduction to Python for Space Exploration lesson will provide students with "an introduction to the types of space exploration problems that Python and data science can influence." Made up of eight units in total, this module also details the upcoming Artemis lunar exploration mission.

SEE:Key details: NASA's mission to Mars (free PDF)(TechRepublic)

In another learning path, students will learn to design an AI model capable of classifying different types of space rocks depicted in random photos, according to Microsoft. However, the company recommends a "basic understanding of Python for Data Science" as a prerequisite for this particular lesson.

The last of the three learning paths serves as an introduction to machine learning and demonstrates ways these technologies can help assist with space exploration operations.

Students are presented real-world NASA challenges, particularly rocket launch delays, and learn how the agency can leverage machine learning to resolve the issues.

The primary objective of the machine learning lesson is "to get students excited and curious to discover how machine learning could help solve other problems in space discovery and different aspects of life," according to Microsoft.

Microsoft also announced partnerships with Wonder Woman 1984 and Smithsonian Learning Labs to curate five additional programming lessons for students. In Museum Heist, students learn how to code using Minecraft: Education Edition. Players explore a museum and are tasked with solving a series of puzzles to help identify the location of a stolen piece of artwork.

In another lesson, students must decode a secret message to unlock a Wonder Woman 1984 Easter egg. This lesson requires no previous experience with Python and serves as an introductory lesson to the programming lesson, according to Microsoft.

From the hottest programming languages to the jobs with the highest salaries, get the developer news and tips you need to know. Weekly

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Python programming in the final frontier: Microsoft and NASA release student learning portal - TechRepublic

Gravity, Gizmos, and a Grand Theory of Interstellar Travel – WIRED

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From the start, Machs principle was a controversial addendum to general relativity. Some of Einsteins contemporaries, especially the Dutch mathematician Willem de Sitter, labored to show that his concept of inertia was inconsistent with other mathematical implications of general relativity. But it was the physicist Carl Brans who finally expelled the idea from respectable physics. In Brans PhD thesis, published in 1961, he used mathematics to demonstrate that inertia could not be explained by the gravitational influence of distant matter in the universe. After Brans paper, everybody assumed that inertia la Einstein was not contained in general relativity, Woodward says. Thats still the view of most general relativists.

But as Woodward dug deeper into the history and science of general relativity, he couldnt shake the feeling that Brans had gotten it all wrong. And as he discovered in the autumn of 1989, if you accepted Einsteins view that inertia was inextricably linked to gravity, it opened up the possibility for propellantless propulsion.

Woodwards views on gravity and inertia arent mainstream, but its not crazy to think Einstein might have been right all along. I'm pretty comfortable with Jim's take on it, because it's very historically oriented, says Daniel Kennefick, an astrophysicist and historian of science at the University of Arkansas, who has collaborated with Woodward. He is very much motivated by Einstein's understanding of Machs principle. It's not at all unusual for an idea to be discovered, rejected, and then later make a comeback.

In Einsteins famous equation, E=mc2, an objects energy, E, is equal to its mass, m, multiplied by the speed of light squared. That means if you change an objects energy, you will also change its mass. An objects mass is a measure of its inertiathats why it takes greater force to push a more massive object than a less massive oneso changing its energy will also change its inertia. And if, per Machs principle, inertia and gravity are one and the same, then changing an objects energy means messing with the very fabric of spacetime. In theory, anyway.

Woodward realized that if Einstein was right and inertia really is gravity in disguise, it should be possible to detect these brief changes in an objects mass as its energy fluctuates. If part of an object accelerated at the exact moment when it became a little heavier, it would pull the rest of the object along with it. In other words, it would create thrust without propellant.

Woodward called these temporary changes in mass Mach effects, and the engine that could use them a Mach-effect thruster. By combining hundreds or thousands of these drives, they could conceivably produce enough thrust to send a spaceship to the stars in less than a human lifetime. How to keep a person alive in space for decades is still an enormous question. But it is a mere footnote to the more fundamental issue of figuring out how to cross a void trillions of miles wide in any reasonable amount of time.

By 1995, Woodwards ideas about Mach effects had coalesced into a full theory, and he turned his attention to building a thruster to prove it. The design he settled on was simple and opportunistic. A local electronics manufacturer was relocating, and an employee had alerted the university it had some leftover materials on offer. Woodward swung by its old office and snapped up a pile of piezoelectric disks the company had left behind.

To build his interstellar engine, Woodward mounted the piezoelectric disks to a block of brass and put a cap on the other end to hold it all in place. When piezoelectric disks are hit with a pulse of electricity, they bulge slightly. This expansion causes them to push off of the brass block and accelerate in the opposite direction. According to Woodwards theory of Mach effects, the electric current would also make the piezoelectric disks ever-so-slightly heavier. This causes them to pull the brass block toward them. When the electricity stops flowing, the whole ensemble will have scooted slightly forward. By repeating this process over and over, Woodward figured, the Mach-effect thruster should accelerate. Fearn, his closest collaborator, compares it to rowing a boat on the ocean of spacetime.

Photograph: Rozette Rago

A homemade vacuum chamber houses Woodwards Mach-effect thruster and test stand. The smallest breeze would invalidate the results.

Over the next few years, he managed to coax a few hundred nanonewtons of thrust out of his Mach-effect drive. Most of Woodwards peers dismissed his nearly imperceptible results as a measurement error. It is not hard to see whywhen you blow out candles on a birthday cake, you produce around three orders of magnitude more force than what Woodward was reporting. Even if the device did work, it wouldnt be enough to move a small satellite, much less a starship.

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Gravity, Gizmos, and a Grand Theory of Interstellar Travel - WIRED

Rodgers to seek another four-year term in office – Bahamas Tribune

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By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

SAM Rodgers, who stepped up and took over the reigns of the Bahamas Baseball Association in 2016, said he was delighted to step in and steer the sport in the right direction.

Rodgers will be seeking another four-year term in office when the BBA holds its virtual annual general meeting and election of officers on Monday, September 28 that will be overseen by Shane Albury an Bertie Murray Jr.

All nominations must be submitted to Albury by WhatsApp 552-0653 or email Shanealbury@gmail.com or Murray Jr at WhatsApp 424-1549 or email Bertram.Murray@heineken.com by Friday, September 18 at 5pm.

On Monday, September 21, a list of the nominated persons will be sent out to all leagues.

According to Rodgers, so far there are only three leagues who are eligible to vote in the elections, inclusive of Grand Bahama Baseball League, Freedom Farm and the Junior Baseball League of Nassau.

Were not sure about Central Andros.

We are just waiting on some documents from them to see if they fit the criteria in the constitution to be eligible to vote, Rodgers said.

There is a criteria in the constitution that states whether or not you are eligible to vote.

Grand Bahama and both Freedom Farm and JBLN out of New Providence have met the criteria with the required amount of players, coaches and officials, in order to be eligible to vote under the constitution.

I dont think it would affect the elections because Ive spoken to all of the members already and they understand the constitution and they agreed to it from last year, Rodgers said.

With the new term running through 2024, Rodgers said he will have his name in the hat for the post of president, but he has not yet completed his slate of officers to run with him.

In the meantime, he said he doesnt know if anybody would be challenging him, even though there were a lot of people who were eager to run for office prior to him taking over from the late Jim Wood four years ago.

As far as I know, we dont have any division within the BBA, said Rodgers for his decision to continue on as president. All of the leagues have decided to abide by the rules and regulations of the BBA.

So as far as I know, there is no division within the BBA in the Baahamas. Everybody understands what we are trying to achieve. A lot of people have their thoughts about what could be done, but in order to make change within the organisation, you have to be involved on the inside to make the changes.

Prior to taking over as the president, Rodgers served under Wood, who was criticised by many for heading the top body in the sport in the country, but the BBA at the time didnt have any members.

Both Freedom Farm and JBLN as well as leagues in Grand Bahama, Eleuthera, Abaco, Inagua, Bimini and Andros were formed, but not all of them were a part of the BBA.

Subsequently, the Bahamas Baseball Federation was formed by Greg Burrows and included Craig Salty Kemp and Theodore Sweeting, which helped to provide an umbrella for most of the leagues to play together with the implementation of the National Baseball Championships that was played annually in Grand Bahama.

During that time, the Bahamas also produced a number of players who either left to continue high school and onto college or got to sign contracts through their affiliation with the MaxD and IElite programmes, which involved former players like Geron Sands, Greg Burrows Jr, Albert Cartwright and Antoan Richardson, now the first base coach with the San Francisco Giants in his post career as the sixth Bahamian to play in the Major League.

Additionally, Burrows and Cartwright played significant roles in Bahamian players almost completing the entire starting roster for Great Britain as they were joined by Ali Knowles, Jasrado Chisholm, Kyle Simmons, Todd Isaacs, Reshard Munroe, Byron Murray and Champ Stuart for the 2017 World Baseball Classic qualifier in Brooklyn, New York.

The players had to play for Great Britain as the Bahamas was not eligible to compete in the tournament on its own.

While the federation boasted of having the majority of the players, the association still held the international sanctioning rights, forcing a compromise between the two bodies when Rodgers stepped up to take over the reigns from Wood.

Now, these elections could be one of the critical held in the history of the sport as it seeks to cement the return of all of the sporting leagues and associations together again.

The new administration, when elected, will have a chance to utilise the new national baseball stadium, which is being built by the Government of the Bahamas with a projected target to be completed at the end of the year.

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COP reflects on Dorian, nothing could have prepared us – EyeWitness News

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NASSAU, BAHAMAS As Hurricane Dorian threw the nation into crisis and response mode a year ago, emergency teams including officers of the Royal Bahamas Police Force leaped into hazardous conditions to save lives and recover the dead.

Some officers lost their homes and despite being left with only the clothes on their backs after the storm raged over Grand Bahama and Abaco, pressed on out of duty and love of country.

Speaking to Eyewitness News, Commissioner of Police Paul Rolle reflected on the enormity of the storm, its devastation, and the arduous process of operating in two parts of two islands that looked war-torn.

Dorian laid waste to communities in Grand Bahama and Abaco on September 1-3.

The storm lingered over Grand Bahama for over 48-hours, blasting the island with howling 185 mile-per-hour winds.

Land areas were indiscernible from the ocean as the storm generated 18-23 of coastal flooding, trapping residents in their homes for days, and creating water graves for others.

The tales of survival and near-death were vast.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Rolle, the then deputy commissioner of police and former head of the Central Detective Unit, said he was had dealt with death and murders, but no training could have prepared officers for what they saw bodies strewn about the ground, covered in mounds of debris.

The storm destroyed communication and utility infrastructure, and the central command of the force was unable to communicate with officers who resided in parts of both islands and surrounding cays.

No one could anticipate the magnitude of the damage, he said, noting that police cars, school buses, and a $200,000 32-foot contender were flipped like little toys.

We had no means of getting from Marsh Harbour into the cays to check on our officers. We didnt know where they were. We had not heard from them.

Much of the island remained submerged in water and the north was disconnected from the central part of the island.

Rolle and a team flew into and landed in Treasure Cay, but officers in the Marsh Harbour did not realize they had arrived on the island.

An officer who greeted him at the airport was bareback, wearing shorts and slippers, according to Rolle, who said that was all the officer had left

Before the storm, local law enforcement officials met with numerous agencies from the US and the United Kingdom, including the Royal Navy to devise contingencies plans for an immediate response.

Helicopters and vessels responded from The Bahamas regional and international partners, including the US Coast Guard and the Cayman police force.

An area near the Marsh Harbour Clinic was used as a landing zone for helicopters.

Officers began evacuating the countless sick and the injured to New Providence.

That effort with the governments assistance continued for many more days and weeks.

On the ground in Marsh Harbour, which resembled a wasteland, Rolle and his team began their initial assessment.

You stop into one building and you see the dead bodies, he said.

I think in one, there were about five or six persons dead in one place.

There was another person, a man, decapitated on the side of the road in Treasure Cay.

And we went into Treasure Cay where the police stayed as we went back up there and there were five-foot barracudas on the side of the road and a shark because the water came from the east side straight across to the west side, and Treasure Cay itself was underwater.

He said vehicles had to be commandeered to get around.

Communication was reinitiated via Alivs network and families in unaffected islands who had not heard from officers in several days, heard their voices for the first time.

Officers stationed in Abaco were sent to New Providence, but those who relived in the first few weeks before the defense force erected a tent city, officers, like so many residents, had nowhere to live and were just living and searching for survivors.

As it relates to The Mudd, Rolle said: Nothing was left standing.

Missing and death toll

On the first day in the immediate aftermath of the storm, over 800 people were evacuated, Rolle said. The following day Bahamasair arrived on the island to evacuate displaced residents. He said, however, hundreds more had left the island.

He said it was not until Social Services set up at Odyssey Airport did evacuees begin to be documented coming in.

By that time hundreds of people had already left the island and they came into Nassau and I guess they were going into shelters and wherever, and [thats when] they started taking the records. That also accounted for why in the first instance we had these high numbers of people reporting missing because there was no communication, relatives didnt know where their relatives were.

He said the missing figures dropped as families were reunited with loved ones following social services documenting storm survivors and reconciling the missing.

People keep saying well one person gave a number; next one [gave another], Rolle said.

Those things, when you are doing investigations and people are interested in numbers, we are interested in connecting families. And then what we found was the remainder of the persons, several who were undocumented, several who were not naturalized residents, and many of them ended up in the shelters as well. And we began then, we had the missing, and we began finding bodies. The issue then was to try and get those identified. We identified a number of them and then of course there were somewhere nobody could link to say well, this one is a loved one. There was a high number of undocumented persons which I believe lent to the difficulty in doing that.

Authorities urged families of missing persons to come forward for DNA sampling.

That process remains ongoing as laboratories have since shifted focus to respond to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to the commissioner.

In terms of trying to get those persons identified, thats a lengthy process because it is so many samples.

The lab will whenever it is ready, if they identified, it will let us know.

And what we will do is connect their family and they will be able to mark the graves of their loved one or if they want, I guess they can go through the coroner and have them removed.

But by and large, the policing response to that was something that we have never experienced before, had no I mean, this isnt something you could plan for. We do what we normally do in preparing for storms, but this one, to see the level of devastation, I have had a storm where when you go outside, all of your cars are underwater.

The damage to households and infrastructure was staggering, costing an estimated $3.4 billion.

The high death toll, countless missing people, and displacement of residents were unprecedented in The Bahamas modern history.

The storm remains fresh in the collective consciousness of Bahamians, who now monitor the smallest weather systems in the Atlantic with anxiousness.

The nation held its breath as Hurricane Isaias, the ninth named storm and second hurricane of the 2020 hurricane season, took aim at Andros after it was expected to impact New Providence and other islands in earlier projections.

The all-clear was given on August 2 and the damage in the storms wake was minimal.

Cleanup and recovery remainongoing on both islands with over $30 million spent on clean-up alone.

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COP reflects on Dorian, nothing could have prepared us - EyeWitness News

BIS mourns the passing of one of its own – EyeWitness News

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By Betty Vedrine

NASSAU, BAHAMAS Jennie Mae Johnson McLeod departed this earth early this week, and is deeply missed by the staff of Bahamas Information Services.

McLeod, or Jennie Mae, during her eight years at BIS, could be counted on to give that warm smile first thing in the morning as you walked in.

With her strong and steady air through all seasons, she truly epitomized the words inscribed in Proverbs 31:25: Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.

As the staff mourns her passing, there is also a sense of thankfulness for having had such a beautiful soul in our midst.

Hailing from the breathtakingly beautiful island of Eleuthera, where she was born, May 7, 1959, this island girl grew up on the settlement of Hatchet Bay, and longed for the days when she would return to her lovely island home, which she had already started renovating in preparation for her return.

Her daughter Zitalia, who she lovingly called ZZ, said that her mom was always reminiscing about her childhood days in Eleuthera.

I can remember mommy always talking about going home and fixing up her place for her grandchildren, she said.

She also wanted to see me get married and have some children.

Mother of five Nello, Ambrose, Rico, Zitalia and Jenice Jennie Mae doted on her children. She was also the proud grandmother of three: Mellony, Cristelo, and Ambrose Jr.

McLeods career in the public service spanned some 23 years: she was employed at the Ministry of Education, where she worked at Uriah McPhee Primary School, and then was posted to Bahamas Information Services.

Director General of Bahamas Information Services Kevin Harris said: I first met Ms. McLeod when I assumed office as Director General of BIS in early January 2018.

She served as part of our custodian team. From our very first meeting, I was captivated by her infectious smile, warm personality and overall kind deposition. Ms. McLeod was a very hard working member of our staff, always performing at an optimum level even at times when she was not feeling well.

He continued: She brought a ray of sunshine into the office each day and was well liked by all. Several members of the staff were very close to her, adopting her more as a sister and friend than a co-worker. She had a very positive impact on us as an agency and her presence will truly be missed on a daily basis.

On behalf of the staff of Bahamas Information Services I express our sincere condolences to her family. Her passing represents that a member of our BIS family is now one less but we are comforted that she has now joined her heavenly family in the Kingdom of God.

McLeod, in her spare time, loved to prepare delicious meals, walk and garden.

She also had a passion for beautiful clothing and would indulge in spectacular outfits complete with exotic hats, especially for church on Sundays at Golden Gates World Outreach Ministries, where she worshiped for many years and served as a member of the choir, and as a greeter.

Last year, along with her daughter Zitalia, Jennie participated in the Remelda Rose Fashion event that paid tribute to survivors of cancer. She was a 14-year breast cancer survivor and her daughter, a five-year breast cancer survivor.

Gillian Curry Williams, of Remelda Rose Designs, said: Jennie had an air of elegance and sophisticated glamour. She exuded grace with a smile.

Jennie lost her battle with cancer on Monday, 31st August 2020 at the age of 61.

Sadly her sister, Jan Johnson, also died the same day, both just hours apart.

May they rest in eternal peace.

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BIS mourns the passing of one of its own - EyeWitness News

Overseas Voting Guidance for US Citizens – US Embassy in The Bahamas

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[Last updated: 08/30/2020]

Registering to vote and submitting a ballot is fast, easy, and can be done from anywhere in the world!

Your vote counts!

In order to vote in the November 2020 elections, all overseas U.S. citizens first need to have completed a Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) in 2020. Whether you are a first-time voter or have already received ballots and voted absentee in past elections, we recommend you complete an FPCA each year to participate in elections as an overseas absentee voter.

Learn more at the Federal Voting Assistance Programs (FVAP) website, FVAP.gov. If you have any questions about registering to vote overseas, please contact U.S. Embassy Nassaus Voting Assistance Officer at 242-322-1181, or at VoteNassau@state.gov.

Researching the Candidates and Issues: Online Resources. Go to theFVAP links pagefor helpful resources to aid your research of candidates and issues. Non-partisan information about candidates, their voting records, and their positions on issues are widely available and easy to obtain online. You can also read national and hometown newspapers online or search the internet to locate articles and information. For information about election dates and deadlines, subscribe to FVAPs Voting Alerts (vote@fvap.gov). FVAP also shares Voting Alerts via Facebook (@DODFVAP), Twitter (@FVAP), and Instagram (@fvapgov).

Remember, your vote counts!

By U.S. Embassy Nassau | 28 August, 2020 | Topics: Consular Affairs, Messages for U.S. Citizens, U.S. Citizen Services

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Overseas Voting Guidance for US Citizens - US Embassy in The Bahamas

Churches are allowed to resume in-person services – Bahamas Tribune

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Bishop Delton Fernander, President of the Christian Council. Photo: Terrel W. Carey/Tribune Staff

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

WITH the latest emergency order allowing New Providence churches to resume in person services, Bahamas Christian Council president Bishop Delton Fernander said he is thankful that no transmission of COVID-19 can be traced back to church services.

Churches across the country closed in March when the Bahamas started recording COVID-19 cases. Online services and Zoom meetings became the order of the day for months. In person worship resumed in early June, only to be suspended again weeks later when the second wave of cases began.

"The Bahamas Christian Council is thankful for our ability to work with the government to set parameters in terms of protocols for the COVID," Bishop Fernander, pictured, said. "We were thankful to God that we had zero transmissions from their data to parishioners and to churchgoers from churches.

"This shows that things that were put in place before the shutdown worked. During the second surge, we got the presentation and we made a decision as a church to comply and to do what was necessary to get our people healthy."

Bishop Fernander tied in the reopening of in person church service to the opening of the economy. Churches on a few other islands were allowed to resume worship before New Providence sanctuaries were given the go ahead on Tuesday.

"With the decision to reopen the economy, we also realise and understand our position with the spiritual health of the nation," he said. "We are thankful that the competent authority saw the necessity of the church and gave us the ability to go right back, with our strong protocols and do the best we can.

"We are having meetings with all of our leaders, all over the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, to tell them to be vigilant, to keep their guards up and to be even more stringent on the protocols so none of our parishioners can get sick from COVID in our churches."

The newest order came a day after a letter was issued by 20 religious leaders, calling on the Minnis administration to reopen churches, saying they cannot continue to accept the government "crossing the line" into the work of the church.

Churches are allowed in person worship on Saturday and Sunday from 7am-1pm under strict protocols: the church is responsible for providing hand sanitisation at the entrances to the church; people must sit six feet apart, except if they are from the same immediate household; everyone must wear masks covering their nose and mouth; people are to remain in or at their seats and Sunday school is not permitted.

The protocols also state that communion may be held using disposable cups and distributors must wear a mask covering their nose and mouth and gloves. They must exercise proper hygiene and sanitization measures. There will be one offering station. Offering baskets should not be passed around. People that are in high-risk categories are asked not to attend service, this includes those aged 65 and over and those with comorbidities.

Tuesday's emergency order also eases previous restrictions on private medical facilities and dental practices.

Before this, private medical facilities could only open for emergency medical care and Monday through Friday for immunisation; neonatal and prenatal care; dialysis; chemotherapy and other cancer treatments; and telemedicine from 7am to 7pm.

Under Tuesday's order, private medical facilities can operate daily between 5am to 10pm and for emergency care only between the hours of 10pm to 5am.

Dental practices were previously only allowed to operate to provide emergency care between 7am to 7pm. Now they are allowed to operate daily between 5am to 10pm.

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Churches are allowed to resume in-person services - Bahamas Tribune

Protesters ask: Where is the money? EyeWitness News – EyeWitness News

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NASSAU, BAHAMAS More than 20 people demonstrated yesterday in front of the Cecil Wallace Whitfield Centre on West Bay Street that houses the Office of the Prime Minister, accusing the government of failing to be transparent or accountable.

Operation Sovereign Bahamas organized the demonstration.

The group organized a march from Windsor Lane to Bay Street two weeks ago after Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis ordered an immediate lockdown, a decision that was reversed a day later.

Yesterday, protestors clad in Bahamian garb, beat drums as they walked the sidewalk, holding up placards that read: Where is the money?, Silence no more, We are the revolution among others.

Adrian Francis, a participant of the protest, said: The prime minister has come on tv for the last three months talking about the pandemic, talking about the coronavirus, talking about Hurricane Dorian, but no one is telling us about our economy, and our question is whether or not the economy is going over a fiscal cliff.

He also expressed concern about the governments treatment of healthcare and frontline workers amid the pandemic, questioning whether they were being compensated sufficiently and protected.

The group also called on the government to explain clean-up efforts in Grand Bahama and Abaco a year after Hurricane Dorian decimated those communities.

As the group demonstrated, police officers stood watch.

In contrast to the arrest of organizers and participants ahead of the planned march two weeks ago, yesterdays protest went without incident.

Lincoln Bain, another participant, expressed gratitude for treating us like Bahamians, like citizens, noting the group did not have a permit from the commissioner of police.

The police came out here and gave us up to a specific time to be out here, he said.

That was very reasonable and I just want to thank them for that.

In a statement yesterday, the Disaster Reconstruction Authority outlined its efforts to restore both islands since the deadly storm.

It said $30 million had been spent on the management of debris sites and community clean-up from the disaster zones on both islands and surrounding cays.

It said the entire figure was spent with local Bahamians keeping money in the Bahamian economy.

We are proud to say that all disaster zones in terms of clean-up has come a mighty long way and we expect as more residents continue to return to rebuild the work has to continue, the DRA said.

It is anticipated that the normal municipal waste collection and further debris removal will soon be managed by the local stakeholders in each community.

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Protesters ask: Where is the money? EyeWitness News - EyeWitness News

FRONT PORCH: The whole world’s changed and we need a brave new playbook to survive – Bahamas Tribune

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The late Monsignor Preston Moss sometimes admonished: Just because you live in a small country, doesnt mean that you have to have a small or narrow mind. Keep your world big.

His admonitions are even more relevant and urgent as the world and The Bahamas are confronted by the jumble of uncertainties, challenges and opportunities of a post-COVID-19 world. Many Bahamians are thinking small and in narrow ways during the pandemic.

Some journalists remain saddled by gotcha thinking and fruitless commentary while some civil servants remain bogged down in early 20th century bureaucratic sinecures and mindsets, with both groups incapable of the more fruitful and hard work of thinking and writing beyond their intellectual culs-de-sac.

Others are in chronic negativity loops more concerned about the silly and ultimately non-consequential WhatsApp or Facebook screeds or arguments of the day than the extraordinary social and economic challenges of the moment and of the years ahead.

Thankfully, there are a number of Bahamians, including some on the Governments Economic Recovery Committee, who are thinking innovatively and boldly, reportedly offering specific and workable plans and ideas for economic and structural reform and diversification in a number of sectors.

While there are emerging trends presently and on the horizon, few really know what the contours of the new post-COVID-19 world will look or feel like. The year 2020, with its ironic reference to perfect vision, is a definitive marker even as we are seeing through various lenses slightly, darkly and often imperceptibly.

Easy assumptions on economic, political and social affairs based on the past will be anaemic and are likely to prove dangerous. But there are whispers, clues and emerging images on the horizon.

COVID-19 is violently shaking the break with the 20th Century, and the 21st Century is now more determinedly in the saddle, forcing by example automation and digitisation.

This includes recalcitrant holdouts like various government services in The Bahamas. Places like the Ministry of Social Services are being forced into the new digital era. Why are certain NIB services often a nightmare to navigate?

Conservative

We live in an often conservative culture in the areas of public policy and business, in which progress is stymied by some political leaders, mandarins and business elites afraid of changes they do not appreciate nor understand.

Why has it taken so long for certain large food store chains and retail hardware stores- owned by an older generation of wealthy Bahamians- to fathom the need for and the opportunities offered by easily navigable online platforms, payment systems and delivery services?

Over the next decade or so, there will likely be fewer cashiers and checkout personnel at retail stores. Customers will do self-check-out, mostly using smart cards. Such basic business transactions are commonplace overseas and have been in place in some jurisdictions for nearly 20 years.

We might recall how long it took for Bahamas-based banks to adopt ATMs, with the Bank of The Bahamas lagging behind as usual. Those businesses that successfully incorporate delivery services may survive and flourish. Those that do not may perish.

Many warned that colleges and universities were playing a dangerous roulette with the opening of campuses and in-person learning. Within weeks, COVID-19 cases spiked on many campuses, with some being forced to close as students were also potentially acting as spreaders of COVID-19 in university towns and cities.

Because of the economic model of higher education, including outsized tuitions, many institutions reopened because they desperately needed massive cash inflows. How will COVID-19 change their economic and education models?

Because of the virus, we are beginning to see the crystallisation of 21st century technologies, such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, electric and self-driving vehicles, robotics and biotechnology.

Some countries are shifting quickly to the use of robots to diminish the spread of viruses, with robots delivering supplies in hospitals and even more robots coming online in manufacturing.

COVID-19 will likely have a death toll of millions when the true numbers are known. Some businesses, industries and ways of doing things will also pass away.

The world of work, including working from home and remote locations, has changed so dramatically within months that some city centres are deeply worried about what the loss of potentially tens of thousands of workers from some town centers will mean for retail shops, restaurants and other services. How will mass transit change?

Dramatic

There has been a dramatic uptick in the demand for housing in the suburbs near major cities. The oil giant British Petroleum (BP) employs 6,500 workers in its St James Square office place in London.

Because of staff reductions and more flexible work plans for employees, including working from home, BP has agreed to sell this major office site. It will rent the building back from the new owner for two years before leaving permanently.

Last month, Singapore Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing stated that the country had recently experienced its worst quarterly performance on record. This was after the Singapore economy contracted by 13.2 percent on a year-on-year basis during the April to June quarter.

Following this unprecedented and sharp downturn, Mr Chang emphatically noted: We are not returning to a pre-COVID-19 world. We must chart a new direction now.

To put things in context, this is our worst quarterly performance on record. The forecast for 2020 essentially means the growth generated over the past two to three years will be negated.

The numbers reflect the impact of COVID-19, as well as deeper forces reshaping the global economy and our position in the global value chains. Mr Chang emphasised: We can expect recurring waves of infection and disruption.

New investments will come our way some existing ones may also diversify away from Singapore. ... It is a fluid landscape and we must do everything we can to defend our capabilities and capacities.

The Minister indicated the nature of jobs is changing: With remote work, more global job opportunities for our workers will come. But it also means that other workers, in other countries, can do our jobs from their homes.

He noted economic changes will cause more societal frictions and tensions... We will need to better take care of those affected by job and business losses.

We have and will continue to do these in a sustainable way that is not divisive, affirm the dignity of work and strengthen our social fabric. These tensions, unless well managed, can divide our society.

His comments are a warning to countries everywhere, including The Bahamas.

Though much of our economy is slowly reopening, there will be no significant recovery until tourism numbers return to a decent level. No one can predict when this will occur, including those who take self-serving political potshots from the sidelines.

Though he too is unsure of specific timelines for the return of tourism, the lifeblood of our economy, a veteran tourism expert predicts an explosion in demand for smaller properties and Airbnb-type rentals. He believes many visitors will want to stay in smaller accommodations absent large crowds.

Foresight

Early in the pandemic, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis presciently put in place an Economic Recovery Committee to propose bold and specific plans for the immediate to long-term economic recovery of the country.

Those who proposed or shortsightedly argued that he mostly utilise the old National Development Plan did not understand the moment and appear still not to understand the enormity of the challenges ahead.

While that Plan may have some elements that can be used today, the pandemic demands new and agile thinking for a novel and unprecedented time.

If we are to succeed as a country in this new period, there is the need for massive structural reform on the order of what the first FNM governments achieved after years of stagnation, paralysis and failed leadership by a PLP more engrossed in corrupt practices than in good governance.

In a new time, when the contours of change are unclear, it is often best to pose questions about what might be on the horizon. By example, what might be some of the more progressive revenue and taxation measures needed for the country in order to secure more common goods and services for more Bahamians?

In addition to the current gaming houses, is it time for a national lottery in which more of the proceeds benefit Bahamians, especially poorer Bahamians? The current system is an endless windfall that transfers money from the poor to the very wealthy.

Gamingslegalisation under a former PLP Government was one of the greatest betrayals of the poor in Bahamian history, serving the rapacious greed of some cosseted interests.

When will The Bahamas begin to put in place the legislation and other measures that will promote an inclusive cannabis industry as well as other new industries?

No matter our state of readiness, a new world is emerging requiring bold leadership and a willingness to embark on wide scale and imaginative structural change beyond the narrow confines of a past that COVID-19 is destroying, often with a rapidity and a forcefulness few could have fathomed at the beginning of 2020.

Originally posted here:

FRONT PORCH: The whole world's changed and we need a brave new playbook to survive - Bahamas Tribune