Volume Moving the Tape For Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) – Stock Rover

Posted on by

Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) shares are moving today onvolatility-6.67% or $-0.0002 from the open.TheOTC listed companysaw a recent bid of $0.0028 and630000shares have traded hands in the session.

With the stock market still cranking along, new investors may be wondering if they are too late to join the party. Picking stocks when everything is on the up can be much easier than trying to find winners when the markets sour. Taking a ride on the stock market roller coaster can indeed provide many ups, but also just as many downs. If there was a sure fire stock picking method that always produced winners, the ride would no doubt be smooth but much less thrilling. There is plenty of information available about publically traded companies that investors can use to make better informed stock picks. However, the challenge for the individual investor becomes figuring out how to best use the information at hand in order to select winners. Navigating the equity markets can seem daunting at times. Finding ways to filter out the important data from the unimportant data can make a big difference in sustaining profits into the future. As we move into the second half of the year, investors will be watching to see which way the momentum shifts and if stocks are still primed to move higher.

Digging deeping into the Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) s technical indicators, we note that the Williams Percent Range or 14 day Williams %R currently sits at -85.71. The Williams %R oscillates in a range from 0 to -100. A reading between 0 and -20 would point to an overbought situation. A reading from -80 to -100 would signal an oversold situation. The Williams %R was developed by Larry Williams. This is a momentum indicator that is the inverse of the Fast Stochastic Oscillator.

Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) currently has a 14-day Commodity Channel Index (CCI) of -82.58. Active investors may choose to use this technical indicator as a stock evaluation tool. Used as a coincident indicator, the CCI reading above +100 would reflect strong price action which may signal an uptrend. On the flip side, a reading below -100 may signal a downtrend reflecting weak price action. Using the CCI as a leading indicator, technical analysts may use a +100 reading as an overbought signal and a -100 reading as an oversold indicator, suggesting a trend reversal.

Currently, the 14-day ADX for Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) is sitting at 41.77. Generally speaking, an ADX value from 0-25 would indicate an absent or weak trend. A value of 25-50 would support a strong trend. A value of 50-75 would identify a very strong trend, and a value of 75-100 would lead to an extremely strong trend. ADX is used to gauge trend strength but not trend direction. Traders often add the Plus Directional Indicator (+DI) and Minus Directional Indicator (-DI) to identify the direction of a trend.

The RSI, or Relative Strength Index, is a widely used technical momentum indicator that compares price movement over time. The RSI was created by J. Welles Wilder who was striving to measure whether or not a stock was overbought or oversold. The RSI may be useful for spotting abnormal price activity and volatility. The RSI oscillates on a scale from 0 to 100. The normal reading of a stock will fall in the range of 30 to 70. A reading over 70 would indicate that the stock is overbought, and possibly overvalued. A reading under 30 may indicate that the stock is oversold, and possibly undervalued. After a recent check, the 14-day RSI for Industrial Nanotech Incis currently at 45.19, the 7-day stands at 41.31, and the 3-day is sitting at 37.34.

Here is the original post:

Volume Moving the Tape For Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) - Stock Rover

NanoTech Gaming Inc (NTGL) Needle Moving on Volume – JCTY News

Posted on by

Shares ofNanoTech Gaming Inc (NTGL) have seen the needle move-2.38% or -0.0002 in the most recent session. TheOTC listed companysaw a recent bid of $0.0082 on1075 volume.

Stock analysis typically falls under the two main categories of fundamental and technical. Fundamental analysis involves diving into company financials. Fundamental analysts study how the company is performing in order to determine whether or not the stock is ready to run. With this type of analysis, investors will be looking at balance sheet strength and gauging how much money the company is giving back to shareholders. After crunching all the numbers, investors can use the information to calculate ratios to help determine if the company is properly valued and worth adding to the portfolio. Technical analysis relies on charting historical stock prices in order to define trends and patterns. The buying and selling of stocks using only technical analysis typically removes any concern for how the company is fairing or even what it actually does. Some indicators that technical analysts use can be super simple and others can be highly complex. Many investors will attempt to study both technicals and fundamentals with the goal of gaining greater knowledge of where the stock has been, and where it might be going.

Deep diving into thetechnical levels forNanoTech Gaming Inc (NTGL), we note that the equitycurrently has a 14-day Commodity Channel Index (CCI) of 72.37. Active investors may choose to use this technical indicator as a stock evaluation tool. Used as a coincident indicator, the CCI reading above +100 would reflect strong price action which may signal an uptrend. On the flip side, a reading below -100 may signal a downtrend reflecting weak price action. Using the CCI as a leading indicator, technical analysts may use a +100 reading as an overbought signal and a -100 reading as an oversold indicator, suggesting a trend reversal.

NanoTech Gaming Incs Williams Percent Range or 14 day Williams %R currently sits at -25.71. The Williams %R oscillates in a range from 0 to -100. A reading between 0 and -20 would point to an overbought situation. A reading from -80 to -100 would signal an oversold situation. The Williams %R was developed by Larry Williams. This is a momentum indicator that is the inverse of the Fast Stochastic Oscillator.

Currently, the 14-day ADX for NanoTech Gaming Inc (NTGL) is sitting at 35.95. Generally speaking, an ADX value from 0-25 would indicate an absent or weak trend. A value of 25-50 would support a strong trend. A value of 50-75 would identify a very strong trend, and a value of 75-100 would lead to an extremely strong trend. ADX is used to gauge trend strength but not trend direction. Traders often add the Plus Directional Indicator (+DI) and Minus Directional Indicator (-DI) to identify the direction of a trend.

The RSI, or Relative Strength Index, is a widely used technical momentum indicator that compares price movement over time. The RSI was created by J. Welles Wilder who was striving to measure whether or not a stock was overbought or oversold. The RSI may be useful for spotting abnormal price activity and volatility. The RSI oscillates on a scale from 0 to 100. The normal reading of a stock will fall in the range of 30 to 70. A reading over 70 would indicate that the stock is overbought, and possibly overvalued. A reading under 30 may indicate that the stock is oversold, and possibly undervalued. After a recent check, the 14-day RSIforNanoTech Gaming Inc (NTGL) is currently at 51.12, the 7-day stands at 54.82, and the 3-day is sitting at 64.73.

Read the original post:

NanoTech Gaming Inc (NTGL) Needle Moving on Volume - JCTY News

MAPPED: North Korea missile could hit Las Vegas and these EIGHT other cities – Daily Star

Posted on by

NORTH KOREA could fire a deadly nuke missile capable of wiping out entire cities along the US's west coast including Las Vegas.

Daily Star Online previously reported shock analysis from a missile expert that an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) could bypass US defence systems.

Now we can map the very cities it could wipe out after the boffin said the Hermit State is making an ICBM capable of travelling a massive 9,700km.

The expert, John Schilling, said that when all the bugs are worked out the missile will be able to blast US shores.

GETTY/DS

Since 2008, photographer Eric Lafforgue ventured to North Korea six times. Thanks to digital memory cards, he was able to save photos that was forbidden to take inside the segregated state

1 / 62

Taking pictures in the DMZ is easy, but if you come too close to the soldiers, they stop you

This means California could be thrown into the target zone, with the likes of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego falling within the radius.

Crazy Kim Jong-uns nuke could also wipe out popular Brit gambling destination Las Vegas, which is 9,200km away in Nevada.

The expert predicts such a nuke is two years away from being produced, but if Kim succeeds, there are numerous other cities he could take aim at.

DS

Tubby tyrant Kim Jong-un gloats as the world reacts to the news of his successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. As Trump took to Twitter to slam the secretive state, the world watches in fear: is this how WW3 starts?

1 / 17

Kim Jong-un watches as the missile launches

The likes of Seattle in Washington, Denver in Colorado, Portland in Oregon, Salt Lake City in Utah and Phoenix in Arizona also fall within the 9,700km zone.

We previously reported US defence chiefs fear the communist state is developing an ICBM capable of going as far as 8,000km.

But those fears were heightened when Kim test fired a Hwasong-14 ICBM into the Sea of Japan last week.

The North Koreans won't be able to achieve this performance tomorrow, but they likely will eventually

Writing for the 38 North website, aerospace engineer Mr Schilling said: If the Hwasong-14 is put together the way we think it is, it can probably do a bit better than that when all the bugs are worked out

The North Koreans won't be able to achieve this performance tomorrow, but they likely will eventually.

"A range of as much as 9,700 kilometers, approximately the distance from North Korean launch sites to the US naval base at San Diego, would be possible with a 500 kg payload.

To give an idea of just how far North Koreas planned missile could travel, the distance from the UK to Japan is 9,400km, and from the UK to Darwin, northern Australia, is 13,600km.

See the rest here:

MAPPED: North Korea missile could hit Las Vegas and these EIGHT other cities - Daily Star

Posted in Ww3

Are psychedelics the new medical marijuana? – WTSP 10 News

Posted on by

Lilia Luciano, KXTV , WTSP 7:21 PM. EDT July 12, 2017

When I woke up yesterday morning, I opened the door of my bedroom and walked out to a balcony overlooking the Pacific. I waited to catch a glimpse of the dolphins I had seen the day before and moved on to my meditation ritual.

That was the closest Id get to a mystical experience at the Ibogaine Institute on the coast of Rosarito, Mexico. Upstairs, on the third floor of the house, a man and a woman I had met the day before were laying in a blacked-out room, entering their seventh hour of soul-searching hallucinations. In the house next door, six people had just emerged, changed they said, from a different journey, under the influence of yet another hallucinogen.

Kim, who'd been upstairs, is a 29-year-old with the face of a teenager who has been addicted to heroin for seven years. Just like Colin, also undergoing the Ibogaine treatment in the same room, Kim suffered an accident and became dependent on prescription painkillers. When doctors wouldnt prescribe them anymore, she turned to black market pills. She received a settlement from the accident and said she spent the $90,000 on pills. Finally, she turned to the cheaper alternative, heroin.

Just like Colin, Kim said other programs would detox her on Suboxone, a drug used to treat opioid addiction, which also has a high risk for addiction and dependence. She said those programs crowd people into bunk beds and although they teach the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, she never even got past the first step. As other addicts I interviewed told me, you become dependent on the Suboxone and the Methadone and you cant really function.

Kim says the Ibogaine Institute doesnt seem like any other 30-day program because they actually work on whats wrong, on the problem of why you use in the first place. She hopes after her treatment, she can return to Connecticut to be a mother to her 6-year old son, now in custody of Kims mom.

The institute offers 7 and 30-day programs to chronic relapsers of drug addiction, PTSD patients, and other disorders. Treatments for addiction begin with Ibogaine, a natural African psychoactive drug, and end with Ayahuasca, a popular South American plant-based hallucinogen.

Scott, the founder of the Ibogaine Institute who says he owes his years of recovery to Ayahuasca, says up to 70 percent of people who have gone through his treatments have stayed sober. According to a 2014 study looking at relapse rates after other residential treatments, 29 percent of people who are opioid dependent will remain abstinent after a year.

Scott says the Ibogaine helps fight cravings and they also integrate heavy doses of therapy, meditation, exercise and a nutritional diet to help people craft a foundation for daily life.

By the end of the treatment they are no longer physically dependent on the heroin, says Scott, who has also integrated the wisdom of 12-steps programs into the treatment. Once the bell has been rung, its impossible to un-ring it. Theyre coming face to face with parts of themselves that they had been unwilling to look at, and because of the journey they are in, theres nowhere to run. We are integrating pieces of ourselves that are at war with each other and once those pieces integrate, it is a lot easier to experience and be able to keep on the path.

He said the reason he's in Mexico is to gather enough evidence to build enough of a case to show the results of the treatment and with that, push for federal agencies to regulate Ibogaine and allow its controlled use in the U.S.

I met Scott at the Psychedelic Science Conference in Oakland where scientists, patients and casual users convened to discuss the benefits of psychedelic drugs and the need for drug policy reform.

I also met Dr. James Fadiman, who is running one of the largest studies on microdosing with LSD.

The major benefit seems to be that theres an improved equilibrium of systems throughout the body, which is why it seems to affect so many different systems," he said.

That sounded to me like a sort of panacea cure for all ailments and it wasnt too far from what Ayelet Waldman told me when I interviewed her at home.

Following Dr. Fadimans guidance, Waldman did a 30-day micro dosing experiment to treat a severe mood disorder and reported her experience in her book, A Really Good Day.

I just wanted to relieve the intensity of my depression and I was profoundly depressed, even suicidal when I started the experiment." she said. "I just wanted to feel better so I said to myself okay you can break the law for 30 days.

She said the treatment helped her more than any antidepressant ever did and it did so without the gnarly side effects. Microdosing doesn't make you hallucinate, as you are only taking between 5 and 10 percent of a typical dose. Ayelet says if the drug wasnt illegal, she would still be microdosing.

LSD and Ibogaine are not the only psychedelics making a comeback and seeking legitimacy in science and health. Magic mushrooms, MDMA, Ayahuasca, and psilocybin, among others, are being studied for their potential benefits to treat a number of illnesses and mental disorders. However, they are all Schedule I drugs which, according to the DEA, are drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies or MAPS, sponsors research on psychedelics and helps scientists navigate the complex pathways of regulation. They are currently conducting one of the most advanced and promising studies in psychedelics by treating PTSD patients with MDMA, also known as Molly.

We found that (MDMA) almost doubled the effectiveness of the treatment," said Allison Feduccia, a researcher at MAPS. "People who were in the MDMA group had significant reductions in their PTSD symptoms two months after completing of the sessions and then also we followed up with them 12 months later and found that 67 percent of participants at that point no longer met criteria for PTSD.

MAPS enrolled 107 subjects across six different study sites in the U.S., Canada and Israel, treating different kinds of PTSD. One study specifically enrolled veterans firefighters and police officers.

Its really a long-term durable effect that we see with this treatment is quite promising," said Feduccia. "This is a very difficult condition to treat with the current medications and therapy available."

MAPS is entering Phase III of clinical trials. If they prove the medical benefits, a cost they estimate will surround 20 million dollars, they can apply for the drug to get rescheduled by the FDA and MAPS will be able to produce it. That doesnt mean Molly will be available to anyone, it would only be part of medical treatments.

Some drug policy advocates say this kind of progress, while good, is not enough to deal with the ill consequences of the war on drugs. Representatives from the Drug Policy Alliance and other advocacy groups stand by the notion that people who want to get high will get high. They also say prohibition creates enormous profits for organized crime groups, endangers the lives of black market drug users, generates violence in the streets and the countries where drugs are produced and has resulted in the mass incarceration of millions of Americans.

Hamilton Morris is the host of Hamiltons Pharmacopeia, a show about drugs on VICELAND. He said he sees freedom of consciousness as a basic human right.

I favor a sort of cognitive liberty stance that people should be able to have the freedom to alter their consciousness with whatever they wish," he said. "Even if it is harmful, even if it is damaging, I think the damage of prohibition I think is far greater than the small number of people that are being helped using these things in a therapeutic way in a clinical trial.

Ethan Nadelmann, who just stepped down as Director of the Drug Policy Alliance says, although Jeff Sessions will make it difficult for psychedelics to reach the level of acceptance that medical marijuana has in the past few years, the overreach by the Federal agencies might push for states to fight back and defend their own progressive policies.

I think the popular consciousness is not there is yet," he said. "We just begun to do some public opinion polling on it where you now have 90 percent of Americans believing that marijuana should be legal for medical purposes, which is up from 60 percent 20 years ago. On psychedelics, there's a growing awareness. But it hasn't penetrated the mass consciousness yet.

That means lobbying and the alternative drug policies that may follow are still long ways away. But for addicts, vets, and people suffering from disorders who could find help in these drugs, the stakes are as high as their very survival.

2017 KXTV-TV

See the original post here:

Are psychedelics the new medical marijuana? - WTSP 10 News

Dreamstate Drops Their Biggest Lineup Yet for 2017! – Dance Music Northwest

Posted on by

More than 65 of the best names in trance music. Four stages. Top notch production value. Celebrating its third year, Dreamstate: SoCal 2016 was the biggest North American trance festival EVER. Thousands from across the world, including some of us here at DMNW, gathered under San Bernardinos NOS Events Center for a 2-day celebration of music, friendship and life. So how do you top an event like that? By going even BIGGER.

On Monday, Insomniac revealed on its full Dreamstate: SoCal 2017 lineup and there arent enough words to describe just how glorious it is. Once again, 65+ trance artists will bring the energy to Trancegiving, a few debuting exciting new aliases: John OCallaghan and Bryan Kearney with their Key4050 project, Paul van Dyks AEON and more!

Fans will also be treated to live sets from Giuseppe Ottaviani and Rank1, a classic set from Judge Jules and a Tech Energy set from MaRLo. Headlining all the action is none other than the godfather of trance himself, the legendary Armin van Buuren. Making his Dreamstate debut, not only will Armin perform a solo set, he and friend Benno de Goeij will don those mysterious dark robes and perform as Gaia. Two-sides of Armin at one event? Dreams do come true! If youre a fan of trance music, Dreamstate 2017 is something you wont want to miss!

Many Dreamers feel the same because tickets are FLYING, following the start of sales on Tuesday. The only options currently available are 2-day general admission (Tier 4), starting at $155+ fees, and 2-day VIP (Tier 2) starting at $300+ fees. Dreamstate is poised to sell out rather quickly, so if youre interested in going, dont wait!

See the article here:

Dreamstate Drops Their Biggest Lineup Yet for 2017! - Dance Music Northwest

Cyberpunk 2077 Will Have Journalist/Executive Classes, Mike … – Wccftech

Posted on by

Cyberpunk 2077 remains one of the most highly anticipated RPGs, between the developers pedigree and the Cyberpunk setting.

Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the tabletop roleplaying game in 1988 and a consultant on the game, appeared today in a video interview with GameReactor. While the legendary writer and game designer remained fairly tight-lipped (otherwise there are tall Polish people waiting to kill me), he did provide some new details.

His tabletop features unconventional classes like journalist, rockstar, executive, and others. The interviewer asked whether those will actually be in Cyberpunk 2077 and Mike Pondsmith replied positively.

Yes, you can. Theyre all going to be there, but I can tell youre going to find some surprises about how weve done it and I think youre really going to like it. Theres a lot of subtlety going on there. Adam (Kiciski, CD Projekt REDs President and co-CEO) and I spent literally like a whole week messing with the ways of implementing that, so you get the most feel for your character.

In case youre wondering, the classes (actually called roles) in the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG are nine:Cop, Corporate, Fixer, Media, Netrunner, Nomad, Rockerboy, Solo, Techie, and Med-Tech.

Will CD Projekt RED deliver them all in the final game? Its hard to say. Cyberpunk 2077 feels like its been in development forever, given that it was announced in May 2012, though the Polish studio only focused on it once The Witcher III: Wild Hunt was completed. There are reportedly more developers working on Cyberpunk 2077 now than there ever were on The Witcher III, though, which provides some hope that we wont be waiting too long to get a full reveal.

Meanwhile, Mike Pondsmith said that the project is shaping up exactly like he wanted to.

The vision is really pretty close to what I had in my head years ago. When did the CGI trailer, I looked at it and said, Oh my God, thats like perfect. And there were all these little touches from Cyberpunk in the background, because theyre fans. I said to me, They really did it! Thats awesome. So, the feeling has stayed the same and weve also been continually developing it to keep that feeling.

The game will also have multiplayer features. Whether that means drop in/drop out cooperative multiplayer, competitive multiplayer or maybe even an MMO-like game world is anyones guess at this point. Stay tuned on Wccftech for all the latest rumors and official updates on Cyberpunk 2077.

Share Submit

View post:

Cyberpunk 2077 Will Have Journalist/Executive Classes, Mike ... - Wccftech

Mike Pondsmith Talks Creating Cyberpunk 2077 With CD Projekt Red – One Angry Gamer (blog)

Posted on by

(Last Updated On: July 13, 2017)

The creator of the Cyberpunk tabletop game franchise, Mike Pondsmith, has taken up an interview with another publication site to detail what its like to take Cyberpunk the board-game and turn it into the upcoming video game currently in development at CD Projekt Red.

According to the interview between Mike Pondsmith and publication site Rock, Paper, Shotgun, information on the progress of the game as well as Pondsmiths role in helping the development of Cyberpunk 2077 comes to light.

In an attempt to keep the whole thing short and readable, Pondsmith is said to be a key collaborator over the last four years of CD Projekt Reds involvement in the Cyberpunk 2077 game. Pondsmith shared that he feels he has been very important to the development process, and that his explanations surrounding the propertys world have been useful for the team:

At the beginning of the project, I talked to them a lot, every week. For a long time they didnt realise Id worked in digital, but Ive been doing pen and paper for 20 years and digital for fifteen. When I was explaining Cyberpunk to them, I was explaining the mechanics in a way that they understood and that helped them to realise I could contribute more to the actual design.

Although there are no videos showing any gameplay or in-game footage as of this moment, it is said that Pondsmith is trying to keep things level-headed along with CDPR so that the game can portray everything necessary at launch. Additionally, he explains how the team at CDPR is approaching putting content in the game that reflects features from the pen and paper version that will work in the 3D version of the tabletop game:

A lot of the conversations weve had on the team are not can we do this? We can do just about anything. Instead, its me explainingwhy I did it in pen and paper, and then we figure out if we need it again, and whether it serves a different purpose in a video game. I know why flying cars are there in the original but thats not necessarily the same functionality in 2077. Everything is taken apart in terms of what it does to the game, how it differs from tabletop, and getting the right feel.

In other words, both Pondsmith and CDPR know that they can put anything into Cyberpunk 2077, but instead of just throwing content into the game to make it cool, they instead are going through content and weighing what works in the pen and paper version and what will work in the 3D version. If each piece of content serves a purpose and propels the video game to becoming that much better, I can only hope that the content is well optimized and not a glitchfest.

Cyberpunk 2077 is in development as we speak, and although the game is slated to be for PC and the latest consoles, it will be ready when it is ready. Lastly, you can read the full interview between Mike Pondsmith and the publication site over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Go here to see the original:

Mike Pondsmith Talks Creating Cyberpunk 2077 With CD Projekt Red - One Angry Gamer (blog)

Making Cyberpunk: when Mike Pondsmith met CD Projekt Red – Eurogamer.net

Posted on by

By Robert Purchese Published 12/07/2017

"We had Communism and we had Cyberpunk."

Mike Pondsmith would hear those words 25 years after he'd joked about how few people would play a Polish translation of his American paper role-playing game Cyberpunk in a country behind the Iron Curtain. They would be the words spoken by a company offering him the deal of his life, and the words responsible for him signing it. Now nearly 30 years after Mike Pondsmith first published Cyberpunk, we're about to see the fruits of the seeds he once inadvertently sowed: Cyberpunk 2077.

With The Witcher series resting in the wings, CD Projekt Red is ready to bring this new collaboration centre stage, and as the spotlight of attention on Cyberpunk 2077 swivels closer, Mike Pondsmith is naturally caught in the glare. Who is this man behind the game CD Projekt Red's near future will be based on - and how is he helping shape it? I followed Mike Pondsmith to Spanish conference Gamelab to find out.

Face to face, Mike Pondsmith is a storyteller. You've seen him before in a video promoting Cyberpunk 2077, but he's embarrassed by it. It was four years ago and he isn't anywhere near as moody in real life. If anything he's sassy, relishing in a story's build up before dropping his head and looking over his pencil-narrow specs for the punchline. He's easy company and seems to know everything, as game designers do. "You need to read everything; you will use everything," he says. "You eat mozzarella, you eat dough, you eat tomatoes and you spit out pizza." He's got a million silly sayings like that.

He grew up a "service brat", always moving home with his US Air Force dad, spending time living in Germany as well as all round the States. It gave him an eclectic perspective, a never-ending string of teachers and influences, and who knows? Perhaps not a regular crowd of friends to entertain himself with. By 11 he'd discovered science fiction, and by 11 he'd also made his first game: a chess-like creation played on a rectangular board with raised squares representing different stages of hyperspace. The idea was to get your ships to the other side, dodging the enemy ships by dropping in and out of hyperspace.

He tells a memorable tale about his first run-ins with Dungeons & Dragons. "This was way the heck back," he begins. "One of the guys in our circle brought back a copy of the original Dungeons & Dragons and came back and we made characters and played, up all night. And we were loud with it.

"[My friend's] apartment was down in a fairly seedy part of Berkeley, and one of the nights we were making so much noise that one of the ladies of the evening actually came by to find out what we were doing and... she got into it! So we had this woman who, when she wasn't turning tricks, was basically playing our cleric."

He was into sci-fi, comics and war gaming but also played in bands. "I wasn't exactly a geek," he says, "because there weren't geeks then," and by university he was even positively "obnoxious", as his future wife would once describe him - he'd asked her friend out instead of her. "That was during my weird 'big man on campus days'," he explains, "when I was dating a lot of people and being, 'Hey, here I am!'"

To get another shot he'd have to pick up gaming again and join an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons group she was in. "And I got invited into a game that was currently being run by her old boyfriend," he says, "who proceeded to try, in every way possible, to kill my character!

"You've gotta understand, back then I had a big afro, I wore mirrorshades, a ratty army jacket, motorcycle boots and carried a six-inch knife - I'd been working in West Oakland which is a real rough neighbourhood. I did not look like the person you wanted to bother! And so there I am in his game and we'd all be on the wall somewhere, fighting some orcs, and he'd send a balrog after me."

But the balrog didn't work - do they ever? - and Mike and Lisa are now living happily ever after. But more importantly back then, Pondsmith was back in gaming, and back in gaming shops, where one afternoon he bumped into Traveller, a science fiction role-playing game. "I was stoked," he says. "I got it back and I whipped out my black books and I started working."

He was around 20 years old when he made what would become his first commercial game, Mekton, inspired by Japanese comic Mobile Suit Gundam. A game about big robots fighting each other. He used the type-setting machine at the University of California, where he was working, to make it, then took Mekton to a conference nearby to try it out. Six people played the first day but 40 people turned up the next, and they wanted to know when they could buy it. Pondsmith borrowed $500 from his mum in 1982 to start R. Talsorian Games and fulfil their wishes. "I was now a game designer whether I planned to be one or not."

The idea of Cyberpunk came to Pondsmith while crossing the San Francisco Bay Bridge at two o'clock in the morning roughly five years later. Blade Runner was his favourite film and he really loved how the city looked that night. "Hmm I wonder..." he thought.

He wanted to create a future - the first edition was set in 2013, jarringly - where society didn't work but access to technology and information allowed normal people to overcome the barriers and restrictions usually held in place by a powerful and influential elite. "And that access," he says, "is rebellious, it's dangerous, it takes risks."

Cyberpunk was the 1980s: the bottled excitement of where all the rapidly evolving technology - mobile phones and personal computers! - would lead, mixed with a blaring screech of punky nonconformity. A game of "big guns, rock and roll, drugs and craziness". "All the bad things you're supposed to not do in other role-playing games - not supposed to rob, not supposed to steal, not supposed to bust into buildings and say, 'Give me your cyberware and all your chips!' - you do that in Cyberpunk." He would give people "a wonderful opportunity to do bad things".

"I figured it would do well," he says, "but I didn't expect I would be riding a cultural wave. It sold just ridiculously. It was a life-changing release."

The success of Cyberpunk, released in 1988, moved R. Talsorian Games out of Pondsmith's house and into a proper office, and would dominate the company's output for years, producing numerous supplements as well as a second edition, Cyberpunk 2020, in 1990. A third edition would have arrived earlier than 2005, but was delayed when Pondsmith's self-described knack of predicting the future threw up a problem.

"I blew up the Arasaka twin towers in Night City with a nuclear weapon," he says. "I'd written it. I was sitting there, finishing off, doing a sequence where a full-body cyborg is running around - she's basically part of the recovery team getting bodies out of these gigantic buildings that have been blown up. I finish this, I walk out, and I look at the TV and I go: 'Is that a movie or something?'"

It was September 11th, 2001.

"This is too chilling," he thinks. "I'm watching the World Trade Center going, 'Not only am I horrified about this but I've just done this entire sequence, including the fire and rescue people going in, pulling people out of the building, the wreckage. I'm going, 'Oh no, no no - this is just ridiculous.' This is why Cyberpunk third was late."

But no amount of success and forecasting could keep the paper gaming market from crashing and burning in the late '90s, and Pondsmith, now with dozens and dozens of releases under his belt - including new series Castle Falkenstein - was forced to put Talsorian on ice and look for another job. "I had a kid to raise," he says.

Then the phone rang. "And Microsoft showed up out of leftfield and said, 'Hey you want a job?' And I went, 'I already have a job - I have a whole company.' And they went, 'Oh you can keep your company, that's fine.' And I went, 'Okay... How much are you paying me?' And they gave me a number and I went, 'That's more money than God.'"

His Microsoft job was running a concept team, coming up with ideas for big teams to move onto when their projects wrapped. He worked on games like Crimson Skies, Blood Wake (an Xbox launch title) and the Flight Sim series, and "oversaw a bunch of other teams that did things that never made the light of day". Microsoft even sent him to pitch a Matrix game idea to the Wachowskis, but despite bonding over a love of kung fu/wushu, and enjoying each other's company, he didn't get the gig.

He would go on to work on The Matrix Online at Monolith, though, "a very odd project I never quite figured out what was going on with, except that the directions kept changing". By the time The Matrix Online came out and sunk, Pondsmith was freelance and eyeing a teaching post at DigiPen Institute of Technolog in Redmond, Washington - and The Matrix Online remained, for a long time, the closest he came to making a Cyberpunk video game.

Then in 2012, in the midst of an R. Talsorian Games reformation, the phone rang again. It was a call from Poland, from The Witcher studio CD Projekt Red. "CDPR drop out of the sky and say, 'Hello we're a bunch of guys from Poland and we want to do Cyberpunk.'

"We're cracking up," he says. "When we did the licence my comment was, 'Well there will be six guys who play it in Polish,' and it turned out they were the people who did!"

He was sent The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings as a kind of convincer and, "holy crap", he thought it was great. But he was also sceptical. It wasn't the first time someone had asked to do a Cyberpunk video game. "It's been pretty much under licence since its inception," he says, and several major publishers had had a shot. The closest it came was contract negotiations "but the problem was they wanted to change almost everything involved" and so the negotiations fell apart.

He'd also seen Eastern European development studios during his several years at Microsoft, where he also worked as a studio sorter-outer - a fixer. "I had been to a lot of countries that had just come out from the Iron Curtain and worked with dev houses over there, so I figured CDPR was a bunch of guys in a little sweatshop somewhere," he says. "In one place in Hungary they produced beautiful stuff but it was literally a broom closet with 25 guys crammed over overheated monitors. That's what I expected."

Yet, intrigued, he took the offer of a trip to Poland - and his mind began to change. "I get over there and they set me up in this really nice hotel and give me this driver who looks like he should have been driving spies around. He was almost as wide as he was tall, had heavy accent like ziss, spoke very little English, wore a severe black suit and drove a Mercedes.

"'This is pretty posh for a bunch of guys working in a broom closet,'" he thought - but he was still preparing to let CD Projekt Red down. It wasn't until he got into the studio and cast his Microsoft-trained eye over tools, procedures and general set-up that he thought, "Wow. This works."

What impressed him most, however, was how much CD Projekt Red knew about Cyberpunk. "They knew more about a lot of the things we did in the original Cyberpunk game than anybody we'd ever talked to," he says. "There were points where I was going, 'I had forgotten that,' and I wrote the damn thing! I realised these guys are fans. They loved it because they had grown up playing it. Nobody had really looked at it from that standpoint before."

CD Projekt Red shrugged and explained: "We had Communism and we had Cyberpunk."

"And that," Pondsmith says, "sealed it for us."

When he struck his deal with CD Projekt Red, Mike Pondsmith had many advantages over the studio's other major licence partner Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski, who openly bemoans his lot. Sapkowski had no faith in games and no faith CD Projekt Red would actually make one. A decade later, Pondsmith - who had plenty of faith in games already - could play The Witcher 2 and see development of The Witcher 3. He had also spent time working on intellectual property at Microsoft so he knew what kind of deal he wanted to cut. "Suffice to say we made a lot more money in this deal than Sapkowski," he tells me. "I don't want to retire but I could."

The deal took around six months to strike. "It was a longer process because we were thinking in terms of a series and a franchise," he says, "so we had to figure out 'how is this going to work five games from now?'"

The deal declares CD Projekt Red the rights to "Cyberpunk 2077-backed stuff until the end of time and hell freezes over" - and exclusively, from what I can tell. "The way we operate is we do everything up to the 2077 period and they do beyond. Part of that was to allow everyone a little room.

"When I write new stuff for Cyberpunk now, I talk to them so what I do in 2030 matches up with what's going to happen in 2077. It allows them the ability to move forward and I can still create new stuff as long as we stay coordinated."

For instance: "A couple of weeks ago I went over the current story script and was going through it, 'okay okay this is great this is great - oh by the way that person is dead'," he says. "We're constantly going back and forth, we work really hard on the timeline. We want people to have that sense that there's a coherent universe. They mesh together surprisingly well."

CD Projekt Red didn't realise Pondsmith had a decade in video games until a few meetings in. "That's when the deal shifted from being an IP deal to my being actually pretty involved," he says, and the collaboration began with getting the Cyberpunk feel and concepts in place.

"Most people tend to look at it as 'if it's grim it's Cyberpunk'," he says. "I really believe that there should be something that's kick out the jams, rocking it, raising hell - the rebellion part of it. That's what we've been aiming for, to get that feeling. I want people to feel like it's a dark future but there are points you can have fun in it."

Cyberpunk also has to be personal. "You don't save the world, you save yourself," he says. "That's a very important thing. You're usually not the hero, you're absolutely downtrodden, you're usually the people who are not going to be up top but access to technology, knowledge, and 'what the hell I'm going to do this' gets you through."

Concepts and feeling aside, there's just a sheer mountain of Cyberpunk data to get through, spanning three sourcebooks and numerous supplements with them. Cities are mapped right down to minutiae - use your own technology access to find scans of Cyberpunk sourcebooks and you'll see what I mean. The amount of data swamps what CD Projekt Red had to work with for The Witcher, and while it's a gift of a resource, laying all of it down takes time.

But time they've had. There's been a small team beavering away on Cyberpunk 2077 ever since the game was announced in 2012 - an announcement done to attract talent to the studio, which isn't something CD Projekt Red has to worry about now. When I visited CD Projekt Red in 2013, to learn the studio's history, there were roughly 50 people working on the game. I don't know how large the team grew after that because when I returned as a fly on the wall during The Witcher 3's launch, I wasn't allowed to see. This is because of CD Projekt Red's reinforced silence surrounding the game, a way of managing expectations in a post-Witcher 3 world. Simply, CD Projekt Red is not talking about Cyberpunk until it has something to show.

Since The Witcher 3 launched, Pondsmith says CD Projekt Red has grown. "The number of bodies there has at least doubled," he says, "and now they're pretty much all on Cyberpunk. It's an impressive ton of people. I remember one trip I met the entire team in Warsaw and then went to Krakow [CD Projekt Red's smaller, second studio, opened in 2013], met the team and then went back to Warsaw again. The team has grown tremendously."

Pondsmith visits three or four times a year, hand-delivering paperwork and data - to avoid any "disasters" like the recent Cyberpunk 2077 asset theft - and spending days in endless meetings with every team. One of the reasons he believes his paper Cyberpunk game was so successful was the "tremendous" amount of research poured into making it feel real. A ranger paramedic, who had put people back together in combat situations, advised on the damage system, and a trauma surgeon explained exactly what happened when you drilled into someone's head for an implant.

As for guns: there's nothing like firing the real thing. "I just bought some new hardware," Pondsmith happily tells me, but it's as much for his Talsorian team as for him. "You're not going to write about shooting guns without knowing how to shoot guns," he tells them. "You need to go down and find out because otherwise you're going to be talking about silly things like, 'Yeah I one-handedly picked a .357 [Magnum] and fired it.' Yeah, and you broke your wrist."

How many guns he owns he won't tell me, which makes me think he owns a lot. He's got a Broomhandle Mauser, the vintage gun Han Solo's Star Wars pistol is based on, but his favourite [which he doesn't own, he has since clarified] is an H&K MP5K. "It's the shorty equivalent of the Uzi and it's a beautiful gun," he assures me. "When we go down to Vegas I go out and shoot them then because they're illegal as hell in most of the United States."

His son is also a fan of weaponry, albeit medieval, and owns several swords and bows. "The joke is that if someone broke into our house, the biggest pause would be everyone in the house deciding what they were going to kill them with, between the swords, the guns, the crossbows..." he laughs.

Pondsmith has cast his fastidious eye for authenticity over Cyberpunk 2077 development from the beginning. And it's that, coupled with the wisdom imparted from more than a decade of making games, which makes his contribution an entire world away from the snooty indifference Andrzej Sapkowski showed CD Projekt Red during Witcher development. And all the hard work is paying off.

"We saw some gameplay stuff when I was over there last time and I went, 'Yeah this feels like I'm doing a good Cyberpunk game here; I'm in the middle of a run I would have set up,'" he says. "It's pretty flashy I tell ya. We go, 'Yeah. Yeah. Yeah! You told me this is good - but this is really cool.'"

One unexpected off-shoot of the Cyberpunk 2077 collaboration is the Witcher 3 paper role-playing game, which wasn't part of the original deal but arose after yet another phone call. "We want to do a Witcher tabletop," said CD Projekt Red, "you know anyone?"

Pondsmith was busy and doesn't do fantasy, but staring him in the face was someone who did: his son Cody, who popped his head around the door and said, "I want to do Witcher."

"My son is actually a pretty damn good designer," Mike Pondsmith proudly tells me now. "I don't know that he was paying attention when the old man was doing stuff - I didn't know he was in my classes! - but at any rate he's got a knack for it.

"The first time I realised it we were on one of the trips over to Warsaw and he was bumming along with me and I look over and he's in a bar and he's talking to Damien [Monnier - former Witcher gameplay designer and Gwent co-creator], the systems guy - a really good systems guy - and he and Cody are sitting there going at it hammer and tongs on how to implement something. They're going at it," he says for emphasis. "I don't know where he learned it but he learned it. He looks at games the way I do: he will tear them apart."

Mike entertained Cody's idea but said if Cody wanted it, he had to go and get it. "You have to do the pitch, you have to put it together, you have to convince CDPR to let you do it, the whole nine yards."

Months later they travelled to Poland, Mike for Cyberpunk 2077 meetings, Cody to make his pitch. Mike was running here, there and everywhere, but every time he passed the cafeteria where Cody was pitching, he saw a different member of CD Projekt Red on the receiving end, nodding enthusiastically. This carried on until it was company co-founder Marcin Iwinski doing the nodding, which was a good sign and Cody got the gig. He has been immersed in Witcher lore ever since. He's even apparently heading off to Witcher School - I hope he is prepared!

The Witcher paper RPG was supposed to be released in the middle of 2016, but wasn't because CD Projekt Red couldn't spare anyone to look over it. "CDPR is pretty exacting making sure it's good," Mike Pondsmith says. It's written, though. "It's actually in editing now getting cleaned up."

It's funny to think what the future now holds for Mike Pondsmith, a man who plied a trade imagining it. Perhaps what he saw in Night City scared him, because there he was, nearly 60 years old, out of the public eye at his house hidden by forest, "raising hell" with his corgi Pikachu, when CD Projekt Red landed like a meteor in his life and put he and Cyberpunk squarely, unequivocally, back on the map. At 63 years old he may be about to become more famous than ever, and like a surfer surveying the sea, he's preparing for the wave. "We're sort of expecting things to lift off," he says.

"I was actually in the process of doing Cyberpunk Red when CD Projekt Red showed up," he tells me, so he will continue with that. He'll also "probably" do a 2077 version for pen and paper in addition to the Mekton Zero game he's way behind on. In other words he has no intention of slowing down. "Lisa says I'll retire when they pry the keyboard out of my dead hands," he says.

But first, of course, there's Cyberpunk 2077. When it will be out, we don't know - 'not before 2017' is all CD Projekt Red has ever said. My guess is 2019, but then what do I know?

"Think of me!" blurts Pondsmith. "I know a bunch of stuff and I can't tell anybody. Lisa and I are likening it to the first Indiana Jones movie years and years ago. We went to a midnight showing before it was a mass release. We're in there, it's this midnight showing at this rinky-dink little theatre in Davis, California, and we watch and we're two of 12 people in the theatre, and we walk out and we go, 'OH MY GOD!' We were frothing. And it's the same thing here."

"As Lisa likes to say: 'We backed the right horse.'"

See more here:

Making Cyberpunk: when Mike Pondsmith met CD Projekt Red - Eurogamer.net

Is Net Neutrality Cyberpunk? – Motherboard

Posted on by

The last few days have seen massive online demonstrations in favor of net neutrality, the principle that internet service providers should treat all online traffic equally. But they've also sparked a bit of an existential crisis over on r/cyberpunk, the subreddit dedicated to the drizzly, grimy, neon-drenched genre dominated by technology and pioneered by books like William Gibson's Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

"You know, I feel like /r/cyberpunk should take a stand towards net neutrality," user MxP1nk wrote in a July 12 post, pointing out the subreddit's relative silence on the issue on a day when Reddit, alongside hundreds of the internet's most popular websites and millions of users, took a stand against the Trump Administration's plans to dismantle federal rules safeguarding net neutrality.

"The current situation with the FCC looking to repeal net neutrality should be talked about more, especially on a community like this where the internet and communication play such a big role," the user went on.

This sparked a lengthy and ongoing debate within the subreddit, which boasts nearly 140,000 subscribers. Is net neutrality a cyberpunk issue? And if so, what can be done about it?

Many responders to MxP1nk's post highlighted that, by nature of its very name, the cyberpunk community ought to fight against any plans to abolish net neutrality.

"Cyberpunk is more than neon lights, rainy streets and cybernetics, or the Punk part of it is supposed to be anyway," said Reddit user M0rtis86. "It's meant to be about opposing big business deciding on what you have access to. Something like ditching net neutrality really is taking a step to the dystopian side of things."

Others joked about how to actually get cyberpunks to care about the issue.

"You've exceeded the number of neon lights your plan allows you to view. Please upgrade your internet package to continue viewing neon lights," quipped snailboy.

But to truly live in the dystopian world where cyberpunk thrives, in fiction at least, wouldn't the big, web-throttling corporations have to win first? That way, the intrinsic purpose of punk would come alive and have something to fight against.

"We have one of the building blocks of a cyberpunk dystopia materializing before our eyes," wrote blookies. "I think net neutrality not only should be here, but belongs here."

Blookies explained how corporations pushing deregulation that only gives them more power over the "common folk" is a trope already firmly in place in cyberpunk settings.

Read more: After Net Neutrality 'Day of Action,' Internet Activists Face a Tough Fight Ahead

I asked MxP1nk whether they really believed net neutrality has a home in a cyberpunk universe.

"Net neutrality, in itself, is not a cyberpunk issue, let me say that first," MxP1nk wrote me via a Reddit private message. "However, the prospect of that being taken away from the people is very much so."

"Considering cyberpunk has many themes of freeing information or taking back rights or what have you, that have been taken by greedy mega corporations, I would think the prospect of losing net neutrality is totally cyberpunk," MxP1nk added. "Even if, realistically, I would not want it to happen."

Obviously, at the end of the day, the fight for net neutrality affects anyone who uses the internet. And while protesters this week hailed the massive day of action a success, the fight is an uphill battleone that will be fought alongside several other fictions-cum-realities we thought were firmly staying in the land of make-believe.

Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter.

Read the original post:

Is Net Neutrality Cyberpunk? - Motherboard

TMS Writes Fanfic: Steves on a Plane – The Mary Sue

Posted on by

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to fandom. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of fans fears and the summit of their knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the TMS Slack Zone.

From time to time, we here at The Mary Sue have Slack conversations that spin off wildly into Are We Just Writing Fanfic Now territory. Submitted for your approval, here is a fanfic that grew out of the above image (fromthecaptainoutoftimeon tumblr)that quickly spiraled out of control and crash landed in the TMS Slack Zone.

Snatching the copy of Destinations from the seat back pocket in front of him, Steve Rogers let out a heavy, tired sigh. They can put a man on the moon, he muttered to himself. But they cant figure out how to make more space in an overhead compartment.

A voice came from the slow-moving, cowherd-like procession of passengers in the center aisle. You can say that again, pal. It was attached to a smiling face and an extended hand. Names Steve. Steve Trevor. Steve couldnt help but notice his immaculately sparkling teeth and well-coiffed hair that seemed to defy gravity. He met Steves hand with his own, and somehow the universe did not fold in on itself.

Funny. My names Steve, too. Rogers. Steve Steve Rogers.

Someone else in the line groaned, rolling their eyes so hard that Rogers thought theyd fall out and roll across the floor. Oh, comeon.

Whoops, said Trevor, with much chagrin and a wave to the eye-rolling passenger. Let me just He quickly shoved his bag up in the impossibly-packed overhead compartment and flopped into the seat next to Rogers. Looks like someone in ticketing wanted to play a little joke, huh?

Yeah, something like that.Rogers eyed Trevor, giving him a once over. He wasnt sure whyit was just something he did since he left his shield behind with Tony. But he couldnt help himself. His kindness won out. Something told him he could trust this man, Steve or not. Believe you me, Id be laughing if it wasnt so darn warm and uncomfortable in these jets.

Trevor smirked, arching an eyebrow. You call this a jet, pal? He reached up to turn on the air conditioner knob. Ive flown jets, and this thing? This things a big bus. Greyhound of the skies, we call em.

Oh, are you military? Rogers asked. It was only now he noticed the small tattoo of what may have been wings peeking out from under Trevors bomber jacket. Trevor followed Rogers gaze and pulled his sleeve up the rest of the way, showing off a tattoo of what Rogers instantly recognized as a World War I-era fighter.

Something like that. was Trevors reply. How about you?

Rogers instantly tensed up and turned away. Ex.

Of course Trevor noticed. There was no way he couldnt notice Rogers sudden change in body language and how he seemed to did he just flex? Uh huh. What branch? Or, uh what ex-branch?

Rogers just pursed his lips and looked down at his shoes. Army.

At that, Trevor slapped Rogers on the shoulder. No kiddin, huh? Thats swell. I was well, I wasAir Force, myself. Rogers nodded. Neat.

Sensing the conversation was going south, Trevor began to fidget just a bit. Well ah, okay then. So why are you headed to Trevor fished in his jacket pocket for his boarding pass. Canada? He furrowed his brow. Wait, were going toCanada? He started looking around the cabin.

You didnt know this plane was going to Canada? Rogers asked. How does someone get on a plane and not know where its going?

I mean, its not likeI booked the damn flight. Hed have to have a conversation with Diana about all this cloak and dagger and misdirection stuff. Hes the spy, after all, and theyre in peacetime, why shouldnt he be the one who decides how to ah, heck with it.

With a strong sense of finality, the cabin door sealed itself shut. Rogers picked up Trevors seatbelt and offered it to him. Better buckle in, pal, cause its going to be a long flight to the Great White North.

Trevor could only pout as he buckled himself in.

As the plane backed away from the gate for taxi and takeoff, Rogers nudged Trevor. Oh, man, Ilove these little safety videos they show us. He brightened up considerably, and it rubbed off a little on Trevors now-soured demeanor. Rogers began to sing along. I got some safety tips that you gotta know

Trevor was determined to stay under his little storm cloud. But Rogers continued on undeterred. Heck, he started dancing in his seat, much to the dismay of the poor passenger sitting behind him. and trust me, its something that you wanna hear.

Squinting just a bit, Trevor relented. So zip your lips and enjoy the show before we move into the stratosphere

Together, they sang.

So tonight, get ready to fly cuz were gonna live it on up in the sky Virgin America knows all the places you wanna be Fly away with me, fly away with me, yeah!

Jazz hands. Bouncing around. The poor sucker who thought they were getting a better deal out of an aisle seat next to the pair immediately began to regret their seat choice. She reached up to try to activate the Call Attendant button, but Trevor grabbed her hand and began to mock-swing dance with her.She even began dancing just a bit as Trevor moved back to sing the rest of the song with Rogers.

His mood considerably lightened, Trevor leaned back in his seat. Maybe this flight wont feel so long after all.

20,000 feet up in the air.

Rogers tapped Trevor on the shoulder. Trevor, dont you find it strange that were asked to put on our own masks before helping children? Ive always thought it was a little odd.

Trevor grinned. You havent been in many plane crashes, have you?

Rogers laughed. Buddy let me tell you

36,000 feet up in the air. One hour into the flight.

They never give you enough nuts in these snack packs. Rogers stuffed the empty bag into the seat back pocket in front of him.

Trevor chuckled to himself. No kidding, huh? Not enough nuts. Never enough nuts.

Back in my day They pause, realizing that they both just said the same thing. Trevor winks and fires some fingerguns at Rogers.

36,000 feet up in the air. Beginning landing approach.

Tell me, Rogers, have you ever seen Fight Club?

Later.

The pair laughed and joked all the way down the aisle and up the jet bridge. Well, Trevor said with a sigh. Thanks for the great ride, Rogers. He held out his hand, again flashing Rogers with that winning smile, the same smile he gave him back when this whole journey just began. It was only a few hours of Rogers life, a few hours spent out of his admittedly already abnormally long lifespan. But despite the relatively short amount of time they spent together, Rogers found himself wishing what he wished so long ago with Peggythat he had just a little bit more time.

At that, Steve Rogers, Captain America, the eternal boy scout, did something he never thought hed do. He stole something from Trevor: a kiss. A bare grazing of lips on a stubbled cheek, under widened, surprised eyes.

Rogers turned beet red, sure that he looked just like the Red Skull in that moment. He nodded, muttered a bye and sprinted away.

Trevor stood at the gate, his hand still extended as if for a handshake. A slip of paper carrying Rogers number rests carefully in his palm. He looked down at it, as one might look at a freshly-born baby chick.

Dianas never going to believeany of this.

(image: thecaptainoutoftime on tumblr)

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!

The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.

Read the original:

TMS Writes Fanfic: Steves on a Plane - The Mary Sue

Posted in Tms

DARPA invests further in neurotechnology – SD Times – SDTimes.com

Posted on by

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to expand neurotechnology capabilities and create a high-resolution neural interface. The agency announced it is awarding contracts to five research organizations and one company as part of its Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program.

DARPA announced NESD in January of 2016. The program was created to provide a connection between the brain and digital world.

DARPA has invested hundreds of millions of dollars transitioning neuroscience into neurotechnology with a series of cumulatively more advanced research programs that expand the frontiers of what is possible in this enormously difficult domain. Weve laid the groundwork for a future in which advanced brain interface technologies will transform how people live and work, and the agency will continue to operate at the forward edge of this space to understand how national security might be affected as new players and even more powerful technologies emerge, Justin Sanchez, director of DARPAs Biological Technologies Office.

The contracts will go to: Brown University; Columbia University; Fondation Voir et Entendre (The Seeing and Hearing Foundation); John B. Pierce Laboratory; Paradromics, Inc.; and the University of California, Berkeley.

The organizations will form teams dedicated to creating working systems that support sensory restoration world. According to the agency, four of the teams will focus on vision while two will focus on hearing and speech.

Significant technical challenges lie ahead, but the teams we assembled have formulated feasible plans to deliver coordinated breakthroughs across a range of disciplines and integrate those efforts into end-to-end systems, said Phillip Alvelda, the founding NESD program manager.

The programs first year will focus on breakthroughs in hardware, software, and neuroscience. The second phase of the program will look into properly testing newly developed devices. Achieving the programs ambitious goals and ensuring that the envisioned devices will have the potential to be practical outside of a research setting will require integrated breakthroughs across numerous disciplines including neuroscience, synthetic biology, low-power electronics, photonics, medical device packaging and manufacturing, systems engineering, and clinical testing, according to NESDs website.

See the original post here:

DARPA invests further in neurotechnology - SD Times - SDTimes.com

The deadly art of political correctness – WND.com

Posted on by

Bill Leak cartoon on his opinion of Australian gay-marriage activists

Political correctness is the bane of all art. Enlisting the powers of mob psychology, its more potent and vicious than censors could ever hope to be. Traditional censorship creates a villain/victim condition, with the weakest (non-state) actor as the hero. Sympathy is reactively triggered against the Powers That Be, as the little guy struggles against some Goliath or other.

But political correctness turns all that on its ear. In PC World, the state poses as a weak and endangered victim. Miles of bureaucratic code are treated as divine and irreplaceable as scripture. Fanatics of various obsessions zealously guard against desecration by nonbelievers (such as global warming deniers). Its a true orthodoxy in every way.

Last March, the world lost a marvelous artist, political sage and cartoonist. His name was Bill Leak. We didnt hear much about him in the U.S. because he was an Aussie. He loved his country, and concerned himself with it the good, the bad, and the ludicrous. Recently he was very much overwhelmed by the latter.

From 1983 to 2017, Leak and his personal notions were not only tolerated, but widely and publicly shared. A famed and prize-winning artist, he was considered mainstream if slightly conservative. His last gig was with The Australian, where his cartoons with political and social commentary regularly lodged.

Leak first faced censure for having opinion, in a 2006 cartoon that portrayed the president of Indonesia as a dog mounting a Papuan native. It was a return shot after a Jakarta Daily cartoon depicted Australias Prime Minister and Foreign Minister as mating dingoes. Speech control units sanctioned Leak (only) as crude, offensive and potentially racist. Missing in this charade was reference to the original issue the ongoing genocide of Papuan natives by the Indonesian government. PC mouthpieces expressed no concern over this, but plenty over Leaks objection to it. They are very sick people.

Bill Leaks cartoon explaining his predicament with Australian speech police

But Leak didnt roll over and play dead as expected. Meanwhile, Australias anti-art forces gained power in the form of more government apparatchiks. His most recent (and possibly deadly) run-in with Australias thought-censors occurred in October 2016. Leak crossed PC orthodoxy yet again, and retribution was swift and terrible. He ventured a non-standard take on child neglect issues with Aboriginal groups there. Adding to his crimes was a cartoon comparing militant homosexuals to Nazis. Both groups had been declared Very Special Persons by the Australian government, entirely off limits to criticism or unflattering news.

Leak withstood his attackers on social media, mocking them as sanctimonious Tweety Birds having a tantrum. His employer, The Australian, responded: Bill Leaks confronting and insightful cartoons force people to examine the core issues in a way that sometimes reporting and analysis can fail to do.

But political correctness is opposed to reporting, analysis, insight and especially confrontation of core issues.

Something called the Human Rights Commission (HRC) had already tried and sentenced Leak in their minds, but was required to haul him before their tribunals for show. Tim Soutphommasane was sent to come up with an excuse to feed Leak to their lions. For this he stooped to advertising for whining citizens to complain of being offended (all under the Racial Discrimination Act). Soutphommasane called this part of the vigorous public debate of a healthy democracy. Certainly Leak and his attorneys were required to vigorously debate to avoid fines and jail time.

Jillian Triggs, who runs the speech-blocking movement (HRC), insisted Leak send her a justification for his cartoon. He refused, but continued to face the combined malicious stupidity of the Australian government. Mark Steyn wrote this up in his excellent eulogy/rant for Leak: You dont get into a debate with someone whose opening bid is You cant say that: Its not a dispute with someone who holds a different position, but with someone who denies your right to have a position at all.

Political operatives function as philosophers behind the theory of political correctness. Its an ideology made for the people but not by them. PC feigns individuality, while dictating mass obedience and enforced passivity. It draws supporters by appealing to their basest instincts of greed, fear, pride, sadism and manipulation of others.

While having no consistent code of ethics itself, political correctness dons a feigned moral superiority. This is a gift for nasty people who hate their neighbors. Charging them with the non-crimes that PC fabricates, they can easily take them down. Ratting on outsiders and infidels is what political correctness is all about delivered with sneers, and the smug self-righteousness to which we have become accustomed.

Attached at their hips are sycophants of the state, who also find oppression useful: Militant homosexuals or Muslim crusaders, Marxists, Earth worshipers, and various cults who cant withstand scrutiny or civil conversation. Political correctness covers for a multitude of sins.

Lovers of collectivism are easily sucked into political correctness, and they arent of much importance to anyone. But they take their workers parishioners, children and pupils with them into that not-so-good night. In spite of the hoopla, there is little liberty, equality or fraternity there.

Hollywood is blighted by bloodsucking political correctness, and their gifted artists are infected with the pox otherwise they are unemployed. Why would they do this? Half are likely true believers, willing to commit all to the leftist cause. The other half lives in dread of them or dont have the stomach for the bitter fight to regain their freedom.

A compilation of Bill Leaks cartoons on militant Islam

We are dealing with a new form of terrorism that strikes at the root of thought and faith. It paralyzes before a word or action takes place. It is pre-terrorism. Creative thought is harnessed to PC orthodoxy through shaming and shunning campaigns unlike anything weve seen before. Calling political correctness a new McCarthyism doesnt begin to do justice to a beast that the Senator could only have dreamt of. McCarthy battled Communism with only a few Congressmen, some FBI agents and a few friendly newspapers. This is far more entrenched and almost unopposed so far.

At 61 years of age, Leak died of an unexpected heart attack, five months into a grueling political-based inquisition. His chief tormentor and anti-speech activist, Gillian Triggs, was recently honored on her way out of her position in the HRC. Australia awarded her the 2017 Voltaire award for her courageous stand on peoples rights which is hilarious.

As Madam Defarge sat in her well-appointed office, issuing directives against the likes of Leak, he required 24/7 protection from ISIS, because he was saying something relevant. In what must be a grievous insult to Leaks family, Triggs claimed the rights to freedom of speech [and] ideas underpinning a democratic society were under threat from federal and state governments.

She should know.

Sources

See the original post here:

The deadly art of political correctness - WND.com

Political correctness destroyed a good idea – The Altamont Enterprise

Posted on by

To the Editor:

I see the walk-through history stops are being completed and I have to wonder how what could and should have been a good project go so wrong.

When I read the books by Arthur Greer, Keith Lee, and other histories of Altamont, the roadside historical markers, the names in the cemeteries of that time, or look at the architecture, I see no Spanish names or influence.

I guess political correctness has destroyed this good idea.

Bill Donato

Altamont

Editors note: The text on the 26 lecterns for Altamonts museum in the streets is in both English and Spanish. James Gaughan, who was mayor of Altamont and spearheaded the project, explained earlier, the research I did showed the largest population in the area is Spanish speaking, second to English. He also said that more Guilderland students study Spanish as a second language than any other.

Link:

Political correctness destroyed a good idea - The Altamont Enterprise

Comment: Political correctness has a life of its own – The Catholic Register

Posted on by

Ive long been fascinated by political correctness and how it often has a life of its own; either ignoring facts or not bothering to find facts before going off half-cocked.

Political correctness has been around a long time. Some date it to a term used in a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1793. It entered the everyday lexicon in the 1970s and really took off a few years later by turning Merry Christmas into a taboo for risk of offending those not of the Christian faith. Yet, Ive never had a Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or even atheist person tell me they find a friendly greeting of Merry Christmas offensive.

There are countless other PC examples; some silly and humorous, some serious. Without doubt, it has helped shape our culture and policies over the past few decades. (An American president even got elected by endlessly trumpeting that he was the anti politically-correct candidate. So, its not all good news for those opposed to rampant political correctness.)

Last year, an Angus Reid poll found that more than three-quarters of Canadians agreed that political correctness has just gone too far, and yet almost as many people (70 per cent) admitted to biting their tongue at least some of the time to avoid offending others.

Which brings us to yet another example of political correctness: trying to change the name of Ryerson University, my alma mater.

Indigenous students, student union push Ryerson University to change its name, screams a headline in a recent edition of The Toronto Star.

Due to my ties to the university, I was more than a little interested in this story.

The downtown Toronto university is named for Egerton Ryerson, a pioneer of public education in Ontario who is widely believed to have helped shape residential school policy through his ideas on education for Indigenous children, states the Star article.

Widely believed now theres politically correct language if Ive ever seen it. Broad swaths and painting with the same brush are part of the PC toolkit.

The article, to be fair, does not shy away from reporting on the backlash from those opposed to the possible name change, but it also attacks the character of Ryerson on several fronts. For example, it prints this unattributed post: change the name of Ryerson University to a name that does not celebrate a man who supported and created the structures of colonial genocide.

Wow. Theyve moved Ryerson, a Methodist minister, into some sort of criminal and architect of genocide.

Fortunately, The Globe and Mail on the same day ran an opinion piece from Donald Smith, a retired history professor from the University of Calgary, which offers many details of Ryersons life that are either ignored or not known by the folks trying to rename the university.

As a Canadian historian of nearly half a centurys standing, I find the current controversy over Egerton Ryerson, the namesake of Ryerson University, totally baffling, Smith begins. I wonder how deeply his critics have probed into the past of the founder of the modern Ontario public-school system. Their portrayal of him as anti-Indigenous misrepresents the man completely.

Ryerson started the Credit Mission, a stones throw from my home in Port Credit, where he learned to speak Ojibway and worked alongside the Credit Mississaugas in the fields and ate and lived with them. They liked him so much they named him Chechalk, meaning Bird on the Wing.

He helped many Indigenous people with their education, even sponsoring some in universities of the day. One was so grateful that he named his son Egerton.

Smith goes on to say Ryerson supported the Credit Mississaugas fight for a title deed to their Credit River reserve and their efforts to build a strong economic base for their community.

He became lifelong friends with a Mississauga chief named Kahkewaquonaby (Sacred Waving Feathers), known as Peter Jones in English, who also became a Methodist minister. Nearing the end of Jones life, Ryerson had Jones and his wife stay with his family for a month in Toronto while seeking the best possible medical care. Before Jones died at age 54, he asked Ryerson to give the eulogy, which he did on July 1, 1856.

Ryerson gets tarred with the residential school brush for writing in 1847 a short report on Indian boarding schools where older male students could learn European-style agriculture, Smith writes, adding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada unequivocally stated Ryerson was not the creator of the residential school system.

It seems in our politically-correct world its easy to paint Ryerson as anti-Indigenous. But the facts of history simply dont bear that out. As Smith laments, Back to you Ryerson Students Union, for further study. Perhaps theyll find another politically correct crusade truly worth fighting for.

(Brehl is a writer in Port Credit, Ont., and cane be reached at bob@abc2.ca, or @bbrehl on Twitter.)

Here is the original post:

Comment: Political correctness has a life of its own - The Catholic Register

FAGAN: Mitch Landrieu’s Political Correctness A Reason For Extreme NOLA Violence – The Hayride

Posted on by

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy on Wednesday submitted an editorial to NOLA.com calling for NOPD to begin using stop-and-frisk tactics. Other than defending abortion rights and demonizing Israel there are few things that rile up leftists obsessed with political correctness more than talk of stop-and-frisk.

At first glance I can understand why some may have reservations about the tactic. Nothing riles me up more than these road blocks set up to catch drunk drivers. But there is a huge difference between roadblocks and stop-and-frisk.

Before cops can employ stop-and-frisk they must first have probable cause. With DUI checkpoints everyone is stopped without any justification. This comes just a little too close to a police state for my taste.

But what is similar between the two is they without dispute work. Stop-and-frisk is one of the strategies that helped bring about an 85% reduction in crime in New York City between 1994 and 2013.

Think of how many lives would be saved if New Orleans saw an 85% reduction in crime. To argue the policy is ineffective is just silly. The politically correct look foolish trying.

The PC cabal, of which Mayor Mitch Landrieu is a card-carrying member, argue against stop-and-frisk claiming it discriminates against blacks. They say it opens the door for racist white cops to harass blacks. But what they dont mention is within NOPD, the potential administrators of stop-and-frisk, blacks outnumber white cops almost two to one.

The New Orleans Police Department is one of the most diverse police forces in the country, and I dont believe every NOPD cop is a racist. The politicians should let the NOPD do its job. Sen. Kennedy writes in NOLA.com.

Mr. Kennedy also argues for the mayor and city council to hire more cops. When Mr. Landrieu was first elected NOPD was a third bigger than it is today. The mayors multi-year hiring freeze has devastated NOPDs ability to fight crime in New Orleans.

For three years now the mayor has been vowing to hire 150 new cops a year. He hasnt even come close. Kennedy says.

Mr. Landrieu has also gutted the DAs office by $600,000 to which Mr. Kennedy writes,

We should listen to District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro, who has warned that our city has crafted a criminal justice policy that has repeatedly placed politics above public safety. Maybe the DAs candor is why city leadership cut his budget $600,000 this year, eliminating more than 10 positions and withdrawing investigators from murder scenes. Talk about doubling down on stupid!

Sen.Kennedy is correct. Mayor Landrieu has doubled down on stupid political correctness and seems focused on anything and everything other making his city a safer place. Something employing stop-and-frisk is certain to do.

But in New Orleans with Mitch Landrieu in charge, political correctness is king, not public safety.

Dan Fagan is a former television news reporter, journalism professor, newspaper columnist, and radio talk show host. He grew up in New Orleans and currently lives there. He is a regular contributor for The Hayride. If you have a news tip for Mr. Fagan you [emailprotected] or 504-458-2542.

Link:

FAGAN: Mitch Landrieu's Political Correctness A Reason For Extreme NOLA Violence - The Hayride

How the story of human cloning could unfold – The Economist

Posted on by

kwF. Fbo'3Yvf$=_(PI|A.DhtWWyzw%?J&Gol8zdyV.=N~|?Vb[GGqdo;|c<3I7[1g'd~G'I;-0?2}6?>aS/~:/tP~xT/L7M&Q?=tt/G|7z3Z;i}G?,efm_#SES46)]ngWK(]tvNY0 oK]2?L&gO'Gafp>#5MNFaT7p2KU2|z&t; V2Y-Ne]!oUIrI~< BE3 MC|:.+vMDlsF7,fayw;XV>I,-J]wLF|>N;=# dq7b~a/n~:1=cNIiNU|4Gg,|C#G2Q#8}-J-9[vpt|f#k*[4MT%KNHrBRNoRPZ WvdzqS^b[uh1<8}:O=04 OD,nz4Y=vy$an@A.Cl;p84MmfE[Qfoa/fLWM0o]eAa;lu9.m0Gyh>.o 5|*`mn[Am]71)F#&p|q=6tk>CMX:clGuxlS5sM;kMu9<~>=_g$wDthVz~<]FOOh<_Wn?U:=[,iPf] l$/hE >RwxRz":tssF'bN09s.ubzg&)hp:Hn]nq9w)7o<1aL$/3<4Y[N::y|0o]-Zx=/& d'mGk< A;gvM2E]N#QcHKUh?('j$~n}3 |< l=x^';/ax B'8QxYs'.}Z;sq32,~v!yy#]vo0SKni|w",t{w t_#e.k"z$g0U*+?LmMvm>&W2U+?=9q_?bi7Ds) yxkbao);` $m'EI?Vpd`9fc4q`<-f46r'H.H,d&{7{vjM}}Mv;}/MW{2pntx5_'I'=Ou^sib::9uq&fp[H qw3u>xrv4y;]sCOG KTL%x.3tox9^L57.M#/?_@M}rDw$O:@q$?}?7Mm.J ?fU'V&zP~&a/K! ?Lj:F.L6i8xn=O*~Wpws##n)}5kMgD&9c_-rzxleDCN95?NO6A dz|:9dc_?nOG>'q;9K%(d~z~D*Nth|pp:]k@:U:ItJ6m Vv0y Jj~,[z5h>iGwwHsa;6(hC'kG}nJv2ydc&:5T-6fTLfz^;s_Fg4Mx~vV@c hT;-1/Uy~Fl>Z= jK]4=9=<|;zg^hJZgW7jt 2 i;D Unn']PX4;k][RCxu;r*t3=](0]Ynzg/V/5x:o}^6n$?gWgK~~}cy-;:j^B?>y,G|}i}r/O~KsG}Wn|?vyoyoo2_}y9:[8QW?mg_~^_iiWr/x&\7oosx2}=qw{Wo#3y7G1C_Y==Q(u}7xw|}}Ck#N;yo|7/w[Wg?sxC|w?793fGh!-Ez8;i@|~0 k?Yq;f {<_:l+]vS-2yFy)A,.#F9mT*HzIOHzq{^^H 'G^-NWr=6qv!/qv-nu d#1Z1V5~SXpn z~vvAMxC_jDwQ7Vv_i= "bF@(yO|M)&v5Q?}?tK _7d`v X7znk~Vw1[ypZnLVnO%"{L=wcSCKeKXsLAi'+n6WW;v wR$59$;ZY)Cs%x(lZT2Z5 kd^ZG!p(]mHbc/YvxLAJwExv/0ot%rapl|VZvuyO5}:?L%aFD06dBE9Kxsiym>_gcv&rxxtt2=>n2yMfkJywq2"u7y6Z_n~.m2thUJ */nn%@AU/?!b~E;K"}r7n-E2'Cy`Yf74g!~! #m#;F[Nxx)PF,,-)g3"7jC?tmr>vn5#]KOrGWLexde;T.4n>2f%}Y5hwNkZyAkOvtnJUy{8D(mPD}x7oG uoQQ]?xD^ (UOsC6EZZ'.Y[ t4, zCYy}i8w%5O *[yewZ}at`$;t{U/#eU{d'ze;!~" o.v~BiOO?tdQ2d&1V<6Ed4Kdpo'=n[`?zcY+MZ^ _Si: >[q6&bE{N[gv7igggA&WL>CWjRM{.uWfC/z==fszcngS{gAdZwqX6^REm/&kI~yA] o[%.7}K'T (_a,&[^?|otOLv _nX~c,C6v^qCiQW}19]9.D|1ChRx C?wGm >p) 'RwqXSyZ.7+bG~O/v8x(b/q8%x3,Yoixmg2J<-OD#Bz.=ps[v@+2b|r~x]^.YuY dAy9(q-SqII-*>C{)aOJ}1?#W$}18O7Y,Hz^>bo@~Y_z$4RP_K" /f

yq&yrG^ 8ytiLYG^Y~y::uE' |vv,YNV(:>u3-l/+Bu,:~]cHZuMADd~sFb,L???}xn^S+rdO. }FQ]A9H]p6ca]jGwa'I |q'wUO+iN:';/2_MJ;+[OPvFM+3]oO' |ifG+8?{qAauA)56%6)IT~]o)&KoV//mt2VI<3?<]2[w[y.78|'W.tmnVSvKF{o&GU7%KGm+';*pbwJuY' K]UM$Wzw~qZsUc4|c*Ku?(oo(NYLmU#CE~c3b(*n0q+vY1AqPn?y3 !]V,UaRt} *+${;<&):c#w|aj}g]?$8S;qtxu?M[y]i *R/Wf]-W95~n1flGaa!bc@fc% z/' 4.f;Otg_T_^'}|c}~8oH4atH-4*>)q T&"Dd.4Y:T@_@}.7zpEE}lVKe RJ,g-:%SrZ3 o_WQY 4GaKYO}.L:1 6wX/2FEb{&&Gr.Jk~%6e]ftBM0n*zWoAfPLAf[9t,,n_NnTJH{8=-2v KG/B?[JWgU%*5 /qy|;<[FW5:l.I{twg*37F`&x#%RJ|(^ 2u`^m`*w'[$ qCU,J/U/u:^4a+N-1cF|;`2&S *0YBjKEBa) E8ehGm.$I)"l;|T5I/T Jw~POip:*3):./9w |R:`tY@f>azyTyMX5mnm^

Go here to read the rest:

How the story of human cloning could unfold - The Economist

Two Nigerians with expired visas held for card cloning – Times of India

Posted on by

PUNE: The cyber crime cell arrested two Nigerian nationals, one on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday, for using a magnetic card reader to clone debit and credit cards, swiping them at ATMs and withdrawing huge amounts of money, illegally.

One came to India on a medical visa and the other arrived on a student's visa. Both their visas had expired in 2015.

Several debit cards and Rs 1.8 lakh in cash was recovered from both. They were arrested under provisions of the IPC and the IT Act.

Ogbehase Fortune (43) and Bashar Dakin Garim Usman (27) would visit ATM kiosks in isolated places and withdraw money from them. Ogbehase was caught by a cyber cell team while effecting a transaction at an ATM kiosk in Pimple-Gurav on July 11. Both were remanded in police custody till July 18.

"We have arrested Nigerian nationals for card cloning in Pune for the first time," deputy commissioner of police (cyber crime) Sudhir Hiremath said on Thursday.

Police received a tip-off about Ogbehase after his image was caught on CCTV camera at an ATMs. Technical investigations confirmed his involvement. Later, they arrested his accomplice Bashar from his residence at Pirangut near Pune on Wednesday.

Police suspect them of using the cards at select petrol pumps for getting some money on a commission basis.

The involvement of more Nigerian nationals and others is suspected because they have used a magnetic card reader for cloning cards and used these cards in hotels, malls, pumps and ATM kiosks.

Ogbehase and Bashar were arrested on charges of duping an official Hemant Appasaheb Phalke (45) of Ammunition Factory, Khadki to the tune of Rs 67,000 on June 24. The Khadki police had registered a case on July 11.

Read the original:

Two Nigerians with expired visas held for card cloning - Times of India

Genetically – Sputnik International

Posted on by

Asia & Pacific

19:10 13.07.2017(updated 19:20 13.07.2017) Get short URL

BEIJING (Sputnik) Beijing-based SinoGene biotechnology company said that it had successfully created a cloned beagle puppy named Long Long. The puppy is not only the first clone tobe made froma genetically modified dog, butalso the first cloned canine.

Sputnik correspondents visited the company's laboratory inorder tofind outwhy scientists chose a dog forcloning and spoke withSinoGene Director General Mi Tzidun and his deputy Zhao Jianping.

Super Dog?

The cloning process ofa genetically engineered dog takes anywhere fromtwo toseveral months. According toMi, withinone experiment, scientist try toclone 10 dogs, butmodification inthe genome can occur only intwo individuals. At the same time, he stressed that it is not possible topredict the success rate, sincethere is always a factor ofuncertainty. In some cases, the experiment may be completely unsuccessful.

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

Cloned dogs

According toZhao, gene modified dogs retain their reproductive capacity and are able toreproduce fromthe age of10 months. Gene modifications are transmitted tonext generations.

The life expectancy ofsuch dogs does not differ fromthose ofordinary ones, Mi added.

"An animal withthe quite well-developed motor and olfactory functions, performing special work, can be called a super dog. A guide dog, forexample, or hunting dog or a dog performing search and rescue work. But we create dogs using a method ofgenetic editing, which causes disease. In simple terms, infuture the dog acquires the ability tosuffer fromhuman diseases, so it can not be called a 'super dog,'" a SinoGene researcher said.

The Goal Justifies the Means

Genetic engineering technologies have significant importance forthe development ofmedicine, asthey help totreat tumors and genetic disease, the SinoGene researcher added.

"It is possible totest the drugs safety and check their effectiveness using cloned dogs. Previously, dogs were used relatively rarely insuch experiments, because the process ofediting a dog's genes is rather complicated. We conduct these studies, because the course ofthe disease indogs and humans is relatively the same. Dogs and humans also have a high degree ofgenetic similarity," the researcher added.

In particular, SinoGene scientists have already studied such diseases asatherosclerosis, autism, muscular dystrophy and diabetes mellitus, using genetically engineered dogs.

General Director of Sinogene Mi Jidong

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

Cloned dogs

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

Zhao Jianping

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

1 / 3

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

General Director of Sinogene Mi Jidong

Speaking aboutthe morality ofthis practice, Chinese scientists say that unfortunately the development ofscience and medicine requires such victims.

Future Plans

SinoGene experts said that the next step intheir research could be the cloning ofa genetically modified cat.

"However, atthe moment we do not yet have the necessary technologies, we need toaccumulate experience and knowledge, then we can make further plans. Using this knowledge, it will be possible toconduct appropriate studies ofthe entire feline family, especially withregard toendangered animal species, forexample, the Amur tiger and some species ofleopard," Mi said.

The director general added that the company maintains transparency inits research and is ready toshare its discoveries withthe world community forthe development ofscience.

See the rest here:

Genetically - Sputnik International

‘Scopes monkey trial’ town erects evolution figure’s statue – Fox News

Posted on by

NASHVILLE, Tenn. The famed "Scopes monkey trial" pitted two of the nation's foremost celebrity lawyers against one another, but only one of them was memorialized outside the Tennessee courthouse where the landmark case unfolded -- until now.

On Friday at the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton the public will behold a 10-foot statue of the rumpled skeptic Clarence Darrow, who argued for evolution in the 1925 trial. It will stand at a respectful distance on the opposite side of the courthouse from an equally huge statue of William Jennings Bryan, the eloquent Christian defender of the biblical account of creation, which was installed in 2005.

The trial that unfolded there nine decades ago garnered national headlines in what historians say started as a publicity stunt for the small town. Formally known as Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes, the case generated front-page headlines nationwide and was immortalized in songs, books, plays and movies. Dayton hosts its annual Scopes Trial festival for 10 days, starting Friday, featuring a theatrical production.

Historians say the trial came about after local leaders convinced Scopes, a 24-year-old high school teacher, to answer the American Civil Liberties Union's call for someone who could help challenge Tennessee's law that banned teaching evolution. He was found guilty but didn't spend time in jail.

Bryan, a three-time Democratic candidate for president, died just five days after the trial ended.

In Dayton, home of a Christian college that's named for Bryan, it's not hard to envision the community accepting a statue venerating the august champion of the faith.

But Darrow is another matter.

Rifts over evolution and creationism continue almost a century later, and the Darrow statue was requested by atheist groups.

Pockets of opposition in the town suggest many Christians still see the science of evolution as clashing with their faith. Dayton resident and minister June Griffin has led much of the backlash against the Darrow statue, citing religious convictions.

"This is a hideous monstrosity," Griffin said. "And God is not pleased."

Two weeks ago about 20 supporters and 20 protesters clashed peacefully at the courthouse over the statue, said Rhea County Sheriff's Department Special Projects Coordinator Jeff Knight.

Nevertheless, the Darrow statue hasn't drawn teeming crowds in Dayton like the ones that forced some of the 1925 trial proceedings to be moved outdoors.

Regardless of how people's beliefs differ, the statue helps represent history, said Rhea County historian Pat Guffey. Most people seem OK with it, she added.

"I just think that something that is history should stay, or should be put up, no matter what," Guffey said. "I don't think we should try to change history."

Philadelphia-based sculptor Zenos Frudakis crafted the new statue, funded largely by $150,000 from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The group said the project would remedy the imbalance of Bryan standing alone.

"Bryan was there as an attorney, a prosecutor, and Clarence Darrow as a defense attorney. And now, the history has been restored," Frudakis said.

Frudakis, an admirer of Darrow, said the sculpture offers an honest look at the lawyer.

"He looks like he slept in his suit, which he often did. Sometimes his shirts were torn," Frudakis said of Darrow. "He smoked too much. He drank too much. He was a womanizer. I got as much of that as I could in the sculpture."

See the original post here:

'Scopes monkey trial' town erects evolution figure's statue - Fox News

This overlooked Game Boy game is the missing link in Mario’s evolution – A.V. Club

Posted on by

Donkey Kong 94

I recently made the transfer from my junky old 3DS XL to one of those new 2DS XLs, and the switch has got me digging through my very small collection of 3DS Virtual Console games. The one Ive latched back onto is the oft-overlooked Donkey Kong for Game Boy, commonly known these days by its more specific working title, Donkey Kong 94. Its a fascinating artifact, a game that tricks you into thinking its just some lame Game Boy remake of old-school Donkey Kong, only to reveal its an entirely new, brilliant puzzle-platformer once youve beaten the original games levels.

Even the game it turns out to be isnt quite what it seems. On the surface, its a mixture of Donkey Kong with the puzzling and object-lifting from Super Mario Bros. 2. You enter a stage, and you have to reach the key and carry it back to the locked door at the start, probably collecting some Donkey Kong-esque bonus items along the way. (Collect them all and you can win some extra lives.) But on a deeper level, I could never shake the feeling that its a missing link between the limited run-and-jump move-set of Marios oldest adventures and the expanded acrobatics he developed during his Nintendo 64 days. Two of the more advanced moves from Mario 64 are taken straight from Donkey Kong 94: the backflip, performed by suddenly changing direction and immediately jumping, and the high jump, performed by jumping while crouching. (Technically, pressing jump while crouching puts Mario into a handstand. Another press of the jump button from that position executes the big leap, but its close enough. This is also another link to Super Mario Bros. 2, which included a super-jump you charged up by crouching.) Besides the fact that these maneuvers add a ton of depth to an otherwise relatively simple game, its just so amazing to think it was a freakin Game Boy title that laid some groundwork for Marios move to 3-D. People did some astounding things with that little wonder.

See the rest here:

This overlooked Game Boy game is the missing link in Mario's evolution - A.V. Club