Information On Nootropics Serie A Weekly With so much information going around about Nootropics, it can be hard to know what they are good for. Many companies have taken to claiming that they are wonder pills, right for anything and everything. While this isn't true, there are some areas ... |
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Mix 247 EDM | [Behind the Beat]: Nifra Connecting With the World Through Trance Mix 247 EDM Mix 247 EDM: Growing up in Slovakia, how did you first hear about techno/trance and what made you want to get into it? Nifra: When I was thirteen-years-old, this music was all over the TV, various music channels, and radio stations, but it was much ... |
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[Behind the Beat]: Nifra Connecting With the World Through Trance - Mix 247 EDM
To finally get to our dream jobs at The Spinoff, our staff have been through some pretty shitty employment.
From flagrant sexism to gagging on fur balls from beard clippings, we at The Spinoff were exploited and used by our former employers.
But now you dont have to suffer the indignity that we endured, because this June, skate, surf, and snowboard clothing company Volcom is giving 15 people from around the world the chance to make their passion their profession. The prize is a trip to Austin, Texas to work on your dream job and $5000 cash; thats $5000 more than The Spinoffs Don Rowe got paid for his summer job. Enter the competition today so you dont have to spend two months stripping half the Waikatos wallpaper for no pay, or nine hours every day unpacking boxes in a freezing windowless room.
In the summer break of my first year at Auckland Uni, I got my first full-time job, working at an ice cream factory. From 7am to 4pm, my task was to unbox and sort whatever had been delivered to the factory floor. Deliveries were either plastic containers, plastic lids, 10kg bags of hokey pokey and crushed cookies, or 20L sacks of flavoured syrups that served as great weight training. It was a beautiful summer (apparently) but the room I worked in was windowless and had to be kept chilled because the ice cream was being made next door. It was always a fun surprise finding out what the weather had been like that day as I left to go home. Sometimes Id be called into the packing room to put boxes together or to stand at the conveyor belt and make sure that thousands of ice cream tubs didnt clog up the shrink-wrap machine. It was the definition of mindless work but also very stressful because you couldnt stop for a second until the machines stopped. The machines were loud so everyone wore ear muffs but werent allowed to listen to music in case of an alarm. I did a lot of self-reflection and got very pale that summer. But now Im very good at taping and untaping cardboard boxes so it wasnt all bad.
My first job was at a small hairdressing place: washing, sweeping and generally being around hair for $8 an hour, three hours every Saturday morning. The people who worked there were lovely, but the big problem was dealing with all the goddamn hair. Sartre was wrong: hell isnt other people, its other peoples hair. I would frequently, silently dry retch over the basins when washing out perm solution. I pulled endless globs of rancid hair from the drains like a horror film. I inhaled so many beard trimmings I wont be surprised if I have a gerbil-sized hairball wedged in my lungs forever. The sinks were shoddy and would frequently leak down peoples necks, so I once had to blow-dry an elderly womans back for about half an hour, dry-retching all the way. Still, cant put a price on 24 bucks.
I once had an interview for a job with a lady who said to me, I know Im not supposed to ask you this, but when are you planning on getting pregnant? Because I dont want someone whos going to go on maternity leave anytime soon. Clearly there were alarm bells from the start, but I was in London and needed to pay my excruciatingly high rent so I took the job. Cool move. Another highlight was the day she told me that I needed to remove the nail polish from my nails as it had chipped slightly and we were meeting with some of the company bosses. She literally handed me the nail polish remover and stood there and watched me take it off. When we went into the meeting the bosses were wearing jeans, t-shirts and Crocs.
About six months before I started at The Spinoff I spent several weeks drainlaying through a period of intense thunderstorms. One afternoon, shin-deep in clay mud like something out of Flanders Fields, I watched the foreman and his pneumonia get into their truck and drive away, lightning streaking above the retirement village we were building. That was the second worst job Ive had. Far, far more hazardous to both mood and health were the two months I spent painting the most rundown state houses in the governments Waikato portfolio. From Ngaruawahia to Forest Lake, Huntly to Hamilton, we scraped half a century worth of ciggy-stained wallpaper from sagging walls, sanded the space behind the fridge and generally got stuck into the residences of people who just didnt give a shit anymore, and hadnt for the past twenty years. Then, at the end of the contract, we got screwed by the contractor and ended up with a total of $0 for our time, thank you very much, just in time for Christmas. Happy days.
My first proper job was stacking shelves at 277 Woolworths at night. I was 17, living on K Road and making a minimum of $120 a week, $80 of which covered my rent. It was lonely, repetitive and depressing. In the break room there were Polaroid photos of the shoplifters holding what they got caught with. Their names were scrawled at the bottom in vivid. Mostly high school kids with cans of V and pensioners with cat food or cheap cuts of steak. I wondered why they didnt steal nicer meat. A shoplifting friend of mine told me you get the same punishment for shoplifting anything up to $500. Someone should tell these old men, I thought. The photos were beautiful and sad in a way that appealed to me.
I listened to my Walkman the whole time. When they told me I couldnt listen to my Walkman anymore I quit the next day and called in sick for the next two weeks. The boss threatened to withhold my last pay cheque if I never came back, so I worked my last shift, listening to my friends bFM show on my Walkman. He played a song for me: The Dead Kennedys Take This Job And Shove It.
The lonely supermarket aisle where Walkmans are banned and hope is out of stock.
My first job was at the fish bar at Woolworths. I was 15. My hands used to get cut up cleaning the fish machine and the fish oil would get into my hands. I was 15 and I smelled like fish all the time. It was not a good time. I hate fish.
I also worked at the Bunny Bar where I had to dress up as a bunny. But the bar got sued by Playboy and was shut down. Fish Bar was still worse than the Bunny Bar.
My first job was working in a Kiwifruit grading shed during harvest time. It was fine, but I was so useless at it they kept on moving me around different jobs. I was a box packer one day, but was so slow kiwifruit piled up around me like discarded peanut shells on the floor of a bar. I got moved to grading which required watching scores of kiwifruit go past on the conveyor belt and picking out the non-export grade fruit (basically the fruit that looked bung), but I let so many scarred and degenerate fruit through they moved me again. And so on and so on.
And then the kiwifruit market imploded and I never had to work in a kiwifruit orchard ever again.
Jos Barbosa has been linked to the collapse of the kiwifruit market.
I scored my worst job when I moved to Melbourne for the summer holidays and was desperately broke and in need of work quickly. I found myself selling energy plans door to door for one of the large Australian electricity providers. After three days of unpaid training, on the morning of my first day we gathered in the main office in the central city where loud trance music was used to motivate the sellers who charged around the room hi fiving and shouting. It was very cultish. Each team would then jump in a van and head to the citys outer suburbs motivational trance loud on the stereo again. It was then my job to go out into the neighbourhood and manipulate struggling, and often confused, families to switch energy providers by gently implying if they didnt, their power would be cut off. That was my first and last day as an energy salesman.
For five terrifying hours when I was 17 I worked as a potato picker about an hour south of Auckland. I wanted to get money for a PS4. I was put into a combine harvester with four strangers while we went around a field for five hours. I have the softest hands of any person I know, and I did not cope. I ended up calling my mother to come and pick me up that afternoon.
Whats your this? Your passion, that thing you wish you could do full time. This June, Volcom is searching the Earth to find 15 people who are ready to make their passion their paycheque.
Applying is easy; weve thrown out the traditional job application and replaced it with the simple question, Whats your this and what would it mean to you to put #ThisFirst?
Enter now for the chance to prioritise your passion by letting Volcom give you that extra push that will allow you to spend six weeks focusing on your this while also getting paid.
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The Spinoff's Worst Jobs Ever: fish oil, shoplifting, trenches, and trance - The Spinoff
Music on the Green - brought to you by The Mariposa County Arts Council and its many fine sponsors presents the third of thirteen weekends of free concerts with a special appearence/debut of local super-group Arroyo (w/Little Tiger), on Friday, June 16, and, from San Francisco, Trance Mission Duo (featuring Stephen Kent & Beth Custer), on Saturday, June 17. Arroyo is a result of the collaboration of singer/songwriter Ben Goger (The Trespassers), drummer Chris Adcock (Robes, Chaz), guitarist Adam Burns (Bootstrap Circus, Little Tiger), bassist Benny Lee Friedrich (The Trespassers), and multi-instrumentalist Jonny Troyna (Wools Surf Club, Robes). It began out of Gogers desire to give some of his songs a rock n roll rhythm, and his brother-in-law Chris constant attempts to shoehorn country and folk intoDevoandRamonesstyle rhythms. The result is an upbeat type of country rock music, veering occasionally into power pop and 70's style arena rock. Opening the night will be Little Tiger, Burns and wife Mandy Vances synth pop duo. Trance Mission Duo features two extraordinary and award-winning multi-instrumentalist/composers (Stephen Kent: didjeridu, percussion, cello-sintir, bass; Beth Custer: B flat, alto, bass clarinets, percussion) with mountains of global accolades to their credit. In this new duo incarnation, Trance Mission continues the genre-breaking musical traditions they started in the 1990s. Founded in 91 by Kent (Baraka Moon; host of the World Music program on KPFA-Berkeley) and Custer (film score composer; recent Emmy award-winner [KQED]), this seminal 4th World duo out of the Bay Area performed extensively on the West Coast and in Europe and created four universally acclaimed recordings released on San Franciscos City of Tribes label. The music of Trance Mission is a nearly indescribable amalgam of World/Trance music that includes impliments of progressive Jazz, African and Aboriginal, with an infectious improvisational spirit and humor. Trance Missions unique, multi-genre music is unlike any presented in Mariposa before their debut at the Art Park in 2015, making their return a truely special appearence.
Notable performances includeMaybeck Studio, Live Oak Festival,Freight & Salvage, Slims,Palms Playhouse, and many more.
The digital aura remarkably marries the indigenous instrumentation with a rare naturalness, resonating with the full flame of world-derived trance power. Sam Prestianni
A unique Aboriginal, African and European fusion. Their rhythmic, trance-inducing music for didgeridoo, drums and synthesizer makes a perfect soundtrack. j. poet
This is such deep, exploratory, soulful musicunlike anything Ive ever heard. Its world music, yes, but at the same time its progressive, jazzy, tribal, traditional, jamming, driving, trance rhythmsI hear something new everytime I put this CD on. PG, Dirty Linen
A complete schedule of the talent performing throughout this summer season (along with a brief description of each) can be found at MariposaArtsCouncil.org.
All performances begin at 7 p.m. at the Mariposa County Art Park, located on Hwy. 140, between 4th and 5th Streets, in historic downtown Mariposa, CA. Free parking on 5th Street along the Creek Walkway to the Park, also providing handicapped access.
The shows are free to the public tips for the performers will be solicited, encouraged, and appreciated.
The Mariposa Arts Council, sponsor of Cousin Jack's Music on the Green, is funded in part by Mariposa County, the California Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The MARIPOSA COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL, INC. is an incorporated not-for- profit organization, created to promote and support all forms of the cultural arts, for all ages, throughout Mariposa County.
Visit theMariposaCountyArts Council atMusic on the Greenwebpageand onFacebook.
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Image via Pexels
Last month, I gave my Intro to Journalism class a lecture on free speech. We talked about our rights, power, and responsibilities as members of a free and independent press. The lecture ended with a lively discussion, but the part that sparked the most engagement involved the term political correctness.
The class came to define it as engaging in discourse in a way to minimize pushback or controversy. It was the best way of fit in with certain politics. When I asked what type of politics does a politically correct person usually have, the class pretty much unanimously answered liberal. But my follow-up question threw a wrench in their assumptions.
What is something conservatives are politically correct about?
Crickets.
After moments of silence, one student answered that maybe a PC thing on the right would be on the topic of abortion. He mentioned conservative media darling Tomi Lahren getting suspended from The Blaze for her pro-choice comments. I asked the other students whether they considered that an example of political correctness on the right, but their replies were generally more in the realm of umI guess. I could see some were having light-bulb moments, but other students were still struggling to reconcile an idea they found logical yet did not feel to be true.
Why do we act as if President Trumps accusations of fake news arent just PC ways of attacking news outlet that give him any modicum of negative press?
If my students (most of whom are generally progressive) understand that people can have diverse politics, why was it difficult for them to conceive that non-liberals can be PC as well?
The blame could be placed in large part on conservative media for using the term as a go-to attack on the left. But looking deeper, the mainstream news media as a whole bears some responsibility, mainly as more left-leaning publications took on a greater burden of balance than their right-leaning counterparts. For example, as reporters and commentators debate whether avoiding the terms radical Islamic terrorism or illegal immigrants is politically correct, many within the mainstream media have tacitly accepted the rebranding of white supremacists and white nationalists as alt-right.
But who is acting out of political correctness is this case? The left out of a fear of alienating certain audiences by calling out racism, or the right and its instinct to deflect any accusation that the bigotry on its fringes is moving toward the center? The prevailing idea is that political correctness comes from the left, but it can come from the right as well.
Why was there bipartisan condemnation of comedian Kathy Griffins picture with a bloody Trump head, but no such furor when folks lynched and burned effigies of President Obama?
Upon Trumps election, why did pundits ruminate over the lefts identity politics, as if being white or working class is not an identity? Why is there a continued debate over the use of the phrase radical Islamic terrorism while white male extremism is seldom used? Why was it okay to debate whether former president Barack Obama was a secret Muslim but not on whether our current president, who mispronounces books in the Bible and appears to not know that Protestants are Christians, is truly a man of faith?
Why are generally liberal, centrist, or apolitical news outlets scrambling to hire the Megyn Kellys of the news world, though Fox News isnt exactly shopping for a Joy Ann Reid? Why was there bipartisan condemnation of comedian Kathy Griffins picture with a bloody Trump head, but no such furor when folks lynched and burned effigies of President Obama? Shouldnt the same people defending Bill Mahers racist joke defend Stephen Colberts homophobic satire of President Trump? Why do free speech absolutists scurry out of the woodwork to defend Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, and Ann Coulter, but not Linda Sarsour, George Ciccariello-Maher, or Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor? Have we made up our mind on whose opposing views are okay for college students to hear?
ICYMI: The New York Times reporter who tweets like its going out of style
Why do we act as if President Trumps accusations of fake news arent just PC ways of attacking news outlet that give him any modicum of negative press? And when the media does call out his dishonesty, why dont they get a pat on the back for telling it like it is? Why didnt conservative media call out the Presidents politically correctness when he didnt say radical Islamic terrorism during his summit address to the Arab and Muslim world? If a free and independent press is paramount within our democratic society, why isnt all media up in arms about the GOPs anti-media strategy for 2018?
You will get different answers to these questions from different people, but that is precisely the point. Each persons answers are informed by their own ideas, experiences, and viewpoints. Their answers will be PC or telling it like it is depending on the politics the speaker subscribes to.
The problem with the discussions on political correctness is that it accuses liberals and progressives of doing something that people of all political leanings do. Groups tend to mediate which politics are acceptable within the group, so if liberals can have political correctness, conservatives can as well. If its the issue many assert it is, then it cant exist in isolation. So who decides that one view is PC and another is forthright?
As long as the mainstream media surrenders the right to define and frame specific issues and not others, it enables the weaponization of language, and allows right-wing politics to directly and indirectly set the terms for what discourse is legitimate. And it makes journalists complicit in promoting a glaring double standard when it comes to issues of free speech.
The PC-charge does seems to be losing at least some of its potency. Many news outlets have been more open about calling things as they see them, such as President Trumps lies, or his supporters willingness to defend virtually anything he does. But the lure of wanting to appeal to the anti-PC crowd persists. As more liberal journalists fight against the idea of liberalism as feelings over facts, a whole news industry on the right fueled grievances, fears, attacks, and false equivalencies emerged. Its also why outlets like MSNBC can have scholars and activists on to explain why black-on-black crime is a racist term, and also get political commentary from former reporters of Breitbart, a site with tags dedicated to black crime and black-on-black violence. If this is the type of balance news outlets need to have, then the burden should be equally distributed, not just for the liberal media.
Shouldnt the same people defending Bill Mahers racist joke defend Stephen Colberts homophobic satire of President Trump?
There are few things more political than language, so a critical-thinking press should not allow itself to be exploited in political arguments. Journalists have too often allowed the accusation of political correctness to skew the way they think about and cover topics. If the press is going to engage in this type of discourse, it either needs to be critical of both sides along the political spectrum for being PC, or it needs to eliminate the term from its lexicon.
ICYMI: Two dozen freelance journalists told CJR the best outlets to pitch
Excerpt from:
Time for equal media treatment of 'political correctness' - Columbia Journalism Review
The war of words between LSU and a former tenured education professor fired by the university in 2015 is heating up in Baton Rouge federal court as a judge considers a civil rights lawsuit filed against the school.
Teresa Buchanan claims she was fired for using vulgar language, saying her free speech and due process rights were trampled by LSU Chancellor F. King Alexander and other top administrators, and she wants monetary damages and her old job back. She worked for LSU for nearly two decades.
+6
A former tenured LSU education professor fired last year for, among other things, using vulg
"This is a case of political correctness run amok," Buchanan's attorneys argue in a recent court filing. "The defendants at LSU fired Dr. Teresa Buchanan ... for 'sexual harassment' based on speech having nothing to do with either 'sex' or 'harassment.'"
LSU contends its termination of Buchanan was appropriate and necessary to protect students from her verbally abusive behavior.
"This case is not about salty language; students and others observed aggressive and bullying behavior by (Buchanan) in the classroom," attorneys for Alexander, Damon Andrew, A.G. Monaco and Gaston Reinoso argue. "(Buchanan) cannot hide behind the shield of academic freedom while creating a hostile learning environment for the students she was hired to teach."
Andrew is dean of LSU's College of Human Sciences and Education. Monaco is associate vice chancellor of the Office of Human Resource Management, and Reinoso is director of the Human Resource Management office.
Robert Corn-Revere, one of Buchanan's attorneys, declined Thursday to elaborate on the court documents filed on her behalf and instead said he would let those filings "do the talking for us for now." The attorneys for Alexander and his colleagues did not respond to a request for comment.
Buchanan, who specialized in early childhood education and trained elementary school teachers, alleges in her January 2016 lawsuit that her "occasional use of profanity" was part of her teaching approach and "was not directed at nor did it disparage any student."
LSU has said Buchanan was fired in June 2015 for "documented evidence of a history of inappropriate behavior that included verbal abuse, intimidation and harassment of our students."
+2
Attorneys for LSU Chancellor F. King Alexander and other university administrators are askin
A five-member faculty had recommended that Buchanan not lose her job, but the LSU Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to fire her.
The American Association of University Professors came to Buchanan's aid shortly after her termination, criticizing her firing and pledging money to assist her legal defense.
In addition, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a group that advocates for free speech on college campuses, put LSU on its list of worst offenders early last year. The university was featured on the list largely due to Buchanan's termination.
A group that advocates for free speech on college campuses has named LSU to its list of wors
Buchanan's controversial comments included saying "f*** no" repeatedly in the presence of students, using a slang term for vagina that implies cowardice, and telling a joke that the quality of sex gets worse the longer a relationship lasts.
Buchanan has said she's proud of the job she did at LSU and doesn't regret anything she did.
In recent court filings, Special Assistant Attorneys General Sheri Morris and Carlton "Trey" Jones III, the lawyers representing Alexander and his colleagues, say Buchanan's conduct clearly violated LSU's sexual harassment policies, which mirror a blueprint for campus anti-harassment policies promulgated by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice.
But Buchanan's attorneys claim LSU's sexual harassment policies are "defective" and unconstitutional, and that her firing also was unconstitutional.
"It's absurd for (Buchanan) to claim that defendants' recommendations to enforce policies consistent with federal guidelines are unreasonable," Morris and Jones argue.
Buchanan's attorneys, however, insist that the speech for which she was fired "falls squarely within the First Amendment's protections.
"The First Amendment ... does not permit university officials to equate offendedness with harassment," they argue.
But LSU's attorneys disagree that Buchanan's "embarrassing, humiliating and intimidating speech" toward a captive audience of classroom students was a valid part of her teaching approach.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, who is presiding over the case, has not ruled or scheduled a hearing on LSU's and Buchanan's dueling motions for summary judgment, which ask the judge to rule in their respective favors.
Follow Joe Gyan Jr. on Twitter, @JoeGyanJr.
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Five years ago, Gregory Chaitin, a co-founder of the fascinating and mind-bending field of algorithmic information theory, offered a challenge:1
The honor of mathematics requires us to come up with a mathematical theory of evolution and either prove that Darwin was wrong or right!
In Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics2, co-authored by William A. Dembski, Winston Ewert, and myself, we answer Chaitins challenge in the negative: There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Period. By model, we mean definitive simulations or foundational mathematics required of a hard science.
We show that no meaningful information can arise from an evolutionary process unless that process is guided. Even when guided, the degree of evolutions accomplishment is limited by the expertise of the guiding information source a limit we call Baseners ceiling. An evolutionary program whose goal is to master chess will never evolve further and offer investment advice.
Here I answer ten frequently posed questions about and objections to Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics.
1. Why yet another book dissing Darwinian evolution?
Solomon was right. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.3 There are gobs of books written about evolution, pro and con. Many are excellent. So whats so important about Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics? On the topic of evolution, the conclusion is in: There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.
And, as covered in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, we suspect no model will ever exist to substantiate the claims of undirected Darwinian evolution.
2. But Darwinian evolution is so complicated, it cant be modeled!
If this objection is true, we have reached the same conclusion by different paths: There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution.
3. You model evolution as a search. Evolution isnt a search.
We echo Billy Joel: We didnt start the fire! Models of Darwinian evolution, Avida and EV included, are searches with a fixed goal. For EV, the goal is finding specified nucleotide binding sites. Avidas goal is to generate an EQU logic function. Other evolution models that we examine in Introduction to Evolutionary Informaticslikewise seek a prespecified goal.
The evolution software Avida is of particular importance because Robert Pennock, one of the co-authors of the first paper describing Avida,4 gave testimony at the Darwin-affirming Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District bench trial. Pennocks testimony contributed to Judge Joness ruling that teaching about intelligent design violates the establishment clause of the United States Constitution. Pennock testified, In the [Avida computer program] system, were not simulating evolution. Evolution is actually happening. If true, Avida and thus evolution are a guided search with a specified target bubbling over with active information supplied by the programmers.
The most celebrated attempt of an evolution model without a goal of which were aware is TIERRA. In an attempt to recreate something like the Cambrian explosion on a computer, the programmer created what was thought to be an information-rich environment where digital organisms would flourish and evolve. According to TIERRAs ingenious creator, Thomas Ray, the project failed and was abandoned. There has to date been no success in open-ended evolution in the field of artificial life.5
Therefore, there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution.
4. You are not biologists. Why should anyone listen to you about evolution?
Leave aside that this question reeks of the genetic fallacy used in debate to steer conversation away from the topic at hand and down a rabbit trail of credential defense. The question is sincere, though, and deserves an answer. Besides, it lets me talk about myself.
The truth is that computer scientists and engineers know a lot about evolution and evolution models.
As we outline in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, proponents of Darwinian evolution became giddy about computers in the 1960s and 70s. Evolution was too slow to demonstrate in a wet lab, but thousands and more generations of evolution can be put in the bank when Darwinian evolution is simulated on a computer. Computer scientists and engineers soon realized that evolutionary search might assist in making computer-aided designs. In Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, we describe how NASA engineers used guided evolutionary programs to design antennas resembling bent paper clips that today are floating and functioning in outer space.
Heres my personal background. I first became interested in evolutionary computation late last century when I served as editor-in-chief of the IEEE6 Transactions on Neural Networks.7 I invited top researchers in the field, David Fogel and his father Larry Fogel, to be the guest editors of a special issue of my journal dedicated to evolutionary computing.8 The issue was published in January 1994 and led to David founding the IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computing9 which today is the top engineering/computer science journal dedicated to the topic.
My first conference paper using evolutionary computing was published a year later10 and my first journal publication on evolutionary computation was in 1999.11 That was then. More recently my work, funded by the Office of Naval Research, involves simulated evolution of swarm dynamics motivated by the remarkable self-organizing behavior of social insects. Some of the results were excitingly unexpected12 including individual member suicidal sacrifice to extend the overall lifetime of the swarm.13 Evolving digital swarms is intriguing and we have a whole web site devoted to the topic.14
So I have been playing in the evolutionary sandbox for a long time and have dirt under my fingernails to prove it.
But is it biology? In reviewing our book for the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), my friend Randy Isaac, former executive director of the ASA, said of our book, Those seeking insight into biological or chemical evolution are advised to look elsewhere.15 We agree! But if you are looking for insights into the models and mathematics thus far proposed by supporters of Darwinian evolution that purport to describe the theory, Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics is spot on. And we show there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution.
5. You use probability inappropriately. Probability theory cannot be applied to events that have already happened.
In the movie Dumb and Dumber, Jim Careys character, Lloyd Christmas, is brushed off by beautiful Mary Samsonite Swanson when told his chances with her areone in a million. After a pause for introspective reflection, Lloyds emergent toothy grin shows off his happy chipped tooth. He enthusiastically blurts out, So youre telling me theres a chance! Similar exclamationsare heard from Darwinian evolutionist advocates. Darwinian evolution. So youre telling me theres a chance! So again, we didnt start the probability fire. Evolutionary models thrive on randomness described by probabilities.
The probability-of-the -gaps championed by supporters of Darwinian evolution is addressed in detail in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. We show that the probability resources of the universe and even string theorys hypothetical multiverse are insufficient to explain the specified complexity surrounding us.
Besides, a posteriori probability is used all the time. The size of your last tweet can be measured in bits. Claude Shannon, who coined the term bits in his classic 1948 paper,16 based the definition of the bit on probability. Yet there sits your transmitted tweet with all of its a posteriori bits fully exposed. Another example is a posteriori Bayesian probability commonly used, for example, in email spam filters. What is the probability that your latest email from a Nigerian prince, already received and written on your server, is spam? Bayesian probabilities are also a posteriori probabilities.
So a hand-waving dismissal of a posteriori probabilities is ill-tutored. The application of probability in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics is righteous and the analysis leads to the conclusion that there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution.
6. What about a biological anthropic principle? Were here, so evolution must work.
Stephen Hawking has a simple explanation of the anthropic principle: If the conditions in the universe were not suitable for life, we would not be asking why they are as they are. Gabor Csanyi, who quotes from Hawkings talk, says, Hawking claims, the dimensionality of space and amount of matter in the universe is [a fortuitous] accident, which needs no further explanation.17
So youre telling me theres a chance!
The question ignored by anthropic principle enthusiasts is whether or not an environment for even guided evolution could occur by chance. If a successful search requires equaling or exceeding some degree of active information, what is the chance of finding any search with as good or better performance? We call this a search-for-the-search. In Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, we show that the search-for-the-search is exponentially more difficult that the search itself! So if you kick the can down the road, the can gets bigger.
Professor Sydney R. Coleman said after the Hawkings MIT talk, Anything else is better [than the Anthropic Principle to explain something].18 We agree. For example, check out our search-for-the-search analysis in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics.
7. What about the claim that All information is physical?
This is a question we have heard from physicists.
In physics, Landauers principle pertains to the lower theoretical limit of energy consumption of computation and leads to his statement all information is physical.
Saying All computers are mass and energy offers a similar nearly useless description of computers. Like Landauers principle, it suffers from the same overgeneralized vagueness and is at best incomplete.
Claude Shannon counters Landauers claim:
It seems to me that we all define information as we choose; and, depending upon what field we are working in, we will choose different definitions. My own model of information theorywas framed precisely to work with the problem of communication.19
Landauer is probably correct within the narrow confines of his physics foxhole. Outside the foxhole is Shannon information which is built on unknown a priori probability of events which have not yet happened and are therefore not yet physical.
We spend an entire chapter in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics defining information so there is no confusion when the concept is applied. And we conclude there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution.
8. Information theory cannot measure meaning.
Poppycock.
A hammer, like information theory, is a tool. A hammer can be used to do more than pound nails. And information theory can do more than assign a generic bit count to an object.
The most visible information theory models are Shannon information theory and KCS information.20 The consequence of Shannons theory on communication theory is resident in your cell phone where codes predicted by Shannon today allow maximally efficient use of available bandwidth. KCS stands for Kolmogorov-Chaitin-Solomonoff information theory named after the three men who independently founded the field. KCS information theory deals with the information content of structures. (Gregory Chaitin, by the way, gives a nice nod-of-the-head to Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics.21)
The manner in which information theory can be used to measure meaning is addressed in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. We explain, for example, why a picture of Mount Rushmore containing imagesof fourUnited States presidents has more meaning to you than a picture of Mount Fuji even though both pictures might require the same number of bits when stored on your hard drive. The degree of meaning can be measured using a metric called algorithmic specified complexity.
Rather than summarize algorithmic specified complexity derived and applied in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, we refer instead to a quote from a paper from one of the worlds leading experts in algorithmic information theory, Paul Vitnyi. The quote is from a paper he wrote over 15 years ago, titled Meaningful Information.22
One can divide[KCS] information into two parts: the information accounting for the useful regularity [meaningful information] present in the object and the information accounting for the remaining accidental [meaningless] information.23
In Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, we use information theoryto measure meaningful information and show there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution.
9. To achieve specified complexity in nature, the fitness landscape in evolution keeps changing. So, contrary to your claim, Baseners ceiling doesnt apply in Darwinian evolution.
In search, complexity cant be achieved beyond the expertise of the guiding oracle. As noted, we refer to this limit as Baseners ceiling.24However, if the fitness continues to change, it is argued, the evolved entity can achieve greater and greater specified complexity and ultimately perform arbitrarily great acts like writing insightful scholarly books disproving Darwinian evolution.
We analyze exactly this case in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics and dub the overall search structure stair step active information. Not only is guidance required on each stair, but the next step must be carefully chosen to guide the process to the higher fitness landscape and therefore ever increasing complexity. Most of the next possible choices are deleterious and lead to search deterioration and even extinction. This also applies in the limit when the stairs become teeny and the stair case is better described as a ramp. As Aristotle said, It is possible to fail in many wayswhile to succeed is possible only in one way.
Heres an anecdotal illustration of the careful design needed in the stair step model. If a meteor hits the Yucatan Peninsula and wipes out all the dinosaurs and allows mammals to start domination of the earth, then the meteors explosion must be a Goldilocks event. If too strong all life on earth would be zapped. If too weak, velociraptors would still be munching on stegosaurus eggs.
Such fine tuning is the case of any fortuitous shift in fitness landscapes and increases, not decreases, the difficulty of evolution of ever-increasing specified complexity. It supports the case there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution.
10. Your research is guided by your ideology and cant be trusted.
Theres that old derailing genetic fallacy again.
But yes! Of course, our research is impacted by our ideology! We are proud to be counted among Christians such asthe Reverend Thomas Bayes, Isaac Newton, George Washington Carver, Michael Faraday, and the greatest of all mathematicians, Leonard Euler.25 The truth of their contributions stand apart from their ideology. But so does the work of atheist Pierre-Simon Laplace. Truth trumps ideology. And allowing the possibility of intelligent design, embraced by enlightened theists and agnostics alike, broadens ones investigative horizons.
Alan Turing, the brilliant father of computer science and breaker of the Nazis enigma code, offers a great example of the ultimate failure of ideology trumping truth. Asa young man, Turing lost a close friend to bovine tuberculosis. Devastated by the death, Turing turned from God and became an atheist. He was partially motivated in his development of computer science to prove man was a machine and consequently that there was no need for a god. But Turings landmark work has allowed researchers, most notably Roger Penrose,26 to make the case that certain of mans attributes including creativity and understanding are beyond the capability of the computer. Turings ideological motivation was thus ultimately trashed by truth.
The relationship between human and computer capabilities is discussed in more depth in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics.
Take Aways
In Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, Chaitins challenge has been met in the negative and there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be. But science should never say never. As Stephen Hawking notes, nothing in science is ever actually proved. We simply accumulate evidence.27
So if anyone generates a model demonstrating Darwinian evolution without guidance that ends in an object with significant specified complexity, let us know. No guiding, hand waving, extrapolation of adaptations, appealing to speculative physics, or anecdotal proofs allowed.
Until then, I guess you can call us free-thinking skeptics.
Thanks for listening.
Robert J. Marks II PhD is Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University.
Notes:
(1) Chaitin, Gregory. Proving Darwin: Making Biology Mathematical. Vintage, 2012.
(2) Marks II, Robert J., William A. Dembski, and Winston Ewert. Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. World Scientific, 2017.
(3) Ecclesiastes 12:12b.
(4) Lenski, R.E., Ofria, C., Pennock, R.T. and Adami, C., 2003. The evolutionary origin of complex features. Nature, 423(6936), pp. 139-144.
(5) ID the Future podcast with Winston Ewert. Why Digital Cambrian Explosions FizzleOr Fake It, June 7, 2017.
(6) IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electrical Engineers, is the largest professional society in the world, with over 400,000 members.
(7) R.J. Marks II, The Joumal Citation Report: Testifying for Neural Networks, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, vol. 7, no. 4, July 1996, p. 801.
(8) Fogel, David B., and Lawrence J. Fogel. Guest editorial on evolutionary computation, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks 5, no. 1 (1994): 1-14.
(9) R.J. Marks II, Old Neural Network Editors Dont Die, They Just Prune Their Hidden Nodes, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, vol. 8, no. 6 (November, 1997), p. 1221.
(10) Russell D. Reed and Robert J. Marks II, An Evolutionary Algorithm for Function Inversion and Boundary Marking, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Evolutionary Computation, pp. 794-797, November 26-30, 1995.
(11) C.A. Jensen, M.A. El-Sharkawi and R.J. Marks II, Power Security Boundary Enhancement Using Evolutionary-Based Query Learning, Engineering Intelligent Systems, vol. 7, no. 9, pp. 215-218 (December 1999).
(12) Jon Roach, Winston Ewert, Robert J. Marks II and Benjamin B. Thompson, Unexpected Emergent Behaviors from Elementary Swarms,Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE 45th Southeastern Symposium on Systems Theory (SSST), Baylor University, March 11, 2013, pp. 41-50.
(13) Winston Ewert, Robert J. Marks II, Benjamin B. Thompson, Albert Yu, Evolutionary Inversion of Swarm Emergence Using Disjunctive Combs Control, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Systems, v. 43, #5, September 2013, pp. 1063-1076.
Albert R. Yu, Benjamin B. Thompson, and Robert J. Marks II, Swarm Behavioral Inversion for Undirected Underwater Search, International Journal of Swarm Intelligence and Evolutionary Computation, vol. 2 (2013). Albert R. Yu, Benjamin B. Thompson, and Robert J. Marks II, Competitive Evolution of Tactical Multiswarm Dynamics, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Systems, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 563- 569 (May 2013).
Winston Ewert, Robert J. Marks II, Benjamin B. Thompson, Albert Yu, Evolutionary Inversion of Swarm Emergence Using Disjunctive Combs Control, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Systems, vol. 43, no. 5, September 2013, pp. 1063-1076.
(14) NeoSwarm.com.
(15) Review of Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, vol. 69 no. 2, June 2017, pp. 104-108.
(16) Claude E. Shannon, A mathematical theory of communication, Bell System Technical Journal 27: 379-423 and 623656.
(17) Gabor Csanyi Stephen Hawking Lectures on Controversial Theory, The Tech, vol. 119, issue 48, Friday, October 8, 1999.
(18) The bracketed insertion in the quote is Csanyis, not ours.
(19) Quoted in P. Mirowski, Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 170.
(20) Cover, Thomas M., and Joy A. Thomas. Elements of Information Theory. John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
(21) Review for Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics.
(22) Paul Vitnyi, Meaningful Information, in International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation: 13th International Symposium, ISAAC 2002, Vancouver, BC, Canada, November 21-23, 2002.
(23) Unlike our approach, Vitnyis use of the so-called Kolmogorov sufficient statistic here does not take context into account.
(24) Basener, W.F., 2013. Limits of Chaos and Progress in Evolutionary Dynamics. Biological Information New Perspectives. World Scientific, Singapore, pp. 87-104.
(25) Christian Calculus.
(26) See, e.g., Penrose, Roger. Shadows of the Mind. Oxford University Press, 1994.
(27) Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time (1988). AppLife, 2014.
Photo credit: Postman85, via Pixabay.
Original post:
Top Ten Questions and Objections to Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics - Discovery Institute
Typecasting happens behind the camera as often as it does in front of it. Shawn Levy, whose brand as a Hollywood director was typified by family blockbusters likeCheaper by the Dozen and Night at the Museum, wanted the production company those hits yielded, 21 Laps, to be much more than a vehicle for him to crank out more of the same.
I know what it feels like to be perceived as limited in what you do, Levy told moderator Pete Hammond of Deadline on Sunday during a panel at the Produced By conference.
When Twentieth Century Fox came to Levy after the smash success ofNight At The Museuma decade ago and offered him a first look deal, the Canadian native and Yale graduate saw an opportunity to build a company that would support filmmaker voices.
I wanted it to be a production company, said Levy, not just a vanity deal for me to direct.
About seven years ago, Levy was joined by Dan Levine and Dan Cohen, who helped him line up projects across the gamut of budget, genre and platform. The chemistry has taken time to develop, but in recent years 21 Laps has produced some of the biggest hits on both big and small screens in recent years, including ParamountsArrival and NetflixsStranger Things. During the session, the three principals at 21 Laps detailed how all the pieces have gradually fallen into place.
We have our various tastes, added Levy. We have our opinionsBut at the end of the day were there to help shepherd and protect the directors vision and voice. Thats what I always want when I direct.
The breakthrough came in 2013 when a low-budget romantic comedy, The Spectacular Now, became a hit at Sundance. A movie about teen-age life saddled with an R rating, it charmed most critics but grossed only $6 million. No matter for Levy, it was the companys turning point.
Before we did Spectacular Now, 21 Laps was just about comedy and family films, he said. From the minute it came out, it was a turning point. No longer were we just saying we could do different things. We were doing it.
No film better illustrates the evolution of that vision than Arrival, the science fiction movie that starred Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. After acquiring book rights, they went to Fox to pitch it under their agreement.
They didnt think it was for them at the time, said Levine. Like with many projects, if they dont feel and dont want it, theyve never handcuffed us from making it elsewhere.
Arrival landed at Paramount Pictures, where the alien contact movie directed by Denis Villeneuve (Sicario) became a critical and commercial success, earning eight Oscar nominations and winning one (for sound editing). Made for a shade under $50 million, it surpassed $100 million at the U.S. box office and $200 million worldwide.
Along with Arrival, 2016 brought Stranger Things, a fantasy horror-drama with Spielberg-ian flourishes that sold to Netflix after it was turned down by numerous studios. You really have to believe in the project and director and writers and just keep fighting, said Levine. A bunch of people may say you cant make that but were passionate.
He added, I call it sticking your face in the fan. You just keep going. If you dont give up, thats when you get it done.
Levy recalled a friend who was ready to give up because he said movies he spent years working on didnt love him back.
If you really love them and stick your face in the blade every once in a while, said Levy, they will love you back.
Read more:
Sean Levy, 21 Laps Partners On Shingle's Dramatic Evolution ... - Deadline
NHM London
Fossils of early members of Homo sapiens found in Morocco (left) display a more elongated skull shape than do modern humans (right).
Researchers say that they have found the oldest Homo sapiens remains on record in an improbable place: Morocco.
At an archaeological site near the Atlantic coast, finds of skull, face and jaw bones identified as being from early members of our species have been dated to about 315,000 years ago. That indicates H. sapiens appeared more than 100,000 years earlier than thought: most researchers have placed the origins of our species in East Africa about 200,000 years ago.
The finds, which are published on 7 June in Nature1, 2, do not mean that H. sapiens originated in North Africa. Instead, they suggest that the species' earliest members evolved all across the continent, scientists say.
Until now, the common wisdom was that our species emerged probably rather quickly somewhere in a Garden of Eden that was located most likely in sub-Saharan Africa, says Jean-Jacques Hublin, an author of the study and a director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Now, I would say the Garden of Eden in Africa is probably Africa and its a big, big garden. Hublin was one of the leaders of the decade-long excavation at the Moroccan site, called Jebel Irhoud.
Hublin first became familiar with Jebel Irhoud in the early 1980s, when he was shown a puzzling specimen of a lower jawbone of a child from the site. Miners had discovered a nearly complete human skull there in 1961; later excavations had also found a braincase, as well as sophisticated stone tools and other signs of human presence.
The bones looked far too primitive to be anything understandable, so people came up with some weird ideas, Hublin says. Researchers guessed they were 40,000 years old and proposed that Neanderthals had lived in North Africa.
More recently, researchers have suggested that the Jebel Irhoud humans were an archaic species that survived in North Africa until H. sapiens from south of the Sahara replaced them. East Africa is where most scientists place our species origins: two of the oldest known H. sapiens fossils 196,000 and 160,000-year-old skulls3, 4 come from Ethiopia, and DNA studies of present-day populations around the globe point to an African origin some 200,000 years ago5.
Hublin first visited Jebel Irhoud in the 1990s, only to find the site buried. He didnt have the time or money to excavate it until 2004, after he had joined the Max Planck Society. His team rented a tractor and bulldozer to remove some 200 cubic metres of rock that blocked access.
Their initial goal was to re-date the site using newer methods, but in the late 2000s, the team uncovered more than 20 new human bones relating to at least five individuals, including a remarkably complete jaw, skull fragments and stone tools. A team led by archaeological scientist Daniel Richter and archaeologist Shannon McPherron, also at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, dated the site and all the human remains found there to between 280,000 and 350,000 years old using two different methods.
The re-dating and the tranche of new human bones convince Hublin that early H. sapiens once lived at Jebel Irhoud. Its a face you could cross in the street today, he says. The teeth although big compared with those of today's humans are a better match to H. sapiens than they are to Neanderthals or other archaic humans. And the Jebel Irhoud skulls, elongated compared with those of later H. sapiens, suggest that these individuals' brains were organized differently.
Hublin/Ben-Ncer/Bailey/et al./Nature
A facial reconstruction of fragments of an early Homo sapiens skull found at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco.
This offers clues about the evolution of the H. sapiens lineage into todays anatomically modern humans. Hublin suggests that anatomically modern humans may have acquired their characteristic faces before changes to the shape of their brains occurred. Moreover, the mix of features seen in the Jebel Irhoud remains and other H. sapiens-like fossils from elsewhere in Africa point to a diverse genesis for our species, and raises doubt about an exclusively East African origin.
What we think is before 300,000 years ago, there was a dispersal of our species or at least the most primitive version of our species throughout Africa, Hublin says. Around this time, the Sahara was green and filled with lakes and rivers. Animals that roamed the East African savanna, including gazelles, wildebeest and lions, also lived near Jebel Irhoud, suggesting that these environments were once linked.
An earlier origin for H. sapiens is further supported by an ancient-DNA study posted to the bioRxiv preprint server on 5 June6. Researchers led by Mattias Jakobsson at Uppsala University in Sweden sequenced the genome of a boy who lived in South Africa around 2,000 years ago only the second ancient genome from sub-Saharan Africa to be sequenced. They determined that his ancestors on the H. sapiens lineage split from those of some other present-day African populations more than 260,000 years ago.
Hublin says his team tried and failed to obtain DNA from the Jebel Irhoud bones. A genomic analysis could have clearly established whether the remains lie on the lineage that leads to modern humans.
Palaeontologist Jeffrey Schwartz, at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, says the new finds are important but he is not convinced that they should be considered H. sapiens. Too many different-looking fossils have been lumped together under the species, he thinks, complicating efforts to interpret new fossils and to come up with scenarios on how, when and where our species emerged.
Homo sapiens, despite being so well known, was a species without a past until now, says Mara Martnon-Torres, a palaeoanthropologist at University College London, noting the scarcity of fossils linked to human origins in Africa. But the lack of features that, she says, define our species such as a prominent chin and forehead convince her that the Jebel Irhoud remains should not be considered H. sapiens.
Shannon McPherron, MPI EVA Leipzig/CC-BY-SA 2.0
The site in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco. When the site was occupied by early humans, it would have been a cave; the covering rock and much sediment was removed by work in the 1960s.
Chris Stringer, a palaeoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, who co-authored a News & Views article accompanying the studies, says he was baffled by the Jebel Irhoud remains when he first saw them in the early 1970s. He knew that they werent Neanderthals, but they seemed too young and primitive-looking to be H. sapiens. But with the older dates and the new bones, Stringer agrees that the Jebel Irhoud bones stand firmly on the H. sapiens lineage. They shift Morocco from a supposed backwater in the evolution of our species to a prominent position, he adds.
For Hublin, who was born in nearby Algeria and fled at the age of eight when its war of independence began, returning to North Africa to a site that has captivated him for decades was an emotional experience. I feel like I have a personal relationship with this site, he says. I cannot say we closed a chapter, but we came to such an amazing conclusion after this very long journey. It blows my mind.
Read more from the original source:
Oldest Homo sapiens fossil claim rewrites our species' history - Nature.com
KDRV | Drift Evolution Showcases Emotional Appeal of Drift Racing KDRV MEDFORD, Ore.--The hundreds of drivers in the valley's two-day Drift Evolution Event show the momentum the sport has gained. Like an emphatic bat flip in baseball or an impassioned touchdown dance in football, those in the drifting community view their ... |
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Drift Evolution Showcases Emotional Appeal of Drift Racing - KDRV
After two seasons of inconsistent playing time for the Mets, Michael Conforto grabbed hold of the starting left field job in 2017 with an All-Star worthy first two months. On the one hand, that's not totally shocking. Conforto was selected in the 2014 MLB Draft 10th overall -- Kyle Schwarber was the only college hitter selected ahead of him. On the other hand, Conforto wasn't drafted at all out of high school. In his three years at Oregon State, he went from off the scouting radar to an early first round pick.
Taking a longer view, in the span of six years, he went from an undrafted high school shortstop from Redmond High School in Washington to a guy who can do this:
And this:
Thanks to the Major League Scouting Bureau we have a snapshot of Conforto's evolution from unspectacular high school shortstop to first round pick.
Toward the end of his freshman year in Corvallis, the MLSB filed a scouting report based on an extended four-game evaluation of Conforto. He had moved to right field at Oregon State, and the problem with his profile was apparent: He couldn't really hit.
As a result of that bleak hitting outlook, Conforto received an OFP -- overall future projection -- of 50, meaning he projected as nothing more than an average major leaguer.
However, once he got to Oregon State, all Conforto did was hit. As a freshman, he hit .349 with a school-record 76 RBI on his way to being named Pac-12 Freshman of the Year. He hit .328 as a sophomore and was named Pac-12 Player of the Year. Prior to his junior year, he was named by Sporting News as the preseason Player of the Year for all of college baseball.
Prior to that junior season, another scouting report was filed on Conforto that reflected the clear fact that, in fact, he could hit.
Not only could he hit for power, but he also was able to make adjustments within an at-bat. It would be hard to construct a more glowing summary of an outfield prospect:
Unsurprisingly, this report produced a more optimistic future outlook for Conforto: a solidly above-average regular at the Major League level.
There's no doubt that there's something these reports all missed on: Conforto's arm. Neither report projected his arm as better than average, which doesn't at all explain this:
Or this:
In other words, Conforto didn't stop evolving just because MLSB reports were no longer filed for him. Nearly three years after he was drafted, Conforto continues to grow into the player that his early selection projected.
Follow this link:
Darwinism is the doctrine of survival of the fittest, where only the best and brightest can endure in a dog-eat-dog world where no-one is immune from peril or even death. The Darwin Project uses that infamous theory of evolutionary biology as the basis for its Battle Royale multiplayer deathmatches, where competition is the name of the game.
Developed by Scavengers Studio, The Darwin Project is a multiplayer survival game coming exclusively to Xbox One consoles and Windows PC later this year, and appears to be Xboxs answer to the continued demand for class-based online shooters, as most recently popularized by the likes of Overwatch and others.
Players can adopt the role of several heroes with unique abilities in the arena, but the unique spin on the genre arrives in the form of the Show Director mode as demonstrated by the slightly annoying shoutcaster who showed up in todays trailer at Microsofts E3 press conference.
The Show Director can observe and control the dynamics of the entire playground from a separate viewpoint, and is able to show favour or disapproval to competing players below by messing around with the environment. A neat idea to freshen up an already crowded genre, then, but its unclear how the presence of a God-like onlooker might negatively affect balance in The Darwin Project.
Either way, the lively animations and display of combat depth was enough to engage my curiosity, especially as someone who plays Overwatch on a regular basis. We may have a new Xbox exclusive eSport in the making.
Don't forget to check out our full E3 2017 schedule for all the details as they arrive, and check out our roundup of all the E3 2017 trailers so far.
See the article here:
The Darwin Project is the Overwatch-Hunger Games crossover you never knew you wanted - GamesRadar
More robots! Announcing three demos for TC Sessions: Robotics at MIT on July 17 TechCrunch There are so many great robotics projects underway that it's hard to pick the best to appear at TC Sessions: Robotics, which is coming to MIT's Kresge Auditorium on July 17. The agenda is full with lots of robots accompanying their creators on panel ... |
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More robots! Announcing three demos for TC Sessions: Robotics at MIT on July 17 - TechCrunch
Ashley Barnes was 35 years old when doctors told her she would never walk again.
A botched spinal procedure in 2014 paralyzed her from the waist down. The Tyler, Texas, resident had been an avid runner, clocking six miles daily when not home with her then-9-year-old autistic son, whom she raised alone. Life in a wheelchair was not an option.
I needed to be the best mom I could be, Barnes said. I needed to be up and moving.
So she threw herself into physical therapy, convinced she would one day run again. Soon she realized that wasnt a reality.
Although she wore a brave face, I would save my moments of crying for my room, she said.
About a year later, hope resurfaced when she learned of the ReWalk system, a battery-powered robotic exoskeleton that attaches to the legs and lower back. It contains motors at the knee and hip joints and sensors to help it adjust with each footfall. While wearing the device and holding two forearm crutches, someone with complete lower-limb paralysis can walk.
Rehabilitation centers often employ such devices in physical therapy, which is how Barnes first encountered one at the Baylor Tom Landry Center, a rehab clinic in Dallas. After seven months without being able to stand, she did. Then she took a step as she began to learn how to walk again.
In 2014, the ReWalk system became the first personal robotic exoskeleton approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The following year, the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to cover the exoskeletons for qualifying vets. Meanwhile, several companies began touting similar devices. For example, Ekso makes units used to rehabilitate people after spinal cord injury or stroke.
Health insurers, however, generally dont cover the expensive equipment.
After working with the ReWalk system at her rehab center, Barnes, who uses a wheelchair at home to get around, decided she wanted one of her own. But Tricare, her insurer, denied the request.
In a statement, Tricare said it does not cover these devices for use on a personal basis due to concerns with their safety and efficacy. This is particularly important due to the vulnerability of paralyzed users in the event of a fall.
Two years and countless nos later, Barnes still doesnt have one because, according to Tricare, it isnt medically necessary.
Barnes strongly disagrees.
This is medically necessary, she said. If she had one of the devices, Id be able to go to the bathroom. I would be able to walk around, exercise in it. I would love to be able to stand up and cook things in my microwave or on my stove.
She paused before adding, I would no longer have to look up at my son.
The ReWalk Personal 6.0 System costs, on average, $81,000. Ottobocks C-Brace is priced at $75,000. For the Indego Personal, which received FDA approval last year, it is $98,000.
About 28 percent of the more than 5.2 million Americans living with paralysis survive on an annual household income of less than $15,000, according to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. The basic expenses of living with paraplegia are, on average, $519,520 in the first year and $68,821 each subsequent year, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. Furthermore, only 34.3 percent of people are employed 20 years after a paralysis-causing injury.
To date, ReWalk has sold only 118 personal devices in the United States.
Some people do get devices covered by insurance, but it can be an onerous process, as evidenced by Mark Delamere Jr. The Boston native, 19, was paralyzed in a car accident in 2013, on the third day of his freshman year of high school.
Like Barnes, he thought he would never walk again. Like Barnes, with the help of a robotic exoskeleton, he did. Unlike Barnes, though, he has an exoskeleton at home.
But for two of his teenage years, he sat in a wheelchair while his family filed claims and appealed denials.
They dont really classify these things with the purpose of you getting better, because they think the injury is never going to change, his father, Mark Sr., said.
Eventually, though, Mark Jr. got approved by his insurance company and received the ReWalk, which he uses for at-home therapy and just to walk around the house and the neighborhood, up and down the street. Asked to describe the feeling, he was at a loss for words.
Its kind of crazy, he said. It just feels kind of I dont really know. It feels so different.
But his story is rare. People are paying out of pocket or fundraising for exoskeletons, said Dan Kara, research director for robotics at ABI Research, a technology analysis and consultant company.
The price of the devices exceeds their value in the eyes of insurers, which want to be able to prove they actually improve quality of life and utility, said Howard Forman, a Yale professor of diagnostic radiology and public health. Utility means that an exoskeleton would provide a medical benefit beyond simply helping people move around and complete daily tasks.
Virginia Tech researchers found that these devices, by getting otherwise immobilized people to move around, can help them manage spasticity a continuous contraction of muscles, which can be quite painful and improve bowel function. Barnes said when she was training with the exoskeleton, tending to her bowels took about 20 minutes each day, not the customary hour.
One major concern is how relatively untested the technology is outside the controlled environment of a rehabilitation facility. Indeed, they dont always work as planned.
Stacey Kozal, a 42-year-old Ohio resident, was paralyzed from the waist down after what she said was a devastating flare-up of lupus. For more than a year, she fought with her insurance provider, Anthem, in hopes of obtaining Ottobock C-Braces. These devices have bendable knee joints equipped with sensors that measure the current position of the joint every .02 seconds, according to Ottobocks website. A built-in microprocessor adjusts ankle pressure while a hydraulic system moves the knee to help the user place her foot down in the right place.
Eventually, Anthem agreed to cover a C-Brace for each leg, which Kozal used to hike the Appalachian Trail, where limitations revealed themselves. The battery required constant recharging. Rain was problematic because the C-Brace isnt waterproof.
While she plans to wear her C-Braces around the house, shes now hiking the Pacific Crest Trail using old-fashioned braces that lock her legs in place. She uses her core, hips and upper body to swing her legs forward, and she keeps her balance with the aid of forearm crutches. C-Braces are heavier than traditional devices, so when their batteries died on the Appalachian Trail, they made it more difficult for her to move around.
Another major issue for insurers, though, is the price. But Forman said, Though these technologies are incredibly expensive now, we have all kinds of evidence that eventually they can become affordable to anyone.
Indeed, some entrepreneurs are working on cheaper solutions. Silicon Valley start-up SuitX created a lightweight model called the Phoenix. While most exoskeletons have motors powering each joint, the Phoenix simply uses two hip motors. Even so, if approved by the FDA, the device would cost $40,000, according to SuitX.
The rehabilitation marketplace is limited by the number of people who have these conditions, Kara said. The exoskeletons are basically handcrafted, which is expensive. If you could up the volume, you could lower the price.
The key would be expanding the user base. One way to do that, he noted, is to sell the devices for purposes other than rehabilitation. Warehouse workers might wear them to assist with lifting heavy loads. Some companies are already testing this idea: Lowes, for example, recently outfitted several of employees with exoskeletons as part of a pilot program.
The worldwide market for exoskeletons $97 million now is expected to grow to $1.9 billion by 2025, according to ABI Research.
Kara compared the prospects for exoskeletons to the growth of LiDAR, which uses pulsed lasers to record topographic features. For years, researchers used LiDAR to create 3-D maps of the Earth, but it was expensive. However, the rise of self-driving cars, which use the technology to navigate roadways, fostered improvements in the technology. As a result, Kara said, the price of LiDAR systems has begun to fall and is expected to drop dramatically, from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars or less.
Waiting for exoskeleton prices to drop is tremendously frustrating, Barnes said. We take so much for granted when we dont have physical problems, she said. Like just being able to reach up and grab something in my laundry cabinet without having to break my neck to get it.
She isnt ready to just accept that she and others who will face these issues might never get a sense of greater normalcy.
My biggest reason for standing up tall to them is I want to do it for all those behind me, she said. The more it gets approved, the more it cant get denied.
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Robotics helping people walk again at a hefty price - Las Vegas Review-Journal
Robots capable of churning out 400 hamburgers in an hour could one day become a permanent fixture across fast food chains. Momentum Machines, the Google (GOOGL)-backed startup that specializes in building these high-tech, artificial intelligence-powered devices, has just secured over $18 million of new venture capital, according to an SEC filing.
San Francisco-based Momentum Machines debuted its prototype burger-making machine in 2012, eliciting awe from tech geeks and criticism from employment activists. Its not hard to understand why: the startups robots can grill a beef patty, layer it with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and onion, before putting it in a bun and wrapping it up to go 400 times in an hour a feat that no human could ever hope to achieve.
This revelation prompted former McDonald's (MCD) CEO Ed Rensi to tell Fox Business last year that these machines could provide a huge boost to fast food chains, particularly as the industry is under pressure due to rising minimum wages. "It's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who's inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries, he said. (See also: McDonald's Is Desperate to Modernize Its Franchisees.)
Source: Momentum Machines/Foodbeast
Rensis comments came shortly after Momentum Machines applied for a building permit to convert a ground-floor retail space in San Francisco into a restaurant. Since then, the secretive company has disappeared from the public eye again, although its latest windfall and list of high profile investors suggests that Momentum Machines isnt about to become the latest startup to vanish into obscurity. (See also: Robots Really Do Take Jobs.)
According to S&P Capital IQ, a number of well-known firms are invested in the company, including Google Ventures, Alphabet Inc.s venture capital arm. Other backers include K5 Ventures, Lemnos Labs and Khosla Ventures, the California-based venture capital firm whose founder Vinod Khosla regularly appears on Forbes Midas list.
Momentum Machines board also boasts plenty of experience. According to Axios, Sven Strohband, chief technology officer of Khosla Ventures, and Stanford University physics professor Zhixun Shen are two of the names responsible for making important decisions at the startup firm.
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Hamburger-Making Robotics Firm Secures $18 Million (GOOGL) - Investopedia
FOX31 Denver | Amazon to open robotics fulfillment center in Thornton, creating 1500 jobs FOX31 Denver This facility will utilize Amazon Robotics, vision systems, and more than 20 years' worth of software and mechanical innovations. We are grateful for the support we have received from state and local leaders who have helped make this project possible.. Amazon announces plans to open robotics fulfillment center in Thornton |
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Amazon to open robotics fulfillment center in Thornton, creating 1500 jobs - FOX31 Denver
MiBiz | Stamping shop develops robotic equipment to drive future growth MiBiz Preferred Tool and Die currently uses part of its space for a student robotics team, pictured above. Dubbed That ONE Team (Our Next Engineers), the group operates through First Robotics, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching young adults about ... |
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Stamping shop develops robotic equipment to drive future growth - MiBiz
Ashley Barnes was 35 years old when doctors told her she would never walk again.
A botched spinal procedure in 2014 paralyzed her from the waist down. The Tyler, Tex., resident had been an avid runner, clocking six miles daily when not home with her then-9-year-old autistic son, whom she raised alone. Life in a wheelchair was not an option.
I needed to be the best mom I could be, Barnes said. I needed to be up and moving.
So she threw herself into physical therapy, convinced she would one day run again. Soon she realized that wasnt a reality.
Although she wore a brave face, I would save my moments of crying for my room, she said.
About a year later, hope resurfaced when she learned of the ReWalk system, a battery-powered robotic exoskeleton that attaches to the legs and lower back. It contains motors at the knee and hip joints and sensors to help it adjust with each footfall. While wearing the device and holding two forearm crutches, someone with complete lower-limb paralysis can walk. Rehabilitation centers often employ such devices in physical therapy, which is how Barnes first encountered one at the Baylor Tom Landry Center, a rehab clinic in Dallas. After seven months without being able to stand, she did. Then she took a step as she began to learn how to walk again.
In 2014, the ReWalk system became the first personal robotic exoskeleton approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The following year, the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to cover the exoskeletons for qualifying vets. Meanwhile, several companies began touting similar devices. For example, Ekso makes units used to rehabilitate people after spinal cord injury or stroke.
Health insurers, however, generally dont cover the expensive equipment.
After working with the ReWalk system at her rehab center, Barnes, who uses a wheelchair at home to get around, decided she wanted one of her own. But Tricare, her insurer, denied the request.
In a statement, Tricare said it does not cover these devices for use on a personal basis due to concerns with their safety and efficacy. This is particularly important due to the vulnerability of paralyzed users in the event of a fall. Two years and countless nos later, Barnes still doesnt have one because, according to Tricare, it isnt medically necessary.
Barnes strongly disagrees.
This is medically necessary, she said. If she had one of the devices, Id be able to go to the bathroom. I would be able to walk around, exercise in it. I would love to be able to stand up and cook things in my microwave or on my stove.
She paused before adding, I would no longer have to look up at my son.
High prices, low incomes
The ReWalk Personal 6.0 System costs, on average, $81,000. Ottobocks C-Brace is priced at $75,000. For the Indego Personal, which received FDA approval last year, it is $98,000.
About 28 percent of the more than 5.2 million Americans living with paralysis survive on an annual household income of less than $15,000, according to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. The basic expenses of living with paraplegia are, on average, $519,520 in the first year and $68,821 each subsequent year, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. Furthermore, only 34.3 percent of people are employed 20 years after a paralysis-causing injury.
To date, ReWalk has sold only 118 personal devices in the United States.
Some people do get devices covered by insurance, but it can be an onerous process, as evidenced by Mark Delamere Jr. The Boston native, 19, was paralyzed in a car accident in 2013, on the third day of his freshman year of high school.
Like Barnes, he thought he would never walk again. Like Barnes, with the help of a robotic exoskeleton, he did. Unlike Barnes, though, he has an exoskeleton at home.
But for two of his teenage years, he sat in a wheelchair while his family filed claims and appealed denials.
They dont really classify these things with the purpose of you getting better, because they think the injury is never going to change, his father, Mark Sr., said.
Eventually, though, Mark Jr. got approved by his insurance company and received the ReWalk, which he uses for at-home therapy and just to walk around the house and the neighborhood, up and down the street. Asked to describe the feeling, he was at a loss for words.
More hospitals are putting patient comfort and wellbeing at the forefront of their operations from staff hires to building design to team structure.
Its kind of crazy, he said. It just feels kind of I dont really know. It feels so different.
They dont always work
But his story is rare. People are paying out of pocket or fundraising for exoskeletons, said Dan Kara, research director for robotics at ABI Research, a technology analysis and consultant company.
The price of the devices exceeds their value in the eyes of insurers, which want to be able to prove they actually improve quality of life and utility, said Howard Forman, a Yale professor of diagnostic radiology and public health. Utility means that an exoskeleton would provide a medical benefit beyond simply helping people move around and complete daily tasks.
Virginia Tech researchers found that these devices, by getting otherwise immobilized people to move around, can help them manage spasticity a continuous contraction of muscles, which can be quite painful and improve bowel function. Barnes said when she was training with the exoskeleton, tending to her bowels took about 20 minutes each day, not the customary hour.
One major concern is how relatively untested the technology is outside the controlled environment of a rehabilitation facility. Indeed, they dont always work as planned.
Stacey Kozal, a 42-year-old Ohio resident, was paralyzed from the waist down after what she said was a devastating flare-up of lupus. For more than a year, she fought with her insurance provider, Anthem, in hopes of obtaining Ottobock C-Braces. These devices have bendable knee joints equipped with sensors that measure the current position of the joint every .02 seconds, according to Ottobocks website. A built-in microprocessor adjusts ankle pressure while a hydraulic system moves the knee to help the user place her foot down in the right place.
Eventually, Anthem agreed to cover a C-Brace for each leg, which Kozal used to hike the Appalachian Trail, where limitations revealed themselves. The battery required constant recharging. Rain was problematic because the C-Brace isnt waterproof.
While she plans to wear her C-Braces around the house, shes now hiking the Pacific Crest Trail using old-fashioned braces that lock her legs in place. She uses her core, hips and upper body to swing her legs forward, and she keeps her balance with the aid of forearm crutches. C-Braces are heavier than traditional devices, so when their batteries died on the Appalachian Trail, they made it more difficult for her to move around.
Another major issue for insurers, though, is the price. But Forman said, Though these technologies are incredibly expensive now, we have all kinds of evidence that eventually ... they can become affordable to anyone.
Indeed, some entrepreneurs are working on cheaper solutions. Silicon Valley start-up SuitX created a lightweight model called the Phoenix. While most exoskeletons have motors powering each joint, the Phoenix simply uses two hip motors. Even so, if approved by the FDA, the device would cost $40,000, according to SuitX.
The rehabilitation marketplace is limited by the number of people who have these conditions, Kara said. The exoskeletons are basically handcrafted, which is expensive. If you could up the volume, you could lower the price.
The key would be expanding the user base. One way to do that, he noted, is to sell the devices for purposes other than rehabilitation. Warehouse workers might wear them to assist with lifting heavy loads. Some companies are already testing this idea: Lowes, for example, recently outfitted several of employees with exoskeletons as part of a pilot program.
The worldwide market for exoskeletons $97 million now is expected to grow to $1.9 billion by 2025, according to ABI Research.
Kara compared the prospects for exoskeletons to the growth of LiDAR, which uses pulsed lasers to record topographic features. For years, researchers used LiDAR to create 3-D maps of the Earth, but it was expensive. However, the rise of self-driving cars, which use the technology to navigate roadways, fostered improvements in the technology. As a result, Kara said, the price of LiDAR systems has begun to fall and is expected to drop dramatically, from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars or less.
[A new way to find out what lies beneath]
Waiting for exoskeleton prices to drop is tremendously frustrating, Barnes said. We take so much for granted when we dont have physical problems, she said. Like just being able to reach up and grab something in my laundry cabinet without having to break my neck to get it.
She isnt ready to just accept that she and others who will face these issues might never get a sense of greater normalcy.
My biggest reason for standing up tall to them is I want to do it for all those behind me, she said. The more it gets approved, the more it cant get denied.
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Robotics are helping paralyzed people walk again, but the price tag is huge - Washington Post
Beth Daniel at Sookio writes:
Its no newbie in the social media sphere, but amidst the flurry of new features on Facebook and Instagram and the dominance of Twitter and LinkedIn when it comes to business, Pinterest often gets overlooked or forgotten altogether.
First hitting our PC screens back in 2010, Pinterest was warmly welcomed by fashionistas, bakers and interior design enthusiasts alike. But since then, the platform has come a long way, with a mobile app and a reported150 million users on the platform in 2017.
While it may not be the first platform to spring to mind when thinking about your companys social media presence, just this weekPinterest raised $150m at a $12.3bn valuation,showing that the image-based social site is as popular as ever.
With a whole network of ideas, creative inspiration and, most importantly, potential customers on offer, Pinterest can support many segments of your business, from the initial product inspiration and creativity to marketing and sales.
So what else does Pinterest have to offer your business?
Because of how Pinterest operates as a social media platform, your content can reach a really broad spectrum of users. It works by enabling users to pin images that they like into various boards set up by themselves.
Other people can then see these pinned images, either on their own timeline, in Pinterest search bar results, or directly on the profiles of whoever they follow. Should you wish to, you can then follow other peoples boards and re-pin things to your own profile, meaning your followers will also be able to see them.
Creating boards based on your companys interests, products or services can also help to generate awareness. Placing your images in front of the people who are actively searching related content will ensure that your brands blog or website is easily accessible to your followers and other Pinterest users. Longer term, this could help keep your product or service at the forefront of potential customers minds.
Take a look at howHunteruses Pinterest to raise awareness and generate interest in its range of boots. The firm creates boards which place the boots in all kinds of scenarios, appealing to a broad spectrum of potential customers and the things they might be searching for, such as festival attire.
When uploading your own content, you can link each pin to the relevant section on your blog or website.
So, for example, if youve pinned a new product which your business is offering, or an image from your latest blog post, you can easily link to it. This means if anyone clicks on the image, they will be taken directly to the product on your website or the content on your blog.
As each pin can include a link, this also means that whenever someone else shares or pins your content on Pinterest, the link to the original source remains on the post. And lets face it, us marketers love a backlink, dont we?
To measure your success, Pinterest also have a handy built-in Analytics function. This allows you to track all activity on your page, such as daily impressions and viewers, average monthly viewers and how much your posts are being engaged with on a monthly basis. With such a broad outreach, the results are often surprising too!
Analytics also usefully breaks down user activity further, showing you how many impressions and viewers your website or blog has received from your Pinterest profile.
Like other social media platforms, Pinterest also has an Ads function, meaning you can promote your pins to reach more people.
Pinterest ads work by promoting your pins across the platforms feeds, charging you per 1,000 impressions on your pins. Various Ads campaigns are available, such as campaigns to boost Awareness, Engagement or Traffic, meaning you can tailor advertising to meet the needs of your business. It lets you track the results too!
Head over to our blog to read this post in full.
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Just keep pinning: why your business should be on Pinterest - Cambridge Network
Today is Monday. The digest is short, but the reads in the clicks might be long and winding rabbit holes. Youve been warned. Grab your coffee.
1. While you were weekending, Nigeria got a Twitter handle. Anofficial Twitter handle that tweets stuff.Like Sweden, Israel, Canada and a bunch of other countries that use already the social network to promote their culture and positive developments. Check it out.
+ Apparently its called Twiplomacy. Hian
+ First it was a newsletter. Then a podcast. Then they started uploading stuff to Dropbox, blogging, announcing site outages, and even tweeting senate proceedings (far better than watching the stuff on NTA). These are not things Nigerian government bureaucrats usually do.Im pretty sure uncle Tolu(hes the head of Nigerias digital comms) had a lot to do with that.Im here for it, I must say.
2. This is what a typical electronic payment in Nigeria looks like, as told by Paystacks transaction logs. And it doesnt even begin to capture the pain. And dont even ask how bad it was in the pre-Paystack and Flutterwave era, thats not how you want your week to begin.
If you agree with overwhelming your love interestinto saying yes with the power of the internet, you wont mind this ad from Plaqad.com.Link
3.Ire,the god is sponsoring five Nigerian women to complete any Udacity nanodegree they set their sights on. Dont dull.Link
4. The Co-Creation Hubs annual Social Change Summit agenda and speaker lineup is looking very good. Date is the 22nd of June, in Lagos. Link
5. If you are an African startup, and you happen to be sitting on consumer data, the future looks good. The article is lacking the standard dont be evil line that is required where sharing data with third parties is concerned, but otherwise link
6. Ade Olabode is a London-based Nigerian startup entrepreneur that likes to interview other Nigerian startup entrepreneurs. His latest interview is of Lola Ekugo. Enjoy. Link
7. South Africas Telkoms is restructuring. CEO, Sipho Maseko describes the intended outcome as Remgro-style. If you know what a Remgro is, you probably care. Link
Devcenter is a verified community of African software developers. Our developers are tested with the same methods as Google and Facebook. Build your next technology product with us.Link
World Banks XL Africa application.Link
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