FMO & IMO | Financial Independence Group, Inc

Posted on by

We have experienced our best year ever, by far and away! It has been truly life-changing to reach such new levels of production and we can track it directly to you fine folks. My family is fortunate and excited to be heading down the road we are on. ~Bill, FL

Everyone I work with at FIG is very nice and very knowledgeable.
Any resources I need to close deals, they're there to provide them for me. ~Jason, NC

Financial Independence Group is 100% first class. The service is phenomenal. ~Paul, NC

Financial Independence Group allows us to do what we do best, which is go out and meet clients and
build relationships. I've been with FIG for 2 years and my experience has been absolutely wonderful! ~Ron, FL

Financial Independence Group is an FMO, disguised as an FMO, when they're really a complete practice - a one-stop shop. ~Paul, ME

The reason I am with Financial Independence Group is the support, the knowledge, the experience and most importantly to me, the integrity. They are a company that does what they say they are going to do and that's very difficult to find in today's market place. ~Jeff, OH

You, your family, your clients, and future clients deserve financial security. Join FIG for an experience that will change your life. ~Richard, SC

My marketer is very helpful on a day to day basis with back office support and new sales ideas. FIG is a large part of why I'm successful. ~Katie, FL

See more here:

FMO & IMO | Financial Independence Group, Inc

Petra Island – New York, United States – Private Islands …

Posted on by

Name: Petra Island Region: New York, United States Location: Mahopac Development: Developed Title: Freehold Type: Private Island Price: Price Upon Request Status: For Sale Size: 11.00 Acres / 4.45 HA Located just 50 miles north of New York City (15 minutes by helicopter) and featuring two houses designed by famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Petra Island truly must be seen to be believed.

The island itself is 11 acres in size and is situated on New York's very private Lake Mahopac. Petra Island has its own helicopter landing pad, and is of course accessible from the mainland by boat.

Two dwellings sit on the island - a 1,200-square-foot cottage, and a 5,000-square-foot main residence which is nothing short of an architectural masterpiece.

The cottage was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1950. The main residence was built in 2008 from one of Wright's final plans, and is considered by some to be one of the most spectacular designs of his career. Boasting 1,500 square feet of skylights and vast expanses of stone, cement, and mahogany, the main residence is truly a triumph of modern architecture.

Island properties such as this are rarely seen on the market - a must-see!

This island is now also available for a one day or a week-end corporate or event retreat with the option to rent the cottage overnight for the CEO's or designated leaders of the event. Please inquire for more details.

Please inquire for price.

View post:

Petra Island - New York, United States - Private Islands ...

Jewish Intentional Communities Conference – Hazon

Posted on by

Gab Axler is originally from Chicago. He moved to Beer Sheva 6 years ago to help found a pluralistic intentional community called Beerot. Beerot has40 family members, meets every Shabbat and holiday, and is involved in the local school and other projects. Professionally, Gabe runs a social enterprise called Pnima in the field of educational tourism, connecting groups from Israel and abroad to the work being done by intentional communities across Israel.

Eden Banarie is Moishe Houses Senior Regional Director: West, overseeing the houses in the Northwestern, Southwestern, and Southern regions. Eden is an alumna of Moishe House LA West Hollywood, and a member of the first cohort of the Moishe House Ignite Fellowship. Eden previously worked as the Youth Engagement Coordinator at Jewish World Watch, working with student activists to end genocide and mass atrocities. She received her BA in Business and MBA in Nonprofit Management from American Jewish University in Los Angeles. Eden can often be found attending Jewish community events throughout southern California, searching for the perfect breakfast burrito, or checking out cool new spots in the wonderful city of Los Angeles.

Rabbi Deborah Bravo is the spiritual leader and founder of Makom NY: A New Kind of Jewish Community, seeking to reach the unaffiliated and unengaged Jew in suburban Long Island. Prior to creating Makom NY, Rabbi Bravo served synagogues in Syosset, NY, Edison, NJ, Short Hills, NJ and in Washington DC. Ordained from HUC-JIR in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1998, Rabbi Bravo also holds a Master in Education from Xavier University. She is in the current Rabbis Without Borders Cohort, and a member of the Hakhel 2nd Incubator Cohort. She and her husband David now reside in Woodbury, NY with their two children, Samuel, 13, and Sophie, 10.

Cheryl Cookjoined Avodah as the Executive Director at the beginning of 2015 and has over twenty five years of leadership experience as a manager, fundraiser, and program planner in the Jewish community. Shes worked across the innovative sector of the Jewish community at Hazon, Makor, New Israel Fund, JESNA, Hillel, and the 92nd Street Y and is proud to lead Avodahs work shaping Jewish leaders to be social changemakers. Cheryl is passionate about creating a vibrant Jewish community that opens doors, engages people from across all backgrounds and plays a significant role in making the world a more just and caring place for everyone. Aside from her professional work, Cheryl serves on the board of PS/MS 282 PTO. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their two sons within an incredible village of family and friends.

Zev Chana is the Adamah Apprentice and Barnyard Manager at Isabella Freedman. Zev is from Albany, NY. Zev arrived as an Adamahnik in the fall of 2014, and fell in love with the work, the community and the seasons at Adamah. Zev loves dirt, the woods, the goats, renewed Jewish ritual and text study, and harvesting their meals.

David Cygielmanis the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Moishe House. He has been a non-profit innovator since high school when he started Feed the Need, a nationally recognized homeless feeding organization. While attending the University of California at Santa Barbara, David served as the Hillel Student President and later the Executive Director of the Forest Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to helping college and high school students develop leadership qualities while following their passions. In 2006, he helped establish Moishe House and became the organizations first CEO. Through his work in the Jewish community, David has garnered many honors including the Avi Chai Fellowship, the JCSA Young Leadership Award, and the Bernard Reisman Award for Professional Excellence. In 2013, David was the recipient of UCSB Hillels inaugural Alumni Achievement Award. David graduated with honors from UCSB with a BA in Business Economics. When hes out of the office, David enjoys playing basketball, spending time with friends, and traveling to destinations with no dress code. David currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife Myka and their dog Binx.

Chelsea Elena is a Teva Educator. During the year, she is an urban farmer and prolific knitter in the great city of Philadelphia. As of now, she isexcited to get back into the forest and make nature her home. She enjoys dystopian fiction, historical fiction and fantasy. Nothing excites her like the idea of a road trip. She recently got a bike for the first time since her childhood and has greatly enjoyed all the padded short options and urban explorations it has opened up for her.

Elizabeth (Liz) Fisheris the Chief Operating Officer at Repair the World, where she is responsible for overseeing all of the organizations development, communications, finance, operations, and human resources. Prior to Repair the World, Liz was Managing Director at NEXT: A Division of Birthright Israel Foundation, where she led the organization in strategy, operations, and talent management. Liz began her career in grassroots community development in rural Missouri. She moved into working in the Jewish community with roles at the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, UJA-Federation of New York, and The Jewish Education Project. Lizs passion is the role of people in organizational life. She loves working with partners, lay leaders, and professional staff. Liz has a Master of Social Work degree from Washington University in St. Louis with a focus in community development and management and is a Schusterman Fellow. She is a fan of Brooklyn (where she lives with her husband and two children), an amateur runner and bread baker, and an avid reader of periodicals.

Avi Garelick is the director of the Ivry Prozdor Hebrew High School at JTS, and the founder of a communal school in Washington Heights. He has been leading davening for his entire adult life, in communities in Berkeley, Chicago, and New York, and is a proud alumnus of the Yeshivat Hadar education fellowship. He is excited to learn more about peoples efforts to establish communal norms for conflict management.

Sarah Garfinkelis a Repair the World NYC Fellow.Sarah worked as a writing tutor at the UC Davis Student Academic Success Center. She graduated from UC Davis with a major in Spanish and minors in Human development, English, and Education. She has worked as a camp counselor in Germany and Hawaii. Her experiences working with second language learners, children with disabilities, and underrepresented and first generation college students have motivated her to serve as a fellow. She also volunteers as a Special Olympics swim coach.

Eliana Roberts Golding is a tenant organizer and community advocate based in Washington DC, where she was an Avodah Corps Member in 2013-2014. She spends her time organizing tenant associations and working to fight gentrification and displacement. She primarily identifies as a community organizer, friend, and relentless justice-seeker with a healthy sense of humor. Eliana lives in a co-op in Northwest DC, where she and her housemates build community around activism, potlucks, goofiness, and dancing. When not fighting the good fight, Eliana can be found singing, doing ceramics, or riding her bike in Rock Creek Park.

James Grant-Rosenhead is a founding member of Kibbutz Mishol, the biggest urban kibbutz in Israel. James was born in Leeds, England, in 1974. He became active as a Jewish Labor Zionist youth leader with Habonim Dror (HDUK) in 1990 after his first visit to Israel. From 1992-3, James spent a year of leadership training on kibbutz in Israel, then returned and directed local branches of the youth movement around London until 1996. He completed his LL.B Hons Law degree in 1996, then served as HDUKs national secretary until 1998. Concerned for the future of the Jewish world and Israel, and inspired by the first urban kibbutzim, James made aliyah to Jerusalem in 1999 with Kvutzat Yovel, the first Anglo olim to build a thriving urban kibbutz. From 1999-2010 James led a worldwide transformation and renewal of Habonim Dror programs, education and ideology from their traditional kibbutz bases to social activist urban kvutzot. The result is a new adult movement of urban cooperative kvutzot including olim from around the world. Since 2010, James joined the leadership of Tikkun, building new native sabra activist kibbutzim in the socio-economic and geographic peripheries, and became a founder of M.A.K.O.M. the National Council of Mission Driven Communities in Israel. James currently lives in NYC whilst serving as the Habonim Dror North America central shaliach, as a mentor for Hazons Hakhel and for Hillels Ezra Fellowship. James is married with three children.

Morriah Kaplan is a member of GariNYC, a two-year-old Jewish intentional community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She is a program manager at the NYC Department of Small Business Services, where she manages a business education program for women and minority business owners, as well as entrepreneurs in the creative industry. An alumna of Habonim Dror, the progressive Labor Zionist youth movement, she also volunteers as a trainer with the anti-occupation Jewish activist group, IfNotNow. Previously, Morriah graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2014, and completed the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs in 2015. She enjoys spending time with her found family in Crown Heights, and thinking about how to build better communities and social movements.

Rebecca Katz recentlyjoined Repair the World as their new Education and Training Manager.After six years away,Rebecca is excited to be back home in Brooklyn. Prior to Repair,Rebecca spent two years as the Director of Social Justice Initiatives at Texas Hillel in Austin, Texas, engaging UT students in different modes of social justice through a Jewish lens. However, before the heat of Austin, she learned to organize in the bitterly cold city of Chicago. Rebeccalead the Or Tzedekprogramat the Jewish Council in Urban Affairs,teaching Jewish teens to create systemic change in partnership with directly impacted communities.

Aharon Ariel Laviis the founder of Garin Shuva, a mission-driven community bordering Gaza, and co-founder of the Nettiot Network which re-engages baalei teshuva into Israeli society. Additionally he is co-founder of MAKOM (The National Council of Mission-Driven Communities) and is a consultant to Hazons Jewish Intentional Communities Initiative. In 2013-14 Aharon was a Tikvah Fund fellow in New York. He lives with his wife Liat and their four children in Shuva.

William Levin is the founder of ACRe (Alliance Colony Reboot). He was born and raised on the farm in Vineland, NJ, where his family have lived since founding Alliance Colony in 1892. Levin, a.k.a. the Jewish Robot, is the creator of Shabot 6000 and other educational content for Jewish organizations, and was a writer for the 2010 Shalom Sesame series. Known for his edgy and innovative work and his ability to create synergies in the Jewish community, Levin is now returning to his roots by creating ACRe.

Malya Levin, wife and partner to William, is a lawyer admitted to the New York and New Jersey Bars. Malya is the Staff Attorney at the Weinberg Center for Elder Abuse Prevention at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, the nations first emergency elder abuse shelter. In that capacity, she works to address the legal needs of older adults experiencing acute abuse, and writes and speaks extensively on the legal aspects of elder abuse prevention and intervention. This year, she has been working with William to birth and grow two new family additions, ACRe and one year old Sammy Lulav.

Elan Margulies, Director of Teva at Hazon, aims to inspire joy and reverence for the natural world by introducing students to earth-based Jewish traditions and the wonders right outside their door. He has taught ecology at Eden Village Camp, the Student Conservation Association and the Cornell University Naturalist Outreach Program, led hikes in Israel, volunteered in the Kalahari Desert, worked for the US National Park Service, and directed a Jewish educational farm outside Chicago where he learned that the best way to catch a goat is to run away from it.Before returning to Teva he pursued graduate studies in forest ecology at University of Michigan and The Hebrew University.In his free time, he enjoys finding wild edibles, brewing ginger beer and working with wood and metal.

Mira Menyuk studied at the New England school of Photography in Boston before getting bitten by the farming bug. She was an Urban Adamah fellow in the spring of 2013 before returning to her home state of Maryland to work at the Pearlstone Center, where she is entering her fourth year of involvement. Her work at the Pearlstone center has included full-year farming, volunteer coordination, kitchen work and currently running programs for kids and adults on the farm and in the fields and forest.Her passions include being outdoors in all weather, hiking, singing, andreading.

Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer is part of the rabbinic team atRomemu. Shewas ordained June 2014 by Hebrew College Rabbinical School. She strives to build community through prayerful music, and music through prayerful community.During her rabbinic training she developed family programming for Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, MA, interned for a Masorti community in Tel Aviv, and directed leadership programs for the non-profit organization Encounter, in Jerusalem. Jessica has performed as a vocalist with Hankus Netsky, Frank London, and Yuval Ron, and studied and performed sacred Jewish music with rabbis and paytanim while living in Jerusalem. After graduating from Wellesley College with a degree in MiddleEasternStudies, Jessica pursued graduate theater training in London, and appeared in many film, theater, and television projects in Europe and the United States: most notably, as a principal role in Roman Polanskis The Pianist.

Rabbi Avram Mlotek is a co-founder of Base, a home-based model for Jewish outreach that focuses on hospitality, learning and service.The Forwardrecently listed him as one of Americas Most Inspiring Rabbis and in 2012, he was recognized by TheJewish Weekas one of the leading innovators in Jewish life today as part of their 36 Under 36 Section. Mlotek served as a rabbi in training at The Carlebach Shul, The Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, The Educational Alliance and Hunter College Hillel. Hiswritings have appeared inThe Forward,Tablet, Haaretz,The Jerusalem Post,The Jewish Week, andThe Huffington Post. A native Yiddish speaker, Avram is the grandson of noted Yiddish song collectorsand Holocaust refugees. He is married to Yael Kornfeld and proud Tati to Revaya and Hillel Yosl.

Craig Oshkello, MLA, founding member and current resident of Living Tree Alliance has spent nearly two decades advocating alternative models of land ownership as a means for revitalizing our shared connections to the living landscape. Craig has presented at the JICC each of the past three years and joined first Hakhel trip to Israel in the spring of 2015. He lived with his family in a farm centered community for 13 years before moving to the house he is building at LTA this fall.

Sasha Raskin-Yin has been the New York Program Director at Avodah since 2015. She supports the development of Jewish leaders through Avodahs combination of Jewish and social justice learning, communal living, and direct service work at anti-poverty non-profits. Helping young people connect their Judaism to social justice work has long been Sashas dream, which she arrived at by way of organizing, community-building, and study. She has organized with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and for LGBTQ causes, worked in college access at Goddard Riverside Community Center, and studied white Jewish immigration, assimilation, and settler colonialism in the US at the New School for Social Research. Sashas self-care practices include walking around NYC, drinking tea, and defending the often-maligned regions of New Jersey and Queens.

Kate Re, Associate Director of Teva, works with the team as they bring transformative Jewish nature experiences to early childhood through adult participants. She holds a BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and has a professional background in Jewish environmental teaching and management. She is a passionate advocate for all things natural, sustainable, and community oriented.

Nigel Savage, originally from Manchester, England, founded Hazon in 2000, with a Cross-USA Jewish Environmental Bike Ride. Since then, Hazon has grown the range and impact of its work in each successive year; today it has more than 60 staff, based in New York City, at Hazons Isabella Freedman campus, and in other locations across the country. Hazon plays a unique role in renewing American Jewish life and creating a healthier and more sustainable world for all.

Hazon is one of a tiny handful of groups to have been in the Slingshot 50 every year since inception, and in 2008, Hazon was recognized by the Sierra Club as one of 50 leading faith-based environmental organizations.

Nigel has spoken, taught, or written for a wide and significant range of audiences. (A selection of his essays are at hazon.org/nigel). He has twice been named a member of the Forward 50, the annual list of the 50 most influential Jewish people in the United States, and is a recipient of the Bernard Reisman Award. He has given Commencement speeches at Wagner (NYU, in 2011) and at Hornstein (Brandeis, in 2014). In 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Before founding Hazon, Nigel was a professional fund manager in London, where he worked for NM Rothschild and was co-head of UK Equities at Govett. He has an MA in History from Georgetown, and has learned at Pardes, Yakar, and the Hebrew University. He was a founder of Limmud NY, and serves on the board of Romemu.

Nigel executive produced the British independent movies Solitaire For 2 and Stiff Upper Lips and had an acclaimed cameo appearance in the cult Anglo-Jewish comic movie, Leon The Pig Farmer. He is believed to be the first English Jew to have cycled across South Dakota on a recumbent bike.

Shamu Fenyvesi Sadeh is the co-founder and director of Adamah. He teaches Judaism and ecology, turns the compost piles, maintains the orchards, and supervises and mentors staff and Adamah Fellows. His wife Jaimie and kids Yonah, Ibby and Lev keep the bees, help harvest and pickle, and DJ staff dance parties.

Janna Siller leads the Adamah crew in growing organic vegetables for CSA distribution, value-added production, Isabella Freedman food service, and donations, while maintaining the fields as resonant learning space for fellows and visitors. She teaches classes on practical farming and gardening skills as well as classes that explore the big picture systems, policies and issues that shape what we eat and how it is grown. Janna lives in Falls Village with her family- Arthur, Tzuf, and the cats.

Roger Studley is founder of Urban Moshav, a nonprofit development partner for Jewish cohousing, and convener of the Berkeley Moshav effort to create Jewish cohousing in Berkeley, CA. He and these projects were selected for the inaugural cohort of the Hahkel incubator of Jewish Intentional communities, on whose steering committee he now serves. He has been an organizer of previous JIC Conferences as well as multiple independent minyanim (including San Franciscos pluralist Mission Minyan) and co-chaired a Hazon Food Conference. Roger is married to Rabbi Chai Levy of Congregation Kol Shofar and looks forward to moving into Berkeley Moshav with his family in the next few years.

Yasaf Warshai was born in Ann Arbor Michigan, and started attending Habonim Dror Camp Tavor in 2002. It was there that he fell in love with the idea of Jewish Intentional Community over the next fifteen summers of being a counselor, camper, and director. Yasaf graduated from Michigan State University in 2016 with a degree in Arts & Humanities and Religious Studies. Now as the Mazkir Klali (National Director) of Habonim Dror North America, he works in the central office in Brooklyn to bring those same values of Jewish Intentionality and Social Justice to the next generation of Jewish leaders.

Michal Wetzler is from Kibbutz Kfar hachoresh in Israel. In the IDF she was a combat engineer instructor. She has a B.ed in informal education, majoring in the history and nature of Israel. She owns a small tour guide business and has vast experience leading a wide range of groups, indoor and outdoor. She also ran a community forest project in her Kibbutz back home, to connect between the members of the community, and between the community to the forest and nature around.Now she is a Shlicha (emissary of the Jewish agency) in Pearlstone center.In her spare time she loves to hike, travel, dance and scuba-dive.

Casey Baruch Yurow currently serves as Program Director at the Pearlstone Center in Reisterstown, MD. Casey has held leadership roles in the field of Jewish outdoor, food, and environmental education for over ten years with the Teva Learning Center, Urban Adamah, Wilderness Torah, and Eden Village Camp. Casey believes deeply in the power of nature connection and hands-on learning to revitalize healthy human culture and community. He earned a B.Sc in Environmental Science from the University of Maryland and spent two years studying in yeshiva in Israel. When not at work, Casey can be found building mandolins, hiking, gardening, cooking, and inviting friends over for spirited, song-filled Shabbat meals. Casey lives with his wife Rivka outside of Baltimore and he looks forward to co-creating a new Moshav on the Pearlstone Center campus, speedily in our days.

Kesher (Rayenbo) Zabell- Spears is an alum of Moishe House Cleveland, cos* first experience of intentional community living, which gave Kesher the desire to delve deeper into sharing day-to-day life with like-minded individuals. Since living in MHCle, Rayenbo has been living in ICs, including seven communities of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC). Kesher has worked extensively with the FEC and through this work with the FEC as the Rainbow Intern, co excitedly participated in 2014s JICC. Co is a frequent MH retreat participant and a consistent Moishe House Without Walls host. As a currently wandering communard, Rayenbo sees this conference as an opportunity to network and discover potentially future homes.*Co: Gender neutral pronoun. Co/co/cos. derived from words such as: community member, communard, co-creator, comrade and communitarian.

Please check back for this growing list of educators and session leaders.

See the rest here:

Jewish Intentional Communities Conference - Hazon

Downloads – Singularity Viewer

Posted on by

Please pay attention to the following vital information before using Singularity Viewer.

Singularity Viewer only supports SSE2 compliant CPUs. All computers manufactured 2004 and later should have one.

Warning: RLVa is enabled by default, which permits your attachments to take more extensive control of the avatar than default behavior of other viewers. Foreign, rezzed in-world, non-worn objects can only take control of your avatar if actively permitted by corresponding scripted attachments you wear. Please refer to documentation of your RLV-enabled attachments for details, if you have any.

Singularity Viewer 1.8.7(6861) Setup

Compatible with 64-bit version of Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and newer. Known limitation is the lack of support for the Quicktime plugin which means that certain types of parcel media will not play. Streaming music and shared media (MoaP) are not affected and are fully functional.

Compatible with OS X 10.6 and newer, Intel CPU.

Make sure you have 32-bit versions of gstreamer-plugins-base, gstreamer-plugins-ugly and libuuid1 installed. The package has been built on DebianSqueezeand should work on a variety of distributions.

For voice to work, minimal support for running 32-bit binaries is necessary. libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so may be needed. Possible package names: lib32asound2-plugins (squeeze), alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686 (fedora),libasound2-plugins:i386 (debian/ubuntu).

If you receive "The following media plugin has failed: media_plugin_webkit" you may need to install the package containing libpangox-1.0.so.0for your distribution (could bepangox-compat).

To add all the skins, extract this package into the viewer install directory, that's usually C:Programs FilesSingularity on Windows, /Applications/Singularity.app/Contents/Resources/ on Mac, and wherever you extracted the tarball to on Linux. Just merge the extracted skins directory with the existing skins directory, there should be no conflicts.

Read more from the original source:

Downloads - Singularity Viewer

Monastery of Ascension – RuneScape Wiki – Wikia

Posted on by

The Monastery of Ascension, or the Ascension dungeon, is a high-level Slayer dungeon in the Feldip Hills that contains a number of magic-based monsters, all of which are weak to Ranged. The monastery is home to the Order of Ascension, a former Guthixian group that has been kidnapping local villagers. The lowest level monsters in the monastery require 81 Slayer, while the bosses require 95 Slayer.

The main purpose of the dungeon is for hunting the ascension crossbow. The crossbow is made by combining a dragon crossbow, the six different ascension signets dropped by the legiones bosses, and 100 ascension shards. The legiones are accessed by using the ascension keystones on their individual laboratories, which are dropped by the slayer monsters in the dungeon.

The outside of the Monastery, which houses a massive underground complex.

The Monastery of Ascension is located north-west of Oo'glog, east of Mobilising Armies. Fast ways to get nearby are with the Oo'glog lodestone, a ring of duelling, spirit tree or Mobilising Armies teleport to Mobilising Armies, or using the charter ship to Oo'glog.Players can also teleport to thefairy ringcoordinates aks and travel south-west to reach the temple.

The gigantic statue of Guthix.

The Monastery of Ascension requires 81 Slayer to enter and boosts can be used. The dungeon is on one level, with the entrance and exit at the most southwestern point. Rorarii, Gladii, Capsarii and Scutarii are scattered around the dungeon, which extends around a giant pit in the middle of the dungeon, which can be avoided by using the three agility shortcuts. The first one, which is the closest to the entrance, requires an Agility level of 80. Using this shortcut takes you closer to Legio Quartus, Legio Quintus, Legio Sextus and the reserved area. If you are unable to use this shortcut, another one lies a little further ahead; this requires level 70 Agility and drops you quite close to Legio Secundus and Legio Tertius. The final shortcut is at the Statue of Guthix, which requires 60 Agility to go through. The level 70 and 80 shortcuts have a Scutarii patrolling the area.

The reserved area requires 90 Agility (can be boosted) to jump the gap, and there are two entrances to get in there. The first one is in a room with Gladii and Capsarii, and jumping the gap drops you in a location with five Scutarii. The other one is a little deeper, but drops you off to the other members of the dungeon.

There are also six labs, with Primus' being the closest and Sextus being the farthest. You'll need their respective keys (and a Slayer level of 95) to enter their labs and fight them.

The only non-player character near the monastery is Ocellus, found directly outside the entrance. He tells you to go down and stop the Order of Ascension from kidnapping the villagers. He can also combine the appropriate items into an ascension crossbow.

All four of the creatures require 81 Slayer and can be assigned by Duradel/Lapalok, Kuradal or Morvran. Each of them are found all around the monastery, but some areas are more heavily populated than others. Refer to the map for details.

Each of the legiones requires his appropriate keystone to enter his room. They each drop a signet that can be used to make the ascension crossbow. They all are level 304 with 30,000 life points. Their special effects occur every time 1/4th of life points are gone. Abilities cannot overhit the quarter marks; a Bombardment that should deal 2,500 damage against a Legio with 15,305 life points will deal 305 damage instead. The Legiones benefit from damage reduction, which decreases as you get closer until you are within melee range of them. The Legiones' lightning attack also bypasses protection prayers/curses.

The most sought after item in the dungeon, the ascension crossbow is made by giving Ocellus the six signets of the legiones, a main hand dragon crossbow, and 100 ascension shards. It degrades the same way as drygore weaponry, lasting for 10 hours until it must be repaired by Bob for 2 million coins or a lower amount on a player's armour stand depending on their Smithing level. A further 100 shards can be added to make an off-hand ascension crossbow. The bolts for the crossbow are made by fletching ascension shards, requiring 90 Fletching and giving one bolt per shard.

Another sought after item which is a must to make the Ascension crossbow. It can be dropped by any of the monsters quite rarely. There are six different types of keys, and each one only lasts for one kill before disintegrating.

The slayer monsters also drop ascension fragments, which can be fletched with bronze bolts and bronze arrows to create fragment bolts and fragment arrows, respectively, which are nearly useless against most creatures, but are equivalent to royal bolts against the Ascension creatures. The slayer monsters also drop Ascension shards, which can be fletched into ascension bolts, which work well with the Ascension crossbow.

The slayer creatures drop order journal pages, which are added to the History of the Order to learn more about the history of the Order of Ascension and the Fourth and Fifth Ages.

A villager being transformed into one of the Ascended.

Read the rest here:

Monastery of Ascension - RuneScape Wiki - Wikia

World War 3 | WWIII | Endtime Ministries with Irvin Baxter

Posted on by

Fear nothing but God, only fear God. Never be afraid of Wars, deaths, pain, blood, and anything else that is a Sin against God. Satan is trying his hardest to make all this fear, a fear of Worldy/Earthly things like War, deaths, blood, all that violent stuff. He does not want you all to fear God, but to fear Sin and Evil. Everything is quiet right now: gun shots, music, cars, tvs are all not sounds, they are just limited and illuminated wave lengths created by God to make this World seem like a loud place. Wait until you listen and watch Gods 2nd coming, the 2nd coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. You will know what true sounds and violence is. Im not even afraid of getting killed when WW3 begins, because I know God will take those out of this World that believes in him, and leave the Anti-Christ people on Earth to feel a temporary suffer and pain to get a taste of what Hell will really be like. You all call this Earth, hell and going through hard times. Wait until you Anti-Christ people see what God will really show you what true pain and suffering is. God is not a man of Peace, God is a man of Justice. Thats why the Bible says you must repent of all your Sins and accept God for who he is if you want to be saved. Most people take Sins for granted, and expect to be forgiven by God without praying to him and asking for forgivness. Most people go a head and Sin all they want and think God will grant them Heaven in the after life. This world shows that God is near, all these events occuring from the Bible. As a Christian, I am still confused and dont fully understand God, but all I know he is ready to come back soon, and not in a Peaceful way like we expect. He is coming with anger, fear, pain, and suffering that no human ever expierenced, he is coming with more Power than those Anti-Christ who brutally crucified Jesus Christ 2016 years ago, he is coming with more Power than all the Nuclear bombs/missiles combined. He wont come sucker punching us all, he will come with everything in his Power he has, and that Power is everything we cant stop. Nothing can never and will never stop Gods power, not even Satan and his Anti-Christ can stop God. God is the creator of all, he created Satan too, and gave Satan limited Power. Just like all of us Humans, Satan too has his own Free Will because God gave us all Free Will. The Earth WILL SHAKE, those who believe in God and repent their Sins and accepts God will be saved, all the Anti-Christ will be left on Earth to Wage War against one another, to feel the Sucker Punch of Hell, to get a taste of what Hell will be like. Imagine the fear, pain, suffering, and INFINITY NON-STOP burning that Hell will really be like. Pinch yourself on your arm as soft as you could, it will hurt. Slap yourself on your cheek, it will hurt. Get a paper cut, and it will hurt. Imagine all the Pain, fear and suffering God has prepared in Hell for all Anti-Christ. In Hell, the pain, suffering and fears wont be from Satan, but from God. God said in the Bible that Satan too will burn and suffer in Hell forever. Right now there is no Heaven and Hell yet, that will be set when God arrives on his 2nd coming. Thats why we put Rest in Peace on all crosses of death, everyone dead right now is unconcsious and resting in death, until God comes. When God comes, all the Dead will arise then, the dead is not risen yet on Earth until God comes. Thats why many places on Earth have demons and haunting in their homes where Violence or death once took place, all the dead Anti-Christ will never rest, never rest, never rest. Thats why you feel peacful about a Christian death, and feel bad inside when a Anti-Christ dies. God is all one, he hears and sees everything from beginning to end. He knows all your secrets and gossips, he knows every single one of your Sins. God knew you before you were born on this Earth. Im glad I grew up in a Christian home, I see many Anti-Christ that are already going through the hardest times Ive ever seen! Ive witness a murder, and all these Anti-Christ are suffering more. Ive been through many trials in my life where I supposed to die in the ER and not even survive, but praying to God saved me. Praying to God saved me. Doctors were speechless, they didnt feel like doctors when they gave everything they got to keep me alive. They gave me the Maximum amount of all pain meds, shots, pills, and IV, they said all that was enough meds to knock out a cancer patient and a big animal like an elephant at the same time from the same dose of pain meds. I dont believe in chemicals thats why it never help me in the ER when i almost died a lot of times from alcohol poisoning. Only thing that kept me going was praying to God.

A lot of people believe in coincidence, what exactly does coincidence mean to them, what is their understanding defintion of coincidence? Everything is meant to happen for a reason, and God created all those reasons. They are not coincidence, a word of the Anti-Christ. Just like God told us, he sees all, he knows all. Everything happens for a reason, and that reason is Gods reason that everything happens, not from coincidence. If you have gone this far in reading and trying to understand more about God and how Satan is at work right now on Earth. Here is your good chance to understand why everything happens for a reason. We all get confused when something happens, oh my god what just happened?, jesus christ, what happened?. We all say those things without realizing it when we are confused, we dont know what happened but we know God had something to do with it and everything else that happens.

One example of something meant to be or meant to happen is not a coincidence, but a true reason of God. I was a witness of a brutal murder on September 8, 2007, a man murdered for his booze and money by a gang of violent alcoholics. It all happened so fast but yet felt so slow to watch it happen. The leader of that violent gang died on May 17th, 2016 from suicide, after he murdered another person, on May 12th, 2016. My best friend died from suicide on March 9, 2013, and my best friends birthday was May 12th, the same day the leader of that gang made his 2nd murder. Coincidence? Nope, reason of God. You see, how can God put it in a more perfect time frame, and you all call it coincidence? Coincidence is a word of Satan, a confusing word he uses that doesnt let you full understand why everything is happening the way they are. Satan doesnt want you to know that everything is happening because of God. Satan doesnt want you to know that God is in control of everything. Satan wants you to be blind and not understand God.

Us Humans, our minds are weaker than we think, it is very easy for Satan to take advantage of your life style without you knowing it. Alcohol, drugs, mixed martial arts fighting, all the violent stuff we see everyday is the hard work of Satan, not the entertainment for ourselves that we think we get, but just a brain-washed violent activity that God hates, called Sin. Satans biggest way of taking over lives and brain-washing lives is through Entertainment. People will say, f*** reading the Bible, im going to go drink, play video games, and watch Mixed Martial Arts all day, and have some beautiful sex with your cousins. Yeah man, all this numb feeling you had is finally turning into pain of understandment of what is really going on. Sin! Sin! Sin! We all think were going to get away with Sin and somehow make it to Heaven. Of course we all think we are going to Heaven, that is a sign of brain-washed by Satan, when you think you can Sin all you want and still make it to Heaven. Lot of people think they are so special and cool or bad a** when they are doing violent things. Those kind of people want to be hugged and kissed and congradulated for their violent things they do. They want to be awarded for their doings and be known to the World. They want the whole attention when they Sin.

You can never be prepared for the unexpected. God will come like a unknown robber, you never know what time and day he will come, just like you never know when a robber will rob your house. We never know when God will come, but he will come unexpected. His angels do not know his time and day of coming to Earth, only God himself knows. Satan is at his best right now, just like any violent Sinner is at their best right now. ISIS, wars, all these violent deaths are occuring because of Satans power and Sin. All these are the signs from the Bible that Satan and all the Anti-Christ will be scavenging the Earth at their best Power trying to destroy all lives to believe there is no God.

Let me put it in words this way, for you people who do not understand about God yet. Satan and his Anti-Christ are a bunch of violent Sinners, and God is a man of Justice. This world is like the Door of Gods house. We are just at the Door of Gods house, and Satan and his Anti-Christ are scavenging this Earth to try rob much souls as they could. We never know when and what God will come out that door with, but we do know he will come out that door pissed off and ready for Justice.

Its like a bunch of people are violently knocking on someones door forever and not giving them rest, we never know what the owner will do when he opens that door, we never know what kind of Justice the owner will have when he opens his door, but we know the owner will be pissed off and want Justice when be opens that door of violent people knocking. Never mess with God, never bang on his door (Sin). Pray (Call) to him before you go to his house, let him know when youre coming. Dont just go knocking on Gods door and expect forgivness and peace. God will come out that door with Justice.

See original here:

World War 3 | WWIII | Endtime Ministries with Irvin Baxter

Posted in Ww3

Is human cloning wrong? | Debate.org

Posted on by

Screw god, you can't force a religion on me that tells me what's right or wrong. We need to clone humans in order to progress as the human race! It's just like when people get all touchy on the subject of stem cells or abortion - your religion, not mine. If you don't like it to bad for you, we need to be able to create a person who is genetically identical to the person who was cloned. Think of all the uses the cloned body would have. If you needed a new set of lungs, well what do you know... A brand new set. These people would not be living, they would be vegetables who do not have a personality nor would they feel pain. We ned to boot morality out the door and focus on curing diseases that kill millions of people each year. If we had human test subjects that weren't 'living' we could solve problems faster! It's all of you softies that think it's inhumane. You want to know what I find inhuman, letting people in our own countries starve whilst we save those in Africa. Call me a monster but human cloning is the way to go and I'll stick by my argument till the day I die.

Dolly took 267 tries before she was made and she still had problems, and lived a much shorter life than all other sheep. There could also be overpopulation and a major shortage of food. This is a big problem for all humanity and the Government should ban it very soon.

It is a right that people of America should have. If someone has a failing heart they can reproduce them. If someone is hurting over a death, they can reproduce the child. It is smart and a futuristic idea. Right now it usually ends in failures but sooner or later it may just be another race in the world.

We are in charge of our own fates, so why would we leave it to chance? Hypothetically, if god gave us the disease, with today's modern science, he's giving us the chance to change it. Why would we leave life threatening diseases in the hands of some higher power when the cure is right in front of us?

I dont believe in it. Its not up to people to clone, only God can create life. You cannot reproduce a soul. It is impossible and the technology today wouldnt be able to do it. Maybe one day they can complete the task of cloning it would just be a blob of skin because there wouldn't be a soul to control the body.

I'm assuming that you are talking about therapeutic cloning, which is the process where you clone a human to get a human embryo so you can harvest stem cells so you can make organs and transplant those organs to people that need them. Of course this process kills the embryo. I view this like I view abortion, the embryo is not a person yet, not technically. They don't have any thoughts or experiences, they are living, but their life force, is nothing more than a flower or a blade of grass. And to kill a blade of grass so you can get an organ to save a life, is okay. Of course the cons to therapeutic cloning is how much it costs, but this debate is more about ethics than anything else, and killing a human embryo to save a life IS ethical.

It can save lives due to the possibility of cloning organs such as hearts. And any one with religious arguments (life is sacred don't play god etc etc.), shut up, okay? Religion is an excuse to justify the un-justifiable. And even then it is a bad excuse. If god has spoken to you...You have ADD and you're hearing things that aren't there. God speaking is a medical DISABILITY.

Human cloning is not bad because it is purely for science, religion is a whole other topic then cloning because although I respect your religion and your beliefs, your statement isn't what I would call correct. Human cloning already happens naturally for all those people who don't know that. There is something called human twins, duh, they are technically under the category of cloning. So, it is naturally and religion shouldn't be pulled into pure science.

It isn't certain that the clones will have the same personality as the original, and also it is not playing god because then wouldn't doctors also be playing god because they save lives and change fate that may not need to be changed. Doctors give drugs so that people feel better and could be saved.

We already play god; curing diseases, hospitals, reviving people who die of heart attacks, implanting embryos, etc. Why should cloning be treated any differently? The people arguing against human cloning speak about the cloned people as if they wouldn't be human. They could have every opportunity for intelligence as the person they were cloned from. They'd be nothing less than a younger identical twin. So why not clone? Even organ cloning would be incredibly helpful to humans as a species, if you could clone healthy heart or liver cells and implant them into the heart or liver of the person who gave the healthy, but needed the cloned ones to cure a disease or just an injury, they could live longer, because of a few cloned cells. How is that "wrong"?

Read more here:

Is human cloning wrong? | Debate.org

Social Darwinism – Dr. Hartnell’s Nutty the A.D.D. Squirrel

Posted on by

Eugenics is a belief and practice of improving the genetic quality of the human population. (Wow! Every word in that sentence is a landmine of problems!) Although the idea of eugenics (but not the term) is contained in the Greek philosopher Plato's Republic, the modern concept became prominent during the second half of the 19th Century. Its predecessor was the group of sociological theories known as Social Darwinism. The favorite phrases of Social Darwinism "struggle for existence" and "survival of the fittest" - when applied to humans in society, suggested that the rich were better endowed than the poor and hence more successful in life. The continual and natural sorting out of "better" and "worse" elements would, in theory, lead to continued improvement of the human species. Eugenics differs from Social Darwinism because Social Darwinism was characterized by its laissez-faire attitude, that is, letting nature take its course so that the worst elements of society were eventually be eliminated. Eugenics, on the other hand, preaches that proper breeding is the key to bettering society. In other words, you push for the higher reproduction of people with desired traits (called "positive eugenics") and prevent the reproduction of those with less-desired traits (called "negative eugenics").

This can't be serious, can it?

Oh, it is. The modern eugenicsmovement was closely associated with a sense of white Anglo-Saxon superiority. Sir Francis Galton (Charles Darwin's cousin), the founder of the English eugenics movement, for example, had been drawn to the study of human heredity and eugenics by his curiosity about what he called the hereditary "genius" in his own family... as in, "Damn, we're a smart bunch. We should be breeding more." (I'm guessing his knighthood went to his head.) The publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species in 1859 was an event that changed Galton's life. He became obsessed with the first chapter about the breeding of domestic animals (um, what?) and devoted the rest of his life to exploring the variations found in the human population. In so doing, he established a research program which categorized multiple aspects of humans, from mental characteristics to height; from facial images to fingerprint patterns. In 1883, a year after Darwin died, Galton took the Greek root words for "good" and "origin" and named his research "eugenics".

As a social movement, eugenics reached its greatest popularity in the early decades of the 20th Century. By this point, eugenics was practiced around the world and promoted by imperialist governments. Many countries enacted eugenic policies, including genetic screening, birth control, marriage restrictions, segregation (both racial segregation and segregation of the mentally ill from the rest of the population), forced sterilization, forced abortions, forced pregnancies... and genocide. The movement was especially strong in England, the U.S., and Germany from 1910-1940.

In the U.S., the eugenics movement received extensive funding from major corporations, including the Carnegie Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation. Even the inventor of corn flakes, J. H. Kellogg, launched the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. (Yea, now your cereal tastes like shame! But trust me, that was one weird dude. Real the caption under his picture. And then go eat some cereal...) Renowned biologist, Charles B. Davenport, organized the Eugenics Record Office in New York and the American Breeder's Association (ABA). He formed the ABA specifically to "investigate and report on heredity in the human race, and to emphasize the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood." One of the ABA's biggest members wasAlexander Graham Bell. (Yea, now your phone sounds racist.)

Eugenics exerted considerable influence on popular opinion and was reflected in some state and Federal legislation. Starting with Indiana in 1907,31 states passed sterilization laws aimed at breeding out various social "misfits": the mentally retarded, criminals, and the insane. (Indiana was the first, California conducted the most, and North Carolina was the most aggressive: an IQ lower than 70 meant sterilization was appropriate.) Laws were also passed restricting marriages between members of various racial groups. Even the National Federation of Women's Clubs, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and the National League of Women Voters were among major feminist organizations that lobbied in favor of eugenics, specifically birth control and sterilization in order to prevent unwanted children from being born into poverty and to curb passing on mental diseases or birth defects. However, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, made it abundantly clear that it wasa woman's decision and not the state whether or not to have a child. (Some see this as the start of the Pro-Choice Movement.)

The key triumph of the U.S. eugenics movement came in 1924, when a coalition of eugenicists and some big-business interests pushed through the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the National Origins Act. The actseverely limited immigration into the U.S. from Eastern European and Mediterranean countries. Eugenicists claimed that these immigrants were inferior to Anglo-Saxons (whites) and were "polluting" the "pure" American bloodstream. By 1928, there were 376 courses in some of America's leading universities, enrolling more than 20,000 students.

After the eugenics movement was firmly in place in the U.S., it spread to Germany. Eugenicists in California began producing literatureto promoteeugenics and sterilization and sent it to German scientists and medical "professionals". By 1933, California had subjected more people to forced sterilization than all other U.S states combined.(Most werepoor, sick, and non-white.)The sterilization program engineered by the Nazis wasinspired by California's.

But wait... it gets worse.

The Rockefeller Foundation helped develop and fund various German eugenics programs, including the one that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to the concentration camp Auschwitz. (Mengele was the notorious Nazi doctor that performed horrific experiments on people.) Upon returning from Germany in 1934, where more than 5,000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe bragged to a colleague: "You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought. I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."

After World War II, however, historians began to portray U.S. eugenics as different from Nazi eugenics. (Of course they did!) The movement in the U.S. was largely discredited by the fact that eugenics was central to both the theory and practice of Nazism. Still, California continued forced sterilizations on prisoners as late as the mid-1960s, mostly because California's long-time attorney general was a big supporter of the practice, and it wasn't formally outlawed there until 1979. (In fact, from 2006-2010, 148 women were illegally sterilized in California's prisons.)

Eugenicsis rightfully andseverely criticized for what can be calledovert racial bias, subjectivity in the use of evidence, and lack of scientific "proof".Eugenics isa shameful reminder of what happens when science mixes with racism. But don't worry. You can sleep on this fun fact: eugenics is still officially permitted in the U.S. today. WHAT?!

Read the original post:

Social Darwinism - Dr. Hartnell's Nutty the A.D.D. Squirrel

Automation – Wikipedia

Posted on by

Automation[1] or automatic control, is the use of various control systems for operating equipment such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers and heat treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering and stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications and vehicles with minimal or reduced human intervention. Some processes have been completely automated.

The biggest benefit of automation is that it saves labor; however, it is also used to save energy and materials and to improve quality, accuracy and precision.

The term automation, inspired by the earlier word automatic (coming from automaton), was not widely used before 1947, when Ford established an automation department.[1] It was during this time that industry was rapidly adopting feedback controllers, which were introduced in the 1930s.[2]

Automation has been achieved by various means including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic devices and computers, usually in combination. Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes and ships typically use all these combined techniques.

Fundamentally, there are two types of control loop; open loop control, and closed loop (feedback) control.

In open loop control, the control action from the controller is independent of the "process output" (or "controlled process variable"). A good example of this is a central heating boiler controlled only by a timer, so that heat is applied for a constant time, regardless of the temperature of the building. (The control action is the switching on/off of the boiler. The process output is the building temperature).

In closed loop control, the control action from the controller is dependent on the process output. In the case of the boiler analogy this would include a thermostat to monitor the building temperature, and thereby feed back a signal to ensure the controller maintains the building at the temperature set on the thermostat. A closed loop controller therefore has a feedback loop which ensures the controller exerts a control action to give a process output the same as the "Reference input" or "set point". For this reason, closed loop controllers are also called feedback controllers.[3]

The definition of a closed loop control system according to the British Standard Institution is 'a control system possessing monitoring feedback, the deviation signal formed as a result of this feedback being used to control the action of a final control element in such a way as to tend to reduce the deviation to zero.' " [4]

Likewise; "A Feedback Control System is a system which tends to maintain a prescribed relationship of one system variable to another by comparing functions of these variables and using the difference as a means of control.'"[5]

The advanced type of automation that revolutionized manufacturing, aircraft, communications and other industries, is feedback control, which is usually continuous and involves taking measurements using a sensor and making calculated adjustments to keep the measured variable within a set range.[6] The theoretical basis of closed loop automation is control theory.

The control action is the form of the controller output action.

One of the simplest types of control is on-off control. An example is the thermostat used on household appliances which either opens or closes an electrical contact. (Thermostats were originally developed as true feedback-control mechanisms rather than the on-off common household appliance thermostat.)

Sequence control, in which a programmed sequence of discrete operations is performed, often based on system logic that involves system states. An elevator control system is an example of sequence control.

A proportionalintegralderivative controller (PID controller) is a control loop feedback mechanism (controller) widely used in industrial control systems.

A PID controller continuously calculates an error value e ( t ) {displaystyle e(t)} as the difference between a desired setpoint and a measured process variable and applies a correction based on proportional, integral, and derivative terms, respectively (sometimes denoted P, I, and D) which give their name to the controller type.

The theoretical understanding and application dates from the 1920s, and they are implemented in nearly all analogue control systems; originally in mechanical controllers, and then using discrete electronics and latterly in industrial process computers.

Sequential control may be either to a fixed sequence or to a logical one that will perform different actions depending on various system states. An example of an adjustable but otherwise fixed sequence is a timer on a lawn sprinkler.

States refer to the various conditions that can occur in a use or sequence scenario of the system. An example is an elevator, which uses logic based on the system state to perform certain actions in response to its state and operator input. For example, if the operator presses the floor n button, the system will respond depending on whether the elevator is stopped or moving, going up or down, or if the door is open or closed, and other conditions.[7]

An early development of sequential control was relay logic, by which electrical relays engage electrical contacts which either start or interrupt power to a device. Relays were first used in telegraph networks before being developed for controlling other devices, such as when starting and stopping industrial-sized electric motors or opening and closing solenoid valves. Using relays for control purposes allowed event-driven control, where actions could be triggered out of sequence, in response to external events. These were more flexible in their response than the rigid single-sequence cam timers. More complicated examples involved maintaining safe sequences for devices such as swing bridge controls, where a lock bolt needed to be disengaged before the bridge could be moved, and the lock bolt could not be released until the safety gates had already been closed.

The total number of relays, cam timers and drum sequencers can number into the hundreds or even thousands in some factories. Early programming techniques and languages were needed to make such systems manageable, one of the first being ladder logic, where diagrams of the interconnected relays resembled the rungs of a ladder. Special computers called programmable logic controllers were later designed to replace these collections of hardware with a single, more easily re-programmed unit.

In a typical hard wired motor start and stop circuit (called a control circuit) a motor is started by pushing a "Start" or "Run" button that activates a pair of electrical relays. The "lock-in" relay locks in contacts that keep the control circuit energized when the push button is released. (The start button is a normally open contact and the stop button is normally closed contact.) Another relay energizes a switch that powers the device that throws the motor starter switch (three sets of contacts for three phase industrial power) in the main power circuit. Large motors use high voltage and experience high in-rush current, making speed important in making and breaking contact. This can be dangerous for personnel and property with manual switches. The "lock in" contacts in the start circuit and the main power contacts for the motor are held engaged by their respective electromagnets until a "stop" or "off" button is pressed, which de-energizes the lock in relay.[8]

Commonly interlocks are added to a control circuit. Suppose that the motor in the example is powering machinery that has a critical need for lubrication. In this case an interlock could be added to insure that the oil pump is running before the motor starts. Timers, limit switches and electric eyes are other common elements in control circuits.

Solenoid valves are widely used on compressed air or hydraulic fluid for powering actuators on mechanical components. While motors are used to supply continuous rotary motion, actuators are typically a better choice for intermittently creating a limited range of movement for a mechanical component, such as moving various mechanical arms, opening or closing valves, raising heavy press rolls, applying pressure to presses.

Computers can perform both sequential control and feedback control, and typically a single computer will do both in an industrial application. Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are a type of special purpose microprocessor that replaced many hardware components such as timers and drum sequencers used in relay logic type systems. General purpose process control computers have increasingly replaced stand alone controllers, with a single computer able to perform the operations of hundreds of controllers. Process control computers can process data from a network of PLCs, instruments and controllers in order to implement typical (such as PID) control of many individual variables or, in some cases, to implement complex control algorithms using multiple inputs and mathematical manipulations. They can also analyze data and create real time graphical displays for operators and run reports for operators, engineers and management.

Control of an automated teller machine (ATM) is an example of an interactive process in which a computer will perform a logic derived response to a user selection based on information retrieved from a networked database. The ATM process has similarities with other online transaction processes. The different logical responses are called scenarios. Such processes are typically designed with the aid of use cases and flowcharts, which guide the writing of the software code.

The earliest feedback control mechanism was the thermostat invented in 1620 by the Dutch scientist Cornelius Drebbel. (Note: Early thermostats were temperature regulators or controlers rather than the on-off mechanisms common in household appliances.) Another control mechanism was used to tent the sails of windmills. It was patented by Edmund Lee in 1745.[9] Also in 1745, Jacques de Vaucanson invented the first automated loom.

In 1771 Richard Arkwright invented the first fully automated spinning mill driven by water power, known at the time as the water frame.[10]

The centrifugal governor, which was invented by Christian Huygens in the seventeenth century, was used to adjust the gap between millstones.[11][12][13] Another centrifugal governor was used by a Mr. Bunce of England in 1784 as part of a model steam crane.[14][15] The centrifugal governor was also used in the automatic flour mill developed by Oliver Evans in 1785, making it the first completely automated industrial process.[citation needed] The governor was adopted by James Watt for use on a steam engine in 1788 after Watts partner Boulton saw one at a flour mill Boulton & Watt were building.[9]

The governor could not actually hold a set speed; the engine would assume a new constant speed in response to load changes. The governor was able to handle smaller variations such as those caused by fluctuating heat load to the boiler. Also, there was a tendency for oscillation whenever there was a speed change. As a consequence, engines equipped with this governor were not suitable for operations requiring constant speed, such as cotton spinning.[9]

Several improvements to the governor, plus improvements to valve cut-off timing on the steam engine, made the engine suitable for most industrial uses before the end of the 19th century. Advances in the steam engine stayed well ahead of science, both thermodynamics and control theory.[9]

The governor received relatively little scientific attention until James Clerk Maxwell published a paper that established the beginning of a theoretical basis for understanding control theory. Development of the electronic amplifier during the 1920s, which was important for long distance telephony, required a higher signal to noise ratio, which was solved by negative feedback noise cancellation. This and other telephony applications contributed to control theory. Military applications during the Second World War that contributed to and benefited from control theory were fire-control systems and aircraft controls. The word "automation" itself was coined in the 1940s by General Electric.[16] The so-called classical theoretical treatment of control theory dates to the 1940s and 1950s.[6]

Relay logic was introduced with factory electrification, which underwent rapid adaption from 1900 though the 1920s. Central electric power stations were also undergoing rapid growth and operation of new high pressure boilers, steam turbines and electrical substations created a large demand for instruments and controls.

Central control rooms became common in the 1920s, but as late as the early 1930s, most process control was on-off. Operators typically monitored charts drawn by recorders that plotted data from instruments. To make corrections, operators manually opened or closed valves or turned switches on or off. Control rooms also used color coded lights to send signals to workers in the plant to manually make certain changes.[17]

Controllers, which were able to make calculated changes in response to deviations from a set point rather than on-off control, began being introduced the 1930s. Controllers allowed manufacturing to continue showing productivity gains to offset the declining influence of factory electrification.[18]

Factory productivity was greatly increased by electrification in the 1920s. Manufacturing productivity growth fell from 5.2%/yr 1919-29 to 2.76%/yr 1929-41. Field notes that spending on non-medical instruments increased significantly from 192933 and remained strong thereafter.

In 1959 Texacos Port Arthur refinery became the first chemical plant to use digital control.[19] Conversion of factories to digital control began to spread rapidly in the 1970s as the price of computer hardware fell.

The automatic telephone switchboard was introduced in 1892 along with dial telephones.[20] By 1929, 31.9% of the Bell system was automatic. Automatic telephone switching originally used vacuum tube amplifiers and electro-mechanical switches, which consumed a large amount of electricity. Call volume eventually grew so fast that it was feared the telephone system would consume all electricity production, prompting Bell Labs to begin research on the transistor.[21]

The logic performed by telephone switching relays was the inspiration for the digital computer. The first commercially successful glass bottle blowing machine was an automatic model introduced in 1905.[22] The machine, operated by a two-man crew working 12-hour shifts, could produce 17,280 bottles in 24 hours, compared to 2,880 bottles made by a crew of six men and boys working in a shop for a day. The cost of making bottles by machine was 10 to 12 cents per gross compared to $1.80 per gross by the manual glassblowers and helpers.

Sectional electric drives were developed using control theory. Sectional electric drives are used on different sections of a machine where a precise differential must be maintained between the sections. In steel rolling, the metal elongates as it passes through pairs of rollers, which must run at successively faster speeds. In paper making the paper sheet shrinks as it passes around steam heated drying arranged in groups, which must run at successively slower speeds. The first application of a sectional electric drive was on a paper machine in 1919.[23] One of the most important developments in the steel industry during the 20th century was continuous wide strip rolling, developed by Armco in 1928.[24]

Before automation many chemicals were made in batches. In 1930, with the widespread use of instruments and the emerging use of controllers, the founder of Dow Chemical Co. was advocating continuous production.[25]

Self-acting machine tools that displaced hand dexterity so they could be operated by boys and unskilled laborers were developed by James Nasmyth in the 1840s.[26]Machine tools were automated with Numerical control (NC) using punched paper tape in the 1950s. This soon evolved into computerized numerical control (CNC).

Today extensive automation is practiced in practically every type of manufacturing and assembly process. Some of the larger processes include electrical power generation, oil refining, chemicals, steel mills, plastics, cement plants, fertilizer plants, pulp and paper mills, automobile and truck assembly, aircraft production, glass manufacturing, natural gas separation plants, food and beverage processing, canning and bottling and manufacture of various kinds of parts. Robots are especially useful in hazardous applications like automobile spray painting. Robots are also used to assemble electronic circuit boards. Automotive welding is done with robots and automatic welders are used in applications like pipelines.

The main advantages of automation are:

The following methods are often employed to improve productivity, quality, or robustness.

The main disadvantages of automation are:

In manufacturing, the purpose of automation has shifted to issues broader than productivity, cost, and time.

Lights out manufacturing is when a production system is 100% or near to 100% automated (not hiring any workers). In order to eliminate the need for labor costs altogether.

The costs of automation to the environment are different depending on the technology, product or engine automated. There are automated engines that consume more energy resources from the Earth in comparison with previous engines and those that do the opposite[clarification needed] too.[citation needed] Hazardous operations, such as oil refining, the manufacturing of industrial chemicals, and all forms of metal working, were always early contenders for automation.[dubious discuss][citation needed]

Another major shift in automation is the increased demand for flexibility and convertibility in manufacturing processes. Manufacturers are increasingly demanding the ability to easily switch from manufacturing Product A to manufacturing Product B without having to completely rebuild the production lines. Flexibility and distributed processes have led to the introduction of Automated Guided Vehicles with Natural Features Navigation.

Digital electronics helped too. Former analogue-based instrumentation was replaced by digital equivalents which can be more accurate and flexible, and offer greater scope for more sophisticated configuration, parametrization and operation. This was accompanied by the fieldbus revolution which provided a networked (i.e. a single cable) means of communicating between control systems and field level instrumentation, eliminating hard-wiring.

Discrete manufacturing plants adopted these technologies fast. The more conservative process industries with their longer plant life cycles have been slower to adopt and analogue-based measurement and control still dominates. The growing use of Industrial Ethernet on the factory floor is pushing these trends still further, enabling manufacturing plants to be integrated more tightly within the enterprise, via the internet if necessary. Global competition has also increased demand for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems.

Engineers can now have numerical control over automated devices. The result has been a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities. Computer-aided technologies (or CAx) now serve as the basis for mathematical and organizational tools used to create complex systems. Notable examples of CAx include Computer-aided design (CAD software) and Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM software). The improved design, analysis, and manufacture of products enabled by CAx has been beneficial for industry.[28]

Information technology, together with industrial machinery and processes, can assist in the design, implementation, and monitoring of control systems. One example of an industrial control system is a programmable logic controller (PLC). PLCs are specialized hardened computers which are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events.[29]

Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces, are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers. Service personnel who monitor and control through HMIs can be called by different names. In industrial process and manufacturing environments, they are called operators or something similar. In boiler houses and central utilities departments they are called stationary engineers.[30]

Different types of automation tools exist:

When it comes to Factory Automation, Host Simulation Software (HSS) is a commonly used testing tool that is used to test the equipment software. HSS is used to test equipment performance with respect to Factory Automation standards (timeouts, response time, processing time).[31]

Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level pattern recognition, language comprehension, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern mechanical and computer systems (but see Watson (computer)). Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where automation of industrial tasks is possible. Overcoming these obstacles is a theorized path to post-scarcity economics.

The Paradox of Automation says that the more efficient the automated system, the more crucial the human contribution of the operators. Humans are less involved, but their involvement becomes more critical.

If an automated system has an error, it will multiply that error until its fixed or shut down. This is where human operators come in.[32]

A fatal example of this was Air France Flight 447, where a failure of automation put the pilots into a manual situation they were not prepared for.[33]

Food and drink

The food retail industry has started to apply automation to the ordering process; McDonald's has introduced touch screen ordering and payment systems in many of its restaurants, reducing the need for as many cashier employees.[34]The University of Texas at Austin has introduced fully automated cafe retail locations.[35] Some Cafes and restaurants have utilized mobile and tablet "apps" to make the ordering process more efficient by customers ordering and paying on their device.[36][spamlink?][37] Some restaurants have automated food delivery to customers tables using a Conveyor belt system. The use of robots is sometimes employed to replace waiting staff.[38]

Stores

Many Supermarkets and even smaller stores are rapidly introducing Self checkout systems reducing the need for employing checkout workers.

Online shopping could be considered a form of automated retail as the payment and checkout are through an automated Online transaction processing system. Other forms of automation can also be an integral part of online shopping, for example the deployment of automated warehouse robotics such as that applied by Amazon using Kiva Systems.

Involves the removal of human labor from the mining process.[39] The mining industry is currently in the transition towards Automation. Currently it can still require a large amount of human capital, particularly in the third world where labor costs are low so there is less incentive for increasing efficiency through automation.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started the research and development of automated visual surveillance and monitoring (VSAM) program, between 1997 and 1999, and airborne video surveillance (AVS) programs, from 1998 to 2002. Currently, there is a major effort underway in the vision community to develop a fully automated tracking surveillance system. Automated video surveillance monitors people and vehicles in real time within a busy environment. Existing automated surveillance systems are based on the environment they are primarily designed to observe, i.e., indoor, outdoor or airborne, the amount of sensors that the automated system can handle and the mobility of sensor, i.e., stationary camera vs. mobile camera. The purpose of a surveillance system is to record properties and trajectories of objects in a given area, generate warnings or notify designated authority in case of occurrence of particular events.[40]

As demands for safety and mobility have grown and technological possibilities have multiplied, interest in automation has grown. Seeking to accelerate the development and introduction of fully automated vehicles and highways, the United States Congress authorized more than $650 million over six years for intelligent transport systems (ITS) and demonstration projects in the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). Congress legislated in ISTEA that "the Secretary of Transportation shall develop an automated highway and vehicle prototype from which future fully automated intelligent vehicle-highway systems can be developed. Such development shall include research in human factors to ensure the success of the man-machine relationship. The goal of this program is to have the first fully automated highway roadway or an automated test track in operation by 1997. This system shall accommodate installation of equipment in new and existing motor vehicles." [ISTEA 1991, part B, Section 6054(b)].

Full automation commonly defined as requiring no control or very limited control by the driver; such automation would be accomplished through a combination of sensor, computer, and communications systems in vehicles and along the roadway. Fully automated driving would, in theory, allow closer vehicle spacing and higher speeds, which could enhance traffic capacity in places where additional road building is physically impossible, politically unacceptable, or prohibitively expensive. Automated controls also might enhance road safety by reducing the opportunity for driver error, which causes a large share of motor vehicle crashes. Other potential benefits include improved air quality (as a result of more-efficient traffic flows), increased fuel economy, and spin-off technologies generated during research and development related to automated highway systems.[41]

Automated waste collection trucks prevent the need for as many workers as well as easing the level of labor required to provide the service.[42]

Home automation (also called domotics) designates an emerging practice of increased automation of household appliances and features in residential dwellings, particularly through electronic means that allow for things impracticable, overly expensive or simply not possible in recent past decades.

Automation is essential for many scientific and clinical applications.[43] Therefore, automation has been extensively employed in laboratories. From as early as 1980 fully automated laboratories have already been working.[44] However, automation has not become widespread in laboratories due to its high cost. This may change with the ability of integrating low-cost devices with standard laboratory equipment.[45][46]Autosamplers are common devices used in laboratory automation.

Industrial automation deals primarily with the automation of manufacturing, quality control and material handling processes. General purpose controllers for industrial processes include Programmable logic controllers, stand-alone I/O modules, and computers. Industrial automation is to replace the decision making of humans and manual command-response activities with the use of mechanized equipment and logical programming commands. One trend is increased use of Machine vision to provide automatic inspection and robot guidance functions, another is a continuing increase in the use of robots. Industrial automation is simply done at the industrial level.

Energy efficiency in industrial processes has become a higher priority. Semiconductor companies like Infineon Technologies are offering 8-bit micro-controller applications for example found in motor controls, general purpose pumps, fans, and ebikes to reduce energy consumption and thus increase efficiency.

Industrial robotics is a sub-branch in the industrial automation that aids in various manufacturing processes. Such manufacturing processes include; machining, welding, painting, assembling and material handling to name a few.[48] Industrial robots utilizes various mechanical, electrical as well as software systems to allow for high precision, accuracy and speed that far exceeds any human performance. The birth of industrial robot came shortly after World War II as United States saw the need for a quicker way to produce industrial and consumer goods.[49] Servos, digital logic and solid state electronics allowed engineers to build better and faster systems and overtime these systems were improved and revised to the point where a single robot is capable of running 24 hours a day with little or no maintenance.

Industrial automation incorporates programmable logic controllers in the manufacturing process. Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) use a processing system which allows for variation of controls of inputs and outputs using simple programming. PLCs make use of programmable memory, storing instructions and functions like logic, sequencing, timing, counting, etc. Using a logic based language, a PLC can receive a variety of inputs and return a variety of logical outputs, the input devices being sensors and output devices being motors, valves, etc. PLCs are similar to computers, however, while computers are optimized for calculations, PLCs are optimized for control task and use in industrial environments. They are built so that only basic logic-based programming knowledge is needed and to handle vibrations, high temperatures, humidity and noise. The greatest advantage PLCs offer is their flexibility. With the same basic controllers, a PLC can operate a range of different control systems. PLCs make it unnecessary to rewire a system to change the control system. This flexibility leads to a cost-effective system for complex and varied control systems.[50]

Agent-assisted automation refers to automation used by call center agents to handle customer inquiries. There are two basic types: desktop automation and automated voice solutions. Desktop automation refers to software programming that makes it easier for the call center agent to work across multiple desktop tools. The automation would take the information entered into one tool and populate it across the others so it did not have to be entered more than once, for example. Automated voice solutions allow the agents to remain on the line while disclosures and other important information is provided to customers in the form of pre-recorded audio files. Specialized applications of these automated voice solutions enable the agents to process credit cards without ever seeing or hearing the credit card numbers or CVV codes[51]

The key benefit of agent-assisted automation is compliance and error-proofing. Agents are sometimes not fully trained or they forget or ignore key steps in the process. The use of automation ensures that what is supposed to happen on the call actually does, every time.

Research by the Oxford Martin School showed that employees engaged in "tasks following well-defined procedures that can easily be performed by sophisticated algorithms" are at risk of displacement. The study, published in 2013, shows that automation can affect both skilled and unskilled work and both high and low-paying occupations; however, low-paid physical occupations are most at risk.[52] However, according to a study published in McKinsey Quarterly[53] in 2015 the impact of computerization in most cases is not replacement of employees but automation of portions of the tasks they perform.[54]

Based on a formula by Gilles Saint-Paul, an economist at Toulouse 1 University, the demand for unskilled human capital declines at a slower rate than the demand for skilled human capital increases.[55] In the long run and for society as a whole it has led to cheaper products, lower average work hours, and new industries forming (I.e, robotics industries, computer industries, design industries). These new industries provide many high salary skill based jobs to the economy.

View post:

Automation - Wikipedia

Automation The Car Company Tycoon Game on Steam

Posted on by

We held back on launching Automation into Early Access until the game had a solid, fleshed-out core which the main tycoon part of the game will be based on. We also wanted to make sure we can offer enough content and polish to warrant presenting and selling the game to a larger audience.

Previously we offered an early access version of the game via our website, but this sales platform and distribution channel has been outgrown by the steadily increasing interest in the game, becoming complicated to manage for a small team like ours.

Finally launching the game on Steam Early Access makes possible to speed up development with any additional income, allowing for quicker content addition (car bodies, engines, etc.) than otherwise possible. It also allows us to get additional manpower to the team to tackle the huge job of game balancing and AI programming.

Last but not least, with the major milestones of completing the car designer and engine designer under our belt, the implementation of multiplayer features means using the Steam API for network communications, saving us a lot of double work associated with developing our own networking code first.

We're not known for being good with estimates, but always deliver and are good at avoiding feature creep. Our development process focuses on milestone builds that introduce new features every ~3-4 months and are both beta-tested and reasonably polished-up. Any major problems with these milestones are addressed quickly in hotfixes before we move on to the next milestone.

Quick Facts About Development:

Since Mid 2015, a portion of our team has been focused on porting Automation over to Unreal Engine 4, and the next major update release will be on Unreal, giving huge improvements in graphical quality, performance, UI design and general playablity, as well as giving us the developers the tools to develop Automation better, faster, and maintain it far into the future.

Read more:

Automation The Car Company Tycoon Game on Steam

Beyond Automation – hbr.org

Posted on by

Idea in Brief The Threat

Automation has traditionally displaced workers, forcing them onto higher ground that machines have not yet claimed. Today, as artificial intelligence encroaches on knowledge work, it can be hard to see how humans will remain employed in large numbers.

The outlook is grim if computers continue to chip away relentlessly at the tasks currently performed by well-educated people. But if we reframe the use of machines as augmentation, human work can flourish and accomplish what was never before possible.

Some knowledge workers will step up to even higher levels of cognition; others will step aside and draw on forms of intelligence that machines lack. Some will step in, monitoring and adjusting computers decision making; others will step narrowly into highly specialized realms of expertise. Inevitably, some will step forward by creating next-generation machines and finding new ways for them to augment human strengths.

After hearing of a recent Oxford University study on advancing automation and its potential to displace workers, Yuh-Mei Hutt, of Tallahassee, Florida, wrote, The idea that half of todays jobs may vanish has changed my view of my childrens future. Hutt was reacting not only as a mother; she heads a business and occasionally blogs about emerging technologies. Familiar as she is with the upside of computerization, the downside looms large. How will they compete against AI? she asked. How will they compete against a much older and experienced workforce vying for even fewer positions?

Suddenly, it seems, people in all walks of life are becoming very concerned about advancing automation. And they should be: Unless we find as many tasks to give humans as we find to take away from them, all the social and psychological ills of joblessness will grow, from economic recession to youth unemployment to individual crises of identity. Thats especially true now that automation is coming to knowledge work, in the form of artificial intelligence. Knowledge workwhich well define loosely as work that is more mental than manual, involves consequential decision making, and has traditionally required a college educationaccounts for a large proportion of jobs in todays mature economies. It is the high ground to which humanity has retreated as machines have taken over less cognitively challenging work. But in the very foreseeable future, as the Gartner analyst Nigel Rayner says, many of the things executives do today will be automated.

What if we were to reframe the situation? What if, rather than asking the traditional questionWhat tasks currently performed by humans will soon be done more cheaply and rapidly by machines?we ask a new one: What new feats might people achieve if they had better thinking machines to assist them? Instead of seeing work as a zero-sum game with machines taking an ever greater share, we might see growing possibilities for employment. We could reframe the threat of automation as an opportunity for augmentation.

The two of us have been looking at cases in which knowledge workers collaborate with machines to do things that neither could do well on their own. And as automation makes greater incursions into their workplaces, these people respond with a surprisingly broad repertoire of moves. Conventional wisdom is that as machines threaten their livelihood, humans must invest in ever higher levels of formal education to keep ahead. In truth, as we will discuss below, smart people are taking five approaches to making their peace with smart machines.

David Autor, an economist at MIT who closely tracks the effects of automation on labor markets, recently complained that journalists and expert commentators overstate the extent of machine substitution for human labor and ignore the strong complementarities that increase productivity, raise earnings, and augment demand for skilled labor. He pointed to the immense challenge of applying machines to any tasks that call for flexibility, judgment, or common sense, and then pushed his point further. Tasks that cannot be substituted by computerization are generally complemented by it, he wrote. This point is as fundamental as it is overlooked.

A search for the complementarities to which Autor was referring is at the heart of what we call an augmentation strategy. It stands in stark contrast to the automation strategies that efficiency-minded enterprises have pursued in the past. Automation starts with a baseline of what people do in a given job and subtracts from that. It deploys computers to chip away at the tasks humans perform as soon as those tasks can be codified. Aiming for increased automation promises cost savings but limits us to thinking within the parameters of work that is being accomplished today.

Smart machines can be our partners and collaborators in creative problem solving.

Augmentation, in contrast, means starting with what humans do today and figuring out how that work could be deepened rather than diminished by a greater use of machines. Some thoughtful knowledge workers see this clearly. Camille Nicita, for example, is the CEO of Gongos, a company in metropolitan Detroit that helps clients gain consumer insightsa line of work that some would say is under threat as big data reveals all about buying behavior. Nicita concedes that sophisticated decision analytics based on large data sets will uncover new and important insights. But, she says, that will give her people the opportunity to go deeper and offer clients context, humanization, and the why behind big data. Her shop will increasingly go beyond analysis and translate that data in a way that informs business decisions through synthesis and the power of great narrative. Fortunately, computers arent very good at that sort of thing.

Intelligent machines, Nicita thinksand this is the core belief of an augmentation strategydo not usher people out the door, much less relegate them to doing the bidding of robot overlords. In some cases these machines will allow us to take on tasks that are superiormore sophisticated, more fulfilling, better suited to our strengthsto anything we have given up. In other cases the tasks will simply be different from anything computers can do well. In almost all situations, however, they will be less codified and structured; otherwise computers would already have taken them over.

We propose a change in mindset, on the part of both workers and providers of work, that will lead to different outcomesa change from pursuing automation to promoting augmentation. This seemingly simple terminological shift will have deep implications for how organizations are managed and how individuals strive to succeed. Knowledge workers will come to see smart machines as partners and collaborators in creative problem solving.

This new mindset could change the future.

Lets assume that computers are going to make their mark in your line of work. Indeed, lets posit that software will soon perform most of the cognitive heavy lifting you do in your job and, as far as the essential day-to-day operation of the enterprise is concerned, make decisions as good as (probably better than) those made by 90% of the people who currently hold it. What should your strategy be to remain gainfully employed? From an augmentation perspective, people might renegotiate their relationship to machines and realign their contributions in five ways.

Your best strategy may be to head for still higher intellectual ground. There will always be jobs for people who are capable of more big-picture thinking and a higher level of abstraction than computers are. In essence this is the same advice that has always been offered and taken as automation has encroached on human work: Let the machine do the things that are beneath you, and take the opportunity to engage with higher-order concerns.

Niven Narain, a cancer researcher, provides a great example. In 2005 he cofounded Berg, a start-up in Framingham, Massachusetts, to apply artificial intelligence to the discovery of new drugs. Bergs facility has high-throughput mass spectrometers that run around the clock and produce trillions of data points from their analysis of blood and tissue, along with powerful computers that look for patterns suggesting that certain molecules could be effective. The last thing you want to do now, Narain told a reporter in March 2015, is have a hundred biochemistsgoing through this data and saying, Oh, I kind of like this one over here. But he also employs a hundred biochemists. Their objective is not to crunch all those numbers and produce a hypothesis about a certain molecules potential. Rather, they pick up at the point where the math leaves off, the machine has produced a hypothesis, and the investigation of its viability begins.

Narain stepped up by seeing an opportunity to develop drugs in a new way. That takes lots of experience, insight, and the ability to understand quickly how the world is changing. Likewise, one interpretation of the success of todays ultrarich Wall Street investment bankers and hedge fund titans is that they have stepped up above automated trading and portfolio management systems.

If stepping up is your chosen approach, you will probably need a long education. A masters degree or a doctorate will serve you well as a job applicant. Once inside an organization, your objective must be to stay broadly informed and creative enough to be part of its ongoing innovation and strategy efforts. Ideally youll aspire to a senior management role and thus seize the opportunities you identify. Listen to Barney Harford, the CEO of Orbitza business that has done more than most to eliminate knowledge worker jobs. To hire for the tasks he still requires people to do, Harford looks for T-shaped individuals. Orbitz needs people who can go really deep in their particular area of expertise, he says, and also go really broad and have that kind of curiosity about the overall organization and how their particular piece of the pie fits into it. Thats good guidance for any knowledge worker who wants to step up: Start thinking more syntheticallyin the old sense of that term. Find ways to rely on machines to do your intellectual spadework, without losing knowledge of how they do it. Harford has done that by applying machine learning to the generation of algorithms that match customers with the travel experiences they desire.

Stepping up may be an option for only a small minority of the labor force. But a lot of brain work is equally valuable and also cannot be codified. Stepping aside means using mental strengths that arent about purely rational cognition but draw on what the psychologist Howard Gardner has called our multiple intelligences. You might focus on the interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligencesknowing how to work well with other people and understanding your own interests, goals, and strengths.

The legendary thoroughbred trainer D. Wayne Lukas cant articulate exactly how he manages to see the potential in a yearling. He just does. Apples revered designer Jonathan Ive cant download his taste to a computer. Ricky Gervais makes people laugh at material a machine would never dream up. Do they all use computers in their daily work lives? Unquestionably. But their genius has been to discover the ineffable strengths they possess and to spend as much time as possible putting them to work. Machines can perform numerous ancillary tasks that would otherwise encroach on the ability of these professionals to do what they do best.

We dont want to create the impression that stepping aside is purely for artists. Senior lawyers, for example, are thoroughly versed in the law but are rarely their firms deep-dive experts on all its fine points. They devote much of their energy to winning new work (usually the chief reason they get promoted) and acting as wise counselors to their clients. With machines digesting legal documents and suggesting courses of action and arguments, senior lawyers will have more capacity to do the rest of their job well. The same is true for many other professionals, such as senior accountants, architects, investment bankers, and consultants.

Take the realm of elder care, in which robotics manufacturers see great potential for automation. This isnt often treated as a nuanced or a particularly intellectual line of human work. We were struck, therefore, by a recent essay by the teacher, coach, and blogger Heather Plett. She wrote of her mothers palliative care provider, She was holding space for us, and explained: What does it mean to hold space for someone else? It means that we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey theyre on without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome. When we hold space for other people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support, and let go of judgement and control.

True, hospice care is an extreme example of a situation requiring the human touch. But empathy is valuable in any setting that has customers, coworkers, and owners.

If stepping aside is your strategy, you need to focus on your uncodifiable strengths, first discovering them and then diligently working to heighten them. In the process you should identify other masters of the tacit trade youre pursuing and find ways to work with them, whether as collaborator or apprentice. You may have to develop a greater respect for the intelligences you have beyond IQ, which decades of schooling might well have devalued. These, too, can be deliberately honedthey are no more or less God-given than your capacity for calculus.

Back in 1967, having witnessed the first attempts to automate knowledge work, Peter Drucker declared of the computer: Its a total moron. Its a lot less moronic now, but its relentless logic still occasionally arrives at decisions whose improvement wouldnt require a human genius.

Perhaps you saw a 2014 story in the New York Times about a man who had just changed jobs and applied to refinance his mortgage. Even though hed had a steady government job for eight years and a steady teaching job for more than 20 years before that, he was turned down for the loan. The automated system that evaluated his application recognized that the projected payments were well within his income level, but it was smart enough to seize on a risk marker: His new career would involve a great deal more variation and uncertainty in earnings.

Or maybe that system wasnt so smart. The man was Ben Bernanke, a former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, who had just signed a book contract for more than a million dollars and was headed for a lucrative stint on the lecture circuit. This is a prime example of why, when computers make decisions, we will always need people who can step in and save us from their worst tendencies.

A lot of brain workincluding empathycannot be codified.

Those capable of stepping in know how to monitor and modify the work of computers. Taxes may increasingly be done by computer, but smart accountants look out for the mistakes that automated programsand the programs human usersoften make. Ad buying in digital marketing is almost exclusively automated these days, but only people can say when some programmatic buy would actually hurt the brand and how the logic behind it might be tuned.

Here you might ask, Just who is augmenting whom (or what) in this situation? Its a good moment to emphasize that in an augmentation environment, support is mutual. The human ensures that the computer is doing a good job and makes it better. This is the point being made by all those people who encourage more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. They envision a work world largely made up of stepping-in positions. But if this is your strategy, youll also need to develop your powers of observation, translation, and human connection.

This approach involves finding a specialty within your profession that wouldnt be economical to automate. In Boston, near the headquarters of Dunkin Donuts, a reporter recently peered into the secret world of the Dunkin Donuts franchise kings. One of them, Gary Joyal, makes a good living (if his Rolls-Royce is any indication) by connecting buyers and sellers of Dunkin Donuts franchises. As the Boston Globe put it, Joyal uses his encyclopedic knowledge of franchiseesand often their family situations, income portfolios, and estate plansto make himself an indispensable player for buyers and sellers alike. So far he has helped to broker half a billion dollars worth of deals.

Could Joyals encyclopedic knowledge be encoded in software? Probably. But no one would make enough doing so to put a Rolls in the driveway. Its just too small a category. The same is true of Claire Bustarrets work. Johns Hopkins Magazine reports that Bustarret has made a career out of knowing paper like other French people know wine. Her ability to determine from a sheets texture, feel, and fibers when and where the paper was made is extremely valuable to historians and art authenticators. Maybe what she knows could be put in a database, and her analytical techniques could be automated. But in the meantime, she would have learned more.

Those who step narrowly find such niches and burrow deep inside them. They are hedgehogs to the stepping-up foxes among us. Although most of them have the benefit of a formal education, the expertise that fuels their earning power is gained through on-the-job trainingand the discipline of focus. If this is your strategy, start making a name for yourself as the person who goes a mile deep on a subject an inch wide. That wont mean you cant also have other interests, but professionally youll have a very distinct brand. How might machines augment you? Youll build your own databases and routines for keeping current, and connect with systems that combine your very specialized output with that of others.

Finally, stepping forward means constructing the next generation of computing and AI tools. Its still true that behind every great machine is a personin fact, many people. Someone decides that the Dunkin Franchise Optimizer is a bad investment, or that the application of AI to cancer drug discovery is a good one. Someone has to build the next great automated insurance-underwriting solution. Someone intuits the human need for a better system; someone identifies the part of it that can be codified; someone writes the code; and someone designs the conditions under which it will be applied.

Clearly this is a realm in which knowledge workers need strong skills in computer science, artificial intelligence, and analytics. In his book Data-ism, Steve Lohr offers stories of some of the people doing this work. For example, at the E. & J. Gallo Winery, an executive named Nick Dokoozlian teams up with Hendrik Hamann, a member of IBMs research staff, to find a way to harness the data required for precision agriculture at scale. In other words, they want to automate the painstaking craft of giving each grapevine exactly the care and feeding it needs to thrive. This isnt amateur hour. Hamann is a physicist with a thorough knowledge of IBMs prior application of networked sensors. Dokoozlian earned his doctorate in plant physiology at what Lohr informs us is the MIT of wine sciencethe University of California at Davisand then taught there for 15 years. Were tempted to say that this team knows wine the way some French people know paper.

Stepping forward means bringing about machines next level of encroachment, but it involves work that is itself highly augmented by software. A glance at Hamanns LinkedIn page is sufficient to make the point: Hes been endorsed by contacts for his expert use of simulations, algorithms, machine learning, mathematical modeling, and more. But spotting the right next opportunity for automation requires much more than technical chops. If this is your strategy, youll reach the top of your field if you can also think outside the box, perceive where todays computers fall short, and envision tools that dont yet exist. Someday, perhaps, even a lot of software development will be automated; but as Bill Gates recently observed, programming is safe for now.

Our conversations to date with professionals in a wide range of fieldsradiologists, financial advisers, teachers, architects, journalists, lawyers, accountants, marketers, and other experts of many kindssuggest that whatever the field, any of the five steps weve just laid out is possible. Not all of them are right for a given individual, but if you can figure out which one is right for you, youll be on your way to an augmentation strategy.

You might not get very far, however, if employers in your field dont buy in to augmentation. The world suffers from an automation mindset today, after all, because businesses have taken us down that path. Managers are always acutely aware of the downside of human employeesor, to use the technologists favored dysphemism for them, wetware. Henry Ford famously said, Why is it every time I ask for a pair of hands, they come with a brain attached?

For augmentation to work, employers must be convinced that the combination of humans and computers is better than either working alone. That realization will dawn as it becomes increasingly clear that enterprise success depends much more on constant innovation than on cost efficiency. Employers have tended to see machines and people as substitute goods: If one is more expensive, it makes sense to swap in the other. But that makes sense only under static conditions, when we can safely assume that tomorrows tasks will be the same as todays.

Yuh-Mei Hutt told us that in her small business (Golden Lighting, a manufacturer of residential fixtures), automation has made operations much more efficient. But that means profitability depends now more than ever on the creativity of her people. Her designers need to know about trends in the interior design world and in lighting technology and must find fresh ways to pull them together. Her salespeople rely on CRM software, but their edge comes from how well they connect in person with retail buyers.

In an era of innovation, the emphasis has to be on the upside of people. They will always be the source of next-generation ideas and the element of operations that is hardest for competitors to replicate. (If you think employees today lack loyalty, you havent noticed how fast software takes up with your rivals.) Yes, people are variable and unpredictable; capable of selfishness, boredom, and dishonesty; hard to teach and quick to tireall things that robots are not. But with the proper augmentation, you can get the most out of the positive qualities on which they also hold a monopoly. As computerization turns everything that can be programmed into table stakes, those are the only qualities that will set you apart.

To be sure, many of the things knowledge workers do today will soon be automated. For example, the future role of humans in financial advising isnt fully clear, but its unlikely that those who remain in the field will have as their primary role recommending an optimal portfolio of stocks and bonds. In a recent conversation, one financial adviser seemed worried: Our advice to clients isnt fully automated yet, he said, but its feeling more and more robotic. My comments to clients are increasingly supposed to follow a script, and we are strongly encouraged to move clients into the use of these online tools. He expressed his biggest fear outright: Im thinking that over time they will phase us out altogether. But the next words out of his mouth more than hinted at his salvation: Reading scripts is obviously something a computer can do; convincing a client to invest more money requires some more skills. Im already often more of a psychiatrist than a stockbroker.

Thats not a step down. Its at least a step aside, and probably a step up. The adviser and his firm need only to see it that way and then build on it. For the foreseeable future, prompting savers and investors to make wiser financial choices will not be an automated task.

The strategy that will work in the long term, for employers and the employed, is to view smart machines as our partners and collaborators in knowledge work. By emphasizing augmentation, we can remove the threat of automation and turn the race with the machine into a relay rather than a dash. Those who are able to smoothly transfer the baton to and from a computer will be the winners.

Go here to read the rest:

Beyond Automation - hbr.org

iAutomation

Posted on by

joins

Piedmont Joins iAutomation! - Automation is pleased to announce the acquisition of Piedmont Automation as our latest affirmation of commitment to expand and improve services to our customers and the partnership with our strategic suppliers.

New Compact, Sturdy Solenoid Valves - It's your choice with the valve series VUVS and VUVG - Two ranges for lots of applications along with the usual Festo quality and an outstanding price, performance ratio.

Let's Clear the AIR (with pumps & compressors) - Many OEM pneumatic applications require the air stream to be clear of foreign particles such as oil. This is especially important in the medical, laboratory, environmental, and food preparation markets.

PREDICTIVE INTELLIGENCE FOR PNEUMATICS - Introducing IntelliSense, a technology platform enabling users to be proactive about maintenance and system optimization.

HYGIENIC/WASHDOWN SOLUTIONS - Check out these products designed to meet the toughest hygienic requirements.

TRACEABILITY = VISIBILITY = ACTIONABLE DATA - Traceability is the act of documenting every step in a process chain. This means recording the history, location, or use of an item by means of automated identification.

See more of the Latest Innovative Products

Go here to see the original:

iAutomation

5 Key Pros and Cons of Human Genetic Engineering | NLCATP.org

Posted on by

When you take a close look at the human body it is easy to see that it is not without imperfection. This means that some bodies are built with inherent flaws and others fail over time. Science has the ability to change the way that humans are made and alter the flaws that are known. This can be done through the process of human genetic engineering. Altering the technology in humans is a topic that causes a lot of controversy. Human genetic engineering is something that people are either very passionate about or opposed to completely. Differing opinions on this issue drive forward the debate.

1. End Disease Human genetic engineering relies heavily on science in technology. It was developed to help end the spread of diseases. Using human genetic engineering it could be possible to change the way genomes are constructed to end some diseases. Genetic mutations can be to blame for certain diseases including Cystic Fibrosis, but with the help of human genetic engineering it could be possible to end this disease completely. If the complete benefits of human genetic engineering therapy are ever seen, it could have a huge impact on disease as a whole.

2. Longer Life Without certain diseases to increase death rates and decrease life span, it would be possible for more individuals to live longer and healthier lives. This means that human genetic engineering has the potential to improve the quality of life and allow for longer life spans. Reversing some of the cellular causes for decline of the body could be possible if strides are made with human genetic engineering.

3. Eliminating Illness and Disease in Unborn Children One of the largest benefits of genetic engineering is the prospect of helping cure illness and diseases in unborn children. Having a genetic screening with a fetus can allow for treatment of the unborn. Overtime this can impact the growing spread of diseases in future generations.

1. Ethical Issues Many of those opposed to human genetic engineering have their opinion based on ethical views. The belief that god should have ultimate power and we should not be altering nature is what many think should halt the progression of human genetic engineering. The power to shape the human race should not be left up to us humans, because there is divine intervention at work.

2. Safety Issue There are still many different unknowns linked to human genetic engineering. This brings up issues involving of safety. Getting genes into the human body is a complex process that could go bad very easily. The extent to the consequences if it goes bad are not fully known and could be quite devastating. The success rate is also something that brings up concern.

Some feel that more research needs to be done to further human genetic engineering technology, but others feel that this type of engineering has no place in society at all.

In order to obtain a full opinion on the topic of human genetic engineering, it is imperative that you gain a deeper understanding at the most basic level. It is essential that you know exactly what is meant by the concept of human genetic engineering and what it entails. This can be a very complex process, but you can break it down somewhat. In basic terms, human genetic engineering is a way to manipulate genes to make the human body closer to perfection. The altering of the genome has the ability to happen in the sperm or the egg cell. This type of genetic engineering is also referred to as germ line gene therapy and has the ability to change some of the traits a child is born with. The changes that are made through the child using germ line gene therapy would then be inherited traits that would be passed down for generations.

There is also another type of human genetic engineering that involves trading in a bad gene for a good one. This is done in the cells, but does not include the sex cell, which is the process of human genetic engineering refereed to as somatic cell gene therapy. To complete this process of human genetic engineering, functioning genes are fired into the human body to remove the bad function of the inferior gene. This technology does exist to some extent, but it has not been perfected and does not yet have a high success rate.

It is pretty difficult to classify such a complex issue as either good or bad. It is so much more complicated and hard to decipher than that. This issue brings up questions of ethics and often causes outrage among both sides. The only way to gain your own unbiased opinion on the topic of human genetic engineering is to look at both the pros and cons. Not everything involving this issue is a positive, but it is not all negative either.

Follow this link:

5 Key Pros and Cons of Human Genetic Engineering | NLCATP.org

NSA Spying on Americans Is Illegal | American Civil Liberties …

Posted on by

Click here for more on NSA Surveillance

What if it emerged that the President of the United States was flagrantly violating the Constitution and a law passed by the Congress to protect Americans against abuses by a super-secret spy agency? What if, instead of apologizing, he said, in essence, "I have the power to do that, because I say I can." That frightening scenario is exactly what we are now witnessing in the case of the warrantless NSA spying ordered by President Bush that was reported December 16, 2005 by the New York Times.

According to the Times, Bush signed a presidential order in 2002 allowing the National Security Agency to monitor without a warrant the international (and sometimes domestic) telephone calls and e-mail messages of hundreds or thousands of citizens and legal residents inside the United States. The program eventually came to include some purely internal controls - but no requirement that warrants be obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as the 4th Amendment to the Constitution and the foreign intelligence surveillance laws require.

In other words, no independent review or judicial oversight.

That kind of surveillance is illegal. Period.

The day after this shocking abuse of power became public, President Bush admitted that he had authorized it, but argued that he had the authority to do so. But the law governing government eavesdropping on American citizens is well-established and crystal clear. President Bush's claim that he is not bound by that law is simply astounding. It is a Presidential power grab that poses a challenge in the deepest sense to the integrity of the American system of government - the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches, the concept of checks and balances on executive power, the notion that the president is subject to the law like everyone else, and the general respect for the "rule of law" on which our democratic system depends.

The ACLU ran the following advertisement in the December 29, 2005 edition of The New York Times:

The tensions between the need for intelligence agencies to protect the nation and the danger that they would become a domestic spy agency have been explicitly and repeatedly fought out in American history. The National Security Act of 1947 contained a specific ban on intelligence operatives from operating domestically. In the 1970s, America learned about the extensive domestic political spying carried out by the FBI, the military, the CIA, and the NSA, and Congress passed new laws to prevent a repeat of those abuses. Surveillance laws were debated and modified under presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton.

But, President Bush would sweep aside this entire body of democratically debated and painstakingly crafted restrictions on domestic surveillance by the executive branch with his extraordinary assertion that he can simply ignore this law because he is the Commander-in-Chief. In a December 17 radio address, for example, Bush asserted that the spying was "fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities." But his constitutional duty is to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" (Article II, Section 3); the law here clearly establishes well-defined procedures for eavesdropping on U.S. persons, and the fact is, Bush ordered that those procedures not be followed.

Government eavesdropping on Americans is an extremely serious matter; the ability to intrude on the private realm is a tremendous power that can be used to monitor, embarass, control, disgrace, or ruin an individual. Because it is so invasive, the technology of wiretapping has been subject to carefully crafted statutory controls almost since it was invented. Ignoring those controls and wiretapping without a court order is a crime that carries a significant prison sentence (in fact, criminal violations of the wiretap statute were among the articles of impeachment that were drafted against President Nixon shortly before his resignation).

Unfortunately, although the law in this matter is crystal clear, many Americans, faced with President Bush's bold assertions of "inherent" authority for these actions, will not know what to believe. There are only 5 points they need to understand:

The law on surveillance begins with the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which states clearly that Americans' privacy may not be invaded without a warrant based on probable cause.

United States Constitution Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (emphasis added)

The US Supreme Court (US v. Katz 389 US 347) has made it clear that this core privacy protection does cover government eavesdropping. As a result, all electronic surveillance by the government in the United States is illegal, unless it falls under one of a small number of precise exceptions specifically carved out in the law.

United States Code Title 50, Chapter 36, Subchapter 1 Section 1809. Criminal sanctions

(a) Prohibited activities A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally-

(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute

In other words, the NSA can only spy where it is explicitly granted permission to do so by statute. Citizens concerned about surveillance do not have to answer the question, "what law restricts the NSA's spying?" Rather, the government is required to supply an answer to the question "what law permits the NSA to spy?"

There are only three laws that authorize any exceptions to the ban on electronic eavesdropping by the government. Congress has explicitly stated that these three laws are the exclusive means by which domestic electronic surveillance can be carried out (18 USC, Section 2511(2)(f)). They are:

Title III and ECPA govern domestic criminal wiretaps and are not relevant to the NSA's spying. FISA is the law under which the NSA should have operated. It authorizes the government to conduct surveillance in certain situations without meeting all of the requirements of the Fourth Amendment that apply under criminal law, but requires that an independent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court oversee that surveillance to make sure that Americans who have no ties to foreign terrorist organizations or other "foreign powers" are not spied upon.

FISA was significantly loosened by the Patriot Act (which, for example, allowed it to be used for some criminal investigations), and parts of it now stand in clear violation of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment in the view of the ACLU and many others. However, even the post-Patriot Act version of FISA does not authorize the president to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents in the U.S. without an order from the FISA Court. Yet it is that very court order requirement - imposed to protect innocent Americans - that the President has ignored.

In fact, one member of the FISA Court, Judge James Roberston, has apparently resigned from the court in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of this program. And the New York Times reported that the court's chief judge complained about the program when she was (belatedly) notified of it, and refused to allow information gathered under the program to be used as the basis for FISA wiretap orders.

Congress after 9/11 approved an Authorization to Use Military Force against those responsible for the attacks in order to authorize the president to conduct foreign military operations such as the invasion of Afghanistan.

But that resolution contains no language changing, overriding or repealing any laws passed by Congress. Congress does not repeal legislation through hints and innuendos, and the Authorization to Use Military Force does not authorize the president to violate the law against surveillance without a warrant any more than it authorizes him to carry out an armed robbery or seize control of Citibank in order to pay for operations against terrorists. In fact, when President Truman tried to seize control of steel mills that were gripped by strikes in 1952, the Supreme Court decisively rejected his authority to make such a seizure, even in the face of arguments that the strike would interfere with the supply of weapons and ammunition to American troops then under fire on the battlefields of the Korean War.

U.S. Supreme Court YOUNGSTOWN CO. v. SAWYER, 343 U.S. 579 (1952)

"The order cannot properly be sustained as an exercise of the President's military power as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. . . .

"Nor can the seizure order be sustained because of the several constitutional provisions that grant executive power to the President. . . . The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute. . . .

"The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times."

The Supreme Court also rejected similar assertions of inherent executive power by Richard Nixon.

In fact, FISA contains explicit language describing the president's powers "during time of war" and provides that "the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this title to acquire foreign intelligence information for a period not to exceed fifteen days following a declaration of war by the Congress." 50 U.S.C. 1811 (emphasis added). So even if we accept the argument that the use-of-force resolution places us on a war footing, warrantless surveillance would have been legal for only 15 days after the resolution was passed on September 18, 2001.

Point #5: The need for quick action does not justify an end-run around the courts The FISA law takes account of the need for emergency surveillance, and the need for quick action cannot be used as a rationale for going outside the law. FISA allows wiretapping without a court order in an emergency; the court must simply be notified within 72 hours. The government is aware of this emergency power and has used it repeatedly. In addition, the Foreign Intelligence court is physically located in the Justice Department building, and the FISA law requires that at least two of the FISA judges reside in the Washington, DC area, for precisely the reason that rapid action is sometimes needed.

If President Bush still for some reason finds these provisions to be inadequate, he must take his case to Congress and ask for the law to be changed, not simply ignore it.

President Bush's claim that he has "inherent authority" as Commander-in-Chief to use our spy agencies to eavesdrop on Americans is astonishing, and such spying is clearly illegal. It must be halted immediately, and its origins must be thoroughly investigated by Congress and by a special counsel. (See letter from the ACLU to Attorney General Gonzales calling for a special counsel).

Given the extensive (indeed, excessive) surveillance powers that the government already possesses, the Administration's blatantly illegal use of warrantless surveillance raises an important question: why? One possibility, raised by the New York Times in a Dec. 24, 2005 story ("Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report"), is that the NSA is relying on assistance from several unnamed telecommunications companies to "trace and analyze large volumes of communications" and is "much larger than the White House has acknowledged."

This, as security expert Bruce Schneier has noted, suggests the Bush Administration has developed a "a whole new surveillance paradigm" - exploiting the NSA's well known capabilities to spy on individuals not one at a time, as FISA permits, but to run communications en masse through computers in the search for suspicious individuals or patterns. This "new paradigm" may well be connected to the NSA program sometimes known as "Echelon," which carries out just that kind of mass collection of communications (see http://www.nsawatch.org). This "wholesale" surveillance, as Schneier calls it, would constitute an illegal invasion of Americans' privacy on a scale that has never before been seen. (See Schneier, "NSA and Bush's Illegal Eavesdropping," Salon.com)

According to the Times, several telecommunications companies provided the NSA with direct access to streams of communications over their networks. In other words, the NSA appears to have direct access to a large volume of Americans' communications - with not simply the assent, but the cooperation of the companies handling those communications.

We do not know from the report which companies are involved or precisely how or what the NSA can access. But this revelation raises questions about both the legal authority of the NSA to request and receive this data, and whether these companies may have violated either the Federal laws protecting these communications or their own stated privacy polices (which may, for example, provide that they will only turn over their customers' data with their consent or in response to a proper order).

Regardless of the scale of this spying, we are facing a historic moment: the President of the United States has claimed a sweeping wartime power to brush aside the clear limits on his power set by our Constitution and laws - a chilling assertion of presidential power that has not been seen since Richard Nixon.

See the original post here:

NSA Spying on Americans Is Illegal | American Civil Liberties ...

Posted in NSA

First Amendment Defense Act – Wikipedia

Posted on by

The First Amendment Defense Act (often abbreviated FADA) (H.R. 2802) is a bill introduced into the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate on June 17, 2015. The Senate sponsor of the bill is Mike Lee (R-Utah), and the House sponsor is Raul Labrador (R-Idaho).[1] The bill aims to prevent the federal government from taking action against people who discriminate against LGBTQ people for religious reasons.

The bill provides that the federal government "shall not take any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially on the basis that such person believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage."[1]

The FADA was introduced into both the House and Senate on the same day (June 17, 2015), by Mike Lee and Raul Labrador. As of November 21, 2016, the House version had 172 co-sponsors, and the Senate version 34.[1] Also as of that date, the House bill had not been considered by either of the two committees it had been referred to.[1]

When asked by Heritage Action, FRC Action, and the American Principles Project if they would pass the bill in their first 100 days in office, three of the top four Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 election said they would, the exception being Donald Trump.[2] It was also supported by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, and the Liberty Counsel, among other groups, shortly after it was introduced.[3] On September 22, 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump changed his mind and said in a press release, "If I am elected president and Congress passes the First Amendment Defense Act, I will sign it to protect the deeply held religious beliefs of Catholics and the beliefs of Americans of all faiths."[4]

On July 21, 2015, the Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote that FADA was "unnecessary and could allow discrimination against gays and lesbians."[5] Later that year, Walter Olson of the Cato Institute wrote in Newsweek that the bill does not "try to distinguish rights from frills and privileges," and also criticized it for only protecting those who opposed same-sex marriage, not those who supported same-sex marriage or cohabitation or non-marital sex.[6] It has also been criticized by Ian S. Thompson, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union, who claimed that it would, if passed, "open the door to unprecedented taxpayer-funded discrimination against LGBT people."[3]

A version of the FADA was introduced in Georgia on January 21, 2016, by Greg Kirk, a Republican state senator.[7] The bill would, if passed, protect government employees who do not want to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because they object to the practice for religious reasons. Kirk cited Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis as an example of the people who would be affected by the law.[8] This bill was passed by the Georgia State Senate on February 19. The bill was then sent to the State House for consideration.[9][10] Governor Nathan Deal vetoed this bill in March 2016.[11]

An even more limiting bill[12] in Mississippi, HB 1523, was passed and would have gone into effect in 2016 had Judge Carlton Reeves not blocked the measure three days before it would have taken effect.[13]

Read more:

First Amendment Defense Act - Wikipedia

First Amendment Defense Act Would Be ‘Devastating’ for LGBTQ …

Posted on by

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump arrives to speak during a USA Thank You Tour event at Giant Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 15, 2016. Lucas Jackson / Reuters

FADA would prohibit the federal government from taking "discriminatory action" against any business or person that discriminates against LGBTQ people. The act distinctly aims to protect the right of all entities to refuse service to LGBTQ people based on two sets of beliefs: "(1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage."

Ironically, the

On December 9, Sen. Lee's spokesperson, Conn Carroll, told

"Hopefully November's results will give us the momentum we need to get this done next year," Carroll said. "We do plan to reintroduce FADA next Congress and we welcome Trump's positive words about the bill."

"During oral arguments in Obergfell, President Obama's solicitor general admitted that if a right to same-sex marriage were created, religious institutions, including many Catholic schools, could have their tax exempt status revoked by the IRS," Carroll told NBC Out on Wednesday. "The First Amendment Defense Act was created to make sure that does not happen."

But while Carroll claims "FADA in no way undermines federal or state civil rights laws," it would take away the government's recourse in terms of punishing businesses, institutions or individuals who break civil rights law by discriminating against LGBTQ people.

Jennifer Pizer, Law and Policy Director at Lambda Legal, told NBC Out FADA "invites widespread, devastating discrimination against LGBT people" and is a deeply unconstitutional bill.

"This proposed new law violates both Equal Protection and the Establishment Clause by elevating one set of religious beliefs above all others," Pizer said, "And by targeting LGBT Americans as a group, contrary to settled constitutional law."

Pizer warned that the bill's language also left room for individuals and businesses to discriminate against unwed heterosexual couples and single mothers, because of the clause stating that "sexual relations are properly reserved" to marriage between a man and a woman.

"There cannot be even one iota of doubt that this bill endorses one set of religious beliefs above others, and targets people in same-sex relationships, married or not, as well as unmarried heterosexual couples who live together," Pizer said. "It's an unconstitutional effort to turn the clock back to a time when unmarried mothers had to hide in shame, and LGBT people had to hide, period."

RELATED:

FADA was first filed in the House and Senate in 2015, but was met with protests from Democrats and resulted in just one House hearing amid concerns that Obama would veto the bill. It is currently co-sponsored by 171 House Republicans and just one Democrat (Daniel Lipinski of Illinois.)

State-level legislation similar to FADA has failed in recent years, usually resulting from lawsuits and nationwide boycotts. When Vice President-elect Mike Pence passed a "religious freedom" bill as governor of Indiana in March 2015, it was met with

Mississippi's

A lawsuit brought by Mississippi religious leaders alleges the state law actually violates religious freedom by determining that religious belief necessitates anti-LGBTQ discrimination. The group of ordained ministers suing the state said in the lawsuit,

Barber v. Bryant is currently at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, after a federal trial court ruled HB 1523 violates the federal Equal Protection and Establishment Clauses. Pizer said the case stands as an example of the legal explosion that would occur in reaction to FADA.

"If Congress were to pass the federal FADA as currently written, and the next president were to sign it into law, I'm confident heads would spin at how fast the constitutional challenges would fly into court," Pizer said, adding "we're likely to have a great many allies because these attempts to misuse religion for discrimination offend enormous numbers of Americans who cherish both religious liberty and equality for all."

Follow NBC Out on

Read the rest here:

First Amendment Defense Act Would Be 'Devastating' for LGBTQ ...

Our First Amendment test is here. We cant afford to flunk it …

Posted on by

President-elect Donald Trump has had an up-and-down relationship with the media for a long time, but spent much of the campaign calling the press "crooked" and "rigged." The Fix's Peter Stevenson explains what his relationship with the press might look like going forward. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

What really makes America great?

Its the meaning of 45 words found in the Bill of Rights. Here they are, the entire First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Everything we have everything that makes us unlike any other nation flows from those words and the protections they offer for free expression.

Donald Trumps presidency is very likely to threaten those First Amendment rights.

If they are damaged or removed, well be like a lot of unenviable places.

Freedom of speech is a rare thing, after all. Its one of the big differences between the United States and a place like Cuba, wrote John Daniel Davidson last March in the Federalist. Cuba has no freedom of the press or rule of law. Libel is whatever the regime says it is.

These are rights that allow us to march in the streets, to worship freely, to publish tough stories about the government.

First Amendment rights are not just for journalists but for everyone they are so core to our democracy, so much a part of everyday America, that we take them for granted.

Trump has made it clear that he has no intention of protecting or defending those rights. He has said repeatedly that he wants to change the laws that allow the press to publish news however imperfectly without fear of punishment.

He has called journalists scum and encouraged his followers to abuse and hate them. He would like to see his political opponent locked up.

Nothing but campaign rhetoric? Clean slate time? No way.

Believe the autocrat, Masha Gessen, a Moscow-born journalist, wrote last week in the New York Review of Books. Americans should not depend on their institutions to protect them they crumble fast: The national press is likely to be among the first institutional victims of Trumpism.

Its already happening. Trump barred reporters from his first official act as president-elect his visit to the White House. Then, in a tweet, he blamed the media for inciting street protests, when there was no evidence of that.

Meanwhile, Corey Lewandowski, who carried out Trumps press blacklist and reportedly roughed up a female reporter, was preparing for a possible role in the Trump administration. And Steve Bannon, chairman of the alt-right Breitbart News, was named chief strategist on Sunday.

Were facing a moment that threatens equal protection, due process, free expression, democracy not just press freedom, wrote Brian Beutler in the New Republic. Its not a drill.

What can positive action look like? The American Civil Liberties Union moved quickly to dominate its website with a Trump photo and the words See you in court, with a prominent donate widget.

Others urged an intensive awareness campaign for citizens.

Our only hope is to devote our efforts to educating the public as to why independent press coverage is important to them (not us), said Mickey Osterreicher, a lawyer who represents the National Press Photographers Association.

Americans should be confronted, he said, with whether they really want a state-controlled Ministry of Information under the thinly veiled guise of a Pravda-like press.

Indeed, in countries where the government controls the press, and which lack other speech protections, journalists are jailed, even killed, as they try to do their work. Citizens are afraid to express their views publicly or to assemble. Until now, the United States has been a beacon for them.

The voice, power and influence of the United States has been a boon to the men and women reporting from the front lines of wars and the back streets of autocracies, wrote Alex Howard of the Sunlight Foundation, a free-speech organization.

Isnt it pointless to fight back? Antonio Gramsci, the Italian political writer jailed by Mussolinis Fascist regime, believed in pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. In other words, you can know your clapboard house is on fire, and youre a long way from civilization. But you have to call 911, get out your garden hose and bucket, and keep acting as if the firetrucks are on the way.

Although things didnt work out too well for Gramsci, who died at 46 shortly after he was released from prison, his formula offers a path forward. Look the situation in the eye; know how bad it is. Thats the pessimism of the intellect.

As for the optimism-of-the-will part? For journalists, its writing and reporting aggressively and fearlessly, and being willing to fight for access. For citizens, its being well-informed, including subscribing to newspapers and supporting the best journalism. Its helping to debunk and call out fake news. Its donating to, or getting involved with, civil rights and media rights organizations. And its backing public officials committed to protecting free expression.

Americans certainly shouldnt move to Canada, but they should heed the words of the Canadian songwriter Joni Mitchell: Dont it always seem to go, that you dont know what youve got till its gone?

Weve still got our precious First Amendment rights. Now its time high time to protect them from the fire.

For more by Margaret Sullivan, visit wapo.st/sullivan

See the original post:

Our First Amendment test is here. We cant afford to flunk it ...

The Most Attractive Redheads Ever – ranker.com

Posted on by

To clarify: this is a list of people who have had red hair for as long as we've seen them, not necessarily people born that way. If you can think of a particularly good-looking redhead missing from this list, let me know!

Redheads are some of the most attractive people living today. While many people dye their hair blonde or any other random color, when you see someone with red hair, it immediately draws your attention.

There are a lot of familiar names on this Ultimate List. You'll see actresses like Emma Stone, Isla Fisher and Christina Hendricks on here. All of them are known for being some of the most attractive redheads living today. That being said, this list includes redheads who aren't with us today, like Rita Hayworth, Lucille Ball and Judy Garland. But the one thing they all have in common is that they're all beautiful and attractive redheads. Take a look at these sexy redheads. These hot redheads are the hottest around.

Enjoy these pictures of these hot gingers! CollectionPhoto: via youtube

L List Options 2 Rerank List B Comments & Embed z Share Next List >

Go here to see the original:

The Most Attractive Redheads Ever - ranker.com

Genetic code – Wikipedia

Posted on by

The genetic code is the set of rules by which information encoded within genetic material (DNA or mRNA sequences) is translated into proteins by living cells. Translation is accomplished by the ribosome, which links amino acids in an order specified by mRNA, using transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules to carry amino acids and to read the mRNA three nucleotides at a time. The genetic code is highly similar among all organisms and can be expressed in a simple table with 64 entries.

The code defines how sequences of nucleotide triplets, called codons, specify which amino acid will be added next during protein synthesis. With some exceptions,[1] a three-nucleotide codon in a nucleic acid sequence specifies a single amino acid. Because the vast majority of genes are encoded with exactly the same code (see the RNA codon table), this particular code is often referred to as the canonical or standard genetic code, or simply the genetic code, though in fact some variant codes have evolved. For example, protein synthesis in human mitochondria relies on a genetic code that differs from the standard genetic code.

While the "genetic code" determines a protein's amino acid sequence, other genomic regions determine when and where these proteins are produced according to a multitude of more complex "gene regulatory codes".

Serious efforts to understand how proteins are encoded began after the structure of DNA was discovered in 1953. George Gamow postulated that sets of three bases must be employed to encode the 20 standard amino acids used by living cells to build proteins. With four different nucleotides, a code of 2 nucleotides would allow for only a maximum of 42 = 16 amino acids. A code of 3 nucleotides could code for a maximum of 43 = 64 amino acids.[2]

The Crick, Brenner et al. experiment first demonstrated that codons consist of three DNA bases; Marshall Nirenberg and Heinrich J. Matthaei were the first to elucidate the nature of a codon in 1961 at the National Institutes of Health. They used a cell-free system to translate a poly-uracil RNA sequence (i.e., UUUUU...) and discovered that the polypeptide that they had synthesized consisted of only the amino acid phenylalanine.[3] They thereby deduced that the codon UUU specified the amino acid phenylalanine. This was followed by experiments in Severo Ochoa's laboratory that demonstrated that the poly-adenine RNA sequence (AAAAA...) coded for the polypeptide poly-lysine[4] and that the poly-cytosine RNA sequence (CCCCC...) coded for the polypeptide poly-proline.[5] Therefore, the codon AAA specified the amino acid lysine, and the codon CCC specified the amino acid proline. Using different copolymers most of the remaining codons were then determined. Subsequent work by Har Gobind Khorana identified the rest of the genetic code. Shortly thereafter, Robert W. Holley determined the structure of transfer RNA (tRNA), the adapter molecule that facilitates the process of translating RNA into protein. This work was based upon earlier studies by Severo Ochoa, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959 for his work on the enzymology of RNA synthesis.[6]

Extending this work, Nirenberg and Philip Leder revealed the triplet nature of the genetic code and deciphered the codons of the standard genetic code. In these experiments, various combinations of mRNA were passed through a filter that contained ribosomes, the components of cells that translate RNA into protein. Unique triplets promoted the binding of specific tRNAs to the ribosome. Leder and Nirenberg were able to determine the sequences of 54 out of 64 codons in their experiments.[7] In 1968, Khorana, Holley and Nirenberg received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work.[8]

A codon is defined by the initial nucleotide from which translation starts and sets the frame for a run of uninterrupted triplets, which is known as an "open reading frame" (ORF). For example, the string GGGAAACCC, if read from the first position, contains the codons GGG, AAA, and CCC; and, if read from the second position, it contains the codons GGA and AAC; if read starting from the third position, GAA and ACC. Every sequence can, thus, be read in its 5' 3' direction in three reading frames, each of which will produce a different amino acid sequence (in the given example, Gly-Lys-Pro, Gly-Asn, or Glu-Thr, respectively). With double-stranded DNA, there are six possible reading frames, three in the forward orientation on one strand and three reverse on the opposite strand.[9]:330 The actual frame from which a protein sequence is translated is defined by a start codon, usually the first AUG codon in the mRNA sequence.

In eukaryotes, ORFs in exons are often interrupted by introns.

Translation starts with a chain initiation codon or start codon. Unlike stop codons, the codon alone is not sufficient to begin the process. Nearby sequences such as the Shine-Dalgarno sequence in E. coli and initiation factors are also required to start translation. The most common start codon is AUG, which is read as methionine or, in bacteria, as formylmethionine. Alternative start codons depending on the organism include "GUG" or "UUG"; these codons normally represent valine and leucine, respectively, but as start codons they are translated as methionine or formylmethionine.[10]

The three stop codons have been given names: UAG is amber, UGA is opal (sometimes also called umber), and UAA is ochre. "Amber" was named by discoverers Richard Epstein and Charles Steinberg after their friend Harris Bernstein, whose last name means "amber" in German.[11] The other two stop codons were named "ochre" and "opal" in order to keep the "color names" theme. Stop codons are also called "termination" or "nonsense" codons. They signal release of the nascent polypeptide from the ribosome because there is no cognate tRNA that has anticodons complementary to these stop signals, and so a release factor binds to the ribosome instead.[12]

During the process of DNA replication, errors occasionally occur in the polymerization of the second strand. These errors, called mutations, can affect the phenotype of an organism, especially if they occur within the protein coding sequence of a gene. Error rates are usually very low1 error in every 10100million basesdue to the "proofreading" ability of DNA polymerases.[14][15]

Missense mutations and nonsense mutations are examples of point mutations, which can cause genetic diseases such as sickle-cell disease and thalassemia respectively.[16][17][18] Clinically important missense mutations generally change the properties of the coded amino acid residue between being basic, acidic, polar or non-polar, whereas nonsense mutations result in a stop codon.[9]:266

Mutations that disrupt the reading frame sequence by indels (insertions or deletions) of a non-multiple of 3 nucleotide bases are known as frameshift mutations. These mutations usually result in a completely different translation from the original, and are also very likely to cause a stop codon to be read, which truncates the creation of the protein.[19] These mutations may impair the function of the resulting protein, and are thus rare in in vivo protein-coding sequences. One reason inheritance of frameshift mutations is rare is that, if the protein being translated is essential for growth under the selective pressures the organism faces, absence of a functional protein may cause death before the organism is viable.[20] Frameshift mutations may result in severe genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs disease.[21]

Although most mutations that change protein sequences are harmful or neutral, some mutations have a beneficial effect on an organism.[22] These mutations may enable the mutant organism to withstand particular environmental stresses better than wild type organisms, or reproduce more quickly. In these cases a mutation will tend to become more common in a population through natural selection.[23]Viruses that use RNA as their genetic material have rapid mutation rates,[24] which can be an advantage, since these viruses will evolve constantly and rapidly, and thus evade the defensive responses of e.g. the human immune system.[25] In large populations of asexually reproducing organisms, for example, E. coli, multiple beneficial mutations may co-occur. This phenomenon is called clonal interference and causes competition among the mutations.[26]

Degeneracy is the redundancy of the genetic code. This term was given by Bernfield and Nirenberg. The genetic code has redundancy but no ambiguity (see the codon tables below for the full correlation). For example, although codons GAA and GAG both specify glutamic acid (redundancy), neither of them specifies any other amino acid (no ambiguity). The codons encoding one amino acid may differ in any of their three positions. For example, the amino acid leucine is specified by YUR or CUN (UUA, UUG, CUU, CUC, CUA, or CUG) codons (difference in the first or third position indicated using IUPAC notation), while the amino acid serine is specified by UCN or AGY (UCA, UCG, UCC, UCU, AGU, or AGC) codons (difference in the first, second, or third position).[27]:102117:521522 A practical consequence of redundancy is that errors in the third position of the triplet codon cause only a silent mutation or an error that would not affect the protein because the hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity is maintained by equivalent substitution of amino acids; for example, a codon of NUN (where N = any nucleotide) tends to code for hydrophobic amino acids. NCN yields amino acid residues that are small in size and moderate in hydropathy; NAN encodes average size hydrophilic residues. The genetic code is so well-structured for hydropathy that a mathematical analysis (Singular Value Decomposition) of 12 variables (4 nucleotides x 3 positions) yields a remarkable correlation (C = 0.95) for predicting the hydropathy of the encoded amino acid directly from the triplet nucleotide sequence, without translation.[28][29] Note in the table, below, eight amino acids are not affected at all by mutations at the third position of the codon, whereas in the figure above, a mutation at the second position is likely to cause a radical change in the physicochemical properties of the encoded amino acid.

The frequency of codons, also known as codon usage bias, can vary from species to species with functional implications for the control of translation. The following codon usage table is for the human genome.[30]

While slight variations on the standard code had been predicted earlier,[31] none were discovered until 1979, when researchers studying human mitochondrial genes discovered they used an alternative code.[32] Many slight variants have been discovered since then,[33] including various alternative mitochondrial codes,[34] and small variants such as translation of the codon UGA as tryptophan in Mycoplasma species, and translation of CUG as a serine rather than a leucine in yeasts of the "CTG clade" (Candida albicans is member of this group).[35][36][37] Because viruses must use the same genetic code as their hosts, modifications to the standard genetic code could interfere with the synthesis or functioning of viral proteins.[38] However, some viruses (such as totiviruses) have adapted to the genetic code modification of the host.[39] In bacteria and archaea, GUG and UUG are common start codons, but in rare cases, certain proteins may use alternative start codons not normally used by that species.[33]

In certain proteins, non-standard amino acids are substituted for standard stop codons, depending on associated signal sequences in the messenger RNA. For example, UGA can code for selenocysteine and UAG can code for pyrrolysine. Selenocysteine is now viewed as the 21st amino acid, and pyrrolysine is viewed as the 22nd.[33] Unlike selenocysteine, pyrrolysine encoded UAG is translated with the participation of a dedicated aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase.[40] Both selenocysteine and pyrrolysine may be present in the same organism.[41] Although the genetic code is normally fixed in an organism, the achaeal prokaryote Acetohalobium arabaticum can expand its genetic code from 20 to 21 amino acids (by including pyrrolysine) under different conditions of growth.[42]

Despite these differences, all known naturally occurring codes are very similar to each other, and the coding mechanism is the same for all organisms: three-base codons, tRNA, ribosomes, reading the code in the same direction and translating the code three letters at a time into sequences of amino acids.

Variant genetic codes used by an organism can be inferred by identifying highly conserved genes encoded in that genome, and comparing its codon usage to the amino acids in homologous proteins of other organisms. For example, the program FACIL[43] infers a genetic code by searching which amino acids in homologous protein domains are most often aligned to every codon. The resulting amino acid probabilities for each codon are displayed in a genetic code logo, that also shows the support for a stop codon.

The DNA codon table is essentially identical to that for RNA, but with U replaced by T.

The origin of the genetic code is a part of the question of the origin of life. Under the main hypothesis for the origin of life, the RNA world hypothesis, any model for the emergence of genetic code is intimately related to a model of the transfer from ribozymes (RNA enzymes) to proteins as the principal enzymes in cells. In line with the RNA world hypothesis, transfer RNA molecules appear to have evolved before modern aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, so the latter cannot be part of the explanation of its patterns.[45]

A consideration of a hypothetical random genetic code further motivates a biochemical or evolutionary model for the origin of the genetic code. If amino acids were randomly assigned to triplet codons, there would be 1.51084 possible genetic codes to choose from.[46]:163 This number is found by calculating how many ways there are to place 21 items (20 amino acids plus one stop) in 64 bins, wherein each item is used at least once. [2] In fact, the distribution of codon assignments in the genetic code is nonrandom.[47] In particular, the genetic code clusters certain amino acid assignments. For example, amino acids that share the same biosynthetic pathway tend to have the same first base in their codons. This could be an evolutionary relic of early simpler genetic code with fewer amino acids, that later diverged to code for a larger set of amino acids.[48] It could also reflect steric and chemical properties that had another effect on the codon during its evolution. Amino acids with similar physical properties also tend to have similar codons,[49][50] reducing the problems caused by point mutations and mistranslations.[47]

Given the non-random genetic triplet coding scheme, it has been suggested that a tenable hypothesis for the origin of genetic code should address multiple aspects of the codon table such as absence of codons for D-amino acids, secondary codon patterns for some amino acids, confinement of synonymous positions to third position, a limited set of only 20 amino acids instead of a number closer to 64, and the relation of stop codon patterns to amino acid coding patterns.[51]

There are three main ideas for the origin of the genetic code, and many models belong to either one of them or to a combination thereof:[52]

Hypotheses for the origin of the genetic code have addressed a variety of scenarios:[56]

Since 2001, 40 non-natural amino acids have been added into protein by creating a unique codon (recoding) and a corresponding transfer-RNA:aminoacyl tRNA-synthetase pair to encode it with diverse physicochemical and biological properties in order to be used as a tool to exploring protein structure and function or to create novel or enhanced proteins.[71][72]

H. Murakami and M. Sisido have extended some codons to have four and five bases. Steven A. Benner constructed a functional 65th (in vivo) codon.[73]

Excerpt from:

Genetic code - Wikipedia

Freedom Xpress inc In Brewer, Me

Posted on by

At Freedom Xpress Inc. we are committed to providing on-time delivery with a level of customer service that exceeds our customers expectations.

All customers must receive a consistently reliable and professionally delivered level of service while incorporating both their individual needs and sound business principles.

We recognize that we represent our clients during a delivery, and as such, we must treat all contacts with the highest level of dignity and respect.

We strive for excellence and recognize the importance of treating our employees fairly and operating our company with strong ethical and trustworthy values.

The flexibility our service provides gives you the capability of shipping packages on a regular scheduled basis or on demand as needed. Freedom Xpress also offers line hauling from NH, VT and Maine as well as the Boston area. So whether you have one envelope or a truck load of packages, let us take care of your delivery needs.

FreedomXpress runs more than 100 daily routes throughout the Eastern Seaboard delivering over 800,000 packages per month.

We utilize vehicles ranging from mini vans to tractor trailers so package sizes from envelops to truck loads are not a problem.

- Same Day Delivery

- On Demand, Scheduled, Routed

- Overnight Service

- Line Hauls

- Home Delivery

- Distribution Services

- Bulk Break Down & Delivery

- Warehousing & Fullfilment Services

Our experienced management team and professional drivers work hard to ensure best in class service and on time delivery services.

The rest is here:

Freedom Xpress inc In Brewer, Me