Daily Archives: June 12, 2017

Defense attorneys: Loans to Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa’s accuser could cloud bribery claims, but not … – The Advocate

Posted: June 12, 2017 at 8:22 pm

GONZALESDefense attorneys for Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa and a local businessman have long claimed the stink of politics hangs over the secret recordings that led to charges accusing the two of trying to bribe a candidate to quit a race last year.

In routine pre-trial disclosures last week, prosecutors revealed that the man who directed the recordings loaned money to the candidate who claims Matassa and Olin Berthelot tried to pay him off a revelation that ramped up defense claims that the case was in essence a setup manufactured for political reasons.

But several legal experts say that while the loans made by Wade Petite, publisher of the Pelican Post news website and a past candidate for local office himself might be unseemly, they're not enough to legally torpedo the case against Matassa and Berthelot, who are longtime friends.

Still, the attorneys all agreed the fact that Petite loaned Gonzales City Council candidate A. Wayne Lawson $1,200 the exact amount Matassa and Berthelot are accused of offering as a bribe could become fertile material in a trial and the court of public opinion.

Jarrett Ambeau, a public defender in Ascension Parish, said the loans are "mud to throw at the wall" so attorneys can raise questions in the media and in court to "bring an air of dishonesty to Mr. Lawson."

Ambeau, who is not involved in the case, said the argument could be that "he got a loan from the guy who recorded the conversation, a guy who had an ax to grind and would benefit from 'breaking' the news."

"I would use this as a bit of squid ink, try to muddy the water and attack the credibility of Mr. Lawson," Ambeau said. "I would suggest by inference that it was not a loan, but a payment for the tape."

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DONALDSONVILLEA Gonzales website publisher who helped coordinate the secret recordings of

Investigators with the Louisiana Attorney General's Office and Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office have known about Petite's loans to Lawson since early August, months before the March grand jury indictment of Matassa and Berthelot on counts of attempted election bribery. The existence of the loans became public knowledge earlier this month after investigative reports and transcripts were filed in court as prosecutors turned over materials to defense attorneys.

The case stems from an election last fall. Lawson, a part-time barber and perennial candidate in Ascension, qualified to run against Gonzales City Councilincumbent Neal Bourque. As the deadline for removing himself from the ballot approached, Lawson met with Matassa and Berthelot to discuss his possible exit from the election.

Lawson and Petite have alleged the recordings captured that meeting, subsequent phone calls Lawson had with Berthelot and Matassa, and the day when Lawson was supposed to withdraw from the race in exchange for a bribe.

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GONZALES Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa and Gonzales businessman Olin Berthelot

Harry Daniels III, a criminal defense attorney not involved in the case, said that in Louisiana, it is legal to record someone without his or her knowledge as long as at least one person who is a party to the conversation knows about the recording.

Daniels also said entrapment, a defense often raised against undercover stings, applies only to law enforcement or other "government actors" and only when they induce someone to commit a crime who was not already predisposed to do so.

Petite and Lawson aren't government officials. And Daniels noted Lawson told investigators that it was Berthelot who contacted him about meeting with Matassa, not the other way around.

"I dont think it would meet any of the elements of entrapment," Daniels said.

Lawson told investigators he became immediately suspicious about Berthelot's call, which came shortly after he signed up to run for office. Lawson said that's why he contacted Petite about trying to record the meeting, in case something untoward happened.

Lawson told investigators that he had not been getting many telephone calls returned during a lengthy search for a job, including government positions.

"But all of sudden now since I qualify for this particular City Council's race, individuals begin to call me," Lawson said, according to the investigative reports.

Even if the loans from Petite to Lawson were for the recordings, which the two men deny, legal experts didn't see that as posing any kind of criminal liability for them.

Ascension Parish public defender Jeff Heggelund, who previously worked as a sheriff's deputy in narcotics, said it is common for confidential informants to get cash as part of their work with law enforcement. This wouldn't be much different than that, he said.

"It's just part and parcel to the process, really," said Heggelund, who has done some civil legal work for Berthelot's companies in the past.

In the recordings, Matassa and Berthelot tell Lawson they think he should drop out of the Division E council race against Bourque. They also promise Lawson a parish job and $1,200 so he can turn a trailer into a food truck. The last recording captures the final transaction at Berthelot's Gonzales office, where Lawson was to fill out a job application and candidate withdrawal form and receive the $1,200 in cash, hours before a state deadline for him to drop out of the race. Lawson, however, didn't fill out the forms or take the cash.

Steven Moore, an attorney for Berthelot, hasclaimed the loans from Petite were a payoff to Lawson to help arrange a setup. Moore and Lewis Ungelsby, the attorney representing Matassa, have said Lawson was a friend of the two men, and the cash offer was a loan to help him out, as was the job promise.The talk about dropping out was unrelated political advice, they've argued.

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GONZALES Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa and a Gonzales businessman accused in an

Petite, part journalist and part political provocateur, and whose website is harshly critical of Matassa, was himself a City Council candidate last year at the same time as Lawson. In that separate race, Petite said he ran not to win the position but to call into question the city's designation of the particular seat as set aside for minority candidates. Petite is white.

Lawson has a long history in Ascension politics, and at times was allied with Bourque, Matassa and Berthelot. But last year, Lawson entered the race to unseat Bourque.

Mike Magner, a former federal prosecutor who now does white-collar criminal defense in New Orleans, said that through their public comments, the defense attorneys are trying to taint Lawson in future jurors' minds so they won't see Matassa and Berthelot's actions as anything other than local politics.

"And have the jury conclude these people are all just low-level political operatives and this is just sort of bare-knuckle political drama rather than any kind of illegal activity," Magner said. "And horse trading is part of the political process and, you know, getting allies to support your political campaign and your agenda is all part of the normal political process, and that can seem unseemly, but isnt necessarily illegal."

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GONZALESSince the attempted bribery scandal aimed at removing his fall election opponent

Investigators said in their reports that Petite, Lawson and Dustin Clouatre, who also helped with the recording effort and provided $1,000 to Petite to loan to Lawson, largely corroborated one another's story.

But one of the legal experts, Daniels, noted that Lawson initially wasn't completely forthcoming with investigators about the loans from Petite. After some prompting by investigators, Lawson admitted to a $200 loan from Petite but said he could not recall any others.

Lawson also seemed evasive and unclear in some of his responses to investigators, who eventually asked him if he was taking medication. Lawson told them he had taken Xanax and hydrocodone.

Shortly after that interview, Lawson returned to the Sheriff's Office and encountered some of the investigators in the parking lot, according to one of the reports. He told them that in addition to the $200, he had received a $1,000 loan from Petite, who had told investigators about both loans a week earlier.

Moments after Lawson spoke the second time to investigators, Petite texted one of them to say he had just told Lawson to tell them about the second loan, the report says.

"I think Lawson's credibility may be affected," Daniels said. "They mayattack his credibility. He lied about the loan."

Attempts to reach Lawson for comment Monday were unsuccessful.

Heggelund said such credibility questions wouldn't necessarily be fatal to the state's case. Heggelund suggested the state would have many questions to raise about Berthelot's actions, such as why cash, if it was a loan, wasn't handled through a normal promissory note. Berthelot runs financial services companies that routinely make personal loans.

And Ambeau said any financial transaction between Lawson and Petite would have nothing to do with whatever Matassa and Berthelot might have done to influence the election. He said prosecutors should ask a judge to keep jurors from hearing about the loans from Petite.

"In the end the financial transaction between Petite and Lawson, no matter its nature, is not relevant to the question of whether someone bribed Lawson with unrelated funds," Ambeau said.

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Defense attorneys: Loans to Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa's accuser could cloud bribery claims, but not ... - The Advocate

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Cars 3 gets back to what made the franchise adequate – Vox

Posted: at 8:21 pm

To call the Cars movies the black sheep of Pixars filmography does a disservice to black sheep. The first one (released in 2006) is considered the one major black mark in the animation studios killer run from 1995s Toy Story to 2010s Toy Story 3, and 2011s Cars 2 is the only Pixar film with a rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes.

And, okay, I wont speak up too heartily for Cars 2 may it always be the worst Pixar movie but the original Cars is a good-natured, even-keeled sort of film, one that celebrates taking it slow every once in a while. Its no Incredibles or Wall-E, but few movies are. Its heart is in the right place.

Thus, its a relief that Cars 3 skews more toward the original flavor than the sequel (a spy movieinflected mess that revealed a Pixar slightly out of its depth with something so action-heavy). Its not to the level of that first film, but its amiable, ambling nature keeps it from becoming too boxed in by its needlessly contorted plot (which all but spoils its own ending very early on, then spends roughly an hour futilely avoiding said ending).

Like all Pixar movies, Cars 3 is gorgeous the landscapes the characters race through are more photorealistic than ever, recalling The Good Dinosaur (another recent Pixar misfire that nonetheless looked great) but like most of the studios 2010s output, its storytelling is perhaps too complicated to really register. The movie is constantly trying to outmaneuver itself, leading to a film thats pleasant but not much more.

Still, that doesnt mean its devoid of value. Here are six useful ways of thinking about Cars 3.

This is the angle Disney is pushing most in the trailers for the film. Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), the hotshot race car who learned to take it easy in Cars, has succumbed to the ravages of time, as we all must. Newer, sleeker race cars are outpacing him on the track, and hes desperate to make a comeback.

But Cars 3 resists the most feel-good version of that story, to its credit. Lightning isnt going to suddenly become faster in his middle age. If he wants to beat the young whippersnappers, hell have to either outsmart them or out-train them. But Lightning isnt one for high-tech gadgets that might help him eke out a few more miles per hour from his chassis. Instead, he goes on a random tour of the American South, visiting hallowed racetracks.

It gives the movie a tried-and-true spine old-fashioned knowhow versus new tech but it also means that every time the story seems to be gaining momentum, it veers completely off course in a new direction. Pixar used this tendency to let its stories swerve all over the place to great effect in 2012s Brave and 2013s Monsters University, but Cars 3 has maybe a few too many head fakes. By the time Lightning tries to tap into his roots by visiting legendary racers in North Carolina, I felt slightly checked out.

Seriously! This is a major part of Cars 3s climax!

The movie argues that the best thing Lightning (whos always been coded as a good ol Texas boy) can do to help preserve his legacy is try to find ways to hold open doors for cars that are not at all like himself. And the leader of the new class of racers, Jackson Storm, is voiced by Armie Hammer as a sleek, might-makes-right bully who never nods to the fact that hes so much faster because hes got access to a lot of great technology.

A major scene at the films midpoint involves Lightning learning that his trainer, Cruz Ramirez (voiced by the comedian Cristela Alonzo), always wanted to be a racer herself, but felt intimidated by how she wasnt like the other race cars the one time she tried out.

How did Lightning build up the confidence to race? Cruz asks. Lightning shrugs. He doesnt know. Hes just always had it.

Just the description of this scene or the even earlier scene where Cruz dominates a simulated race probably telegraphs where all of this is headed. But its still neat that Pixar used its most little-boy-friendly franchise to make an argument for level, more diverse playing fields. Except...

The Cars movies have always moved merchandise, and even if all involved parties insist they continue to make Cars movies for reasons other than because they sell toys cmon. The fact that the movies major new character is an explicitly female car, who gets a variety of new paint jobs throughout the film, no less, feels like somebody in a boardroom somewhere said, Yes, but what if we had a way to make the toys from these movies appeal to little girls as well?

(And thats to say nothing of the numerous other new characters introduced throughout the film, all of whom your children will simply have to own the action figures for. My favorite was a school bus named Miss Fritter who dominates demolition derbies.)

So it goes with Disney, one of the best companies out there when it comes to diversifying the points of view that are represented in its films but always, as the cynics among us are prone to assume, because it sees those points of view as a way to sell you more stuff.

Kerry Washington plays a new character named Natalie Certain, a journalist who pops up every so often to point out how her data cant lie and how Jackson Storm has a 96 percent probability of winning the films climactic race. Ill let you draw your own conclusions from there.

When Pixar made Cars 2, it faced a major challenge. The first film, dealing with Lightnings slow embrace of small-town life, didnt leave much room for another story, and its second-most-important character, Doc Hudson, was voiced by Paul Newman, who died between the two films.

So Cars 2 made a hard pivot into spy movie action, ramped up the role of kiddie favorite Tow Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy), and largely lost the soul of the first film.

Cars 3 is most successful when it finds ways to reintegrate Lightning into the tone and world of the first film, as he tries to grapple with his legacy and realizes Doc (who appears in flashbacks that seem as if they might have been cobbled together from outtakes and deleted scenes Newman recorded for the first film) might offer him wisdom even from beyond the grave. (Since cars cant really die, Doc is just not around anymore. But, again, cmon.)

However, because Lightning already learned his lesson about appreciating life and taking it easy, theres just not a lot to mine here. Cars 3 makes some awkward attempts to suggest technology is no replacement for really experiencing life, and Lightning visits other famous race cars, even detouring to hang out in a bar with famous, groundbreaking cars voiced by Margo Martindale and Isiah Whitlock Jr.

But the movie struggles to figure out how to make all of this mesh, right up until the very end, when it finally nods toward keeping one eye on the past but always letting the future take precedent.

Many thinkers who consider the question of what happens when human beings finally create an artificial intelligence that is on the same level as the human brain have concluded that it will not take very long for such a being to evolve into a superintelligence which is any artificial intelligence thats just a smidgen smarter than the smartest human. And from there, they will continue to improve, and we will be left in the dust, ruled, effectively, by our robot successors.

Anyway, the Cars movies dont take place in an explicitly post-human future, but this is the biggest cmon of them all. At some point, self-driving cars rose up, they killed us all, and now they long for the good old days, not realizing those days are impossible to return to.

Thus, the rise of Jackson and his pals allows the film to broach the subject of those early days of artificial superintelligence, with Lightning in the role of humanity. What will happen when we try to keep up with beings that are simply made better than us? Will we accept our obsolescence with grace? Or will we push back with all we have? Cars 3 suggests no easy answers.

Lou is better than, say, Lava (the odious singing volcano short attached to Inside Out). With that said, it is also about how all of the toys in a lost-and-found box become a sort of toy golem that wanders a playground, returning toys to children and making sure bullies pay for their misdeeds.

The audience I saw Lou with ate it up, but reader, I found it terrifying. If Toy Story posited a world where toys wake up when youre not around, Lou posits a world where toys have no knowledge of what it means to be human but are cursed to make an attempt all the same: strange, shambling beasts from outside of time, wandering our playgrounds.

Make it stop. Kill it with fire.

Cars 3 opens in theaters Friday, June 16, with early screenings on the evening of Thursday, June 15.

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Private Companies, Not Governments, Are Shaping the Future of Space Exploration – Futurism

Posted: at 8:21 pm

Space Race 2.0

Sixty years ago, the Soviet Unionlaunched the first artificial satellite into orbit. The event served as the starting pistol in what would come to be known as the Space Race, acompetition between the U.S.S.R. and the United States for spaceflight supremacy.

In the decades that followed, the first human reached space, a man walked on the Moon, and the first space stations were built. The U.S.S.R. and the U.S. were soon joined by other world powers in exploring the final frontier, and by the time the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, the contentious Space Race was something of a distant memory.

In recent years, however, a new Space Race has taken shapeSpace Race 2.0. Rather than powerful nations guided by presidents andpremiers, however, the competitors in this race are tech startups and private businessesspearheaded by billionaire entrepreneurs. And while the current atmosphere is far less contentious than that of the first Space Race (save the odd tweet or two), the competition is just as fierce.

SpaceX, Blue Origin, Bigelow Airspace, Virgin Galactic, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Not only has the number of private companies engaged in space exploration grown remarkably in recent years, these companies are quickly besting their government-sponsored competitors.

Were starting to see advances made by private entities that are more significant than any advances in the last three years that were made by the government, Chris Lewicki, CEO and President of Planetary Resources, tells Futurism.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin and Tesla CEO Elon Musks SpaceX are arguably the two companies that are setting the pace. In November 2015, the former completed the first successful vertical rocket landing after sending their New Shepard 100 kilometers (62 miles) into the air. SpaceX landed its own rocketa month later, only they did so with a craft twice as heavy as Blue Origins and traveled all the way into space first.

A month after that, in January 2016, Bezoss company became the first entity tore-launch and re-land a previously used rocket. SpaceX followed suit in 2017. The government was never able to [build reusable rockets], but now, two private companies within the space of the same year have done that, points out Lewicki.

Not only are private companies already surpassingtheir government counterparts, several are poised to widen their lead in the coming months and years.

If all goes according to plan, when SpaceXs Falcon Heavy launches in September, itll take the title of the worlds most powerful rocket away fromNASAs Saturn V. Virgin Galactic is already selling tickets for what it expects to be the first private spaceflights, which will take place aboard the sleek VSS Unity. SpaceX plans to send space tourists to the Moon in 2018, and then in 2024, the companyhopes to launch a system that will take people all the way to Marsroughly 5-15 years before NASA expects to do the same.

Private companies may bein the lead, but the finish line for this Space Race isnt exactly clear. The first iteration was arguably won when Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the Moon, so does this sequel end when we establish the first Moon base? When a human walks on Mars? When we leave the solar system?

Truthfully, the likelihood of humanity ever calling it a day on space exploration is slim to none. The universe is huge, with galaxy estimates in the trillions, so thegoalpost will continue moving back (to bring another sport into the analogy). Rather than focusing on competing in what is ultimately an unwinnable race, private and government-backed space agencies can actually benefit from collaboration thanks to their inherent differences.

The way that SpaceX, Planetary Resources, or Virgin Galactic approaches space exploration is going to be very different from NASA or the Air Force, explains Lewicki. Private companies arent beholden to the same slow processes that often stall government projects, and they can secure or reallocate funding much more swiftly if need be. However, unlike agencies like NASA, they do have shareholders to keep happy and a need to constantly pursue profitability.

The two sectors, therefore, have a tremendous opportunity to help one another. Private companies can generate revenue throughgovernment contracts for example,NASA has contracted Boeing to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), and SpaceX just closed a deal with the U.S. Air Force to launch its secretive space drone. Thisleaves the government agencies free to pursue the kind of forward-thinking, longer-term research that might not immediately generate revenue, but that can be later streamlined and improved upon in the private sector.

Ultimately, Space Race 2.0has no losers. The breakthroughs happening in space exploration benefit us all, and truly, a little friendly competition never hurt anyone (unless you count the egos bruised by those tweets).

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity and brevity.

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Industrial Nanotech (INTK) Amongst Today’s Volume Leader – Nelson Research

Posted: at 8:21 pm

Volume is the number of shares traded over a specific period of time. Every buyer has a seller, and each transaction adds to the total count of the volume. When a buyer and a seller agree on a transaction at a certain price, it is considered to be one transaction. For example, if only ten transactions occur in a trading day, the volume for the day is ten. Volume is used to measure the relative worth of a market move. When the markets make a strong price movement, the strength of that movement depends on the volume over that period. The higher the volume means the more significant the move. Volume levels give clues about where to find the best entry and exit points. Industrial Nanotech (INTK) experienced a volume of 851999.

Volume is an important measure of strength for traders and technical analysts because volume is the number of contracts traded. The market needs to produce a buyer and a seller for any trade to occur. The market price is when buyers and sellers meet. When buyers and sellers become very active at a certain price, this means that there is high volume. Bar charts are used to quickly determine the level of volume and identify trends in volume.

A 52-week high/low is the highest and lowest share price that a stock has traded at during the previous year. Investors and traders consider the 52-week high or low as a crucial factor in determining a given stocks current value while also predicting future price movements.

When a commodity trades within its 52-week price range (the range that exists between the 52-week low and the 52-week high), investors usually show more interest as the price nears either the high or the low. One of the more popular strategies used by traders is to buy when the price eclipses its 52-week high or to sell when the price drops below its 52-week low. The rationale involved with this strategy says that if the price breaks out either above or below the 52-week range, there is momentum enough to continue the price fluctuation in a positive direction.

Industrial Nanotech (INTK)s high over the last year was $0.0067 while its low was $0.0005.

Industrial Nanotech (INTK)s 52-Week Percent Change, the difference between the current price and the settlement price from 1 year ago, is -21.21%. Standard Deviation is a measure of the current average variability of return. A move of (plus or minus) 1 std deviation means a 33% odds for a major price move, whereas a move of (plus or minus) 3 std deviations means a 1% odds for a major price move. Industrial Nanotech (INTK)s Standard Deviation is -1.92.

Weighted Alpha is a measure of how much a stock has risen or fallen over a one-year period with a higher weighting for recent price activity. Industrial Nanotech (INTK)s Weighted Alpha is +18.77. A pivot point is a technical analysis indicator used to glean the overall trend of the market over differing time periods. The pivot point itself is simply the average of the high, low and closing prices from the previous days trading. On the following day, any trading above the pivot point indicates ongoing bullish trends, while trading below the pivot point indicates a bearish trend.

Industrial Nanotech (INTK)s TrendSpotter Opinion, the signal from Trendspotter, a Barchart trend analysis system that uses wave theory, market momentum & volatility in an attempt to find a general trend, is Sell. Barchart Opinions show investors what a variety of popular trading systems are suggesting.

These Opinions take up to 2 years worth of historical data and runs the prices through thirteen technical indicators. After each calculation, a buy, sell or hold value for each study is assigned, depending on where the price is in reference to the interpretation of the study. Todays opinion, the overall signal based on where the price lies in reference to the common interpretation of all 13 studies, for Industrial Nanotech (INTK) is Hold.

Pivot point analysis is used in alongside calculating support and resistance levels, much like trend line analysis. In pivot point analysis, the first support and resistance levels are found by utilizing the width of the trading range between the pivot point and either the high or low prices of the previous trading day. Secondary support and resistance levels are found using the full width between the high and low prices of the previous trading day.

Pivot points are oft-used indicators for trading futures, commodities, and stocks. They are static, remaining at the same price level throughout the day. Five pivot point levels are generated by using data from the previous days trading range. These are composed of a pivot point and two higher pivot point resistances called R1 and R2 and also two lower pivot point supports called as S1 and S2. Industrial Nanotech (INTK)s Pivot Point is 0.0033. Its 1st Resistance Point is 0.0037 and its 2nd Resistance Point is 0.004. The 1st Support Point is 0.003 while its 2nd Support Point is 0.0026.

Disclaimer: The information contained on this website and from any communication related to this website is for information purposes only. The material on this website does not constitute advice and you should not rely on any material in this website to make (or refrain from making) any decision or take (or refrain from making) any action.

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WW3 FEARS: Kim Jong-un could launch missile strike on New Zealand, warns minister – Express.co.uk

Posted: at 8:20 pm

GETTY

Just 6,350 miles south of the hermit kingdom, Foreign Affairs Minister Gerry Brownlee admitted they feared a missile could be sent their way from their belligerent neighbour.

Their concerns have escalated after it emerged the brutal regime, headed by despotic leader Kim, have developed a weapon powerful enough to reach the US and also New Zealand.

Mr Brownlee said: "When you think about the range they're able to get now, that puts a lot of pressure on countries like Japan and China and parts of Russia.

"If they ever get to a point where they can hit the continental USA, then they'll also be able to hit us.

Reuben Teo / mediadrumworld.com

1 of 10

"US President Donald Trump has said the world will never see North Korea reach the final stage of developing nuclear weapons that could reach the US, but recent strategic weapon tests have proved the country is not far away from testing an ICBM.

Pyongyang fired the ballistic Hwasong-12 missile last month, reaching an altitude of 1,312 miles.

GETTY

While the regime hailed it as a success, that claim was later backed up by South Korea and US officials who confirmed it could have hit American soil.

In response the US carried out the first test of a missile defence system against an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) able to intercept a missile from North Korea.

GETTY

This guy is irrational

Gerry Brownlee

And adding to fears, Mr Browlee highlighted the volatile and unstable nature of its portly leader, Kim Jong-un, who often sets unrealistic targets on his malnourished and impoverished citizens.

He said: This guy is irrational. He's nuts and not a sort of person that you'd want to have with a finger anywhere near the trigger of a nuclear weapon.

"It's an awful situation there, you've got a complete nutter running the place.

"Bear in mind here there's millions of people in North Korea living on the edge of starvation.

"We've made a small contribution over the years to the food and support for those people.

GETTY

But if there's any doubt about whether it's funding the nuclear programme, we're dealing with that by stopping the funding."

There are fears North Korea could imminently test-fire another missile, following the pattern seen over the past few months.

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[Behind the Beat]: Nifra Connecting With the World Through Trance – Mix 247 EDM

Posted: at 8:18 pm


Mix 247 EDM
[Behind the Beat]: Nifra Connecting With the World Through Trance
Mix 247 EDM
Mix 247 EDM: Growing up in Slovakia, how did you first hear about techno/trance and what made you want to get into it? Nifra: When I was thirteen-years-old, this music was all over the TV, various music channels, and radio stations, but it was much ...

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[Behind the Beat]: Nifra Connecting With the World Through Trance - Mix 247 EDM

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The Spinoff’s Worst Jobs Ever: fish oil, shoplifting, trenches, and trance – The Spinoff

Posted: at 8:18 pm

To finally get to our dream jobs at The Spinoff, our staff have been through some pretty shitty employment.

From flagrant sexism to gagging on fur balls from beard clippings, we at The Spinoff were exploited and used by our former employers.

But now you dont have to suffer the indignity that we endured, because this June, skate, surf, and snowboard clothing company Volcom is giving 15 people from around the world the chance to make their passion their profession. The prize is a trip to Austin, Texas to work on your dream job and $5000 cash; thats $5000 more than The Spinoffs Don Rowe got paid for his summer job. Enter the competition today so you dont have to spend two months stripping half the Waikatos wallpaper for no pay, or nine hours every day unpacking boxes in a freezing windowless room.

In the summer break of my first year at Auckland Uni, I got my first full-time job, working at an ice cream factory. From 7am to 4pm, my task was to unbox and sort whatever had been delivered to the factory floor. Deliveries were either plastic containers, plastic lids, 10kg bags of hokey pokey and crushed cookies, or 20L sacks of flavoured syrups that served as great weight training. It was a beautiful summer (apparently) but the room I worked in was windowless and had to be kept chilled because the ice cream was being made next door. It was always a fun surprise finding out what the weather had been like that day as I left to go home. Sometimes Id be called into the packing room to put boxes together or to stand at the conveyor belt and make sure that thousands of ice cream tubs didnt clog up the shrink-wrap machine. It was the definition of mindless work but also very stressful because you couldnt stop for a second until the machines stopped. The machines were loud so everyone wore ear muffs but werent allowed to listen to music in case of an alarm. I did a lot of self-reflection and got very pale that summer. But now Im very good at taping and untaping cardboard boxes so it wasnt all bad.

My first job was at a small hairdressing place: washing, sweeping and generally being around hair for $8 an hour, three hours every Saturday morning. The people who worked there were lovely, but the big problem was dealing with all the goddamn hair. Sartre was wrong: hell isnt other people, its other peoples hair. I would frequently, silently dry retch over the basins when washing out perm solution. I pulled endless globs of rancid hair from the drains like a horror film. I inhaled so many beard trimmings I wont be surprised if I have a gerbil-sized hairball wedged in my lungs forever. The sinks were shoddy and would frequently leak down peoples necks, so I once had to blow-dry an elderly womans back for about half an hour, dry-retching all the way. Still, cant put a price on 24 bucks.

I once had an interview for a job with a lady who said to me, I know Im not supposed to ask you this, but when are you planning on getting pregnant? Because I dont want someone whos going to go on maternity leave anytime soon. Clearly there were alarm bells from the start, but I was in London and needed to pay my excruciatingly high rent so I took the job. Cool move. Another highlight was the day she told me that I needed to remove the nail polish from my nails as it had chipped slightly and we were meeting with some of the company bosses. She literally handed me the nail polish remover and stood there and watched me take it off. When we went into the meeting the bosses were wearing jeans, t-shirts and Crocs.

About six months before I started at The Spinoff I spent several weeks drainlaying through a period of intense thunderstorms. One afternoon, shin-deep in clay mud like something out of Flanders Fields, I watched the foreman and his pneumonia get into their truck and drive away, lightning streaking above the retirement village we were building. That was the second worst job Ive had. Far, far more hazardous to both mood and health were the two months I spent painting the most rundown state houses in the governments Waikato portfolio. From Ngaruawahia to Forest Lake, Huntly to Hamilton, we scraped half a century worth of ciggy-stained wallpaper from sagging walls, sanded the space behind the fridge and generally got stuck into the residences of people who just didnt give a shit anymore, and hadnt for the past twenty years. Then, at the end of the contract, we got screwed by the contractor and ended up with a total of $0 for our time, thank you very much, just in time for Christmas. Happy days.

My first proper job was stacking shelves at 277 Woolworths at night. I was 17, living on K Road and making a minimum of $120 a week, $80 of which covered my rent. It was lonely, repetitive and depressing. In the break room there were Polaroid photos of the shoplifters holding what they got caught with. Their names were scrawled at the bottom in vivid. Mostly high school kids with cans of V and pensioners with cat food or cheap cuts of steak. I wondered why they didnt steal nicer meat. A shoplifting friend of mine told me you get the same punishment for shoplifting anything up to $500. Someone should tell these old men, I thought. The photos were beautiful and sad in a way that appealed to me.

I listened to my Walkman the whole time. When they told me I couldnt listen to my Walkman anymore I quit the next day and called in sick for the next two weeks. The boss threatened to withhold my last pay cheque if I never came back, so I worked my last shift, listening to my friends bFM show on my Walkman. He played a song for me: The Dead Kennedys Take This Job And Shove It.

The lonely supermarket aisle where Walkmans are banned and hope is out of stock.

My first job was at the fish bar at Woolworths. I was 15. My hands used to get cut up cleaning the fish machine and the fish oil would get into my hands. I was 15 and I smelled like fish all the time. It was not a good time. I hate fish.

I also worked at the Bunny Bar where I had to dress up as a bunny. But the bar got sued by Playboy and was shut down. Fish Bar was still worse than the Bunny Bar.

My first job was working in a Kiwifruit grading shed during harvest time. It was fine, but I was so useless at it they kept on moving me around different jobs. I was a box packer one day, but was so slow kiwifruit piled up around me like discarded peanut shells on the floor of a bar. I got moved to grading which required watching scores of kiwifruit go past on the conveyor belt and picking out the non-export grade fruit (basically the fruit that looked bung), but I let so many scarred and degenerate fruit through they moved me again. And so on and so on.

And then the kiwifruit market imploded and I never had to work in a kiwifruit orchard ever again.

Jos Barbosa has been linked to the collapse of the kiwifruit market.

I scored my worst job when I moved to Melbourne for the summer holidays and was desperately broke and in need of work quickly. I found myself selling energy plans door to door for one of the large Australian electricity providers. After three days of unpaid training, on the morning of my first day we gathered in the main office in the central city where loud trance music was used to motivate the sellers who charged around the room hi fiving and shouting. It was very cultish. Each team would then jump in a van and head to the citys outer suburbs motivational trance loud on the stereo again. It was then my job to go out into the neighbourhood and manipulate struggling, and often confused, families to switch energy providers by gently implying if they didnt, their power would be cut off. That was my first and last day as an energy salesman.

For five terrifying hours when I was 17 I worked as a potato picker about an hour south of Auckland. I wanted to get money for a PS4. I was put into a combine harvester with four strangers while we went around a field for five hours. I have the softest hands of any person I know, and I did not cope. I ended up calling my mother to come and pick me up that afternoon.

Whats your this? Your passion, that thing you wish you could do full time. This June, Volcom is searching the Earth to find 15 people who are ready to make their passion their paycheque.

Applying is easy; weve thrown out the traditional job application and replaced it with the simple question, Whats your this and what would it mean to you to put #ThisFirst?

Enter now for the chance to prioritise your passion by letting Volcom give you that extra push that will allow you to spend six weeks focusing on your this while also getting paid.

Continued here:

The Spinoff's Worst Jobs Ever: fish oil, shoplifting, trenches, and trance - The Spinoff

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Designer of cyberpunk indie The Last Night speaks out as Twitter history causes stir – Polygon

Posted: at 8:17 pm

A designer on The Last Night, one of the buzziest indie titles shown during Microsofts E3 2017 press conference yesterday, has become the subject of an escalating backlash on social media, as Twitter users dig into some of his more political past tweets.

Tim Soret is founder of Odd Tales, which is working on the cyberpunk action game. Following The Last Nights debut trailer during the Microsoft presser, those familiar with his social media presence resurfaced several of his tweets dating from 2014 to April of this year. These posts included references to anti-feminist ideals and identity politics; most notably, Soret expressed sympathies for the hate-mongering GamerGate movement during its height in 2014.

The Gamergate people are for journalistc integrity, honest debate, transparency, inclusiveness, & egalitarianism [sic], Soret wrote in September 2014, in one of the tweets that prompted the most discussion.

Im against feminism, because its getting more and more skewed, he tweeted just before that, in July 2014. I am for egalitariasm [sic]. I dont care, boy, girl, alien.

In response to celebrity scientist Bill Nyes new Netflix show, Soret said this past April that injecting identity politics under the cover of science, it's not gonna end well.

As screenshots of Sorets tweets circulated across Twitter, some whod been excited about The Last Night began to express serious reservations. The games premise, as described on its Steam page, further stoked their ire.

Stabilised by universal income, people struggle to find their calling or identity, and define themselves by what they consume, rather than what they create, it reads. Players assume the role of a man named Charlie, who finds himself disaffected in this technological, socialist dystopia.

In response to the growing discontent, Soret posted a series of messages saying that hed changed his stance.

Controversy time, he wrote in the first of three tweets. That's fine. Let's talk about it, because it's important. I completely stand for equality & inclusiveness.

In no way is The Last Night a game against feminism or any form of equality, he continued. A lot of things changed for me these last years. The fictional setting of the game does challenge techno-social progress as a whole but certainly not trying to promote regressive ideas.

We reached out to The Last Nights publisher, Raw Fury Games, Sunday night about Sorets tweets. The company responded with a lengthy statement later that evening:

We at Raw Fury believe in equality, believe in feminism, and believe everyone has a right and chance at the equal pursuit of happiness. We would not be working with Tim Soret / Odd Tales at all if we believed they were against these principles in any aspect.

The comments Tim made in 2014 are certainly surprising and dont fit the person we know, and we hope that everyone reading this who knows us at Raw Fury on a personal and professional level knows that we wouldnt tolerate working with someone who portrays the caricature of Tim going around the internet right now.

The wording of his statements toward feminism in 2014 was poor, and his buying into GamerGate as a movement on the notion that it represented gamers against journalists was naive, but in the same year he also cheered the rise of women in gaming. In a similar situation as the one happening now, folks on the IdleThumbs forums found questionable tweets and Tim took it upon himself to address them. What came from that was a dialogue where different viewpoints were considered and debated in a purposeful way.

Here is a link to everything including his tweets, his response, and the response of the forum; we hope youll take the time to read through it.

Side note: Debating Anita Sarkeesians efforts toward highlighting sexism in the games industry is touchy, and though Tims post back then was naive we felt that he wasnt being malicious like so many others have been to Anita in the past, so we share all of this with the hope people can see that first hand. We understand that no matter what there will be people who will not look at Tim the same again and we respect that, too.

A lot can change in three years, including viewpoints, and Tim has assured us that The Last Night does not spout a message steeped in regressive stances. We trust Tim and know that he is an advocate for progression both in and outside of our industry, and we hope that this will be apparent moving forward.

A representative for Odd Tales also told Polygon that the studios relationship with Raw Fury Games and Microsoft has not been affected by the outrage.

Weve contacted Microsoft about Sorets tweets and the backlash, and will update when we hear back.

The Last Night is set for a 2018 release on Windows PC and Xbox One.

Update: Soret apologized for his past tweets while talking about The Last Night onstage at the PC Gaming Show.

I want to apologize for those [tweets], Soret said. They dont in any way represent where I am today or what The Last Night will be about.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Polygon, We dont support comments that fail to reflect our commitment to diversity and inclusion, which are part of our everyday business and core values.

The rest is here:

Designer of cyberpunk indie The Last Night speaks out as Twitter history causes stir - Polygon

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DAT and Ascend offer free TMS software – Fleet Owner

Posted: at 8:16 pm

DAT said this new integration will help our mutual customers run their businesses more profitably and efficiently at no additional cost.

InMotion Global announced that AscendTMS has partnered with DAT Solutions to offer carriers a totally free TMS software solution. AscendTMS has been deeply integrated with DATs most popular carrier features, and is offered at no cost to any current and future DAT customer.

Tim Higham, president and CEO of InMotion Global, said, Everyone knows that DAT is the undisputed leader in load board technology, load volumes, and load quality. By providing the number one rated carrier TMS software to their customers, they are now also the undisputed leader in TMS technology. DAT are relied upon by the majority of the freight transportation industry to keep trucks full and freight moving. We are truly honored to have been chosen to be their long term carrier TMS solution and partner.

The free DAT Solutions carrier TMS offering is available immediately. It offers motor carriers of any size, a complete business management solution. AscendTMS provides features such as complete dispatch control, IFTA tax reporting, fuel card imports, asset and driver management, driver pay and settlement, free shipper credit reports, a 26,000 strong shipper directory, full accounting, QuickBooks integration, immediate and real-time load funding with Triumph Business Capital, branch and agent management, full document management, load tracking, ELD integration, driver texting, a free truckload rate index, cargo claims handling, EDI, and integrated load searching and matching.

DAT takes pride in our best in class solutions, and AscendTMS shares that same mindset, stated Don Thornton, DAT senior vice president of sales and marketing. This new integration will help our mutual customers run their businesses more profitably and efficiently, and at no additional cost. The AscendTMS offering includes a deep and intelligent integration to DATs load searching and truck matching services so our carrier customers can match up their empty trucks with available DAT posted loads with the press of a single button.

Higham continued: Carriers simply need to go to http://www.TheFreeTMS.com to get their free DAT Solutions TMS software account. As AscendTMS is truly cloud based, the entire process takes about 10 seconds. AscendTMS requires no installs, no downloads, no setup, no hardware, and no contracts. It works on any web enabled device like a PC, Mac, tablet or smartphone, and we even provide any training needed, at no cost, to DAT customers. This is the perfect carrier TMS solution, and provides the best of DAT and AscendTMS, at no cost, in one powerful yet easy to use TMS software solution.

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DAT and Ascend offer free TMS software - Fleet Owner

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Neurotechnology Announces MegaMatcher Accelerator Extreme – findBIOMETRICS

Posted: at 8:15 pm

Posted on June 12, 2017

Neurotechnology has announced a new version of its MegaMatcher Accelerator biometric software platform that enables faster matching than ever.

Its called MegaMatcher Accelerator Extreme, and Neurotechnology says that on a single server it can match 700 million irises per second, 1.2 billion faces per second, and 1.2 billion fingerprints per second. It can also manage 200 million iris templates, 40 million faces, and 160 million fingerprint templates on one server.

In a statement announcing the new platform, Neurotechnology called it the fastest biometric engine in the world, with the companys Director Irmantas Naujikas asserting that it will allow our customersto implement large and complex solutions in a simpler way, utilizing considerably fewer servers than before and simplifying system deployment and maintenance.

MegaMatcher Accelerator Extreme arrives soon after Neurotechnology announced an upgraded version of its SentiVeillance facial recognition SDK, which can now scan up to ten different surveillance feeds on a single computer.

June 12, 2017 by Alex Perala

Originally posted here:

Neurotechnology Announces MegaMatcher Accelerator Extreme - findBIOMETRICS

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