Daily Archives: July 24, 2017

If opera is going to grow as an art form in the 21st century, its going to need more than directors imposing quirky concepts onto familiar repertoire or composers retracing well-worn tracks of post-Romanticism. Its going to need the kind of musical and dramatic persuasiveness that enthralled the Santa Fe Operas audience on Saturday night at the world premiere of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, a bracing opera by composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell.

This is an American tale told with American bravado. Steve Jobs was both adored and vilified as a person and as a corporate genius, but as the visionary behind the Apple computer empire he was ultimately responsible for the iGadgets (phone, pad, pod, ) that have become defining artifacts of modern life. The operas scenario extracts seminal chapters from his life story, casting him as both hero and villain, a man at war with himself. He develops his passion for engineering as a child, achieves technological breakthroughs in his familys garage and gleans ideas from his educational experiences. He has a relationship (and a daughter) with a woman he treats terribly, and he searches for inner peace through Zen Buddhism. He establishes and oversees his mega-successful corporation, he marries a supportive woman who helps tame some of his demons, he gets sick, he dies. Librettist Campbell shuffles these episodes and arrives at a nonlinear narrative that, on the face of it, seems somewhat random; and yet it unrolls with a strong sense of theatrical momentum and is not at all confusing.

Simple, clear-cut, uncluttered and clean sings Jobs at one point, clarifying his design goals to an engineer. Director Kevin Newbury seems to have taken that as his own watchword, masterminding a production in which one scene flows to the next seamlessly, each employing visual details that support the thrust of the action rather than distract from it. Sets, lighting and projections (devised respectively by Victoria Vita Tzykun, Japhy Weideman and 59 Productions) work as a piece. Horizontal bars of multicolored fluorescence contain the space from above, sometimes echoed by thin pillars of light ranged near the sides of the stage. Brightly lit wall-height blocks skim fluidly across the stage as if in balletic choreography. Furnishings are limited to what is essential to the story: workbenches, office desks and chairs, nothing extraneous. The production capitalizes on the projection capacities made available through the theaters recent overhaul. The imagery of Jobs life is projected, often in energetic juxtaposition (circuit boards, press clippings, Zen calligraphy), and a scene where he does LSD with his girlfriend in an apple (!) orchard gets woozy indeed. This is in no way a costume drama, although Paul Careys realistic wardrobe designs help clarify the intermixed chronology and they even make clothing styles of the 1970s and 80s seem relatively unobjectionable, which is quite an achievement. Groups of employees or board members are moved about as precisely as the elements of the set.

Just before an early expanse in which we first see Jobs with his Zen master, Campbells libretto proposes a stage direction: If the back wall of the Santa Fe Opera House can open up for the next scene, that would be lovely. It could and it was, with the last sliver of the sun gleaming on the horizon of the Jemez Mountains. Quite a sun, sings Jobs mentor. Always loveliest when its leaving. And yet, having tapped the houses ace in the hole, Newbury does not overplay the hand. The point is made, the audience inhales the exquisite moment, and the stage soon reconfigures so the plot can move on.

Bates music tends to be powerfully optimistic, trading to some degree in sustained transcendence. The scores vivaciousness comes more from high-energy rhythms, often repeated in a post-minimalist way (John Adams may come to mind), and from a vivid sonic palette. A good deal of advance chatter focused on Bates use of electronic sounds, which he presided over from his computer setup in the orchestra pit. But its not like olden days when superimposing electronic sounds over an orchestra had an oil-and-water quality. Bates has spoken of how he considers modern electronica to be a further family of symphonic music-making strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, electronica and this score exemplifies his contention, with the electronic sounds weaving in out of the integrated texture with a sense of inevitability. These are hardly unfamiliar sounds, to be sure. We hear them all the time in movie soundtracks, but Bates shows real expertise in using them to enlarge orchestral texture.

He had some challenges to meet. He has been almost exclusively an instrumental composer, building up a solid output of symphonic and chamber works but a vocal catalog that is limited to six choral pieces and two song cycles. An opera obviously requires skill in vocal writing, and Bates showed that he has the requisite chops to write effectively for lyric theatre. Indeed, this is not much of a stop-and-sing numbers opera. Although it includes some certifiable arias and ensembles, these seem crafted more to support the dramatic narrative than as opportunities for vocal display which is not meant as criticism. One also wondered how effectively Bates would navigate the sheer scale of operatic structure, since none of his concert pieces has extended beyond a half-hour and most run 15 minutes or less. But the question of whether he could maintain musical interest through a 95-minute operatic score (without intermission) seemed to some extent moot. The piece consists of a prologue and epilogue with 18 discrete episodes in between, so that averages out to four and three-quarter minutes per scene. Some are longer and some shorter, but with his succession of modestly scaled segments, Bates landed on an effective plan that was entirely achievable for a composer writing his first opera one that moreover helps define the works kinetic verve.

Michael Christie conducted with precision and pizzazz, and a couple of orchestral interludes truly got the adrenaline pumping. One of them, at about the operas one-hour mark, accompanies projected images charting the meteoric rise of the company and its growing complication as a corporate organism. I wouldnt be surprised if it were extracted to stand as a frenetic orchestral showpiece in its own right.

The cast was uniformly commendable for their acting as well as their singing. In the title role, baritone Edward Parks is on stage practically the whole time. He appears in roles like Figaro in The Barber of Seville and Valentin in Faust, so he is obviously able to sing in an expansive operatic baritone style. But he didnt really do that here. He presented the part more intimately, as a lieder-singer might, with naturalness of style and exemplary diction. Subtle amplification underscored his performance, and indeed those of all the singers a logical use of electronic technology in a score such as this.

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke was a pleasure to hear as Jobs wife, Laurene. Her rich, warmly covered tone was put to finest use in her climactic aria Humans are messy, awkward and cluttered, an anthem to empathy, one that may become embraced as a standalone piece. A similarly touching performance came from Wei Wu, as Jobs Buddhist mentor Kbun Chino Otogawa. This beautifully written role encompasses both wisdom and wry humor, and Wei Wus bass not particularly large but of velvety texture infused it with a feeling of profound comfort, a welcome anchor in the emotional turbulence that sometimes surrounded it. Garrett Sorenson conveyed substantial character development as Jobs fellow inventor and business partner Steve Wozniak; he began as a comical dork and ended up as a serious corporate grown-up, his bright tenor letting loose fully in the tenseness, and then fury, of his aria Goliath, in which he resigns from the company he has built with Jobs. Smaller roles were admirably conveyed by baritone Kelly Markgraf (as Jobs father), mezzo-soprano Mariya Kaganskaya (as a calligraphy teacher), soprano Jessica E. Jones (as Chrisann Brennan, Jobs girlfriend), and Asher Corbin (a nonsinging part upheld admirably by a young actor portraying the 10-year-old Jobs).

Bates and Campbell are not the only people charting a path for operas future, but one is more likely to find seriously creative new work in warehouses and experimental theatres than on a major opera stage. Santa Fe Opera and its general director, Charles MacKay, deserve congratulations for making such a piece available at this level. The day of the premiere, the company added an additional performance (on Aug. 22) to the six it had originally scheduled. That should help accommodate audience demand as word circulates about this charismatic piece. It will surely appeal to millennials, thanks to its dynamism in harnessing the technology of today to tell the story of technologys yesterday. But more traditional opera-lovers are bound to embrace it, too. Like all the finest operas, it is animated by a stimulating plot, it is brimful with compelling music, and not less important it has an ample heart.

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'The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs': Zen and the art of opera - Santa Fe New Mexican

The result is disappointing, although not surprising.

Turkey has recently announced a new school curriculum that would ban Darwins theory of evolution in primary and secondary education. The decision of the Turkish government has led to protests from proponents of secularism whose foundations have been undermined since 2002 when Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power, reports Jutarnji List on 23 July 2017.

The events in Turkey have brought the issue into focus in other countries as well. The Pew Research Centre has recently published a study Religious beliefs and national affiliation in Central and Eastern Europe in which it examined attitudes towards evolution in 18 European, mostly former communist, countries. The research in Croatia was conducted by the Ipsos agency from June 2015 to July 2016, on a sample of 1,616 respondents.

The survey showed that the theory of evolution is accepted by 57 percent of the population, which is four percent less than in Serbia, where a scandalous initiative to expel Darwin from the curriculum was launched two months ago.

I think that we in Croatia do not need to fear such efforts for now. Nevertheless, we need to actively promote the learning and teaching of evolution in schools, as it is one of the fundamental pillars of scientific thinking and the foundation of developed societies, based on numerous evidence, said Boris Joki from the Institute for Social Research and the former leader of the expert working group for the implementation of curricular reform.

I would find it extremely harmful and dangerous if the teaching of evolution in Croatian schools were to come into question. Although currently there is no organised and publicly articulated initiative to expel evolution from Croatian schools, during the work of curricular reform expert group there was pressure from certain circles to do precisely that. Some of those who have actively hampered the efforts of more than 500 teachers and university professors personally spoke to me about it. But, as in many other situations, they are not brave enough to say it in public, explained Joki.

A few years ago, he published the book Science and Religion in Croatian Elementary Education: Pupils' Attitudes and Perspectives, which is the first study of the positions of students towards natural sciences and religion. The survey included 500 students of elementary schools in Zagreb who attended Catholic catechism classes.

My scientific paper showed that most students at the end of their primary education belong to the so-called theistic-evolutionist position, in which evolutionist explanation is accepted. They just attribute the initiation of the process to the influence of the supernatural. A smaller number of students take up the entirely evolutionist position, while an even smaller percentage of them completely reject evolution and assume the creationist position, said Joki, whose team has prepared a curriculum of which the teaching of evolution was an essential element.

Working groups that have developed the curricula have devoted particular attention to issues of diversity of the living world. These topics should be taught from the first grade of elementary school, while a more specific discussion of the evolution would begin in the fifth grade of elementary school and should be elaborated through several grades of elementary and high school, as well as through different subjects. That was supposed to bring Croatia closer to developed Western societies, concluded Joki.

Translated from Jutarnji List.

See more here:

In Croatia, Just 57% of People Believe in Theory of Evolution - Total Croatia News

If you had to select one symbol of cybersecurity industry, youd be hard pressed to find a better choice than the pair of conferences, Black Hat Briefings (Black Hat) and DEF CON. The duo is known affectionately as Hacker Summer Camp by many conference goers. Much has changed since the first Black Hat in 1997 and DEF CON in 1993. Not only have the crowds swelled, but so has the very nature of digital technology.

Over the decades the conferences have expanded in both audience and content covered. Black Hat, for example, has shifted from its focus on enterprise security red teaming to include more defensive security work, security team management in addition to its staple of systems exploitation. The conference even added a CISO Summit to its schedule, which extended the length of the show by a day. With this years event starting today in Las Vegas, lets look at how the pair of conferences have changed over the years.

Chris Wysopal, the seventh member of the hacker collective L0pht and the current CTO of software security firm Veracode attended many the early DEF CON and Black Hat conferences. Over time, as the number of events during the week expanded and the week grew longer, something had to give, and he took a not-so brief hiatus from DEF CON. After Black Hat had added the CISO Summit, it became a four-day long event, and I decided to skip DEF CON, recalls Wysopal. It just grew to become too long of a grind.

[ Related: 4 places to find cybersecurity talent in your own organization ]

When DEF CON 20 rolled around, Wysopal grew curious about how the show changed. It was DEF CONs 20th anniversary, and I figured itd be worth it to stay and check out, he recalls. I was just blown away. It had tripled in size. It didn't feel like a conference anymore. It felt like a festival, he says. Not only were there more activities, such as the lock-picking village, but the existing activities grew. The Capture the Flag contest used to be five or six tables of people hacking, it grew to about 50 tables. Everything had just grown and grown, he says.

Things had certainly changed and grown since the first Black Hat, as well. Presentations at the inaugural Black Hat included talks on local network security assessments, firewall management and attack techniques over the Internet. Renowned security researcher Mudge keynoted on secure coding practices and source code analysis, while Adam Shostack spoke on code reviews and deriving value from the effort. Sluggo focused on defending against denial-of-service attacks.

Richard Thieme, an author and professional speaker who has spoken at all but two DEF CONs from DEF CON 4 though DEF CON 25 and numerous Black Hat conferences recalls the Thursday keynote he gave at the very first Black Hat. It was a bunch of guys and some gals who have been instrumental from the very beginning working to figure out how do we do this security thing, says Thieme.

[Related: 3 tips to get the most out of Black Hat/Defcon]

In a way, these conferences are a moving image showing the maturation of the security community, says Thieme. In the first days, they got to see for themselves, firsthand, as having something valuable to offer to important people: how to protect assets, he says. In the beginning, they were finding their way.

DEF CON certainly found its way. At the first DEF CON, held at the Sands Hotel & Casino, there were about 100 attendees. In 2016, about 22,000 attended DEF CON, and 15,000 attended Black Hat.

Black Hat certainly had its share of historical moments over those years. Most of those moments revolved around the release of high-impact security vulnerabilities released from edgy security research. Such incidents included David Litchfields making known a proof-of-concept attack against SQL Server that shortly after that resulted in the infamous 2003 SQL Slammer worm.

Security researcher Michael Lynn felt it necessary to quit his job at Internet Security Systems (the vendor was put under pressure from Cisco to squelch the talk) to release information regarding flaws he uncovered in the operating system that powers Cisco routers. Today, such research is likely to be released ahead of the actual conference rather than during the show, such as when researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek unveiled their remote Jeep hacks in 2015.

For most conference goers, big historic events aside, when you ask them about their early conference memories and the value they get from either show, theyll usually mention networking and the chance to meet security professionals that might be otherwise out of reach.

Stefano Zanero, information security consultant and researcher, and Black Hat review board member, recalls the impression from his first Black Hat (2004) where he also presented. I was a young Ph.D. student presenting for the first time to such a large international audience. Obviously, it made quite a big impression on me, says Zanero. Black Hat was extremely engaging. The conference was smaller then and being a speaker made sure that you had occasions to meet the whole "who's who" of security. That character probably gets lost somehow in its growth, Zanero says.

That growth hasnt stopped Zaneros ability to make valuable contacts over the years, he says. I think networking and in-person meetings are the actual value

of conferences in this growing but still very small world of cybersecurity. The network of professional contacts I made over the years at Black Hat is an invaluable asset in my work, he says.

When I first attended Black Hat, it seemed to be a unique amalgam of hacker culture and business focus, united around information security something that was both novel and necessary for security to garner the attention and budget it would need to become a priority for all but the tech elite, says Taylor Banks, long-time security researcher and principal Hacktologist at ACE Hackware.

Banks, says that some in the DEF CON and broad hacker community viewed the Black Hat conference as selling out. For me, I found it [Black Hat] to be a good mix, and was pleasantly surprised to find an information security conference that could justify a high price tag and simultaneously provide a good environment for networking and recruiting, while still proving to be a good value to attendees and their employers, he says.

Admittedly, I think to compare Black Hat to DEF CON was a bit unfair. I would argue that while much of the same information was often presented at both events (and often by the same people), it made DEF CON a significantly better value. But for many organizations, the stigma of sending employees to a hacker con made it much more difficult to justify even a small expense to less tech-savvy stakeholders and board members. I also think that, because of the environment, those new to the field found DEF CON quite intimidating, while Black Hat seemed a much easier event to break into, says Banks.

How has Black Hat changed over the years? The obvious answer is that it dramatically grew. The less obvious answer is that growth brought in a wider spectrum of people, so networking activities and occasions dramatically changed, says Zanero, who says he does miss the more tight-knit community of years ago. The current exhibit hall is overwhelming, Zanero says. What has not changed, in my opinion, is the quality and level of the talks, while they somehow [also] broadened to a wider range of topics, he adds.

[Related: The best of Black Hat: The consequential, the controversial, the canceled]

When speaking with many who have attended the conference over the years, the verdict on whether the quality of the talks has remained high is mixed. The past that disappeared was Black Hat as a cutting-edge hacking convention, says Thieme.

What it's become, especially since it was sold, is a mini RSA. It's vendor-driven, and the focus is determined somewhat by the technical expertise, but also clearly voiced needs of the marketplace, which are not necessarily always highly technical, says Thieme. In the old days, there were probably more hitters who swung for the fences. Today, there are more journeymen ball players who self-censor about things that are likely to get them or the enterprise into real hot water, Thieme says. It's become mainstream.

Another big change that paralleled the growth of the audience has been the growth of the expo floor. The expo floor was much smaller, and it was always companies that were focused almost exclusively on the things Black Hat was doing. The expo floor was full of companies who were pen testing or were hardcore security companies, and it wasn't just companies that happen also to have a security product or service that came to the show, says Wysopal.

That begs the question, considering all of the growth and broadening of focus: Is there still value to be found? The answer is near unanimously a yes. One just has to work harder for it and hunt down what they want from the show. If you're targeted and know how to hunt value, then the place is an absolute jungle teeming with animals, says Thieme.

Wysopal agrees. There are many different types of audiences going to these shows. There are people who want to attend the talks, and theyre learning something by doing that. There are others that are going to network. Maybe they are looking for a job, or theyre simply catching up with people they only see at the conference every year. Then you have those who are actually looking for products and solutions there. You have all of this going on at once, and not everyone is doing everything. You get a successful conference when you can satisfy a lot of different audiences, says Wysopal. And by that measure, both Black Hat and DEF CON certainly continue to succeed.

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Black Hat and DEF CON: The evolution of Hacker Summer Camp - CSO Online

TEMECULA Nearly two-thirds of students will reject their faith by the time theyve finished college, the result of a constant bombardment of secular lessons. A new nonprofit project, Debunking Evolution, aims to combat that influence by teaching students the scientific case against evolution.

The projects creatorssaidthey are committed to providing Christian families with Biblically and scientifically based answers to the evolutionary theory that many children are taught during sixth, seventh and 10th grades in public schools in California.

The program was designed by experienced professionals and reviewed by scientists at the three leading creation ministries in the United States: Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research and Creation Ministries International.

One of Debunking Evolutions co-creators, Pat Roy, is slated to share what tenets of evolution are taught in textbooks and the arguments against them as the keynote speaker at the Murrieta Temecula Republican AssemblysAug. 11meeting, which runs from6 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.at the Temecula City Hall Conference Room, 41000 Main Street.

Nearly a decade and a half ago, Roy and his wife, Sandy homeschool parents created the Jonathan Park Creation Adventure Series, an audio drama that has been heard on more than 700 radio stations worldwide and has reached millions with the message of the Creator.

Roy also worked at the Institute for Creation Research for over 12 years, as he and his team took some of the most complex scientific proofs for creation and translated them into everyday language and concepts.

The event is open to the public. The cost is $15 for members, $20 for non-members, $10 for students under 25 and Gold Eagle members and free for active duty military. To RSVP, leave a message at(951) 304-2757, email MurrietaOnlineNews@outlook.com or visitwww.MTRA.club.

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Murrieta Temecula Republican Assembly hosts Debunking Evolution lecture - Valley News