Monthly Archives: July 2017

Evolution encyclopedia – Yazak – The Village Reporter and the Hometown Huddle

Posted: July 17, 2017 at 4:14 am


The Village Reporter and the Hometown Huddle
Evolution encyclopedia - Yazak
The Village Reporter and the Hometown Huddle
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Evolution encyclopedia - Yazak - The Village Reporter and the Hometown Huddle

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Texas tea party: the birth and evolution of a movement – Houston Chronicle

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Senator Konni Burton (R-Colleyville) watches nominees get approval despite her vote of no on the UT Board of Regents before the Senate for confirmation on March 11, 2015.

Senator Konni Burton (R-Colleyville) watches nominees get approval...

AUSTIN - Nine years ago, fresh off a term as a Smith County commissioner in northeast Texas, JoAnn Fleming drove to Dallas for a "boot camp" with other like-minded conservatives.

It wasn't on the radar of the public or most of the Texas political establishment. But many now consider it a key event in the birth of the tea party movement.

The goal was to examine how government works - and how they could force changes to make officials more accountable.

Also on the agenda: how to get their point across, voter to voter.

"Konni Burton was there, as were a lot of other people whose names would become familiar to a lot of Texans in the years to come," Fleming said, referring to the Republican who went on to become a state senator from Colleyville. "I had thought that once I was through with elected office, I'd take two years off to become a normal person again. Obviously, I didn't."

Within weeks, she said, the tea party movement in Texas was born.

It was a seed that quickly blossomed on the national stage with calls from grass-roots activists to cut federal spending, taxes and the size of government, and reduce the federal deficit. The movement burgeoned just as Democrat Barack Obama was moving into the White House.

Back in Texas, the tea party emerged as a decentralized movement that slowly expanded its focus to state government in Austin, even as a few Texas elected officials including then-Gov. Rick Perry joined their ranks to help bash federal overreach and the wasteful bureaucracy in D.C.

Now, with Republicans firmly in charge in both capitals, Texas' tea party activists are shifting their focus to the next phase in their evolution: as a political movement that is now an established insider power player at the Capitol, despite its historic outsider bravado.

Tea party caucuses have grown ranks in both the state House and Senate - the Freedom and Liberty caucuses, they are called - and Burton is now a senator in the chamber where staunch GOP conservatives are in charge, starting with the presiding officer, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

'Coalition approach'

The next step for the tea party will be played out front and center in the special legislative session that begins Tuesday. Gov. Greg Abbott, who formally announced his re-election bid Friday, has set a 20-issue agenda - much of it tailor-made for tea party regulars - that will pit the strongly conservative Senate against the more moderate House over controversial issues such as the bathroom bill, property-tax reforms, school-choice for special-needs children and how to better finance public schools.

"We are moving from solely a tea party effort to a coalition approach because we have common ground with a lot of other organizations on other issues," said Fleming, who is executive director of Grassroots America - We The People, a tea party group. "People in the tea party movement have been asking for some time how we can get help to effect change, and the answer is that it takes time to build trust and build coalitions. That's where we are now."

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

In recent months, even during the regular legislative session that ended in May, tea party groups from around Texas partnered with local pro-business groups, toll-road opponents, medical organizations, mainstream Republican groups and immigration-reform organizations, to push for the passage or defeat of legislation, both in Austin and in Washington. With the special session just days away from its start, the coalition supporting passage of many - if not all - of Abbott's agenda has grown to more than 60 groups.

'Natural progression'

At a June 26 summit meeting in Dallas, 121 leaders representing 59 organizations met to discuss the special session - including members of the State Republican Executive Committee, GOP county chairs and conservative organizations - and plan their lobbying strategy.

That promises to put additional pressure on the Texas House, where Speaker Joe Straus has publicly compared some of the items to horse manure and suggested that a number may not get approval in the House. Ten of the 20 bills were approved by the Senate during the regular legislative session, and Patrick predicted on Thursday that the rest will easily pass his chamber - likely very soon after the 30-day special session begins.

"This is no longer solely a tea party effort," said Del Carothers, a Georgetown rancher who has been active with several Texas tea party groups since 2011.

"We have grown way past where we started out. Once you get a civics lesson on how our government actually operates, you know it has to change to be responsive to the people. And you know that if you really care about citizen-driven government and freedom, which is what the Founding Fathers intended, you have to be involved and make that happen," he said.

"If you sit around on your ass, government will run your life and they'll waste your money."

Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist who has studied the rise of the tea party as a political force, said the increasing clout of the activists should come as no surprise in Red State Texas.

"The tea party movement had been building for some time, and it took off in Texas when Gov. Perry gave his Tax Day speech in 2009 and went from being a pragmatic centrist to straddling the tea party line," he said. "The next natural progression is for these groups to start exerting their influence in who is elected and to expand their clout by building coalitions with other groups. That's what's happening now."

In Texas, where many legislative seats are filled by the candidate who wins the Republican primary, tea party candidates often win. Perhaps their biggest surprise was the 2013 election of Ted Cruz over Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for a U.S. Senate seat.

"In the special session, where all the items are of a conservative nature, the hiding places will be gone for Republicans who want to say they're conservative but not vote that way," said Dale Huls, with the Clear Lake Tea Party near Houston. "The best vote some of them can make may be the one not taken, especially in the House, because if they vote against our issues we're going to be watching everything they're doing.

"This is put up or shut up time."

For Republicans who refuse to support the tea party agenda, Huls and other activists said the coalition of groups wants them censured by the Republican Party of Texas. Even before the special session begins, a deeply divided Republican Party of Bexar County passed a resolution on Monday calling for "a change in leadership in the Texas House" - a surprising move considering that Speaker Straus, a target of tea party anger on many issues, is from San Antonio.

'Everybody can win'

Despite the predictions that the tea party influence could push much of Abbott's more controversial agenda items, including the bathroom and property-tax reform bills, to pass during the special session, when they failed during the regular session, House leaders privately say they think that is unlikely. That's because most of the controversial bills will simply not have enough support from Republicans and Democrats to pass in as strident a form as the Senate wants, said one House committee chairman.

"The agenda for the special session is part of an election campaign," said longtime Austin political consultant Bill Miller. "It's set up perfectly so that if not everything the tea party wants is passed, the governor can say well I tried. Re-elect me, and we'll get it done next year. Dan Patrick can say the Senate passed everything, and Joe Straus can say it was the will of the House, and the Senate and the House are much different chambers.

"Everybody can win."

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The Spectator’s view: Don’t erase Ryerson’s name – TheSpec.com

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The Spectator's view: Don't erase Ryerson's name
TheSpec.com
To blame him for the evils in a system largely built and operated after his death is as unfair as blaming Charles Darwin's writings on evolution for the vicious social Darwinism of the Nazis. Moreover, focusing on this aspect of Ryerson's career ...

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After visa delays, Afghan girls robotics team arrives in DC for global competition – Washington Post

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With two words Team Afghanistan the crowd assembled in the stands at DAR Constitution Hall erupted into a deafening roar Sunday as the teen-aged girls made their way onto a sprawling stage,waving their countrys flag and donning head scarves in matching colors. Their triumphant entrance on the stage Sunday at theFIRST Global Robotics Challengemarked the end of a long and uncertain journey to the U.S. As of last week, their dream of traveling to what has been billed as the Olympics of Robotics had been shot down when their visas were denied, despite two grueling trips from their home in Herat to Kabul for interviews with the U.S. State Department.

But after their plight made international headlines,President Trump intervened at the last minute to grant the girls passage to the U.S., and they arrived Saturday.

[Afghan girls team can travel to U.S. for robotics contest after being denied visas twice]

The three-day competition draws teams from 157 countries and some multinational teams representing continents. One group Team Hope is composed of refugees. FIRST has long hosted competitions in the U.S., but this is the first year it is hosting an international competition. The team representing the U.S. is composed of three girls, who marched into the auditorium for the parade of nations to the Woody Guthrie song This Land is Your Land.

[These girls have built robots since they were toddlers. Now theyre competing on a world stage.]

The international nature of the competitioncame with complications. Besides the girls from Afghanistan, the team from Gambia also had issues with their visas, according to the Associated Press, before their applications were also ultimately approved. Because of sanctions, Global FIRST was unable to ship a robotics kit to Iran, where a group of teenagers was awaiting the parts to build a robot.

That might have spelled the end of the teams shot of going to the world championships. But the organization introduced them to a group of teen-aged robotics enthusiasts at Marshall High in Fairfax County, Va. calling themselves Team Gryphon. The team in Iran sketched out blueprints on the computer and sent the designs to their counterparts across the ocean, and then corresponded over Skype.

Sunday, the team flew the Iranian flag at their station next to the flag of Team Gryphon a black flag with a purple silhouette of the gryhpon as a sign of their unlikely partnership. For Mohammadreza Karami, the teams mentor, it was an inspiring example of cooperation.

Its possible to solve all of the worlds problems if we put aside our politics and focus on peace, Karami said.

Kirsten Singer, a 16-year-old rising junior at Marshall High, said she wanted to didnt want the team to be locked out of the competition just because of the sanctions.

Everybody should be able to compete and to learn and to use that experience for other aspects of their life, Singer said.

Staff writer Sharif Hassan contributed to this story.

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After visa delays, Afghan girls robotics team arrives in DC for global competition - Washington Post

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These girls have built robots since they were toddlers. Now they’re competing on a world stage. – Washington Post

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By Maia Silber By Maia Silber July 16 at 5:49 PM

Colleen Johnson built her first robot at age 2, sitting on her fathers lap. It was a sumo robot, designed to knock other automatons down. And it played the tune Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

You know, childs play.

Johnsons younger sister, Katie, was not far behind. She soon made her own android, just a tiny little thing that moved. The Johnson sisters, now 16 and 18, have been hooked ever since.

Now the Johnsons, along with their co-captain Sanjna Ravichandar, 17, make up Team USA for the inaugural FIRST Global Robotics Challenge, whose two days of game play take place Monday and Tuesday in Washington.

The three girls have spent the past several months not only building their own robot, but contacting teams from around the world to offer their assistance with everything from technical troubleshooting to dealing with the heat of a Washington summer.

We feel like as the host country, its our responsibility to make it a good experience for everyone, Ravichandar said at a hectic all-team practice session Saturday. She had just offered advice to some members of Team Botswana, whose robot had not arrived at the airport.

The competition, designed to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) around the world, will include a team from Afghanistan, which had initially been denied U.S. visas.

The robot girls

Other children play with dolls and toy cars. The Johnsons grew up tinkering with parts of old sewing machines and lawn mowers, which their parents, both trained as engineers, picked up from scrap yards in their home town of Fairbanks, Alaska.

In the early 2000s, their parents, Tom and Sharon, began working as coaches, judges, and referees for FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Techology), a not-for-profit youth organization that runs several robotics competitions for elementary, middle and high school students. Almost soon as the girls were old enough to compete, they began participating in FIRSTs Lego and tech challenges.

Their team, Schrodingers Hat, formed with four other Fairbanks students, has participated in more than 20 competitions. (Its name comes from Erwin Schrodingers famous thought experiment: The team competes wearing giant top hats decorated with cats eyes). In 2015, the team won the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship Inspire Award, the top award in the international competition.

According to the Johnsons, robotics are a surprisingly popular pastime in Fairbanks, Alaska. (Its dark and cold nine months of the year, Katie Johnson says with a shrug.) But even there, the Johnsons are known as the robot girls.

The sisters have taken advantage of their reputation to promote STEM in their community, especially to young girls. As a young woman, just one negative experience can turn you off STEM, Colleen Johnson said. But knowing other women have experienced that, and have risen above it, is so inspiring.

Across the country in Princeton, N.J., Ravichandar was also a member of an all-girls team actually, an all-Girl Scout team, called, fittingly, We Are Girl Scouts (W.A.G.S.). Their trademark? Our branding is excessive amounts of purple, glitter, beads and neon hats, she said. The team has also competed in more than 20 competitions and won several awards.

Ravichandar met Colleen Johnson when both were both recognized on the FIRST Deans List for outreach and leadership. For both girls, it waslike meeting a celebrity: Each had followed the others team on social media. After the Johnsons were tapped to represent the United States at FIRST Global, they asked Ravichandar to join.

I didnt believe it was real, she gushed.

12-hour days

On the Saturday before the competition, the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall is packed with teenagers wearing T-shirts and buttons emblazoned with national flags, carrying complicated mechanical contraptions over their heads. Team USA, crammed in a booth between Team Uganda and Team U.K., was doing some last-minute tinkering after a practice run that morning had revealed some problems with its robots battery.

For the team, this is the culmination of months of designing, building and programming. As part of the inaugural Global Challenge, the competitors learn about challenges to accessing clean water for people around the world. The competition requires each team to build a robot that will sort water particles (represented by blue balls) from contaminant particles (represented by orange balls), depositing the former in a village reservoir and the latter in a laboratory. Afterward, the robot must hang from a bar to avoid a flood.

Working only with materials allotted in their official kits, the teams had to build mechanisms to collect the balls, sort them using a color sensor and deposit them in the correct locations. They also had to design a device to hang the robot during the flood portion of the game. Team USA worked on its design almost every day since March at least three or four hours a day, and up to 12 in the last few weeks before the competition. Through the months-long design and building process, Ravichandar communicated with the Johnsons (who recently moved to Everett, Wash.) via Google HangOut, shared spreadsheets and text messages.

The girls also kept an engineering notebook, documenting their ideas and progress. Ravichandar wrote her entries on loose graphing paper. When the team members finally met in Washington in June, they all wrote in the notebook together for the first time.

Besides design ideas, the notebook also documents the girls online meetings with teams from other countries. I have also continued to talk with members of Team Rwanda, and have helped them with their robot, one entry reads. A member of Team Tanzania began messaging me on Facebook, another reads. The Johnsons also acted as official mentors for Team Colombia.

Just a few minutes before Team USA is up to practice, Ravichandar runs over to her teammates, out of breath, reporting that Team Bahamas has had a technical problem. But I think theyre okay, she adds. And their mechanism is so cool. When she describes it, Katie squeals.

You can only use whats in the box, Ravichandar says, explaining why shes excited. Each of those teams used those pieces to build a completely different robot.

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Google will now let you back up your entire computer for FREE on its servers – Mirror.co.uk

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Google has a number of apps that let you store your data on its servers . But while Google Photos and Google Docs only host certain types of files, the company is soon going to let you store everything online.

A new service called "Backup & Sync" will become part of the Google Drive service and will allow both Mac and Windows users to store the entire contents of their PC or laptop on Google's platform.

"In the coming weeks, we will launch Backup and Sync from Google, a tool intended to help everyday users back up files and photos from their computers, so theyre safe and accessible from anywhere," Google announced on its official blog post .

The new feature will replace the Photos and Drive uploader on desktops and can also be configured to automatically back up devices you connect to your computer, like SD cards, cameras or your phone. Like the current Drive, you'll be able to access your files from any other device with access to it.

At the moment the feature is only limited to individual consumers - businesses won't be able to take advantage of all the extra free space.

The move comes after the company revealed it will stop serving personalised adverts based on the contents of their Gmail messages . Google has faced plenty of criticism over the years from privacy advocates for reading the contents of emails in order to serve more accurate adverts.

How you feel about uploading your entire computer to Google is something to bear in mind before you take advantage of the new feature.

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15 Times DC Movies Made Us All Cringe – CBR (blog)

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The DCEU has polarized fans almost since its inception,but hope has been returned in partthanks to the success of Wonder Womanin 2017. It all began in 2013 with Man of Steel, followed by Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice two years later, and then Suicide Squad in 2016. This universecultivated a lot of fan bickering over things liketone. The vibe of the DC movie-verse was gritty, violent and war-torn compared to the MCU. However, as were seeing with how Justice League is shaping up, theyre clearly injectinga much lighter tone, which will hopefully bring back even the most dejected DC fans.

RELATED:15 Times Cartoons Ripped Your Heart Out

While all of this gets sorted, the DCEU has had quite a few moments of ignorance, where thingsjust fellflat because of bad-writing and poor execution. Seriously, plot and character issues aside, there are some moments that make us cringe because they just dont translate well to the big screen. These instances are definitely a combination of issues but when they crash, boy oh boy, do they crash hard!It happens to the best studios, though, from the MCU to Fox to Sonys cinematic universe of superheroes. Taking that into consideration, CBR decided to dissect 15 of the cringiest moments in the DCEU so far.

SPOILER WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for all DCEU movies

In Batman vs. Superman, Lex Luthor wanted Superman dead because he saw him as the devil and not an angel like everyone else. He didnt believe someone wielding godlike power was any good for mankind. It was mostly because he was jealous and oh yeah, super-duper evil. However, he was stymied by Senator June Finch who wasnt fond of his methods.

Dont piss in a jar and tell me its Grandmas peach tea! she warned him when he tried to talk to her about blocking his import license on bringing in radioactive kryptonite. When Superman was eventually called to a congressional hearing to answer for dispatching mercenaries, Finch ironically found a jarof peach tea on her desk, which looked like urine. A bomb then went off, killing everyone and framing Superman, but it didnt stop the audience from gagging. This jar was sick and gross; the ultimate insult to injury.

We understood what Zack Snyder was trying to do in Man of Steelwhen he kickstarted the DCEU. He changed up a few things about the Superman mythos in order to modernize it. One of the elements he changedwas Jonathan Kents upbringing of Clark. He wasnt as inspirational as other depictions and wanted to shield his son from the world.

When a tornado hit them on the road and he made Clark get everyone to safety, Pa Kent was caught in no mans land and was about to be killed. Clark wanted to save him but Pa warned him not toso as to keep his secret.Clark obliged and let his dad die. Thiswas cringeworthy because it was so pointless. Pa Kents death was handled much better elsewhere, like in the comics, where he suffered a heart attack, which even Superman couldnt prevent. Thats how you do play this scene, not with a tragedy thatcould have been avoided.

In Suicide Squad, there were quite a few WTF moments whichleft us facepalming hard. One of them was an interaction between Deadshot and Diablo. Deadshot was the rugged leader who was all about business while Diablo was more reserved and struck by guilt over his familys death. The latter wasnt up for the mission and Enchantress monsters attacking didnt help the teams cause.

Deadshot realized they were being outmanned, so he hyped Diablo up to the point where the criminal lost his cool and broke out his fire manipulation powers. He roasted and toasted the creatures, butyou couldnt help but laugh when Deadshot was getting him worked up and angry. It was cheesy at best and disingenuous at worst, and felt like a scene betweenWill Smith and cousin Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

Patty Jenkins Wonder Womanremains a huge hit but this scene was one of the more drawn-out and forced ones that tried too hard and left us shaking our heads. Steve Trevor was rescued by Diana but the Amazons didnt heed his rallying call to help mankind in their wars. Diana, however, left Themyscira with him and started her journey to becoming Wonder Woman.

However, before they did so, she walked in on him after he got out of a pool in his quarters and she started scrutinizing his body. We know it was the point to make this scene uncomfortable, but the whole affair made us cringe super hard, especially thanks to Dianasperceived innocence. It was still a funny scene, but it did drag and the whole encounter made us cringehard arguably intentionally so!

Cara Delevingne is a talented actor,but boy was she off in her depiction of the witch called the Enchantress. After Amanda Wallers plans to try to control her inside June Moones body went awry, the despot broke out and started her quest for global domination. However, all Delevingnes idiosyncrasies left us wondering what she was on!

We couldnt tell if she was drunk or just dancing for no apparent reason. Her distorted voice andcharacter quickly became hard to watch, morphing into a performance that was less black magic and more cringe.In general,Suicide Squad really leaned in to its over-the-top performances, which works for characters like Harley Quinn, but for Enchantress, it just came across as cartoonish; an antithetical move for such an ostensibly gritty movie.

Snyders Man Of Steel got a lot of flak, but there were many moments thatcast a contemporary light on the Superman character, sort of like whatMark Waid and Leinil Yu achieved in the landmarkSuperman: Birthright.Snyder focused on Kryptonian technology a lot butthis scene, while ambitious, just didnt quite hit the mark.

When Lois and Kal-El were aboard Zods scout ship, she was left to rescue him. After uploading a key into the vessel, the ghost of Jor-El (which was a holographic artificial intelligence) appeared tobasically act as a tour guide on how to save the day. He opened doors for Loisand predicted when attacks would come, all so that they could wrest Superman away from Zods iron fist. She was left alive, but we were allleft groaning because SUpermans dead father became adeus ex machina, which sort of defeats his whole purpose.

As Bruce investigated Lex in BvS, he went after some goons who packed a lot of firepower. It didnt faze Batman since he had his trusty Batmobile, but as the chase ensued he ran into Superman, literally! Now, one of the moments that made us cringe was when both gents decided to chat and forget about the escaping criminals. Even when they were done talking, no one knew if any of them went after the actual criminals.

As for their little pow-wow, it was basically Superman telling Batman he didnt approve of his violent methods and he threatened him if he didnt stop his vigilantism. It was apretty ironic momentbecause Batman felt an unchecked Superman was a threat to humanity. This schoolyard mouth-off ended with Batman asking him, Do you bleed? When Superman flew off, he said, You will.That makes for a great soundbyte, but lets be real, a pretty cheesy moment.

In Suicide Squad, Enchantress main objective was to transform the world once she escaped imprisonment into the one she felt she should be ruling. She saw the evolution of metahumans as a sign that things were swinging her way, and that was a sign to eradicate humanity. A key component was bringing her sibling, Incubus, back to help her in this genocide.

The demonic duo wanted to purge the Earth but every single scene Incubus spoke in, and tried to intimidate, left us wondering what was up with his voice. Look, we give full kudos to the studio for jumping right into the mystical realm and the siblings werent bad villains but the dialogue Incubus got and his depiction gave the impression of a video game character. Were specifically thinking of Kotal Kahn from Mortal Kombat X. When he challenged Diablo at the end, it was another flat and disappointing moment.

In Justice League Unlimited, it was great seeing the meet-cutebetween Batman and Wonder Woman. Come BvS, Snyder and company would have just as much fun with Bruce clearly smitten by Diana. When he tried to use tech to steal info from Lex, Diana flipped the table and stole it from Bruce instead.

Later on at a gala, he tried to get it back from her, and even tried wooing her a bit. She eventually told him where it was but not before their attempt at romance came off as cheesy, shock value and just poorly handled. There was no chemistry between the two, a malady remedied by her true love, Steve(Chris Pine) Trevor. When Diana told Bruce that she doubted he knew women like her, it should have been impressive, butit came off as trite.

Snyders DCEU debutgot really weird when Zods Kryptonian army came down to Earth to find the Codex (a repository that stored the DNA of Kryptons citizens for genetic engineering). They headed straight to Smallville to go after Clarks mom, Martha Kent, and actually got physical with her.

When they asked her for it, there was a really dumb moment where she looked over at the barn and then suddenly, they assumed it was there. What Faora jumped to find was Clarks stowaway ship. Apparently, Kryptonians had built-in lie detectors. Also, Martha gave in way too easily, as opposed to Pa, who died in a freaking tornado this family needs some consistency of message! Overall, this just points to howpoorly-written and shoddily executed the conflict in the movie ended up being; spectacular visually, sure, but absolutely zero nuance.In a movie this huge, this important, thats just embarrassing.

When the Suicide Squad was finally greenlit to go off on their mission to stop the Enchantress, the DCEU really screwed the pooch when they focused way too long on over-sexualizing Harley Quinn as she got into her gear. From her skimpy clothes to close-up shots of herbody, was it necessary to treat her like a piece of ass rather than abadass?

We understand that in the comics, and even the cartoons at times, she was sexually objectified (and used that as a weapon in her arsenal), but in this film, Harley was in minimal clothing throughout. We get it shes sexy and barely-clothed. That has arguably become part of her character, but it beingthisgratuitous just felt contrived and gross.

Now, this kiss wasnt a mind-wiping fail as with Superman II. No, this was on a whole new level. After Lois helped send Zods minions back to the Phantom Zone, Superman rescued her and they had to struggle to reach ground zero. They did and got wrapped up in a long, passionate kiss.

What makes this dumb? Well, for starters the Daily Planet employees, including Perry White, saw this which meant that when Clark arrived with his glasses later on, and Lois moved in with him, it wouldnt take an investigative mind to realize that Clark and Superman are one in the same. Secondly, Supermans making out while buildings are collapsing and people are dying. And oh yeah, Zods still out there waiting to kill the rest of humanity. Priorities please, people!

When it came to BvS, one of the biggest head-scratchers was with Lex and a politician. The villain was currying his favor as the likes of Senator Finch werent playing ball with him. This politician was willing, however, as Lex indicated that he wanted access to Zods body to study it, in what would become Doomsday. He also wanted to use the Kryptonian Genesis Chamber seen in the previous movie.

Now, while we appreciate Snyder flipping the concept of Lex and going for a quirky, eccentric start-up millennial, what unfolded was kind of sick. Lex slipped a Jolly Rancher in the mans mouth after indicating it was cherry-flavored. It seemed to be against the politicians will as he didnt seem to be enjoyingit. Lex then pushed it in with his own finger, which he then proceeded to lick. This onetook the audience a while to process after its collective cringe.

The finale of the Wonder Woman movie was entertaining and filled with action but the build-up to this spectacle was weak. Not to mention that dismal reveal that Sir Patrick Morgan, who was helping Diana and Steve fight the Nazis, was actually Ares. Bad dialogue aside, what really left a sour taste in our mouths was that this segment of the movie felt so haphazard.

Its as if they were rolling along and realized that they forgot to add in a Snyder-esque climax. This in turn apparently flicked a switch where they forgot about Ares and decided to throw him to the most unexpected character in the film. It didnt work. It was boring, predictable and rushed. This move felt like they chucked in a major super-powered villain just for the sake of having one; all style and no substance.

When things get rough, always have a safe-word. In BvS, the schoolyard fight had one and it was Martha. Bruces mother was Martha Wayne and Clarks adoptive one was Martha Kent so when Lex took her hostage in a complex plot to get Batman and Superman to brawl, all the alien had to do to show the Dark Knight he was indeed human was whisper his mothers name.

He did this, urging Bruce to go save her from Lexs clutches. A moment like this works in the comics but in film, not as much, especially in the wake of Superman not having a simple conversation with Batman before the fight to let him know that she was taken hostage. Batman powering down so quickly had us chuckling more than anything. Snyder wanted this scene to be profound and cathartic, but the majority of it felt heavy-handed and off-putting.

Let us know in the comments which DCEU momentsmade you cringe the most!

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Virtual Reality Is Medical Training’s Next Frontier – BuzzFeed News

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There's a baby boy on a stretcher in a children's hospital emergency room. His mother is standing nearby, begging the doctors to do something, as her baby lies there. He is drooling and shaking; his diaper is soaked; he is making a disturbing snoring noise. An EMT comes in and says, "Doctor, this is a one-year-old male found by the mother at home, having a seizure. The seizure's been lasting about seven minutes. Blood glucose on scene was 90." The EMT leaves.

A nurse exclaims to the doctor, "You have to do something! He is seizing! He is seizing!"

"Are you just going to let him die?" the mother wails.

The doctor has just a few seconds to make a decision. Should she put an oxygen mask on the baby? Give the baby Ativan or another anti-seizure medication? Quickly, she has to makes her choice, or the baby is going to die.

Well, not actually. This was a virtual reality simulation designed by doctors at Children's Hospital Los Angeles in conjunction with Oculus's VR for Good program and the companies AiSolve and Bioflight, intended to help medical students and residents get training in the kinds of low frequency, high stakes situations that children's ER doctors encounter situations that are particularly expensive and logistically complicated to teach.

According to Dr. Joshua Sherman of CHLA and the USC Keck School of Medicine, VR helps solve several problems for medical training programs: expense, accessibility, and verisimilitude. (Sherman also helped develop the training.) Hands-on training for medical students and residents is time-consuming and expensive mannequins run upwards of $50,000, plus maintenance and tech support and also requires a room full of actual people to play the doctors and nurses. The other type of training currently used is screen-based training, but that doesn't closely mimic a real-life situation. VR manages to replicate the atmosphere of an emergency room situation while also being accessible a trainee can easily do it on his or her own time. Besides the simulated nature of the experience, the main drawbacks right now are lack of voice control and inability to have more than one person in the experience at the same time. There's also currently only two training modules, so the applications are limited.

Shermans first VR experience was the Oculus Dream Deck which puts users at the top of a very tall building. Sherman, who is afraid of heights, felt his heart rate go up and his palms get sweaty. "I knew it was not real but I couldn't get myself to jump," he said. "When I felt that physiologic response and how similar it was to the real world, I immediately thought, why can't we use this to simulate the response on resuscitations? We can train people who we can't train in real life, up to an extent, so then when they face it in real life, it still will be very stressful but they will be able to select the correct items and protocols under pressure."

I'm not a doctor, nor am I training to be one, but when I tried the simulation (or as it's officially called, the "VR Pediatric Resuscitation Module 1: Status Epilepticus"), I found myself getting anxious about choosing the right protocol for this fake baby. Though I was guided through it by Clay Park VR founder and former Oculus developer relations specialist Shauna Heller, who produced the project, it was still nerve-wracking to be inside this emergency room, responsible for saving the life of an infant.

Sherman said that's entirely the point. "We compared the physiology of stress in real-life emergency situations to that of people going through VR their heart rate, breathing rate, and salivary cortisol, which is a stress hormone. The preliminary data shows that the heart rates definitely correlate between the real world and VR world."

Much like a video game, the simulations have different levels that students can progress through; the more advanced levels have more distractions. Marie Lafortune, a chief resident at CHLA, said she'd never used VR before and isn't good at video games, but quickly took to the medical simulation, which she described as a complement to mannequin and screen-based training. "It can be more challenging to think straight in highly stressful situations," she said. "Virtual reality puts you in that situation. And there's also a virtual reality parent there that's triggering some emotional responses. She's like, 'My baby, do something to help my baby.' Inside you, you're hearing this parent and you are in a way almost distracted by them and you need to refocus. So you get to experience that stress and practice putting into action some of the medicine that you know or that you're learning."

Several other medical-related VR experiences exist a neurosurgeon at UCLA uses it to interpret MRI scans, for example, and there's another group using it to help train people on doing colonoscopies, as well as people using it for psychological reasons like anxiety reduction and pain relief but this seems to be the first specifically dedicated to children's emergency medicine. Oculus financed the entire project through its VR for Good initiative.

Though a spokesperson declined to give specific budget numbers, she told BuzzFeed News via email that the cost of the project was less than the cost of a year of medical simulation training at CHLA. With additional funding, Sherman envisions a future where medical schools and hospitals can have a library of VR training modules for different scenarios. "A trainee a medical student, resident, or EMT could go to their computer in their staff lounge or at home and decide, 'Today I want to practice how to take care of someone having a heart attack.' The next day, they could practice a seizure," he said. "I want this to be available internationally, in places where they don't have funds for mannequins."

Also on his wish list for the future is voice control right now, the "doctor" can only respond to what's happening in the room by using hand controls and team play, which would help people practice communication and teamwork. But that's all up in the air until the team can get more funding. Sherman has applied for federal grants and has approached different organizations, like epilepsy foundations, about helping to fund the VR training, but so far nothing has come through. He also recently presented at the National Board of Medical Examiners, which he said is potentially interested in using VR as an assessment tool.

"People want more research and more proof that it works before they throw down that kind of money to develop it," he said. "We're working on that and that getting it out there. Spreading it might spark interest with people who might want to fund more."

Doree Shafrir is a senior tech writer for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles.

Contact Doree Shafrir at doree@buzzfeed.com.

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Five Insights into China’s Virtual Reality Sector – eMarketer

Posted: at 4:12 am

Chinese media dubbed 2016 as the birth year of virtual reality (VR) in the country. Tech companies, including the big threeAlibaba, Tencent and Baiduall sought to set up their own VR initiatives. China may become the first market to see mass VR adoption by consumers thanks to drivers like government support, a willingness by consumers to adopt new tech and a highly competitive environment that will force prices down and foster innovation.

Here are five takeaways from a 2017 report on the state of VR in China from consultancy iResearch Consulting Group and VR market research firm Greenlight Insights.

No. 1: Revenues generated by the VR market in China will skyrocket between 2016 and 2021

The virtual reality marketwhich includes revenues from headsets, content, experience centers, peripheral hardware, marketing and VR camerasis projected to grow from RMB3.46 billion ($520.8 million) in 2016 to RMB79.02 billion ($11.9 billion) in 2021. Thats a more than twentyfold increase during that timeframe.

No. 2: Consumer content will soon generate massive revenues for Chinas VR sector

In 2016, sales of VR headsets accounted for 59.2% of total virtual reality revenues in Chinaby far the largest sharewhile consumer content made up just 7.7%. However, consumer VR content is set to explode, and is expected to account for 35.3% of all VR revenues in the country by 2021. By then, games will lead the VR content category, generating RMB9.62 billion ($1.45 billion), followed by films and movies at RMB8.79 billion ($1.32 billion) and live streaming at RMB 4.46 billion ($671 million).

No. 3: Companies will increasingly rely on VR to drive innovation and lower costs

Enterprise solutions will be one of the fastest growing VR segments in China, rising from RMB3.46 million ($521,000) in 2016 to RMB8.77 billion ($1.32 billion) by 2021. VR technology is already being applied in a number of disparate fields in China, including architecture, engineering, real estate, healthcare and retail, just to name a few. VR will eventually replace all screens in our lives and enhance efficiency in all industries, Alvin Graylin, head of operations in China for HTC, which makes the Vive VR headset, told eMarketer. Its likely going to be the technology that will ultimately enable a full remote workforce model for most businesses in the world, while greatly increasing the available talent pool for any business.

No. 4: In the short term, VR will remain a niche tool among marketers

Though VR has the potential to help brands drive a more immersive and possibly more memorable marketing experience, the technology will not become a mainstream tool for marketers until it reaches mass adoption among consumers. According to the iResearch/Greenlight study, VR marketing outlays in China will grow from RMB30 million ($4.52 million) in 2016 to RMB1.98 billion ($298.05 million) by 2021. To give some sense of scale, eMarketer predicts digital ad spending in China will reach $96.52 billion in 2021.

No. 5: Budget-conscious consumers are investing in low-cost headsets (for now)

In 2016, the vast majority of the roughly 9.63 million VR devices shipped in China consisted of cardboard-type devices (e.g., Google Cardboard)understandable given their affordable price in a relatively untested market. However, mobile VR headsets, such as the Samsung Gear, will surpass cardboard headsets by 2021. By then, total VR headset shipments will hit 105.25 million in China, according to the report.

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Marvel is getting its own virtual reality game and it’s called Powers United VR – The Verge

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Disneys D23 Expo covers all aspects of its entertainment empire, and today the studio revealed that virtual reality is coming to the Marvel universe. Marvel Powers United VR is being made by Oculus and Sanzaru Games, and will let players step into the shoes of characters like The Hulk, Captain Marvel, or Rocket Raccoon. The announcement came during the Level Up gaming panel, which also included updates about Star Wars: Battlefront II and Insomniac Games upcoming Spider-Man game.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the game will be exclusive to the Oculus Rift headset and Touch controllers. One of the big selling points is that its actually going to be a co-op experience. Multiple players can team up, each taking on the role of a different Marvel character, to play together in joint missions. Disney is planning on announcing additional characters for the game starting next week at San Diego Comic-Con, with Powers United VR itself targeted for a 2018 release.

Aside from the allure of Marvel characters themselves, the multiplayer aspect of the game has the potential to help it really stand out. Much like Star Trek Bridge Crew, another VR game built around the idea of multiple players collaborating towards a common goal, it sounds like a perfect title for location-based VR installations. Whether in standalone VR arcades, or a potential set-up in a movie theater or other location, multiplayer VR games should help encourage adoption by incentivizing players to bring in friends that otherwise havent tried the platform, growing the base of people used to playing and paying for VR.

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