Monthly Archives: April 2022

Spa candidate convicted of mishandling ballot petitions – Times Union

Posted: April 6, 2022 at 8:39 pm

SARATOGA SPRINGS A 2021 candidate for city office was convicted Tuesday in Saratoga Springs City Court on one of two misdemeanor counts of mishandling her ballot petitions.

Republican Samantha Guerratook an Alford plea, acknowledging that there was, as a special prosecutor said, overwhelming evidence the ballot petitions she swore to have witnessed contained blatant forgeries." But the plea allows her to maintain her innocence.

She specifically swore to that she personally observed all of the signatures on the petitions and personally confirmed the identity of the signers, Schenectady County Assistant District Attorney John Carson said outside of the courtroom. Based on all of the evidence, that simply could not be true.

Her conviction, which has no punishment or fine as its an unclassified misdemeanor, comes six months after Democrats accused her of forging her petitions to gain an additional, independent line on the November ballot. The signatures were collected even though she had already secured the Republican, Conservative and Working Families Party lines.

Her attorney, Oscar Schreiber, said her November arrest, just days after she lost the election, was political. He is also calling on the State Police to arrest the person who forged the signatures on Guerras ballots.

During my meeting with the State Police, I informed them of whom allegedly forged the signatures on the petitions, said Schreiber who would not reveal the name to the Times Union. That campaign worker added names without Samanthas knowledge ... Im calling on the State Police to arrest that person for forgery. If they chose not to, then that only proves that her arrest was politically motivated and she was targeted and nothing else.

Carson, who was a special Schenectady County assistant district attorney named to the case, said the forgeries were obvious, contained in block lettering, not signatures, printed names that appear to be the same handwriting for multiple names and multiple addresses.

"State Police conducted a lengthy investigation and interviewed nearly every person that they could track down from those two petitions, each petition carrying 20 signatures, Carson said. A number of those interviewed and who provided written statements said they never signed the petitions despite their name appearing and never gave anyone permission to put their name of the petition.

He also said a number of the petition lines included incorrect addresses, incorrect names and nicknames that were not actual legal voting names.

The most glaring example was a witness who purportedly signed the petition (who) was in the state of Florida on vacation, Carson said. He said taking all the evidence together, "this was a particularly flagrant and indefensible.

Schreiber emphasized however, that Guerra is only guilty of trusting her campaign workers.

Samantha today simply admitted that there is enough evidence against her that would likely result in trial, said Schreiber, who was assisted in court by former congressman John Sweeney. No one ever accused Samantha of forging anything. Samantha was a political newcomer. She relied, to her detriment, on her campaign committee.

Carson said that he is fine with the idea that Guerra will not face any punishment,saying the main thing is that she was held accountable.

Did it affect the election? No, she did not win the election, Carson said. But filing of documents matter ... a conviction is still appropriate.

Both attorneys acknowledge that things could have been worse for Guerra if she was charged with filing a false instrument, a felony. However, there was no proof, they both say, that she herself wrote in those names.

Despite her legal troubles, Guerra said she may try to get on an election ballot again.

I might, she said as she left City Hall. I havent decided yet.

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The Real Housewives Of Dubai Come To Bravo This Summer Instinct Magazine – Instinct Magazine

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Real Housewives have emerged from locales like the Big Apple, the Garden State, the Lone Star State, and even our nations capital. While these franchises all have gone down in Real Housewives history, The Real Housewives of Dubai looks like they may be taking the almost two-decade old franchise to a whole new level. Set in a locale known for aspirational living (and wealth), luxury shopping, and the larger than life Burj Khalifa, The Real Housewives of Dubaiis due to premiere on June 1st on Bravo, bringing with it a brand new crop of Housewives, a familiar face, and of course, immediate controversy.

While the excitement around the premiere of #RHODubai (the official hashtag) has been palpable since the announcement, the problematic nature of Dubai, specifically towards women and the LGBTQ community, has been a constant criticism. Andy Cohen spoke about this perspective on his Radio Andy show Andy Cohen Live on SiriusXM sayingDubai is somewhere we found an incredible group of people and I think its going to be a really exciting show and I think itll be a great addition to the franchise, he said. I think for a lot of people in this country who watch the housewives or who watch this kind of show, it may be their first or only exposure to Dubai. And while the show is really meant to entertain, what I also hope is that maybe we can showcase some of the stuff thats going on there that is politically incorrect, and educate people about that.While he did state that he finds the criticism from fans to be fair Cohen said thathe was hopeful that the show could possibly impact some change and to get people talking about it. And who knows, maybe we can move the needle a little bit, so that is my hope

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Making the Ugly Beautiful: A Conversation with Obed Silva – lareviewofbooks

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WHEN I WALKED into Obed Silvas living room on a quiet Sunday afternoon, I was immediately struck by the robust and colorful paintings that adorn his walls. Silva is a gifted artist who is fond of painting iconic figures: Frida Kahlo, Cesar Chavez, and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Silvas collection of art also features paintings by other artists. An untitled painting by Fabian Debora, a Los Angelesbased muralist, caught my interest. The painting depicts a Mexican mother holding an infant wrapped in brightly colored swaddling clothes. The mother is positioned in the foreground, her face is filled with fear and remorse. In the background, a male figure, his face bearing the skeletal motif of Da de los Muertos, gyrates in pain as he is shot in the back. As I observed this painting, I slowly realized that it was a highly symbolic rendering of Silvas own brush with death as a teenager. At the age of 17, he was shot in the back at a liquor store in Buena Park and remains partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Although Silva is represented in the painting, the central figure is the mother figure, whose look of utter desperation emphasizes the weight of her sorrow.

Deboras Untitled, which mythologizes Silvas near-death experience, also conveys his own aesthetic credo: the desire to create art out of suffering and to make the ugly beautiful. For Silva, artistic expression is wedded to the act of transcending reality, especially its most brutal consequences. His first book, The Death of My Father the Pope, published last December by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, is similar to Deboras painting in the sense that it is grounded in memory and lived experience. At the beginning of his memoir, Silva attends his fathers funeral in Chihuahua, Mexico, wrestling with the question of what he has inherited from the man.

Juan Jess Silva, Obeds father, was a precocious artist who began an apprenticeship with Aarn Pia Mora, one of Mexicos great postwar muralists, in the 1970s. After working closely with Pia Mora for many months, he fell out with his master because he lacked discipline and commitment; once his apprenticeship ended, he embarked on a slow and gradual descent into chronic alcoholism. As an adult, Silva visited his father in Chihuahua many times, trying to persuade him to stop ruining his life; however, his protestations were in vain, his father dying from cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis C at the age of 48. At the beginning of the memoir, the author is reluctant to attend the funeral, but his mother convinces him: You need to heal, and you cant do that unless you forgive your father. Its the only way youre ever going to close those wounds. When the author finally views his fathers withering corpse in a Chihuahua funeral parlor, he experiences a torrent of unexpected emotions: loss, regret, disappointment, and love.

The Death of My Father the Pope is a masterful examination of the weight of patrimony; throughout the memoir, Silva meditates on the question of what he has inherited from his father. Like his father, he possesses a talent for painting and drawing, yet he desperately wants to reject the undesirable aspects of his inheritance: his fathers penchant for abuse, alcoholism, and self-destruction. Silva clearly loves his father, yet he also has to get him out of his system by writing about their fraught relationship. For the author, his memoir becomes a cathartic act and the only way forward.

The final chapter of The Death of My Father the Pope is uniquely disturbing. Silva lays bare an astonishing family secret that stopped me in my tracks: I thought I was reading a book about a son mourning his fathers death, but the final chapter taught me otherwise. When I finished the book, I was convinced that I had read a Chicano classic that will continue to speak to many generations of readers. The theme that resonated the most for me was the narratives unflinching critique of toxic masculinity and its intergenerational effects. Silva deconstructs societys understanding of strength by juxtaposing his fathers and mothers moral characters. Silva notes, This woman whod raised me all on her own without asking for anything from my father not a cent was showing me what real strength looked like. It wasnt in muscles or in violence or in superiority; it was in meekness and humility, in simply saying I forgive you and moving on.

As I sat down to interview the author in his Whittier home, I was most interested in the question of how Silva discovered literature. Silva told me the story of his literary education, which began while he was incarcerated in Juvenile Hall; his mother would bring him carefully chosen classics to read: Twains Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Victor Hugos Les Misrables. Silva devoured these books, often self-identifying with the outcast figures who go against the grain and run away from respectable society. After Twain and Hugo, Silva eventually gravitated toward Russian writers: Chekhov and Tolstoy, and especially Dostoyevsky. The Russian writers dont pull any punches, he told me. Mainly they tell it like it is. I havent encountered any other writers from any other country that do what the Russian writers do. They just get to the spirit of the human condition and they express it so well. For Silva, Dostoyevsky resonated the most: I just feel that man went through his own suffering when he was almost executed and went into exile. When I read Dostoyevsky, I made all those connections I was being deported and I [faced death] and almost spent the rest of my life in prison.

Through the experience of personal tragedy, Silva discovered how the act of reading books can be a means of transcending past experiences and the cycles of gang violence that often enveloped him during his teenage years. Most of all, he cites the influence of his mother: She is my hero if not for her, I would be dead or in prison. She never lost faith in her son and even mortgaged her home to cover his bail money. Her undying love for him will be the subject of the second volume of Silvas memoirs, In the Hands of My Mother, which will also be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the coming years.

JAMES PENNER: I think its safe to say youve had a very dramatic life being in a gang, getting shot, being partially paralyzed, being incarcerated. If these events had not happened, do you think you would have been a writer?

OBED SILVA: Definitely not. You know, Ive had that question before, but its been phrased, Do you regret what youve done? And, of course, I do. You know, of course I do regret the things Ive done, more so because of my mom, the misery and suffering Ive put her through. Would I have become a writer? No, I dont think so. Would I have become a painter? No, I dont think so. Being in a wheelchair, Im in pain every day. People dont see it. My back and my body hurt. You know, every day I live with the pain. Do I wish I could walk? Absolutely. Who would want to be in a wheelchair all their life? Would I change it? Maybe I would because I want to walk. You know, I want to feel my legs. Its a tough question: would I be here with the book? No, I dont think so. Would I exchange the book for my legs? Probably, yeah. Thats why I dont like that question because you cant change whats happened. Youve got to live with it. I guess the proper answer for that is: Try to make the ugly beautiful, and I guess thats what I try to do with the book. I try to make art out of it out of the suffering.

When I was reading your memoir, it felt like a kind of extended confession in many respects. It reveals many private and intimate details. Do you find confession liberating? Is it liberating to put your pain and suffering on paper?

Yeah, I think so. Ive never thought about it in those words, but I think so. Most people tend to hide their feelings, they hide who they really are. They hide behind a facade. I tend not to do that. Not purposefully. I think thats just how I am. My mom is very frank. It is to the point that she could hurt you and she wont realize that shes hurt you. Its because shes telling you the truth. You ask her questions, shes going to tell you the exact truth, whether you like it or not. And I think Im like that in some ways, but different in the sense that I dont take life or the issues that come with life too seriously. If Im dying. I try to make light of it. I feel that it just comes natural to me to just lay it all out there. You know, people can judge and they can come to their own conclusions. Confession is liberating because now nobody can criticize you. They know who you are. They know what to expect. This is what you get. Im not hiding anything. Its all laid out there for you. And I feel that not confessing prevents a lot of people from living life to the fullest. They just keep all these secrets, and all of their emotions hidden from society. Yes, I think it is absolutely liberating.

Along those lines, were you ever worried about what you should disclose in your memoir? Were you worried that some family members or friends might not like what they read or how they are portrayed?

You know, thats probably my biggest concern even right now. And I even thought of shutting down my Facebook page because family members might be really angry. I didnt hear this directly from Luis Rodriguez, but a friend of mine told me that Luis Rodriguez says, When you write a book, you betray your tribe, or an author betrays his tribe something along those lines. And that really stuck with me. And today, thats what helps me justify what I say in my book. You betray your tribe. And its true because youre telling the truth and people are going to get hurt. But its the truth. I have no other way of putting it. Ive got to tell the story the way I know the story. And by the same token, I also feel that I dont only tell the truth about them. I also tell the truth about myself. I mean, the end of my memoir tells it all. I can only tell the truth if people get upset about that, so be it.

Speaking of the issue of disclosure, your memoir also includes some pretty explicit activities: buying and snorting cocaine, hard drinking, an encounter with a Mexican prostitute. I feel these uncensored moments give the book honesty and authenticity. Some readers might not be so generous, however. How should a writer approach taboo and politically incorrect subjects?

Yes, there were some things I had to cut out of the book. You know, my greatest reader and mentor has been [Los Angelesbased novelist and journalist] Hctor Tobar. Hctor was the second person I showed the manuscript to after he wrote that profile on me in the Los Angeles Times when I was being deported. Hector said, So, Obed, you really put everything out there, and hed always tell me, Obed, what would mature Obed say about this [particular scene]? And that became very important to me. I thought to myself, Mature Obed, who the fuck is that? And he goes, Okay. Think about it. This all happened when you were a young man. Would the man of today do that kind of thing? Probably. But I get it right. Okay. So, what would mature Obed say about the young Obed? For instance, the moment with the prostitute, right? Young Obed sees her as a hooker, but mature Obed sees her as a woman who has to do what she has to do in order to survive. Is there something wrong with that? Not to me. We all do things to survive, and thats what she does to survive. How I describe things is something I worry about and it is something I take into consideration, but at the end of the day, its the truth that matters.

From Philip Roth to Alice Walker, many writers have been criticized for exposing the so-called dirty laundry of their respective communities. What do you say to readers who argue that you make Mexican Americans look bad because you write about alcoholism, domestic violence, drug abuse, etc.?

Well, I dont think so. I am writing about myself. I dont think I make Mexican Americans look bad. Shit, I wrote a book that should make Mexican Americans look good! Not only am I capable of writing a book, but I also put myself within a great community of writers Dostoyevsky, Hugo, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Octavio Paz all of them are in my book. And I did that purposefully. And I did it in a way to say, Hey, I could, you know, throw hooks with the best of them, too. Im not saying Im on the level of this group, but Im a scrapper and I can get in the ring with you. I may lose, but I got in there. I understand where the question is coming from because I do critique Mexico. But alcoholism, I mean, what about Frank McCourts Angelas Ashes? And, you know, alcoholism isnt just a problem that affects Mexicans. Alcoholism is universal. When I got my DUI and went to AA classes, most of the people I saw were white.

It just so happens that I am Mexican and my father as well, and, you know, the story takes place mostly in Mexico I also think that criticism is a form of love. I mean, Hctor critiqued my book. You can do two things with criticism: you can take it and do nothing and just fold into yourself and cry. Or you can take that criticism and better yourself. And this is something I tell my students. If I didnt I love my country, I wouldnt criticize it. I love my homeland. Look at my belt buckle. I wear it everywhere. Its the Mexican flag. I criticize myself because I want to be better.

I was really impressed by the overall tone of your memoir. It deals with emotional subject matter, yet it never feels overwritten or over the top. Was this an issue for you? Were you worried about being too emotional on the page? How do you approach the issue of finding a balance or an equilibrium when you are writing?

I dont know the answer. I just write. Like I tell my students in my creative writing class: write from the gut write from the darkest, most fucking ugly part of yourself because thats where all the strength in writing comes from. I also tell my students, if a book or a movie doesnt make you cry, it probably wasnt a good book, right? So, I dont know if Im over-emotional in there, or too sensitive. I think you have to be sensitive. I think you have to be emotional. Its like in Octavia Butlers book Parable of the Sower. The little girl has hyperempathy: its where her emotions are amplified and she feels everything around her. Thats the way I look at it: if youre going to be a writer, youve got to feel, man, youve got to feel everything, youve got to feel the suffering, youve got to feel the happiness, youve got to feel it all and lay it all out in the book.

So, I understand youre already working on the second volume of your memoir. Can you talk about how it will be different from the first volume?

Well, itll be different in the sense that this one is a redemption story. Itll have a brighter ending. Well, actually, I dont know if I can say at the end of my next book: I am sober and my life is fantastic. Everythings great. I dont know if I can do that, but I know its a redemption story in the sense that Im an English professor, Im a writer, Im a painter. So, in that sense, its a redemption story. Im not a gang member. Im not committing violence. Im not hurting people. And this volume is a story about my mother, really. I mean, the title of it is In the Hands of My Mother. Shes going to be the hero of the story. If not for her, Id be dead or in prison. Thats it. And thats what this book reveals. And its going to be an immigrant story. My mom was an immigrant. Her first job was picking celery and tomatoes in the fields in Irvine before Irvine was what it is now. Every time I drive past all those tall buildings, I think how it used to be fields just vast fields of celery and tomatoes and strawberries. And now I see my family picking in those fields. I did, too as a kid, they used to bring us as children. You know, we didnt have babysitters. So, yeah, the immigrant story, a redemption story, a mother-son relationship story. So thats how it would be different.

Do you ever imagine your father reading this book and what would his reaction be? Would he be proud of you?

Damn, James. Thats a good question, man. I think he would be happy. Hed be happy as ugly as I paint him. I think he would grab me by the neck and give me a kiss. Hed say, No te quiro, te amo! Quiero means like and its also interchangeable with love in Spanish, but te amo means I love you to death. And he would often say that to us. He would be proud. I dont think he would want me to change anything, not even the last chapter. Yeah, he would be happy happy and drunk.

James Penner is the editor ofTimothy Leary: The Harvard Years(2014) and the author ofPinks, Pansies, and Punks: The Rhetoric of Masculinity in American Literary Culture(2011).

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Re-Open the Floodgates of American Energy to Prevent an Oil-pocalypse – California Globe

Posted: April 4, 2022 at 3:38 pm

With gas prices in California even higher than predicted in Will Smiths 2007 zombie apocalypse I Am Legend, Democrats are poised for the electoral blowout of the century. Every poll favors Republicans, particularly on energy issues. And as Americans are suffering from the twin sins of Bidens inflation and out of control gas prices, the RNC is registering people to vote at gas stations.

Regardless, Democrats have doubled down on their belief that fossil fuels are haram. Even though so-called progressives terrible energy policies presaged Putins invasion of Ukraine, many refuse to admit the damage their policies have caused. We have to hope that an election will teach them what even a war has not.

Which is, anthropogenic climate change is a not an existential threat to the planet, but cult-like devotion to it is.

The human race can ill-afford a world where the U.S. fails to lead, and energy is no exception. Theres an incumbency upon our leaders to leverage Americas abundant natural resources to provide stability and security for as much of the planet as possible. We have the resources to be the worlds leading natural gas and oil producer probably just with oil from Alaska alone but the government must be a partner in this endeavor rather than a relentless villain.

Biden has blocked all new federal leasing, canceled the Keystone Pipeline and other energy projects, stopped development in Alaska, proposed punitive taxes against domestic energy companies, and lied about how companies dont need more federal leases because they have so many unused ones already. The administration would rather beg for help from OPEC, Venezuela, and Russia itself, strengthening their regimes, than budge on its carbon-free piety.

The Biden Administration and its (increasingly fewer) supporters must abandon its devotion to the false religion of climate change and do whats right.

When it comes to shortages at home and bolder adversaries abroad, the administration has instead paraded a litany of claims for why green initiatives are more important than cash-strapped Americans or Ukrainian refugees. But those problems are only likely to get worse, as all the Biden Administrations policies have killed the promise of future investment.

Transforming natural resources into easily dispensed fuel is expensive, long, difficult, and risky. Companies have to produce oil or gas on the land theyve leased from the government or return them within 10 years use it or lose it. Just determining if the underlying ground on leased land holds monetizable amounts of resources is arduous. Following that, the prospective company must make a huge down payment with a non-refundable bonus bid. Then, before the venture has yielded any revenue, the company must pay additional rent while wasting time and money to inure themselves against a plague of administrative and legal challenges.

Any argument about unused leases ignores these facts, sleight of hand for policies designed to sabotage one energy industry while enriching another one, or simply dogma from the climate cult.

And one of its high priestesses is Californias own Rep. Katie Porter who puts Orange County families first except when she doesnt.

As chair of the Natural Resources Oversight Subcommittee, Porter has long opposed rational domestic energy policy. It is one thing to insist on appropriate regulatory and environmental guardrails; it is another thing to treat an essential industry as monsters.

Porter authored legislation to provide an exorbitant decades-overdue update to raise royalties, rental rates, inspection fees, and penalties on companies that convert resources from public lands into the fuel Americans and our trade partners use every day. She insists its unfair, taxpayer welfare, that the U.S. hasnt raised the royalty rates energy companies pay for extraction, even though the fixed rate 12.5 percent means the government collects more money when gas is more expensive.

Porter was also a cosponsor of the disastrously misinformed Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, which would impose fees on the carbon content of crude oil, natural gas, and coal. This kind of policy, if given the weight of law, would drive gas prices up even more, further embolden bad actors like Putin, and rob normal Americans to subsidize expensive, so-called green energy industries.

Sabotaging American oil has only made people buy oil from Russia or elsewhere. Ukrainian flags on social media and other virtue-signaling trivialities wont help anyone whos been hurt by the Democrats bad energy policy so far, but pivoting back to Trump-era energy abundance will stop a World War III apocalypse before it starts.

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Singularity University and IU International University of Applied Sciences Partner to Offer Impactful and Future-Ready Education Worldwide – PR…

Posted: at 3:36 pm

The partnershipmeans thatcurrent and aspiringleaders can earn accredited graduate and executive degrees from IU while gaininga deeper understandingofhow exponential technologies aredramatically affectingcompanies, communities, and countries. In addition to learning about the future through a river of content from Singularity, IU students will become part of an exclusive IU cohort within the Singularity community of over 250,000 impact innovators.These innovators themselves contributecontent andinsights from countries around the world on topics such as clean energy, longevity, mobility, smart cities and more.

"Several major trends are converging that make this partnership powerful. First, hundreds of millions of students around the world deserve'anytime' access to more affordableand more relevant undergraduate and graduate programs. Second, exponential technologies continuously make possible new solutions to serious problems facing humanity and the planet," said Steve Leonard, CEO of Singularity Group. "Our partnership with IU combines the best of our respective abilities for the benefit of students around the worldas they grow into leaders of companies, communities, and countries."

Sven Schtt, CEO of IU, said: "At IU, we are passionate about learner-centric education to unlock human potential and empower people to grow. As Europe's fastest-growing university and the biggest state-accredited educational institution in Germany, we are a pioneer in leveraging technology and innovation. IU democratizes education by removing cultural, geographical and financial entry barriers with flexible and tailor-made modes of studying. And we equip our students with the tech proficiency necessary to tackle the challenges of the 21st century. We are excited to team up with Singularity to reach even more learners around the world and bring together our unique strengths for the benefit of societies around the world."

For more information, please visit https://www.singularity-university.org/.

About Singularity GroupSingularity Group is a global impact organization that looks into the future to help leaders better understand how exponential technology will shape businesses and societies in the years ahead. Through a deeper understanding of the accelerated pace of change and the role that technology plays in it,theseleaders create tremendous positive impact that improves the wellbeing of people and the health of the planet. Over the past decade, Singularity has worked with more than 75,000 leaders drawn from corporations, nonprofits, governments, investors, and academia. With 250,000 impact-minded innovators across the Singularity network, 125 chapters and partners across six continents and a strong digital presence, Singularity Group reaches millions of people each month. The organization has launched over 5,000 social impact initiatives and its alumni have started more than 200 companies. For more information, visit https://su.org/.

About IU International University of Applied SciencesWith over 85,000 students, IU International University of Applied Sciences (IU) is the largest university in Germany. The private, state-recognized educational institution brings together more than 200 Bachelor's and Master's degree programs under its roof, which are offered in German or English. Students can choose between on-campus study, dual study, distance learning and flexible combination models and thus shape their studies in a self-determined way. In addition, IU facilitates continuing education and promotes the idea of lifelong learning. The university's goal is to make education possible for as many people as possible. IU began operations in 2000 and is now represented in 28 German cities. It cooperates with over 10,000 companies and actively supports them in employee development. Its partners include hotel group Motel One, Volkswagen Financial Services and Germany's national railway company. Further information at: http://www.iu.de/en

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A Hybrid AI Just Beat Eight World Champions at Bridgeand Explained How It Did It – Singularity Hub

Posted: at 3:36 pm

Champion bridge player Sharon Osberg once wrote, Playing bridge is like running a business. Its about hunting, chasing, nuance, deception, reward, danger, cooperation and, on a good day, victory.

While its little surprise chess fell to number-crunching supercomputers long ago, youd expect humans to maintain a more unassailable advantage in bridge, a game of incomplete information, cooperation, and sly communication. Over millennia, our brains have evolved to read subtle facial queues and body language. Weve assembled sprawling societies dependent on the competition and cooperation of millions. Surely such skills are beyond the reach of machines?

For now, yes. But perhaps not forever. In recent years, the most advanced AI has begun encroaching on some of our most proudly held territory; the ability to navigate an uncertain world where information is limited, the game is infinitely nuanced, and no one succeeds alone.

Last week, French startup NukkAI took another step when its NooK bridge-playing AI outplayed eight bridge world champions in a competition held in Paris.

The game was simplified, and NooK didnt exactly go head-to-head with the human playersmore on that belowbut the algorithms performance was otherwise spectacular. Notably, NooK is a kind of hybrid algorithm, combining symbolic (or rule-based) AI with todays dominant deep learning approach. Also, in contrast to its purely deep learning peers, NooK is more transparent and can explain its actions.

What weve seen represents a fundamentally important advance in the state of artificial intelligence systems, Stephen Muggleton, a machine learning professor at Imperial College London, told The Guardian. In other words, not too bad for a cold, calculating computer.

To play bridge, maybe the most challenging card or board game yet tackled by AI, the NukkAI team combined deep reinforcement learning with symbolic AI, an approach famously used by IBMs Deep Blue to defeat Garry Kasparov at chess in the 90s.

Deep reinforcement learning algorithms are made up of a network of interconnected artificial neurons. To learn a game, an algorithm plays itself billions of times, evaluates its performance after each round, and incrementally improves by tuning and retuning its neural connections until it finally masters play.

Symbolic AI, on the other hand, is rules-based. Software engineers hard code the rules the AI needs to know to succeed. These might be, for example, that a bishop can move diagonally any number of squares on a chess board, or that if an opponent pursues a particular strategy, then employing some counterstrategy increases the chances of winning. This approach is fine for the finite, but as the space of all possible moves rises in complex games, it becomes untenable.

Thats why the 2016 defeat of Go world champion, Lee Sedol, by DeepMinds AlphaGo was a big deal. At the time, experts hadnt expected AI to beat top Go players for a decade. AlphaGo showed the surprising power of deep learning compared to good ol fashioned AI.

But deep learning has its drawbacks. One of them is that its a black box. How the billions of nodes in a neural network achieve any given task is mysterious.

AlphaGos Move 37 against Lee Sedol was a choice no human would makeit calculated the odds a professional would have chosen that move at 1 in 10,000but it made the move anyway, and won. Still, the algorithm couldnt explain what in its training informed its confidence. This opacity is a problem when the stakes are higher than a board game. To trust self-driving cars or medical algorithms making life-and-death decisions and diagnoses, we need to understand their rationale.

One potential solution, championed by researchers like NukkAI, would mash deep learning and symbolic AI together, exploiting each ones strengths in whats called a neurosymbolic approach.

NooK, for example, learns the rules of the game first, then improves its skills by playing. The combination refines the algorithms probabilistic brain, Muggleton told The Telegraph, taking it beyond statistics.NooK, he said, uses background knowledge much in the way that we augment our own learning with information from books and previous experience. As a result, the algorithm can explain decisions: Its a white box AI.

This is why bridgea game of communication and strategy thats resisted conquest by AIis a great test for the approach. In bridge, you cant play if you dont explain, NukkAI cofounder Vronique Ventos told The Guardian.

There are bridge-playing algorithms out there, but they dont hold a candle to the best humans. In NukkAIs Paris competition a little over a week ago, the situation looks to have changed.

The NukkAI Challenge pitted NooK against eight bridge world champions.

Each champion played ten sets of ten games, while NooK played 80 sets of ten games, or 800 straight deals. Instead of playing each other, human and AI played the same hands against the same opponents, a pair of bridge bots (not built by NukkAI) called Wbridge5.

A game of bridge begins with players bidding on how many tricks, or rounds of play, they think they can win. The highest bid is called the contract, and whoever sets the contract is the declarer. The declarers partner, or the dummy, lays their hand down on the table face up, and exits the game. The declarer now plays both hands against their opponents, and tries to win enough tricks to meet their bid.

The NukkAI Challenge removed bidding to simplify play, and both the humans and NooK assumed the role of declarer in each game, with the bridge bot pair as opponents (or defenders). The difference between NooKs score and each human players score was averaged over each set. NooK beat its rivals in 67, or 83 percent, of the 80 sets played.

Its pretty desperate for the humans, French champion Thomas Bessis said. There are just times that we dont understand why the AI is playing better than usbut it is. Its very frustrating.

NooKs victory is an impressive feat, but there are caveats. Skipping the bidding process and playing only the declarer role removed challenging and nuanced parts of the game in which partners must communicate with each other and deceive their opponents. Also, its challenging for a human to stay focused for 100 straight hands, but not so a computer. Finally, NukkAI cofounder, Jean-Baptiste Fantun, said he was confident the machine would prevail over thousands of deals, but was less sanguine about its prospects over just 800. In other words, the more it plays, the better its odds of winning, so playing a lot of hands consecutively may have helped the AI nudge out the humans in this case.

So even in bridge, there are other things to be solved, Fantun said. We still have a roadmap in front of us. That is, its too much to say bridge has fallen to AI, like chess or Go. But AI outscoring top human players in part of the game is a key milestone on Fantuns map. And while ever-bigger AI algorithms, like OpenAIs GPT-3, continue to impress, NukkAIs performance in bridge may add weight to the argument for a hybrid approach.

Next, theyll have to show NooK can play and winno disclaimers needed.

Image Credit:T A T I A N A / Unsplash

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Robert Downey Jr. Directed A TV Pilot We Never Got To See – /Film

Posted: at 3:36 pm

Downey and Hall had worked together several times in the past, notably in the comedy films "Weird Science" in 1985, and "Johnny Be Good" in 1988. In 2016, Hall had most recently appeared in the Academy Award-nominated film "Foxcatcher," and had made several appearances on hit TV shows like "Psyche" and "Awkward."

"Singularity" was to be produced by both Downey and his wife Susan in a massive deal between the actor's production company and Sonar Entertainment. Details of the project were kept tightly under wraps when the show was announced, with Downey being frustratingly coy. There were no ready details about the show's premise or plot or the nature of Hall's character. It was exciting to think of Downey directing, however, as he hadn't directed a high-profile film or TV show in the past. In fact, heonce dismissed the idea entirely. Hall leading another series was also exciting for fans of "The Dead Zone," which ran from 2002 to 2007.

The only speculation one may have been able to make was about the genre of "Singularity." The title likely was taken from the physics term which is defined by Oxford Languages as "a point at which a function takes an infinite value, especially in space-time when matter is infinitely dense, as at the center of a black hole." In technology, "singularity" refers to the point wherein mechanical devices will become more advanced than human bodies, making physical biological flesh obsolete. The title alone might have one assuming "Singularity" was to be a sci-fi show. But it is only speculation, because neither Downey nor Hall confirmed that.

The only other connection to Downey and to "Singularity" that I was able to find was asingle malt, single hopped session IPA with a Kolsch yeast. But it turned out the Downey Brewing Company (based in Michigan), and their beer Singularity, have nothing at all to do with Robert Downey Jr. and his pilot "Singularity." It's merely a fun coincidence. Order some beer at the Downey Brewing website.

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Florida football nutritionist getting rave reviews: What’s she got cooking for the Gators? – Gatorsports.com

Posted: at 3:36 pm

If you are what you eat, Gervon Dexter would have been a Twinkie. A 313-pound one, at that.

He liked to snack away, comforted by the knowledge that the calories likely would melt away at football practice. And when youre 6-foot-6, you can carry a few more Twinkies than the average guy.

But after two seasons, Dexter knew he needed more than bulk to play defensive tackle at an NFL-prospect level. He needed to get quicker.

Enter Kelsee Gomes, the new queen of Floridas Kitchen.

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Listen in to latest podcast: GatorSports: For Florida Gators football there is no time to waste in spring

Her title is actually director of sports nutrition football. When Billy Napier was introduced as head coach, he said hed bring in an army to help revive the Gators program. And you know what they say about that?

An army marches on its stomach.

Napoleon supposedly coined the phrase 200 years ago, long before Nick Saban started hiring individual chefs for offense, defense and special teams. Whether its the French Imperial Army trying to take over Europe or Napiers army trying to capture the SEC, it all begins with happy bellies.

Based on early reviews, the Gators' bellies are very happy with Gomes.

Shes a rock star, strength coach Mark Hocke said.

She like oil for a car, Demarkcus Bowman tweeted, so without that oil that car aint gonna crank.

David Whitley: For Billy Napier, building new culture for Florida football begins with strength coach Mark Hocke | Whitley

Gomes was hired from North Carolina, where she was in charge of 28 sports. Shed worked as an assistant nutritionist here during Will Muschamps days, but what really attracted her back was the singularity of her mission.

Its all football, though Florida has five nutritionists for other sports. Gomes could also hire two full-time assistants just for football.

The whole sports nutrition business has exploded in the past decade. Part of it is advances in science and technology, and better understanding of how a good diet leads to better performance.

And part of it is the insatiable SEC desire to seek even the slightest advantage over the next guy. Thats why Georgia has a director of nutrition, a performance chef for football and a culinary services manager for football.

For all we know, Saban really might have 14 quality-control nutritionists. Whatever the case, weve certainly come a long way from the days when a guy in an apron slung mashed potatoes onto trays at the mess hall.

Latest from practice: Quick takeaways from Florida Gators' ninth of 15 spring practices under Billy Napier

Gomes conducted a body-mass scan on each player to find their fat vs. lean mass ratios, consulted with the strength coaches, position coaches and training staffs and came up with individual meal plans.

She prefers that term instead of diet, which conjures visions of Jenny Craig and pretending your stomach isnt grumbling at 110 decibels for a slice of pizza.

Ive always had this approach that all foods fit, Gomes said.

She told players shes not here to send them into Twinkie detox. Its all about eating a well-balanced meal plan with the right combination of fiber, proteins, antioxidants and all that other stuff you can read on the labels of vitamin bottles.

I dont want them to feel guilt or shame about eating a certain type of food, Gomes said.

She does emphasize the benefits of eating certain types of food. That way, a player understands how eating a bowl of blueberries will help alleviate aching muscles after a three-hour practice.

She came in and she got it instantly, Dexter said. She didnt waste any time.

D-line: Florida Gators defensive line in development, with new players and a new leader in Sean Spencer

He told Gomes what his goals were. She had a meal plan ready the next day. Dexter said hes leaner and meaner this spring than hes been since arriving in Gainesville.

Its all Miss Kelsee, he said. I cant give no credit to myself.

Gomes doesnt do the actual cooking. She designs the menus for the football chefs to whip up, then she makes sure everybody follows their orders.

Our team really likes vegetables, Gomes said. And we have a lot of fruit guys, too.

Napier has made breakfast mandatory, so two of Gomes assistants check attendance every morning. Napiers also into visual reminders, so Gomes has put individualized signs in every locker.

They say things like, More Muscle Mass or Maintain Muscle Mass.

Its all just another component in Napiers grand plan. Every school has stepped up its nutrition game, so Florida really had no choice.

But if an army marches only as well as their stomachs feel, the Gators should eventually gopretty far.

David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. And follow him on Twitter: @DavidEWhitley

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Review: The Eclipse – Cineuropa

Posted: at 3:36 pm

04/04/2022 - Nataa Urban's CPH:DOX-winning film is a multi-layered exploration of collective and personal memory and responsibility with a remarkable stylistic approach

Serbian-born, Oslo-based director Nataa Urban's documentary The Eclipse, which has just won the main award at CPH:DOX, is a remarkable exploration of collective and personal memory and responsibility. Combining 16mm and manipulated Super 8 footage with an exquisite analogue, tape modulation-dominated soundtrack, the director has created a multi-layered work that resonates on several distinctive levels.

Urban hails from the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, which is populated by a dozen ethnic groups, with her own grandmother being Romanian. It has a very different atmosphere than that of Belgrade or central Serbia, with its flatlands and low hills and focus on agriculture: pets and farm animals feature prominently in the film, with a special accent on pig slaughter as a symbol of violence, one of its main themes.

As the documentary opens with images of landscapes in the soft morning light, the viewer experiences a stillness that will soon be contrasted with an exploration of painful memories. The whole film relies on this often unnerving dichotomy, but the viewing experience is surprisingly smooth, much to the credit of DoP Ivan Markovi and editor Jelena Maksimovi.

Urban left Serbia decades ago, and as she says in the voice-over, never looked back. But she came upon her father's hiking journal, and started connecting the dates and entries with key events from the 1990s. She gets her father to retrace his steps, and we watch the slender, grey-bearded man as he walks through forests, villages and hills, and listen to him reading out those old sentences.

The first date is 24 November 1990. While Dad was visiting the village of erevi, a narrative title informs us that the Golubinka pit in Croatia was opened, revealing the remains of 600 Serbian victims killed by the Ustae in the Second World War. The TV footage shows Orthodox priests saying prayers over skulls and bones, which came to be heavily used in the Serbian propaganda of the 1990s.

Similarly, Urban counterpoints the beginning of the war in Croatia and the bloody siege of Vukovar, the first democratic protests in Serbia, the siege of Sarajevo, Srebrenica, and the NATO bombing of Serbia, with her father's diary entries that seem to come from another world. Yet despite his self-imposed isolation from these events, the war is gradually closing in on him as well.The story of the family climbing Caucasus in 1995, when Sarajevo was still under siege, or a their photo on the mountain top of Magli in Bosnia with a Yugoslav flag in 1991, when the war in Croatia was raging, are jarringly ambivalent.

Interviews with the director's family and friends make a trajectory from happy memories of the pre-war days to those of the strikingly sad and brutal events of the 1990s. To reflect those times, Urban filmed on Super 8, which was then processed to get the texture of a particular era. This simulated archive footage has a profound effect when coupled with Svenn Jakobsen's atmospheric sound design and the haunting score by Bill Gould and Jared Blum which appropriately nods to William Basinski's "Disintegration Loops," one of music's most potent explorations of memory.

Underlining the nature of memory makes Urban's confrontational approach to the issue of collective responsibility non-judgmental. When she reminds her mother of the times that she prefers to forget, she is not pointing a finger, rather, she is asking her to look deep inside herself. The solar eclipse in the title is similarly a symbolic framing device which reflects this same duality, which is in fact a singularity: it is possible to simultaneously love a person - or a country - and hold them responsible.

The Eclipse was produced by Norway's Medieoperatrene and the UK's Taskovski Films has the international rights.

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Stats of the Week: Debuts impress in all regions as nade, volpz, and Solotov give top performances – SiegeGG

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Image via Ubisoft/@kirill_vision

This week has seen surprise showings in all four regions as the league portion of Stage 1 began in Europe and North America. During these games, we saw some remarkable plays and standout flops, so lets take a look at some of the numbers that drove this weeks results.

A few playdays into the season, theres been a number of standout players across all four regions.

The biggest surprise of the 2022 season so far has been the performance of w7m esports which currently sits on top of the BR6 table. In two weeks they've already scored more points than stage three. This success can be attributed largely to their two new rookies, Gabriel "volpz" Fernandes and Joo "Jv92" Vitor, with the former player being the third-highest rated player in BR6 so far.

Volpz, who turned 18 last August, spent last year on Team Singularity with whom he finished the Challenger League in sixth place. Now in the BR6, he got six kills to just one death in w7ms 7-0 victory over MIBR, got 10 kills to five deaths in his 7-3 debut against FaZe, and was instrumental in their 8-7 win over FURIA. He secured a 1.54 rating compared to his nearest teammate on 0.84 during the FURIA win. His lone weak game came during yesterdays 7-3 victory over Liquid where he sat on a 0.88 rating.

While they still have notable games against NiP and 00 Nation yet to go, w7m now looks set to qualify for the Six Major on the back of their rookies, a remarkable accomplishment for an organization whos best prior result in the BR6 was seventh place during the 2020 season.

Also of note in Latin America is Black Dragons sole pickup during the transfer window, Felipe "nade" S. Despite having extremely limited prior experience he currently sits as the best player in BR6 after four games with a rating of 1.39, 0.01 ahead of the back-to-back player of the year, Luccas Paluh Molina.

He notched a 1.52 rating in Black Dragons 7-4 victory over FaZe Clan, 1.27 against INTZ, 1.34 against MIBR, and a 1.40 rating against Liquid in which his closest teammate was at 0.74.

Onto in North America, Oxygens Ethan "Nuers" James achieved a 1.54 SiegeGG Rating in his very first professional game against the newly crowned world champions, TSM FTX. He then dropped down to a 0.91 rating against Astralis, however, he kept an even kill, death ratio.

Jameson "KoolAid" Lancaster, meanwhile, secured a 1.26 rating across his two games, just 0.01 over Nuers. This came from a 1.42 rating during Parabellums victory over Soniqs and 1.13 rating during their 5-7 loss to beastcoast. KoolAid was also the teams main planter and primarily played Castle on defense.

Over in Europe, it was the recent Challenger League victors and Six Invitational attendees, Fatih "Solotov" Trker and Josh "Yuzus" Pritchard, from MNM Gaming who attracted the most attention. They averaged ratings of 1.35 and 1.31 respectively.

Despite MNM losing both of their games 4-7 against G2 Esports and HEROIC, these two players performing significantly better than the rest of the MNM roster. Regionally, their closest counterparts have been Ben "CTZN" McMillan from G2 who has averaged a rating of 1.32, and HEROICs Jake "Sloth" Brown whos at 1.65, both of which theyve already played.

Finally, APAC North and South have had one rookie of note each, Juwan "Mephi" Park from T1 and Kyro from Wildcard.

Starting with Mephi, the player joined T1 to replace the teams stand-in coach after turning 18 years old just last October. Since then, despite having no competitive experience at any tier, hes helped T1 to currently reach third place in the APAC North standings following three wins in a row over SANDBOX, CYCLOPS, and Fnatic.

Kyro joined Wildcard Gaming after a year in various national-tier tournaments. He currently leads the team by rating after five games which include two wins over Knights and FURY. His best performance so far came against Elevate in which a 1.6 rating and 2.0 kill death ratio werent enough to stop a 4-7 defeat.

While both of these players' respective ratings arent as high as the other rookies, they both sit within the top five players by rating in their division as they lead their team closer to an APAC Playoff appearance after fighting off relegation in January.

While Europe, North America, and Brazil all have an attack win rate between 47% and 50%, both APAC North and South sit well below, at 40.09% and 39.71% respectively.

For comparison, during Stage 3, APAC had a combined attack win rate of 48.38%. Furthermore, even if you exclude the three new maps as well as Coastline, the drop is still from 47.52% to 40.43%.

Fairing the worst is Fnatic with a win rate of just 19.35% with six wins in 31 rounds while FURY and Renatus in APAC South are tied on 22.22%, both with six wins in 27 rounds. Fnatic is particularly odd as they sit with a very high 73.08% defensive win rate which has kept their APAC League hopes alive for this stage. This shows they can perform, but are stumbling on attack.

If you exclude these three teams from the total count the regions win rate does rise to 44.64%, however, this is still much lower than seen in the three other regions.

While it took some time for teams to take a liking to Osa, the newest operator added to the competitive Rainbow Six Siege, Thorn, has had more success. Already shes become the go-to defensive operator for Astralis David "iconic" Ifidon, FURIAs Thiago "Handyy" Ferreira, and T1s Wonil "iLeven" Cha, peaking with a 13% pick rate in APAC North.

While its still too early to make any concrete conclusions about the operator's competitive viability, it is very clear that she fits into a roaming roam. This is as iconic and handyy previously played Melusi and Jager over the last two stages while iLeven played Mozzie and Alibi, all of which fit into this role type.

Looking into her success rate, Thorn was brought five times by Iconic on Skyscraper, winning all five attempts with 11 kills to three deaths. T1 meanwhile brought her 11 times, winning eight of them, with four of five wins on Oregon, one out of three on Villa, and two out of two wins on Skyscraper. Finally, handyy brought Thorn 10 times winning six of them, half of which came on Skyscraper.

This is a really good success rate for the new operator so early on, meaning by the time we reach Stage 2 she may become a much more common sight.

While Theme Parks removal from the competitive map pool at the beginning of year six led to some vocal complaints by professional players, its reintroduction at this stage has not led to teams picking it back up.

So far across all five main leagues it has been played just twice -- TALON vs DWG during playday three of APAC North and Oxygen vs TSM during playday one of the NAL -- out of 80 matches so far this stage.

In comparison, the two other new maps to the pool, Border, and Skyscraper, have both been played in all five leagues with Border being the joint-most played in the BR6 while Skyscraper is the joint-most played in APAC North.

Somewhat interestingly, Kafe has just a single extra pick than Theme Park with just three plays despite it being the most played map at the 2022 Six Invitational.

While it is unclear why teams around the world are choosing to avoid the map for now, teams should be familiar with how the map works as it has been unchanged since it was last in the pool. This means its likely that well see it a lot more at the Six Major as it would take less preparation for teams to learn the map andwould be a good surprise pick in best of threes.

Kafe meanwhile has been so played out so much in recent seasons that, similar to Oregon before its rework, teams have likely stopped playing it due to its repetitive nature.

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Stats of the Week: Debuts impress in all regions as nade, volpz, and Solotov give top performances - SiegeGG

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