Fr. Steven Ritter, the host of the AFR podcast, The Life of the Church Today, offers his perspective on the upcoming United States election.

Archimandrite David [Mahaffey] will be consecrated to the episcopacy at Saint Innocent Cathedral in Anchorage on Friday, February 21, 2014. He will fill the vacant Episcopal See of Sitka and Alaska for the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). AFR introduces you to the Bishop-elect and he talks about his vision for the Diocese.

Fr. Chad Hatfield tells us about the upcoming 32nd Annual Alexander Schmemann Lecture on the campus of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. The speaker will be Bishop Nicholas of Brooklyn talking about the life and ministry of St. Raphael of Brooklyn. This year is the 100th anniversary of the repose of St. Raphael.

Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. Antony Gabriel, the Chairman of the Antiochian Heritage Foundation, the recently retired rector of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church of Montreal, Quebec, and the author of Reflections on the Priesthood, portions of which have already been published on the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America website. Fr. Gabriel is also the author of the forthcoming book Silence: A Diary of Suffering and Redemption, published by Westbow Press.

Bobby Maddex interviews Sr. Faith Riccio, the author of a new book from Paraclete Press titled Icons: The Essential Collection.

Bobby Maddex interviews Herman Middleton, the founder of the Collective Wisdom Project, a collection of video interviews of people who have discovered the Orthodox Faith.

Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. Chad Hatfield, the President of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and a Professor of Pastoral Theology, about the 38th Annual Fr. Alexander Schmemann Lecture that will take place at the seminary on January 30th.

There could be more continents than you think. Case in point: New Zealand may be part of its own continent, separate from Australia. / The New York Times [+]

The Greenland Ice Sheet temporarily stores a large amount of meltwater in the summer, a discovery that may aid in accurately forecasting future sea-level rise. / Phys.org

"Where can I get crystals that are less toxic, locally sourced, and ethical?" / Sierra

Small farms lose out as billionaires prove to be the "ultimate beneficiaries" of the EU's farming subsidies. / The Guardian

See also: Jeff Bezos's justification for a non-endorsement is another in a long sequence of evidence for why the future of journalism can't be billionaires. / 404 Media

In an election that's been rife with misinformation, Perplexity AI's new election hub is a bad idea at the worst possible time. / Gizmodo

See also: "Washington has to wake up and realize that in fact, Silicon Valley is in the midst of a huge power grab." How technology ruined democracy. / Foreign Policy

In election predictions: Polymarket wants you to think it has all the answers (it doesn't); and we are 100% certain that anything could fucking happen. / The Baffler, McSweeney's

Unrelated: "If you can become lucid during a nightmare you can change your response or do something that empowers you in real time and improve your capacity to cope." / Atlas Obscura

From 2021 and so necessary this week: Yuki Kawae's meditative zen gardens are an antidote to doomscrolling. / Colossal

"Google says I need an abortion." Diana Weymar's abortion embroideries document the state of post-Roe America. / Hyperallergic

According to a new investigation, dental chains are pulling healthy or treatable teeth in order to profit from implants. / KFF Health News

"What once looked like a generational change to public space in the American city has instead returned to a bunch of curb parking." Why NYC's outdoor dining fell apart. / Slate

Typical habanero peppers reach 100,000 to 350,000 units on the Scoville heat scale, while a newly created variety tops out at 1,000. / Oregon Public Radio

"Where was 'the hexagram of the heavens' I loved from the opening verse of the album?" Listening to Joni Mitchell's demos and hearing a narrative evolve. / Dada Drummer Almanach

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Fr. Pat's homily on the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord and Savior in the Temple.

Most of the sources in Holy Scripture, and most emphatically the Psalms, look upon Israel's time in the desert as a period of unmitigated tragedy. Israel was consistently unfaithful. However, the prophets Hosea and Jeremiah chose to see things differently, which is a source of strength and consolation for us today.

Every summer, my brothers and sisters, in either late June or early July we listen to the first ten verses of Romans 10. This text appears near the middle of Paul's analysis of the dialectical structure of history, which is the subject of Romans 9-11.

In this homily from 2006, Fr. Pat reflects upon the Body of Christ, the Sacraments, and our own transfiguration in Christ.

This week we're responding to another viewer question. Does a love of theology and academic study somehow contradict the mysticism of the Faith? We approach God as complete human persons, and that includes our minds. Reading and studying theology can be a great thing, but it should also be a part of our larger life in Christ. God is more than an idea we think about: He's a person we encounter.

Guest: The V. Rev. Jon Braun, ex-Campus Crusade for Christ Regional Director and former leader of the Evangelical Orthodox Church.

Head coach Warren Gatland says he is happy to field the pressure of questions on his future after guiding Wales to a 10th successive international defeat.

Derry City manager Ruaidhri Higgins reacts to his side's disappointing 2-0 defeat by Drogheda in the FAI Cup.

The first minister's endorsement for the Democratic nominee was called "appalling" by Trump's business.

World leaders, scientists and activists are attending the UN's annual climate talks in Azerbaijan.

Voters in the Republic of Ireland will go to the polls in just three weeks time on Friday 29 November.

With the Irish general election coming up, BBC News NI explains how votes will be made and counted.

A general election in the Republic of Ireland has officially been called for Friday 29 November.

Two Scots who own the biggest brick collection in the UK are looking for a museum to house all 6,000 of them.

Politicians at Stormont and across the island of Ireland react to the US election result.

The vote risks sparking a trade war as the EU looks to protect its own car makers.

Morocco-born Abdelatif Benazzi wants to be new man in charge of global rugby, promising to tear up the sport's old order and tap into new markets.

Tony Howard amassed almost 3,000 copies of the music magazine, which went under the hammer in Louth.

The Broads Authority wants to tighten rules to allow it to dispose of boats deemed unserviceable.

Social media platform Bluesky says it has gained 700,000 new users in the week following the US election. Bluesky, which was originally conceived as part of Twitter by its former […]

The post Blue Sky gets post-election boost, Apple Vision Pro headset production scaled back appeared first on Tech Digest.

Like many people who live in America I have donated to US political candidates and campaigns. And like many people who live in America I have subsequently found my entire life suddenly and completely overwhelmed by text-messages and e-mail spam and phone calls and any number of other venal, stressy, desperate campaign messages. Now of […]

A leaked document outlines potentially radical changes to bin collections in Bristol.

Election cartoon, by Dave Walker. Please vote.

The post The Election ’24 appeared first on Dave Walker.

If you are home alone tonight on Halloween and fancy something spooky and electronic to listen to, please allow me to direct you to the annual Homebrew Electronica horrorthon! Promising “spooky bangers, creepy electronica and twisted soundscapes for Halloween night”,...

Michigan Rising Action’s Abby Mitch on holding elected officials accountable

Llevaba ya muchos días sin escribir nada por una falta crónica de tiempo. Sin embargo, a la vista de la situación en la que nos encontramos en estos momentos en España —gracias a la manifiesta incompetencia y necedad de nuestros mal llamados gobernantes— entiendo que es necesario que todos nos apoyemos entre nosotros aportando cada […]

E-mail spam is no more garbage but risk since it recently includes virus attachments and spyware agents which make the recipients' system ruined, therefore, there is an emerging need for spam detection. Many spam detection techniques based on machine learning techniques have been proposed. As the amount of spam has been increased tremendously using bulk mailing tools, spam detection techniques should counteract with it. To cope with this, parameters optimization and feature selection have been used to reduce processing overheads while guaranteeing high detection rates. However, previous approaches have not taken into account feature variable importance and optimal number of features. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, there is no approach which uses both parameters optimization and feature selection together for spam detection. In this paper, we propose a spam detection model enabling both parameters optimization and optimal feature selection; we optimize two parameters of detection models using Random Forests (RF) so as to maximize the detection rates. We provide the variable importance of each feature so that it is easy to eliminate the irrelevant features. Furthermore, we decide an optimal number of selected features using two methods; (i) only one parameters optimization during overall feature selection and (ii) parameters optimization in every feature elimination phase. Finally, we evaluate our spam detection model with cost-sensitive measures to avoid misclassification of legitimate messages, since the cost of classifying a legitimate message as a spam far outweighs the cost of classifying a spam as a legitimate message. We perform experiments on Spambase dataset and show the feasibility of our approaches.

Netanyahu s’est entretenu 3 fois avec Trump depuis sa réélection à propos de la "menace iranienne"

No Comment : funérailles collectives au Liban

The increased volume of accessible internet data creates an opportunity for researchers and practitioners to improve time series forecasting for many indicators. In our study, we assess the value of web traffic data in forecasting the number of short-term visitors travelling to Australia. We propose a feature-based model selection framework which combines random forest with feature ranking process to select the best performing model using limited and informative number of features extracted from web traffic data. The data was obtained for several tourist attraction and tourism information websites that could be visited by potential tourists to find out more about their destinations. The results of random forest models were evaluated over 3- and 12-month forecasting horizon. Features from web traffic data appears in the final model for short term forecasting. Further, the model with additional data performs better on unseen data post the COVID19 pandemic. Our study shows that web traffic data adds value to tourism forecasting and can assist tourist destination site managers and decision makers in forming timely decisions to prepare for changes in tourism demand.

1. La PS5 Slim avec lecteur de disque est de retour à prix réduit avec ce code promo spécial Black Friday  Frandroid
2. Les scalpers surestiment l’engouement pour la PS5 Pro et se retrouvent avec une console invendable  jeuxvideo.com
3. Test de la PS5 Pro : la nouvelle console de Sony est-elle faite pour vous ?  Frandroid
4. Test PS5 Pro : un tournant pour les consoles de jeu  Canard PC
5. La meilleure offre pour acheter la PS5 Pro dès son lancement !  Midi Libre

1. Why is Trump’s election as US president prompting a Bitcoin surge?  Al Jazeera English
2. Why crypto mania is reaching new heights  The Economist
3. Cryptocurrency traders: share what got you into crypto, and how you feel about recent developments  The Guardian
4. Bitcoin Continues Its Ascent To $100,000 Amid Ethereum, Solana, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, BNB, XRP, Avalanche Rebound  Forbes
5. What to know about bitcoin’s post-election rally  BNN Bloomberg

Une gigantesque panne d'électricité a affecté lundi une large partie du Pakistan, dont ses plus grandes villes Lahore et Karachi, avant que les autorités n'annoncent en soirée le retour progressif du courant.

Les coupures d'électricité sont fréquentes au Pakistan, englué depuis des années dans de graves problèmes budgétaires et énergétiques, et dont le système de distribution est complexe et vétuste.

La panne a été causée par un dysfonctionnement survenu à 07H30 locales (02H30 GMT) à la suite de mesures d'économies prises sur le réseau.

"Nous espérons que le courant sera rétabli partout dans le pays d'ici ce (lundi) soir", a déclaré dans un communiqué vidéo le ministre de l'Energie, Khurram Dastagir Khan.

La nuit avançant, il a assuré sur Twitter que l'électricité commençait à être rétablie progressivement.

Le ministère a tweeté que le courant était revenu dans le centre d'Islamabad et à Gujranwala, à quelque 200 km au sud-est de la capitale.

M. Khan a également retweeté le message d'un usager qui se félicitait qu'il y ait à nouveau "de la lumière à Lahore", la deuxième ville la plus peuplée du pays, avec plus de 10 millions d'habitants.

La panne a été causée par une variation de la fréquence électrique sur le réseau national, au redémarrage des unités de production électrique lundi matin.

Ces unités sont temporairement éteintes la nuit en hiver pour économiser du carburant, a expliqué M. Khan à la presse.

La plupart des hôpitaux, industries et institutions gouvernementales sont équipées de générateurs. Mais les ménages et petits commerces n'ont souvent pas les moyens de s'offrir un tel équipement.

Dans le nord du Pakistan, les températures devaient tomber lundi soir en dessous de 0°. Le chauffage au gaz est le plus répandu, mais n'est pas non plus toujours très fiable, les délestages étant fréquents en raison d'une pénurie de gaz.

Les réseaux de téléphonie mobile ont été également perturbés par la panne, selon un tweet du régulateur pakistanais des télécoms.

L'économie pakistanaise est déjà chancelante avec une inflation galopante, une devise nationale - la roupie - en chute libre et des réserves de change au plus bas. Une telle coupure d'électricité ne fait qu'accroître la pression sur les petits commerces.

A Rawalpindi, ville voisine de la capitale, Muhammad Iftikhar Sheikh, 71 ans, un vendeur d'électroménager, a déploré ne pas pouvoir tester ses appareils devant les clients.

"Les clients n'achètent jamais sans essayer d'abord", pestait-il. Du coup, "on est tous assis là, à ne rien faire".

Dans les écoles, les cours ont souvent eu lieu dans la pénombre, pour celles ne disposant pas d'éclairage sur batterie.

A Karachi (sud), où les températures étaient plus élevées, un commerçant a indiqué à l'AFP craindre que son stock entier de produits laitiers ne soit perdu, sans réfrigération.

Et Khurrum Khan, un imprimeur de 39 ans, voyait les commandes s'empiler, sans pouvoir y répondre. Les problèmes d'électricité sont "une malédiction permanente dont nos gouvernements n'ont pas réussi à se débarrasser", regrettait-il.

Une panne similaire en janvier 2021 avait plongé l'essentiel de ce pays de 220 millions d'habitants dans le noir pendant plusieurs heures, après qu'un dysfonctionnement technique dans le sud eut déclenché une réaction en chaîne dans plusieurs centrales électriques.

Les coupures d'électricité sont un problème récurrent au Pakistan. Mais la situation s'est encore détériorée ces derniers mois, la situation financière dramatique du pays aggravant un peu plus ses difficultés d'approvisionnement énergétique.

Les ménages ont été touchés, mais l'industrie également, notamment le textile, qui représente environ 60% des exportations pakistanaises.

(Belga) L'ex-député européen Mark Demesmaeker, désormais sénateur coopté N-VA, sera la tête de liste du parti nationaliste pour les élections communales d'octobre 2024 à Hal (Brabant flamand), a-t-il indiqué lundi, confirmant des informations de presse.

M. Demesmaeker est conseiller communal à Hal depuis 2007 et y a été échevin durant six ans. La N-VA a terminé à deux reprises, lors des scrutins communaux de 2012 et 2018, comme premier parti de la commune. M. Demesmaeker a affirmé lundi toujours avoir cette ambition. "Nous avons une équipe jeune et soudée, avec expertise et vision. Je vise une progression", a-t-il dit. Il s'est dit convaincu que le changement de législation en Flandre - qui prévoit que le plus grand parti dispose d'un droit d'initiative pour former une coalition communale et que le candidat du plus grand groupe ayant recueilli le plus de voix de préférence devienne bourgmestre - lui offre un solide avantage. "Nous avons de bonnes chances, a-t-il souligné. L'élu nationaliste a affirmé vouloir se concentrer sur des thèmes comme l'urbanisation de Hal et la politique en matière de langue, en évoquant la "francisation de la ville". (Belga)

C'est un classique. Juste aprï¿œs leur victoire, certains ï¿œlus locaux font voter une augmentation de leur salaire. Une dï¿œcision qui intervient au dï¿œbut de leur mandat, histoire que les ï¿œlecteurs aient le temps...

Aiming at the problems of high error rate, low evaluation accuracy and low investment return in traditional methods, a random forest-based e-bank investment risk evaluation method is proposed. First, establish a scientific e-bank investment risk evaluation index system. Then, G1-COWA combined weighting method is used to calculate the weights of each index. Finally, the e-bank investment risk evaluation index data is taken as the input vector, and the e-bank investment risk evaluation result is taken as the output vector. The random forest model is established and the result of e-banking investment risk evaluation is obtained. The experimental results show that the maximum relative error rate of this method is 4.32%, the evaluation accuracy range is 94.5~98.1%, and the maximum return rate of e-banking investment is 8.32%. It shows that this method can accurately evaluate the investment risk of electronic banking.

To reduce the location cost of cross-border e-commerce logistics sites, this article proposes a multi-logistics site location method based on return uncertainty. Firstly, a site selection model is established with the objective function of minimising site construction costs, transportation costs, return costs, and operating costs, and the constraint conditions of return recovery costs and delayed pick-up time; Then, using the Monte Carlo method to simulate the number of returned items, and using an improved chicken swarm algorithm based on simulated annealing, the cross-border e-commerce multi-logistics site location model is solved to complete the location selection. Experimental results show that this method can effectively reduce the related costs of cross-border e-commerce multi-logistics site selection. After applying this method, the total cost of multi-logistics site selection is 19.4 million yuan, while the total cost of the five comparative methods exceeds 20 million yuan.

To achieve the benefits as much as possible, it is required to identify the available PEV capacity and prepare scheduling plans based on that. The analysis revealed that the risk-based scheduling of the microgrid could reduce the financial risk completely from $9.89 to $0.00 and increases the expected operation cost by 24% from $91.38 to $112.94, in turn. This implies that the risk-averse decision-maker tends to spend more money to reduce the expected risk-in-cost by using the proposed downside risk management technique. At the end, by the help of fuzzy satisfying method, the suitable risk-averse strategy is determined for the studied case.