Fast radio bursts last for such a short time that it is difficult to track down the source. Now astronomers have found one in our own back yard.

The post A Fast Radio Burst Has Been Detected From Inside The Milky Way appeared first on Universe Today.

A new study indicates that, contrary to what has been previously argued, galaxies like our own may be the most likely place to find intelligent life

The post Galaxies Like the Milky Way are the Best for Life appeared first on Universe Today.

Někteří badatelé tvrdí, že dějiny Židů v Číně začínají již v 6. století před naším letopočtem za dynastie Čou, k tomu však nejsou žádné archeologické či jiné materiální důkazy. Všeobecně se tak počítají počátky židovské přítomnosti až od 8. století našeho letopočtu, za vlády dynastie Tang, kdy do Říše středu dorazily první skupinky obchodníků po Hedvábné stezce a usazovali se podél ní. Dnes od 18 hodin můžete na Facebooku Reflexu sledovat premiéru speciálního hudebního pořadu Židé v říši středu. Dějiny izraleského národa a Číny jsou zajímavě propojené.

Bombastické oslavy Dne vítězství v Moskvě 9. května 2015, kdy svět ještě nesužoval nový koronavirus, mimo jiné znovu oživily dávnou otázku, jaký byl podíl tehdejšího, dnes ovšem již neexistujícího Sovětského svazu a v jeho rámci Ruské federace na úsilí vynaloženém za Velké vlastenecké války, jakož i na obětech. Je dobré si je připomenout zvláště v dnešní době, kdy média vytvářejí dojem, že klíčovou událostí se stalo vystoupení vlasovců v Řeporyjích na konci války v Evropě.

Charles Burns je magorický komiksový génius, jehož knihy vás nenechají chladnými. Někomu mohou být odporné, jiný se v nich bude blaženě pitvat a snažit se o interpretaci autorových výpotků. Je pravda, že podivnost se v jeho komiksech stupňuje. Teď máme jako druzí na světě – dříve než Američané a Britové – možnost pohroužit se do prvního dílu jeho nové trilogie.

V posledních týdnech se aktivně zapojuji do snah získat podporu pro kreativní průmysly, zasažené koronakrizí. Mailů a diskuzních příspěvků, u nichž mám pocit, že jsou citací z legendárního projevu Miloše Jakeše na Červeném Hrádku, mám plnou schránku.

Česko se zastavilo. Vláda kvůli pandemii koronaviru zavedla nouzový stav, který má šířené nemoci zamezit. Jaký je život v nouzovém režimu? Jak se chovají lidé, jak reaguje ekonomika? Hrozí, že vláda současné krize zneužije ke šmírování a omezení práva i po skončení pandemie? V online komentovaném přenosu vážně ale i s nadsázkou odpovidají redaktoři a spolupracovníci Reflexu.

"Attn Lucky Winner" email scam removal guide

What is the "Attn Lucky Winner" email?

"Attn Lucky Winner" is an email scam, targeting Australian users. These letters claim that recipients have been selected as winners of "Mega Millions" raffle, sponsored by "OZ Australia". Supposedly, users have won a ludicrous sum of money - ten million dollars. The content of the letter is vague, mentioning the names of legitimate, generic, as well as nonexistent lotteries, companies and entities. This type of scam is typically used to trick recipients into revealing their personal and banking information, making monetary transactions, calling expensive phone numbers and similar.

Barack Obama promised to change the way things work in Washington, and after four years, nothing has changed: Corporate money controls President Obama and Congress. We need real change: vote for Rocky Anderson. Continue reading →

A fundraising initiative spearheaded by Canadian comic retailers and creators aims to auction off items in order to support their struggling industry.

The post Zdarsky, Fabok, & more ask you to “Be Our Heroes” for Canadian retailers appeared first on The Beat.

Last weekend I participated in two investing panels for my friend Anina.net’s global online fashion conference. Anina is the pretty girl next to me in the picture atop this page. My second panel was the final event of the conference, so Anina and I stayed on the line to talk a bit afterward. She had been up for 72 continuous hours. Oddly, what we discussed were N-95 respirator masks, which are in such short supply thanks to COVID-19. Anina lives in Beijing and China is starting to get back to work as the country slowly backs-off from its draconian coronavirus shut-down. Some businesses are retooling to address global coronavirus needs and one of those retooled factories is owned by a friend of Anina’s. His garment […]






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My kids have solved some easy treasure hunts, but when my oldest daughter turned eleven, I figured she was ready for something a bit more challenging.

予約開始しました!! 宝塚おとめ2020年度版 宝塚ムック 発売日： 2020/4/24 スカパー！特別無料放送 2020年4月10日(金)から12日(日)までの3日間、スカパー！で『TAKARAZUKA SKY STAGE』無料放送 https://www.tca-pictures.net/skystage/whats_new_list.html#...

Plus, get a first look at the game’s key art -- revealed in celebration of Star Wars Day!

That second slice of cheesecake when the Cheesecake factory was running their $0.88 a slice promo. The late night boardgame marathon when I had to work early the next morning. Hosting a dinner party every night for 12 days during the 12 days of Christmas. I fell in love with the idea of all these things, but once I experienced them, I realized they were mismatched to my temperament. They were so enticing, and they whispered to me with promises of fun, but I couldn’t love them the way I wanted to. That’s what Shadows in Kyoto did to me too. I picked up a copy of the game based solely on the artwork. It’s beautiful, as we have come to expect from Maisherly Chan. I should have known what I was getting into because we already own other games that lean heavily toward the abstract - such as Hanamikoji (another game for which Maisherly provided artwork; see my review for it here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1718238/what-jenni-said-about-hanamikoji) - and I have never come to love those games the way I do others in my collection. Perhaps it is because my frustration tolerance is pretty low for repeatedly losing game after game and that’s what happens with these 2-player abstract games in my collection. I play them against my husband (who holds a PhD in statistics) and I bend and twist and strain my brain to outwit him and it doesn’t work. I just end up with a headache and feelings of self-loathing. That’s exactly what happened every time we played Shadows in Kyoto.

The game puts players in the roles of Spy vs Spy in a battle between Oniwaban agents (backed by the Japanese Shogunate or military government) and ones employed by the new government that replaced the Shogunate. It’s a great theme that wraps around the strategic gameplay well. In our household there was much speculation as to whether the designers started with the historic theme and designed a game that fit it or created a theme around an abstract game they designed first.

The components are well made and include a sturdy center board, high quality thick cards, and wooden pawns.

The gameplay for Shadows in Kyoto is deceptively straightforward. Each player places their six pawns on the six starting locations on their side of the board as they see fit, with the markings for which ones are carrying real intelligence and which ones are carrying fake intelligence facing the player, so that the opposing player cannot see the markings. To win, a player must complete one of the following objectives:

• trick the opponent into capturing three of the player’s agents carrying fake intelligence
• capture both of the agents carrying real intelligence from the opponent
• get one of their agents carrying real intelligence to the back row of the opponent

Movement is controlled, in part, by playing location cards, which allows players to move to the designated type of space, following the movement rules (move only forward, move only 1 space at a time, cannot move into a space already occupied by your own agent). Instead of playing a location card, players can also play tactic cards that trigger movement. For example, the tunnel card allows a player to move any 1 of their agents horizontally to any other space on the same row, stopped only by an encounter with another pawn.

Encounters between pawns (when a pawn of one player moves into the space of the opposing player, “attacking” it) are resolved by revealing the markings on the back of the defender’s pawn and then comparing it to the markings on the back of the attacker’s pawn (which remains visible only to the attacker). If the comparison reveals the attacker’s pawn wins the encounter (3>2, 2>1, 1>0, and 0>3), then the attacker captures the defender’s pawn. Alternatively, if the defender’s pawn wins the encounter, it stays in its location on the board with its markings revealed and the attacker moves his pawn back to the location it was in before the encounter.

To spice up the game, Shadows in Kyoto also includes Charisma and Equipment cards. These cards can be distributed to the players to provide enhanced powers or abilities that alter some aspect of the rules in favor of the player. For example, the Ayane card allows a player to return a location card to their hand after playing it instead of putting in their discard pile.

No matter which way I placed my pawns initially, my husband was able to deduce my hidden information (i.e. the markings on the back of my pawns) after just a few encounters or find a way to move one of his agents carrying real intel quickly to the back row of my board. Again and again, I tried to make some kind of strategic progress and always failed to do so. I wanted to cry. I’m pretty sure I did cry at one point.

How could something with so few components and such basic rules be so difficult? Really, that’s the beauty of the game, if you’re one for elegant logic puzzles. In this way, Shadows in Kyoto is a fantastic game that should be highly appreciated by its target audience. It’s simple to learn, plays quickly, and requires a great deal of reasoning and strategy, both in the initial placement of one’s pawns and the ensuing gameplay. And the artwork is an exquisite bonus. The game’s just not right for me though, and that’s why I’m giving it one “oui”.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Deep Water Games
Players: 2
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 20 minutes
Game type: abstract deduction
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

  We got Cities: Skylines – The Board Game  a couple of months ago and I really didn't know what to expect before my first play. Sometimes there is a game on the horizon that's all the buzz in my circles and I'm super excited to order it, get it home, and get it on the table. Other times, it's my husband who catches the fever for a game and brings it into our house. And every now and then, a publisher asks me to review a game I've never heard of and haven't built up any anticipatory excitement for yet. Such was the case with Cities: Skylines – The Board Game. The team at Kosmos sent this cooperative game my way and asked me to give it a try. It’s designed by Rustan Hakansson (other works of his I am familiar with include HexRoller and Tribes: Dawn of Humanity) and based on a video game of the same name that’s popular across multiple platforms (Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, & Nintendo Switch).

  I remember opening the box for the first time and setting everything up. The box cover art is nice but the rest of the artwork (provided by the German design studio Fiore) is easily described as adequate. We're not handing out any awards here for most beautiful game, is all I'm saying. I thumbed through the rulebook as we readied for our first game and at least that was a win - I found it to be concise and well-written. I especially liked that the rulebook author made a point to highlight that even though Cities: Skylines – The Board Game is a cooperative game where it's important to collaborate, it is up to the active player to make the decision on their turn. Way to nip that Alpha gaming in the bud!

Once my husband and I started playing the game, I quickly realized it’s very different from other games. It gives me the same feeling of zen as putting together a Stave wooden jigsaw puzzle. We’re not battling a monster or racing against the clock or trying to fend off a pandemic. We’re urban planners, carefully and thoughtfully placing building tiles into our city districts in an effort to score the most happiness (points) possible by the game’s end.  Very relaxing, yet still intellectually challenging.

The game begins with players selecting a set of game board tiles (4 unless you are playing the introductory game with just 3) and arranging them facedown. One of the tiles is flipped over (there is a $$ cost associated with flipping each tile, which is deducted from the starting city treasury funds) and development may begin. Each tile is divided up into districts, formed by the street borders, and all construction takes place within these districts. When new city game board tiles are flipped over (at checkpoints - called milestones - that may only be triggered once every district visible has a building constructed within it), land surfaces must face up against land surfaces and water must face water.

To build out the city, players they use construction cards (dealt in the beginning of the game and also drawn each turn) to put up residential, commercial, industrial, utility, service, and unique buildings.

Placing buildings can trigger increases or decreases in the city treasury; utilities (power, water, garbage); employment; happiness; and negative externalities (pollution, traffic, crime). If the placement would trigger a decrease beyond what the planners have in the treasury, the building cannot be constructed. You also cannot construct a building if it would cause any of your utilities to drop below -5, cause any of your negative externalities to increase beyond 5, or cause your employment to go out of the range of -5 to 5. And while there is no cap on happiness increases, any construction that lowers your happiness beyond -4 ends the game with a loss immediately. At the milestone checkpoints, utility shortages decrease happiness just before the happiness is transferred to the main score track and at the end of the game negative externalities do so as well. So our first consideration in construction must be how it will impact all of these measures.

Several buildings trigger effects based on having met prerequisites. For example, building a residential zone might trigger an increase in the city treasury if you already have a park constructed in the same district. Or a building a commercial zone might increase the city treasury and happiness if you have both a park and a medical clinic in the district and you can place the zone adjacent to both of them. In order to get the most benefit from these types of constructions, planners need to carefully think and rethink building placement before selecting a building site and so this is a second consideration in construction.  

When selecting residential, commercial, or industrial zones to build, there are a dozen or more tetris-like shaped tokens to choose from. Because buildings can only be placed in a district if they physically fit, and we want to maximize the number and type of buildings we can place into each district, a close examination of the shapes during selection is a third consideration in construction.

In addition to the game tiles, buildings, and construction cards, Cities: Skylines – The Board Game  includes role cards that grant special abilities to each planner, policy cards that provide a one time benefit when played, and news cards that add difficulty in the form of disadvantages. It’s recommended to leave these three card types out of your first game to keep things simple, but they definitely make the game more fun, so I’d recommend incorporating them into your subsequent games.

I want to make an important note regarding player count. The box notes that 1-4 can play Cities: Skylines – The Board Game but there’s no way I’d play this with more than 2 players total. We didn’t even attempt a 3 or 4 player game because it was easy to see it would be frustrating – just too many people to negotiate with on implementing a coordinated plan. I guess if you’re the type of person who would work on a jigsaw puzzle with 4 people at once, you might give it a try? But I’m definitely not that kind of person. As a 1 or 2 player game though, Cities: Skylines – The Board Game is great. We could all use more calm during this crazy COVID-19 pandemic and puzzle games like this one provide it.

-------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Thames and Kosmos
Players: 1-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): 1 hr
Game type: cooperative, tile placement, hand management, puzzle games, solo games
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Cities: Skylines - Cooperative City-Building Board Game from Kosmos | Based On The Hit Video Game | for 1-4 Players Ages 10+ | Develop & Manage Cities & Neighborhoods

Prostřednictvím amerického Programu ochrany mezd pro malé podniky získal uhelný průmysl v USA více než 31 milionů dolarů. Ozývají se rozhořčené hlasy z řad environmentalistů. Administrativa Donalda Trumpa podle nich využívá finanční pomoc na záchranu odvětví, které mělo potíže již před krizí.

Bankovní rada České národní banky ve čtvrtek snížila základní úrokovou sazbu o 0,75 procentního bodu na 0,25 procenta. Cílem snižování sazeb je zmírnit dopady šíření koronaviru na ekonomiku. Centrální banka to uvedla v tiskovém prohlášení.

Každá krize znamená příležitost.Takovým heslem se řídí egyptský miliardář Naguib Sawiris. Podle něj se bude ropa do roku a půl obchodovat za sto dolarů za barel. Zatímco jiní miliardáři se podílů v leteckých společnostech zbavují, Sawiris je chce nakupovat. Potenciál vidí i v turismu.

Nezaměstnanost se šíří světem podobně jako virus. Nejhorší je situace v USA. Tamní centrální banka čeká až třetinovou nezaměstnanost. Jednou z nejvíce postižených zemí v Evropě bude Španělsko, kde se může ocitnout bez práce více než pětina lidí.

Mondo Duplantis of Sweden and Renaud Lavillenie of France tied for the gold medal Sunday during a men's pole vault competition held in their own backyards.

Preventivní opatření proti nákaze covid-19 zasáhla jak firmy všech velikostí, tak živnostníky. Jenže právě osoby samostatně výdělečně činné patří podle vlády ke skupinám, které krize vyvolaná pandemií nejvíce ohrozí. Zejména pak ty, kteří mají živnost jako hlavní zdroj příjmů a nemají ji jako přivýdělek k zaměstnání. Jak je stát podpoří?

Od 1. září 2022 nebude možné provozovat kotle na tuhá paliva, které nevyhovují přísnějším emisním normám. Včasnou výměnou kotle můžete ušetřit. Nejenže snížíte náklady za topení, ale stihnete navíc využít státní dotaci na jeho pořízení. Víte, jak na to? Otestujte své znalosti.

Pokud jste se rozhodli pro změnu místa, je to jednoduché. Výpověď můžete dát kdykoli a z jakéhokoli důvodu, vlastně i bez důvodu. Naproti tomu zaměstnavatel vás může propustit jen z důvodů vyjmenovaných v zákoníku práce. Jak je to ale v případě, že jste v karanténě nebo čerpáte ošetřovné? Na tyto a další otázky odpovídá advokát Pavel Nastis.

Mohlo by se zdát, že pojišťovny budou v koronavirové době zaznamenávat zvýšený zájem o sjednání životních pojistek. Zejména kvůli krytí rizika pracovní neschopnosti, což se vztahuje i na onemocnění infekcí covid-19. Praxe je ale zatím opačná.

Well, not that much to say about October. This is the busiest time of the year at work, and this year for some reason particularly so, and I don't get much time to do anything but that.

Two running-related things. The Shadyside (that's my neighborhood in Pittsburgh) 5k was earlier this month, and I finished with a time of 20m21s, which is pretty good for a 40 year-old (6m33s/mile). This continues the recent theme of coming close to PRs I set as a 30 year-old, with some dubious excuse (in this case, I "felt sick that morning") to explain the gap, and to motivate myself to keep trying to match/beat those old times and "just lose 15 pounds" etc.. We also traveled to Kentucky, my first time there, for the Ragnar "Bourbon Chase", which event is a relay race from Louisville to Lexington, which route passes through the sites of various bourbon whiskey distilleries. William calls it the "Kentucky Bourby," which IMO should be canonical. Ragnars sound like a lot when you say it's a 200 mile relay, but that's split over 12 people, and honestly the running is not really the hard part (it's all the sleep deprivation and van logistics). Two of my legs were kind of monotonous but one was very scenic, almost "Kentucky" pastiche, with the rolling hills and perfect fences and horses and grasses. It was also cool to visit these distilleries (and e.g. Four Roses was moderately open for us at 3am), but this kind of running and sleep deprivation doesn't really set the best mood for drinking whiskey and touring the grounds (e.g. in the dark), so maybe it is not the best way to visit Kentucky's whiskey scene. Still, was a good trip.

Games-wise, I finished RAGE 2 (IMO a fine game as far as dumb shooters go, I think underrated even) and a little bullet hell roguelike called "Monolith," which I liked. This weekend I unwisely installed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (distinct from "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" and "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered"; cf. related joke) and have been saving America over and over. It's exactly what you'd expect.

I've found some time to spend on my ongoing engineering project, and made some impossible-to-undo steps (e.g. cuts into irreplaceable pieces), which is an unarguable sign of progress. This weekend I finally did one of those integration steps where I first tested a bunch of things together, and unnervingly it worked on the first try. I still have one mechanical part that I think has a pretty good chance of not working due to my naivety, in which case I will have to get creative, which is part of the fun!

Happy halloween! see you soon!

I have often been surprised how dangerous it is to cross a street in Malta, especially if there is not a pedestrian crossing. It appears that motorists among themselves have a contest to see who can scare the pedestrians most.  It is not surprising that Malta is among the countries with the highest accident rates in traffic in Europe. If the roads were in a better condition the victims would, due to possible higher speed, probably be many more.
Another thing that amazes a foreigner from northern Europe, is the constant honking. If honking were an Olympic event Malta would undoubtedly win a medal of high value. Many people I have discussed this matter with have expressed a thought that may be Maltese driving licenses are issued by Disney World or come withe the cereal packages from Scotts.
Another thing that is surprising to a foreigner is the rule that cars, that have been involved in an accident, must not be moved before the police has arrived and documented the damages even how small these are. For instance I saw two cars touch each other at Tigné Seafront in Sliema. It was only a small dent on one car. Both cars stopped traffic so that no vehicles could pass the place of the accident. This happened in rush hour. A motorcycle police arrived after about 10 minutes and marked the cars position by spraying marks on the road. It took about ten seconds. The queue, which was formed, probably reached St. Julians. But, of course, many young Maltese men were excited; there was a good reason to honk!

Becky Lynch has become the Superstar with the most total days as Raw Women’s Champion, surpassing Alexa Bliss.

An attractive rewards credit card for frequent Delta flyers. While some American Express rewards cards offer great perks, like complimentary access to its exclusive network of airport lounges, you won’t get that perk with the (lounge access costs $39 per visit). However, you will get attractive rewards rates on several types of travel-related purchases along with other valuable travel benefits. This card offers you the highest reward rate when you make purchases with Delta or spend on hotel bookings, which […]

The post Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card Review appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

A top-shelf rewards credit card with luxury travel perks. The gives you access to coveted airport lounges, which is a unique benefit that will be highly attractive to some. Only a few American Express rewards cards will get you into the 10 Centurion Lounges around the world. Additionally, the card offers a number of other travel benefits, including access to Delta Sky Clubs and a free checked bag on Delta flights. Like any credit card, it does come with some […]

The post Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card Review appeared first on The Simple Dollar.