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Behind the Music: Taylor Swift

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I TOLD those scientists they should be finding a cure for breast cancer instead of playing around with that atomic energy nonsense, but NO....

Red leader to bravo 4. The camels look a bit sus. You sure we're in the right desert?

If you think this is disgusting You should've seen what I did to the bottom half

Roco entertained the young newlyweds, by discussing his myriad venereal diseases.

ATTACK OF THE KILLER CONJUNCTIVITIS FROM THE PLANET PINK-EYE.

THAT'S WHERE WE PUT UNWANTED KIDS!!

And this is our Winter Wrap line. Same great styling, but with more coverage for protection from the elements.

Sit back and enjoy as Dillon floats through the forest.
( Photos: 4, Comments: 2 )

<span class="bold">Sponsored</span>: In the inaugural women’s competition, riders pioneered new lines with innovative tech from Samsung Galaxy.
( Photos: 1 )

The service will run between Edinburgh and Cardiff passing through Birmingham New Street

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Royal assent was granted to two right to repair bills last week that amend Canada's Copyright Act to allow the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs) if this is done for the purposes of "maintaining or repairing a product, including any related diagnosing," and "to make the program or a device in which it is embedded interoperable with any other computer program, device or component." The pair of bills allow device owners to not only repair their own stuff regardless of how a program is written to prevent such non-OEM measures, but said owners can also make their devices work with third-party components without needing to go through the manufacturer to do so. Bills C-244 (repairability) and C-294 (interoperability) go a long way toward advancing the right to repair in Canada and, as iFixit pointed out, are the first federal laws anywhere that address how TPMs restrict the right to repair -- but they're hardly final. TPMs can take a number of forms, from simple administrative passwords to encryption, registration keys, or even the need for a physical object like a USB dongle to unlock access to copyrighted components of a device's software. Most commercially manufactured devices with proprietary embedded software include some form of TPM, and neither C-244 nor C-294 place any restrictions on the use of such measures by manufacturers. As iFixit points out, neither Copyright Act amendments do anything to expand access to the tools needed to circumvent TPMs. That puts Canadians in a similar position to US repair advocates, who in 2021 saw the US Copyright Office loosen DMCA restrictions to allow limited repairs of some devices despite TPMs, but without allowing access to the tools needed to do so. [...] Canadian Repair Coalition co-founder Anthony Rosborough said last week that the new repairability and interoperability rules represent considerable progress, but like similar changes in the US, don't actually amount to much without the right to distribute tools. "New regulations are needed that require manufacturers and vendors to ensure that products and devices are designed with accessibility of repairs in mind," Rosborough wrote in an op-ed last week. "Businesses need to be able to carry out their work without the fear of infringing various intellectual property rights."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Paul Kinlan, who leads the Chrome and the Open Web Developer Relations team at Google, asks and answers the question (with a no.): Frameworks are abstractions over a platform designed for people and teams to accelerate their teams new work and maintenance while improving the consistency and quality of the projects. They also frequently force a certain type of structure and architecture to your code base. This isn't a bad thing, team productivity is an important aspect of any software. I'm of the belief that software development is entering a radical shift that is currently driven by agents like Replit's and there is a world where a person never actually has to manipulate code directly anymore. As I was making broad and sweeping changes to the functionality of the applications by throwing the Agent a couple of prompts here and there, the software didn't seem to care that there was repetition in the code across multiple views, it didn't care about shared logic, extensibility or inheritability of components... it just implemented what it needed to do and it did it as vanilla as it could. I was just left wondering if there will be a need for frameworks in the future? Do the architecture patterns we've learnt over the years matter? Will new patterns for software architecture appear that favour LLM management?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Rainey: Engineers are currently debugging why the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which is 15 billions miles away, turned off its main radio and switched to a backup radio that hasn't been used in over forty years! I've had some tricky debugging issues in the past, including finding compiler bugs and debugging code with no debugger that had been burnt into prom packs for terminals, however I have huge admiration for the engineers maintaining the operation of Voyager 1. Recently they sent a command to the craft that caused it to shut off its main radio transmitter, seemingly in an effort to preserve power and protect from faults. This prompted it to switch over to the backup radio transmitter, that is lower power. Now they have regained communication they are trying to determine the cause on hardware that is nearly 50 years old. Any communication takes days. When you think you have a difficult issue to debug, spare a thought for this team.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mysterious metal group Sleep Token are one of three headliners announced for Download festival.

For many Welsh speakers, Eryri and Yr Wyddfa are the names they have used all along.

The health secretary has ordered officials to review the costs for the NHS of implementing changes in the law.

1. Year-long action plan to combat diabetes to be launched on World Diabetes Day  The Hindu
2. World Diabetes Day 2024  PIB
3. World Diabetes Day: Why diabetes is more than abnormal blood sugar level  The Times of India
4. World Diabetes Day 2024: 10 Foods That Are Secretly Increasing Your Risk Of Diabetes  NDTV
5. World Diabetes Day 2024: 5 ways to detect diabetes quickly  Health shots

1. 'I have found ways...': Ravichandran Ashwin gives an insight on his mind games with Steve Smith  The Times of India
2. 'I have figured out Steve Smith': R Ashwin tries to get inside Australia star's head ahead of India's series opener  Hindustan Times
3. 'His Time At Delhi Capitals...': R Ashwin Reveals How He Broke Steve Smith's Sound Game Plans  News18
4. BGT 2024-25: Ashwin says over the years he found ways to break Smith's 'sound game plans'  Daijiworld.com
5. I've found ways and means to break it down: Ashwin on Smith's batting  The Hindu

1. Global carbon market gets green signal at COP29 under Paris Agreement's Article 6  The Hindu
2. Why India and China have pushed against climate change-related trade measures at COP29  The Indian Express
3. COP29: G77, China agree to use new NCQG draft text as basis for finance negotiations  The New Indian Express
4. Video | UN Scientists Warn Of 'Rising Emissions' Worldwide  NDTV
5. COP29 gets momentum with consensus on creation of carbon credits standards, India wants to conclude work  The Times of India

Encouraging pre-kindergarten children to write affords teachers the opportunity to provide scaffolds to improve spelling development. Teachers, however, tend to provide more support than necessary to guide children's early spelling, which may stifle children's opportunities to engage in important thinking that helps them to grow in their literacy knowledge.

Filed under: Europe, Austria, News

Last night's live production of The Sound of Music on NBC got more flak than Maria did for being an unsolvable problem nun. The acting was bad, the costumes St. Pauli-esque and the mountains... gasp! They were fake!

No. It's all wrong. Those fake mountains.The captain is a vampire. And there's only one Julie Andrews. Two minutes was enough #SoundofMusic

- Paola (@Paopalinaa) December 6, 2013

But there was one winner in last night's performance: the city of Salzburg, Austria. Home of the Von Trapps, setting of the original movie and now site of thousands of Edelweiss-blasting tour buses and gazebo-worshipping 16-going-on-17-year-olds, Salzburg enjoyed a flurry of love last night.

Continue reading And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is...

And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is... originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 06 Dec 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: North America, United States, Hotels and Accommodations

Top reasons to visit San Diego right now:

• it's warm and you're not
• former mayor Bob Filner is under house arrest, so there's less of a chance you'll get harassed
• you want to ice skate outside but don't like the cold

Continue reading Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate

Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, United States

Vineyards and ziplines have long been used to attract tourist dollars for destinations that, well, could use a little help:

• Regardless of the area's suitability for growing grapes, plop down a vineyard or winery and travelers will come for a taste and buy a sympathy bottle (pro tip: go for the ice wine as it's harder to mess up)
• Ski resorts looking to attract off-season dollars or stale attractions looking to draw media coverage and visitors hook up a zipline

So really, the 1,800-foot Pinot Express zipline at Margarita Adventures, which debuted recently at the Santa Margarita Ranch in the Paso Robles wine country on California's Central Coast, is the travel industry's destiny.

Continue reading Vineyard and Zipline Trends Collide at the Pinot Express

Vineyard and Zipline Trends Collide at the Pinot Express originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 11 Dec 2013 16:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: North America, United States

Two weeks ago, the Transportation Security Administration announced that it would began allowing travelers to apply for its PreCheck program, "an expedited screening process" through airport security.

Curiously though, the only airport in the country where travelers could complete the program's required background interview was Indianapolis International Airport. That changed today when TSA opened three enrollment centers in the Washington, DC area. Interestingly, none of them are at DC-area airports. Nor are any of them in DC itself.

Continue reading Sorry Indianapolis, You're No Longer the Sole Location Offering TSA PreCheck Enrollment Background Checks

Sorry Indianapolis, You're No Longer the Sole Location Offering TSA PreCheck Enrollment Background Checks originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Arts and Culture, North America, United States

Joanne and Gary, rival travel agents compete for their industry's top honor, the Globel Prize, while trying to address their clients' impossible demands in an Off-Broadway comedy that debuts this week, "Craving for Travel."

The 85-minute, two-actor, 30-character comedy was commissioned and produced by Jim Strong, president of the Dallas-based Strong Travel Services travel agency.

"Travel agents are always asked to do the impossible, and this play shows how that is done, from finding the impossible rooms to making dreams come true," Strong told the "Dallas Morning News." "I decided to bring it to life on stage as a comedy in New York."

From "Craving for Travel's" press release:

With their reputations on the line, travel agents Joanne and Gary will tackle any request, no matter how impossible, and any client, no matter how unreasonable. Full of overzealous travelers, overbooked flights, and hoteliers who are just over it, Craving for Travel reminds us why we travel-and everything that can happen when we do.

"Craving for Travel" opens Thursday at the Peter J. Sharp Theater, where it'll run through Feb. 9. Tickets are $32.50 and $49. They can be purchased at CravingForTravel.com, 212-279-4200 or the Ticket Central Box Office (416 W. 42nd St., 12-8 p.m. daily). More than half of the shows are already sold out.

Continue reading Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible

Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 07 Jan 2014 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Asia, Japan, Airlines, News

Japan Airlines grounded a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft today "after detecting smoke or gases that may have come from faults with the main battery," according to the BBC.

Last year, all 787s were grounded for three months, CBS reports, after a "fire in a lithium ion battery aboard a Japan Airlines 787 parked at Boston's Logan International Airport. That was followed nine days later by another battery incident that forced an emergency landing in Japan by an All Nippon Airways 787.

Continue reading Another Boeing 787 Dreamliner Has a Battery Problem

Another Boeing 787 Dreamliner Has a Battery Problem originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Donald Trump’s policies risk making the US dollar a source of global instability Expert comment LToremark 13 November 2024

Although Trump favours a weaker exchange rate, his policies are likely to have the opposite effect. The risk is that the US dollar could become too strong, which is bad news for the global economy.

President-elect Donald Trump has a dollar problem. In recent months he has shown a clear preference for a weaker exchange rate to support the competitiveness of US exports and help reduce the US trade deficit. And yet, as the market has sensed since the US election, the much more likely outcome is that his policies end up strengthening the greenback. The risk is that the US dollar – which is expensive already – becomes more obviously overvalued, and this could increase the risk of global financial instability. 

The dollar has been on a rollercoaster ride in the past few decades. From 2002 until 2011, for example, the dollar weakened by around 30 per cent in inflation-adjusted, trade-weighted terms, according to BIS data. Yet in the years since 2011, the dollar has strengthened and is now at a more appreciated level than at any time since 1985.

What shapes this rollercoaster, broadly speaking, is the global balance of economic vitality: when the US economy gains momentum relative to the rest of the world, the dollar tends to strengthen; and vice versa. 

After China joined the WTO in 2001, the balance of economic vitality shifted decisively away from the US, in favour of China and other emerging economies. This was the decade of the commodity boom: the longest, biggest peacetime increase in commodity prices in nearly 200 years during which a sustained surge in China’s economy supported GDP growth across the developing world. The dollar weakened as a result.

But after 2011, a combination of factors – including the eurozone crisis and its aftermath, together with the sagging of the Chinese economy – tipped the balance of economic vitality back in favour of the US. The dollar strengthened once again.

And since both the European and Chinese economies remain very fragile, the balance of economic vitality seems likely to keep favouring the US dollar.

Two more considerations also point to a stronger US dollar under a second Trump administration.

The first is the exchange rate implications of Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports. When the US imposes tariffs on a trading partner, the foreign exchange market tends to sell that trading partner’s currency, forcing it to weaken to offset the dollar-price increase induced by the tariff. This helps explain why the Chinese renminbi depreciated by some 10 per cent in 2018 after Trump began imposing trade restrictions on China in January of that year. 

More widespread tariffs on a whole range of US trading partners should therefore strengthen the dollar more broadly.

A stronger dollar should also result from the macroeconomic framework Trump seems likely to deliver. He will certainly want to extend his 2017 tax cuts beyond 2025 when they are currently due to expire, so a more sustained loosening of US fiscal policy seems likely. Since boosting the US economy will create inflationary pressure, the market will expect interest rates to end up higher than they might otherwise be. The resulting combination of looser fiscal and tighter monetary policy tends to be a stronger currency.

The dollar probably has a fair amount of room to keep going up, since it is not obviously overvalued just yet. The US current account deficit – the broadest measure of a country’s trade deficit, and a rough but useful measure of financial vulnerability – was a little over 3 per cent of GDP last year. 

This is around half the level it reached in 2006, just before the 2008 global financial crisis, meaning the risks arising from an overvalued dollar may be for the latter part of Trump’s second presidency.

A strengthening dollar is also not great news for the rest of the world economy. A strong dollar tends to depress global trade growth, restrict developing countries’ access to international capital markets, and make it more difficult for countries whose currencies will be weakening to keep inflation under control.

If and when the dollar becomes unsustainably expensive, a further problem will present itself: how to deal with an overvalued currency without risking a lot of financial dislocation.

This problem last occurred in early 1985, when the dollar was universally reckoned to be dangerously dear. At that time the US was able to call on trading partners who depended on the US security umbrella – the UK, Germany, France and Japan – to negotiate the ‘Plaza Accord’, which coordinated a series of interventions in the foreign exchange market that allowed the dollar to decline in a measured way.  

It is virtually unimaginable that something similar could be negotiated today, not least because Chinese policymakers believe that the post-Plaza strengthening of the yen in the late 1980s led to an economic disaster for Japan. Beijing will not play ball.

Without much scope for a negotiated decline in the dollar, more chaotic alternatives seem likely. 

One is that the market decides suddenly that it no longer has an appetite for expensive dollar-denominated assets, and this might lead to a messy adjustment in the foreign exchange market. 

Implications of the new US presidency: what awaits Ukraine? 19 November 2024 — 2:00PM TO 3:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 13 November 2024 Online

After 1000 days of Kyiv’s resistance, experts discuss how to secure Ukraine’s and Europe’s future.   

The 19 November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

The 19^th November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

Having been given time to adapt, largely due to the slow release of Western military aid, the Russian army is pressing home its advantage. Along the entire eastern frontline, the Russians are simultaneously bombarding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and cities. With the election of Donald Trump in the US, it seems to many that the tide has turned definitively in Putin’s favour at the political, as well as the military, level.

Trump’s declared ambition to resolve the war in 24 hours implies a Russian-American deal, cutting Kyiv out of negotiations. Such an ‘agreement’ would endanger the country’s future and expose the rest of Europe.

This webinar will cover:

• Ukraine’s strategy of resistance in the context of Trump’s White House.
• The immediate risks during the transition period.
• How Kyiv sees Europe’s role in the new geopolitical environment. Will Kyiv completely give up on the US?
• The extent to which Germany, Ukraine’s second largest donor, can step in.  

Here's an early look at how the Rockies' 25-man roster could shape up on Opening Day.

The next five weeks will see lots of shuffling on Major League rosters. Here are the most intriguing positional battles on each of the 30 MLB clubs.

The countdown to pitchers and catchers reporting is down to single digits for all 30 MLB clubs, but as exciting as it is to see the return of Major League stars, it's also a time to dream about the next wave of baseball talent.

The Blue Jays will start determining who their catcher of the future will be when Danny Jansen and Reese McGuire battle it out behind the plate this spring.

The Blue Jays spent the past two years clinging to the past. Now, they're embracing the future.

The next five weeks will see lots of shuffling on Major League rosters. Here are the most intriguing positional battles on each of the 30 MLB clubs.