Hear about travel to The Island of Samos in Greece and the vicinity as the Amateur Traveler talks to Dan from the Zipping Around the World podcast about this part of the Greek Islands. 

Hear about travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the Amateur Traveler talks to Keri Hedrick from ourglobetrotters.com and familytravel-middleeast.com about her adopted country.

Hear about travel to Phoenix, Arizona as the Amateur Traveler talks to Cindy Carlsson about Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun.

Hear about a Route 66 road trip as the Amateur Traveler talks to Austin Coop from 2laneamerica.com and guidedroute66tours.com about the Mother Road.

Hear about travel to the Island of Bali in Indonesia as the Amateur Traveler talks to David Brodie from TravelIn10.com about a recent family trip to this popular tropical destination.

Hear about travel to Curaçao as the Amateur Traveler talks to Wendy Blumenstein-Elliott from adventurousretirement.com about her favorite Caribbean island.

Hear about a cruise on the Danube, Main and Rhine Rivers from Budapest to Amsterdam as the Amateur Traveler talks again to travel writer Mark Baker.

Hear about travel to the Le Marche Region of Italy as the Amateur Traveler talks to Chantelle and Giovanni from theitalianontour.com about this off the beaten path destination.

Hear about travel to Berlin as the Amateur Traveler talks to Dan Noll and Audrey Scott from uncorneredmarket.com about the city they now call home.

Hear about travel to Northern Pakistan and the  Karakoram Highway as the Amateur Traveler talks to David Harden from travelwornsatchel.com about his road trip in this remote and beautiful country.

Hear about walking the South Downs Way in England as the Amateur Traveler talks to Aaron Millar about this week-long trek.

The World Health Organization is once again facing increased scrutiny and outrage. The renewed public outcry is not, however, directed at the shoddy initial response to the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic, instead coming as a result of unsettling details recently discovered in the organization’s child and adolescent sexual education guidelines. Set forth by global health…

The post WHO Comes Under Fire for Saying Kids Under 4 Should Be Taught About ‘Early Childhood Masturbation’ appeared first on The Western Journal.

In 1971, a man named Gregory Harris was murdered. Richard Phillips, an autoworker, was convicted of the crime and spent the next 45 years in prison. The problem? Phillips was innocent. Instead, it was the star witness during the trial who framed Phillips, and it took his alleged partner-in-crime, Richard Polombo, decades to admit that…

The post He Spent 45 Years in Prison for Crime He Didn’t Commit, Turned to Art as His Escape appeared first on The Western Journal.

TL;DR: Get trained in cybersecurity with The Ultimate 2020 White Hat Hacker Certification Bundle for $39.90, a 97% as of May 9.

When you think of superheroes, you probably picture capes and some sort of otherworldly powers. But in the digital world, superheroes are actually normal people like you and me. They just happen to know a thing or two about stopping cybercriminals in their tracks.

These superheroes are in short supply across the world. In fact, there are over half a million cybersecurity job openings in the U.S. alone. That just means this could be your chance to swoop in, superhero style, and save the day. But first things first, you need to learn the ropes and the Ultimate 2020 White Hat Hacker Certification Bundle is a great place to start. Read more...

Potential Distributed Reading Group on Distributed Systems — for some folks, this will be a great time to start reading groups to work through papers. You’ll never get a time with less physical distraction. (Just remember to ration your socials time or you and your time will vanish into the maelstrom.) Jitsi Meet — open […]

The Science of Happiness — free enrolment in Berkeley’s MOOC to teach positive psychology. Learn science-based principles and practices for a happy, meaningful life. The New Business of AI (A16Z) — many AI companies have: Lower gross margins due to heavy cloud infrastructure usage and ongoing human support; Scaling challenges due to the thorny problem […]

The Suddenly Remote Playbook — I just want to note that if you have to look after kids when you’re supposed to be working, you’re not working from home. Not everyone’s getting a glorious introduction to the delights of working from home. taichi — a programming language designed for high-performance computer graphics. It is deeply […]

Popcorn Linux — exploring how to improve the programmability of emerging heterogeneous hardware, in particular, those with Instruction Set Architecture (ISA)-diverse cores, from node-scale (e.g., Xeon/Xeon-Phi, ARM/x86, CPU/GPU/FPGAs) to rack-scale (e.g., Scale-out processors, Firebox, The Machine), in both native and virtualized settings. Additionally, the project is exploring how to automatically compile/synthesize/execute code on ISA-heterogeneous hardware. […]

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, who reported 81 new cases of the disease in her daily update, says there are 4,020 recovered and 1,963 active cases.

A very Happy Passover and Easter to all our subscribers. This week: Uncertainties prevent post-pandemic planning Democrats postpone convention Wisconsin supreme court race is on for Tuesday Coronavirus pandemic: Americans are just now getting used to the new realities of social distancing and work (or study) from-home-if-at-all. But what the nation needs next is a […]

The post The Briefing, Vol. VIII Issue 14 appeared first on Conservative Intelligence Briefing.

Rafael Nadal insists all players, including Novak Djokovic, will need to take a coronavirus vaccine should one become available.

Andy Robertson admits he would "love" the chance to play for Scottish giants Celtic one day.

The Vuelta a Espana organisers have confirmed that a race already rescheduled and shortened would also now cut its foray into neighbouring Portugal from the 2020 itinerary.

Former England opener Alex Hales is confident he has matured as a player and believes he is ready to make a return to international cricket.

It isn’t surprising that former Springbok tighthead Richard Bands is remembered mainly for one bullocking run for the Springboks in Dunedin in 2003.

India top-order batsman Rohit Sharma is hopeful their tour to Australia at the end of 2020 is allowed to proceed.

France defender Samuel Umtiti has picked up a calf injury in just the second session since Barcelona returned to training from the cornonavirus quarantine.

Salomon Rondon says he was on his way to joining Manchester United in January only for Dalian Professional to block the move.

Danny Jordaan says it would be massively complicated to ensure the safety of supporters should the PSL return while Covid-19 is still prevalent in South Africa.

Police in Haiti are investigating allegations that the president of the national football federation raped teenage girls.

Australia's Super Rugby competition is planning for an early July return, a spokesman has said.

Six-time world champion Lewis Hamilton has said he feels "fresher than ever" following an unexpected break from Formula One.

The South African Football Association has confirmed the appointment of advocate Tebogo Motlanthe as new acting CEO.

Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper believes Major League Baseball should relax its "dumb" rule preventing top players from competing in the Olympics.

AC Milan have revealed that none of their first-team footballers or staff were positive for coronavirus.

The genial young administrator with a burgeoning reputation chuckles when it's pointed out to him that he can't seem to shake off 'working' for some of South Africa's biggest businessmen.

Including a shoulder-brush with a livid Steve Waugh, Rob Houwing remembers witnessing SA's heroic finish to an otherwise stormy 2001/02 Australian tour.

Former Proteas head coach Ray Jennings is adamant Aiden Markram should be chosen as Faf du Plessis' replacement as captain of the Test team.

Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane says the premature return of football, even behind closed doors, poses a number of potential problems.

NZ Rugby CEO Mark Robinson says there is still no clarity on the prospects for Test rugby in 2020, but said they will explore every avenue.

Most Realtors® Don’t Expect Steep Price Declines in...

A Sharp Intake Of Breath Synopsis A Sharp Intake Of Breath was a situation comedy television series produced by ITV that premiered in February of 1978. Created by Ronnie Taylor A Sharp Intake Of Breath followed the story of Peter Barnes (played by David Jason – Only Fools And Horses), an ordinary man who made […]

February 20, 2020 (New York, NY) –For the first time, eMarketer is estimating the number of people who watch Twitch on a regular basis in its latest forecast.  Twitch hosts streaming […]

I tell travel stories for a living. I do this because I can’t NOT tell travel stories — every experience I have is shaped in the moment and waits in anticipation to shoot out of my fingertips. And I live to share those stories with an audience. As humans, we’re hard-wired to be influenced by …

45 Funny, Heartfelt, Unforgettable Travel Stories Read More »

The post 45 Funny, Heartfelt, Unforgettable Travel Stories appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

Introducing Instapaper 4.0 for iPad and iPhone

The lede here is that my pal, Marco, has just released the stellar new 4.0 version of his Instapaper suite.

This is fantastic news, and–as if you needed one more of Marco’s beta testers to say so–I do sincerely hope you’ll mark the occasion (and support his hard work) by purchasing the Instapaper iOS app(s). I promise you’ll be treating yourself to a massive update to an already excellent product.

Now, it’s fortunate and appropriate that you’ll be hearing this advice at length from a lot of people this week. Because, if it’s not already obvious, Marco’s little app (and its associated services) enjoys a rabid fanbase of sundry paragraph cultists who are as eager as I am to spread the word; and, yes, we do want you to join the Reading Nerd cult.

But, I also want to mark the occasion by adding a few thoughts on exactly what Instapaper has done, and continues to do, for me. (As you may already know, I’m a big Marco fan.)

Thing is, I want to tell you how Marco has made a magical machine for people who have decided to read.

Long-Time Fan

For years, Instapaper has been one of the best made, most used, and most beloved apps in my iOS ecosystem. It’s always lived on my iPhone’s home page, and, as you can surmise, that’s because I use Instapaper a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Specifically, I use Instapaper a lot because it helps me do four things extremely well. Four things that work together to make my life a little better.

In that typically annoying mixed order I can’t seem to stop doing, here goes.

2. Deciding WHEN to read

Second, and most obviously, I use Instapaper maybe five to ten times a day to catch up on my reading. Which is great. This is what Instapaper is actually for, right? You read stuff.

Long articles, smaller features, short books, big piles of documentation, and really just anything that I would like to read…later. More saliently, these are things that I have decided to read. This decision part’s important, but more on that in a couple minutes.

But, how does all this “stuff” I’ve decided to read get in to Instapaper?

1. Deciding WHAT to read

See, this is the really important first part. Because as much as I use Instapaper for all manner of reading, its use as an ephemeral destination for mostly ephemeral content wouldn’t be nearly so useful if I didn’t have so many ways to collect all that stuff. So, that flexibility in collecting material is where I end up using some form of Instapaper dozens of times each day.

Examples?

I have a bookmarklet for adding items to Instapaper in 4 browsers on 7 devices. I have (and use the hell out of) the “Send to Instapaper” services that are built in to everything from Google Reader to Reeder to Flipboard to Instacast to Tweetbot to Zite to you name it. I can automate in or out of Instapaper with If This Then That, I can email items directly to Instapaper–hell, I can even just copy a URL from iOS Safari, and paste it directly into the motherscratching Instapaper app.

Suffice it to say, there are many ways to get “stuff” into Instapaper. E.g.:

But, that banner dump only tells part of the story.

Yes, a big part of this is about ubiquity and ease-of-use. But, the practical result is that all those little entrees to Instapaper are available to me everywhere I might need them, and they each represent a single little click that silently adds an item of “stuff” to my Instapaper pile.

Each button is one more simple opportunity for me to decide to read.

3. Deciding WHERE to read

Now, the third part of this magic is less immediately obvious, not least because the reading experience of the Instapaper iOS apps is, for my own purposes, perfect. But, there’s more.

Because, all that support for getting stuff into Instapaper is mirrored by an endless number of ways to get stuff back out. To, in fact, read. That thing I decided to read is now everywhere.

However I ended up deciding to read something, seconds after that *click*, the real magic starts happening, and–through whatever inscrutable black art and transmogrification is happening inside the fearsome celestial engine Marco has made–that decision to read is expressed in the most elegant of results and in a startlingly broad variety of convenient places.

It’s readable on a website; it’s readable on an iPhone, and 2 iPads; it’s readable on a Kindle 3; it’s readable on the crazy number of apps and services that display Instapaper items. And, it’s even preserved for posterity in my private Pinboard archive.

So, for practical purposes, this stuff that I’ve decided to read can now go whooshing through a network of customized tubes, and gently land practically anywhere that well-formed bits may reside.

4. Just…Deciding to Read

I know most of you know these things. I know you’re familiar with the many “Features and Benefits” of Instapaper. And, I even know that most of you reading this are probably already using Instapaper–perhaps even to read this very article.

So, the point here is not simply that Instapaper is flexible, idiot-proof, and sanity-savingly redundant. Although it is all those things and many more.

The point is that my life always gets better when I decide to read things–and then actually read those things I decided to read. This is not a trivial point.

We’re all busy, and we’re all bombarded with 10,000 potential calls on our attention every day. Some days, we handle that better than others. Some days, we don’t handle it all.

All I know, is that, throughout my life, deciding to read has made that life better.

It made my life better at 7 with Henry Huggins. It made my life better at 16 with Slaughterhouse-Five. It made my life better at 20 with Absalom, Absalom!. And, it made my life way better at 25 with A Confederacy of Dunces (cf.).

And, now, for the past few years–following over a decade during which I read way more href tags than actual prose paragraphs–my life has gotten better, in part, due to Instapaper. I’ve finally gotten my hands around this “too much stuff” issue, at least insofar as it relates to words of theoretical interest. Now, I know where it goes. It goes into Instapaper.

Because, now? Yeah. Twenty-some years after a college career sucking down over 1,000 pages a week, I am finally returning to reading a lot more. Because, I am deciding to read a lot more. Instapaper means there’s no excuse for not reading a lot more. Period.

How about you?

What Are YOU Deciding?

When you’re in line at the ATM or the professional sporting event, what do you do?

If you’re like a lot of people, you hit your mobile device like a pigeon on a goddamned pellet. Then, you decide what happens.

You can decide to throw birds at pigs. You can decide to check in on which strangers are pretending to like you today. You may even decide to see what you would look like if you were really fat.

Thing is, you could also decide to read. Just for a couple minutes. Maybe more. Maybe less. Who knows. It’s your decision.

A Nudge Towards “Better”

But, if you have followed the circuitous skeins of yarn comprising this little sweater you’ve been reading, it comes down to this:

If you’ve decided that you want to read, Marco’s app will really help you. He’s removed any phony barriers you’ve built about “not having time” or “not having it with you” or “not knowing where to put it.” There are no excuses, apart from the superficial animated ones you’ve constructed out of cartoon birds.

As for me? In the last week alone, I decided to read a lot of things in Instapaper. A small sampling:

I decided to read about an American family’s educational experiment in Russia.

I decided to read about what Heidegger means by Being-in-the-World.

I decided to read about why toasters are so bad.

I decided to read about responsive web design.

I decided to read about why Charlie Kaufman wrote Being John Malkovich.

I decided to read about how Open Data could make San Francisco Public Transportation better.

I decided to read about how John Siracusa remembers Steve Jobs.

I decided, and then I read. I read, and I read.

So, thanks, Marco. You’ve made my life better by making it easier to decide to read. Then, you made it way easier to do the actual reading.

And, to you–the kind readers-of-prose-paragraphs who were inexplicably patient enough to decide to read this long article–please consider supporting Marco’s work.

Please get an account at Instapaper and, if you have an iOS dingus, please do buy the Instapaper app.

In addition to having exquisite taste in app icons and a lovely speaking voice, Marco’s just a very good human. And, good humans more than deserve our support.

Buy Instapaper 4.0 by Marco Arment.

The following article, BREAKING: 43-Yr-Old Father Of 9, Dollar Store Sec Guard, Shot DEAD While Allegedly Trying To Enforce MI Gov Whitmer’s Face Covering Exec Order, was first published on 100PercentFedUp.com.

Will the mainstream media report about the senseless death of a 43-year-old father of nine, who would have been alive today if it were not for VP wannabe, Gretchen Whitmer's executive order that forced him to respond to a customer not wearing a face mask? 

Continue reading: BREAKING: 43-Yr-Old Father Of 9, Dollar Store Sec Guard, Shot DEAD While Allegedly Trying To Enforce MI Gov Whitmer’s Face Covering Exec Order ...

Telomeres are specific nucleoprotein structures that are located at the ends of linear eukaryotic chromosomes and play crucial roles in genomic stability. Telomere DNA consists of simple repeats of a short G-rich sequence: TTAGGG in mammals and TTTAGGG in most plants. In recent years, the mammalian telomeric G-rich repeats have been shown to form G-quadruplex (G4) structures, which are crucial for modulating telomere functions. Surprisingly, even though plant telomeres are essential for plant growth, development, and environmental adaptions, only few reports exist on plant telomeric G4 DNA (pTG4). Here, using bulk and single-molecule assays, including CD spectroscopy, and single-molecule FRET approaches, we comprehensively characterized the structure and dynamics of a typical plant telomeric sequence, d[GGG(TTTAGGG)3]. We found that this sequence can fold into mixed G4s in potassium, including parallel and antiparallel structures. We also directly detected intermediate dynamic transitions, including G-hairpin, parallel G-triplex, and antiparallel G-triplex structures. Moreover, we observed that pTG4 is unfolded by the AtRecQ2 helicase but not by AtRecQ3. The results of our work shed light on our understanding about the existence, topological structures, stability, intermediates, unwinding, and functions of pTG4.

Prostate cancer (PCa) cells heavily rely on an active androgen receptor (AR) pathway for their survival. Enzalutamide (MDV3100) is a second-generation antiandrogenic drug that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2012 to treat patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). However, emergence of resistance against this drug is inevitable, and it has been a major challenge to develop interventions that help manage enzalutamide-resistant CRPC. Erythropoietin-producing human hepatocellular (Eph) receptors are targeted by ephrin protein ligands and have a broad range of functions. Increasing evidence indicates that this signaling pathway plays an important role in tumorigenesis. Overexpression of EPH receptor B4 (EPHB4) has been observed in multiple types of cancer, being closely associated with proliferation, invasion, and metastasis of tumors. Here, using RNA-Seq analyses of clinical and preclinical samples, along with several biochemical and molecular methods, we report that enzalutamide-resistant PCa requires an active EPHB4 pathway that supports drug resistance of this tumor type. Using a small kinase inhibitor and RNAi-based gene silencing to disrupt EPHB4 activity, we found that these disruptions re-sensitize enzalutamide-resistant PCa to the drug both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, we found that EPHB4 stimulates the AR by inducing proto-oncogene c-Myc (c-Myc) expression. Taken together, these results provide critical insight into the mechanism of enzalutamide resistance in PCa, potentially offering a therapeutic avenue for enhancing the efficacy of enzalutamide to better manage this common malignancy.

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Abdul Rahman Alageli, Associate Fellow, MENA Programme, Chatham House
Emaddedin Badi, Non-Resident Scholar, Middle East Institute
Tim Eaton, Senior Research Fellow, MENA Programme Chatham House
Valerie Stocker, Independent Researcher

17 March 2020

This paper explores armed group–community relations in Libya and the sources of revenue that have allowed armed groups to grow in power and influence. It draws out the implications for policy and identifies options for mitigating conflict dynamics.