The poster to the left hangs on the wall of my office. Can you figure out the pattern to the sequence? Now you can estimate the size of the nth entry? John Horton Conway died yesterday, a victim of Covid-19. His unique mathematical style combined brilliance and playfulness in equal measure. I came across his […]

Revisit what it’s like to run a PDP-10 and be eaten by a grue

Source code for seminal adventure game Zork, dating back to 1977 and recovered from MIT tapes, was published this week on GitHub.…

Virus knocks hackers online: Show will try going virtual amid pandemic

Annual Las Vegas hacker gathering DEF CON has officially called off its physical conference for this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.…

Although CEACAM1 (CC1) glycoprotein resides at the interface of immune liver injury and metabolic homeostasis, its role in orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) remains elusive. We aimed to determine whether/how CEACAM1 signaling may affect hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) and OLT outcomes. In the mouse, donor liver CC1 null mutation augmented IRI-OLT (CC1-KO→WT) by enhancing ROS expression and HMGB1 translocation during cold storage, data supported by in vitro studies where hepatic flush from CC1-deficient livers enhanced macrophage activation in bone marrow–derived macrophage cultures. Although hepatic CC1 deficiency augmented cold stress–triggered ASK1/p-p38 upregulation, adjunctive ASK1 inhibition alleviated IRI and improved OLT survival by suppressing p-p38 upregulation, ROS induction, and HMGB1 translocation (CC1-KO→WT), whereas ASK1 silencing (siRNA) promoted cytoprotection in cold-stressed and damage-prone CC1-deficient hepatocyte cultures. Consistent with mouse data, CEACAM1 expression in 60 human donor liver biopsies correlated negatively with activation of the ASK1/p-p38 axis, whereas low CC1 levels associated with increased ROS and HMGB1 translocation, enhanced innate and adaptive immune responses, and inferior early OLT function. Notably, reduced donor liver CEACAM1 expression was identified as one of the independent predictors for early allograft dysfunction (EAD) in human OLT patients. Thus, as a checkpoint regulator of IR stress and sterile inflammation, CEACAM1 may be considered as a denominator of donor hepatic tissue quality, and a target for therapeutic modulation in OLT recipients.

Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) is strikingly upregulated in many types of cancer, and there is great interest in applying inhibitors of HIF as anticancer therapeutics. The most advanced of these are small molecules that target the HIF-2 isoform through binding the PAS-B domain of HIF-2α. These molecules are undergoing clinical trials with promising results in renal and other cancers where HIF-2 is considered to be driving growth. Nevertheless, a central question remains as to whether such inhibitors affect physiological responses to hypoxia at relevant doses. Here, we show that pharmacological HIF-2α inhibition with PT2385, at doses similar to those reported to inhibit tumor growth, rapidly impaired ventilatory responses to hypoxia, abrogating both ventilatory acclimatization and carotid body cell proliferative responses to sustained hypoxia. Mice carrying a HIF-2α PAS-B S305M mutation that disrupts PT2385 binding, but not dimerization with HIF-1β, did not respond to PT2385, indicating that these effects are on-target. Furthermore, the finding of a hypomorphic ventilatory phenotype in untreated HIF-2α S305M mutant mice suggests a function for the HIF-2α PAS-B domain beyond heterodimerization with HIF-1β. Although PT2385 was well tolerated, the findings indicate the need for caution in patients who are dependent on hypoxic ventilatory drive.

Yes, a cancellation

Yes, a postponed con

Yes, both

No I haven't had any plans altered

While the pandemic has been chipping away at the furry convention scene, other furs have stepped forward to try and give those in the community events to look forward to over the now dormant weekends. This had started with a group of Furnal Equinox members creating a digital replacement for their late March convention called Keep Calm and Carry Con - Furnal Isolation. More have started to spring up this spring.

They can have internet dealers dens, streaming dance competitions, and other staples that conventions are known for. Accessible from the safety of your own home.

Below is a comprehensive list of conventions. Last updated May 2nd, 2020 12:18 ET.

Please feel free to place any not listed here in the comments below and we will look into adding it if it appears legitimate.

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As governments restrict gatherings of people, furry conventions are being postponed or canceled. Here's a quick run down of events in April, May, and June and their status as of May 5 17:28 EDT (UTC-4) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic - updates to come.

A new section has been added for past events impacted for historical purposes.

Links go to statements if available, or to their Twitter feed or site. See also: Furry Fandom and the Internet forced back to roots by viral outbreak

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Leaders of political revolutions never quit before the official battle begins, and say that they will vote for and support their enemies. When the moment arrived of walking all that endless talk of Bernie Sanders about fighting his political revolution, he caved out of self interest Continue reading →

Pity the salesman who doesn't have some device to steer people into his booth.

A.P. Moller –Maersk and IBM today announced their intent to establish a joint venture to provide more efficient and secure methods for conducting global trade using blockchain technology.

IBM today announced that it broke the U.S. patent record with 8,088 patents granted to its inventors in 2016, marking the 24th consecutive year of innovation leadership. IBM’s 2016 patent output covers a diverse range of inventions in artificial intelligence and cognitive computing, cognitive health, cloud, cybersecurity and other strategic growth areas for the company.

Como parte de las celebraciones del 90 aniversario de IBM en México, la empresa realizó por primera vez en el país, los días 7 y 8 de octubre en el Campus Tecnológico de IBM en Guadalajara, el festival de hackeo para desarrolladores cognitivos: HackaPalooza.

AXA Seguros anunció que sus ventas digitales en México aumentaron 208% en los últimos tres años, gracias a la tecnología de eCommerce IBM Marketing Cloud, lo que permite a la compañía de origen francés maximizar la atención a sus potenciales compradores y ofrecer ofertas personalizadas.

BNZ, one of the country’s leading banks announces it has selected IBM to deliver cross-channel fraud prevention to its customers. The multi-million dollar deal will support BNZ’s aim to provide its customers the ability to bank securely while delivering a positive customer experience.

Les revendeurs internationaux observent une croissance significative pendant Thanksgiving et le Black Friday. IBM enregistre un engagement record dans son rapport annuel Holiday Readiness Clients

Etude IBM : les directions Marketing doivent adopter la « disruption créative » pour fidéliser leurs clients La nouvelle étude IBM révèle les principaux axes de priorités des directions Marketing pour 2016

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.

Posted by: cyberghostface



( Scans under the cut... )

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The in-person annual U.S. Grand Lodge Joint Meeting scheduled for July 2020 in Oakland CA has been canceled. Individual governing bodies will meet online; members of those bodies will receive further information. A decision on whether the Convocation of Lovers scheduled for August 2020 in Cleveland OH will be canceled will be announced by April …

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1. Samsonite Oudenaarde stevent af op collectief ontslag  De Standaard
2. Samsonite plant ontslagronde in Oudenaarde  De Tijd
3. Corona kost banen bij reiskofferfabrikant Samsonite: “Het gi... (Oudenaarde)  Het Nieuwsblad
4. Mogelijke ontslagen bij Samsonite Oudenaarde door coronacrisis: “Niemand wil een reiskoffer kopen”  VRT NWS
5. Samsonite Oudenaarde kondigt ontslagen aan (Oudenaarde)  Het Nieuwsblad
6. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

LIVE. De Wever over eventuele tweede piek: “Normale quarantaine is er een van zieken, niet van gezonde mensen”  Het Laatste Nieuws

My Subterranean Press collection, The Postmodern Adventuers of Darger and Surplus,  has received quite a splendid review for Locus by Gary K. Wolfe, which has now been posted on Locus Online. Darger and Surplus are, as you probably know, gentlemen grifters in the future civilization that rises from the ashes of our own, after a failed revolution by the Artificial Intelligences we are currently hard at work creating. Humanity mostly won that war and the demons and mad gods were banished to a subterranean infrastructure too widespread and well-defended to be rooted out. But, as a result, the mechanical sciences have languished while the biological ones thrive.

All this is spelled out in the review more entertainingly than I have put it here. I encourage you to read it.

Meanwhile, here's the pull-quote I'd grab from the review if I were the sort of person who did that sort of thing:

As those Hugo voters apparently recognized nearly 20 years ago, Darger and Surplus not only join the small company of SF’s classic rogues, but the world they occupy is as complex, detailed, and morally chaotic as we’ve come to expect from the best of Swanwick’s fiction.

You can find the review in its glorious entirety here. Or you can just go to locusmag.com and poke around. Bot Locus and Locus Online make for informative, enjoyable reading


And as long as you're there . . .

Like everything else, Locus is feeling the financial stress of the lockdown. If you can afford it, and if you, like me, value the publication, consider contributing a little toward its survival.

Look what came in the mail! My contributor's copies of The Postmodern Adventures of Darger and Surplus. Which I can now honestly tell you are beautiful books. Marianne--owner, reditor, and sole entrepreneur of Dragonstairs Press, remember--especially admired the texture of the endpapers.

This is the first Darger and Surplus collection of short, and it collects everything except the two novels. But I should caution you that it is a slim book--five previously published stories, four related short-shorts, and "There Was an Old Woman..." a story written expressly for this collection.  Bloated this volume is not.

Subterranean Press has created, as I said, one lovely volume. It costs $40, because it's a high-quality collector's item, published in a limited edition of one thousand. But for a high quality collector's item, published in a limited edition of one thousand, that's pretty cheap.

Here's the table of contents:

Introduction:

• Mother Goose’s Errant Sons

Stories:

• The Dog Said Bow-Wow
• The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport
• Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play
• Tawny Petticoats
• There Was An Old Woman

• Appendix:

• Introduction to Appendix: A Little Smoke and a Mirror or Three
• Smoke and Mirrors: Four Scenes from the Postutopian Future

If you're interested, you can buy a copy of the book here.

Or you can buy an e-book version for $5 here.

Oe you can simply go the the Subterranean website and poke around here.  Mine isn't the only book there you want. Far from it.

It must be that time of year again!

Reports of hate crime in Scotland have increased and research indicates that the trauma experienced by victims of hate crime can be more enduring and harmful than non-hate related offending and that it has detrimental effects on communities as well as individuals. There is a clear role for criminal justice social work in this area in working with perpetrators.

Rania Hamad, City of Edinburgh Council spoke to us about her research on the topic. It aims to:

• define 'hate crime' and highlight the complexities around definitions
• provide an understanding of the scope and nature of hate crime in Scotland and Edinburgh
• explore the causes of hate crime, including individual and wider structural causation
• outline the 'characteristics' of hate crime perpetrators including a discussion around risk assessment
• explore what can be learned from hate crime interventions
• explore 'best practice' for practitioners in this area of work
• highlight gaps in current knowledgeRead: Hate crime: causes, motivations and effective interventions for criminal justice social work.

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Something Elated by Broke For Free

The Dundee Early Intervention Team (DEIT) provides early intervention support to families.

The team is a partnership of the four leading children's charities in Dundee – Aberlour, Children 1st, Action for Children and Barnardo's Scotland – the team works together with Dundee City Council, NHS Tayside and Dundee Voluntary Action.

Practising a social pedagogy model, the team work alongside families to build their capacity to tackle challenges and make sustainable change.

In 2017 Iriss worked with the Dundee Early Intervention Team to capture learning about the partnership model underpinning the team and to evidence the impact of its support on families.

In this conversation, practitioners Natalie, Harriet, Jade, Bianca and Brian share their experiences of working with families as part of the Dundee Early Intervention Team.

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Something Elated by Broke For Free

Iriss.fm is delighted to broadcast an episode on the work of Plumtree, an Australian not-for-profit organisation that provides support for young children from birth to 8 years old with a developmental delay or disability and their families.

Sylvana Mahmic (CEO) and Dr Melanie Heyworth (Peer Worker) tell the story of Now and Next, a project that has been successful at involving families as peer workers in early childhood intervention.

Three key messages:

Peer workers offer unique benefit to families of young children with disabilities that are not available through existing services, but which are complementary to them. Benefits include feelings of leadership, agency and community. Learning from mental health practice could be applied to the disability sector, so there was no need to spend time reinventing the wheel. It made it cost effective, quick and provided maximum benefit. Implementation of peer work into any existing organisation will face challenges and barriers, but these can be mitigated by pre-emptive organisational action.

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Make your dream a reality by Scott Holmes

Hudson Star-Observer
Published Friday, January 18, 2008

As the nation marks the one-year anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando this week, a group of experts on active shooter/hostile incident response will assemble at National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) headquarters to develop NFPA 3000, Standard for Preparedness and Response to Active Shooter and/or Hostile Events. It is expected that the initial standard will be completed by early 2018; then the public will have the opportunity to offer input for immediate review.

Knowing that today’s homes burn faster than ever, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) announced “Every Second Counts: Plan Two Ways Out” as the official theme for this year’s Fire Prevention Week campaign, October 8-14, 2017. Experts say you may have as little as two minutes (or even less) to safely escape a typical home fire from the time the smoke alarm sounds.

How Trump Stole 2020: A Facebook LIVE Event — previewing Palast’s new book, which reveals how Trump’s already got the November election in the bag, featuring exclusive reports from the scene of the crime. Hosted by Thom Hartmann and incl. interviews with Barbara Arnwine, Lee Camp, Nomi Prins, David Cay Johnston, Dennis Bernstein, Cary Harrison, Josh Fox & more!

The post How Trump Stole 2020: A Facebook LIVE Event appeared first on Greg Palast.

I just wrapped up my political sociology class for the semester. We spent a lot of time talking about conflict and polarization, reading research on why people avoid politics, the spread of political outrage, and why exactly liberals drink lattes. When we become polarized, small choices in culture and consumption—even just a cup of coffee—can become signals for […]

The Fire Protection Research Foundation, the research affiliate of NFPA is overseeing a two-year project on the Economic and Emotional Impact of an Active Shooter/Hostile Event – thanks to Fire Prevention and Safety Grant money from FEMA.

Come witness some Good Old Fashion Queer Magic
in The New Road Home Tour 2011!!

they are playing in Denver, Lawrence, chicago, Portland ME, Philladelphia, Pittsburgh. for more info check out Nomy's site at http://www.nomylamm.com/

DavEnd, Nomy Lamm, Melodie Younce and Erin Daly will remix notions of gender, sexuality, dis/ability, community and family, while tenderly, ferociously touching into themes of forgiveness, hope, and empowerment in these supposed "end times."


Pittsburgh
August 13th. Saturday. 8 pm
Irma Freeman Center for Imagination
5006 Penn Avenue 15224
$7 - 12 Sliding Scale - Noone Turned Away!

The "New Road Home Tour 2011" explores the new possibilities for the embodiment of dreams. This performance includes multi-part harmonies, multi-media displays of affection, badass costumery, storytelling accordion, bass, guitar, violin, live looping, improvisation, audience participation, and good ole fashion queer magic.

Emerging from the Olympia riot grrrl scene of the early 90s, NOMY LAMMhas brought her radically vulnerable message of body positivity to the whole wide world through a blend of zines, voice lessons, rock operas, performance art and collaboration. Currently she lives in San Francisco where she performs with Sins Invalid, (sinsinvalid.org) a bay area project that creates work around disability, sexuality, social justice and embodiment. Her current musical project, nomy lamm & The WHOLE WIDE WORLD is a flexible platform for collaboration with everyone and everything, and in the moment, with Melodie Younce, Erin Daly, DavEnd, and Caldwell Linker. (nomylamm.com)

DAVE ENDis a tender-hearted, genderqueer, costume designing, accordion wielding, songwriter and performer, based out of San Francisco. Currently, DavEnd is working on her 3rd studio album, “Likewize, I’m Sure” as well as finishing up a month long stint in Taylor Mac’s epic 5 hour play, ‘The Lily’s Revenge’. Ms End’s most recent performance project, Fabulous Artistic Guys Get Overtly Traumatized Sometimes: The Musical!, is the culmination of four years of nearly constant touring and performance, and brings together the worlds of music and radical performance art in a theatrical extravaganza, exploring the effects of heterosexism and street harassment on the development of queer identity.
(myspace.com/daveend, facebook.com/daveend

The post How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

Pep Ventosa is a Catalan artist who creates incredible images that explore the boundaries of photography. Made from multiple layers of similar photographs, they create an abstract and often surreal effect with a painterly feel. Ventosa usually creates pictures outside, but you can borrow his ideas to create a Pep Ventosa inspired still life. This […]

The post How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

Led by Princeton’s Cristian Galbiati, a massive international team worked to design, test and finalize the Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM), a low-cost ventilator designed to ease device shortages caused by COVID-19.

Alan Blinder, the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, is the latest guest on the "We Roar" podcast.

A visitor asked me if there was a way to stop her web server from showing a directory listing of the folders on her site, without having to create a .htaccess file. This article gives 2 alternative solutions.

By default, anyone can place your website in a frame or iframe, for the purposes of clickjacking, altering your content, or putting advertisements on your page. This article shows you how to prevent this, using both the older backward-compatible method as well as the modern officially-recommended one.

Hello allI have moved through so many towns and now cities that the names are blurring and at times the experince feels unreal I am now starting to wake up and not having to orient my self. So far the experinces have been all they describe in the books

The journey from Koh Samui to Khao Sok was pretty much a nightmare we were woke up arround 730 by someone who couldn't speak english pointing to a piece of paper that said 800 bus. We had booked on the 12 o'clock bus and had arranged to pick our washi

So when I last blogged about our wonderful stay on Phu Quoc Island I was writing from an coffee shop in Saigon on Friday afternoon. I wasn't aware at the time but we had begun what would basically be 51 hours in transit as we blundered our way to an isla

Products I’ve made up for the sheer giddy thrill of it include Total Farage Plus, which skilfully Photoshops the Ukip leader into whatever you’re looking at

This week it’s the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, an annual opportunity for tech companies to unveil their latest gizmos during January’s traditional slow news week, thereby picking up precious coverage that might otherwise be spent detailing something – anything – more important than an egg whisk with a USB port in the side.

At the time of writing, the show is yet to kick off, although some of the offerings have already been unveiled – such as “Belty”, the world’s first “smart belt”, which monitors your waistline and tells you when it’s time to lose weight, just like a mirror or a close friend might. More excitingly, it adjusts to your girth (again, like a close friend might), and will tighten or loosen itself according to your current level of blubber. No word yet on whether it’s possible to pop a Belty round your neck and order it to squeeze you into the afterlife, but there’s no reason they can’t incorporate that feature in Belty 2.0, except maybe on basic ethical, moral and humanitarian grounds.

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Drägerwerk is a world leader in the production of ventilators. In an interview, company head Stefan Dräger, 57, discusses the challenges of keeping up with current demand as the corona crisis accelerates.