Bernews and TROIKA Bermuda recently invited children from around the island to enter a colouring competition in order to win tickets to see a production of Beauty and the Beast tomorrow [Aug 28]. The contest, which ran for nearly two weeks, received about 100 entries from colouring enthusiasts, each of them 12 or under. Eight […] (Click to read the full article)

The Bermuda Festival Outreach Programme is offering a drama based masterclass led by the Aquila Theatre Company. This workshop is being offered to high school students with an interest in drama. Drama students will get the opportunity to explore some of the vocal, movement and acting techniques used by members of the Aquila in rehearsal […] (Click to read the full article)

The Bermuda Festival Outreach Programme is offering two masterclasses in acting technique led by a cast member of Walnut Street Theatre. Here to perform A Life in the Theatre, the Walnut Street Theatre will focus on improving participants’ acting technique. These masterclasses will be centered on activities that are designed to improve technique and explore […] (Click to read the full article)

The Ministry of Public Works announced that 20.24 tonnes of recyclables were collected from the America’s Cup event village during the 22 day event last month. This amount increased Bermuda’s monthly recycling, which averages 63 tonnes, by just under 50% per day during the event period. A Ministry Spokesperson said, “Thanks is due to so […] (Click to read the full article)

Within the academic aviation world, good textbooks can be hard to come by. Not only do few aviation textbook publishers exist, but the aviation industry is constantly changing. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's latest Impacts on Practice brief, ACRP in the Classroom: Reimagining the Textbook at the University of North Dakota Department of Aviation , details how Dr. Kim Kenville uses ACRP Research Report 16, Second Edition: Guidebook for Managing Small Airports , in her classes. “This publica...

Additional new series for the 2020-2021 season will be announced at a later date.

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EPISODE SUMMARY Today's show is brought to you by Wacom — makers of the incredible Wacom One! This week, the ComicLab guys talk shop with Gale Galligan, creator of the bestselling Babysitter's Club graphic novels. See all of Gale's latest at Galesaur.com. EPISODE NOTES Today's show is brought to you by Wacom — makers of the incredible Wacom One! This week, the ComicLab guys talk shop with Gale Galligan, creator of the bestselling Babysitter's Club graphic novels.

EPISODE SUMMARY This week, Dave and Brad talk about the best Content Management System (CMS) for publishing webcomics. Toocheke is brand new, and Brad's a big fan. EPISODE NOTES Today's show is brought to you by Wacom — makers of the incredible Wacom One! This week, Dave and Brad talk about the best Content Management System (CMS) for publishing webcomics. Toocheke is brand new, and Brad's a big fan. Questions asked and topics covered... Toocheke i

Given all we know about facial recognition tech, it is literally jaw-dropping that anyone could make this claim… especially without being vetted independently.

A group of Harrisburg University professors and a PhD student have developed an automated computer facial recognition software capable of predicting whether someone is likely to be a criminal.

The software is able to predict if someone is a criminal with 80% accuracy and with no racial bias. The prediction is calculated solely based on a picture of their face.

There's a whole lot of "what even the fuck" in CBS 21's reprint of a press release, but let's start with the claim about "no racial bias." That's a lot to swallow when the underlying research hasn't been released yet. Let's see what the National Institute of Standards and Technology has to say on the subject. This is the result of the NIST's examination of 189 facial recognition AI programs -- all far more established than whatever it is Harrisburg researchers have cooked up.

Asian and African American people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white men, depending on the particular algorithm and type of search. Native Americans had the highest false-positive rate of all ethnicities, according to the study, which found that systems varied widely in their accuracy.

The faces of African American women were falsely identified more often in the kinds of searches used by police investigators where an image is compared to thousands or millions of others in hopes of identifying a suspect.

Why is this acceptable? The report inadvertently supplies the answer:

Middle-aged white men generally benefited from the highest accuracy rates.

Yep. And guess who's making laws or running police departments or marketing AI to cops or telling people on Twitter not to break the law or etc. etc. etc.

To craft a terrible pun, the researchers' claim of "no racial bias" is absurd on its face. Per se stupid af to use legal terminology.

Moving on from that, there's the 80% accuracy, which is apparently good enough since it will only threaten the life and liberty of 20% of the people it's inflicted on. I guess if it's the FBI's gold standard, it's good enough for everyone.

Maybe this is just bad reporting. Maybe something got copy-pasted wrong from the spammed press release. Let's go to the source… one that somehow still doesn't include a link to any underlying research documents.

What does any of this mean? Are we ready to embrace a bit of pre-crime eugenics? Or is this just the most hamfisted phrasing Harrisburg researchers could come up with?

A group of Harrisburg University professors and a Ph.D. student have developed automated computer facial recognition software capable of predicting whether someone is likely going to be a criminal.

The most charitable interpretation of this statement is that the wrong-20%-of-the-time AI is going to be applied to the super-sketchy "predictive policing" field. Predictive policing -- a theory that says it's ok to treat people like criminals if they live and work in an area where criminals live -- is its own biased mess, relying on garbage data generated by biased policing to turn racist policing into an AI-blessed "work smarter not harder" LEO equivalent.

The question about "likely" is answered in the next paragraph, somewhat assuring readers the AI won't be applied to ultrasound images.

With 80 percent accuracy and with no racial bias, the software can predict if someone is a criminal based solely on a picture of their face. The software is intended to help law enforcement prevent crime.

There's a big difference between "going to be" and "is," and researchers using actual science should know better than to use both phrases to describe their AI efforts. One means scanning someone's face to determine whether they might eventually engage in criminal acts. The other means matching faces to images of known criminals. They are far from interchangeable terms.

If you think the above quotes are, at best, disjointed, brace yourself for this jargon-fest which clarifies nothing and suggests the AI itself wrote the pullquote:

“We already know machine learning techniques can outperform humans on a variety of tasks related to facial recognition and emotion detection,” Sadeghian said. “This research indicates just how powerful these tools are by showing they can extract minute features in an image that are highly predictive of criminality.”

"Minute features in an image that are highly predictive of criminality." And what, pray tell, are those "minute features?" Skin tone? "I AM A CRIMINAL IN THE MAKING" forehead tattoos? Bullshit on top of bullshit? Come on. This is word salad, but a salad pretending to be a law enforcement tool with actual utility. Nothing about this suggests Harrisburg has come up with anything better than the shitty "tools" already being inflicted on us by law enforcement's early adopters.

I wish we could dig deeper into this but we'll all have to wait until this excitable group of clueless researchers decide to publish their findings. According to this site, the research is being sealed inside a "research book," which means it will take a lot of money to actually prove this isn't any better than anything that's been offered before. This could be the next Clearview, but we won't know if it is until the research is published. If we're lucky, it will be before Harrisburg patents this awful product and starts selling it to all and sundry. Don't hold your breath.

It's over, Amazon, we have the high ground (and all you had was a high price) says Redmond

Updated Amazon.com has filed a second, secret, appeal against the decision to award Microsoft the Pentagon's $10bn Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract.…

iGiant not only screwed up the wiring, it knew it was shipping dodgy gear, it is claimed

Apple is potentially facing a class-action lawsuit over the failure of displays on its MacBook Pro line.…

A nationwide class action lawsuit filed against Apple in Northern California court this week accuses the company of knowingly concealing a defect with a display-related flex cable on recent 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models.


As discovered by repair website iFixit last year, some MacBook Pro models released in 2016 and 2017 have experienced issues with uneven backlighting caused by a delicate flex cable that can wear out and break after repeated opening and closing of the display. Impacted notebooks can exhibit uneven lighting at the bottom of the screen, which has been described as a "stage light" effect, and the backlighting system can eventually fail entirely.

Since the issue often takes time to manifest, the affected ‌MacBook Pro‌ units can be outside of Apple's one-year warranty period when they start exhibiting symptoms, resulting in an out-of-warranty repair fee of up to $850.

"Imagine spending more than $2,500 on a laptop only for it to fail shortly after the manufacturer's warranty expires," said PARRIS Law Firm attorney R. Rex Parris. "What's even more appalling is Apple requiring customers to spend an additional $600 to $850 to replace the screen."

Apple seemingly fixed the issue by extending the length of the flex cable by 2mm in the 2018 MacBook Pro. It also launched a free repair program in May 2019, but the program only applies to 13-inch MacBook Pro models released in 2016.

iFixit found the 2018 MacBook Pro flex cable on the left to be 2mm longer
The class action lawsuit seeks restitution for all costs attributable to replacing or replacing the affected MacBook Pro units, and calls for Apple to expand its repair program to cover the 15-inch MacBook Pro. The proposed class is defined as all persons within the United States who purchased a 2016 or newer MacBook Pro.

Related Guide: "Flexgate" Display Issues Affecting 2016 MacBook Pro and Later
This article, "Apple Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over 'Flexgate' Issue With MacBook Pro Displays" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple's next-generation Apple Watch and watchOS 7 will focus on new mental health capabilities, according to leaker Jon Prosser who recently spoke on the Geared Up podcast. The mention of new ‌Apple Watch‌ features comes towards the end of the podcast.


The next-generation version of the ‌Apple Watch‌, the ‌Apple Watch‌ Series 6, has been rumored to include a blood oxygen sensor, which Prosser says Apple will take advantage of to implement new mental health-related features, such as detecting panic attacks.

What their biggest focus on is right now and I hope it comes this year, it might come next year, but I hope it's coming to WWDC is mental health capabilities. Where they can take the oxygen levels in your blood with your heart rate and determine if you're hyperventilating.

They can identify a panic attack before it happens and warn you on your watch. Especially if you're driving, they'll ask you to pull over and they'll offer breathing exercises once you get pulled over.

Prosser says that while he hopes the feature is released this year, "it might come next year." He also says he hopes for a WWDC unveiling, but if the new feature relies on a blood oxygen sensor in an unreleased version of the ‌Apple Watch‌, it's not likely Apple will unveil the capability until the fall when new ‌Apple Watch‌ models that support it are released.

There is, however, a possibility that it will be revealed at WWDC if older ‌Apple Watch‌ models have a latent ability to detect blood oxygen level, which is not clear at this time, or if the feature does not involve blood oxygen monitoring.

The panic attack detecting rumor was first shared by EverythingApplePro and leaker Max Weinbach back in April, who said that the ‌Apple Watch‌ will also be able to determine when a user is experiencing high levels of stress. Weinbach and EverythingApplePro did not suggest the feature would rely on blood oxygen monitoring, however, and said that it would be available on the ‌Apple Watch‌ Series 4 or later.

Hints that blood oxygen tracking capabilities are coming to a future version of the ‌Apple Watch‌ were found in a leaked version of iOS 14. Blood oxygen monitoring is an important feature because a drop in blood oxygen levels can suggest a serious respiratory or cardiac problem that requires immediate medical attention.

Multiple prior rumors from Bloomberg and other sources have also indicated that the next-generation ‌Apple Watch‌ and watchOS 7 will include sleep tracking features, allowing the ‌Apple Watch‌ to measure sleep quality, length, and other metrics.
This article, "Rumor Claims watchOS 7 Will Have 'Mental Health Capabilities' to Detect Panic Attacks" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Bernie Sanders offers a real deal to the middle class and not the raw deal of Hillary Clinton Continue reading →

Senator Bernie Sanders does not think that Hillary Clinton can stand up and fight for the middle class. Continue reading →

The middle class needs to vote for Donald Trump in order to oppose the elites, Corporate America, Wall Street, the career politicians, and the media, who have all conspired to destroy the middle class. Donald Trump is the Molotov cocktail, the human hand grenade, that every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them. Continue reading →

Jimmy Dore: The intelligence agencies have been releasing the reports to convince us that we should be upset at Russia because they hacked our election. First of all, who gives a shit if they did? The United States tapped Angela Merkel’s … Continue reading →

Claudia Stauber provides a perfect metaphor of how she felt listening to Bernie Sanders today in Vermont, telling us how much he still fights for us against the 1% and the oligarchs. Continue reading →

Руководитель McLaren Group Зак Браун не исключил участия Дженсона Баттона в отдельных гонках серии Indycar за рулём третьей машины команды...

Руководитель команды McLaren Андреас Зайдль заявил, что в Уокинге не рассматривают сценарий клиентской команды Mercedes – и будут самостоятельно стремиться к успеху…

В этом году у McLaren появилась команда в Indycar, а через несколько лет команда может принять участие в гонках на выносливость...

В следующем году команда McLaren поменяет поставщика силовых установок, перейдя с Renault на Mercedes. Ландо Норрис считает, что это поможет коллективу из Уокинга прибавить.

Британское правительство отказало McLaren Group в получении специального коммерческого кредита в 150 млн. фунтов стерлингов, за которым руководство группы компаний обратилось, чтоы преодолеть последствия пандемии...

В виртуальном Гран При Испании, который пройдёт в воскресенье, McLaren будут представлять Ландо Норрис и Николас Хэмилтон, брат шестикратного чемпиона мира...

IBM today announced that Clarient Global LLC (“Clarient”), a joint venture established to transform client data and document management in the financial services industry, has selected VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud to continue to enhance its existing SoftLayer private cloud implementation for its Clarient Entity Hub platform.

Clara (クララ) 2020年 5月号 発売日：2020年4月10日 輝く未来のスターたち 宝塚音楽学校★文化祭レポ 追記 １０６期６名のインタビュー掲載 新書館 | 雑誌 最新号 宝塚イズム41 特集　望海風斗＆真彩希帆、ハーモニーの軌跡 発売日...

Thank you, first and foremost, to theSwede. When I told you I wanted and needed to do some creative work, over a decade ago, you simply said "Okay" and were nothing but supportive. None of this would exist without you. Thank you as well to both Cannonball and Torpedo. Someday you'll be old enough to read these, and I hope you find them all as enjoyable, meaningful, and as embarrassing as they are/were intended to be.

Thank you to Mom, Dad, Hanna, Emma, my grandparents, all extended family, for giving me the experiences, insight, and humor that crafted STW. Thank you Mitch, Donna, and all for their support as well. Thank you to so many friends, innumerable to name. Your support has meant everything.

Thank you to classmates, advisors, and colleagues from the past 10 years at Cornell, NIST, and Northeastern, particularly to those who never found out about STW when it needed to remain a professional secret, and just as particularly to those who were in full support and encouragement when the secret came out. Thank you to so many students, but especially everyone from the NU ChemE class of 2015, who I am ever indebted to.

Thank you to so many in the comics/creative community, especially Danielle Corsetto, Jon Rosenberg, Joan Cooke, Christopher Moore, Jessica Hagy, Holly and Jeffrey Rowland, Sara McHenry, Gary Tyrrell, Zach and Kelly Weinersmith, Matt Lubchansky, Monica Keszler, Ryan Walsh, every artist I have collaborated with, so so so many others. Thank you for all that you have done to bring me into your world, and for all that you have done for my career.

It's been a very long time since I worked there, but thank you as well to Three Point for all those experiences at creative writing that almost certainly led to the creation of STW.

Thank you to Westley, Sprite, Wakefield, Shiv, and Bitey, too. Why not.

And finally, thank you to all of you kind readers. For however long you have read STW, thank you. I am so incredibly humbled by your support and kindness and so incredibly grateful for all that you have given to STW as well. I wish all of you whatever joy and happiness that you deserve.

STW ran for 10+ years and 3500+ comics. It's as much yours as it is mine, now.

Thank you all, so harking much.

So, hey, STW alumni, long time no lecture. How are things?

Happy New Year to you all. May 2020 bring you nothing but good, and may we all fight all the monsters together.

Figured I would start running old comics through the RSS feed, so here you go.

In case you missed when Surviving the World ended, we ran a Kickstarter to put together a book collection of some of the best STW comics from the entire 10+ year run. The book came out pretty tremendous - there's 300 comics in beautiful color, all the 'file under' jokes, all the addendum and archive jokes, some new jokes, a soundtrack listing, a foreword by Christopher Moore - it's really nice and most people liked it as much as I did!

Anyway, we have some additional copies that are now on sale at Topatoco if you want an extra copy or a first copy, whatever the case may be. I will eventually get the PDF version of the book up and available for sale as well, if any of you are so inclined.

As for me, I am professoring away, working on some other projects, still doing bad jokes and things on social media, all while still making STEM comics, and hopefully will have some new work to share with you soon.

Other than that, for now, I hope life-long learning continues to bring you new enlightenment and I hope you all continue to get all joy and happiness you deserve.

The STW Book!

This comic was originally posted in 2013.

The STW Book!

This comic was originally posted in 2010.

The STW Book!

This comic was originally posted in 2011.

The STW Book!

This comic was originally posted in 2015.

The STW Book!

This comic was originally posted in 2017.

The STW Book!

This comic was originally posted in 2014.

The STW Book!

This comic was originally posted in 2018.

Thoughts from 2020: If I had ever had an agent, I would have pitched a book of nothing but mazes like this. Maybe I should find an agent and pitch this anyway. This is definitely not the best known STW maze - it's not the one that people kept trying to rip off for their own shirts and designs and companies - but it was a pretty good one to be the final maze of the comic.

Also, this was #3500, and it was a pretty good one for the last big numbered comic. I won't lie, looking back, a lot of STW is only 'just okay', but I can enjoy when some were slightly better than others. I think this was one?

The STW Book!

This comic was originally posted in 2014.

Thoughts from 2020: We still can't keep flowers in the house because of the cat. This is why the aloe plant is now in my office at work. Did you know aloe is poisonous to cats or something like that?

The STW Book!