Everything comes and goes Marked by lovers and styles of clothes Things that you held high And told yourself were true Lost or changing as the days come down to you Down to you Constant stranger You’re a kind person You’re a cold person too It’s down to you It all comes down to you […]

“The Fiddle And The Drum” And so once again My dear Johnny my dear friend And so once again you are fightin’ us all And when I ask you why You raise your sticks and cry, and I fall Oh, my friend How did you come To trade the fiddle for the drum You say […]

I recently travelled to Pittsburgh, USA, to present the paper “From Playing Games to Committing Crimes: A Multi-Technique Approach to Predicting Key Actors on an Online Gaming Forum” at eCrime 2019, co-authored with Ben Collier and Alice Hutchings. The accepted version of the paper can be accessed here. The structure and content of various underground … Continue reading From Playing Games to Committing Crimes: A Multi-Technique Approach to Predicting Key Actors on an Online Gaming Forum →

In this reboot of the Three Paper Thursdays, back after a hiatus of almost eight years, I consider the many different ways in which programs can be sanitised to detect, or mitigated to prevent the use of, the many programmer errors that can introduce security vulerabilities in low-level languages such as C and C++. We … Continue reading Three Paper Thursday: Sanitisers and Mitigators →

Decades-old theory may require a rethink thanks to Japanese probe

The Moon is believed to have formed from the leftovers of a proto-Earth smashing into a Mars-sized Theia nearly 4.5 billion years ago.…

One has the vulns, the other has the brass neck to pull off heists. Right?

Russia might begin carrying out cyber attacks against Britain's 5G networks "at the behest of China", the chairman of a Parliamentary Select Committee has ventured.…

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.…

We previously established that global deletion of the enhancer of trithorax and polycomb (ETP) gene, Asxl2, prevents weight gain. Because proinflammatory macrophages recruited to adipose tissue are central to the metabolic complications of obesity, we explored the role of ASXL2 in myeloid lineage cells. Unexpectedly, mice without Asxl2 only in myeloid cells (Asxl2ΔLysM) were completely resistant to diet-induced weight gain and metabolically normal despite increased food intake, comparable activity, and equivalent fecal fat. Asxl2ΔLysM mice resisted HFD-induced adipose tissue macrophage infiltration and inflammatory cytokine gene expression. Energy expenditure and brown adipose tissue metabolism in Asxl2ΔLysM mice were protected from the suppressive effects of HFD, a phenomenon associated with relatively increased catecholamines likely due to their suppressed degradation by macrophages. White adipose tissue of HFD-fed Asxl2ΔLysM mice also exhibited none of the pathological remodeling extant in their control counterparts. Suppression of macrophage Asxl2 expression, via nanoparticle-based siRNA delivery, prevented HFD-induced obesity. Thus, ASXL2 controlled the response of macrophages to dietary factors to regulate metabolic homeostasis, suggesting modulation of the cells’ inflammatory phenotype may impact obesity and its complications.

Chuck Todd tells Andrea Mitchell that Hillary Clinton will win the African-American and Hispanic vote in spite of the intellectual appeal of Bernie Sanders to liberal white voters Continue reading →

The Democratic National Committee is controlled by its big corporate donors. Tom Perez was recruited to defeat progressive Keith Ellison to keep the Democratic Party in the coffers of its corporate donors. Ellison's defeat as head of the DNC was a hit job by the corporate machine within the DNC. Continue reading →

The tenth annual Open Hardware Summit will be in New York held online on March 13. I’ll be participating in a panel looking back at the past ten years of open source hardware and looking forward to the next decade as well. The schedule is filled with great speakers and I’m looking forward to seeing … Continue reading Open Hardware Summit 2020 →

The publisher is adding videos of their creators entertaining themselves while sheltering in place.

The post SHUT IN THEATER: What are Dynamite creators in quarantine up to? appeared first on The Beat.

IBM and MIT today announced that IBM plans to make a 10-year, $240 million investment to create the MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab in partnership with MIT. The lab will carry out fundamental artificial intelligence (AI) research and seek to propel scientific breakthroughs that unlock the potential of AI. The collaboration aims to advance AI hardware, software and algorithms related to deep learning and other areas, increase AI’s impact on industries, such as health care and cybersecurity, and explore the economic and ethical implications of AI on society. IBM’s $240 million investment in the lab will support research by IBM and MIT scientists.

IBM today announced that Joanne Wright, Vice President Supply Chain has been selected to speak at the upcoming Supply Chain Summit Conference, which takes place in Chicago on June 14-16.

Un nuevo estudio de IBM pone en entredicho algunas de las creencias que se tienen acerca de la generación del Milenio. Según el estudio elaborado por la Compañía, los nacidos en la Era Digital no son “ni perezosos, ni egoístas, ni superficiales” y aconseja a las empresas detenerse a conocer qué motiva a cada empleado para poder así maximizar sus cualidades únicas.

IBM y organizaciones aliadas lanzaron la iniciativa global 'Call for Code', el esfuerzo más grande y ambicioso para reunir a desarrolladores del sector académico y empresarial, para resolver uno de los problemas más acuciantes de la sociedad de nuestro tiempo: prevenir, responder y recuperarse de desastres naturales.

IBM y el Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts (MIT) anunciaron los planes de IBM para realizar una inversión de 240 millones de dólares por 10 años a fin de crear el Laboratorio de Inteligencia Artificia MIT-IBM Watson. El laboratorio llevará a cabo investigaciones fundamentales de IA y buscará impulsar avances científicos que desbloqueen su potencial. La colaboración tiene como objetivo avanzar en el desarrollo del hardware, el software y los algoritmos de IA relacionados con el aprendizaje profundo y otras áreas, aumentar el impacto de la misma en industrias tales como el cuidado de la salud y la seguridad cibernética, así como explorar sus implicaciones económicas y éticas en la sociedad. La inversión de IBM de 240 millones de dólares en el laboratorio apoyará la investigación de científicos de IBM y del MIT.

Unitec today announced that the number of people employed in two Delivery Centres at its Mount Albert campus now exceeds 500, and continue to drive benefits for Unitec students and the Auckland economy.

Durante la conferencia mundial VMworld® 2016, VMware e IBM anunciaron la disponibilidad de los primeros servicios de nube para industrias que permiten a las organizaciones mover rápida y fácilmente, archivos a la nube. Con más de 500 clientes comprometidos ya, la alianza global entre IBM y VMware está ayudando a más organizaciones a extender sus archivos a la nube en horas, en comparación de semanas o meses.

ASL to benefit from IBM Cloud and IBM PureApplication to deliver for secure real time payments for NPP Australia

Three years ago Japanime released an English version of Dynamite Nurse (originally published in 2011) via Kickstarter. Although we added this take-that deck building game to our collection earlier this year, it took a bit of time to find some friends from our various gaming circles willing to play the game given the boundary pushing artwork. The character illustrations are in the style of anime - colorful and detailed - but bordering on pornographic.

In making a case for the game's merits, I pointed out that Dynamite Nurse is centered on strong female characters (sure, the nurses are barely clothed and poses provocatively but they’re the main focus of the game and hold all the power). Also, the game has an interesting storyline. In Dynamite Nurse, players take on the role of nurses competing to save patients who have been severely wounded while out exploring dungeons. Fun fact: in an odd parenthetical note, the rulebook states the characters are actually doctors that are simply referred to as nurses in the fantasy realm of the game.

Components for Dynamite Nurse include 214 double sided glossy cards, 30 cardboard tokens, and a 34 page rulebook. You’ll definitely want to sleeve the cards for frequent use.

Gameplay is straightforward and easy to learn. In the first phase of each player’s turn, they do the following:

(1) play cards from their hand

(2) decide between treating patients in their hospital or purchasing a new card to add to their discard pile

These two main actions can be done in any order. If a player elects to treat patients, the treatment points on cards in their hand are used to conduct surgery (to fully heal a patient and add them to their victory point pile) or treat with care (to bring a critical care patient about to die to stronger health, while still leaving them in their hospital for further treatment). If electing to buy a card, a player is limited to purchasing a single card from the purchase decks, as is common in a traditional deck builder.

In the next phase of a player’s turn, they draw a patient from the Dungeon Deck and lay them out in the back of the ambulance, ready to be moved to a waiting hospital. When a patient is admitted to the ambulance, they are tagged with the hospital marker of one of the players, signifying they are under the care of that nurse. If there is no room in the ambulance for the patient (the ambulance can hold a number of patients equal to the number of players in the game), instead of drawing a patient from the Dungeon Deck, the patient in the front of the ambulance is flipped over, entering critical condition. This is bad for the player whose hospital tag is on that patient as the patient may eventually die and accrue Kill Mark Cards (also known as penalty points) for the associated player.

To wrap up a player’s turn, they complete hospital admissions (optional) and check for patients in critical condition in their hospital. If a player decides to admit patient(s), they move one or more patients tagged with their hospital token with from the ambulance to their hospital. Admissions must be carefully balanced as a hospital only has 2 beds. If there are more patients than beds available, the player must select a number of patients equal to the bed shortage and put them in critical condition. Patients in critical condition are at risk for death if bed shortages continue over subsequent turns.

The title of Dynamite Nurse is held by the player with the most dead patients. It’s initially acquired by the first player to have a patient die. It’s a traveling status, in that, it will immediately shift to any player whose dead patient count exceeds the player who previously held the title. The designation provides some strategic advantages during the game (perhaps as a catch up mechanism) but earns -2 victory points at the end of the game for the player still holding the title.

The game ends when either the Dungeon Deck or the Kill Mark Card deck runs out. A player wins by amassing the highest victory point total. Victory point formula: healed Patient Card VP total – Kill Mark Card penalty point total. 

Dynamite Nurse is subject to a bit of analysis paralysis, but it’s very limited because the pressing tasks required to keep from losing (treating sick patients) clearly take priority.

I really enjoyed the gameplay here. It was competitive without being too complicated, which is just how I like my card games to be (card games always have a bit more of a casual feel to me and I turn to them when I want a relaxing game). We had a lot of laughter during our games and the take-that actions didn’t upset anyone too much as they were pretty evenly distributed among all players. I love almost everything about Dynamite Nurse. That being said, I’m disappointed Japanime doesn’t publish a family-friendly version of the game so that I can play with a wider audience. I’m not naïve; I understand that racy artwork adds to the appeal for a certain demographic but the sexualization of the characters in Dynamite Nurse isn’t subtle – it’s right in your face on every card and a major turn off for players who are more conservative, have strong feelings about portraying women as sexual objects, or those who want to play the game with the under 18 crowd. There is no way we could play this with our kids and it’s only because of the artwork. During one of our games, we spent four minutes debating what the inanimate object was between one of the nurse’s legs pressed up against her panties (cell phone was the consensus but one of my friends insisted it was a cheese grater). Another minor complaint - we found the included rulebook to be a bit confusing. Multiple times we had questions that the rulebook did not seem to provide a clear answer on and so our group had to come to a agreement on a house rule. For example, under Transport, the rulebook notes to draw a Patient Card from the top of the dungeon and place it in the ambulance in “the furthest location from the dungeon”. As the dungeon is left of the ambulance, this would mean placing the card to the right of any existing patients in the ambulance like so:

D   P1  P2 P3 NewPatientHere

However the drawing two pages later in the rulebook meant to illustrate how to transport shows the new patient being added to the ambulance in the the location closest to the dungeon like so:

D NewPatientHere P3 P2 P1

Aside from the rulebook confusion and the risqué illustrations, Dynamite Nurse is a compelling game that can be played in under an hour.  I’m giving it a OUI rating (take note Japanime – the rating will climb to a OUI OUI should a family friendly version be released).

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Publisher: Japanime Games
Players: 3-5
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About an hour
Game type: deck building, take-that
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.

1. ICMR partners with Bharat Biotech International Limited for developing indigenous coronavirus COVID-19 vacc...  Zee News
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4. ICMR teams up with Bharat Biotech to develop Covid-19 vaccine  Times of India
5. CSIR approves project to develop human monoclonal antibodies that can neutralize COVID-19 in patients  Times Now
6. View Full coverage on Google News

Back in the day if you wanted your website or blog to get indexed fast by the search engines, you would submit it to website directories. Are they still worth submitting to today? For the most part yes. Submitting your site to website directories can still be an effective way at building back links that’ll help you rank higher in search results and should be part of your overall SEO strategy. This is especially true for new websites and blogs were getting back links from other webmasters can be difficult..........................

The short answer: everyone.     Hot work is one of the leading causes of industrial fire. According to the NFPA report Structure Fires Started by Hot Work - September 2016, U.S. fire departments responded to an average of 4,440

I have a short Mercatus policy brief on that topic, co-authored with Trace Mitchell.  Excerpt: Risk from reopening cannot fall to zero, but investments in safety by employers can bring real gains in many cases. Ideally, a plan should both minimize risk and encourage employers’ safety investments. In essence, policymakers should (1) limit liability in […]

The post Limiting liability for a resumption of business activity appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Clusterfuck Nation For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page You understand, there will be no meaningful resuscitation of the dear, departed, so-called greatest boom in history. Ponzi schemes don’t “bounce back,” they collapse for the simple reason that the pieces holding them up were not really there. Such more »

The post Money Minus Value, No Limit appeared first on Kunstler.

Support this Podcast by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page   Charles Hugh Smith founded his blog, Of Two Minds, in 2005 after 17 years of free-lance journalism in the San Francisco Bay Area. Of Two Minds has grown to thousands of posts that have logged tens of millions of page views on his site and many others more »

The post KunstlerCast 328 — Chatting with Charles Hugh Smith from the OfTwoMinds Blog appeared first on Kunstler.

PM Studios online store is back and they made a new sale featuring new reprints, overall deals and restock on rare out-of-print titles from Limited Run Games.

https://twitter.com/PMStudiosUSA/status/1253401043414781959

Also all orders over $49.99 will get Cytus Alpha Limited Edition Original Soundtrack CD for free with the Coupon "FREEGIFT".

Kinda sick move they did now.

https://www.pm-studios.com/store

Edit: Price list.