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Modernization of Century-Old Hydro Facility Yields Rich History
Modernization of Century-Old Hydro Facility Yields Rich History
When the Boulder Canyon Hydroelectric Facility was built in the steep, forested mountains between Boulder and Nederland, Colo., in 1910, it was the highest head hydroelectric facility in the western U.S. It consisted of two 5-MW turbine generators, both of which were upgraded in the 1930s to double the plant’s capacity. The units ran until 2000, when one generator failed and was never replaced.
The second unit was recently replaced with a 5-MW turbine generator to “modernize” the century-old hydroelectric facility and keep it operational for 50 more years. Its developers say that though it is smaller, it produces 30% more power because it is more efficient.
For the City of Boulder, refurbishing the plant also has deep, historical significance. …
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: OCTOBER 20TH- THE LONG MARCH
This Day In History: October 20, 1934
One year after Communist troops retreated to the hills to avoid the wrath of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Nationalist Party, only 4,000 out of the 86,000 had lived to tell the tale. Even though only five percent of Mao Tse-tung’s forces made it to the end of the Long March to northwest China, Mao’s position as the leader of Communist China was a done deal.
China was a fragmented nation in the early 1930s, fraught with instability and civil war. Warlords regularly attacked the government of Chiang Kai-shek. With help from the Soviet Union, Mao took advantage of this chaos and in November 1931 declared a new Chinese Soviet Republic. …
Trump’s Worst Answer Will Also Be His Downfall
Trump’s refusal to say he would accept the election results will ensure negative coverage for the final three weeks of the election, and with good reason.
At times during tonight’s debate, Donald Trump seemed controlled, succinct, even prepared.
It didn’t matter. In an instant, he lost the debate and blew his chance of using it to turn around his sinking campaign.
That instant came when Trump refused to say he would respect the outcome of next month’s vote.
Barring some massive unforeseen news, that comment will dominate political conversation in the coming days. By next week, it will be all anyone remembers about tonight. And for good reason. A major party nominee suggesting he won’t concede defeat in a presidential election he has clearly lost was, until Trump came along, unthinkable. Had Al Gore taken that position in 2000, the United States might not be a functioning democracy today. If Trump’s position becomes the new normal–if future candidates refuse to respect the voters’ will–America may not remain one. Democracies require public legitimacy for their survival. When powerful actors withhold that legitimacy, the system crumbles. …
How the final presidential debate highlights the madness of Trump’s ideas
For the first time Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump focused on policy rather than personal attacks, but the Republican nominee still managed to shock
For at least an hour on Wednesday night, America peered through a portal into another world. In this alternate reality, a Democrat and Republican debated the once familiar dividing lines of US politics – guns, abortion, tax – in a shockingly conventional style.
Close your eyes, ignore Donald Trump’s cartoon grimaces, Hillary Clinton’s stunned expression, and it sounded at times almost like a normal election.
But nothing is normal about 2016. Nothing can erase the memory of the first two debates, or the last 18 months of demagoguery, in the minds of voters just three weeks away from polling day. Just in case they were tempted to try, up popped the old Trump to jog their memory.
The shock, outrage and headlines from Las Vegas will focus on his brazen confirmation that not even the basic rules of the game are ones he accepts. Democracy? This candidate will tell us if he thinks he has lost on 8 November, not the other way around. …
10 Fascinating Ancient Egyptian Cultural Practices
People have lived along the Nile since the Paleolithic, or Stone Age. Tools recovered there date inhabitation as far back as 700,000 years ago. With such a storied history, the stage was set long ago for the development of a fascinating civilization.
10. The Daily Temple Ritual
To keep the universe running smoothly, a small army of holy men tended to the gods’ every whim with daily offerings across Egypt’s many temples.
Each temple housed a particular god in the form of an enshrined statue that had gone through an “opening of the mouth” ritual to imbue it with the quintessence of a deity’s spiritual entity. These gods received the rock star treatment from priests of varying rank and allegiance who made daily offerings of food, drink, and gifts. The priests also sang hymns and even washed and clothed the gods. …
Insiders: Trump’s refusal to accept election outcome is a big mistake
‘Apple pie, baseball, democracy. As an American, there are some basic things you should defend and stand up for,’ said a Virginia Republican.
Democratic and Republican insiders blanched at Donald Trump’s refusal to say in Wednesday night’s debate that he would accept the presidential election outcome if he loses next month.
That’s according to The POLITICO Caucus — a panel of activists, strategists and operatives in 11 key battleground states that will determine Trump’s fate. Four-out-of-five Republicans, and virtually all Democrats, said Trump — when he was asked in his third debate with Hillary Clinton whether he would accept the verdict of the voters, win or lose — should have pledged to respect the outcome of the race.
It was the defining moment of a debate that tilted toward Clinton, insiders said. Ninety-nine percent of Democratic insiders and slightly more than half of Republicans, 53 percent, said Clinton did a better job at the Las Vegas debate. And many cited Trump decision to decline moderator Chris Wallace’s offer to say he would honor the vote count on November 8.
“Trump started well, but Hillary finally got him to take the bait,” said an Ohio Republican. “His answer on not accepting the results of the election are disqualifying — and that’s not an ‘elite’ position.”
“Trump’s answer on not accepting the electoral results was pivotal,” a Virginia Republican added. …
Four Things Hillary Clinton Revealed in the Third Debate
The Democratic nominee built on her prohibitive lead, and gave a glimpse of what she’d do in office.
After the third and final presidential debate of 2016, the only uncertainty remaining in this race is what Donald Trump will say in his concession speech.
Restrained (for him), disciplined (for him), Donald Trump got through a little more than one hour of television without major incident. Then of course it all went wrong.
But how much did it matter that it all went wrong? The election is shaping up as … not close. What constituency will exist after November 8 for Donald Trump’s complaints about the media, the voting machines, and the zombie voters of Pennsylvania? Most likely, very little.
The more future-relevant takeaways from the debate in Las Vegas debate concern Hillary Clinton, and the kind of president she’ll be. I noted four over the course of 90 minutes. …
Trump campaign sued over Donald Trump Jr.’s Skittles tweet
The photographer of the Skittles image is a refugee and just filed a copyrightinfringement lawsuit against Trump
After being publicly chastised by a candy company for comparing Syrian refugees to poisoned Skittles, Donald Trump Jr. is now being sued by the photographer of the image – a refugee.
Trump Jr. recycled a white-supremacist meme first shared by former Republican congressman Joe Walsh last month when he affixed the official Trump campaign logo onto an image of a bowl of Skittles candy, asking, “If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you three would kill you, would you take a handful?”
“That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”
David Kittos, the photographer of the Skittles imaged used by Trump Jr., filed a lawsuit Tuesday in an Illinois federal court alleging that the photo used in the tweet is his and was used without his permission. Kittos, an England-based photographer who shares much of his work on Flickr, is suing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., the Trump campaign and vice presidential candidate Mike Pence for copyright infringement. Kitto said in his complaint that he included an All Rights Reserved copyright notice that Trump Jr. ignored. …
10 Shocking Murders By The Original Assassins
In the 1090s, a split in Shia Islam produced a new group known as the Nizari Ismailis. Few in number, the Nizaris came to rely on targeted killings carried out by religious fanatics known as fida’is or fedayeen.
Their enemies spread the rumor that the fedayeen were gullible young men who were brainwashed through the use of hashish, giving rise to the term “Hashishin” or “Assassins.” Whatever the truth of these rumors, there’s no denying that the Assassins were terrifyingly effective, striking fear into the heart of Muslims and Crusaders alike.
10. Nizam al-Mulk
Nizam al-Mulk was the powerful vizier of the Great Seljuk Empire, which stretched from Turkey to Afghanistan. In his last years, the Nizari leader Hasan-i-Sabah began infiltrating and capturing isolated mountain fortresses, including the mighty stronghold of Alamut. Nizam al-Mulk was determined to combat this threat.
In 1092, his litter was approached by a wandering Sufi holy man. Famously religious, Nizam al-Mulk beckoned the man to approach. But the Sufi was really an Assassin in disguise, and he stabbed the vizier with a hidden knife. According to Ibn Khallikan, the Assassin tried to flee but tripped over a rope and was killed by guards. …
Hillary Clinton is almost certain to be president
In the final debate, Donald Trump blew his last best chance to present himself as a remotely credible candidate. Clinton now stands on the brink of historic power.
In the last debate of the election, Hillary Clinton emerged the way she hoped she would, as the all-but-certain first female president of the United States.
By refusing to pledge that he would accept the results of the election, Donald Trump all-but-certainly disqualified himself for the position of president. The peaceful transfer of power after a presidential election has been the pillar of our democracy. By refusing to accept the results of the vote, Trump would be flouting the tradition of American politics and the democratic beliefs of almost all voters.
Like the two earlier debates, this one was contentious and marked by sniping between Trump and Clinton. But Trump’s claims were often far-fetched and lacked a shred of factual evidence. Especially bizarre was his baseless charge that the Clinton campaign was behind the allegations of nine women that Trump improperly groped or kissed them, charges that Trump has denied.
Some analysts thought Trump may have lost the election the day the disgusting tape of him bragging about his ability to kiss women and “grab them by the pussy” became public. His standing in battleground states and national polls did drop precipitously and steadily after the tape became public. …
The Onion Live-Tweeted The Final Presidential Debate, And It Was Glorious
“Trainers struggling to get Trump into debate starting gate.”
A plague of boils, a plague of locusts, a third presidential debate. Lo, how we have angered the Lord. Our live debate coverage begins now.
— Onion Politics (@OnionPolitics) October 20, 2016
Both Candidates Worried About How They Going To Follow Fucking Living Legend Like CPD Co-Chair Mike McCurry #debatenight
— Onion Politics (@OnionPolitics) October 20, 2016
Report: Over 50 Billion Gallons Of Bile Now Bubbling Up #debatenight
— Onion Politics (@OnionPolitics) October 20, 2016
Like the two before it, Wednesday night’s presidential debate proved to be the circus we all expected.
And who better to cover such a chaotic and bizarre spectacle than “America’s Finest News Network”?
On Wednesday night, satirical news organization The Onion live-tweeted the head-to-head showdown between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump. …
There are many more tweets at the link, and, yes, they’re glorious…
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: OCTOBER 20TH- THE COUNT
This Day In History: October 20, 1882
Be’la Ferenc Dezso Blasko, aka Bela Lugosi, was born on October 20, 1882, in Lugos, Hungary. At the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered for service and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant. During the war, he was seriously wounded three times, with the treatment of his injuries facilitating a morphine addiction that would last the rest of his life.
Lugosi began his acting career on the Hungarian stage in 1901, and then in films during the war. In 1920, he emigrated to the United States and found work as a character actor.
He first assumed the role that would make him world famous on Broadway in 1927 when he played Count Dracula in the stage adaptation of Abraham Stoker’s novel. This adaptation enjoyed a wildly successful three-year run and then was adapted to film by Todd Browning in 1931. While not the first choice for the film role, he eventually got the part and the movie established Lugosi as the Dracula by which all others are measured, even to this day, with most characterization of vampires borrowing from elements of Lugosi’s portrayal that weren’t part of Stoker’s work. …
2 quake faults in the Bay Area could rupture together, causing major devastation, scientists say
The most dangerous earthquake fault in the San Francisco Bay Area is connected to another, which means both could rupture simultaneously and unleash major devastation, a new study finds.
The Hayward Fault has long been considered a threat because it runs under densely populated neighborhoods east of San Francisco. The new study found that beneath San Pablo Bay, it joins with a second, less active underground fracture to the north.
Scientists had already considered the possibility of both faults rupturing at once, whether they are connected or not. So the discovery doesn’t change the estimated earthquake hazard much, although it confirms suspicions that the stage is set for what could be a massive quake.
If the Hayward and Rodgers Creek faults broke simultaneously along their combined 118 miles, they could produce a magnitude 7.4 quake, said scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Such shaking would be more than five times stronger than the 1989 Loma Prieta quake on the San Andreas Fault that killed more than 60 people and collapsed part of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. …
Air pollution more deadly in Africa than malnutrition or dirty water, study warns
Annual human and economic cost of tainted air runs to 712,000 lost lives and £364bn, finds Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Africa’s air pollution is causing more premature deaths than unsafe water or childhood malnutrition, and could develop into a health and climate crisis reminiscent of those seen in China and India, a study by a global policy forum has found.
The first major attempt to calculate both the human and financial cost of the continent’s pollution suggests dirty air could be killing 712,000 people a year prematurely, compared with approximately 542,000 from unsafe water, 275,000 from malnutrition and 391,000 from unsafe sanitation.
While most major environmental hazards have been improving with development gains and industrialisation, outdoor (or “ambient particulate”) air pollution from traffic, power generation and industries is increasing rapidly, especially in fast-developing countries such as Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia and Nigeria.
“Annual deaths from ambient [outdoor] particulate matter pollution across the African continent increased by 36% from 1990 to 2013. Over the same period, deaths from household air pollution also continued to increase, but only by 18%”, said a researcher at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development development centre. The OECD is funded by the world’s richest 35 countries. …
A Brief History Of Child Murder In Safety Guides
It’s common to hear people, usually insufferable ones, complain that today’s children are too coddled. Well, allow me to present the alternative. For decades, America’s youth were introduced to the concept of mortality with the same tone that we now use to introduce them to the concept of Transformers. And if the following safety guides are any indication, Americans spent a good chunk of their history not giving a shit whether their children lived or died. Let’s take a trip down a weird back alley on Memory Lane, where every memory is of murder. Oh, and if you think these are just a weird niche thing that happened once per decade, feel free to erase that thought by visiting this article that has even more nightmare fuel.
The 1930s Thought Kids Were Stabbing Their Eyes With Pencils
In the ’30s, a dead child just meant one fewer mouth you’d have to scrape together a meal for with a few hours of work at the Dust Factory. It wasn’t the greatest time in American history to be a kid, which is perhaps why this book uses such childlike drawings. It gives children an escape from the drudgery of reality, even as it takes every possible opportunity to remind them that reality is out to get them.
That’s the Bath Room Nit-Wit, and his tale of woe is meant to warn children about the dangers of showering improperly. But that child isn’t just being scalded by hot water — his mouth is a portal to a dark realm, and he is terrified by what’s contained within his own orifice. This is a drawing someone would find on the wall of the child’s bedroom in the spooky old house they inherited, right before that child appears next to them with a knife.
Oh no, Downstairs Nit-Wit left his toy train on the stairs, then tripped on it! He looks mildly put off by the fact that his skull is about to be forced into the space that his noodle neck once occupied! …
Those Ancient Stone Tools — Did Humans Make Them, Or Was It Really Monkeys?
A stone tool found in the sand has always been considered the handiwork of early humans and their ancestors. But a remarkable discovery in a Brazilian forest suggests that might not be so.
Scientists saw a group of capuchin monkeys making stone flakes, an important type of early tool. It’s not clear the monkeys knew what they were making, but nonetheless, it might prompt researchers to be more cautious when they come across ancient sites where similar tools are usually attributed to early humans.
You make a flake by whacking two rocks together. It has to be a kind of rock that breaks in a certain way, and you have to hit one rock on another rock to break flakes off the striking rock. The flake is shaped kind of like a scallop shell. Hold it carefully and you’ve got a knife. …
The Gendered Past of Typing Education
A quirky, QWERTY history
The man who taught me to type was at least 100 years old at the time of my instruction. He wore thick, purple sunglasses that completely hid his eyes at all times. His long, white beard rippled as he traveled in a pink convertible through both time and space. This man was also, of course, animated.
Like the characters in Oregon Trail, Freddy the Fish, and other popular games of the early aughts, the time-traveling typing guru of Type to Learn was an inescapable fixture of my elementary-school computer classes. I attribute my ability to touch type—to use a keyboard without actually watching my fingers move—almost entirely to this computer game, which is a far cry from the typing courses high-school students took in previous decades and the typewriters they used.
Over time, typing education has evolved in tandem with both the progression of computer technology and the decreasing age at which students are exposed to that technology. Today, that age may be reaching its lowest limit, as standardized tests and metrics emphasize the need for exceedingly young learns to successfully navigate a computer. …
10 Mysterious Mosaics
Mosaics have graced floors, walls, and ceilings for millennia. Made of thousands of interlocked tiles, their sturdy construction makes them nearly indestructible. Their design is simultaneously ancient and modern as the precursor to both impressionism and pixel-based graphics. Mosaics endure—and so do their mysteries.
10. Hagia Sophia’s Hidden Angel
An image of a six-winged angel has been revealed in Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia. The mosaic depicts a seraph, a member of the angelic choir, the highest order of angel hierarchy. For 160 years, the image was hidden under a metal mask and seven layers of paint. The image appears on pendetives (curving triangular surfaces) on the central dome and is believed to be 700 years old. The image remained hidden due to the ban on representational images in Islam.
The seraph was uncovered during restoration work. Swiss architect Gaspare Fossati is believed to have been the last person to have seen the angel. In 1839, Fossati led a rebuilding of the church under Sultan Abdulmejid. The Hagia Sophia is built on a fault line and has been devastated by earthquakes throughout the centuries. In AD 558, a tremor caused the dome to collapse, along with the altar. …
In-Development Ransomware Encrypts while Pretending to be a Click Me Game
Yesterday, GData malware analyst Karsten Hahn discovered an in-development ransomware disguised as a click me game. When executed the ransomware will launch a screen that contains a Click Me button that a user chases around the screen with their mouse cursor while trying to click on it. In the background, though, the ransomware will be silently encrypting the data on the drive.
This ransomware is currently in-development, which means that it does not contain the full functionality required to make it a viable ransomware. For example, though it does encrypt a file, it currently only targets the file located at D:\ransom-flag.png. Any other files on a computer will not be affected by this ransomware. …
DeepMind boffins are trying to help robots escape The Matrix and learn for themselves in the real world
It’s hard being human
Google DeepMind is trying to teach machines human-level motor control using progressive neural networks – so that the robots can learn new skills on-the-go in the real world.
The idea is to build droids that can constantly learn and improve themselves, all by themselves, from their own surroundings rather than rely on lab-built AI models created in simulations. Wouldn’t it be great to have machines that each learn as individuals rather than all have a common copy of an updated model uploaded to them from the lab?
DeepMind’s paper titled Sim-to-Real Robot Learning from Pixels with Progressive Nets appeared on arXiv last week, but it was overshadowed by another DeepMind paper in Nature.
“Progressive neural networks offer a framework that can be used for continual learning of many tasks and which facilitates transfer learning, even across the divide which separates simulation and robot,” the paper’s boffins state.
Simply put, London-based DeepMind has found a way to transfer knowledge from one AI model to another, so that software can efficiently learn how to perform tasks in simulations and the real world as opposed to learning purely in a dream world. …
WHY WE CALL CERTAIN TYPES OF THREATS “BLACKMAIL”, AND THE ORIGIN OF THE LESSER KNOWN “BUTTOCKMAIL”
“Blackmail” has its roots in the early 16th century, first used by English farmers living on the England/Scotland border. It derives from the Middle English word “male” which itself is thought to derive from the Old English word “mal”. In Old English “Mal” is described as thus: “lawsuit, terms, bargaining, agreement”.
Over time, the word “Mal” became “Male” which in Middle English roughly translated to either “Rent” or “Tribute”. As such, the rent paid by a farmer living on the Scottish border was known as “Silver Rent/Mail” because it was normally paid in silver. This gave rise to “White Money” or “White Rent”, and eventually “whitemail”.
When Scottish chieftains (and various brigands) noticed all these well to do farmers going about their business without someone threatening them for money, they decided to start threatening them for money in return for not razing their farm to the ground and destroying all their livestock. Those forcing the tribute would also then offer their protection to the farmers from others who might try something similar. …
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
In the third presidential debate, Donald Trump refused to say if he’d accept the results of the election. Will we still have a country on November 9th? It’s a cliffhanger!
THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.
Oops…….
“The clouded leopard is the most ancient type of cat alive today and its genetic blue print is shared by all cats. Every feline species alive today shares the clouded leopard’s razor sharp canines, heightened senses and their extreme agility.”
FINALLY . . .
Amy Schumer pens open letter to fans who left Florida show after Trump jokes
The comedian said ‘I’m sorry you didn’t want me … to mention the biggest thing going on in our country right now’ in response to those who booed and left her Tampa show after she called Trump a ‘monster’
Amy Schumer has written an open letter to fans who walked out of her Sunday standup show in Tampa, Florida, after she made jokes about Donald Trump.
The actor and writer read the letter aloud during her Tuesday show at New York’s Madison Square Garden, according to People.
“I’ve written an open letter to Tampa and I’d like to read it tonight,” she began. “Dearest Tampa, I’m sorry you didn’t want me, a comedian who talks about what she believes in, to mention the biggest thing going on in our country right now. How could I think it was OK to spend five minutes having a peaceful conversation with someone with different views?
“After the show, I want you to know that I will go straight to a rehab facility that will teach me how to make all people happy. Both the rich, entitled, white people who are gonna vote for him and the very poor people – who’ve been tricked into it.” …
BRAVO Amy!