Monday, February 8, 2016
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Bad Decision
Aaron Rodgers sits with San Francisco 49ers head coach Mike Nolan as Dr. Harry Edwards takes notes during an NFL Scouting Combine interview held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Feb. 27, 2005 in Indianapolis. Two months later at the NFL Draft, Nolan and the Niners selected Alex Smith with the No. 1 pick. Rodgers was the next QB taken at No. 24 by Green Bay. A four-time Pro Bowl quarterback and Super Bowl XLV MVP, Rodgers turned 32 years old on Dec. 2, 2015. (Todd Rosenberg for SI)
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Friday, February 5, 2016
What Is Blockchain?
Blockchain remains in the experimental phase inside many large firms and there are few tested use cases, experts and analysts caution. Here’s a look at how this emerging technology works:
What is blockchain?
A blockchain is a data structure that makes it possible to create a digital ledger of transactions and share it among a distributed network of computers. It uses cryptography to allow each participant on the network to manipulate the ledger in a secure way without the need for a central authority.
Once a block of data is recorded on the blockchain ledger, it’s extremely difficult to change or remove. When someone wants to add to it, participants in the network — all of which have copies of the existing blockchain — run algorithms to evaluate and verify the proposed transaction. If a majority of nodes agree that the transaction looks valid — that is, identifying information matches the blockchain’s history — then the new transaction will be approved and a new block added to the chain.
The term blockchain today usually describes a version of this distributed ledger structure and distributed consensus process. There are different blockchain configurations that use different consensus mechanisms, depending on the type and size of the network and the use case of a particular company. The bitcoin blockchain, for example, is public and “permissionless”, meaning anyone can participate and contribute to the ledger. Many firms also are exploring private or “permissioned” blockchains whose network is made up only of known participants. Each of these blockchain implementations operate in different ways.
Guardtime, a company that sells blockchain-based products and services to enterprises and governments including Ericsson AB and the country of Estonia, explained its approach like this:
Assume an organization has 10 transactions per second. Each of those transactions receives its own digital signature. Using a tree structure, those signatures are combined and given a single digital fingerprint — a unique representation of those transactions at a specific time. That fingerprint is sent up the tree to the next layer of infrastructure, such as a service provider or telecom company. This process happens for every organization in the network until there is a single digital fingerprint that encompasses all the transactions as they existed during that particular second. Once validated, that fingerprint is stored in a blockchain that all the participants can see. A copy of that ledger is also sent back to each organization to store locally. Those signatures can be continuously verified against what is in the blockchain, giving companies a way to monitor the state and integrity of a particular asset or transaction.
Anytime a change to data or an asset is proposed, a new, unique digital fingerprint is created, Guardtime said. That fingerprint is sent to each client node for validation. If the fingerprints don’t match, or if the change to the data doesn’t fit with the network’s agreed-upon rules, the transaction may not be validated. This setup means the entire network, rather than a central authority, is responsible for ensuring the validity of each transaction.
by Arvind Krishna, WSJ | Read more:
Image: Oliver Wyman
Fentanyl: Drug 50 Times More Potent Than Heroin Ravages New Hampshire
Officer Shaun McKennedy’s first overdose call comes in at 6.39pm. He turns the sirens on and rushes over to 245 Laurel street, a midsize apartment building. There’s an abandoned baby carriage in the front yard. A man wearing a Bride of Chucky shirt peeps out of his doorway as McKennedy, 24, rushes upstairs.
Several men from the local fire department and EMT department are already there, hovering around the seemingly lifeless body of a 31-year-old man on the living room floor in a soaking wet T-shirt and jeans. It’s a situation McKennedy, 24, has been through dozens of times since he joined the force last July.
“Larry! Larry! Stay with us!” yells Justin Chase, a Manchester EMT medic. He injects naloxone, a medication that reverses the effects of opioids, up Larry’s nose.
His body shakes and his eyes pop open. “What’s up?” he asks, without blinking.
Larry agrees to go to the emergency room at Elliot hospital, but it will be several weeks before test results determine exactly what led to his overdose. It’s the first time he’s done that, he tells McKennedy later that night. Usually he injects between two and three grams of heroin a day; that evening he only took 0.2 grams, or a “pencil”. He’s not sure if he overdosed because he lost his tolerance – he says he’s been clean for just over two months – or if it was laced with fentanyl.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine, and 30-50 times more powerful than heroin.
“Fentanyl is what is killing our citizens,” said Manchester’s chief of police, Nick Willard, in testimony before Congress last week. (...)
“It’s not like Mario Batali,” said Willard from his office in Manchester, comparing heroin dealers cutting their supply with the famed chef. “These guys are just throwing it in a mixer. You could get a bag that’s perfect and no one is going to die from it. You could also get a bag [that’s] straight fentanyl and that would kill you.”
Willard said that during a recent raid in Manchester, he found a dealer mixing fentanyl with whey protein. In another sting that led to a seizure in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the dealer was allegedly mixing heroin and fentanyl in a kitchen blender.
For the most part, said Willard, the story of opiate use in Manchester follows the same patterns as the rest of the country. The crisis was ushered in by the rise of prescription painkillers like OxyContin. Addicts looking for a cheaper high frequently turned to the more dangerous, yet significantly cheaper, heroin. (...)
To make matters worse for Manchester, DEA agent Tim Desmond says intelligence indicates that Mexican cartels, specifically El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel, have increased poppy production 50% since last year and have been targeting the north-east.
Fentanyl was first developed in the 1960s as a general anesthetic, and it is still regularly administered by doctors, usually in the form of lozenges and patches, frequently for cancer patients.
Addicts have found ways to abuse the prescription forms of the drug, by sucking on the patches, for example. But more recently, Mexican cartels have learned how to make their own fentanyl by importing the necessary chemicals from China, then smuggling the product across the border and on to the interstate highway system, said Desmond.
Several men from the local fire department and EMT department are already there, hovering around the seemingly lifeless body of a 31-year-old man on the living room floor in a soaking wet T-shirt and jeans. It’s a situation McKennedy, 24, has been through dozens of times since he joined the force last July.“Larry! Larry! Stay with us!” yells Justin Chase, a Manchester EMT medic. He injects naloxone, a medication that reverses the effects of opioids, up Larry’s nose.
His body shakes and his eyes pop open. “What’s up?” he asks, without blinking.
Larry agrees to go to the emergency room at Elliot hospital, but it will be several weeks before test results determine exactly what led to his overdose. It’s the first time he’s done that, he tells McKennedy later that night. Usually he injects between two and three grams of heroin a day; that evening he only took 0.2 grams, or a “pencil”. He’s not sure if he overdosed because he lost his tolerance – he says he’s been clean for just over two months – or if it was laced with fentanyl.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine, and 30-50 times more powerful than heroin.
“Fentanyl is what is killing our citizens,” said Manchester’s chief of police, Nick Willard, in testimony before Congress last week. (...)
“It’s not like Mario Batali,” said Willard from his office in Manchester, comparing heroin dealers cutting their supply with the famed chef. “These guys are just throwing it in a mixer. You could get a bag that’s perfect and no one is going to die from it. You could also get a bag [that’s] straight fentanyl and that would kill you.”
Willard said that during a recent raid in Manchester, he found a dealer mixing fentanyl with whey protein. In another sting that led to a seizure in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the dealer was allegedly mixing heroin and fentanyl in a kitchen blender.
For the most part, said Willard, the story of opiate use in Manchester follows the same patterns as the rest of the country. The crisis was ushered in by the rise of prescription painkillers like OxyContin. Addicts looking for a cheaper high frequently turned to the more dangerous, yet significantly cheaper, heroin. (...)
To make matters worse for Manchester, DEA agent Tim Desmond says intelligence indicates that Mexican cartels, specifically El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel, have increased poppy production 50% since last year and have been targeting the north-east.
Fentanyl was first developed in the 1960s as a general anesthetic, and it is still regularly administered by doctors, usually in the form of lozenges and patches, frequently for cancer patients.
Addicts have found ways to abuse the prescription forms of the drug, by sucking on the patches, for example. But more recently, Mexican cartels have learned how to make their own fentanyl by importing the necessary chemicals from China, then smuggling the product across the border and on to the interstate highway system, said Desmond.
by Susan Zalkind, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: Alamy
What's a Yieldco and How's it Killing Wall Street?
On August 6, billionaire hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman took the unusual step of dialing into an earnings call for one of his fund's holdings and asking a question.
It was a second-quarter earnings call for SunEdison, a solar-energy company that went public in 1995. At the time, Omega was the 11th-biggest shareholder of SunEdison, with 8.8 million shares.
It's a large stake, but it is still unusual for Cooperman to pick up the phone to publicly ask a question on a company's quarterly conference call.
These were no ordinary circumstances, however. After enjoying the benefits of a classic Wall Street hedge fund pile-in – when the smartest money in the stock market wants nothing more than to buy, buy, buy – SunEdison was crashing.
Cooperman wanted to know if its executives would throw him and other investors a bone and buy back some stock. They responded, in no uncertain terms, that they would not.
Since that call, SunEdison's stock has fallen a further 80%. Its two subsidiaries, TerraForm Global and TerraForm Power, have seen their stocks fall 64% and 73%, respectively. There have been management shake-ups at both the subsidiaries.
The stock price collapses have burned some of the biggest investors in the business, including Cooperman, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, and David Tepper of Appaloosa Management.
And it is all because of doubts over a type of financial engineering that fueled explosive growth in the solar sector for two years, and now has investors questioning the entire sector.
It was a second-quarter earnings call for SunEdison, a solar-energy company that went public in 1995. At the time, Omega was the 11th-biggest shareholder of SunEdison, with 8.8 million shares.
It's a large stake, but it is still unusual for Cooperman to pick up the phone to publicly ask a question on a company's quarterly conference call.These were no ordinary circumstances, however. After enjoying the benefits of a classic Wall Street hedge fund pile-in – when the smartest money in the stock market wants nothing more than to buy, buy, buy – SunEdison was crashing.
Cooperman wanted to know if its executives would throw him and other investors a bone and buy back some stock. They responded, in no uncertain terms, that they would not.
Since that call, SunEdison's stock has fallen a further 80%. Its two subsidiaries, TerraForm Global and TerraForm Power, have seen their stocks fall 64% and 73%, respectively. There have been management shake-ups at both the subsidiaries.
The stock price collapses have burned some of the biggest investors in the business, including Cooperman, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, and David Tepper of Appaloosa Management.
And it is all because of doubts over a type of financial engineering that fueled explosive growth in the solar sector for two years, and now has investors questioning the entire sector.
What's a yieldco?
The shift in fortunes has been brutal. At an event in October last year, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital called SunEdison "a well‐run, financially savvy company, benefiting from an open-ended growth opportunity trading at a bargain price."
He priced the stock at $32 a share. It's now trading at about $3.
The "open-ended growth opportunity" Einhorn was referring to is made possible by something called a "yieldco." It's the magical instrument that fueled SunEdison's growth and caught Wall Street's eye in the first place.
The shift in fortunes has been brutal. At an event in October last year, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital called SunEdison "a well‐run, financially savvy company, benefiting from an open-ended growth opportunity trading at a bargain price."
He priced the stock at $32 a share. It's now trading at about $3.
The "open-ended growth opportunity" Einhorn was referring to is made possible by something called a "yieldco." It's the magical instrument that fueled SunEdison's growth and caught Wall Street's eye in the first place.
by Linette Lopez, Business Insider | Read more:
Image: Carlos Barria/Reuters
Introduction Into an Obscurity
The woman at the ticket counter said that the trip would be roughly four hours, and then, just to be helpful, she added—tilting her head a little by way of explanation—that, well, what she meant was four or four and a half, from which it could already be suspected just what kind of bus they would be boarding; it has, however, just now, after the first hour, become obvious that no one really knows how long, because there is no way of knowing how much time it will take to get to Jiuhuashan, because the journey is slowed down by so many unforeseeable obstacles and chance occurrences—and everything, particularly the weather, is completely unpredictable— unforeseeable obstacles and chance occurrences which, as a matter of fact, are unforeseeable only to them as, for the most part, the personnel—the driver and the conductor—are to be thanked for all these unforeseeable obstacles and chance occurrences, the driver and the conductor, who—as it becomes clear soon after leaving the city—regard the task before them as their own private business venture, and so come to a halt not only at the prescribed stops but almost everywhere, trying to pick up more and more passengers from among the people walking along the side of the highway, from one kilometer to the next it is practically a hunt for yet more passengers, passengers with whom—following a negotiation which is opaque to them, because hardly a word is spoken—some kind of agreement is settled upon in a moment, money flashes in one hand, then disappears in another, on this ever-more congested route, therefore, black-market transport is taking place, that is, the front of the bus is packed, as is the middle, because hardly anyone is sitting at the back, to where they have been squeezed, no, they haven’t gone mad, it is much colder here, because the warmth of what is no doubt the sole operational heating device near the driver’s seat doesn’t reach this far, so that, in the battle for seats, only the weak and the less exceptional end up here—what rotten bad luck, the two Europeans shivering in the artificial-leather seats keep repeating to themselves, that they’re in Nanjing and it’s May and yet it’s almost like February. As for speaking, there really isn’t anyone to speak to, because their Chinese traveling companions, otherwise always inclined to acquaintance and conversation—including the four people who have also ended up at the back—do not breathe a word, neither to one another nor to them, everyone sits as far away as they can from everyone else, cocooned in their coats, scarves and hats, after they have arranged their packages near their feet and on the seat next to them, they just stare wordlessly through the grimy glass out into the brown-gray fog in which no one has any idea at all where they are, because, although it is already certain that they have disappeared into the endless terrain lying to the southwest of Nanjing, it is simply impossible to determine how far they have come and how far they have yet to go; Stein observes the passing of time on his watch, and he can feel that this is going to last for a very long time, for so long that it will no longer matter how long, really, if it will be four or four and a half hours, because none of this means anything in terms of time—the bus makes a huge thud in the thick traffic on the pothole-blotched road, and the entire metal contraption shakes and rattles and throws them here and there in the ice-cold seats, but they doggedly move onward, in blind faith; and beside them on the side of the highway, piled high with their huge bundles, plastic bags, really, all those innumerable people: they are headed somewhere too, they are also going onward, walking in a row, leaning into the icy drizzling wind, into the rain, and only some of them motion yes to the shouting conductor leaning out of the bus, and they get on and it’s as if the rest of them don’t even hear the shouting, they just simply pull back a little from the road until the bus rumbles off from alongside this ghostly procession, then they step back onto the asphalt and continue trudging beneath the weight of the bundles and the bags, clearly with that same blind faith, just like the travelers up there in the bus—as the bus pulls away, splashing them with mud—as if there were some common reason for this faith, as if in the absurdity of this balefully obscure scene, in which there really is nothing at all, it would be enough just to believe that, today, everyone will reach their goal.
The watch on Stein’s wrist shows nine minutes past eight when, in a bend hardly a hundred meters from the intersection of three main highways, the driver suddenly brakes, and picks up, from the mud on the side of the road, a middle-aged woman, clearly waiting for this bus: from this point on, that part of the journey begins in which they can no longer hide from each other the thought that perhaps they did not thoroughly consider all the difficulties inherent in their plan of going to Jiuhuashan—that is, is the risk worth it when the goal of travel is so uncertain?—because surely, says Stein to his sleepy companion, still shivering in the cold, both of them, the two white Europeans, cannot understand anything of this at all, they cannot even understand how a bus route like this operates: how could this woman know that she had to wait here, and how could the bus driver know that this woman would be waiting exactly here, in this bend in the road, and at exactly this time, let’s say, at around eight o’clock, because you can’t speak about schedules at all, that’s how it is, it’s impossible to understand anything here, the interpreter nods in agreement a little anxiously, and so this, says Stein, is just one of the many functioning rules, unknown to them, just a mere fragment of the entire system upon which they are relying, and which somehow still continues to exist...
by László Krasznahorkai, Paris Review | Read more:
Image: From the cover of Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Mother's Day
The trees along Pine Street that every spring bloomed purple flowers had bloomed purple flowers. So what? What was the big deal? It happened every spring. Pammy kept saying, “Look at the flowers, Ma. Ain’t them flowers amazing?” The kids were trying to kiss up. Paulie had flown in, and Pammy had taken her to Mother’s Day lunch and now was holding her hand. Holding her hand! Right on Pine. The girl who once slapped her own mother for attempting to adjust her collar.
Pammy said, “Ma, these flowers, wow, they really blow me away.”
Just like Pammy to take her mother to lunch in a sweatshirt with a crossed-out picture of a machine gun on it. What about a nice dress? Or pants suit? At least this time Pammy and Paulie hadn’t been on her about the smoking. Even back when Pammy was taking harp, even back when Paulie’s hair was long and he was dating that Eileen, even after Eileen slept around and Paulie shaved his head, whenever Paulie and Pammy came over they were always on her about the smoking. Which was rude. They had no right. When their father was alive they wouldn’t have dared. When Pammy slapped her hand for adjusting her collar, Paul, Sr., had given her such a wallop.
The town looked nice. The flags were flying.
“Ma, did you like your lunch?” Pammy said.
“I liked it fine,” Alma said.
At least she didn’t have an old-lady voice. She just had her same voice, like when she was young and nobody had looked better in a tight dress going for cocktails.
“Ma, I know what,” Pammy said. “How about we walk up Pickle Street?”
What was Pammy trying to do? Cripple her? They’d been out for two hours already. Paulie’d slept late and missed lunch. He’d just flown in and, boy, were his arms tired. Paul, Sr., had always said that after a trip. Paulie had not said that. Paulie not having his father’s wit. Plus it looked like rain. Black-blue clouds were hanging over the canal bridge.
“We’re going home,” she said. “You can drive me out to the grave.”
“Ma,” Pammy said. “We’re not going to the grave, remember?”
“We are,” she said.
At the grave she’d say, Paul, dear, everything came out all right. Paulie flew in and Pammy held my hand, and for once they laid off the smoking crap.
They were passing the Manfrey place. Once, in the Nixon years, lightning had hit the Manfrey cupola. In the morning a portion of cupola lay on the lawn. She’d walked by with Nipper. Paul, Sr., did not walk Nipper. Walking Nipper being too early. Paul, Sr., had been a bit of a drinker. Paul, Sr., drank a bit with great sophistication. At that time, Paul, Sr., was selling a small device used to stimulate tree growth. You attached it to a tree and supposedly the tree flourished. When Paul, Sr., drank a bit with great sophistication he made up lovely words and sometimes bowed. This distinguished-looking gentleman would appear at your door somewhat sloshed and ask, Were your trees slaggard? Were they gublagging behind the other trees? Did they need to be prodderated? And hold up the little device. In this way they had nearly lost the house. Paul, Sr., was charming. But off-putting. In the sales sense. The efficacy of his tree stimulators was nebulous. Paul, Sr., had said so in his low drunk voice on the night that it had appeared most certain they would lose the house.
“Mother,” he’d said. “The efficacy of my tree stimulators is nebulous.”
“Ma,” Pammy said.
“What?” Alma snapped. “What do you want?”
“You stopped,” Pammy said.
“Don’t you think I know it?” she said. “My knees hurt. Daughter dragging me all over town.”
She had not known it. She knew it now, however. They were opposite the shop where the men used to cut pipe. Now it was a Lean&Fit. The time they nearly lost the house, Paulie had come to their bed with a cup of pennies. He was bald these days and sold ad space in the PennySaver. Pammy worked at No Animals Need Die. That was the actual name. Place smelled like hemp. On the shirts and hats for sale were cartoons of cows saying things like “Thanks for Not Slamming a Bolt Through My Head.”
And as children they’d been so bright. She remembered Paulie’s Achievement Award. One boy had wept when he didn’t get one. But Paulie’d got one. Yet they’d turned out badly. Worked dumb jobs and had never married and were always talking about their feelings.
Something had spoiled Paulie and Pammy. Well, it wasn’t her. She’d always been firm. Once, she’d left them at the zoo for disobeying. When she’d told them to stop feeding the giraffe they’d continued. She’d left them at the zoo and gone for a cocktail, and when she returned Pammy and Paulie were standing repentant at the front gate, zoo balloons deflated. That had been a good lesson in obedience. A month later, at Ed Pedloski’s funeral, when, with a single harsh look, she’d ordered them to march past the open coffin, they’d marched past the open coffin lickety-split, no shenanigans.
Poor Ed had looked terrible, having been found after several days on his kitchen floor.
“Ma, you O.K.?” Pammy said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alma said.
In the early days she and Paul, Sr., had done it every which way. Afterward they’d lie on the floor discussing what colors to paint the walls. But then the children came. And they were bad. They cried and complained, they pooped at idiotic random times, they stepped on broken glass, they’d wake from their naps and pull down the window shades as she lay on the floor with Paul, Sr., not yet having done it any which way, and she’d have to rise exasperated, which would spoil everything, and when she came back Paul, Sr., would be out in the distant part of the yard having a minuscule perschnoggle.
Soon Paul, Sr., was staying out all night. Who could blame him? Home was no fun. Due to Pammy and Paulie. Drastic measures were required. She bought the wildest underthings. Started smoking again. Once, she let Paul, Sr., spank her bare bottom as she stood in just heels at the refrigerator. Once, in the yard, she crouched down, schnockered, waiting to leap out at Paul, Sr. And, leaping out, found him pantsless. That was part of it. The craziness. Part of their grand love. Like when she’d find Paul, Sr., passed out on the porch and have to help him to bed. That was also part of their grand love. Even that time he very funnily called her Milly. One night she and Paul, Sr., stood outside, at a window, drinks in hand, watching Paulie and Pammy wander from room to room, frantically trying to find them. That had—that had been in fun. That had been funny. When they finally went back in, the kids were so relieved. Pammy burst into tears, and Paulie began pounding Paul, Sr., so fiercely in the groin with his tiny fists that he had to be sent to—
Well, he certainly had not been sent to sleep in the garden shed in the dark of night. As he always claimed. They would not have done that. They had—probably they’d laughed it off. In their free-spirited way. Then sent him to bed. For hitting. After which, probably, he’d run out and hidden in that shed. Rebelliously. They’d searched and searched. Searching and searching, heroically, they’d finally found him in the shed, sleeping naughtily across a fertilizer bag, tears streaking the dirt on his—
Why had he been crying when he was supposedly hiding rebelliously?
That was all a long time ago.
She wasn’t getting in the fricking time machine about it.
Pammy said, “Ma, these flowers, wow, they really blow me away.”
Just like Pammy to take her mother to lunch in a sweatshirt with a crossed-out picture of a machine gun on it. What about a nice dress? Or pants suit? At least this time Pammy and Paulie hadn’t been on her about the smoking. Even back when Pammy was taking harp, even back when Paulie’s hair was long and he was dating that Eileen, even after Eileen slept around and Paulie shaved his head, whenever Paulie and Pammy came over they were always on her about the smoking. Which was rude. They had no right. When their father was alive they wouldn’t have dared. When Pammy slapped her hand for adjusting her collar, Paul, Sr., had given her such a wallop.
The town looked nice. The flags were flying.“Ma, did you like your lunch?” Pammy said.
“I liked it fine,” Alma said.
At least she didn’t have an old-lady voice. She just had her same voice, like when she was young and nobody had looked better in a tight dress going for cocktails.
“Ma, I know what,” Pammy said. “How about we walk up Pickle Street?”
What was Pammy trying to do? Cripple her? They’d been out for two hours already. Paulie’d slept late and missed lunch. He’d just flown in and, boy, were his arms tired. Paul, Sr., had always said that after a trip. Paulie had not said that. Paulie not having his father’s wit. Plus it looked like rain. Black-blue clouds were hanging over the canal bridge.
“We’re going home,” she said. “You can drive me out to the grave.”
“Ma,” Pammy said. “We’re not going to the grave, remember?”
“We are,” she said.
At the grave she’d say, Paul, dear, everything came out all right. Paulie flew in and Pammy held my hand, and for once they laid off the smoking crap.
They were passing the Manfrey place. Once, in the Nixon years, lightning had hit the Manfrey cupola. In the morning a portion of cupola lay on the lawn. She’d walked by with Nipper. Paul, Sr., did not walk Nipper. Walking Nipper being too early. Paul, Sr., had been a bit of a drinker. Paul, Sr., drank a bit with great sophistication. At that time, Paul, Sr., was selling a small device used to stimulate tree growth. You attached it to a tree and supposedly the tree flourished. When Paul, Sr., drank a bit with great sophistication he made up lovely words and sometimes bowed. This distinguished-looking gentleman would appear at your door somewhat sloshed and ask, Were your trees slaggard? Were they gublagging behind the other trees? Did they need to be prodderated? And hold up the little device. In this way they had nearly lost the house. Paul, Sr., was charming. But off-putting. In the sales sense. The efficacy of his tree stimulators was nebulous. Paul, Sr., had said so in his low drunk voice on the night that it had appeared most certain they would lose the house.
“Mother,” he’d said. “The efficacy of my tree stimulators is nebulous.”
“Ma,” Pammy said.
“What?” Alma snapped. “What do you want?”
“You stopped,” Pammy said.
“Don’t you think I know it?” she said. “My knees hurt. Daughter dragging me all over town.”
She had not known it. She knew it now, however. They were opposite the shop where the men used to cut pipe. Now it was a Lean&Fit. The time they nearly lost the house, Paulie had come to their bed with a cup of pennies. He was bald these days and sold ad space in the PennySaver. Pammy worked at No Animals Need Die. That was the actual name. Place smelled like hemp. On the shirts and hats for sale were cartoons of cows saying things like “Thanks for Not Slamming a Bolt Through My Head.”
And as children they’d been so bright. She remembered Paulie’s Achievement Award. One boy had wept when he didn’t get one. But Paulie’d got one. Yet they’d turned out badly. Worked dumb jobs and had never married and were always talking about their feelings.
Something had spoiled Paulie and Pammy. Well, it wasn’t her. She’d always been firm. Once, she’d left them at the zoo for disobeying. When she’d told them to stop feeding the giraffe they’d continued. She’d left them at the zoo and gone for a cocktail, and when she returned Pammy and Paulie were standing repentant at the front gate, zoo balloons deflated. That had been a good lesson in obedience. A month later, at Ed Pedloski’s funeral, when, with a single harsh look, she’d ordered them to march past the open coffin, they’d marched past the open coffin lickety-split, no shenanigans.
Poor Ed had looked terrible, having been found after several days on his kitchen floor.
“Ma, you O.K.?” Pammy said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alma said.
In the early days she and Paul, Sr., had done it every which way. Afterward they’d lie on the floor discussing what colors to paint the walls. But then the children came. And they were bad. They cried and complained, they pooped at idiotic random times, they stepped on broken glass, they’d wake from their naps and pull down the window shades as she lay on the floor with Paul, Sr., not yet having done it any which way, and she’d have to rise exasperated, which would spoil everything, and when she came back Paul, Sr., would be out in the distant part of the yard having a minuscule perschnoggle.
Soon Paul, Sr., was staying out all night. Who could blame him? Home was no fun. Due to Pammy and Paulie. Drastic measures were required. She bought the wildest underthings. Started smoking again. Once, she let Paul, Sr., spank her bare bottom as she stood in just heels at the refrigerator. Once, in the yard, she crouched down, schnockered, waiting to leap out at Paul, Sr. And, leaping out, found him pantsless. That was part of it. The craziness. Part of their grand love. Like when she’d find Paul, Sr., passed out on the porch and have to help him to bed. That was also part of their grand love. Even that time he very funnily called her Milly. One night she and Paul, Sr., stood outside, at a window, drinks in hand, watching Paulie and Pammy wander from room to room, frantically trying to find them. That had—that had been in fun. That had been funny. When they finally went back in, the kids were so relieved. Pammy burst into tears, and Paulie began pounding Paul, Sr., so fiercely in the groin with his tiny fists that he had to be sent to—
Well, he certainly had not been sent to sleep in the garden shed in the dark of night. As he always claimed. They would not have done that. They had—probably they’d laughed it off. In their free-spirited way. Then sent him to bed. For hitting. After which, probably, he’d run out and hidden in that shed. Rebelliously. They’d searched and searched. Searching and searching, heroically, they’d finally found him in the shed, sleeping naughtily across a fertilizer bag, tears streaking the dirt on his—
Why had he been crying when he was supposedly hiding rebelliously?
That was all a long time ago.
She wasn’t getting in the fricking time machine about it.
by George Saunders, New Yorker | Read more:
Image: Jeff Bark
Panty Raid
As any casual observer of the Donald Trump campaign can tell you, internet outrage is the fastest route to “earned media” — free publicity — and this is something Agrawal understands intuitively. “Literally, my director of marketing called me sobbing after we spent a month busting our asses working on these ads,” she told me, a month later, scraping soy yogurt from a bowl, perched at her kitchen table in front of a Mac laptop with a prominent Burning Man decal on it. “I was like, sweetheart, I got this.” Agrawal’s apartment is a lofted condo inside an old Catholic church, strewn with succulents and yoga accoutrements. A surfboard sat on a sunny balcony. I’d walked there from the Bedford Avenue L stop, which was by then entirely covered in the grapefruit Thinx ads. Agrawal, who has large brown eyes framed by bangs and the sort of asymmetrical shaved sideburn Skrillex made famous, was wrapped in a plaid blanket over her black crop top and artfully torn leggings. She spoke quickly, intensely, and with her hands. “The good news about the way this world is today is that if there is a good fight to be fought, there are people who will listen to you and write about it. Subject heading: ‘SCANDAL with the MTA’?” Her eyes got wider. “It’s like, Ooh, I’m going to open that email. You know what I mean?”
If Agrawal were a man, her type would be immediately recognizable: She meditates with the app Headspace, she does Crossfit, she has given a TEDx talk, she quotes Steve Jobs and Tim Ferriss. She is self-mythologizing, utterly confident even in situations where she has no good reason to be, and it all serves her exceedingly well. She is a tech bro — except she’s a woman, trying to sell underwear. Or, as she sees it, innovating in the “period space.”
by Noreen Malone, The Cut | Read more:
Image: Bobby Doherty/New York Magazine
Welcome to the “San Francisco” Super Bowl
So it’s Super Bowl week here in the Bay Area, and the mood around here is…meh. I’m sure there are plenty of locals who are super-excited about hosting the Big Game — the 50th Super Bowl! — but nobody I know seems to be among them.
There’s been a lot of press about defaced signs, traffic headaches, and unhappiness at the way the game-week festivities are being funded. But I think the local attitude has deeper roots than that. Like Thanksgiving dinner, hosting the Super Bowl is aggravating all the little dysfunctions that make this place an interesting and often infuriating place to live.(...)
Despite the fact that the national marketing is focused on San Francisco, and that the pre-game “Super Bowl City” and associated activities are happening in the city proper, the actual game will be at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley, 43 miles south of downtown SF. As far as I can tell, this is the greatest distance between a Super Bowl host city and the actual game, ever. The only two previous games that have come close were Super Bowl XVI, held at the Pontiac Silverdome (29 miles from downtown Detroit), and of course Super Bowl XIX, held at Stanford Stadium, a mere 34 miles from downtown SF. By comparison, MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ is only 11 miles from downtown Manhattan, and the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale is about 18 miles from downtown Phoenix. Even the fabled Rose Bowl in Pasadena, host of 5 Super Bowls, is only 11 miles from downtown LA.
Of course, Levi’s is the new (since the 2014 season) home of the San Francisco 49ers, which is also a bit crazy in comparison to the rest of the NFL. Of the 32 NFL teams, 28 have a city in their name (the exceptions being Carolina, New England, Arizona, and Tennessee). Of those 28, only 7 have stadiums outside the city limits of their hometown, and other than Levi’s, the longest distance outside of downtown is 18 miles (AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX). San Francisco is actually only 17 miles from O.co Coliseum, home of the Oakland Raiders. (Levi’s is actually closer to O.co as well — 32 miles.) And of course, Candlestick Park, the 49ers’ old home, was only 6 miles from downtown SF, and inside the city limits.
So you can imagine that the old guard of 49er Faithful, residents of The City, have not been entirely happy with the move to Santa Clara. It’s an hour’s drive in decent traffic, with limited public transit (at minimum, a Caltrain ride to the joint VTA station in Mountain View and a transfer to the light rail there). It’s also not surprising, then, that the San Franciscans feel only a limited ownership of the Super Bowl being held in the lovely new stadium so far away.
For those of us who live in the South Bay, by contrast, it’s annoying to see so much of the marketing pretend that we’re San Francisco. It’s like we’re hosting a huge party, but everyone is thanking our next door neighbor for their hospitality. At least the teams and the media are staying in hotels in the South Bay, and flying in to San Jose International.
There’s been a lot of press about defaced signs, traffic headaches, and unhappiness at the way the game-week festivities are being funded. But I think the local attitude has deeper roots than that. Like Thanksgiving dinner, hosting the Super Bowl is aggravating all the little dysfunctions that make this place an interesting and often infuriating place to live.(...)
Despite the fact that the national marketing is focused on San Francisco, and that the pre-game “Super Bowl City” and associated activities are happening in the city proper, the actual game will be at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley, 43 miles south of downtown SF. As far as I can tell, this is the greatest distance between a Super Bowl host city and the actual game, ever. The only two previous games that have come close were Super Bowl XVI, held at the Pontiac Silverdome (29 miles from downtown Detroit), and of course Super Bowl XIX, held at Stanford Stadium, a mere 34 miles from downtown SF. By comparison, MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ is only 11 miles from downtown Manhattan, and the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale is about 18 miles from downtown Phoenix. Even the fabled Rose Bowl in Pasadena, host of 5 Super Bowls, is only 11 miles from downtown LA.Of course, Levi’s is the new (since the 2014 season) home of the San Francisco 49ers, which is also a bit crazy in comparison to the rest of the NFL. Of the 32 NFL teams, 28 have a city in their name (the exceptions being Carolina, New England, Arizona, and Tennessee). Of those 28, only 7 have stadiums outside the city limits of their hometown, and other than Levi’s, the longest distance outside of downtown is 18 miles (AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX). San Francisco is actually only 17 miles from O.co Coliseum, home of the Oakland Raiders. (Levi’s is actually closer to O.co as well — 32 miles.) And of course, Candlestick Park, the 49ers’ old home, was only 6 miles from downtown SF, and inside the city limits.
So you can imagine that the old guard of 49er Faithful, residents of The City, have not been entirely happy with the move to Santa Clara. It’s an hour’s drive in decent traffic, with limited public transit (at minimum, a Caltrain ride to the joint VTA station in Mountain View and a transfer to the light rail there). It’s also not surprising, then, that the San Franciscans feel only a limited ownership of the Super Bowl being held in the lovely new stadium so far away.
For those of us who live in the South Bay, by contrast, it’s annoying to see so much of the marketing pretend that we’re San Francisco. It’s like we’re hosting a huge party, but everyone is thanking our next door neighbor for their hospitality. At least the teams and the media are staying in hotels in the South Bay, and flying in to San Jose International.
by Adam Elman, Medium | Read more:
Image: uncredited
Monday, February 1, 2016
Uninstalling Facebook App Saves Up to 20% of Android Battery Life
Facebook does not have the greatest track record with its Android app. Users have long complained about performance issues and it sucking up battery and last year Facebook’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, took the unusual step of making his staff ditch their iPhones and move to Android until they sorted out the issues.
But the problems have remained, and recently they led the Android blogger Russell Holly to dump the app, starting a chain reaction which revealed something rather interesting about the app’s performance. Prompted by Holly’s revelation that life on Android was better without Facebook’s app, Reddit user pbrandes_eth tested the app’s impact on the performance of an LG G4.
They found that when the Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps were uninstalled, other apps on the smartphone launched 15% faster. They tested 15 separate apps, and documented the findings, leading other reddit users to test other devices. They found similar results when testing for app loading performance.
After reading Holly’s piece, I had also decided to explore other options for accessing Facebook, to see if, rather than app loading, I could improve my smartphone’s battery life.
I left the Facebook Messenger app installed, but swapped the Facebook app for an app called Metal, which acts as a wrapper for Facebook’s mobile site. Over the course of a day my Huawei Nexus 6P had 20% more battery. This was true on average for every day for the week tried.
In Metal I was using the same notifications and accessing the same features as I had just a week earlier through the Facebook app, so why the difference?
Despite the Facebook app not showing up as using a significant amount of power within Android’s built-in battery statistics, it was evidently consuming more power in the background than it needed to.
It turned out other Android services including Android system and Android OS showed reduced battery consumption when the Facebook app was uninstalled. Those services act as a buffer for many apps to the outside world when running in the background. So while Facebook didn’t look like it was using that much power, it was actually just being displayed elsewhere in Android’s statistics.
But the problems have remained, and recently they led the Android blogger Russell Holly to dump the app, starting a chain reaction which revealed something rather interesting about the app’s performance. Prompted by Holly’s revelation that life on Android was better without Facebook’s app, Reddit user pbrandes_eth tested the app’s impact on the performance of an LG G4.
They found that when the Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps were uninstalled, other apps on the smartphone launched 15% faster. They tested 15 separate apps, and documented the findings, leading other reddit users to test other devices. They found similar results when testing for app loading performance.After reading Holly’s piece, I had also decided to explore other options for accessing Facebook, to see if, rather than app loading, I could improve my smartphone’s battery life.
I left the Facebook Messenger app installed, but swapped the Facebook app for an app called Metal, which acts as a wrapper for Facebook’s mobile site. Over the course of a day my Huawei Nexus 6P had 20% more battery. This was true on average for every day for the week tried.
In Metal I was using the same notifications and accessing the same features as I had just a week earlier through the Facebook app, so why the difference?
Despite the Facebook app not showing up as using a significant amount of power within Android’s built-in battery statistics, it was evidently consuming more power in the background than it needed to.
It turned out other Android services including Android system and Android OS showed reduced battery consumption when the Facebook app was uninstalled. Those services act as a buffer for many apps to the outside world when running in the background. So while Facebook didn’t look like it was using that much power, it was actually just being displayed elsewhere in Android’s statistics.
by Samuel Gibbs, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: opopododo/Flickr
How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off
Child prodigies rarely become adult geniuses who change the world. We assume that they must lack the social and emotional skills to function in society. When you look at the evidence, though, this explanation doesn’t suffice: Less than a quarter of gifted children suffer from social and emotional problems. A vast majority are well adjusted — as winning at a cocktail party as in the spelling bee.
What holds them back is that they don’t learn to be original. They strive to earn the approval of their parents and the admiration of their teachers. But as they perform in Carnegie Hall and become chess champions, something unexpected happens: Practice makes perfect, but it doesn’t make new.
The gifted learn to play magnificent Mozart melodies, but rarely compose their own original scores. They focus their energy on consuming existing scientific knowledge, not producing new insights. They conform to codified rules, rather than inventing their own. Research suggests that the most creative children are the least likely to become the teacher’s pet, and in response, many learn to keep their original ideas to themselves. In the language of the critic William Deresiewicz, they become the excellent sheep.
In adulthood, many prodigies become experts in their fields and leaders in their organizations. Yet “only a fraction of gifted children eventually become revolutionary adult creators,” laments the psychologist Ellen Winner. “Those who do must make a painful transition” to an adult who “ultimately remakes a domain.”
Most prodigies never make that leap. They apply their extraordinary abilities by shining in their jobs without making waves. They become doctors who heal their patients without fighting to fix the broken medical system or lawyers who defend clients on unfair charges but do not try to transform the laws themselves.
So what does it take to raise a creative child? One study compared the families of children who were rated among the most creative 5 percent in their school system with those who were not unusually creative. The parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of fewer than one rule.
Creativity may be hard to nurture, but it’s easy to thwart. By limiting rules, parents encouraged their children to think for themselves. They tended to “place emphasis on moral values, rather than on specific rules,” the Harvard psychologist Teresa Amabile reports.
Even then, though, parents didn’t shove their values down their children’s throats. When psychologists compared America’s most creative architects with a group of highly skilled but unoriginal peers, there was something unique about the parents of the creative architects: “Emphasis was placed on the development of one’s own ethical code.”
Yes, parents encouraged their children to pursue excellence and success — but they also encouraged them to find “joy in work.” Their children had freedom to sort out their own values and discover their own interests. And that set them up to flourish as creative adults.
When the psychologist Benjamin Bloom led a study of the early roots of world-class musicians, artists, athletes and scientists, he learned that their parents didn’t dream of raising superstar kids. They weren’t drill sergeants or slave drivers. They responded to the intrinsic motivation of their children. When their children showed interest and enthusiasm in a skill, the parents supported them.
What holds them back is that they don’t learn to be original. They strive to earn the approval of their parents and the admiration of their teachers. But as they perform in Carnegie Hall and become chess champions, something unexpected happens: Practice makes perfect, but it doesn’t make new.
The gifted learn to play magnificent Mozart melodies, but rarely compose their own original scores. They focus their energy on consuming existing scientific knowledge, not producing new insights. They conform to codified rules, rather than inventing their own. Research suggests that the most creative children are the least likely to become the teacher’s pet, and in response, many learn to keep their original ideas to themselves. In the language of the critic William Deresiewicz, they become the excellent sheep.
In adulthood, many prodigies become experts in their fields and leaders in their organizations. Yet “only a fraction of gifted children eventually become revolutionary adult creators,” laments the psychologist Ellen Winner. “Those who do must make a painful transition” to an adult who “ultimately remakes a domain.”Most prodigies never make that leap. They apply their extraordinary abilities by shining in their jobs without making waves. They become doctors who heal their patients without fighting to fix the broken medical system or lawyers who defend clients on unfair charges but do not try to transform the laws themselves.
So what does it take to raise a creative child? One study compared the families of children who were rated among the most creative 5 percent in their school system with those who were not unusually creative. The parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of fewer than one rule.
Creativity may be hard to nurture, but it’s easy to thwart. By limiting rules, parents encouraged their children to think for themselves. They tended to “place emphasis on moral values, rather than on specific rules,” the Harvard psychologist Teresa Amabile reports.
Even then, though, parents didn’t shove their values down their children’s throats. When psychologists compared America’s most creative architects with a group of highly skilled but unoriginal peers, there was something unique about the parents of the creative architects: “Emphasis was placed on the development of one’s own ethical code.”
Yes, parents encouraged their children to pursue excellence and success — but they also encouraged them to find “joy in work.” Their children had freedom to sort out their own values and discover their own interests. And that set them up to flourish as creative adults.
When the psychologist Benjamin Bloom led a study of the early roots of world-class musicians, artists, athletes and scientists, he learned that their parents didn’t dream of raising superstar kids. They weren’t drill sergeants or slave drivers. They responded to the intrinsic motivation of their children. When their children showed interest and enthusiasm in a skill, the parents supported them.
by Adam Grant, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Brian Chippendale
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