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Source: http://www.etsy.com/listing/94235843/art-deco-android-poster
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
How hot is it in the western US? Real hot
The heat wave gripping the western U.S. is one of the worst in years, with desert locations in the Southwest seeing temperatures approach 120 degrees. To give some perspective, here are five facts about the punishing nature of the heat.
DEATH VALLEY
The desert valley in California will see temperatures approach 130 degrees. The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth occurred in Death Valley with a reading of 134 degrees, almost 100 years ago to the day in 1913. The park is dotted with locations such as Furnace Creek and Dante's View, and officials are urging people to exercise extreme caution. But sweltering heat is often a big draw for visitors to Death Valley National Park ? especially tourists from Europe ? with hotels already booked solid during the hotter months of July and August.
BE CAREFUL
As if temperatures nearing 120 degrees weren't bad enough, it's even hotter inside cars and on concrete and asphalt roads and sidewalks. It can get to 200 degrees on asphalt during peak summer temperatures, presenting all sorts of hazards. Drivers should keep pets and children out of locked cars, and a person who suffers a fall on a sidewalk or a street could end up in the burn unit.
PETS
It's common in cities like Phoenix to see pet owners place booties on the paws of their dogs to keep the animals from burning on the blazing heat of streets and sidewalks. As a result, pet owners are urged to walk their dogs during morning and evening hours to protect them from the heat.
AIRLINES
Bigger jetliners can handle temperatures around 126 and 127 degrees, but airlines are closely monitoring the conditions and smaller planes may have flights delayed. When the temperature gets real hot, the air becomes less dense and changes liftoff conditions.
NO ESCAPE
The easiest way to beat the heat in cities such as Phoenix is to flee the desert for higher-elevation mountain cities such as Flagstaff, Sedona and Prescott. But there won't be much of a break from during this hot spell. Flagstaff could approach the record Saturday of 97 degrees, and Sedona could be in the 110 range.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hot-western-us-real-hot-082737772.html
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City-View Real Estate Services, LLC: Specialized Services for Real ...
You?re intelligent. You?re ambitious. You make smart decisions with your money. You diversify and invest in opportunities that project a promising rate of return. After all, the job of your money is to work for you and the job of the experienced professionals of CityView Real Estate Services, LLC is to work with you in making sure your goals are met when it comes to your real estate investment and borrowing needs.
A trusted brokerage and property management company, CityView Real Estate Services, LLC provides real estate services to investors through buying, selling and strategic consulting. Located at 8135 Wornall in Kansas City, Missouri, this experienced firm of business professionals ? Travis Garrison, Jon Ray, Tom O?Donnell, Bart Umentum, Paul Higbie and Nick Virchow ? brings to the table over 45 years of real estate experience, including real estate lending, investment, property management and contracting. Not only are they well-versed in all things real estate, the five partners also provide expertise in addressing and resolving legal issues, finance, operations, sales and engineering.
Under the umbrella of CityView Real Estate Services, LLC are three companies, all of which meet specific needs of investors and together provide a one-stop shop of services that meet the requirements of those investors for their real estate investment potfolios. The local, respected and experienced business professionals who have joined forces to create this organization hold each other accountable for the delivery of these unique services, and consistently go above and beyond any and all expectations of their clients.
?CityView Real Estate Services, LLC was formed by investors to focus on investor requirements,? explained Garrison. ?We are business professionals who are in the real estate industry. We bring our business backgrounds to this arena providing specialized services for real estate investors and small business owners.?
Through this strong alliance, Garrison and his business partners know that in order for their clients to be successful in their investment enterprises, they require the combined strength of not only unparalleled expertise but transparent honesty, focus and knowledge.
?We only loan money on projects we understand and would not mind investing in ourselves,? noted Garrison. ?We are committed because, together, we have all invested our own money in support of this vision and what we believe we can bring to the real estate market place.?
Their commitment to remaining upfront with their investors can be seen in their actions and heard in their words.
?We tell the good, the bad and the ugly,? said Garrison. ?We believe in being completely transparent.?
Of course, investing in real property almost always calls for property maintenance services and/or remodeling and renovation work, all of which can be obtained from Jon Ray Remodeling/Brookside Maintenance Services, which is an arm owned by CityView Real Estate Services, LLC. Specializing in property renovation and rehab investor properties, rental or for sale, Jon Ray offers wholesale pricing for its investors, which is usually 30% less than retail.
?We offer cost effective maintenance and renovations,? expressed Garrison. ?Jon understands what work needs to be done to not only bring added value to the property but also to provide a return on the investment. ?
As for the quality of the workmanship, the results speak for themselves. Whether it?s a $50,000 project or a $500,000 project, the quality of the workmanship is consistent.
?We always go the extra mile and strive to do the right thing,? noted Garrison.
One of the biggest issues when it comes to investing in real estate is capital, and that is where Waldo Capital Management, LLC, the third arm of CityView, comes into play.
?As a private lender, we work with clients who?s need for capital cannot be met by a traditional lender and are in a position to provide a real estate asset as collateral,? explained Higbie.
Additionally, the team enjoys a strong banking relationship with Country Club Bank based on mutual respect.
?They believe in who we are, in our knowledge and in what we have done,? said Garrison. ?We always do what we say we will do.?
Garrison and his team realize your bottom line is a top priority, but they won?t focus on that without a wealth of integrity at the wheel.
?We don?t just lend money; we help our clients to become successful,? noted Higbie, suggesting that they don?t just talk the talk; they walk the walk. ?We put our money where our mouth is. Collectively, all five partners have invested over $200,000 into this firm, so we are right there with each and every one of our clients. Our target is to realize a 10%+ return for our investors and we have consistently achieved that end.?
The common denominator upon which these businessmen agree is to support their vision by remaining committed to the success of the investors.
?We want to be a partner with them, not just part of a business relationship. That is how we all succeed,? commented Garrison. ?We provide the services and commitment we would want as if each property was our own.?
For more information on Investment or Borrowing, go online at waldocapitalkc.com or call 816.709.1080. For more information on Brokerage/Property Management/Renovation and Maintenance Services call 816.523.0468.
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Kevin Padian discusses common misconceptions about evolution ...
If you teach evolution, or like to read about it, there?s a new paper you should read by Kevin Padian in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach (free download; reference below). It?s a discussion of misrepresentations about evolution that occur not only in popular science writing, but also in textbooks. As president of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and a respected paleontologist at Berkeley who works on the evolution of birds and flight, Padian carries considerable authority in this area. And indeed, his points are generally good. In fact, I was embarrassed to see that I?ve been guilty of some of these misrepresentations, for which I?m sometimes called to account by readers here.
I do have a couple of disagreements with Padian?s points (more below), but on the whole they?re solid and worth absorbing.? Here are some that I agree with, or at least don?t strongly disagree with:
- Define evolution properly.? My own definition is ?change in allele frequency over time,? but Padian doesn?t like that: he prefers Darwin?s definition of ?descent with modification?. I?m neutral about this. Padian doesn?t like the gene-frequency change definition because such changes could reverse themselves, nullifying evolution. But so can ?descent with modification?. Further, it?s not clear what, exactly, gets modified? Nevertheless, I?m happy to adopt Padian?s change as a supplementary definition to my own.
- Avoid the term ?modern? when referring to traits or species. To Padian, this implies progressivism, and we know evolution isn?t really on a one-way march to ever-better organisms.? I?m neutral about this change: I don?t see the harm of referring to ?modern reptiles? as opposed to ?Jurassic reptiles.?
- Don?t use the term ?many scientists believe.? This is because ?many? implies that science is decided by vote; ?scientists? could refer to those outside the field of expertise (for example, it?s fair to say ?many scientists doubt evolution?, though most of those misguided doubters are chemists, engineers, and the like); and ?belief? is not something scientists have.? ?Confidence based on evidence? is better, and avoids the religious implications of the word ?believe.?
- Avoid the words ?primitive? and ?advanced.?? Padian sees these as carrying value judgments similar to that of the word ?modern.? He prefers the term ?basal? and ?derived,? which come from cladistic systematics. I?m perfectly happy to adopt those terms, though they may be confusing in popular-evolution texts.
- Don?t personalize scientific debates.? As Padian notes, ?this example [the argument about the closest living relatives of whales] was not about individual scientists arguing with each other, but about the kinds of evidence that scientists in certain fields are trained to understand and preferentially accept.?? I mildly disagree with this, for it gives the impression that science is not a human enterprise, and that personalities play no role in the progress of science. Ultimately, of course, truth wins out, but the force of certain personalities, or the unwillingness of scientists to admit they?re wrong, does affect progress in some fields. Think about how long the influential Steve Gould, for instance, delayed progress in paleobiology by insisting that punctuated equilibrium was not just a description of a jerky pattern in the fossil record, but was caused by a process that was essentially non-Darwinian (founder-effect speciation combined with species selection, processes that have not won over many evolutionists).
- ?Use care in characterizing the religious beliefs of historical figures.?? Yes, people often get this wrong, as when implying that Darwin was religious or Cuvier a biblical literalist.? But I?m not sure what real harm is done by this, except by creationists who insist that Darwin was either conventionally religious or recanted his agnosticism on his deathbed.
- ?Avoid giving the impression that evolution is atheistic, or that evolutionists must be atheists.?? Well, yes, one should not give this impression when teaching, for it?s an intrusion of religion into the classroom. But evolution is atheistic in the sense that all science is atheistic: we don?t assume that divine powers are working through the process. That?s what we mean when we say ?evolution is materialistic and unguided.?? Now people like Genie Scott at the NCSE don?t like that language, either, but it?s no more wrong than saying that chemistry is materialistic and unguided. The objection to the ?unguided? part (an objection Scott made when the evolution statement was adopted by the National Council of Biology Teachers) is a purely political ploy, meant to avoid alienating religious allies. But, as I?ve said repeatedly, theistic evolutionists are not the allies of scientists. As for the impression that ?evolutionists must be atheists,? I don?t really say that, but I think that consistent evolutionists, as with all consistent scientists, should be atheists. Otherwise they are simultaneously adopting two disparate methodologies for finding ?truth.?
- Do not personify natural selection. A good point, and one I?ve been guilty of violating.? Natural selection is not some force imposed on organisms by the outside, nor does it ?want? anything. It is simply a process of gene sorting?a description of what happens when some forms of genes leave more copies than others.
Likewise, Padian says that we shouldn?t claim that natural selection is ?creative,? for that also personifies a process that is impersonal.? I?m not so sure about this one: is substantial harm done by desribing the ?creativity? of selection if one is clear what one means?selection has produced organisms that are well-adapted to their environments, and appear designed by a creator? Still, Padian is correct in saying we should avoid describing natural selection as anything other than differential reproduction of genes, or saying that is has foresight. Another of Padian?s beefs is the term that a feature evolved ?for? something, as ?the flippers of dolphins evolved to help them swim.? That, too, mischaracterizes what really happens during natural selection.
But I disagree strongly with three of Padian?s prescriptions. Two are scientific, and one philosophical.
- ??Fitness? is not about how many offspring you leave.? Padian doesn?t like this characterization of a fundamental concept in evolutionary genetics, noting that ?It is not about the number of offspring you produce; it?s about their survivability.? But few evolutionists, whether in technical or popular books, think that pure survival is the whole criterion for fitness, and few characterize natural selection as ?survival of the fittest.? Rather, most of us think of fitness as the relative success of an allele or a genotype in reproducing itself?in leaving copies for the next generation.? In that sense it is about the number of offspring (or gene copies) that you have, if by that you mean ?surviving? offspring. For the offspring that reproduce the next generation are the offspring produced, weighted by their probability of surviving to reproduce.
- ?Sexual selection is not a kind of natural selection.?? To me, this is the biggest problem with Padian?s list of scientific misconceptions, for virtually every biologist recognizes sexual selection as a subset of natural selection?a subset that involves mate choice.? And the boundaries between natural and sexual selection are very fuzzy.? For example, male sage grouse who dance the most vigorously on a lek (a mating arena) are chosen more often by females.? That?s sexual selection.? But males who are able to displace the sperm of previously-mating males (dameselflies, for instance, have ?penis scoops? that remove the sperm from previously males when they inseminate a female) are often regarded as experiencing natural selection.? What about males who produce sperm that swim faster than those of other males? Is that natural or sexual selection? The distinction is not clear cut.
Padian sees sexual selection as different from natural selection because sexual selection produces differences between males and females: sexual dimorphisms like male ornaments, the bowers of bowerbirds, and male calling behavior, as in frogs. Padian notes correctly that it was Darwin who came up with the idea of sexual selection?and gave it its name?because he observed male traits that were deleterious for survival (e.g., the long tails of male widowbirds).? His explanation was that the survival disadvantage was more than compensated for by the mating advantage (females like long tails).
Padian?s basis for saying that sexual selection isn?t natural selection rests on this statement: ?Because Darwin invented sexual selection, and because he based it on observations that have never been falsified, his definition cannot be wrong.? I find that very strange. The inventor of a term doesn?t enjoy lifelong propriety over its correctness.? Besides, sexual selection operates in precisely the same way as natural selection: the differential reproduction of genes for behavior and morphology. To say that they are different processes is to perpetuate a misunderstanding.
Finally, natural selection can also lead to sexual dimorphism, as in, for example, raptors of different sizes that are ecologically specialized: males and females are different because they catch different-sized prey. Female Drosophila may be larger than males because large body size enables you to lay more eggs.? Dimorphisms can result from natural and sexual selection.? Too, there are forms of sexual selection that don?t lead to dimorphisms.? There is mutual sexual selection, for example.? If both males and females have evolved to find the color red attractive?perhaps because they need to find nutritious red berries?it?s possible that both sexes would prefer, as a sensory byproduct, red plumage in the other sex.? That would be sexual selection, but would lead to a uniform coloration in males and females, not a dimorphism. This may, for example, explain bright colors in male and female parrots or reef fish.
- ?Avoid pitting science against religion, even though sometimes there are real conflicts.? As president of the NCSE, which is explicitly an accommodationist organization, I see this advice as not only self-contradictory (?don?t say there are conflicts even though they are?), but a purely tactical ploy to win friends for evolution among the faithful. True, I don?t talk about religion in my undergraduate science classes, but I surely mention the conflict in my popular writing, as in my Evolution paper about American rejection of evolution.? It?s impossible, in fact, to understand the rejection of evolution in any nation without mentioning religion. Creationism is explictly the pitting of science against religion.
In trying to keep religion and science in separate magisteria, Padian is forced to make dubious or insupportable statements, including the deeply misguided notion that science can?t deal with the supernatural. How many times do I have to correct this elementary mistake? Science can test claims about rain dances, intercessory prayer, spiritual healing, ESP, astrology, and all kinds of supernatural claims. Padian also claims that science cannot disprove supernatural beings. Well, yes, but we don?t ?prove? or ?disprove? anything in science. But we surely can render suppositions about the supernatural unlikely. Here?s a bit of Padian?s discussion:
?Oddly, perhaps, the very openness of science is what attracts scorn from religious fundamentalists, who build their lives on what they accept as immutable truths of
faith. The principal act of faith of a scientist is accepting that the natural world is knowable, and that we can use our (however imperfect) faculties and judgment to learn about natural phenomena and trust our results, wherever our investigations lead. After that, the rules of scientific inquiry are not about faith, but about posing and testing hypotheses. But science has its limits, and the supernatural is one of them. In short, science does not deal with the supernatural. Religion has its limits too, and one of them is in making statements about the natural world. There is only conflict between science and religion if people want it; or rather, there is conflict when people want it.. . . All science is non-theistic, by which is meant that it does not entail or require any concept of a god or other supernatural being or force. In fact, science is completely independent of any ideas about gods or other supernatural beliefs. But science is not anti-theistic: it does not deny such beings or forces, any more than it accepts them (or leprechauns or unicorns), because these things are not within the purview of science.?
Presumably Padian doesn?t think that science is independent of any ideas about unicorns, leprechauns, fairies, ESP, and astrology because ?these things are not within the purview of science.? Of course they are! Theistic gods, like fairies and astrology, predict certain phenomena about the world that aren?t observed, therefore diminishing the likelihood that such things exist.? The only kind of God immune to empirical study is a deistic God who doesn?t interact with the world?the kind of god that most believers don?t accept. So again Padian, like all of those who claim a disjunction of science and the supernatural, is making a theological rather than a scientific statement.? If God is good and interactive, there should not be natural evils in the world, and we should have evidence for his existence.? We don?t.? Therefore God is unlikely?at least a theistic God who is omnipotent and omnibenevolent. If you are a Native American and perform rain dances during droughts, that notion can be tested, too. Just use a control group who doesn?t dance. Likewise for Christian Science and its idea of spiritual healing.
I?ve dwelt on my differences with Padian?s piece not because the piece is bad, for it isn?t; in fact, it?s quite good. But it takes longer to correct errors than to praise good stuff. I recommend Padian?s article to everyone who teaches or discusses evolution, but do be aware of the three potential problems I?ve just discussed.
____________
Padian, K. 2013. Correction some common misrepresentations of evolution in the textbooks and the media. Evolution: Education and Outreach 6:11.
h/t: Gabe
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'Glee' Cast Shakeup: 5 Original Cast Members Out
By Jethro Nededog
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Fox's "Glee" is saying goodbye to several fan favorites.
Original cast members Dianna Agron, Heather Morris, Mark Salling, Amber Riley and Harry Shum, Jr. won't be returning as series regulars next season, though they may make guest appearances, individuals close to the production confirmed to TheWrap.
A representative for show producers, 20th Century Fox Television, declined to comment.
All five actors started with the musical series back in 2009. On the last season, "Glee" saw some big changes as new students joined and several characters moved on to their lives after McKinley High. The series was partially set in New York City to accommodate new storylines for stars Lea Michele and Chris Colfer.
Quinn (Agron), Puck (Salling), Mercedes (Riley) and Mike (Shum) graduated on Season 3. Heather (Morris) graduated this past season and the undercover brainiac accepted an offer to attend M.I.T. in Cambridge, Mass.
In April, Fox granted an early renewal to the Ryan Murphy production for an additional two seasons.
While the series still performs well on the network and reached cult status among viewers very quickly, its viewership has flagged some over its run. At its height during Season 2, "Glee" averaged 10.11 million viewers per episode versus Season 4's 8.26 million.
TVLine was the first to report the cast changes.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/glee-cast-shakeup-5-original-cast-members-000027686.html
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Biden: GOP Senators Tell Me Their Fear of Cruz and Paul
by William Bigelow 30 Jun 2013, 3:12 AM PDT post a comment
When I asked several Republican senators after they voted against background checks, not one offered an explanation on the merits of why they couldn't vote for them. But almost to a person, they said, "I don't want to take on Ted Cruz. I don't want to take on Rand Paul. They'll be in my district."
Here?s the question: does anyone believe that GOP senators would go to confession with Joe Biden, or is it more likely that the two GOP senators the White House most fears are in their crosshairs and Biden has been told to launch bloodletting against them now?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BigGovernment/~3/BL3YOK4NRu4/story01.htm
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Startups Compete To Win The Mobile App CRM Battle
Editor's note:?Ankur Jain is a venture investor at Nexus Venture Partners. Nexus invests in early and early growth stage companies across sectors in India and the U.S. The rapid growth of mobile device usage has created major gaps in CRM capability; as smartphone adoption has exploded, companies have scrambled to launch mobile apps, many of which are disconnected from an organization's broader CRM capabilities.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/HuIwdT18Fc8/
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Facebook is pulling ads from racy, violent pages
MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) ? Facebook is pulling ads from pages that contain violence or sexual content.
The social network said that on Monday, it will expand its definition of pages and groups that are too controversial to carry advertisements.
Facebook has sought to strike a balance between giving its 1.1 billion users the freedom to post what they want and providing advertisers with space to sell their products.
In May, Facebook Inc. lost more than a dozen advertisers, at least temporarily, after the activist group Women, Action and the Media urged an advertising boycott to protest hate speech on the Facebook site. The controversial content included grisly photos and mottos that encouraged rape, abuse and other violence against women.
The company said then that it would review its guidelines, update training for employees and increase accountability for those who post such matter. It also said it would work more closely with women's groups. Some of the companies that initially pulled their ads ? including automaker Nissan and the car-sharing service Zipcar ? said then that they were pleased with Facebook's response.
Facebook had already banned ads on certain pages. The new policy will expand on the categories affected by the ban. In the past, a company selling adult-theme products could have ads running on the right side of the page, for instance. Those pages will be ad-free starting Monday.
"We recognize we need to do more to prevent situations where ads are displayed alongside controversial Pages and Groups," the company said in a statement Friday. "So we are taking action."
Facebook will continue to remove entire pages if they are deemed to violate its terms of service. The new policy covers pages that are permitted, but controversial.
Facebook said the new restrictions won't have a meaningful impact on its business.
___
Online:
New policy: http://newsroom.fb.com/News/658/A-New-Review-Policy-For-Pages-and-Groups
Content guidelines: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards
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Atheists unveil monument in Florida
A MONUMENT to atheism now sits near a granite slab that lists the Ten Commandments outside a courthouse in a conservative north Florida town.
The New Jersey-based group American Atheists unveiled the 680-kilogram granite bench on Saturday as a counter to the religious monument in what's called a free speech zone.
Group leaders say they believe it's the first such atheist monument on government property.
About 200 people attended the event.
Most were atheists, but a few protesters attended as well, including a group with signs that read "Yankees Go Home".
The atheists sued to try to have the Ten Commandments removed, but dropped the case when they were told they could have a similar monument.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newscomaubreakingndm/~3/fkLgxhkHMA8/story01.htm
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Pakistani officials said troops swept a Karachi jail Saturday searching for cont...
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Source: http://www.facebook.com/karachinews/posts/609308195769507
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
China at center of Asia nuclear energy expansion IAEA chief
Global Times Saturday 29th June, 2013
China is at the center of the nuclear energy expansion in Asia, says Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).During an interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of a high-level nuclear power conference here, Amano praised the fast-growing nuclear industry in China and the high safety standards adopted by the country.According to the chief of the UN nuclear watchdog, there are currently 434 nuclear power reactors in operation across the world and 69 under construction, with two thirds of these new units in Asia.China, along with other major emerging economie...
Read more
Source: http://www.asiabulletin.com/index.php/sid/215515403/scat/bf053b50c46383e0
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Major changes needed for coral reef survival
June 28, 2013 ? To prevent coral reefs around the world from dying off, deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are required, says a new study from Carnegie's Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira. They find that all existing coral reefs will be engulfed in inhospitable ocean chemistry conditions by the end of the century if civilization continues along its current emissions trajectory.
Their work will be published July 3 by Environmental Research Letters.
Coral reefs are havens for marine biodiversity and underpin the economies of many coastal communities. But they are very sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry resulting from greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to coastal pollution, warming waters, overdevelopment, and overfishing.
Ricke and Caldeira, along with colleagues from Institut Pierre Simon Laplace and Stanford University, focused on the acidification of open ocean water surrounding coral reefs and how it affects a reef's ability to survive.
Coral reefs use a mineral called aragonite to make their skeletons. It is a naturally occurring form of calcium carbonate, CaCO3. When carbon dioxide, CO2, from the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, it forms carbonic acid (the same thing that makes soda fizz), making the ocean more acidic and decreasing the ocean's pH. This increase in acidity makes it more difficult for many marine organisms to grow their shells and skeletons, and threatens coral reefs the world over.
Using results from simulations conducted using an ensemble of sophisticated models, Ricke, Caldeira, and their co-authors calculated ocean chemical conditions that would occur under different future scenarios and determined whether these chemical conditions could sustain coral reef growth.
Ricke said: "Our results show that if we continue on our current emissions path, by the end of the century there will be no water left in the ocean with the chemical properties that have supported coral reef growth in the past. We can't say with 100% certainty that all shallow-water coral reefs will die, but it is a pretty good bet."
Deep cuts in emissions are necessary in order to save even a fraction of existing reefs, according to the team's results. Chemical conditions that can support coral reef growth can be sustained only with very aggressive cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.
"To save coral reefs, we need to transform our energy system into one that does not use the atmosphere and oceans as waste dumps for carbon dioxide pollution. The decisions we make in the next years and decades are likely to determine whether or not coral reefs survive the rest of this century," Caldeira said.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/vYe4Rj2O_NE/130628131023.htm
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FCC meets Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 with foreign LTE bands
The FCC has met with the SM-T315 which is an overseas variant of the? Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0. While this version of Sammy's slate includes support for LTE, these are not the bands that are compatible with U.S. carriers. There is connectivity with AT&T's HSPA pipeline while the LTE is meant for countries like South Korea. The 8 inch size is obviously meant to compete with the 7.9 inch Apple iPad mini and if you need to have an 8 inch Samsung built slate in the U.S. with LTE connectivity, there is always the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0.
source: FCC via Engadget
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 is equipped with an 8 inch screen with resolution of 1280 x 800. This works out to a pixel density of 189ppi. Under the hood is a dual-core 1.5GHz Samsung Exynos 4 processor with 1.5GB of RAM onboard. 16GB of native storage can be expanded with the 64GB capacity microSD slot and the 5MP camera on pack captures video in 1280 x 720 at 30fps. There is also a 1.3MP front facing snapper while a 4450mAh cell keeps the power humming. Android 4.2 is pre-installed out of the box.
source: FCC via Engadget
Source: http://www.phonearena.com/news/FCC-meets-Samsung-Galaxy-Tab-3-8.0-with-foreign-LTE-bands_id44678
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Common Questions in Tennessee Workers' Compensation ...
1. THE COMPANY SAYS I'M NOT COVERED BY WORKERS' COMPENSATION BECAUSE THERE WAS NO ACCIDENT? NO ACCIDENT REPORT? I WASN'T INJURED AT WORK? WHAT SHOULD I DO? (Employer is denying coverage).
-
Go ahead and get treatment under own health ins. & when asked by provider (on forms or by staff) or own health ins. If injury is work-related say yes. (Own health insurance is going to deny coverage & try to throw it back on Employer.
-
Then see an attorney if you want to pursue a WC claim.
2. THE COMPANY IS MAKING AN APPOINTMENT FOR ME TO SEE THEIR DOCTOR. WHAT CAN I DO?
-
If appointment is initial exam & it's a GP (or if it's in-house provider), the Company has a right to have exam, but if it's with a specialist, tell Company you are entitled to choose from a panel and to please provide a panel. If GP wants to refer up to a specialist, tell Company then that you are entitled to choose and want a panel of three.
3. MY DOCTOR SAYS THAT THERE IS NOTHING ELSE HE/SHE CAN DO, BUT I STILL AM HAVING PROBLEMS. WHAT CAN I DO?
-
Go back to the company and tell them the specialist says there is nothing else he/she can do, and ask for another panel. Company will deny. Then seek treatment on own, which employer will have to pay for.
-
Seek legal advice.
4. I HAVE BEEN RELEASED BY MY DOCTOR. MY WORKERS' COMPENSATION CHECKS HAVE BEEN STOPPED. THE COMPANY SAYS THEY HAVE NO WORK FOR ME WITH MY RESTRICTIONS. WHAT CAN I DO?
5. MY DOCTOR HAS RELEASED ME, I'VE BEEN WORKING FOR SEVERAL WEEKS, I HAVEN'T HEARD ANYTHING FROM ANYBODY. IS THERE SOMETHING I SHOULD DO?
6. WORKERS' COMP HAS OFFERED ME A SETTLEMENT. IS IT FAIR? SHOULD I TAKE IT? DO I NEED TO CALL A LAWYER?
???? If you need more information about a Social Security Disability/SSI, personal injury, EEOICPA, long or short-term disability, VA disability, Railroad Retirement Board disability, or a workers compensation matter, please contact the Law Offices of Tony Farmer and John Dreiser for a free case evaluation. We can be reached at (865) 584-1211 or (800) 806-4611 or through our website. Our office handles claims throughout East Tennessee.
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Obamas to meet Mandela family, not visit hospital
PRETORIA (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will meet on Saturday with relatives of anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, but they will not visit the hospital where the former South African president is critically ill, the White House said.
Obama is in South Africa on the second stop of a three-nation Africa tour. His visit had triggered intense speculation that the United States' first African-American president might visit 94-year-old Mandela in the Pretoria hospital where he has spent three weeks being treated for a lung infection.
"Out of deference to Nelson Mandela's peace and comfort and the family's wishes, they will not be visiting the hospital," the White House said in a statement.
The Obamas would meet privately with members of the Mandela family "to offer their thoughts and prayers at this difficult time," the statement added.
Since starting his Africa tour in Senegal on Thursday, Obama has paid fulsome tribute to the man globally admired as a symbol of struggle against injustice and of racial reconciliation for the way he led South Africa out of centuries of white-minority rule.
The U.S. president has called Mandela a "personal hero" and is due to make a tour on Sunday of Robben Island, the former penal colony where South Africa's first black president passed 18 of the 27 years he spent in apartheid jails.
Obama held bilateral talks on Saturday in Pretoria with South African President Jacob Zuma.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Mark Felsenthal; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Ed Cropley)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-meet-mandela-family-not-visit-hospital-white-074544183.html
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Kristen Bell proposes to Dax Shepard via Twitter
Celebs 
11 hours ago
Christopher Polk / Getty Images file
Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell.
That didn't take long. Just a short time after the Supreme Court struck down a key portion of the Defense of Marriage Act, which will change the ability of same-sex couples to marry in much of the United States, one straight couple appears to have decided to make it official.
"Veronica Mars" star Kristen Bell immediately jumped on Twitter after the decision came down and asked the father of her child, "Parenthood" star Dax Shepard, to marry her.
The two have been public about their decision to wait to wed until same-sex couples in the United States can marry, and appear to not want to wait even a day longer than they have to. They have been engaged since late 2009, and their daughter Lincoln arrived in March.
Very shortly thereafter, Dax accepted the proposal (well, he accepted it in a now-deleted Tweet that read "F--- yes!!!!!!" but then put up a slightly tempered version (below).
There's been no official confirmation that the two are now making wedding plans, but for now it appears both are on the same page: Celebrating the end of DOMA and looking forward to their new united lives together.
Other straight couples in Hollywood have taken the same stance over the years, so it's possible there may be a small flood of these unions in the coming months -- most notably, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Though the pair have hinted at marriage plans in the years since, Pitt told Esquire in 2006 that "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able."
Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/kristen-bell-proposes-twitter-dax-shepard-6C10467522
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WSJ: Google working on an Android-powered game system, smart watch and new Nexus Q
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google might make another foray into living room hardware as it's currently developing an Android powered gaming console. Since that's just not enough of a rumor bomb, the talkative "people familiar with the matter" also claim a wristwatch and followup to its "postponed" Nexus Q project are on the way. If you believe the rumors, its reason for jumping into all these categories is to beat products Apple is reportedly developing in the same categories, with at least one of them launching this fall. Finally, the leaks indicate Google's next major Android update will be "tailored to low-cost devices in developing countries." Companies like Ouya, Mad Catz, Pebble and GEAK probably think Mountain View is already late to the party, but official OS-level support and heavily marketed hardware could take these segments to the next level.
Source: Wall Street Journal
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Friday, June 28, 2013
Key step in protein synthesis revealed
June 27, 2013 ? Scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have trapped the ribosome, a protein-building molecular machine essential to all life, in a key transitional state that has long eluded researchers. Now, for the first time, scientists can see how the ribosome performs the precise mechanical movements needed to translate genetic code into proteins without making mistakes.
"This is something that the whole field has been pursuing for the past decade," said Harry Noller, Sinsheimer Professor of Molecular Biology at UC Santa Cruz. "We've trapped the ribosome in the middle of its movement during translocation, which is the most interesting, profound, and complex thing the ribosome does."
Understanding ribosomes is important not only because of their crucial role as the protein factories of all living cells, but also because many antibiotics work by targeting bacterial ribosomes. Research on ribosomes by Noller and others has led to the development of novel antibiotics that hold promise for use against drug-resistant bacteria.
Noller's lab is known for its pioneering work to elucidate the atomic structure of the ribosome, which is made of long chains of RNA and proteins interlaced together in complicated foldings. Using x-ray crystallography, his group has shown the ribosome in different conformations as it interacts with other molecules. The new study, led by postdoctoral researcher Jie Zhou, is published in the June 28 issue of Science.
To make a new protein, the genetic instructions are first copied from the DNA sequence of a gene to a messenger RNA molecule. The ribosome then "reads" the sequence on the messenger RNA, matching each three-letter "codon" of genetic code with a specific protein building block, one of 20 amino acids. In this way, the ribosome builds a protein molecule with the exact sequence of amino acids specified by the gene. The matching of codons to amino acids is done via transfer RNA molecules, each of which carries a specific amino acid to the ribosome and lines it up with the matching codon on the messenger RNA.
"The big question has been to understand how messenger RNA and transfer RNA are moved synchronously through the ribosome as the messenger RNA is translated into protein," Noller said. "The transfer RNAs are large macromolecules, and the ribosome has moving parts that enable it to move them through quickly and accurately at a rate of 20 per second."
The key step, called translocation, occurs after the bond is formed joining a new amino acid to the growing protein chain. The transfer RNA then leaves that amino acid behind and moves to the next site on the ribosome, along with a synchronous movement of the messenger RNA to bring the next codon and its associated amino acid into position for bond formation. The new study shows the ribosome in the midst of a key step in this process.
"This gives us snapshots of the intermediate state in the movement," Noller said. "We can now see how the ribosome does this with a rotational movement of the small subunit, and we can see what look to be the 'pawls' of a ratcheting mechanism that prevents slippage of the translational reading frame."
Many antibiotics interfere with the function of the bacterial ribosome by preventing or retarding this translocational movement. Understanding the structural and dynamic details of this movement could help researchers design new antibiotics.
Translocation involves two steps (as Noller's lab showed back in 1989). Step one is the movement of the tRNA's "acceptor end" (where it carried the amino acid). This leads to a hybrid state, with the two ends of the tRNA in two different sites on the ribosome: the "anticodon end" is still lined up with the matching mRNA codon in one site, while the acceptor end has moved on to the next site. Step two is the movement of the tRNA's anticodon end together with the messenger RNA, which advances by one codon. Step two requires a catalyst called elongation factor G (EF-G). The new study shows the ribosome in the middle of step two, with EF-G bound to it and the tRNA halfway between the hybrid state and the final state.
Noller has spent decades working to understand how the ribosome works. Being able to see how it moves, he said, is an exciting moment.
"This is one of the most fundamental movements in all of biology, at the root of the whole mechanism for translation of the genetic code, and we now understand it all the way down to the molecular level," Noller said. "This mechanism had to be in place around the origin of life as we know it."
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/Y04EglBUTL8/130627142400.htm
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RolePlayGateway?
A profile for starkandskinny's character writing contest, which can be found right over here for anybody interested in partaking. It could use a few more people involved.
Name: Exactly what it says on the fuckin' tin-- Wulan Lestari. Well, okay, so it's not exactly what it says on the tin-- in fact, hardly. The naming culture in Javanese tradition is... well, those overly concerned with being politically correct might say 'unique', but even Wulan will straight up say it's fuckin' stupid. Traditional Javanese names don't have surnames. Just one name. What kind of Einsteinian revelation led to that stroke of genius, Wulan honestly doesn't know (though it must suck to be one of like a billion other poor fucks with the Javanese equivalent of 'John' or some shit), but she did figure that once she immigrated to the States, having just one name woulda probably been a bitch to deal with, so she added 'Lestari' as her surname, for reasons that... well, she'd just say 'I fuckin' felt like it. What's it to you?', but considering she isn't in the habit of hollerin' about how she used to only have one name, it's not like people are always askin' her where the 'Lestari' came from.
Generally? She just goes by Wu. Shorter. More to the point. No bullshit. All that nice shit. Hell, you'd think the name 'Wulan' alone would be short and to the point as it was, but jesus christ, it amazes her how many people in the United States absolutely cannot for the life of them pronounce the name 'Wulan'. For fuck sake, it's 'woo-lan', not 'wuh-lin' or 'wuh-lan'. This shit ain't rocket science. But you'd have to be a real fuckin' imbecile to mispronounce Wu, so at least she's got that.
Age: Wu is thirty two years of age, though goin' by appearances you could easily take her for being more in the realm of her late thirties. This is in large part thanks to the lines creasing her mouth and face, and the patches of grey already emerging amidst the blackness of her hair. But hey, it ain't keepin' her down none, and it's yet to begin wearing away at her in any meaningful way beyond the superficial, so Wu doesn't really give a shit.
Gender: Gender? "Meh." That's the most likely answer you're gonna get, because Wu is rarely in any mood to go into an explanation of her sentiments on gender. Sexually, yeah, whatever, she's female . But that's physical sex. If sex is just a matter of physical differences, and gender is just a reflection of that in society's moulding of you as a person, then who's to say gender is even really a thing? Wu knows she's female, physically, but she's never felt female. Now don't get that wrong-- she's never 'felt' male either. Really, when you get down to it, Wu figures gender is something pretty much irrelevant-- an illusion. In all frankness, though, it's not something she talks about much-- it's not that important to her, and anyway, people are fuckin' stupid. They'd probably think she's tryin' to say she's transsexual or some shit.
Species: About as human as you can get-- a peculiar specimen, by looks and by behaviour, to be sure, but still one hundred per cent human, though there are those who argue Wulan Lestari is in fact the first discovered beef jerky based life form, given she seems to pretty much live on a diet of Slim Jims and protein shakes. Healthy? Probably not. Delicious? Fuck yeah.
Place of Origin: Jakarta - Java - Indonesia
Physical Description:
Wu does not look like the kinda person you wanna file under the 'people I should fuck with' cabinet. Indeed, she looks more like the kind of person stereotypical whitebread soccer moms usher their children over to the other side of the road when they see her approaching-- the kind of person who will, to use the scientific term, 'fuck your shit up' if you decide to start shit with her, and she loves that she makes that impression. If you have any doubt about that, take one look at her. You'll probably have to look up, though, considering Wu comes in at six feet and six inches of height: she's always been particularly tall, and never understood why people thought it was weird or awkward-- shit, she loves standing head and shoulders over everybody else. Of course, just being tall wouldn't cut it-- who the fuck wants to be some towering beanpole who gets to have a face-to-face meeting with the floor whenever a soft breeze rolls by? Not Wulan Lestari, you can be damn sure. Fortunately, that's not a problem, given her wide shoulders, burly, muscular arms, and powerfully built torso, all of which imply the considerable physical strength she wields, generally for the purpose of starting bar brawls with random people when drunk.
Javanese though she is by heritage, one would be hard-pressed to guess this of Wu purely from physical characteristics-- she lacks the dark, leathery skin typical of the Javanese, and her skin is instead a relatively lighter, tan-brown hue, veritably ironclad in tattoos, scars, and the odd birthmark. One may never see the full extent of her tattoos: even in those precious few cases where she is not armoured in her leather jacket, you'll only ever see the ones that line the robust muscles of her arms, and considering there doesn't seem to be but an inch of skin on either arm not tattooed, you can guess the rest of her is probably similarly armoured in ink. The tattoos on her lower arms seem to depict scenes of nature-- perhaps trees, with ravens vigilantly clinging to the gnarled, perished branches-- however, as you go up to her upper arms and shoulders, the beautiful depictions of nature are replaced with more morbid, macabre fare, such as an inverted pentagram, tattooed in such a way that it looks as though it had been carved violently into the flesh of her left shoulder. The scars, on the other hand, are pretty much the kind of shit you'd expect to find on somebody who grew up as a delinquent on the streets of Jakarta and glories in down'n'dirty brawl fights even to this day-- the most significant one, one she's had for years, is right there on her face, beginning just beneath her right eye, stretching across the bridge of her nose, and terminating below and to the side of her left eye. It's faint, and is clearly very old, but it's there, and she seems to think it's the most badass thing you ever saw in your damn life. All this taken into account, her birthmark-- a splotch of discoloured skin, slightly darker than the rest of her, on the front of her throat-- is hardly even noticeable. Hell, she'd be impressed if you somehow managed to spot 'em.
With regards to facial features, Wu possesses a countenance that appears as though it has been deliberately carved and sculpted by a less than prodigal sculptor-- the features are angular and sharp-edged, and the way they come together is anything but the work of an expert craftsperson. High, pronounced cheekbones carve out an enclave inhabited by a small, slightly pointed nose that has clearly been broken more than once in the past, set over a pair of thin, scarred lips. Beneath a high, wide forehead lie a pair of slender, almond-shaped eyes that tend to really trip people up once you take a single look at 'em-- having been born with a genetic condition known to the medical dictionaries as 'complete heterochromia', and to anyone who asks Wu as 'fucking mismatched', one eye is a surprisingly pleasant forest green-- the other an ugly mottled brown. Those eyes of hers tend to freak people out, which Wu fucking loves doing... er, probably a little too much. Less peculiar a specimen is her hair, which she's always made a habit of cutting to a short, bristly shave. After all, the last thing she needs is a faceful of her own hair when she's tradin' fists with somebody in the alley behind the bar.
To round out what is undoubtedly, in the eyes of most, the freak show called Wulan Lestari, her attire is no less... uh, out of step with society, to put it charitably? Wu could probably think of a whole bunch of excuses for dressing as outlandishly as she does-- she doesn't want to be uniform (conformity and nonconformity have never really mattered to her), she wants to adhere to the fashion of her favourite music (to be honest punk hardly has a 'fashion' anymore, and if it did Wu wouldn't really give a fuck about it either), she likes that it tends to intimidate the shit outta people (which is true, in a way, but not the full reality). Fact is, Wu just likes the look of it. Generally she's to be found wearing some kind of band t-shirt, with the sleeves shabbily torn off, because Wu's kind of a douche and wants everybody to see her tattoos and muscles in the rare instance that she eschews her jacket. Which is, speaking of which, the veritable pride and joy of her ensemble: an ancient, creased leather jacket, one that is virtually armoured at every inch in 1/2" cone spikes. Used to be that literally the whole thing was covered in spikes; however, recently she removed some of the ones on the back to make way for an acrylic white painting of the Mot?rhead War Pig, replete with chains, skulls, tusks, fangs, and spittle. Her lower body is typically clad in a pair of dark, faded jeans that clearly displays a history of wear and tear, indicating new ones have not been bought since Necrophagist last put out an album, tucked over a pair of harness boots; old bike chains hang from the loops of the jeans, and a belt of rusted copper bullet casings, the kind you can buy at most surplus stores, is slung low down one side of her waist.
Yeah. Punk as fuck, man.
Personality Description:
Wulan is... well, Wulan is an asshole. A god-given, dictionary-definition, textbook-example, bona-fide, true-to-life, genuine asshole. You know that guy who said "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all"? Wu called that guy a faggot and then probably headbutted him for good measure. At her best, Wu is rough, fierce, and stubborn-- she's somewhat conversational, she occasionally smiles, she cracks jokes of a less abrasive nature than usual, she can even be kind at times, if all the planets are properly aligned and seventy pop punk fans are sacrificed at the full moon. Most of the time, however, she's not at her best, and it's not hard for Wu to take a turn for her worst-- at which point she becomes cruel, callous, and violent, towards inanimate objects, towards people around her, and towards herself. She's a veritable machine of ruthless invective, pumping out the most horrific blasphemies and obscenities just because she can, she insults and puts down everybody around her for lack of anything better to do or say, and she has anger issues that would have even the Incredible Hulk goin' 'Dude, chill the fuck out'. Her caustic nature is only worsened by a very deadpan, mordant sense of humour-- sarcastic, pessimistic, angry, profane, an obsessive control freak who absolutely needs to hold all the power in every situation and absolutely has to feel like she's bigger and stronger than everyone around her (which usually is the case, to be fair), not to mention a born fighter whose first impulse in any situation is violence: it's no wonder nobody really wants to be around Wu.
Now I'm not going to say that deep down Wulan is actually a saint, or some broken, misunderstood soul-- fuck no she's not, and to an extent she will always be abrasive and aggressive no matter how well you get to know her-- you could be her best damn friend, or the closest thing she'll ever have to a friend, and she'll still call you a shithead, punch you hard enough to bruise for pretty much no reason, and in general be an asshole. On the other hand, there's much more that most people simply will never see of her-- an innate gruff but genuine kindness, a propensity for remarkable loyalty to the people she thinks care about her, the people she herself cares about, even selflessness for such people. But it's not so evident 'cause no matter how selfless she is, Wu still manages to be an asshole about it-- so much so that most of the time, you can't even tell she's actually being selfless. And she's not used to consciously showing that 'side' of her, to venture the cliche, because Wu has had it ingrained into her very psyche that to show such kindness and humanity is a weakness. After all, she had somebody who knew that side of her, and that person's long gone... which shows what good it does for her to make a fool of herself bein' nice to people when they're never long for this world.
She deals with the psychological fallout of that absolute guardedness by abusing alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs, immersing herself constantly in her music and her books, and throwing herself into fights and other violent situations, though by this point those methods are becoming less and less effective. It seems those mental and emotional torments only worsen every day, while those few ways she knows of dealing with them just aren't working anymore. She's headed straight for self-destruction, decay, and collapse, and knows it; somehow, though, she just can't stop. Maybe it's pathological-- maybe she's got some kind of disorder, something that makes her unable to display without fear any emotions besides vehemence, something that renders her incapable of normal human interaction. Or maybe she just grew up in a world where everybody was an enemy and everybody wanted to hurt her, and she took that lesson too close to heart, splitting her between the 'look out for number one' mindset she learned as a street rat in Jakarta, and the innate loneliness she may not even recognise, a loneliness that has consumed her ever since the one person she shared it with left her. Either way, it's a pathos Wu neither understands nor thinks much about-- after all, why fuck around trying to understand herself? She knows herself too well to think it's worth bothering to try understanding herself.
History:
Picture it now-- Indonesia. Jakarta. The 1980s.
Did you picture it? Okay, probably not-- frankly, it's somewhat impressive when your average Westerner even knows Jakarta exists, much less where and how. For those of you understandably less privy to the geography of Australasia, allow me to paint the picture for you, and know this: it ain't a pretty one. The Jakarta of the late twentieth century could unfavourably be be compared to The Bronx back in the 70s, when 'The Bronx is burning' was the place's goddamn catchphrase and you were goddamn royalty if you managed to snag an apartment with more than one room total. 1980s Jakarta was a hellhole-- crime-ridden, miserable, poverty-raked.
Being born into a place like that was liable to suck ass-- you'd think it couldn't be much worse, except for being born to a single parent with little financial means in Tanjung Priok, which was (and probably still is) the Jakarta equivalent of Compton. Maybe that was why Wu's first thought upon being born was something alone the lines of 'Oh, come the fuck on. Really? This is the kind of shit luck I have right from the get-go? Typical.' Her father? Her father was never really in the picture. Her mother never really talked about him, and Wulan never really cared-- if anything, the only thing her father's absence made her realise was that before she had even even born, someone had abandoned her, one way or another.
But she wasn't alone. Shortly after Wu emerged, a second daughter followed meekly after-- an identical twin. This hadn't been foreseen, and it was just another bit of shit luck for a single parent who now had three mouths to feed instead of just two. For Wu, though, it was a stroke of unexpected fortune not to be born alone, as she almost certainly would not have found much companionship if not for her twin sister Lestari.
From the womb, Wulan and Lestari grew up living the life of Jakartan street rats, and they learned very quickly that the only people they could count on were one another. The slums of Jakarta are a realm governed purely by cutthroat laws-- namely, look out for number one. Wulan and her sister did not let themselves get cheated, deceived, stolen from, and hurt more times than they needed to before they realised that fundamental way of things, and at that point, they stopped being the naive fools they felt they had been until that point, and became cut-throats themselves. After several years of hearing friends they'd seen just yesterday had been killed in gang shoot-outs or had left for a better life that the twins were too poor to achieve themselves, the sisters stopped trying to create connections with other people, having come to understand that such connections are a weakness-- a liability, a fragile, sensitive thing all too easily shattered. Once they figured out that there was no reason to try and relate to other people who were inevitably either liars and deceivers, or destined to die or leave the two behind, Wulan and Lestari changed.
There had been a time when she had been a person so wholly removed from what she is now that many today would be hard-pressed to believe it to be true-- that Wulan Lestari had once been a bright, vivacious child, with hardly a violent bone in her skinny little body. That person didn't last long, though. Kind, vivacious Wulan became aggressive, violent Wu, just as shy, bashful Lestari became cold and aloof, hardly speaking to anybody but her sister-- they kinda had to change, to avoid being steam-rolled by the merciless predatory organism that was slumland Jakarta. The twins, and Wu in particular, became fighters, privy to the way of life in the Jakarta slums, a way of life Wulan could not change even if she had tried: she could only be consumed by it, and allow herself to be consumed by it whole-heartedly-- a predator in her own right, accustomed to responding to the barest slight with violence, as that was the only way you won respect and fear. Who the hell had any respect for the jackass who 'turned the other cheek'? Who the fuck feared the idiot who sought a peaceful resolution to the conflict? Fucking nobody. Wu knew this. She knew being hard and strong was the only way to survive the slums.
Thus, Wulan and Lestari became the world to one another-- unable and unwilling to trust others, not even their mother could manage access to the tight-knit emotional bond they quickly developed. Sayin' they were like peas to a pod would have been the understatement of the century: though to the outside observer, bellicose Wu was a far cry from stoic, unflappable Lestari, in nearly all other respects they were twins in more than just a physical sense. They liked the same kinds of cigarettes, the same booze, they had an identically devastating right hook, they came to love the same kind of music-- hell, their mother sometimes swore she heard them snoring simultaneously some nights. The one thing Wulan and Lestari ever really differed on was religion-- Wu never bought into any of that crap, and remained throughout life a staunch atheist, figuring only a complete moron could possibly disregard the blaring logical fallacies inherent in the argument for the existence of a god. Which kinda flew in the face of Lestari, who, though by no means a radical fundamentalist, did profess a belief in God and could have been considered a very, very casual Muslim-- enough of one to quickly run through her own little fajr (morning prayer) upon awakening each day, not nearly enough of one to walk around wrapped up in a blanket. If anything, the most significant symbol of her faith was a small hamsa she was never to be seen leaving home without-- a palm-shaped amulet, not remotely as ornate as other specimens, but vital to Lestari not only in that it represented a sign of her faith and a symbol of protection, but also in that it was, she claimed, the only remnant of the twins' father, given to her by her mother. Wulan really didn't give a fuck about that-- it just made it that much more amusing to snatch the thing away from her sister and keep it until Lestari inevitably beat Wu into submission and took it back.
Ultimately, though? The whole faith thing really didn't matter except for the occasional sarcastic ribbing from Wulan. The two were thick as thieves, and never to be seen apart from one another. Secrets did not exist between them: though there was an emotional wall thicker and more guarded than the Great Wall Of China at the height of the Hun threat between them and anybody else, amongst themselves the twins shared everything. And it wasn't just emotions-- they shared smokes, they shared booze, they shared the precious scraps of exercise and work-out magazines they eventually began hoarding and following religiously-- and, once they discovered it, they shared music.
It was the defining moment of both their lives up until that point, and, as could be expected, it came about after a fight. It was a rare moment in which Wu and Lestari were separated, and Wu, fifteen years old, had just beat the ever loving shit out of some random jackass for... well, fuck all if she can remember at this point. He did something to piss her off, she made him hurt for it, and then, figuring she'd piss all over his prospects while she was at it (she was, believe it or not, even more of an asshole back then) she rifled around for any spare cash he had, figuring she'd buy herself and Lestari some booze or smokes. What she found was even more valuable-- a cassette case, the tape contained within like a treasure within a chest, the label on the side scribbled with the words 'Minor Threat'-- that was it. Minor Threat. Wu had no fucking idea what that was supposed to mean-- shit, she didn't even know what a cassette tape was, so she figured the thing was probably like some top secret government shit or whatever. Having decided that, she did the perfectly logical thing, which was to take it home with her and show it to her sister (after giving the little shithead she'd just beaten up another kick to the stomach for good measure).
In retrospect, she owes that dude a hell of a lot. At the time, she didn't realise it-- the tape was just some weird, foreign object until she brought it home to her sister. They stared at it, poked it, sniffed it, and at one point dove out the window hollering about a bomb when they thought the thing had started ticking only to realise it was just the microwave beeping in the next room. At length, the twins decided to do something they hadn't done in a long, long time: they talked to their mother about it, who informed them it was a cassette tape-- it played music. "How the fuck do I get it to make music?" Wu queried with a frown, looking at the odd little thing, which sure as hell hadn't produced no fuckin' music since she'd found it. "You use a cassette player, you moron," her mother informed her irascibly. That, of course, fired them off on another huge verbal altercation until finally, in exasperation, her mother said, "Look, I know where you can probably get a player if you're willing to waste money on it. If it'll make you two shut up, go there, shell out your precious money on the damn thing, pop that tape in, and then realise the waste of time and money you just subjected yourselves to." Well, y'know what? Fuck that. Wu decided she was gonna go and blow who the fuck knew how many rupiahs on the player, just to spite her mother, and Lestari, just curious enough about this peculiar contraption to play along, followed. So they went and bought it-- split the costs evenly between 'em. Set 'em back a shit ton of money that would otherwise have been blown on smokes and alcohol, but they-- or rather, Wu-- figured it was worth it to piss their old lady off. And sure, she was a little curious about this 'Minor Threat' shit. Who knew, maybe it'd be worth listening to. The two sisters brought the player home, huddled around it in their room, pulled out the cassette, popped it into the player, hit play... and, well, the rest is history.
The twins were blown the fuck away. From the second 'I Don't Wanna Hear It' fired off on all cylinders and Ian MacKaye began howling furiously, hurling his bitter invective at society and everything it represented-- they were both blown away. Music had never been very interesting to either of the twins-- their exposure to music had been limited to shit like gamelan or angklung music, the traditional music of Java and Indonesia on the whole, and frankly, none of that had ever made Lestari feel a damn thing, much less Wu, who found such music infuriating and grating upon her ears. But this... this was primal. This was angry. This was passionate. Violent, disgusted, unhappy with the way things were, unwilling to relent-- it was just like Wulan, but in an aural form, and Wu loved every damn second of it. "Hey, fuck you, mom," she wanted to say with a cocky grin (or rather, did say with a cocky grin, once she was done listening to the tape about fifty times over). "That was the best expenditure of money since... uh... well, it was just a fucking good expenditure of money, leave me the fuck alone."
That set the twins off on a journey of discovery-- a veritable mission to find more of this sound, this noise that they both found so appealing on a primal level. Needless to say, music is none too common a commodity in the slums of Jakarta, and it took quite a lot of 'research' on the subject, necessitating that the sisters step foot for the first time in just about the only local library, where they, in the process of leafing through books looking for some kind of information about this weird new sound they had discovered and fallen in love with, realised that reading, something they had always considered a chore, could actually be tolerable if they were reading something they had chosen themselves. Lestari, for example, found herself entranced by a copy of Tolkien's Silmarillion. Wu took one look at it, called her sister a dreamy dumbass, and turned back to the Dostoyevsky novel she had found herself unable to put down after the first page. Lestari came to delight in tales of the fantastic ranging from the works of Lovecraft, Wells, and Herbert to the novels of Asimov, Tolkien, and Antony; Wu had no patience for 'irrelevant shit about laser guns and hippy elves or whatever', preferring stories rooted in realistic, often modern settings, works by such literary giants as Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck, Orwell, Murakami, and Kerouac.
But they didn't lose sight of the goal, which was finding out about the music on the cassette-- and it wasn't exactly going to be easy, considering all they had to go off was a cassette tape that played pissed off, raw music, called 'Minor Threat'. It was probably the same streak of fortune that had led them to find that tape that put the answer in Lestari's hands: Minor Threat. Hardcore punk. The book in question was a history of 'rock music', which initially struck Wu as kind of weird (who knew rocks had their own music?)-- it was a kind of inherently aggressive music that had branched out into other genres such as metal, hard rock, and punk, each of which had spawned subgenres like death metal, progressive rock, and crust, some of which had led to even more specific styles. As for this sound they'd been pursuing, that fell under punk-- hardcore punk, to be exact. The book characterised hardcore punk as fast, hard-edged, raw, and bitter-- in other words, all the things they loved about this 'Minor Threat' cassette of theirs. And it was said that this style of music had been born in Great Britain (which was some place across the ocean), but its spirit had been carried on in the United States (which was also some place across the ocean), where hardcore punk bands like Minor Threat had originated. In fact, it was said that there, in the United States, the punk scene continued to flourish-- well, at the very least, it was doing better than it was elsewhere. In other words, if there was a place to go to to hear more of this, the United States was it.
They spent months seeking out more punk rock where they could find it, but there was, needless to say, a paucity of punk music in the slums of Jakarta. After a while, the inevitable topic was breached: leavin' Indonesia for the United States.
The music wasn't the sole factor in that decision. After all, they'd heard about the US-- heard that it was pretty much universally better than life here in the slums of Jakarta, heard it talked about like it was fucking heaven or some shit. That 'heaven' apparently was also the home of the music they loved, even though they had only a few dingy cassette tapes to show for it, and that alone was reason enough.
You may, of course, ask where their mother was throughout all this. And to be fair and true, she was certainly always there-- just always in the background. Though she never outright hated her daughters, it was always understood that there was a definite resentment there-- always the understanding that she would have had a much, much better life without two kids to feed and clothe. The twins knew it just as well as their mom knew it. And sure, she worked her ass off day after day, slaving away so that the two kids wouldn't fucking starve to death, but that didn't mean she also had to be nice to 'em. And therefore, for as long as Wu can remember, her mother was never a big part of their life. She never thought much of how her mother was providing for her-- never really thought much about her at all. Whilst her daughters were out in the streets picking fights, or huddled away in the library, she was at work, slaving away at an arduous job, making a thankless effort for which there would be no pay off except that she wouldn't have two starving kids on her conscience.
Maybe that was why their mother never heard of Wu and Lestari's plans to blow outta town and head across the ocean. By that time, Wu'd figured that Jakarta held no fortune for her or her sister-- here, they'd only ever keep living as they always had, grow up mired in violence and alcohol, and probably both die before the age of twenty. And that was not, needless to say, something Wu figured was in their favour. They started contemplating it, mulling over and planning it out at fifteen, but by no means were they ready to just get up and go at fifteen. But they were ready to work and meticulously hoard every penny they earned to get the hell outta Jakarta, a city with almost no good memories and countless bad ones for the two, a city that had known them when they had both been naive idiots. Wulan and Lestari wished, honestly and earnestly wished, to leave it behind forever, go somewhere where nobody knew them, and forge a marginally better life there, with the music they loved, with nobody but each other.
That was the plan for two years, during which they worked harder than they ever had, and forced themselves not to spend (as much) money on the usual booze and smokes. But unfortunately, life just loves to shit on hopes and dreams, and when life saw the twins with their anticipation for the future, for the better things to come, it just couldn't resist shitting all over that. They were on the cusp-- all but ready to just get up and go at last. That particular day, Lestari wasn't able to leave home-- she'd caught a fleeting case of the flu, and was hard-pressed to take so much as a step without vomiting. Wu mocked her sister some for her condition, and then mentioned that she was gonna go out and maybe stop by the library-- asked if Lestari wanted her to grab a book about orcs or wizards or some shit like that. Lestari merely shrugged, and then fixed her sister with a weird gaze. Slowly, she reached to the bedside, took hold of the hamsa that had not for nearly ten years left her sight and body, and held it out to Wu, asking her sister to take it, because she was uneasy and felt Wu may have needed its protection.
"You do realise," Wu retorted, after mocking her sister senseless for thinking a piece of metal could protect her just by being there. "That you've totally jinxed it now, right? I'm gonna take it and come back and find you murdered or some shit."
"Just take it," Lestari replied coldly in her characteristically laconic manner, and then she would have no further discussion on it.
Well, fuck it. Wu figured she'd take it, and then taunt her sister with not giving it back while Lestari was too weak to really do anything about it. Whistling a jaunty little tune (in specific, Black Flag's My War, a perennial favourite of hers), replying to her mother's demand to know where she was going with "Outta here, asshole", and in general figuring things were lookin' pretty up now that the time for the sisters to leave Indonesia was rapidly approaching, Wu stepped across the threshold of their house for the last time, the hamsa shoved in one of her pockets haphazardly.
Nobody could say for sure just how the fire started-- it seemed like a true bolt from the blue, a sudden blaze that quickly engulfed almost the entire block. Some thought it was an act of deliberate arson-- none too uncommon in those days. Others hypothesised it had been caused by negligence on the part of one of the neighbours. Wu didn't give a flying fuck. When she came back and saw what had happened, she only had one question, burning fervently in her heart, mind and soul, tearing at every fibre of her body-- and the answer to that question was a hard, final, resounding no.
She never saw-- nor wanted to see-- the corpse. At that moment, all she wanted to do was rage-- she became engulfed with a despair and a fury that made the blaze that had just shattered her life look like a fucking campfire. Suddenly, nothing actually mattered worth a shit, because she'd eschewed universally all human contact and connection in favour of having one bond with just one person-- a bond she'd thought bullet, fire, and shatter-proof, and now she had nobody. Now there wouldn't be any huddling up together with the latest discovery being slipped into the cassette player by strong hands shaking with anticipation-- no more walkin' the streets just talking, Wu laughing a booming, raucous laugh and Lestari permitting a minuscule smile to emerge. No more wiling away the days in the library, mocking one another over their choice of reading materiel. There wouldn't be any more of that, because Lestari was fucking dead-- gone, forever.
Wu wanted to hurl the hamsa at the burnt-out carcass of what had once been her home, throw it at the ground before the charred corpse of her sister, and scream, "Why the fuck did you give me this stupid fucking piece of shit? I didn't fucking need it. You did." Of course, she never for a second actually believed the damn thing had had any effect-- but it was so much easier to blame this senseless reduction of Wu's life to nothing, to worthlessness, on a hunk of metal, for her rage to have direction and focus, rather than to be forced to dwell on the fact that she was now alone.
Wu had pictured her and her sister stepping onto that plane, destined for New York City, vibrant with anticipation and anxiously high hopes-- maybe she'd even see her sister laugh for the first time, let herself show uninhibited joy as their new home approached on the horizon. Instead, Wu boarded the plane alone, dejected, torn up inside, the hamsa shoved away in her pocket. She reached New York City alone, armed with little knowledge of the English language and, once she got through foreign currency exchange, a wad of dollar bills of varying values in her pockets.
And frankly, none of that mattered.
To the outside world, she'd never changed-- she was the same bellicose, sarcastic, swaggering fighter she'd always been, even as she was still reeling from her twin sister's death. The only thing that changed was that now she was the one who never left behind that hamsa. She honestly couldn't tell you why if you asked-- she still didn't believe the damn thing did jack shit, and it was just a reminder of the day everything was fucked up for good, so why the fuck keep the thing around? Well, maybe, if you happened to be one of those idiots who's gotta see some profound shit in every little thing, you'd guess it was so she could always carry around a remnant of her sister with her. Wu merely thought of it this way-- her sister had asked her to take it. She'd never asked for it back. And that meant Wu got to carry it around with her, until her sister asked for it back, or until she died too, one or the other.
Though it was supposed to have been a milestone in her life, moving across continents to a new home, in New York nothing much really changed for Wu. She quickly picked up on English and became quite proficient with it, but otherwise, she just kept reading, kept listening to music, kept blowing most of her money on smokes and booze. Eventually, she bought a subscription to a local gym that also offered martial arts classes like boxing, where, as you can imagine, Wu excelled, having learnt many of those principles of fighting through street fights herself and having a shitload of rage and pent-up anger to vent through that medium; however, with those boxing classes, she polished that street smart knowledge and furious energy into a damn science, and at the gym she honed her work out regime.
Her source of income was a record shop nearby the little apartment Wu settled down in-- she took up work there pretty much from day one, and it pretty much became home to her-- a place where she could spend hours a day just listening to music (and occasionally actually doing her job), and getting paid for it. She dove straight into the 'punk' section like a kid at Disneyland-- just started grabbin' every damn cassette, CD, and vinyl in the place and put it on its respective music player, and hit play. Black Flag, Antischism, D.O.A., Spitboy, Nausea, Discharge, Government Issue-- it had that same primal, raw fury as that very first Minor Threat cassette, the little tape she had moved across entire continents pursuing the sound of, and she fucking loved it. She spent pretty much all day at the record shop, even when she wasn't actually working, listening to music. Leafing through some of the magazines lying around the record store-- and, later, using the burgeoning wonder of the internet-- led Wu to also discover some of the 'fashion' of punk-- you know, leather, denim, spikes, bullets, the whole shebang. Wu ate that shit up-- loved the dirty, angry look of it. She redirected some of her money flow from books, CDs, and drugs into clothes and accessories-- boots, chains, a leather jacket, spikes to decorate it with, a bullet belt, all gradually accrued over the years.
Now, I could start writing some shit about how her sister's death somehow motivated Wu to pursue an education after dropping out of high school, about how she went, got a high school diploma, pursued a higher degree in university in some field she'd grown passionate in, settled down with somebody she loved, made new friends, and in general rebuilt her life... except then I'd be a liar, and Wu would probably headbutt me, because she fuckin' hates liars. None of that shit even came close to happening. Wu's spent the past fifteen or so years living pretty much the same life she did back in Jakarta-- drinking, smoking, fighting, all that shit. The only difference is, now she hasn't got anybody else to do it with. She's still abjectly miserable, distracting herself from her loneliness with her various vices, seeking to distract herself from the fact that she's now utterly alone. Just her, and that damn hamsa-- a reminder of her sister's death, an object she reviles and loathes with all her being, but cannot bring herself to dispose of.
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