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This is our weekly market update, where we start in the US, cross to Europe and Asia, and end in Australia, covering crypto and commodities along the way. Superficially since the start of the year, global stocks, as measured by the MSCI index are up a healthy 4.67% while the European STOXX 600 is up … Continue reading "OK, So Now Where Do Markets Go Next?"
JCO PO author Dr. Timothy Showalter at Artera and University of Virginia shares insights into his JCO PO article, “Digital Pathology–Based Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Scores and Outcomes in a Randomized Phase III Trial in Men With Nonmetastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer” . Host Dr. Rafeh Naqash and Dr. Showalter discuss how multimodal AI as a prognostic marker in nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer may serve as a predictive biomarker with high-risk patients deriving the greatest benefit from treatment with apalutamide. TRANSCRIPT Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Hello and welcome to JCO Precision Oncology Conversations where we'll bring you engaging conversations with authors of clinically relevant and highly significant JCO PO articles. I'm your host, Dr. Rafeh Naqash, podcast Editor for JCO Precision Oncology and assistant professor at the OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center at the University of Oklahoma. Today, we are excited to be joined by Dr. Timothy Showalter, Chief Medical Officer at Artera and professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Virginia and author of the JCO Precision Oncology article entitled, “Digital Pathology Based Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Scores and Outcomes in a Randomized Phase 3 Trial in Men with Non-Metastatic Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer.” At the time of this recording, our guest's disclosures will be linked in the transcript. Dr. Showalter, it's a pleasure to have you here today. Dr. Timothy Showalter: It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: I think this is going to be a very interesting discussion, not just from a biomarker perspective, but also in terms of how technologies have evolved and how we are trying to stratify patients, trying to escalate or deescalate treatments based on biomarkers. And this article is a good example of that. One of the things I do want to highlight as part of this article is that Dr. Felix Feng is the first author for this article. Unfortunately, Dr. Felix Feng passed away in December of 2024. He was a luminary in this field of prostate cancer research. He was also the Chair of the NRG GU Committee as well as Board of Directors for RTOG Foundation and has mentored a lot of individuals from what I have heard. I didn't know Dr. Feng but heard a lot about him from my GU colleagues. It's a huge loss for the community, but it was an interesting surprise for me when I saw his name on this article as I was reviewing it. Could you briefly talk about Dr. Feng for a minute and how you knew him and how he's been an asset to the field? Dr. Timothy Showalter: Yeah. I'm always happy to talk about Felix whenever there's an opportunity. You know, I was fortunate to know Felix Feng for about 20 years as we met during our residency programs through a career development workshop that we both attended and stayed close ever since. And you know, he's someone who made an impact on hundreds of lives of cancer researchers and other radiation oncologists and physicians in addition to the cancer patients he helped, either through direct clinical care or through his innovation. For this project in particular, I first became involved soon after Felix had co-founded Artera, which is, you know the company that developed this. And because Felix was such a prolific researcher, he was actually involved in this and this research project from all different angles, both from the multimodal digital pathology tool to the trial itself and being part of moving the field forward in that way. It's really great to be able to sort of celebrate a great example of Felix's legacy, which is team science, and really moving the field forward in terms of translational projects based on clinical trials. So, it's a great opportunity to highlight some of his work and I'm really happy to talk about it with you. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thanks, Tim. Definitely a huge loss for the scientific community. And I did see a while back that there was an international symposium organized, showcasing his work for him to talk about his journey last year where more than 200, 250 people from around the globe actually attended that. That speaks volumes to the kind of impact he's had as an individual and impact he's had on the scientific side of things as well. Dr. Timothy Showalter: Yes. And we just had the second annual Feng Symposium the day before ASCO GU this year with, again, a great turnout and some great science highlighted, as well as a real focus on mentorship and team science and collaboration. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thank you so much for telling us all about that. Now going to what you guys published in JCO Precision Oncology, which is this article on using a biomarker approach to stratify non-metastatic prostate cancer using this artificial intelligence based H&E score. Could you tell us the background for what started off this project? And I see there is a clinical trial data set that you guys have used, but there's probably some background to how this score or how this technology came into being. So, could you superficially give us an idea of how that started? Dr. Timothy Showalter: Sure. So, the multimodal AI score was first published in a peer reviewed journal back in 2022 and the test was originally developed through a collaboration with the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group or Energy Oncology Prostate Cancer Research Team. The original publication describes development and validation of a risk stratification tool designed to predict distant metastasis and prostate cancer specific mortality for men with localized prostate cancer. And the first validation was in men who were treated with definitive radiation therapy. There have been subsequent publications in that context and there's a set of algorithms that have been validated in localized prostate cancer and there's a test that's listed on NCCN guidelines based on that technology. The genesis for this paper was really looking at extending that risk stratification tool that was developed in localized prostate cancer to see if it could one, validate in a non-metastatic castrate refractory prostate cancer population for patients enrolled on the SPARTAN trial. And two, whether there was a potential role for the test output in terms of predicting benefit from apalutamide for patients with non-metastatic prostate cancer. For patients who are enrolled on the SPARTAN study, almost 40% of them had H&E stain biopsy slide material available and were eligible to be included in this study. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Going a step back to how prostate cancer, perhaps on the diagnostic side using the pathology images is different as you guys have Gleason scoring, which to the best of my knowledge is not necessarily something that most other tumor types use. Maybe Ki-67 is somewhat of a comparison in some of the neuroendocrine cancers where high Ki-67 correlates with aggressive biology for prognosis. And similarly high Gleason scores, as we know for some of the trainees, correlates with poor prognosis. So, was the idea behind this based on trying to stratify or sub-stratify Gleason scoring further, where you may not necessarily know what to do with the intermediate high Gleason score individual tumor tissues? Dr. Timothy Showalter: Well, yeah. I mean, Gleason score is a really powerful risk stratification tool. As you know, our clinical risk groupings are really anchored to Gleason scores as an important driver for that. And while that's a powerful tool, I think, you know, some of the original recognition for applying computer vision AI into this context is that there are likely many other features located in the morphology that can be used to build a prognostic model. Going back to the genesis of the discovery project for the multimodal AI model, I think Felix Feng would have described it as doing with digital pathology and computer vision AI what can otherwise be done with gene expression testing. You know, he would have approached it from a genomic perspective. That's what the idea was. So, it's along the line of what you're saying, which is to think about assigning a stronger Gleason score. But I think really more broadly, the motivation was to come up with an advanced complementary risk stratification tool that can be used in conjunction with clinical risk factors to help make better therapy recommendations potentially. So that was the motivation behind it. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Sure. And one of the, I think, other important teaching points we try to think about, trainees of course, who are listening to this podcast, is trying to differentiate between prognostic and predictive scores. So, highlighting the results that you guys show in relation to the MMAI score, the digital pathology score, and outcomes as far as survival as well as outcomes in general, could you try to help the listeners understand the difference between the prognostic aspect of this test and the predictive aspect of this test? Dr. Timothy Showalter: So let me recap for the listeners what we found in the study and how it kind of fits into the prognostic and the predictive insights. So, one, you know, as I mentioned before, this is ultimately a model that was developed and validated for localized prostate cancer for risk stratification. So, first, the team looked at whether that same tool developed in localized prostate cancer serves as a prognostic tool in non-metastatic castrate-refractory prostate cancer. So, we applied the tool as it was previously developed and identified that about 2/3 of patients on the SPARTAN trial that had specimens available for analysis qualified as high risk and 1/3 of patients as either intermediate or low risk, which we called in the paper ‘non-high risk'. And we're able to show that the multimodal AI score, which ranges from 0 to 1, and risk group, was associated with metastasis free survival time to second progression or PFS 2 and overall survival. And so that shows that it performs as a prognostic tool in this setting. And this paper was the first validation of this tool in non-metastatic castrate-refractory prostate cancer. So, what that means to trainees is basically it helps you understand how aggressive that cancer is or better stratify the risk of progression over time. So that's the prognostic performance. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thank you for trying to explain that. It's always useful to get an example and understand the difference between prognostic and predictive. Now again, going back to the technology, which obviously is way more complicated than the four letter word MMAI, I per se haven't necessarily done research in this space, but I've collaborated with some individuals who've done digital pathology assessments, and one of the projects we worked on was TIL estimation and immune checkpoint related adverse events using some correlation and something that one of my collaborators had sent to me when we were working on this project as part of this H&E slide digitalization, you need color deconvolution, you need segmentation cell profiling. Superficially, is that something that was done as part of development of this MMAI score as well? Dr. Timothy Showalter You need a ground truth, right? So, you need to train your model to predict whatever the outcome is. You know, if you're designing an AI algorithm for Ki-67 or something I think you mentioned before, you would need to have a set of Ki-67 scores and train your models to create those scores. In this case, the clinical annotation for how we develop the multimodal AI algorithm is the clinical endpoints. So going back to how this tool was developed, the computer vision AI model is interpreting a set of features on the scan and what it's trying to do is identify high risk features and make a map that would ultimately predict clinical outcomes. So, it's a little bit different than the many digital pathology algorithms where the AI is being trained to predict a particular morphological finding. In this case, the ground truth that the model is trained to predict is the clinical outcome. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Sure. And from what you explained earlier, obviously, tumors that had a high MMAI score were the ones that were benefiting the most from the ADT plus the applausive. Is this specific for this androgen receptor inhibitor or is it interchangeable with other inhibitors that are currently approved? Dr. Timothy Showalter: That's a great question and we don't know yet. So, as you're alluding to, we did find that the MMAI risk score was predictive for benefit from apalutamide and so it met the statistical definition of having a significant interaction p value so we can call it a predictive performance. And so far, we've only looked in this population for apalutamide. I think you're raising a really interesting point, which is the next question is, is this generalizable to other androgen receptor inhibitors? There will be future research looking at that, but I think it's too early to say. Just for summary, I think I mentioned before, there are about 40% of patients enrolled on the SPARTAN study had specimens available for inclusion in this analysis. So, the SPARTAN study did show in the entire clinical trial set that patients with non-metastatic castrate-refractory prostate cancer benefited from apalutamide. The current study did show that there seems to be a larger magnitude of benefit for those patients who are multimodal AI high risk scores. And I think that's very interesting research and suggests that there's some interaction there. But I certainly would want to emphasize that we have not shown that patients with intermediate or low risk don't benefit from apalutamide. I think we can say that the original study showed that that trial showed a benefit and that we've got this interesting story with multimodal AI as well. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Sure. And I think from a similar comparison, ctDNA where ctDNA shows prognostic aspects, I treat people with lung cancer especially, and if you're ctDNA positive at a 3 to 4-month period, likely chances of you having a shorter disease-free interval is higher. Same thing I think for colorectal cancers. And now there are studies that are using ctDNA as an integral biomarker to stratify patients positive/negative and then decide on escalation/de-escalation of treatment. So, using a similar approach, is there something that is being done in the context of the H&E based stratification to de-intensify or intensify treatments based on this approach? Dr. Timothy Showalter: You're hitting right on the point in the most promising direction. You know, as we pointed out in the manuscript, one of the most exciting areas as a next step for this is to use a tool like this for stratification for prospective trials. The multimodal AI test is not being used currently in clinical trials of non-metastatic castrate-refractory prostate cancer, which is a disease setting for this paper. There are other trials that are in development or currently accruing where multimodal AI stratification approach is being taken, where you see among the high-risk scores, at least in the postoperative setting for a clinical trial that's open right now, high risk score patients are being randomized to basically a treatment intensification question. And then the multimodal AI low risk patients are being randomized to a de-intensification experimental arm where less androgen deprivation therapy is being given. So, I think it's a really promising area to see, and I think what has been shown is that this tool has been validated really across the disease continuum. And so, I think there are opportunities to do that in multiple clinical scenarios. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Then moving on to the technological advancements, very fascinating how we've kind of evolved over the last 10 years perhaps, from DNA based biomarkers to RNA expression and now H&E. And when you look at cost savings, if you were to think of H&E as a simpler, easier methodology, perhaps, with the limitations that centers need to digitalize their slides, probably will have more cost savings. But in your experience, as you've tried to navigate this H&E aspect of trying to either develop the model or validate the model, what are some of the logistics that you've experienced can be a challenge? As we evolve in this biomarker space, how can centers try to tackle those challenges early on in terms of digitalizing data, whether it's simple data or slides for that matter? Dr. Timothy Showalter: I think there's two main areas to cover. One, I think that the push towards digitalization is going to be, I think, really driven by increasing availability and access to augmentative technologies like this multimodal AI technology where it's really adding some sort of a clinical insight beyond what is going to be generated through routine human diagnostic pathology. I think that when you can get these sorts of algorithms for patient care and have them so readily accessible with a fast turnaround time, I think that's really going to drive the field forward. Right now, in the United States, the latest data I've seen is that less than 10% of pathology labs have gone digital. So, we're still at an early stage in that. I hope that this test and similar ones are part of that push to go more digital. The other, I think, more interesting challenge that's a technical challenge but isn't about necessarily how you collect the data, but it certainly creates data volume challenges, is how do you deal with image robustness and sort of translating these tools into routine real-world settings. And as you can imagine, there's a lot of variation for staining protocols, intensity scanner variations, all these things that can affect the reliability of your test. And at least for this research group that I'm a part of that has developed this multimodal AI tool can tell you that the development is sophisticated, but very data and energy intensive in terms of how to deal with making a tool that can be consistent across a whole range of image parameters. And so that presents its own challenges for dealing with a large amount of compute time and AI cycles to make robust algorithms like that. And practically speaking, I think moving into other diseases and making this widely available, the size of data required and the amount of cloud compute time will be a real challenge. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thank you for summarizing. I can say that definitely, you know, this is maybe a small step in prostate cancer biomarker research, but perhaps a big step in the overall landscape of biomarker research in general. So definitely very interesting. Now, moving on to the next part of the discussion is more about you as a researcher, as an individual, your career path, if you can summarize that for us. And more interestingly, this intersection between being part of industry as well as academia for perhaps some of the listeners, trainees who might be thinking about what path they want to choose. Dr. Timothy Showalter: Sure. So, as you may know, I'm a professor at the University of Virginia and I climbed the academic ladder and had a full research grant program and thought I'd be in academia forever. And my story is that along the way, I kind of by accident ended up founding a medical device company that was called Advaray and that was related to NCI SBIR funding. And I found myself as a company founder and ultimately in that process, I started to learn about the opportunity to make an impact by being an innovator within the industry space. And that was really the starting point for me. About four years ago, soon after Felix Feng co-founded Artera, he called me and told me that he needed me to join the company. For those who were lucky to know Felix well, at that very moment, it was inevitable that I was going to join Artera and be a part of this. He was just so persuasive. So, I will say, you know, from my experience of being sort of in between the academic and industry area, it's been a really great opportunity for me to enter a space where there's another way of making an impact within cancer care. I've gotten to work with top notch collaborators, work on great science, and be part of a team that's growing a company that can make technology like this available. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thank you so much, Tim, for sharing some of those thoughts and insights. We really appreciate you discussing this very interesting work with us and also appreciate you submitting this to JCO Precision Oncology and hopefully we'll see more of this as this space evolves and maybe perhaps bigger more better validation studies in the context of this test. Thank you for listening to JCO Precision Oncology Conversations. Don't forget to give us a rating or review and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can find all ASCO shows at asco.org/podcast. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.
In this message, Adrian Rogers reveals God's grave warning about superficial religion. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/135/29
An episode from Love Worth Finding Ministries with Dr. Adrian Rogers. Pastor, Teacher, and Author Adrian Rogers has introduced people all over the world to the love of Jesus Christ and has made an impact on untold numbers of lives by presenting profound Biblical Truth. Love Worth Finding was started in 1987 as the broadcast ministry of Adrian Rogers and remains the exclusive provider of his comprehensive teachings today. By connecting others with his plainspoken and timeless Biblical wisdom through resources like books, video and audio recordings, digital content, and other media, we seek to not only reach non-Christians with the hope of Jesus, but strengthen and encourage everyday Christians in their faith as well. “When the messenger is gone, the message must continue.” – Adrian Rogers More information about Love Worth Finding (LWF) can be found by visiting their website at https://lwf.org/ You may write LWF at: Love Worth Finding PO Box 38300 Memphis, TN 38183 Copyright ©2024 Love Worth Finding Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Original material available at https://lwf.org The KJV Bible Preaching Churches Podcast is directly supported by Doss Metrics LLC | Ministry Services based out of Cleveland Texas. If you have any questions regarding this podcast, or the churches and ministries hosted on the podcast, please reach out to us directly at dossmetrics@gmail.com or write to us at: Doss Metrics | KJV Bible Preaching Churches Podcast 1451 McBride Rd. Cleveland, TX 77328 God Bless #KJV #BaptistChurches #BiblePreaching #KJVPreaching #KingJamesBible #ChurchSermons #ChristianPodcasts #BibilicalTeaching #AdrianRogers #LoveWorthFinding
In this message, Adrian Rogers reveals God's grave warning about superficial religion. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/135/29
An episode from Love Worth Finding Ministries with Dr. Adrian Rogers. Pastor, Teacher, and Author Adrian Rogers has introduced people all over the world to the love of Jesus Christ and has made an impact on untold numbers of lives by presenting profound Biblical Truth. Love Worth Finding was started in 1987 as the broadcast ministry of Adrian Rogers and remains the exclusive provider of his comprehensive teachings today. By connecting others with his plainspoken and timeless Biblical wisdom through resources like books, video and audio recordings, digital content, and other media, we seek to not only reach non-Christians with the hope of Jesus, but strengthen and encourage everyday Christians in their faith as well. “When the messenger is gone, the message must continue.” – Adrian Rogers More information about Love Worth Finding (LWF) can be found by visiting their website at https://lwf.org/ You may write LWF at: Love Worth Finding PO Box 38300 Memphis, TN 38183 Copyright ©2024 Love Worth Finding Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Original material available at https://lwf.org The KJV Bible Preaching Churches Podcast is directly supported by Doss Metrics LLC | Ministry Services based out of Cleveland Texas. If you have any questions regarding this podcast, or the churches and ministries hosted on the podcast, please reach out to us directly at dossmetrics@gmail.com or write to us at: Doss Metrics | KJV Bible Preaching Churches Podcast 1451 McBride Rd. Cleveland, TX 77328 God Bless #KJV #BaptistChurches #BiblePreaching #KJVPreaching #KingJamesBible #ChurchSermons #ChristianPodcasts #BibilicalTeaching #AdrianRogers #LoveWorthFinding
The final episode covers how presidents after Ike engaged with Guatemala. Superficially idealist, practically brutal and like so many other countries in Latin America, things get exponentially worse when Reagan shows up. The civil war escalates as right wing paramilitaries roam the countryside, murdering and kidnapping supposed insurgents with impunity. The military class amasses power and status superceding the government's functions, culminating in one of the many forgotten genocides of the 20th century.
[School of Movies 2024] For this rather special episode, we firstly welcome to the show for the first time, director Alfred Hitchcock, as we examine his most famous and most revisited film, Psycho (1960). This became the wellspring from which modern-day detective thrillers emerged. But it also has tangled roots in Horror and the grubby stepchild of its sub-genres, the slasher. While other films like Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter (1955) and John Lee Thompson's Cape Fear (1962) -both weirdly starring Robert Mitchum- were also hugely important, Psycho was less about the stalking killer as it was a torrid dive into the swampy waters of their mind. Deriving from a 1959 novel by Robert Bloch, who lived down the road from Ed Gein as he was being arrested for trying to make a woman-suit, this story, along with Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs (1988) assisted greatly in the lurid, pulp sensationalism of the twisted deviant killer-man-in-a-dress mythology. Despite quiet, clear, firm, researched and experienced protestations from trans folk and their allies who keep having to remind the world at large that they aren't toilet-lurking monsters. We also look at the stunningly ill-advised shot-for-shot remake of the Hitchcock film, directed in 1998 by Gus Van Sant. Superficially, these are exactly the same film, but the devil is in the details. Next week we will be returning to Bates Motel with the far less well-known, but actually pretty good Psycho II, which more pronouncedly paints Norman as a victim.
Holy God so often we feel cut off from you and one another. Help us find our way to healing and hope, so that we can become new again. Amen. Strikingly beautiful, Maria had deep dark eyes and long black hair. Superficially she seemed jaded, a kind of rebel. But if you took the time to really know her, she had great intelligence, sensitivity and heart. During my junior year of high school we were close friends. She used to talk about what it felt like getting painfully lost in the shuffle after her parents split up, about her resentful mother being left with almost nothing. In those days divorce was suddenly becoming far more widespread and our society was not prepared. We did not know how to cope with divorce in a humane and grace-filled way. Divorce deeply affects all of us. Perhaps you have gone through a divorce yourself, or maybe it was your parents, your children, a close friend or work colleague. In our society really poor people, the ones who are barely making it, are far more likely to get divorced than wealthy people. Being truly part of the human family means understanding how hard it can be to sustain a relationship and how much pain we can suffer when it breaks down. Many of us also have an experience of new life and joy on the other side of this suffering. What does Jesus offer as we try to understand this feature of the human condition? Many preachers shy away from this complex topic and I worry a little about putting words into Jesus' mouth and a lot about saying something that inadvertently harms you. But I believe that Jesus offers practical and real good news. But like all communication his words need to be interpreted and this requires difficult work. It is worth it because this teaching will lead us to wholeness and new life. The context matters. Jesus has been teaching his disciples about becoming “servants of all.” [1] In fact he says that the world completely misunderstands servanthood. In Imperial Rome but also today we tend to think of servants as lower, lesser, outsiders compelled to work for those who are greater than they are. We easily slip into thinking that the great ones are those who coerce and control others. But Jesus turns this idea on its head. He tells his friends that serving others, especially vulnerable people, is the key to a meaningful life. He says that the greatest one will be servant of all. Some Pharisees come to Jesus. The name Pharisee in Aramaic means “the ones who are set apart.” [2] They care intensely about determining what and who is pure. They are right to fear Jesus because he undermines this whole project. For Jesus there is one human family and no one is impure or left out. The Pharisees ask Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” The narrator calls this question a trap. Whether Jesus says yes or no the Pharisees have a plan to condemn him. Jesus understands that there is no right answer. He also knows what happened after King Herod and his former sister-in-law each divorced their spouses and married each other. John the Baptist criticized their marriage. And this led to his execution by Herod. Rather than trying to set a policy or law on divorce Jesus changes the question. Rather than asking if it is legal to divorce he asks us to consider what God wants for us. During those times there were ethical disagreements concerning divorce. Some believed that the only justification for divorce was sexual infidelity. Others thought that a husband should be able to divorce his wife for pretty much any reason. According to the Book of Deuteronomy a man can write a certificate of divorce if his wife, “does not please him” or, “because he finds something objectionable about her” (Deut. 24:1-4). This biblical passage puts all the power in the hands of the husband. It makes divorce the rule rather than an exception to be employed only after all other courses of action have failed. Most important this law endangers the most vulnerable people in society – women and children who could not own property and who depend for their well-being on the generosity of their husband and father. This actually describes the situation of my friend Maria. Jesus hates just this kind of human suffering. You can almost hear him raise his voice as he says that the reason for a commandment permitting divorce is our “hardness of heart.” But note this. Jesus does not say Moses was wrong. Jesus does not say that the commandment permitting divorce should cease to be a law. Jesus is not forbidding divorce. Instead he uses hyperbole to make a point. In our reading a few weeks ago Jesus said that, “if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out” (Mk. 9:47). Just as this is not a call for us to pluck out our eyes, Jesus describing remarriage as a kind of adultery does not mean that no one should ever get divorced. In every way Jesus says we are children of God and our actions have lasting effects on other children of God many of whom are far more vulnerable than we are. Jesus is the same person who teaches us that the law was made for human beings not human beings for the law. Jesus' point is not to shame people who have already suffered all the effects of a broken relationship. He is not trying to make people stay in a relationship that is abusive or in one that has clearly died. He is not trying to preserve relationships that continue to do damage to the people who are in them. Instead Jesus is moving our attention from what the law permits to God's dream for how our relationships could be. Describing this higher picture of marriage Jesus rejects the Pharisees' approach which only sees the relationship from the perspective of the divorcing husband. In his words here Jesus treats women and men the same (he talks in equal terms about a man and a woman divorcing a spouse). Jesus paints a picture of what love can become. He quotes the book of Genesis and talks about people leaving their families in order to be joined together. So often in my own life I think about the deep and miraculous truth that “the two shall become one flesh.” Adding to this Jesus says that, “what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Let that sink in for a bit. Imagine two beings so united in purpose and affection that they become like one single entity. Imagine God as the source of our deepest relationships and actively at work in helping them to thrive. I understand that marriage is not for everyone. Anyone entering into marriage needs to know that even in the best circumstances it can be hard work. Marriage involves renewing the relationship over and over again. Marriage requires wisdom, communication, perseverance, patience, courage, forgiveness and an openness to what is new and what cannot be controlled. It demands not just a commitment to the other person but to the relationship itself. To be strong a marriage requires a community of support like the one gathered here this morning. Jesus wants us to know that there is more to life than feeling justified by the law and superior to another person. Jesus wants us to strive for goodness, to find the way that we are called to serve. But there are relationships that have become so broken that no matter how hard we try, they cannot be saved. Jesus speaks about this not because we have broken some rule and deserve to be punished, but because it is God's nature to be present to help us when we are suffering. [3] I began by sharing my fear of speaking about divorce with you today. I guess I really did not want to be misunderstood on this point. Jesus does not condemn people for being divorced. Fifty years ago Diane, my mother-in-law and one of the women I most admire, went through a divorce with my father-in-law. Because of this the church she grew up in utterly rejected her. For decades she never felt comfortable in a church and I did not talk to her about it. Some of you might remember that magical midnight Christmas mass ten years ago when she joined us. Delayed by her flight, Diane hesitantly made her way down the center aisle to her pew. In all those years as family we had never worshiped together. In the middle of my sermon, preaching from this pulpit I immediately recognized her. I almost started crying tears of joy because she had come home – loved by God and by you the people who welcomed her. Our reading today ends as Jesus' disciples try to keep children from bothering him. Mark writes that Jesus feels “indignant” about this. He says, “Let the children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” Mark writes, “And [Jesus] took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.” This week I keep thinking of my high school friend Maria and Jesus taking her into his arms and blessing her. I imagine Jesus holding Diane with that smile from Christmas on her face and blessing her. And in my mind's eye I see all the people who have suffered the effects of difficult marriages and divorce and he is reaching out to embrace and bless us. [1] Matt Boulton, “One Flesh: Salt's Commentary for the Twentieth Week after Pentecost, SALT, 1 October 2024. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2018/10/3/one-flesh-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-twentieth-week-after-pentecost [2] “The appellation “Pharisee” is probably derived from the Aramaic word perishayya which means “the separated one.” Very likely the addresses of Mark's story would not know that. But from previous narrative they have already learned that the Pharisees maintain a pollution system that separates the world into two realms of the clean and the unclean.” Herman Waetjen, A Reordering of Power: A Socio-Political Reading of Mark's Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989) 165. [3] Canon Edie Weller writes about this in a sermon. She says, “Jesus was a realist. He knew that there are times when we can't reach or maintain the kind of relationship that God might dream for us. There are times and circumstances which lead to broken relationships, from which – as hard as we might work at it – we cannot recover. Jesus speaks about this not because the death of a marriage is more sinful or worse in some way than other experiences of human brokenness. Rather he speaks about this because he cares about us. God's grief in the face of our irreconcilable differences stems not from our having broken the rules or failed a divine test, but from God's response to our experience of such pain. Edie B. Weller, “Sermon for Sunday October 7, 2018 Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Proper 22), St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington. https://saintmarks.org/staff/the-rev-edie-weller/
With the American election fast approaching, we thought it would be an appropriate time to revisit this episode from February about how political beliefs seem to be increasingly divided along gender lines. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------Men are this way, and women are that way. Entire careers in industries ranging from self-help to advertising to standup comedy have been based on this premise. Superficially, it can sometimes be sort of true. But generally, when it comes to political ideology, it hasn't been. Until now.It's a very recent phenomenon, but it's pronounced. And it's accelerating—the percentage of young men and women who describe themselves as liberal and conservative is breaking wide apart in many countries, including here in Canada. We don't know why this is happening, but we do have some good ideas. And we don't know what the implications are, but most of them seem pretty bad...GUEST: John Burn-Murdoch, columnist and chief data journalist for the Financial Times We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or by calling 416-935-5935 and leaving us a voicemailOr @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter
Subscriber-only episodeHave you ever felt alone in a crowd or disconnected in your neighborhood, where houses stand close but people seem worlds apart? This episode peels back the layers of modern society's paradox of personal isolation in a world of hyper connectivity. Over a simple morning coffee, Joey came across an awkward social situation with some other parents when their kids interacted; despite the closeness of our homes, our money and privilege seems to be distancing us from each other.As we navigate the concrete jungles of our daily lives, do we really see the people around us? This episode uncovers the role of basic human interaction in creating not only a safer society but one that thrives emotionally. Finally, we confront the elephant in the room – social media. With its glossy veneer depicting life as a highlight reel, it's easy to get lost in the facade and forget the authenticity of messy, real-life connections. Through personal anecdotes, Joey & JT illustrate how social platforms often skew our reality, and why finding solace in genuine communal activities, like the sidelines of a children's soccer game, can offer us a lifeline.
"Earth economists, when they measure how bad the potential for exploitation is, they look at things like, how is labour mobility? How much possibility do labourers have otherwise to go somewhere else? Well, if you are on the one company town on Mars, your labour mobility is zero, which has never existed on Earth. Even in your stereotypical West Virginian company town run by immigrant labour, there's still, by definition, a train out. On Mars, you might not even be in the launch window. And even if there are five other company towns or five other settlements, they're not necessarily rated to take more humans. They have their own oxygen budget, right? "And so economists use numbers like these, like labour mobility, as a way to put an equation and estimate the ability of a company to set noncompetitive wages or to set noncompetitive work conditions. And essentially, on Mars you're setting it to infinity." — Zach WeinersmithIn today's episode, host Luisa Rodriguez speaks to Zach Weinersmith — the cartoonist behind Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal — about the latest book he wrote with his wife Kelly: A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.They cover:Why space travel is suddenly getting a lot cheaper and re-igniting enthusiasm around space settlement.What Zach thinks are the best and worst arguments for settling space.Zach's journey from optimistic about space settlement to a self-proclaimed “space bastard” (pessimist).How little we know about how microgravity and radiation affects even adults, much less the children potentially born in a space settlement.A rundown of where we could settle in the solar system, and the major drawbacks of even the most promising candidates.Why digging bunkers or underwater cities on Earth would beat fleeing to Mars in a catastrophe.How new space settlements could look a lot like old company towns — and whether or not that's a bad thing.The current state of space law and how it might set us up for international conflict.How space cannibalism legal loopholes might work on the International Space Station.And much more.Chapters:Space optimism and space bastards (00:03:04)Bad arguments for why we should settle space (00:14:01)Superficially plausible arguments for why we should settle space (00:28:54)Is settling space even biologically feasible? (00:32:43)Sex, pregnancy, and child development in space (00:41:41)Where's the best space place to settle? (00:55:02)Creating self-sustaining habitats (01:15:32)What about AI advances? (01:26:23)A roadmap for settling space (01:33:45)Space law (01:37:22)Space signalling and propaganda (01:51:28) Space war (02:00:40)Mining asteroids (02:06:29)Company towns and communes in space (02:10:55)Sending digital minds into space (02:26:37)The most promising space governance models (02:29:07)The tragedy of the commons (02:35:02)The tampon bandolier and other bodily functions in space (02:40:14)Is space cannibalism legal? (02:47:09)The pregnadrome and other bizarre proposals (02:50:02)Space sexism (02:58:38)What excites Zach about the future (03:02:57)Producer and editor: Keiran HarrisAudio engineering lead: Ben CordellTechnical editing: Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic ArmstrongAdditional content editing: Katy Moore and Luisa RodriguezTranscriptions: Katy Moore
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Nigeria pilot report: Reducing child mortality from diarrhoea with ORS & zinc, Clear Solutions, published by Martyn J on March 21, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Summary We introduce Clear Solutions, a Charity Entrepreneurship (now AIM) incubated charity founded in September 2023. Our focus is the prevention of deaths of young children from diarrhoea, an illness that kills approximately 444,000 children under-5 every year. From December 2023 to February 2024, we ran a pilot distribution of low-cost, highly effective treatments for diarrhoea, oral rehydration solution and zinc (ORSZ) in Kano, Nigeria, with implementation partner iDevPro Africa. We estimate having reached ~6900 children under-5. The intervention, based upon a randomised controlled trial in Uganda (Wagner et al, 2019), provides free co-packaged ORS and zinc ("co-packs") door-to-door to all households with children under 5 years old. The distribution is performed by local Community Health Workers (CHWs), who provide guidance and printed instructions on ORSZ usage during the visit. We surveyed communities pre- and post-intervention, allowing 6 weeks between ORSZ distribution and follow-up surveys for diarrhoea cases to accumulate. At these survey rounds, we recorded the timing of the child's last diarrhoea episode (if applicable) and how they were treated (if at all). Our primary outcome measure is the change in ORSZ usage rates pre-to-post intervention, though also we collected extensive contextual data to monitor operations and guide program improvements. This post summarises our preliminary analysis and conclusions. A more detailed report is available on our website here. We were kindly supported by knowledgeable advisors, but did not have an academic partnership, nor has this analysis been peer-reviewed. Nonetheless, we believe there is value in sharing our results and learnings with this community. Results in brief: Across 4 wards (geographic areas) of differing rurality, baseline usage rates for under-5s' last diarrhoea episode in the preceding 4 weeks were reported at a range across wards of 44.7% - 50.9% for ORS and 11.1% - 26.7% for ORS+zinc when asked directly. At follow-up post-intervention, the usage rate for the preceding 4-weeks was reported at a range across wards of 90.0 - 97.7% for ORS and 88.2% - 94.1% for ORSZ. (95% margins of error up to 10pp and are not shown here for readability; see Results for details.) Superficially, this indicates a change of 42.0 - 52.8 percentage points (pp) in ORS use and 61.5 - 83.0pp for ORSZ. However, we treat this result with caution, with specific concerns such as social desirability bias in survey responses inflating true values. We discuss more in Limitations below. Conclusions in brief: We consider this to be a solid result in favour of the intervention having a strong potential to prevent deaths in a cost-effective manner in the Nigerian context. (We do not estimate cost-effectiveness in this report, but will be working on a follow-up with that). There are, however, clear limitations in the pilot that warrant considerable down-weighting of our results, though we do not expect this to change the conclusions qualitatively. Introducing Clear Solutions Clear Solutions was founded in September 2023 with the support of Charity Entrepreneurship (now AIM). Our mission is to prevent deaths of young children from diarrhoea, a leading cause of death for under-5s globally, in a cost-effective and evidence-based manner. The 1970s medical breakthrough, Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS), a dosed mixture of sugar, salts and water, unlocked the possibility of preventing >90% of diarrhoeal deaths at full coverage. The addition of zinc can reduce diarrhoea duration and recurrence, and the World Health Organisation recognised this in 2019 by adding co-packaged ORS a...
The second Field of Zen practice is Zazen. “Za” means seated, and “zen” means meditation. However, as 13th-century Zen master Dogen famously stated, “…Zazen is not meditation practice.” Superficially, our Zazen may look like the meditation done in other spiritual traditions, or even in secular settings. We even call Zazen “meditation” sometimes, for convenience. However, Zazen is not meditation in the sense of a mental exercise aimed at a particular result. Zazen is our total response to life. It is the essence and enactment of our entire Zen practice.
Obviously, sin needs to be confessed and repented of rather than ignored.
Are you just going through the motions with your training? Superficially moving from one sessions to the other? Ticking off sessions in your training peaks account or coaching app? This is where athletes often go wrong. They become stale, there is a lack of focus, no visible progress, training is ineffective and many often get injured because they don't see the imbalances starting to creep in. If you want to get more out of your performance you need to approach your training with more depth. How? Kriss shares more in todays episode. 00:45 The Importance of Reflecting on Your Performance 02:51 Understanding the Biomechanical Side of Your Training 04:36 The Role of Strength and Conditioning in Overcoming Weaknesses 06:06 The Impact of Biomechanical Flaws on Performance 07:03 The Importance of Consistent Strength and Conditioning 13:05 The Role of Feedback in Improving Performance 16:21 Conclusion: The Power of Reflective Training 17:24 Outro: Engaging with the Strength for Endurance Community Subscribe to our Youtube Channel - here Arm yourself with a level of knowledge you can call on at anytime. From choosing the best exercises, identifying the warning signs to prevent bigger issues developing or understanding what other factors you could be addressing to unlock your potential, we'll give you the essential tools and resources. Join our SFE Program Pathway - here The proof is in our results and we've taken hundreds of individuals from a place of confusion & despair to a place of confidence and full recovery. Get the highest level of accountability, support, strategy and training starting with our 12 week program. Book a Consultation Call - here Podcast post-production by EZPZ Podcasting
Ever had that moment where you refresh your feed obsessively, waiting for that one 'like' to validate your post? That's where Steve Trott and I found ourselves, entangled in the digital web of social media engagement. On our latest podcast episode, we peel back the layers of online interactions, discussing everything from the peculiar psychology behind our digital behaviors to the intricacies of 'like' culture. Together, we laugh, commiserate, and offer insights into why your friends might be ghosting your latest selfie. Amidst our chatter, we share personal accounts of how the hunt for virtual thumbs-ups can distort the way we view ourselves. It's not all fun and filters, though; the conversation turns to the weightier side of social media as we scrutinize the depth of engagement. Do comments hold more clout than likes? Can the time of day make or break your post's success? And why do we sometimes engage out of habit rather than genuine interest? Steve and I tackle these questions head-on, candidly revealing our own strategies for navigating the tempestuous seas of online presence. As we round off the episode, we pivot to the heart of the matter: authenticity. Are we curating our feeds for others, or are we staying true to our unfiltered selves? From sharing content with purpose to resisting the siren call of endless scrolling, we explore ways to maintain an intentional and meaningful digital footprint. And as our global community tunes in, we're reminded of the power of real connections, even in a virtual world. So grab your earbuds and get ready to rethink the way you click, comment, and connect. (00:00) Engagement and Expectations (14:08) Interaction (24:45) Engagement and Authenticity Connect with us: Drop us a line at enTICEingmedia@gmail.com Website and all projects: www.enTICEingmedia.com Join the What the Nell!? Podcast Facebook group HERE! Grab a copy of Nell's #1 Bestseller, Curvature of the Career, HERE! Connect with Nell on Social Media: Facebook Instagram Produced by enTICEing Media, LLC Social Media, Engagement, Authenticity, Online Interactions, Digital Behaviors, Like Culture, Psychology, Virtual Thumbs-Ups, Filters, Comments, Success, Intentional, Meaningful, Digital Footprint, Connections, Podcast Growth, Audience Engagement, Subscribing, Following, Reviewing, Storytelling, Navigating, Tempestuous Seas, International Reach, Pennsylvania Weather, Australia, Personal Accounts, Virtual World, Real Connections, Unfiltered Selves, Content Relevance, Visuals, Negative Posts, Instant Gratification, Self-Esteem, Time of Day, Superficially, User Investment, Algorithms, Curate, Intentionality, Passive Consumption, Manipulated, Conscious Effort, Scheduled Posting, Selective Group Sharing, Growth, Dedicated Listeners, Enticingmediacom, Valuable Content
Men are this way, and women are that way. Entire careers in industries ranging from self-help to advertising to standup comedy have been based on this premise. Superficially, it can sometimes be sort of true. But generally, when it comes to political ideology, it hasn't been. Until now.It's a very recent phenomenon, but it's pronounced. And it's accelerating—the percentage of young men and women who describe themselves as liberal and conservative is breaking wide apart in many countries, including here in Canada. We don't know why this is happening, but we do have some good ideas. And we don't know what the implications are, but most of them seem pretty bad...GUEST: John Burn-Murdoch, columnist and chief data journalist for the Financial Times We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or by calling 416-935-5935 and leaving us a voicemailOr @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter
"Join Wall Street. Save the world," The Washington Post urged in 2013. "How to Know Your Donations Are Doing the Most Good," The New York Times proclaimed in 2015. "I give 10 percent of my income to charity. You should, too," Vox advised last November. Each of these headlines tops a piece that extols the virtues of Effective Altruism, a philanthropic philosophy, for lack of a better term, ostensibly dedicated to the pursuit of the best ways to address large-scale, global ills like pandemics and factory farming, informed by “evidence and reason.” The school of thought, popularized by figures like the academic and author Peter Singer and disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, has been widely embraced – or at least uncritically boosted – in mainline media for years. Superficially, this makes sense. Effective Altruism seems unimpeachably virtuous: It's great if people want to solve the world's problems, and so much the better if they've done their research. But beneath this surface lies a deeply reactionary movement, predicated on an age-old desire to characterize the wealthy as the solution to, rather than the cause of, the very problems they purport to want to solve. On this episode, we parse the rise, motives, and influence of Effective Altruism. We look at how the doctrine gamifies wealth distribution, falsely portrays the rich as uniquely qualified to make decisions about public welfare, often provides cover for eugenics and racism, and masquerades as a groundbreaking ethos of data-driven compassion while it merely regurgitates a 100-year-old rich person ideology of supposedly benevolent control over the masses. Our guest is Dr. Linsey McGoey.
Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.Today's edition features journalist and press freedom advocate Peter Greste, who became a global figure of attention in 2014 when he was held captive by Egyptian authorities for more than a year on baseless terrorism accusations.Why Peter Greste is chasing a media freedom lawPeter Greste wears many hats - former foreign correspondent, journalist, academic, activist, press freedom advocate and author. He was hailed as an icon for press freedom around the world when he and two Al Jazeera colleagues were imprisoned in Egypt on bogus charges.Along with a journalism teaching role at Sydney's Macquarie University, his mission now is to bolster journalism in Australia through his role as executive director of the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom.In conversation with Unmade's Tim Burrowes and Seja Al Zaidi, Greste discusses Australia's lack of a fully democratic press, how he coped with being locked in a claustrophobic Cairo prison cell, the foibles of the Australian Press Council, AI's impact on journalism and why he believes would-be journalists should not focus on the craft at university.“Superficially, I think that our press is reasonably free. If you scratch beneath the surface, what you realise is that Australia has some of the most restrictive legislation on earth when it comes to media freedom,” Greste says.“We are the only country in the democratic world that doesn't have press freedom or freedom of speech written into its constitution in any meaningful sense. It's implied in our constitution through what's called the implied right of political communication, but even that is contested. So without any local, domestic equivalent of the American First Amendment, which guarantees press freedom and freedom of speech, what we've seen is all sorts of national security legislation that both directly and indirectly intrudes on the ability of journalists to do their jobs. It criminalises a lot of otherwise perfectly legitimate journalistic investigation.”The Alliance for Journalists Freedom was founded by Greste, communications consultant and former journalist Peter Wilkinson, and lawyer Chris Flynn with the aim of a Media Freedom Act to better protect reporting in Australia. The Alliance recently received a $500,000 donation via independent outlet Crikey following its victorious defamation defence against Lachlan Murdoch.“What our Media Freedom Act would do is inject a positive obligation to consider media freedom at every stage of the judicial process and the bureaucratic process,” he says.“What we've done is written a clause that says that if you are producing journalism according to a set of professional standards, then you deserve the right to be assumed by the courts to deserve protection in law, and that it's up to the investigating agencies, whether it's ASIO or the Australian Federal Police or any other of the agencies, to show the courts why you have failed in your obligation to live up to professional standards.”Greste, a part-time professor of journalism at Sydney's Macquarie University, also expressed concerns about the pace of evolution the media industry is experiencing compared to changes to what is being taught to undergraduate students.“The craft skills that you need are changing so quickly that those skills are best left to the news organisations themselves. In my view, what's more important are the critical thinking skills, the literacy skills, the civic education, the understanding of politics, the understanding of the way the law works, the way the courts work,” he says.“It's the ability to critically think about stories and analyse them and place them in context in Australian politics and society. That's what makes good journalists. Everything else is window dressing.”Audio production was courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.Message us: letters@unmade.mediaHave a great day. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe
Superficially, Australia's economy maintained its momentum in the three months through June, with the expansion underpinned by exports and sectors less impacted by the Reserve Bank's 12 interest-rate increases. That said, key themes from the accounts are: ongoing weakness in consumer spending; slowing growth in employee compensation; rapid deterioration in productivity; offset by boosts from … Continue reading "OZ GDP: Didn't We Do Well (No Not Really)!"
Superficially, the "Everybody Votes Campaign" was a nonpartisan effort to encourage civic participation in America. In reality, it was a $100 million dark money effort to boost only Democratic turnout — and it might have made the difference in 2020. Investigative reporter Parker Thayer explains his work exposing the Everybody Votes Campaign and how it violated federal tax laws. Plus, Senate candidate Bernie Moreno explains what the priorities of a Republican senator need to be in a post-Fulton indictment world.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
2 sections- 12 Nesi'im dedicated gifts to inaugurate Mizbeyach over 12 days, repetition implies uniqueness despite seemingly the same
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Compleat Cybornaut, published by ukc10014 on May 19, 2023 on LessWrong. A cluster of conceptual frameworks and research programmes have coalesced around a 2022 post by janus, which introduced language models as ‘simulators' (of other types of AIs such as agents, oracles, or genies). One such agenda, cyborgism, was coined in a post by janus and Nicholas Kees and is being researched as part of the 2023 editions of AI Safety Camp and SERI MATS. The objective of this document is to provide an on-ramp to the topic, one that is hopefully accessible to people not hugely familiar with simulator theory or language models. So what is cyborgism? Cyborgism proposes to use AIs, particularly language models (i.e. generative-pretrained transformers or GPTs), in ways that exploit their (increasingly) general-purpose intelligence, while retaining human control over the ‘dangerous bits' of AI – i.e. agency, planning, and goal-formation. The overall objective is to leverage human cognitive ability while minimising the risks associated with agentic AI. Aside from agency, a core assertion of cyborgism is that certain commonly-used language models are not well-suited to many tasks human users throw at them, but that humans, if appropriately-trained and equipped, might more effectively use GPTs in ways that are ‘natural' for the model, while dramatically increasing the productive and creative potential of the human. Specifically, some current systems, such as ChatGPT, are released or predominantly used in a ‘tuned' version, which has a host of shortcomings. One such tuning method, reinforcement-learning from human feedback (RLHF) has a specific weakness relevant to cyborgism: the tuning process severely limits, or collapses, a valuable aspect of the GPT, namely its wild, unconstrained creativity. Superficially, the cyborgism approach may resemble a human-plus-oracle setup, but there is a subtle and important distinction: an oracle, it is argued, might ‘smuggle in' some of the trappings of an agent. In contrast, the human cyborg embeds the output of the language model into their own workflow and thinking - model and human work as an integrated system. The cyborg leverages the model's creative, albeit non-agentic, potential while continuously ‘steering' or ‘course-correcting' the model to ensure its output remains relevant to the actual goal. However, cyborgism might entail a high alignment tax: absent appropriate workflows and tools, a setup consisting of a human plus non-agentic GPT might be considerably less productive than a purely agentic AI (as the human component becomes a bottleneck). Background Concepts Before getting into practical cyborgism, it is helpful to summarize some relevant theories and intuitions about how language models work. Why is in-context learning relevant? Neural networks generally, and language models specifically, go through several types of training: the large-scale (in terms of compute, time, and data) pre-training when all the neural weights are set in an end-to-end optimisation process; one or more fine-tuning rounds to focus the model on a specific use domain (during which the weights also change); and, in the case of certain models, including GPT-4, ChatGPT, and text-davinci-003, various types of supplementary tuning, which in the case of GPT-4 seems to include RLHF and rule-based reward modelling (RBRM). The final phase of training, known as ‘in-context learning', happens during the session with the user, and doesn't involve actual changes in neural weights, but does still significantly alter the type of output the model generates, based on the accumulated context of its interaction with an user in a given session. The mechanisms by which this happens are debated, but from a cyborgism perspective, the context provides a powerful way of guiding or cont...
Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Compleat Cybornaut, published by ukc10014 on May 19, 2023 on LessWrong. A cluster of conceptual frameworks and research programmes have coalesced around a 2022 post by janus, which introduced language models as ‘simulators' (of other types of AIs such as agents, oracles, or genies). One such agenda, cyborgism, was coined in a post by janus and Nicholas Kees and is being researched as part of the 2023 editions of AI Safety Camp and SERI MATS. The objective of this document is to provide an on-ramp to the topic, one that is hopefully accessible to people not hugely familiar with simulator theory or language models. So what is cyborgism? Cyborgism proposes to use AIs, particularly language models (i.e. generative-pretrained transformers or GPTs), in ways that exploit their (increasingly) general-purpose intelligence, while retaining human control over the ‘dangerous bits' of AI – i.e. agency, planning, and goal-formation. The overall objective is to leverage human cognitive ability while minimising the risks associated with agentic AI. Aside from agency, a core assertion of cyborgism is that certain commonly-used language models are not well-suited to many tasks human users throw at them, but that humans, if appropriately-trained and equipped, might more effectively use GPTs in ways that are ‘natural' for the model, while dramatically increasing the productive and creative potential of the human. Specifically, some current systems, such as ChatGPT, are released or predominantly used in a ‘tuned' version, which has a host of shortcomings. One such tuning method, reinforcement-learning from human feedback (RLHF) has a specific weakness relevant to cyborgism: the tuning process severely limits, or collapses, a valuable aspect of the GPT, namely its wild, unconstrained creativity. Superficially, the cyborgism approach may resemble a human-plus-oracle setup, but there is a subtle and important distinction: an oracle, it is argued, might ‘smuggle in' some of the trappings of an agent. In contrast, the human cyborg embeds the output of the language model into their own workflow and thinking - model and human work as an integrated system. The cyborg leverages the model's creative, albeit non-agentic, potential while continuously ‘steering' or ‘course-correcting' the model to ensure its output remains relevant to the actual goal. However, cyborgism might entail a high alignment tax: absent appropriate workflows and tools, a setup consisting of a human plus non-agentic GPT might be considerably less productive than a purely agentic AI (as the human component becomes a bottleneck). Background Concepts Before getting into practical cyborgism, it is helpful to summarize some relevant theories and intuitions about how language models work. Why is in-context learning relevant? Neural networks generally, and language models specifically, go through several types of training: the large-scale (in terms of compute, time, and data) pre-training when all the neural weights are set in an end-to-end optimisation process; one or more fine-tuning rounds to focus the model on a specific use domain (during which the weights also change); and, in the case of certain models, including GPT-4, ChatGPT, and text-davinci-003, various types of supplementary tuning, which in the case of GPT-4 seems to include RLHF and rule-based reward modelling (RBRM). The final phase of training, known as ‘in-context learning', happens during the session with the user, and doesn't involve actual changes in neural weights, but does still significantly alter the type of output the model generates, based on the accumulated context of its interaction with an user in a given session. The mechanisms by which this happens are debated, but from a cyborgism perspective, the context provides a powerful way of guiding or cont...
Facebook and other social media have afforded us the wonderful privilege of knowing more about our friends than we ever really wanted to. "I just blew my nose. Thought you all should know." Best of all, we can share our "selfies"; pictures of me, taken by me. Because it's all about me, right? No! Well, at least it's not supposed to be. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I'd like to have A Word With You today about "The Lonely World of 'Selfies.'" One TV documentary said, "There is an epidemic of loneliness today." Well, that's true. Even in a world that, in one way, is more connected than ever. Superficially, but strangely lacking in the kind of deep human connection that satisfies our love-starved hearts. Life was never meant to be a "selfie" existence. Where it's all about how I look, what I'm doing, what I'm feeling, what I need. The problem is a world that's only as big as me is a world that's too small to live in. Years ago, a young man wrote to Mother Teresa with a pretty compelling question. This woman who had buried her life in the needs of the most broken in Calcutta's slums was clearly the one who would know the answer. He asked, "What can I do to have a significant life like you have?" Mother Teresa's postcard reply was only four words: "Find your own Calcutta." Or, "Find some people who need you and be there for them." You don't have to go to Calcutta to find them. They're in the local senior citizens' facility, or they may be kids struggling in school who could flourish if someone would take time to tutor them or mentor them. "Calcutta" may be those homeless people, or the unemployed, or the medically sidelined people down the block. In fact, you may not have to look any farther than the people you work with or play with or go to school with. On any given day, someone in your world needs a smile, or a hug, a compliment, a word of encouragement, a listening ear, or just to be noticed or included. It's a matter of recalibrating your radar to see the people for whom you could make a difference. But self-sacrifice is not without personal benefit. Because the fastest way to get out of your pit is to pull someone else out of theirs. And the best antidote for being lonely is to be there for someone else. So, turn your camera lens the other way to make your life a "youie" instead of a "selfie." where the other person is the picture; where your life mission is simple; make each person feel like they matter. In our word for today from the Word of God, in 2 Corinthians 5:15, God says, "Christ died for all that they should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and rose again." See, we're not supposed to live for ourselves anymore. Years ago, when I occasionally spoke for the New York Giants chapels, I had the privilege of meeting their defensive end, George Martin. A great football player, yes. In fact, he had a Super Bowl ring and all. But an even greater man, because he always made other people the big deal instead of himself. He spoke one year for our local high school football team. He had just been named the NFL's Man of the Year for his work with sick and dying children along with a bunch of charitable causes. It wasn't the only award he received for "finding his own Calcutta." He told our players, "You need to know the real reason I'm doing these things. I'm just copying my hero. My hero is Jesus Christ." He went on to explain how Jesus forgot about Himself to give us a chance to go to heaven someday and have a relationship with the God whose love we were made for. For that to happen, the wall between us and God had to come down. And it could only come down if the penalty for us running our own life was paid; a death penalty. The Bible says, "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Living forever instead of punishment forever; heaven instead of hell. The Bible says, "the Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). That's a love you need to experience for yourself. You can begin that relationship, a love relationship with Him, this very day. Just say, "Jesus, I'm yours." Go to our website. We can help you know how you can be sure you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com. Life is never the same once you've experienced for yourself the transforming love of Jesus Christ.
Have you ever heard of the expression, “Two sides of the same coin?” It refers to a situation where two things appear superficially to be opposites of one another, but they are in fact fundamentally alike. I think last week's message and this week's message are a great example of this. Last week we read about a conversation that Jesus had with a social, moral, and religious outcast. “The outcast of outcasts”, we said, right? She was a woman, five times married and was now living with a man who was not her husband, who went to the water well to draw water at noon because she would rather brave the heat of the day than face a crowd. She was obviously desperate… This week we will read about a conversation Jesus has with not an outcast but an insider in every way imaginable–socially, morally, religiously, you name it. We might say he was “put together” or he had life “all figured out.” Superficially, these two could not appear to be any more different than they are, but spiritually, they were one in the same. And if these two, who were as different as we could imagine, had this in common spiritually, I think it is likely many of us share this same spiritual diagnosis as well.
This week, Dan Neumann is joined by his colleague and repeated guest, Adam Ulery. In this episode, Dan and Adam are exploring the true meaning of being Agile, which is often a subject of discussion. Dan recently found the work of two researchers named Corey Baham and Rudy Hirschheim on the theoretical cores of Agile which provides valuable information about the identity of Agile. Key Takeaways What does Agile mean? The four cores of the Theoretical model on Agility in the mentioned research are validity, inspection and adaptation, working collaboratively, and continuous customer involvement. Going superficially vs. deeply into Agile: A superficial approach is when people go through the motions or practice Agile behaviors and activities, maybe not fully understanding the reason why they are doing what they are doing or the benefits implied. Going deeper into Agile means seeking a better understanding of the reasons behind your behavior. Agility at the Team level: An example of a superficial approach to Agile can be when a person is named the product owner, then he/she gets a list of tasks to do, and maybe even is required to check before doing anything. There are cases when the new product owner also takes on the new role on top of a previous list of accountabilities, resulting in a very superficial approach to the functions. Not going beyond the functions of your role can also be a superficial way to execute a role. A deep way to develop the role is to begin to understand its true purpose and to remove the barriers preventing the achievement of those goals. The whole Team must be aligned when the priorities change. The environment has to add value to the Scrum framework. A tight partner of alignment is discipline; the team has to say no to the things they shouldn't be working on. At the leadership level, the Scrum values have to be deeply understood. Superficially, a leader has a general understanding of Agile, more in terms of a process, another way to manage projects. An Agile Leader has an understanding of Agile as an effective tool to help the organization to achieve the outcomes it wants. An Agile Leader removes the impediments for the Team to exercise the Agile values. The whole Team must be aligned when the priorities change. Change isn't easy. The whole Team must be aligned when the priorities change. To experience great rewards you have to put in the effort and go through the pain. Mentioned in this Episode: “Issues, challenges, and a proposed theoretical core of Agile Software Development Research,” by Corey Baham and Rudy Hirschheim Lead from the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking Into Breakthrough Growth, by Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!
A new MP3 sermon from Jones Run Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Judge Not, Superficially Subtitle: Matthew Speaker: Jeff Parsons Broadcaster: Jones Run Church Event: Sunday Service Date: 1/8/2023 Bible: Matthew 7:1-6 Length: 35 min.
After many dramatic events around Twitter lately, many people, including myself, began experimenting with Mastodon. Superficially it's an open-source clone of the former that anyone can deploy and host. However, once you look deeper, it's actually a completely different philosophy and architecture. Let's focus on how Mastodon federated network is built. To understand the difference, we'll start from scratch. Read more: https://nurkiewicz.com/90 Get the new episode straight to your mailbox: https://nurkiewicz.com/newsletter
Episode 127 is live tonight at 8pm on Youtube live featuring special guest @afuathescot Topics: -Rupa Huq calling Kwasi Kwarteng a 'superficial Black man'. Kwasi Kwateng is superficially Black?Was she right or is this toxic racial identity politics? -Some people are protesting #TheWomanKing movie starring Viola Davis, John Boyega, Lashana Lynch and Sheila Atim because it doesn't fully acknowledge that the Dahomey tribe sold other Africans into slavery. -There is an increase in young people having anal sex and more and more young girls aged 14-16 year old are going to the sexual health clinic with anal tears. How do we have conversations about sex with the young people in our lives? Tune in tonight via the link in the bio or search 'Your Aunties Could Never' podcast on Youtube at 8pm. Don't forget to follow the aunties @britblacklist @farrforce @sadesalami @nanaloveevans #yourauntiescouldnever #newspodcast #newsheadlines #rupahuq #labourMP #kwasikwarteng #vicechancellor #CostOfLivingCrisis #ukMPs #ukparliament #thewomanking #womanisking #violadavis #johnboyega #sheilaatim #lashanlynch #analsex #teenageadvice #sexadvice #celebritynews #cancelled #moviereactions #moviereview #moviereviews
#TheFullyGeekedPod return with podcast episode 160 (00:07) #FullyGeekedWeeklyRoundUp This weeks topics include our thoughts on the chancellor being called "Superficially Black", we look at the #Netflix "Tudum" 2022 event. England FC is nonsense people can play for Country and not play for their Club. #Stormzy drops Mel Made Me Do It as epic as the video is somethings are unnecessary before.... TV/Films (50:28) She Hulk Ep 6(#DisneyPlus) (58:28) House of Dragon Ep 6(#SkyAtlantic) (01:09:52) See S3E5(#AppleTV) (01:16:54) The Rings of Power Ep 5(#PrimeVideo) (01:20:45) Cobra Kai S5 (#Netflix) (01:30:18) What else should we be watching: The Crown (#Netflix), Blood Sisters (#Netflix), Andor (#DisneyPlus) and Devil in Ohio (#Netflix) #Podcast #TheFullyGeekedPod #Films #TV #Review #GuysThatPodcast #PremierLeague #SheHulk #HouseofTheDragon #GameOfThrones #SEE #TheRingsOfPower #LOTR #Andor #TheCrown #DevilInOhio #Stormzy #MelMadeMeDoIt #Tudum #JoeJoyce #AJ #TysonFury
Umar shares his thoughts on a member of parliament calling the newly appointed chancellor superficially black. He explains why this is problematic based on the member of parliament's views of what the black experience should look like. Dope Black Dads is a place where we are changing the narrative and having progressive conversations about black fathers with the aim of creating a safe digital space within the community. Join the conversation and the community online through our social channels:Twitter: @DopeBlackDadsInstagram: @DopeBlackDadsFacebook Page: @DopeBlackDadsIf you want to get in touch with us, email us at hello@dopeblackdads.org or follow our conversations in-depth on our Facebook Group by searching 'Dope Black Dads'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Umar shares his thoughts on a member of parliament calling the newly appointed chancellor superficially black. He explains why this is problematic based on the member of parliament's views of what the black experience should look like. Dope Black Dads is a place where we are changing the narrative and having progressive conversations about black fathers with the aim of creating a safe digital space within the community. Join the conversation and the community online through our social channels:Twitter: @DopeBlackDadsInstagram: @DopeBlackDadsFacebook Page: @DopeBlackDadsIf you want to get in touch with us, email us at hello@dopeblackdads.org or follow our conversations in-depth on our Facebook Group by searching 'Dope Black Dads'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
An artificial neural network is a computer algorithm somewhat inspired by our brains. Superficially, our brain is a network of neurons connected with each other and communicating via electrical impulses. Artificial intelligence experts implemented a similar concept purely in software. An artificial neuron is basically a function that takes a set of inputs and has an output. Just like the biological one. By connecting hundreds of such neurons in a network, we can observe quite intelligent behaviours. For example, artificial neural networks can recognize what's in the image. Or quite the opposite - generate images from text. Read more: https://nurkiewicz.com/87 Get the new episode straight to your mailbox: https://nurkiewicz.com/newsletter
Today on Valentine in the Morning, Adam Levine has a controversy, Jill's boyfriend has nice legs, and Jon still has his Christmas decorations up from last year!
Proverbs 27:6 'Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.' Surely we've all had moments when friends have said something to us which made us go: “Ouch!” Perhaps they were giving us a loving warning or strongly disagreeing with our opinion. The ouch was real but, when we got over it, we realised that they said it because they cared. That doesn't mean they were necessarily right, of course, but the reason they spoke in the way that they did was because of the friendship. Superficially, it is nicer to be kissed than to receive a wound. But the writer of Proverbs makes the point that what really matters is where the kiss or the wound come from. If an enemy kisses you, it might feel nice for a moment but it is a lie. There is no love or commitment behind it and you are much better off without it. A wound that comes from a sincere friend is infinitely more valuable. Speaking truth is never an easy matter. We are continually tempted to try to make people like us by saying the things they want to hear. All our instincts are to avoid confrontation by not saying the things that we know they don't want to hear. But God's intention is that we should be speakers of truth. In the apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he was concerned for Christian growth. He wanted his friends to become stronger in their faith and for the whole church to become stronger. He wrote that, as we speak the truth in love we will grow “in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of the body, the Church” (Ephesians 4:15). Of course, it must never be our intention to wound anyone. That's a terrible idea. But the truth is so precious that we must make sure we don't keep it from our friends, even when it is going to hurt. And for the same reason, we must respond well when they share words of truth with us. Question: When were you last wounded by the words of a friend, and what did you learn from that experience? Prayer: Lord God, help us always to speak truth that is full of your love. Amen
Susan Cain describes to Carey how in a superficially positive culture, that kind of message can only last for so long. Get more on this conversation by going to http://theartofleadershipdaily.com/. Looking for resources to lead, run and grow your church? Join The Art of Leadership Academy today at http://theartofleadershipacademy.com/.
China's Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Xue Bing, wrapped up a two-day peace conference in Addis Ababa last week, Beijing's first-ever effort to mediate conflicts outside of Asia. Xue personally offered to serve as a broker to help resolve many of the ongoing tensions that currently roil the region.Superficially, all of the participants responded favorably to China's efforts but the real test will come in the months ahead to see if Beijing can match its promises with tangible results.Aly Verjee, a non-resident senior advisor at the United States Institute of Peace, is a leading expert in the politics of the Horn of Africa. He joins Cobus to share his impressions of China's performance at the conference and whether he thinks Beijing has what it takes to help mediate the region's various conflicts.JOIN THE DISCUSSION:Twitter: @ChinaGSProject| @stadenesque | @alyverjeeFacebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProjectFOLLOW CAP IN FRENCH AND ARABIC:Français: www.projetafriquechine.com | @AfrikChineعربي: www.akhbaralsin-africia.com | @AkhbarAlSinAfrJOIN US ON PATREON!Become a CAP Patreon member and get all sorts of cool stuff including our Week in Review report, an invitation to join monthly Zoom calls with Eric & Cobus, and even an awesome new CAP Podcast mug!www.patreon.com/chinaafricaprojectSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This conversation was recorded more than a year ago, before my relocation from Singapore to Manchester, UK. As I plunged into a new life, I struggled to find my way and felt unable to publish any podcasts. Now winter is over, and as we hurtle through spring, my energy has returned, and I'm delighted to share this episode. My guests are three members of Singapore's American Women's Association Running Group.Bernie Tretta from Euston, Texas; epidemiologist and data queenQian Marquard from Beijing; educator and super A (super cool, trendy, and sassy!)Suzanne Hizzey Murphy from Seattle, Washington; teacher, organisational wizard and US Embassy spouseRichly diverse in age, nationality and skills, all three beautifully illustrate the firm friendships forged in this vibrant community. We talk about how being part of an ever-changing group means creating a culture that continues; Bernie uses the lovely analogy of a ship being rebuilt one board at a time allowing new people the opportunity to renew the group's strength, energy and innovation. As we all look back and search for blessings during the Covid lockdown, Suzanne talks about how devising daily challenges for the running group motivated her to keep going and had the bonus of deepening the group's connections and friendships. Superficially, the challenges may seem inconsequential, but the underlying impact is profound. Running strips away makeup and status, and Qian talks about how running may make you suffer. Still, a running group will gift motivation, engagement, friendship and fun – plus massages on a running vacation if you are lucky! We all agree that it's essential not to take the group for granted and how being part of the group has been hugely valuable in gifting friendship and support and keeping loneliness at bay.The community transcends running the joint energy created by the members means a wide variety of activity options, both running and socially orientated. Those who organise things for others receive unexpected benefits, and all, regardless of their running prowess, are eagerly welcomed, and no one is ever left behind. Key takeaways:· When people leave the group, culture is rebuilt by new people, one board at a time.· Running will humble you; you can't hide behind makeup or status.· Although running may make you suffer, a running group will gift motivation, engagement, friendship and fun – plus massages if you are lucky! · A running group is a great antidote to loneliness and should not be taken for granted.· Magic happens when people use their skills to organise events so others can take part. · Showing up is a vast joy regardless of your running ability. References:American Women's Association: https://www.awasingapore.org
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Supervise Process, not Outcomes, published by stuhlmueller on April 5, 2022 on LessWrong. We can think about machine learning systems on a spectrum from process-based to outcome-based: Process-based systems are built on human-understandable task decompositions, with direct supervision of reasoning steps. Outcome-based systems are built on end-to-end optimization, with supervision of final results. This post explains why Ought is devoted to process-based systems. The argument is: In the short term, process-based ML systems have better differential capabilities: They help us apply ML to tasks where we don't have access to outcomes. These tasks include long-range forecasting, policy decisions, and theoretical research. In the long term, process-based ML systems help avoid catastrophic outcomes from systems gaming outcome measures and are thus more aligned. Both process- and outcome-based evaluation are attractors to varying degrees: Once an architecture is entrenched, it's hard to move away from it. This lock-in applies much more to outcome-based systems. Whether the most powerful ML systems will primarily be process-based or outcome-based is up in the air. So it's crucial to push toward process-based training now. There are almost no new ideas here. We're reframing the well-known outer alignment difficulties for traditional deep learning architectures and contrasting them with compositional approaches. To the extent that there are new ideas, credit primarily goes to Paul Christiano and Jon Uesato. We only describe our background worldview here. In a follow-up post, we'll explain why we're building Elicit, the AI research assistant. The spectrum Supervising outcomes Supervision of outcomes is what most people think about when they think about machine learning. Local components are optimized based on an overall feedback signal: SGD optimizes weights in a neural net to reduce its training loss Neural architecture search optimizes architectures and hyperparameters to have low validation loss Policy gradient optimizes policy neural nets to choose actions that lead to high expected rewards In each case, the system is optimized based on how well it's doing empirically. MuZero is an example of a non-trivial outcome-based architecture. MuZero is a reinforcement learning algorithm that reaches expert-level performance at Go, Chess, and Shogi without human data, domain knowledge, or hard-coded rules. The architecture has three parts: A representation network, mapping observations to states A dynamics network, mapping state and action to future state, and A prediction network, mapping state to value and distribution over next actions. Superficially, this looks like an architecture with independently meaningful components, including a “world model” (dynamics network). However, because the networks are optimized end-to-end to jointly maximize expected rewards and to be internally consistent, they need not capture interpretable dynamics or state. It's just a few functions that, if chained together, are useful for predicting reward-maximizing actions. Neural nets are always in the outcomes-based regime to some extent: In each layer and at each node, they use the matrices that make the neural net as a whole work well. Supervising process If you're not optimizing based on how well something works empirically (outcomes), then the main way you can judge it is by looking at whether it's structurally the right thing to do (process). For many tasks, we understand what pieces of work we need to do and how to combine them. We trust the result because of this reasoning, not because we've observed final results for very similar tasks: Engineers and astronomers expect the James Webb Space Telescope to work because its deployment follows a well-understood plan, and it is built out of well-understo...
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!Mary Shelley is an English novelist whose work has reached all corners of the globe. Author of Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), Shelley was the daughter of the radical philosopher William Godwin, who described her as ‘singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind'. Her mother, who died days after her birth, was the famous defender of women's rights, Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary grew up with five semi-related siblings in Godwin's unconventional but intellectually electric household.At the age of 16, Mary eloped to Italy with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who praised ‘the irresistible wildness & sublimity of her feelings'. Each encouraged the other's writing, and they married in 1816 after the suicide of Shelley's wife. They had several children, of whom only one survived. A ghost-writing contest on a stormy June night in 1816 inspired Frankenstein, often called the first true work of science-fiction. Superficially a Gothic novel, influenced by the experiments of Luigi Galvani, it was concerned with the destructive nature of power when allied to wealth. Familiar to scholars, librarians and the entire literary world, the novel tells the story of Doctor Victor Frankenstein and a creature he creates in an unorthodox scientific experiment. It was an instant wonder and spawned a mythology all of its own that endures to this day. After Percy Shelley's death in 1822, she returned to London and pursued a very successful writing career as a novelist, biographer and travel writer. She also edited and promoted her husband's poems and other writings.From https://www.bl.uk/people/mary-shelley. For more information about Mary Shelley:“Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-wollstonecraft-shelley“The Strange and Twisted Life of ‘Frankenstein'”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-strange-and-twisted-life-of-frankenstein“Frankenstein at 200”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/13/frankenstein-at-200-why-hasnt-mary-shelley-been-given-the-respect-she-deserves-
Today's learning sponsored Sponsor a day's learning (thousands of minutes!) for only $72 click here https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/ODUwOTU Mishna: If one built his sukkah on a wagon or a ship, it is kosher. Summary Gemara: Question: Whose opinion is this mishna following? Answer: Rabbi Akiva. As we learned in a beraisa: A sukkah on a ship is possul according to Rabban Gamliel and kosher according to Rabbi Akiva. It once happened that Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Akiva were travelling on a ship together. Rabbi Akiva built a sukkah on the deck; the next day a wind knocked down his sukkah. Rabban Gamliel said to him: “Akiva, where's your sukkah?” (Don't you see that a ship is not a stable place for a sukkah?). Abayye: Everyone agrees that if it cannot withstand an ordinary land wind [although this sukkah is at sea], it is possul. If it can withstand an unusually strong land wind [which is a usual sea wind], it is kosher. They disagree if it can withstand an ordinary land wind, but not an ordinary sea wind [which is an unusually strong land wind]: According to Rabban Gamliel, a sukkah must be a diras keva (6.3) and it must be able to stand where it is [at sea]. According to Rabbi Akiva, a sukkah mustn't be so strong, as long as it can stand on land, it is kosher. Atop a camel's back, it is kosher but he may not enter it on Yom Tov. Question: Whose opinion is this mishna following? Answer: Rabbi Meir. As we learned in a beraisa: A sukkah on an animal is kosher according to Rabbi Meir and possul according to Rabbi Yehuda. Question: What is Rabbi Yehuda's reasoning? Answer: It states “Make a sukkah celebration for seven days”, only a sukkah that can be used for seven days is kosher [but this sukkah cannot be used on Shabbos or Yom Tov]. Challenge: What would Rabbi Meir say? Resolution: This sukkah is usable all seven days, it is only d'rabbanan that we cannot use it (20.1). (Superficially we can say that this machlokes is the key to a question that comes up constantly in Minchas Chinuch: Does a d'rabbanan affect d'oraysos? It seems that Rabbi Yehuda hold it does, and Rabbi Meir holds it does not). If one stationed an animal on one side of the sukkah to use it as a wall: Rabbi Meir: It is possul. Rabbi Yehuda: It is kosher. Rabbi Meir would say: A living thing cannot be used as a wall for a sukkah, a lechi for a mavui, pasei bira'os (3.4), or a golel (according to Rashi it means the stone that covers a grave, this stone is tamei like the corpse). They quoted Rabbi Yosi Haglili: Additionally, a get cannot be written on a living animal's hide. Question: What is Rabbi Meir's reasoning? Abayye: The animal might die. Rabbi Zeira: The animal might escape.
Is blockchain just a buzzword? Or is it the future of enterprise software?Superficially synonymous with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, blockchain solutions have the potential to revolutionize the entire ERP landscape — and even build bridges between the walled gardens of warring platforms. In this episode of The ERP Advisor, find out why we think 2020 is the year blockchain ERP tools will possibly make sense for small and midsize businesses.
Important or urgentSometimes, like right now, I feel overwhelmed. I'm racing a deadline for finishing this book. But I've got a million and one other things to do and loads of people clamouring for my time (see the previous chapter about busy-boasting…). I came to my shed this morning determined to make inroads into some chapter edits. But then I discovered my website had been hacked and required immediate attention. I responded calmly and maturely by yelling, 'Agggghhhh!' at the top of my voice. This is one of the many advantages of working in an isolated shed.But life is always like this, isn't it? Unless you're living an Instagram existence of hygge, feng shui, green smoothies and yoga poses, then your reality probably involves running for buses, drowning in emails and a bewildered astonishment at how fast the year is flying by. It helps if you can separate what is urgent from what is important. Superficially the two words are similar but extrapolate your life a few decades, and they lead to very different destinations. Urgent shouts more loudly than Important. But Important is, well, important… When I reached a similar crunch point writing my last book, it needed drastic action to escape from the urgent and focus on the important. I took myself and my manuscript off to a mountain hut in the Lake District where there would be no phone signal, no clock and no demands on my time. It was a foggy winter day, but I was soon sweating as I hiked up into the hills. I had a grid reference for the hut's position, but I was a little anxious about finding it in the mist. It is an old miners' shelter, built of grey slate, lying low to the ground on a rocky hillside. I did not spot the building until I was about a hundred metres away from it. I grinned with relief. I pushed open the low, unlocked wooden door. Inside it was cold and dark. I dumped my pack on the stone sleeping platform under the solitary window and rummaged for a candle. The bothy was basic but beautiful and perfect for focusing on what was important. I lit a fire in the wood burner then fetched water from a nearby stream to make coffee. I pulled on a woolly hat and took out my pens and papers. It was time to write.All of a sudden, 24 hours expanded into an abundance. There were more hours available than I could possibly concentrate for. I could clear my brain either by jumping into a deep, cold waterfall or hiking up the hill behind the bothy. I woke when my body told me to wake up, relit the fire, ate breakfast, then worked solidly on my book until I needed a break. Sometimes, I stared out of the little window down the valley towards a distant lake. In three days, I made a month's progress on the book.Heading for the mountains with a rucksack and a back-breaking pile of firewood is perhaps a drastic option. You may not need to go that far if you do some ruthless differentiating between the urgent demands and what is actually important. On the first Tuesday of every month, my calendar pings a reminder at me. That's standard, of course: my life is ruled by a crowded calendar (because I am the King of Busy). But this is one ping that I always enjoy. Indeed, the busier I am, the more I appreciate the interruption. And that is because my calendar tells me to 'Climb a Tree'. It reminds me to step away from the aimless conference calls and the interruptions and spend 20 minutes doing something which I will never regret. It is a pleasant way to measure and notice the seasons as well as to reflect on my past month and contemplate what might lie ahead. I hope that I never deem myself too busy with urgent tasks to do something as important as climbing a tree. OVER TO YOU:1. When did you last climb a tree?2. Do a brain dump of everything in your head, from your life goals to the weekly To-Do list. It will help clarify what you should prioritise and what's best to delegate or delete.★ Support this podcast ★
TWIFO 182: Kicking Off A New Decade of Futures Options HOST: MARK LONGO, THE OPTIONS INSIDER MEDIA GROUP CO-HOST: SEAN SMITH, MD OF DERIVATIVES LICENSING, FTSE RUSSELL CME Group Reports 2019 Annual Volume and Monthly Market Statistics - https://www.cmegroup.com/media-room/press-releases/2020/1/03/cme_group_reports2019annualvolumeandmonthlymarketstatistics.html average daily volume (ADV) of 19.2 million contracts during the year and 15.5 million contracts during the month of December. Open interest at the end of December was 113 million contracts. Market statistics are available online in greater detail at https://cmegroupinc.gcs-web.com/monthly-volume. Annual highlights across asset classes include: Record 40 trading days with volume over 25 million contracts, up 29% from 35 days in 2018 Record Interest Rate ADV of 10.3 million contracts per day, up 4% from 2018 Record Metals ADV of 668,000 contracts per day, up 5% from 2018 Record Options ADV of 4 million contracts per day, up 2% from 2018 EQUITIES VIX: 12.95 - UP .45 ROM LAST SHOW VVIX:89.5 - DOWN 9.25 FROM LAST SHOW RVX: 15 - UP .75 FROM LAST SHOW VIX/RVX SPREAD - APPROX. 2 - AROUND THE SAME AS LAST SHOW RUSSELL 2000 2019 PERFORMANCE UP NEARLY 24% IN 2019 OPENED THE YEAR AT 1346 ENDED THE YEAR OVER 1600 - CLOSED AT 1668 In 2020, Equities Are Partying Like It's 1999 By Erik Norland - https://www.cmegroup.com/education/featured-reports/in-2020-equities-are-partying-like-its-1999.html At the beginning of the 1990s, the US economy was heading into a recession, plagued by a crisis of small banks (saving and loans) and bad real estate loans. The Federal Reserve (Fed) was slashing rates, from 9.75% to 3%. At the beginning of the 2010s, the US unemployment rate was nearly 10%. The banking system was just beginning to recover from its most severe crisis since the 1930s. Housing prices had collapsed nationwide. The Fed was experimenting with zero rates and quantitative easing. Superficially, the beginning of the 2020s looks a great deal more like the state of the world in 2000 than in 1990 or 2010. Unemployment is below 4%. There are no obvious problems with the banking system. Real estate prices are on a modest upward trend but don't appear to be in bubble territory (at least not in most of the US). Energy and materials prices are far from historical highs. METALS 2019 In Review: A Record Year for CME Metals Products - https://www.cmegroup.com/education/metals-update/2020-q1-metals-update.html Combined Futures and Options Average Daily Volume (ADV) was 668,327 contracts in 2019, a new record. Metals F&O have now set annual volume records in 4 consecutive years. Metals ADV increased 20% from December 2018, driven by 22% growth in precious metals futures and options and 15% growth in base metals futures and options Average combined Metals Open Interest of 3,662,788 contracts also set a record in 2019, showing consistent growth as volume increased. Gold Futures Open Interest set a record on December 31 of 786,166 contracts. GOLD Gold Prices Rise Above $1,600 on Simmering U.S.-Iran Tensions Shanghai Gold Futures Contracts Debut with Deep Liquidity and Robust Volume Since their debut on October 14, a combined 42,719 contracts have traded in the SGU (USD Denominated) and SGC (CNH) contracts. Use COMEX Copper Options to Manage Copper Price Risk Copper options average daily volume in 2019 was 2,812 contracts, up 101% YoY. COMEX Aluminum Suite Continues to Grow CME's physically deliverable Aluminum Futures contract continues to gain traction, with Q4 average daily volume reaching 139 contracts (3,475 metric tons), 2019 Average Daily Volume across CME's suite of Aluminum Futures contracts was 671 contracts, up 9% vs 2018 (Q4 1,057 up 82% vs Q4 2018). CRUDE Oil prices jumped 5 per cent after Iran launched strikes against US military bases in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of commander Qassem Soleimani. But by Wednesday afternoon gains in crude had reversed, with prices trading lower than before the Iranian general's assassination. BRENT CRUDE: Having jumped when markets opened to as high as $71.75 a barrel, crude later dropped to below $66 a barrel, a near 9 per cent peak-to-trough swing in the course of a day. WTI: TOPPED OUT AT $63.27 - BEFORE DROPPING BACK BELOW $60 AGAIN. Oil tanker groups are taking a wait-and-see approach - Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest crude exporter and a key US ally, has temporarily suspended shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway separating the Gulf from Iran where 20 per cent of global oil supplies pass daily. However, Frontline, the world's largest oil tanker operator, said that while it was “monitoring the situation closely” it had not “suspended trading in the area”. Opec and allies can ALWAYS increase supplies - “Not a single drop of oil supply has been lost due to the recent incidents and this is why the oil price has fallen back down again so quickly,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at Norwegian bank SEB. CRYPTO Options on Bitcoin Futures. Coming January 13, 2020 - https://www.cmegroup.com/cme-group-futures-exchange/options-bitcoin-futures.html?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bitcoin_options_launch&utm_content=email4_prelaunch FUTURES OPTIONS FEEDBACK QUESTION FROM ABHISHEK JAIN: dear sir, can you share a fee source of U.S. commodity option chain preferably gold and crude oil QUESTION FROM STEVE WIM: What was a weird trend that came on your radar in 2019? QUESTION FROM BKL61: What is the proper time frame for trading futures options? In case you can't tell i'm pretty new to trading. Just discovered the program and I'm loving it and learning a ton. Thank you so much!. QUESTION FROM DEMOCAT: Are there any plans for mini (micro) russell options?
Adrian Rogers lifts up a warning flag against superficial religion. In today's message, two 1st Century Christians tragically discover the consequences of choosing hypocrisy over honesty with God! To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/135/29
0705 Real Life Korean : 수박 겉 핥기 (to lick the surface of a watermelon; to do something superficially)
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