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SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME !!! The tech that will power the 22nd century

2017-12-03T15:47:00.000-08:00

Humanity is entering a period of hyper adoption of new technology

Main image: The 22nd century will be about much more than flying cars. Credit: Airbus

If predicting the future is dumb, then predicting advances in technology is even dumber. Challenges will appear that we've never contemplated, and knowledge we now hold dear will in many cases be proven false. The prediction game can soon become more a reflection of 'us' in the 21st century rather than 'them' in the 22nd century.

And yet, as we enter a period of hyper-adoption of new technology, we have more data than ever before to give us an idea of what the world could look like in 100 years. And we know one thing, it's that the future is going to be home to some amazing technologies.

Floating cities

By the year 2100 the average temperature is projected to increase by at least 1C. Cue rising sea levels, which will threaten hundreds of cities worldwide. One solution could be floating cities, which the Seasteading Institute has been trying to encourage for years. It's already happening in French Polynesia, where Blue

"I foresee huge floating cities that can move, join together, pull apart – that's the sort of future I see in a hundred years, not only because we will need to because environmental issues will become more severe, but because technology will make the ocean a lot more hospitable," says Paul Amstrong, founder of future technology consultancy Here/Forth.

He name-checks 4D printing and graphene as two of the technologies that will enable us to construct those cities, and adds that plastic-digesting nano-bots could be used to clean up the oceans, even gobbling up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Humans will be healthier for longer

Life expectancy for the United Nations-projected 11.2 billion people living by 2100 may not increase drastically, but older people will be healthier.

"With ageing populations, medicine will get a lot better, because otherwise you will have a lot of sick people, which would be a massive burden," says Armstrong. “Expect personalised medicine, from high-end genetic re-sequencing to bio-hacking and 'wetware', which is still in its infancy."

Brain-computer connections are already possible, although developing the software and interfaces is going to take time. Another massive trend will be personalised medicine; expect medi-pods in our homes that can diagnose problems, and implants that do the same on the move.

Airspace will open up

Beyond both driverless cars and Amazon wanting to use drones to deliver parcels, the far-flung future could have a completely new kind of airspace.

At present, global airspace is managed in a rigid 'airspace corridor' way, purely for the benefit of commercial and military aircraft, but that could change. "Global airspace could be managed in a continuously flexible and dynamic way for the benefit of all," says Robert Garbett, founder and CEO of Drone Major Group.

Garbett forsees "an airspace populated with vertical columns used by aircraft making sub-space jumps, shifting geo-routes allowing passenger drones to pass safely at any altitude, and shifting geo-fences protecting manned routes and high-value assets".

That kind of dynamic use of airspace could lead to an explosion in unmanned transport systems – drones. It could mean “driverless flying taxis in our smart cities, and reduced accident response times through the use of driverless ambulances”, according to Garbett, while also making traveling to work a breeze by opening up rooftop drop-offs in built-up areas.

“The sky above us is an untapped sea of air that will have incredible value as the drone industry expands,” Garbett adds.

Drinking water will be plentiful

We live on a 'blue planet', but we’re short of 'blue gold'. Droughts are on the increase, and where there’s drought, there are dams, and inevitable political conflict. However, the potential water wars of the future could be avoided if humans were able to so something that sounds like it should be simple: drink the sea.

Desalination plants remove salt and minerals from water to make it drinkable, but getting seawater into a plant is incredibly energy-intensive. Cue a fossil fuel-free idea from New Mexico-based wave energy company Atmocean, which involves wave-harnessing pumps to get seawater ashore more cost-effectively. Trialled off Peru a few years ago, the system also produces excess electricity.

From drinking water to irrigation, aquaculture and greening the deserts, advances like this in desalination technology could make a massive difference. The creation of micro-filtration using graphene sieves should also allow so-called 'toilet to tap' technology to extract water from urine in homes. Gulp.

Food will become functional

"We know that how we produce food now is unsustainable, so in a hundred years we'll start to see a radically different way of feeding and farming," says Armstrong.

"Soon we'll be able to have a meal that is nutritionally sufficient – it's just about figuring out what the body needs, and listening to it," he says, adding that nano-materials and nano-technology that can live inside the body will become important.

It's already happening; in the US, the Food and Drug Administration just approved a digital pill embedded with a sensor that send data to doctors
detailing whether patients have taken their medication. The same could happen with food in humans and animals to introduce precision consumption.

"Are we going to start eating grasshoppers and drinking protein shakes?" says Armstrong. "They may be the only options, but I definitely think that people will want to live without food preparation, so they can spend their lives doing other things.”

AI will help achieve nuclear fusion

Artificial intelligence is so over-hyped right now that it's obviously a reflection of people's pathetic fears about 'robot takeovers'. But AI and computing power are destined to become the enablers for something 22nd society will need a lot of: energy.

Per capita energy consumption is already rising so fast that we'll need a miracle to prevent humanity from entering a period of energy-starved stasis. Is that miracle nuclear fusion?

"Fusion will certainly be an essential part of the energy mix by 2100, providing between 15% and 35% of global energy," says Jonathan Carling, CEO of Tokamak
Energy, which is now testing its third fusion reactor.

"Our technology aims at small modular fusion power – but one module would produce sufficient power for a small city," Carling adds. "Fusion electricity into the grid can be achieved in less than 15 years' time by using new materials like high-temperature superconductors, new technologies like AI, and the agile development environment enabled by private investment."

AI is currently being used to develop the all-important models of plasma physics, so that scientists can predict how reactions will work. Once we've cracked it, humanity will have low-carbon energy forever.

The people factor

Can technology solve all of humanity's problems? It can, absolutely – but whether it will or not depends hugely on whether humans allow it to live up to its potential. What happens in the future also largely depends on discovering that what we know now is probably wrong.

"Futurology is a risky game," says Dmitry Bagrov, MD of DataArt UK, who thinks that what would be really be fascinating is to be able to travel to the future, so that we could travel back to see the present.

"A backwards time machine would depict our world now, as it actually is rather than the imagined present we live in," Bagrov adds, explaining that we have yet to understand our context, and what is real and what is not.
"Think of all the deeply held, but wrong, theories, that have existed over the years – the flat Earth, the four humours theory, the alchemists – and imagine if we had a machine to show us all of this now." Much of what we think we know today will, by the year 2100, be considered archaic pseudoscience.

"Hopefully, the future will give us technology to truly understand the past so that we don’t repeat mistakes in the future … of the future," says Bagrov.

Time machines may be beyond even 22nd century engineers, but don't underestimate the importance of a raft of upcoming technology – some seemingly simple, some incredibly complex – will change the world.

Is religion to blame for violence?

2017-11-28T22:02:00.001-08:00

In a special on religion, we speak to Karen Armstrong and debate New Atheism with Lawrence Krauss and Greg Epstein.

In a special UpFront on religion, recorded before the Nice attack, we speak to bestselling author Karen Armstrong, who argues that politics, not religion, is the root of the world's worst conflicts.

In the Reality Check, Mehdi Hasan debunks the myth that religion is in decline. And in the Arena, top atheists Lawrence Krauss and Greg Epstein debate on whether offending the faithful is the right way forward.

Headliner: Is religion the root of the world's conflicts?

From the Crusades to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, religion is often blamed for some of the world's worst conflicts. While some use their faith to justify acts of violence, is religion really at the root of such conflicts?

In this week's Headliner, we speak with Karen Armstrong, author of Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence, who says politics, not religion is to blame for the violence in today's world.

Reality Check: Religion isn't on the way out

"Religion is dying" - that's what some throughout the world say. But, a look at the statistics shows that globally, many of the world's largest religions are actually on the rise.

In this week's Reality Check, Mehdi Hasan debunks the belief that religion is on the way out.

Arena: Are 'New Atheists' undermining the atheist cause?

So-called New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris tend to see religion as irrational, evil and unnecessary, often saying that faith must be resisted, or even eliminated.

But as the number of atheists, many of whom are happy to coexist with faith communities, increases, does hostility from new atheists undermine the atheist cause?

In this week's Arena, we debate the issue with two leading atheists, author and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss and humanist chaplain Greg Epstein.

Religion and the brain

2017-11-28T21:58:00.000-08:00

TechKnow meets the scientists trying to uncover how religious and spiritual experiences impact the brain.

Religion was long seen as spiritual nourishment of the soul, but now, groundbreaking research looks at how it impacts the brain. Can "feeling the spirit" be measured scientifically?

Of the seven billion of people on the planet, it's estimated that 84 percent are members of one of hundreds of religions. Despite the different gods, philosophies and rituals, most religions share a promise for a physical sense of spirituality.

"In our faith, we do believe that you have the spirit constantly with you," Auriel Peterson, a Mormon believer, says. "It's a very much peaceful feeling. I have clarity, and I have a burning sensation throughout my chest."

Her devotion to God and science have made her a perfect subject for a University of Utah's Religious Brain Project.

Researchers Julie Korenberg and Jeffrey Anderson conducted a study that combined brain scans (MRI) and blood tests on 20 devout Mormons to track their neurological reactions to biologically explained spiritual sensations.

"When a young boy goes off to join ISIL, or a Mormon in Salt Lake has some sense of connectedness with the divine in their view, we don't know if that's the same thing. What do people experience in their brains, when they feel religious and spiritual experience?" Anderson says.

Perhaps it's possible to recognise that our brains work the same way. Our feelings are the same, regardless of what doctrines they are associated with.

Dr Jeffrey Anderson

By analysing the scans and self-reported feeling of spirituality, along with blood work (taken before and after to track hormones connected to positive feelings) the researchers believe that they've found the areas in the brain that are connected to the religious feelings of euphoria.

Their goal is to prove that the experience of faithful bliss could be tracked - and they want to widen their study to a variety of religions.

The researchers suggest that the brain's reaction to religious stimuli in Mother Teresa might very well be the same as a "terrorist's" reaction.

"Perhaps it's possible to recognise that our brains work the same way. Our feelings are the same, regardless of what doctrines they are associated with, and I think that's provable," Anderson explains.

TechKnow also goes to Los Angeles and visits an unique community project. The BioScan project uses 30 volunteers with large malaise traps to find new species of insects.

This year's BioScan project focused on flies. And at each of the sites, a new fly was discovered. This means a total of 30 new species were found, and it only took the first three months of the project to obtain these results.

Would we be better off without religion?

2017-11-28T21:55:00.000-08:00

Is religion a force of good or evil? A controversial question at times, but one that can't be avoided in the modern world. From violence and terror, to gender equality, to science, reason, and education - the faithful and the faithless tend to repeatedly clash over whether religion is a net positive or negative, whether it helps humanity more than it hurts it.

"Religion is both a force of good and evil because religion is a man-made institution, and human beings are both good and evil," says Reza Aslan, a scholar of religion and best-selling author.

"I don't know why it would come as a surprise to learn that the religious institutions that we create can also be responsible for profound acts of good and compassion and positivity, and for equally profound acts of violence and bigotry and hatred."

Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist and atheist, says religious institutions tend to be harmful to people.

"Religious institutions have not only usurped the notion of morality, but on the whole promulgate ideas that are not useful, and often harmful for people, and take many people … many, many, many people who simply want to ask questions about the universe and make them feel bad," says Krauss.

When asked whether people will outgrow religion, Aslan, who just released his latest book, God: A Human History, says we are not going to outgrow faith.

"The fact of the matter is that religion has always been in a state of evolution," says Aslan. "Scientific knowledge is going to change religion. It's going to alter religious people, but it won't make it go away."

Krauss, who is also a best-selling author of numerous books on science, including his latest, The Greatest Story Ever Told - So Far, doesn't believe religion will disappear, but says more will turn to science.

"When I was a young person, I thought by now we would have outgrown religion because, let's face it, the evidence of science is that there's no evidence for anything, for any purpose to the universe, any divine inspiration," says Krauss.

"The more scientific literacy there is, the less of the intellectual basis will be there to support religion and we'll see more and more people finding other ways to add meaning and purpose to their lives."

In this week's UpFront special, Reza Aslan and Lawrence Krauss debate religion's place in society, whether religion is inherently violent, and if religion will continue to exist in years to come.

Migrants for sale: Slave trade in Libya

2017-11-28T21:50:00.000-08:00

Libya's UN-backed government says it is investigating allegations that hundreds of African refugees and migrants passing through Libya are being bought and sold in modern-day slave markets.

According to reports, the trade works by preying on the tens of thousands of vulnerable people who risk everything to get to Libya's coast and then across the Mediterranean into Europe - a route that's been described as the deadliest route on earth.

Libya is the main gateway for people attempting to reach Europe by sea, with more than 150,000 people making the crossing in each of the past three years.

"They [the refugees] are from several African countries and they say they have fled war, poverty and unemployment in their countries ... They have taken a tough journey through the desert and they have paid people smugglers to get to Libya to try to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. With the security and financial collapse in Libya, human trafficking and smuggling have become a booming trade," says Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from a detention centre in the Libyan capital Tripoli.

Modern-day slavery is widespread around the world and Libya is by no means unique ... But what's particularly shocking is that this is happening effectively in the open, where people can go to a farmhouse, place a bid and end up 'owning' a human being.

There is no proper registration process for the tens of thousands of refugees arriving in Libya.

According to reports, the business of detention centres is unsupervised in some parts of Libya and stories of torture, rape and forced labour have emerged.

When the centres get too crowded, people are then allegedly sold off like goods in an open market. Survivors have told the UN's migration agency that they use smartphones to connect with people smugglers to get them to Libya's coast, and that they were then sold, being held for ransom, used as forced labour or for sexual exploitation.

The International Organization for Migration says trade in humans has become so normalised that people are being bought and sold in public for as little as $400.

"As shocking as it seems, it's indeed true," Leonard Doyle from the International Organization for Migration tells Counting the Cost. "The reason it [slave trade] can happen is because there is really no rule of law across much of Libya. Libya is a country as big as France, with a lot of space there. Migrants are coming there ... they see the promise of a new life when they go to their Facebook feed and they think something wonderful is waiting for them in Europe, because a smuggler has abused the system and has sold them that lie."

He explains that when they arrive in Libya, "they get off the bus and they are quickly put into a kind of murder machine, an extortion machine. They are robbed of their possessions, their families are called. They are forced, they are tortured, they give them money. And then they are sold. Unbelievable, but they are sold in open, public auctions: $400 for a labouring man, maybe a bit more for a woman who can be put in the sex trade. And this is what's happening across the country."

Doyle stresses that this issue shows that the international community should pay more attention to post-Gaddafi Libya.

"There is an international responsibility to help ... What is particularly important now is that this issue is reaching global attention," says Doyle.

"Modern-day slavery is widespread around the world and Libya is by no means unique. It's happening in the developed countries of the world as well as the undeveloped countries. But what's particularly shocking is that this is happening effectively in the open, where people can go to a farmhouse, place a bid and end up 'owning' a human being."

THIS IS HORRIBLE AND HAS TO STOP IMMEDIATELY.

North Korea fires ballistic missile..NOW THIS IS GETTING SCARY!!!

2017-11-28T21:41:00.000-08:00

North Korea has fired a ballistic missile, the first such launch since mid-September, according to officials in South Korea, Japan and the United States.

"North Korea launched an unidentified ballistic missile eastward from the vicinity of Pyongsong, South Pyongan Province, at dawn today", South Korean army officials told South Korean news agency Yonhap.

There was no immediate comment from North Korea.

The missile was fired from Pyongsong, a city in South Pyongan Province, at around 3:17am local time (18:17 GMT) on Wednesday, according to South Korea's military.

Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said the missile reached an estimated altitude of around 4,000 kilometres and broke up before landing in the country's "exclusive economic zone".

His US counterpart, Jim Mattis, said the missile went higher than ever before, describing it as a step towards Pyongyang building missiles that can "threaten everywhere in the world, basically".

"With these tests, North Korea wants to demonstrate to the world the range its missiles have," Al Jazeera's Kathy Novak, reporting from South Korea's capital, Seoul, said.
The U.S. @DeptofDefense detected and tracked a single #NorthKorea missile launch today at about 1:17 p.m. EST. Initial assessment indicates that this missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). More: https://t.co/AjOGOhd6HF

— U.S. Pacific Command (@PacificCommand) November 28, 2017
An initial assessment by the US Department of Defense said North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). This type of missile is capable of carrying nuclear warheads and could reach the mainland of the United States.

If the Pentagon's first assessment turns out to be correct, it would be the third test of an ICBM by North Korea this year.

Following the launch, South Korean President Moon Jae-in was expected to preside a national security meeting with top advisers, while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

"This is being taken very seriously here in the region," said Al Jazeera's Novak, noting that South Korea conducted a live-fire drill five minutes after the firing of the missile.

2The message that the South wants to send to the North is that it is monitoring actions coming out of North Korea; that it detects these missile launches quickly; and that it is prepared to respond," she added.

Commenting on the launch, US President Donald Trump said "it is a situation we will handle", adding that the US stance on the North Korea issue would not change.

READ MORE
North Korea tensions: All the latest updates
Last week, Trump re-designated North Korea as a "state sponsor of terrorism", a move that was described as being part of a "maximum pressure campaign" to isolate Pyongyang even more.

Trump said more economic sanctions were to be expected as a result of his decision.

The US president and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have repeatedly traded barbs - Trump has called Kim "rocket man", while North Korea's leader described the US president as a "dotard".

Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of NATO, condemned the missile launch.

"This is a further breach of multiple UN Security Council Resolutions, undermining regional and international security", he said in a statement.

His view was echoed by the European Union. "This launch represents a further grave provocation, and a serious threat to international security," an EU spokeswoman said.

First launch in months
The launch in the early hours of Wednesday was the first since September 15, when North Korea fired a ballistic missile over the Japanese island Hokkaido, eventually crashing into the Pacific Ocean.

That launch was condemned by leaders around the world.
On September 3, North Korea conducted its most powerful nuclear test ever, detonating a hydrogen bomb northeast of Pyongyang. That test, weeks before the United Nations General Assembly, angered global leaders.

The UN Security Council implemented new economic sanctions on North Korea as a result of that nuclear test.

Bill Gates Reveals His Single Biggest Windows Regret

2017-11-25T20:15:00.000-08:00

You would think being the richest man in the world would mean your biggest regrets in life would be few and far between. They say money can’t buy happiness or fix mistakes, but with a net worth of 85 billion dollars, I have to imagine regrets are a rarity for Bill Gates.

But Gates is human, after all, meaning he has regrets just like the rest of us. His biggest of all? Not making the “Control-Alt-Delete” command one button.

Speaking at the Bloomberg Global Business Network in New York, Gates revealed that if he could do one thing in life differently, it would be the Control-Alt-Delete command. Looking back, Gates says that he would have made it a single key.

“If I could make one small edit, I’d make that a single key,” Gates said.

This isn’t the first time Gates revealed his distaste for the now legendary command. While speaking at a Harvard University event in 2013, Gates made similar statements, only that time, he pinned the blame on IBM:

“We could have had a single button. But the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn’t want to give us our single button.”

The Control-Alt-Delete command was originally developed by IBM engineer David Bradley to enable employees to restart their computers and was never intended for public use. However, when Microsoft saw how popular it was becoming to solve technical glitches, they decided to roll with it.

Venus Williams Has The Same . . . PREFERENCES As Her Sister SERENA . . . Look At The Man That She’s BRINGING . . . To SERENA’S WEDDING!!! (They Make A CUTE Couple)

2017-11-19T02:43:00.000-08:00

Venus Williams has got a man too. The other tennis great stepped out in New Orleans with her model boyfriend Elio Pis, ahead of her sister Serena Williams’ wedding to Alexis Ohanian.

According to reports, Serena is getting married this evening in New Orleans. The tennis star, 36, will wed millionaire Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, 34, at The Contemporary Art Center in the town. They celebrated their rehearsal dinner last night – and Serena wore white wedge-heeled Nikes.

The couple have a baby daughter together, Alexis.

MEEK MILL TRANSFERRED OUT OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

2017-11-19T02:01:00.001-08:00

Meek Mill has scored a legal victory.

After being stuck in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day since entering prison on Nov. 8, the Philadelphia rapper has reportedly been transferred to the State Correctional Institution in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he is in general population, according to TMZ.

This was a victory for Mill’s legal team after they filed a motion to have him released from solitary confinement. They claimed that it was having negative effects on his psyche and that it was impacting his creativity.

The Wins & Losses MC is now free to visit the yard in the morning or afternoon, play basketball at an outdoor court, or read a book at the library or in his cell. He will also be able to work out at a gym in the facility. Additionally, he will be given a job, cleaning cells or cooking, which will reportedly pay him 19 cents an hour, according to the report.

Mill’s legal battle continues. The rapper, who’s serving 2-4 years in prison over probation violations, has filed a motion to remove the judge from the case, citing inappropriate requests. The FBI is also allegedly investigating the judge and her conduct.

goodnews for us all..#freemeek

Nicki Minaj’s brother found guilty in child rape trial

2017-11-13T16:00:00.001-08:00

Jelani Maraj faces 25 years to life in prison

Nicki Minaj‘s brother has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a child.

Jelani Maraj was arrested and charged back in 2015, pleading not guilty last May.

The Associated Press now reports that Maraj, 38, has been convicted of predatory sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child after being found guilty of repeatedly raping an 11-year-old girl over a period of eight months.

Jurors delivered their verdict on Thursday (November 9) in Nassau County Court. The charges carry potential prison time of 25 years to life. Maraj is scheduled to be sentenced on December 14.

Maraj’s lawyer has stated that he intends to appeal against the verdict. “We have 50 appealable issues,” lawyer David Schwartz said. “The amount of evidence we have that wasn’t allowed in this case is unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it. I am shocked.”

According to the reports, prosecutors said that DNA evidence supported the allegations after Maraj’s semen was found on the child’s pyjamas. The girl’s younger brother also testified that he witnessed one assault.

Maraj’s lawyers claimed that the rape allegations put against him were a scheme by the girl’s mother to get sister Nicki Minaj to pay $25 million in “hush money”. Maraj was married to the child’s mother at the time.

“We hope that today’s verdict will help the family in the healing process and that it will close this terrible chapter in their lives,” District Attorney Madeline Singas said following the guilty verdict.

It’s A Wrap! Newlywed Jill Scott Files For Divorce & Ex Speaks Out

2017-11-07T17:22:00.000-08:00

Singer Ends Marriage With Husband After Just One Year
Jill Scott has split from her husband after just 15 months of marriage

The 45-year-old Grammy winner filed for divorce Sept. 15 from her now ex-Mike Dobson, 49, citing “irreconcilable differences” and “inappropriate marital conduct that such further cohabitation would be unsafe and improper,” according to her divorce petition.
And as far as what “inappropriate marital conduct” is, under Tennessee state law that could mean anything from cruel treatment, infidelity, verbal or physical abuse or sexual impropriety.

However, Scott’s estranged husband Dobson said that he never laid a hand on his wife, cheated on her or made her engage in unwanted sexual contact.

Dobson said he was “blindsided” by Scott’s divorce filing, although he admitted that they agreed to separate, work on their relationship and keep wearing their wedding rings.

“She’s an evil woman,” the husband told us. “I’m telling you. It’s like what Jill Scott wants, Jill Scott gets. People are in her ear, and if someone comes in to challenge the dumb s**t, they made me be the bad guy and that got me outta there.”

He added: “She’s got issues. There’s no men in that family, there’s only women. And when a man comes in, it’s like a challenge.”

The one time couple wed in an intimate ceremony in June 2016 in Tennessee, and Big Daddy Kane performed. They have no children.

Scott, who is notoriously secretive about her love life, was previously married to Lyzel Williams from 2001 to 2007. She was also once engaged to musician Lil John Roberts, and the pair has a son, Jett.

“She’s made other men look bad, but I’m not the one. I said (to her) ‘you’ve met your match,'” Dobson said. “She likes to have men that she can control. You’re not gonna control me. What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong.”
The “Golden” singer lists the date of separation as Sept. 5th, and says in court papers that they are now living in separate houses. She also lists herself as earning a “PhD” and her occupation as a writer. She also lists Dobson as unemployed, but he told BOSSIP that he has held a position with the city of Atlanta since 2011. Dobson said that Scott may have listed him as unemployed on the divorce docs to smear him.

“She likes to emasculate men – that’s her problem,” Dobson said. “I told her, she’s from Philly, but I’m from New York, and if you want to try to disgrace me, try to slander me, I can fight dirty,” Dobson said.

Scott admitted that she bought real estate and other assets during their marriage, but said she has a prenup with Dobson, and asked the court to enforce it.

Dobson had not responded to Scott’s petition, court documents show.

We’ve tried to reach out to Scott’s lawyer for comment.

Hit the flip for pics of the couple in happier times.
culled from bossip

'I've given up my career. My whole life is about keeping her alive': Action movie hero Chuck Norris on why he believes his wife was poisoned by an MRI scan

2017-11-06T18:59:00.001-08:00

Broken — that’s how Gena Norris, wife of American action hero and martial arts expert Chuck Norris, describes herself now.

The 54-year-old suffers from burning nerve pain and kidney problems and at one stage, four years ago, feared she would die.
Today, the couple are convinced her problems are down to an injection she was given before a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to check for rheumatoid arthritis.

The injection in question is what’s known as a contrast agent — basically a dye used to improve the clarity of the scan —highlighting specific organs, blood vessels, or tissues to make them easier for the radiologist to determine the extent of disease or injury.

Crucially, in Gena’s case, this dye contained a heavy metal called gadolinium, which has magnetic properties. Used with MRI scans, this chemical accumulates in abnormal tissue providing a greater image contrast.

Yet far from helping her, Gena maintains the injections have wrecked her health and fears many others like her have suffered the terrible side-effects of these injections.

Chuck, who is campaigning with his wife to highlight the dangers, has devoted himself to caring for Gena. He told Good Health: ‘I’ve given up my film career to concentrate on Gena, my whole life right now is about keeping her alive. I believe this issue is so important.’

Gadolinium contrast agents are estimated to be used with around a third of the 60 million MRI scans performed worldwide annually. And while Gena had her injections in the U.S., similar injections containing gadolinium are also used in the UK.

The NHS carried out three million MRI scans last year — hundreds of thousands of them with a gadolinium contrast agent, according to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Gadolinium has been used in contrast agents since the Eighties and was thought to pass out through urine within hours. But recent research suggests it can be deposited in areas of the body, including the brain, and there are serious concerns about one specific group of gadolinium injections, called linear agents.

Because of the way the heavy metal is bound with other ingredients in these jabs, they are thought to be more likely to release gadolinium in the body. Other types, called macrocyclic agents, are believed to be safer as they wrap the metal in a cage-like structure more tightly so it is less likely to be deposited in the body.

Linear agents — the type of injection Gena had — are used in the UK, according to the MHRA. They are, it says, particularly useful when it comes to liver scans.
However, earlier this year, the European Medicines Agency recommended restricting the use of some linear gadolinium agents used in MRI scans and suspending the use of others — though the decision has not yet been ratified.

The agency said although there is currently ‘no evidence that gadolinium deposition in the brain has caused any harm to patients’, it was recommending restrictions to prevent any risks that could potentially be associated with it.
According to the MHRA, the jabs recommended for suspension account for around 5 per cent of gadolinium injections in the UK.

It’s known that linear agents are unsuitable for patients with chronic kidney disease, as they can cause serious side-effects such as scarring and thickening of the skin, joints and internal organs.

However, a growing body of research suggests gadolinium can accumulate in the tissues, brain, bones and kidneys of healthy people, too.

For example, a 2014 study at the University of Teikyo in Japan found gadolinium deposits in the brains of patients given the same injections that Gena had.

It was in spring 2013 that she became desperately ill after three gadolinium injections in eight days during investigations for rheumatoid arthritis. She had tested positive for rheumatoid factor, sometimes a marker for the condition, and doctors were checking for signs of inflammation.

‘Within hours after the first jab I felt like my whole body was on fire — as if acid had been passed through it,’ says Gena, who lives on a Texas ranch with Chuck, 77, and twins Dakota and Danilee, 16.

‘The burning was isolated at first, but it just kept spreading.’
In the space of a few weeks she was rushed to hospital six times with excruciating rib pain, breathing difficulties, full-body tremors, muscle weakness, and joint pain — but doctors were baffled.

‘Before this, I was a vibrant person,’ says Gena. ‘In fact, I’d say my health and fitness levels would have put me in the top 10 per cent of people in the world back then.’
While desperately trying to find an explanation for her symptoms on the internet, Gena came across cases of gadolinium poisoning.

The symptoms — nerve pain, brain fog and musculoskeletal problems such as muscle weakness — were worryingly familiar, and she became convinced there was a link. ‘I asked about the injections at the time, but was told they were perfectly safe and I just had to drink water and the contrast agent would be out of my system in a few hours,’ she says.
But on arriving in hospital for the sixth time and telling doctors her fears, they said it was impossible she had gadolinium toxicity.

Desperate, Chuck contacted medical clinics but when they were unable to help, he turned instead to an integrative medicine clinic in Reno, Nevada, which recognised gadolinium toxicity.

‘By the time I reached the clinic — weeks after I had the injections — I had lost 15lb and was finding it hard to swallow — I had to be fed baby food,’ recalls Gena.

There, she was given an intravenous (IV) treatment called calcium EDTA, a chemical salt which separates heavy metals from dyes. It is used to treat lead poisoning and works by binding to metal ions and drawing them out.

‘I just lay in bed on an IV for five months and had to have round-the-clock nursing care,’ says Gena.

‘Chuck slept beside me on the couch and never left. I prayed that I would live to raise my children.’

Four years on, Gena is no longer bed-ridden but is still receiving other treatments such as stem cell therapy. And last week, the couple filed a lawsuit against a number of drugs companies that make linear contrast agents, alleging that Gena had been poisoned by gadolinium contrast agents and is suffering from gadolinium deposition disease.

I just lay in bed on an IV for five months and had to have round-the-clock nursing care. Chuck slept beside me on the couch and never left. I prayed that I would live to raise my children
Gena Norris
Growing numbers of people in the U.S. and UK are reporting adverse side-effects from the injections, many of the 1,700 members exchanging stories through the MRI Gadolinium Toxicity Illnesses group on Facebook.

Catriona Walsh, 42, a former paediatrician from Belfast now retired on health grounds, is one patient who wishes she’d had the risks explained to her.

‘I had just one injection of a linear gadolinium agent for an MRI scan to look at my heart last November as I have the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos and this can sometimes affect the heart, too,’ she says.

‘No one mentioned it contained a heavy metal. A few hours later, I developed a blinding headache — like someone had clubbed me over the head — and it lasted for weeks. I barely slept and had this muscle-burning sensation. It was so bad I couldn’t even lift my arms to wash my hair.’
Over a couple of weeks, it dawned on Catriona that her symptoms might be down to the injection. ‘It was then I came across the medical literature on gadolinium toxicity. It was all just too much of a coincidence,’ she says.

Despite her fears, Catriona’s consultant and radiologist said no tests were available to investigate the condition. ‘I couldn’t afford private care, so I started to treat myself,’ she says. ‘I’d read that gadolinium can damage the mitochondria “powerhouse” in cells, restricting the energy that enters cells, so I increased the amount of antioxidant foods I ate, eating lots of fresh vegetables. This was to counter the free radical damage.

‘I also took supplements such as co-enzyme Q10, which can improve energy release.’
A year on, Catriona’s symptoms have eased, but she still has muscle burning and memory loss. ‘I feel very let down by the industry,’ she says. ‘I suspect this will be a huge public health issue.’

Dr Richard Semelka, a radiologist in the U.S., is in no doubt that gadolinium deposition disease is a very real condition. In an article published in the American Journal of Roentgenology last year, he described the symptoms as including persistent headache, bone and joint pain and brain fog.
Pain is typically felt as a sharp pins and needles or a burning or cutting sensation. He has also warned the U.S. watchdog, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that ‘this disease is real. We have to figure out who these patients are and treat them’.

A spokesman for the MHRA said no signs of harm have been identified from gadolinium deposited in the body but admitted ‘data on the long-term effects are limited’.

Professor Paul Matthews, head of the division of brain sciences at Imperial College London, adds: ‘There is no evidence yet that gadolinium accumulation causes harm to nerve cells, however we have little experience in following these patients up in the long term. ‘The short answer is we don’t know much about this and it is why the European Medicines Agency has reacted with such caution.’

He added: ‘The idea that there might be a gadolinium deposition disease is certainly possible, and it might be that some people may be genetically susceptible.’

Dr Giles Roditi, Glasgow-based radiologist and spokesman for the Royal College of Radiologists added that use of linear injections in the UK has now dropped to extremely low levels.

‘Gadolinium-based contrast agents are safe when used appropriately and the risks are very small, especially when compared with the risks of not having clear scan results,’ he says.
So far, Gena Norris has spent $2 million treating her ongoing symptoms — something she appreciates most people cannot afford, leaving them battling alone.

She said: ‘It’s infuriating and heartbreaking — it’s a vicious, ugly secret that has been kept hidden — something Chuck and I are determined to change.’

Harvey Weinstein banned for life from Tv Academy

2017-11-06T18:37:00.000-08:00

Harvey Weinstein just got another lifetime ban handed down to him -- this time it's the TV Academy who's saying he's persona non grata ... for the rest of his days.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences held a hearing Monday and its governing board voted to expel Weinstein from the Academy for life. His former company, The Weinstein Co., has produced a number of TV shows over the years -- most notably, perhaps, being "Project Runway."

In a statement, the Academy says it supports those women speaking out against Weinstein. They go on to say they're horrified by the widespread claims of sexual misconduct in the biz and are conducting a review of their membership codes of conduct.

The Academy finishes by saying ... "We are determined to play a role in protecting all television professionals from predatory harassment, ensuring they are able to practice their craft in a safe environment."

Weinstein has already been banned from the Producers Guild of America, and is under investigation by a handful of law enforcement agencies.

LAMAR ODOM COLLAPSES AT NIGHTCLUB Security Rushes to Help

2017-11-06T18:32:00.000-08:00

Lamar's rep says he collapsed due to dehydration after an intense workout earlier in the day without the necessary fluids in his system. They also said it was very hot in the club, while adding ... he's "doing great."

Odom was at Bootsy Bellows on the Sunset Strip when several staffers and patrons noticed the ex-NBA star collapsed to the ground around 2 AM. You can see security rush in to help and he seems to be conscious.
The issue ... Odom has a serious history with substance abuse -- he almost died from a drug overdose at a brothel in 2015.

Odom has since gone to rehab and vowed to change his life -- but he's been partying a lot lately from strip clubs to nightclubs.
We've reached out to Odom for comment -- so far, no word back.

JOHNNY DEPP COULD LOSE HOMES TO REPAY $5 MIL LOAN

2017-11-06T18:27:00.000-08:00

Johnny Depp could see 5 homes vanish from his portfolio as his ex-business managers try to get him to pay back a massive loan.

The Management Group filed docs Monday to force a sale of Depp's properties -- all of which are in L.A. -- in order to cover the $5 million TMG says it gave the actor in December 2012.
In the docs, TMG says it agreed to bail out Johnny when he owed that huge chunk of change to City National Bank ... thereby saving him from an embarrassing financial collapse. TMG says the 5 houses were collateral for the loan, and since he's stopped paying ... they want the properties.

Depp's beef with TMG started in June when he sued the company claiming it mishandled his money, and took out loans in his name ... to the tune of $40 mil.
As for the foreclosure -- first reported by Deadline -- a judge still has to sign off before TMG can give Johnny the boot.

RAPPER MEEK MILL REPORTEDLY SENTENCED TO 2 YEARS IN JAIL

2017-11-06T18:21:00.000-08:00

The Rapper was found in violation of his probation
The rapper appeared in court on Monday to determine if two separate events this year — a fight at a St. Louis airport in March and reckless driving arrest in New York City in August — constituted a violation of his parole. Both charges were dropped, but the judge reportedly sentenced Meek to between two and four years in prison.

Meek Mill was given a six year probationary period and placed under house arrest for 90 days in 2016 after he performed at a concert without court approval. His original probation was handed down in 2008 after a drug and gun conviction – Meek served eight months in jail and was released.

A representative for Meek Mill was not immediately available for comment.
Meek Mill's most recent arrests didn't sit well with the judge, who's sending the rapper to prison for a minimum of 2 years for violating probation.

Meek was in a Philadelphia court Monday when the judge ruled he'd violated probation from his 2009 drug and weapons case by getting busted for a St. Louis airport fight ... and his reckless driving arrest in NYC.

Even though both cases were dropped, the judge said the arrests alone were violations -- and gave Meek 2 to 4 years in prison. He was immediately remanded into custody.

Didn't help Meek's case that he'd previously violated probation in 2015. He got off with house arrest for that one. No such luck this time.
culled from TMZ and THE FADER.
this is just sad for me...stay strong meek,stay strong

All That CRYING That Tyrese Did WORKED . . . He Got WILL SMITH To Give Him $5 MILLION DOLLARS!!!

2017-11-05T20:31:00.001-08:00

thanks to Big will and jada. thats alot of money.They gave Cryrese 5 mil to stfu and get off social media and the 1st thing he does is get on social media to announce it....from anonymous

Give me some bruh!!

Former Stoke City defender Dionatan Teixeira dies of a suspected heart attack at the age of 25

2017-11-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

Former Stoke City defender Dionatan Teixeira has died of a suspected heart attack aged just 25.

The Brazilian-born player, who played twice for Stoke's first team after spending three years at the club, is believed to have passed away after a heart attack in his native country.

Teixeira joined Moldovan Sheriff Tiraspol side in February this year and made 10 appearances as Sheriff won the Moldovan National Division title.
Teixeira also played for Kosice, Slovan Bratislava, Banik Ruzina and Dukla Banska Bystrica and made eight appearances for Fleetwood Town during a loan spell from Stoke in 2015.

A statement on Stoke's website read: 'Stoke City extends sincere condolences to the family of former defender Dionatan Teixeira following his untimely passing at the age of 25.'
Chief executive Tony Scholes added: 'Dionatan was a hugely popular member of our squad and it's difficult to comprehend that he has passed away at such a young age.

'Our thoughts and prayers go out to his young family and friends at such a difficult time.'

During his time in England, Teixeira also played for Fleetwood Town, who also released a statement expressing their sadness at his passing.

The League One side said: 'The thoughts of everyone at #ftfc are with the family and friends of former player Dionatan Teixeira, who has sadly passed away aged 25.'

A statement on the Sheriff Tiraspol website said Teixeira had travelled to his native Brazil in the summer and had been due to return to the club.

The Sheriff Tiraspol statement read: 'A few hours ago, a good man and an excellent football player, former FC Sheriff player Dionatan Teixeira died.

'The Brazilian defender was only 25 years old. The whole of the club is shocked by this tragic news. The pain of loss is great.'

OMG!! Heart attack at 25..wow

Texas church shooter, 26, who killed at least 26 people - including a pastor's 14-year-old daughter - had been dishonorably discharged from the US Air Force for assaulting his wife and child

2017-11-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

The mass shooter who opened fire during Mass inside a Texas church killing at least 26 - including a two-year-old child - has been identified as a 26-year-old former Bible study teacher who was dishonorably discharged from the US Air Force for assaulting his wife and child.

Devin Patrick Kelley, a married father, walked into the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, dressed in black, tactical gear with a ballistics belt and an assault rifle, and began shooting, according to local law enforcement sources.

The attack only stopped when Kelley was tackled by a heroic local man who shot back at the mass shooter as he left the church.

Kelley, 26, of New Braunfels, a suburb of San Antonio, fled in his SUV but the unnamed neighbor, and another local man, had given chase.
Eventually, Kelley lost control of his car and swerved off the road near county lines on the 539 county road, in Guadalupe County, and was reportedly shot dead by the neighbor.
He was found deceased by the cops who also discovered multiple weapons and possible explosives in his vehicle.

'We are not sure if it was self inflicted or if he was shot by a local resident,' said Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Freeman Martin.

San Antonio police also raided Kelley's home on Sunday evening, with K9 and bomb squad units.
Kelley, who was reportedly married, had recently posted a photo of an AR-15 style gun on his Facebook page with the caption: 'She's a bad b***h.'
A LinkedIn account which appears to be Kelley's states that he joined the US Air Force after graduating New Braunfels High School in 2009.

He worked in logistics and supply in the Air Force until he was kicked out for assaulting his wife and their child. Kelley was court-martialled for two counts of assaulting his spouse and kid, and received 12 months 'confinement' and a dishonorable discharge in 2014.

Kelley then volunteered as a teacher for Bible studies at Kingsville First Baptist Church, according to his LinkedIn which shows him posing which a young child. Police are now investigating the possibility that Kelley was in a local militia group.

Wilson County Commissioner Albert Gamez Jr told CNN that at least 27 people - including the shooter- have been killed in the shooting, but the death toll is expected to climb. Victims include a two-year-old girl, a pregnant woman and the 14-year-old daughter of the pastor. The first responders on the scene were from local churches who began receiving texts from family and friends about the shooting.

The Connally Memorial Medical Center said 'multiple' victims are being treated.

What we know about the shooter
Named as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26-year-old white male, of New Braunfels, a suburb of San Antonio,
Was found dead in a crashed car after a brief chase following the shooting
Was dressed in all black, tactical gear with a ballistics belt and multiple weapons in his car
Fired outside the church, then went into the church and continued to fire
Resident near the church intervened, and knocked the gun out of Kelley's hands, then chased him in his car
Kelley showed off an AR-15 rifle on Facebook recently
Served in the military in 'cargo, demand and supply and distribution' but was dishonorably discharged
Was married and believed to have taught a Bible studies at Kingsville First Baptist Church
Martin said that Kelley was spotted at 11.20am at a Valero gas station, 'dressed in all black, tactical gear, wearing a ballistics belt.'
'He crossed the street to the church, exited his vehicle and began firing on the church. He moved to the right side of the church and continued to fire, and entered the church and continued to fire.'
But as he left the church, the unnamed local hero risked his life to stop him.
'A local resident grabbed his rifle and engaged the suspect,' Martin said. 'The suspect dropped his rifle, which was a Ruger assault type rifle, and fled from the church. A local citizen pursued the subject at that time.'

Another local resident, Johnnie Langendorff, who had witnessed the gun battle, said both he and the unnamed neighbor had jumped in his truck and gave chase.
In a Facebook post, Langendorff's girlfriend Summer Caddel described how the pair had 'jumped in my boyfriend's truck and they chased that sick b*****d down in pursuit until the cops could catch up. He was able to run the shooter off of the road on 539!'
Langendorff told ABC 12 that he'd been speeding at 95mph, while on the phone to dispatch, while the neighbor kept his rifle trained on the gunman's car.
As they approached a sharp curve in the road, near the 307 and 539, he said Kelley appeared to lose control and his car swerved off the road.

'That's when I put the truck in park,' he said. 'The other gentleman jumped out, and had his rifle on him. He didn't move after that.'
Caddel added that Kelley was gunned down with a few feet from her boyfriend. Neither Langendorff nor the neighbor were injured.

Martin said that 23 found dead inside the church, and another two bodies were recovered from outside the building. Another person, who was taken to hospital, died while receiving treatment.

Injuries range from minor to very severe, while victims were aged from five-years-old to 72.
It's not yet clear how many were in church at the time of the shooting but Martin said some escaped unhurt.

First Baptist Church Pastor Frank Pomeroy told ABC that his 14-year-old daughter is among the 26 dead. She 'was one very beautiful, special child,' the pastor said. His wife, Sherri Pomeroy, said her husband was out of town at the time of the shooting.
Amanda Mosel's 13-year-old goddaughter was gunned down in the shooting. With tears in her eyes, the 34-year-old stood outside the Sutherland Springs Community Building where citizens gathered following the shooting.

She said she was sad she skipped church this morning, but she normally attends that sermon. 'It's a small, tight-knit church,' she said.
A young man standing outside the Brooke Army Medical Center told MySA.com that he had been wounded in the shooting and that this father had been killed. His mother was in another hospital.

Many of the dead remained inside the small rural church Sunday evening, as crime scene investigators worked to reconstruct the scene.

'My heart is broken,' Gamez said. 'We never think where it can happen, and it does happen. It doesn't matter where you're at. In a small community, real quiet and everything, and look at this, what can happen.'
At least 24 others were injured in the horrific shooting, including four kids from the same family.

Joann Ward and her six-year-old daughter Brooke attended the service and are missing and feared dead, KATU reports.

Ward's six-year-old stepson Rylan, is currently undergoing emergency surgery in hospital after he was reportedly shot four times; in the arm, stomach and scrotum. Her eight-year-old daughter Emily is also in emergency surgery, while nine-year-old daughter Rihanna escaped injury by hiding under a pew as shots rang out.

It is believed to have been the worst shooting at a place of worship in American history.
Authorities declined to officially name any of the deceased victims on Sunday evening, as they worked to secure the crime scene and notify victims' families.
'We don't know names of any of the victims at this time because we're still trying to work the crime scene,' said Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt.

Residents of the community gathered for an emotional candlelight vigil on Sunday night as the names of the victims began to emerge.
'I've known her since she was about eight years old,' resident Gloria Rodriguez Ximenez told CNN of the 14-year-old pastor's daughter who died.

There's no words to describe how wonderful people they are - Christian. It's just a small Christian town, everybody knows each other, everybody supports each other,' she said.
A woman wrote on Facebook that she saw the man flee the scene in his vehicle before crashing it not far from her daughter's house.

San Antonio Police Department reportedly sent in their bomb squad to investigate an SUV abandoned in Guadalupe County, near Sutherland Springs, which is believed to have belonged to the shooter, News 4 San Antonio reports.

Police could not give an exact number of victims shot in the attack, but witnesses said they heard as many as 20 shots fired. It appears that almost everyone in the church during the service was shot.

Dana Fletcher, who owns a store in Sutherland Springs, told CNN: 'It's just awful...there were emergency responders everywhere.'
Neighbors in the area said they may have heard the shooter reload multiple times. Another witness at the scene said a two-year-old was also shot in the attack.

Sutherland Springs is a rural community in Wilson County, Texas, that's made up of about 400 people. It's located about 30 miles southeast of San Antonio. There are 11 hotels in the area, and there used to be a 52-floor facility, but it closed in 1923.

Texas Congressman Vicente Gonzalez told MSNBC that officials said they 'won't have final numbers until probably a few more hours'.

He said that based on what he knew, he did not believe the incident was related to terrorism, but 'was some kind of other incident that has to do with the church or the community'.
Carrie Matula, who works at a gas station near the church, told MSNBC that she heard 'semiautomatic gunfire' and looked to see what was going on.

'I never thought it would happen here,' Matula said. 'This is something that happens in a big city. I would never have thought this would have taken place here. It's just too tight a community. It doesn't make sense.'

President Donald Trump sent his condolences to the Sutherland Springs community. He also said he will continue to monitor the situation from Japan.

'Victims and their families were in their sacred place of worship. We cannot put into words the pain and grief we all feel,' he said in a televised statement from Japan, urging everyone to 'stand strong, oh so strong.'

'In dark times such as these, Americans do we what do best and we pull together. We lock hands and we joins arms. Through the tears and through the sadness we stand strong.'
The president pledged his full support to the state of Texas and the local communities affected by Sunday's attack.

'We offer our thanks to the first responders, to the FBI, all of the many people involved. I will continue to follow the developments closely. All of America is praying to God to help the wounded and the family of the victims.'
'God bless the people of Sutherland Springs, TX. Our country's hearts are breaking for the victims & their families. We love & are with you!' Ivanka Trump tweeted after learning of the shooting.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott released a statement following the shooting.
'While the details of this horrific act are still under investigation, Cecilia and I want to send our sincerest thoughts and prayers to all those who have been affected by this evil act.
'I want to thank law enforcement for their response and ask that all Texans pray for the Sutherland Springs community during this time of mourning and loss.'

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement: 'The thoughts and prayers of all Texans are with the people of Sutherland Springs as tragic reports come out of First Baptist Church.'
'Please join Angela and me as we pray for those impacted by this horrific shooting,' Paxton said.

Texas Sen Ted Cruz tweeted: 'Keeping all harmed in Sutherland Springs in our prayers and grateful for our brave first responders on the scene.'
'It's something we all say does not happen in small communities, although we found out today it does,' said Joe Tackitt, the sheriff of Wilson County, which includes Sutherland Springs, in a press conference.

Photos show families tearfully praying outside their community building as they wait to see if their family and friends are safe.

There were at least six helicopters called in to transport victims to the hospital.
Megan Posey, a spokeswoman for Connally Memorial Medical Center, which is in Floresville and about 10 miles from the church, said 'multiple' victims were being treated for gunshot wounds.
She declined to give a specific number but said it was less than a dozen. Some victims were taken by medical helicopter to the Brooke Army Medical Center.

The University Health System also said in a tweet that their 'trauma team is caring for nine of the patients from the Sutherland Springs shooting, 4 children, 5 adults, + 1 more patient on the way'.
Special agents from ATF's Houston Field Division, San Antonio Field Office were also on the scene along with the FBI.

this is really pathetic. Rip to them and may God console the family victims..SMH

Egyptian cleric says men can marry their own daughters if they are born out of wedlock

2017-11-04T19:10:00.000-07:00

A prominent Egyptian Salafist cleric has suggested Islam allows men to have sex with their illegitimate daughters and marry them.

Mazen Al-Sersawi cites prominent Muslim scholar Imam Al-Shafi'i as saying because illegitimate daughters are not officially attributed to their fathers they can be married to them.

He makes the claims in a video which has gone viral and he has been widely criticized for the comments.

In the video, Al-Sersawi said Imam Al-Shafi'i is known for saying men may marry their own daughters that are born out of wedlock

In the video Mazen Al-Sersawi cites prominent scholar Imam Al-Shafi'i to make the case that fathers can marry daughters born in adulterous relationships
Al-Sersawi, who teaches at the prestigious Egypt's Al-Azhar University, claims Al-Shafi'I says a girl born in an adulterous relationship is 'not really his daughter'.

Because an illegitimate daughter does not carry her father's name, 'she is not his daughter according to Sharia. She is not officially attributed to him'.

The video was made in 2012 but has recently resurfaced online.

Many have expressed their revulsion about his claims with one man tweeting 'what is this madness?' and a woman simply saying 'ewww'.

Earlier this year, another Egyptia cleric Muftah Mohammad Maarouf, said in televised debate the age for marrying should be low enough for new-born babies to be married off.

He said long as 'no harm' is done to the child, there is no problem 'preventing her from getting married' adding 'in Islamic Sharia there is no set age for marriage when it comes to females'.

CULLED from dailymail.

jam for the week..jenny o ft dremo , mayorkun, mizzkiz

2017-09-26T21:07:00.000-07:00

download this jam here..

http://www.naijaloaded.com.ng/download-mp3/music-jenny-o-ft-mayorkun-dremo-mz-kizz-number-one

shes balling....

Responding To A Single Tweet Turned This Guy Into A Billionaire

2017-08-12T13:02:00.002-07:00

In my experience, nothing good comes from responding to people on Twitter (or any social media platform for that matter). On the rare occasion that I decide to reply to a critic on twitter, it pretty much always devolves into a series of mud-slinging nasty tweets that do nothing more than waste time and make my blood boil. Even when I respond to a friend over Twitter, I usually end up saying something stupid because there's only 140 characters. I feel like most people would agree with my opinion on responding to tweets. Most people. Definitely not everyone. Definitely not a guy named Ryan Graves. Responding to a single tweet, turned Ryan into a BILLIONAIRE…

Back in 2008, Ryan Graves was working as a database administrator for GE Healthcare. A job that he would later describe as "not glamorous." In his words, "the corporate career, 20 years in the same company, was not really my thing. I can't be the GE guy."

As unglamorous as GE may have been, at least it was a stable, high-paying job at a time when the world economy was imploding in the wake of the global real estate and financial collapse. Most people would hold onto that database admin job as if their life depended on it. Ryan Graves is not most people.

In 2009, he decided it was time to make a change. He applied for job at the social check-in app Foursquare, but was rejected. Instead of giving up, Ryan took it upon himself to cold call restaurants and bars in his hometown of Chicago, to explain the benefits of signing up for Foursquare. He simply pretended to be an employee!

After a few weekends of this charade, Ryan managed to sign up 30 new customers. He simply emailed that list to a few people at Foursquare and was hired shortly thereafter to run product development.

While working his new dream job at Foursquare, Ryan used his free time to network and connect with everyone he could meet in the startup industry. He paid special attention to anyone doing anything interesting in the app development world. One of the people he ended up following on Twitter was a guy named Travis Kalanick.

Travis had made a bit of a name for himself as the founder of a handful of companies, most notably a peer-to-peer file-sharing company called Red Swoosh, that was sold to Akamai Technologies in 2007 for $19 million. In late 2009, Travis and a friend named Garrett Camp set out to create a new application. Their idea was moving along, but they needed help. It was time to bring a new person onto their team. So on January 5, 2010, Travis posted the following message to his Twitter account:

"Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a location based service.. pre-launch, BIG equity, big peeps involved — ANY TIPS??

Within a few minutes, Ryan Graves (from his Twitter account @ryangraves) replied to Travis with the following message:

As it would turn out, that single tweet reply is by far the smartest thing Ryan has ever done with his life. The "location based service" that Travis, Garrett and Ryan would go on to create, is a little app called Uber.

For his services, Ryan was awarded roughly 3.4% of Uber's equity. Travis and Garrett each held on to 13% of the company.

As of this writing, Uber is a private company. At its most recent valuation level, Travis and Garrett are both worth around $6 billion. Ryan Graves is officially worth $1.7 billion!!! That's enough to make him one of the youngest billionaires in the world! And it all happened because he responded to one Tweet!

How crazy/awesome is that story?! Good for him!
i dare you to be at the right place at the right time, social media isnt a waste of time afterall. i need some companies to come place adverts on my blog, cant wait to be a billionaire too..email me mchenryekeoma@gmail.com

Confused EU Regulators Slam Google with a fine of $2.7 billion fine

2017-08-09T16:32:00.001-07:00

Nobody can pinpoint the exact origin of the phrase “Can’t see the forest for the trees,” but that hasn’t stopped countless people all over the internet debating its proper citation, grammar and philosophical interpretation.

Where there appears to be common ground, however, is in what the phrase means: Being so focused on the details of one thing can cause people to lose perspective and miss a much more important and relevant bigger picture — often at their peril.

It’s also a great metaphor for what we just witnessed last week when the European Commission found Google guilty of anti-competitive practices over its Google Shopping product and levied a record $2.7 billion fine on them.

This ruling comes seven years after an investigation was opened into these alleged “anticompetitive practices” (November 2010) and two years after Google was formally charged (April 2015).

The saga is well-documented, so I’ll spare you the lengthy narrative. The Cliff Notes version is that a bunch of tiny websites convinced the Commission that Google’s Shopping product put them at a disadvantage when consumers were searching for products. Google Shopping is the little carousel of product images that consumers see at the top of Google’s search results page and for which marketers pay to be there.

These little guy sites, who pushed the Commission to open an investigation in the years leading up to 2010, had some big help — Microsoft.

Suspend disbelief for a minute, if you will, that Microsoft is anything but a little guy, but they do operate a little guy search engine, Bing. In 2010, Bing had just rebranded from Live Search and was being criticized in Europe for not doing much to upgrade the user experience aside from having a new logo on the search results page. It was reported in the news at the time that consumers who might have been persuaded to try Bing after hearing of its rebranding were left disappointed — and might never come back. Analysts said that it lacked basic features that searchers wanted. Back then, Bing held less than a few percentage points’ share of the online search market across Europe.

The little website guys, egged on by big guy Microsoft with its little search engine Bing, managed to convince the European Commission in 2010 that there was reason to believe that Google was manipulating its search algorithms to provide favored placement via Google Shopping. It claimed that Google did that because it made money when it did. Little guys without the budget to pay for such a favored position on Google, they said, never had a shot at getting anyone’s attention — and that was a very bad thing for little guys, since there was no other competition for product search.

Ignoring the fact that there was competition for online search — it just wasn’t very good, and consumers didn’t want to use it.

And since no one used Bing to search for much of anything, little guy websites found Bing generated no traffic for them. Since the little guys didn’t really generate that many clicks on their sites — period — they never had much of a chance to rise in the rankings on Google. And, as a little guy, they said they were unable to afford to buy ads to drive clicks to improve their position — so they were stuck.

Big rich tech giant Google smashing poor little guys (and one big rich guy with a little guy search engine and a grudge). It was music to the European Commission’s ears.

It didn’t take long for everyone else to pile on.

Five years later, there were formal charges filed against Google and four more investigations opened — including a pending case on Android and its bundling of Google apps in exchange for the free use of its mobile operating system.

Culminating in the record $2.7 billion fine, which Google says it will appeal.

Good luck with that, since that Commission hardly ever gets reversed.

The trees in the Google Shopping case that the European Commission saw were online searches conducted by general search engines like Google and Bing. Looking at those trees, they saw that if consumers only used search engines to find new products — and since Google has a dominant share of online searches and since they charge money for advertisers to appear in Google Shopping — they must be doing something harmful to consumers.

But they missed a pretty big forest when they did that: the emergence of other aggregators that have become the starting point for consumer product searches that are increasingly not via Google (or Bing).

In 2015, the year that formal charges were filed, we asked 2,000 consumers where they started their product searches. Search engines came in third.

Who do you think came first? (And your first two guesses don’t count).

Amazon.

Amazon drove nearly 60 percent of the product searches for our consumer sample and for several good reasons: It was easy to buy from Amazon (one click and free shipping for Prime members), and Amazon had amassed a massive roster of products thanks to the addition of Marketplace sellers to the mix.

Merchant sites posted second at 48 percent — consumers who bought stuff at a merchant went back to that merchant when they needed more. Search engines came in third at 40 percent, and many of those 40 percent may have used Google to locate an item, only to click over to Amazon to buy it. Social media posted fourth at 25 percent.

Google Shopping is Google’s attempt to blunt the Amazon effect on their business and to compete with Amazon for the product searches that it has been losing over time. It also appears to be getting the attention of brands, who, themselves, have their own worry beads out over the Amazon Effect on their businesses. According to Google’s Shopping Benchmark study, 2016 was the first year that marketers spent more on shopping ads then text-placement ads; representing about half of their marketing ad budgets.

But the forest that the Commission missed is much thicker than that.

It includes Facebook who, with Google, are now the two big dogs in the mobile advertising dollar game — some 85 percent of all mobile ad dollars are now divvied up between the two of them. Facebook would like very much to be the consumer’s first stop for news and content, shopping and even that occasional friend update every now and then. It’s actively courting businesses, brands and publishers into their walled garden of two billion active users.

Then there’s all the messaging apps who, too, would like to become the one-stop shop for their users for everything, including the products they buy. Messenger has more than one billion active users and hundreds of thousands of commerce-enabled chatbots all there for the searching. WeChat has nearly one billion active Chinese consumers who spend an average of an hour and six minutes a day inside the app — talking, sending money and buying products. Snap with Stories and Sponsored Filters hopes to make product searching — and buying — contextual; Instagram with hashtags and shoppable products has the same ambitions.

The forest also includes a growing roster of vertical aggregators.

Houzz is the go-to for home remodeling and decorating ideas, Airbnb for hotel room alternatives and now airfare and other travel options, Seamless and Grubhub for food ordering and delivery, StubHub for tickets, OpenTable for restaurant reservations, Farfetch for designer fashions from boutiques everywhere in the world, Thumbtack for household repair services. The list goes on.

The forest in 2015 — the year the charges were filed — had also seen a new green shoot: the voice-activated speaker.

That development ushered in a whole new era of search for products and everything else — via an intermediary named Alexa delivered by a voice-activated speaker named Echo. Since then, we’ve seen Google with Google Home, Microsoft with Cortana and Apple with HomePod, enter the market and have heard rumblings that Alibaba and Samsung will give the voice-activated speaker game a go too.

One could argue that in 2010, when the investigation was initiated, seeing this forest wasn’t very easy. But five, six years and seven years later, it is — and was — as crystal clear as the ocean off Turks and Caicos any day of the week.

With its ruling, the European Commission made it clear that they were so focused on the online search engine tree that they missed a dense, green forest of product search alternatives and the perspective that would have provided. A perspective that, if they had cared to look, might have delivered a different outcome, including initiating formal charges in the first place.

As is often the case in situations like these, there are many ironies.

Any hope Microsoft had of this helping Bing was dead before it started. The game to win in 2010 or 2015 wasn’t desktop search, it was mobile. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. There, Microsoft and Bing are nowhere, and it’s unlikely that Cortana will save the day either.

There are the regulators.

The commerce space is moving fast, and regulators are the first to acknowledge that. Yet, in this case, they were the first to apply decades-old rules and definitions to the market dynamics for which those rules have long since outlived their relevance. Seven years in tech is a lifetime, and the job of the regulator used to be about standing watch over consumers to make sure they weren’t being harmed by all the innovations that were blasting their way into the market. It’s hard to find the consumer harm in 2010, in 2015 and today, when consumers, if anything, have many more options to find products, many more access devices to help them do it and factual evidence that online search doesn’t have the hold on product searches that the regulators claim it does.

For Google, does anyone but me find it ironic that it’s being fined for being dominant when it isn’t for online product searches anymore?

Google is the go-to for online searching — it’s why it’s vaunted to the status of a verb. Google’s business model — make search free to the user and charge advertisers who want the certainty of favorable placement — is no different than how any other platform business model makes its money: One side gets services for free, and the other side pays to reach them. Consumers search for free — brands that want certainty about getting those eyeballs on their product pay for those eyeballs. There are strategies that brands can do to get noticed, but it isn’t just about rankings on search engines anymore — it’s about being all the places where consumers are looking for *that* thing and making sure that you’re there. That’s Google, but a whole lot of other places now too.

Then there’s Yelp, whose CEO had a grin ear-to-ear upon hearing the news. Yelp was also one of the big “little guys” (at two billion annual unique visitors) who claimed to be hurt by Google Shopping’s practices. In a letter to the Commissioner, in June before the verdict was rendered signed by Yelp and several other U.S. companies, the company wrote: “We have watched Google undermine competition in the United States and abroad. Google operates on a global scale and across the entire online ecosystem, destroying jobs and stifling innovation.”

Is now a good time to talk about the Google/Yelp deal that fell apart in 2009 and the bad blood that’s been brewing ever since?

There’s nothing like a jilted suitor — and, it appears, the inability to find a buyer ever since, to make things touchy. The Wall Street Journal reported in May of 2015 that Yelp had retained a banker and was looking for a suitor, given its high operating costs, declining users and revenue and an anemic stock price. But why do that when you can invest in complaining to regulators that might pay out better than investing in innovation and providing a good product? Yelp might get make some money from suing Google for damages based on the Commission’s findings.

For the tech innovators or any big company that’s invested billions in building a company, watch out.

It might not take anything more than a couple of cranky companies to complain about what you’ve built after years of blood, sweat, tears and billions of dollars that they say has kept them from being just like you. It might take a while, but five, seven, ten years later, you might get your shot, since the regulators will break up or break those big guys down to look just like you. Exhibit A — Uber — as I wrote last week. And in the EU, look no further than PSD2 and the regulators’ push to allow licensed innovators access to the billions of dollars of infrastructure that the banks have invested in over the years for chump change so that those innovators can now get access to their customers and their data and compete against them.

Competition used to be about the best (wo)men winning by coming up with great ideas, working their butts off, convincing investors to give them money to expand and dreaming of becoming the next Uber or Facebook or Google or Stripe or Square by giving it everything they’ve got. Now, it seems to be about making sure everyone gets a trophy — and, in the EU at least, the regulators giving out the prizes.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE>< Building Fraud’s Meta-Machine

2017-08-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

OK, this is about to get meta. Machine learning is new enough that it still sounds like a science-fiction concept. But what’s even more sci-fi is the idea of machines learning from other machines. That’s the end goal, though — and it’s closer than people think.

Socure CEO Sunil Madhu and PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster explore a not-so-distant future in which machines manage machines. In addition, Madhu sheds light on how Socure is working to usher in that future through identity verification and mitigating fraud.

Madhu and Webster previously discussed different kinds of artificial intelligence and how each is equipped to handle certain jobs. For example, AI with linear pattern recognition is more useful in fraud prevention than an artificial neural network because, though neural networks are good at pattern recognition, their inner workings are obscured. Linear systems, in contrast, have greater transparency.

The most recent episode outlined how machines learn in unsupervised and semi-supervised settings by internalizing data patterns for later recognition. This is part of the move away from rules-based learning — which requires frequent and reactive human updates — and toward machine self-education.

In a supervised setting, machines learn when humans show them patterns. In an unsupervised setting, they follow an “if-then” decision tree, determining outcomes based on rules. Either way, the system requires periodic upkeep or it becomes ineffective, Madhu said. Someone’s got to manage it.

But that someone could be another robot.

“One robot can poke the other robot and say, ‘Hey, this model needs to be retrained because it looks like it’s about to fail,’” Madhu said.

He gave this example: AI can look at a spreadsheet column and determine whether it contains Social Security numbers or email addresses without the column being labeled. Then, a human introduces, say, a temporal feature. Now the machine knows that email addresses newer than 180 days are riskier than established ones when a candidate tries to open a bank account, as fraudsters often create new email addresses for the purpose of opening fraudulent accounts. That’s a pattern the AI has been trained to recognize and flag. But, over time, that AI model degrades — and its relative lack of complexity doesn’t prevent that.

Today, a human technician would have to go in and fix any issues with data or modeling, meaning someone would have to watch the AI perform and make corrections. In a machine-managed environment, an overseer system can learn to recognize degradations in the model and trigger yet another system to stabilize it by pushing out a new model.

However, said Madhu, “It takes some doing.”

“The problem-domain is open-world and it has unstructured data elements to it,” Madhu explained. “The challenge is greater because you essentially have to figure out a mechanism for robots to generate schema from observing syntax or formatting of specific types of data.”

One of the hardest things to teach a non-subjective machine is that correlation doesn’t equal causation. It’s easy for an AI to search at scale for patterns that indicate bad emails and link them to potential criminals. But, inevitably, it will also catch and flag some noncriminals in the process.

Madhu gave his seven-year-old son as an example. If the young boy wanted to open a savings account, he would have to create a new email address to do so. To AI, that new email address would make the boy look like a criminal and he may not be allowed to open the account. At the very least, some humans would have to get involved to resolve the situation.

“Well, it’s nice to know that human beings are still relevant,” Webster said.

Indeed, said Madhu, “While you can build robots to manage robots, and those robots can actually process the data, it’s very important for human beings to monitor them over time, ensure that things have been thought through rationally and that the difference between correlation and causality [is] recognized up front.”

Madhu cautioned against implementing AI and machine learning technology just because it’s there. Webster agreed it’s important to use technology in the right way in payments and financial services — and for the right reasons, across the board.

“Technology will help us do things faster, and that may create efficiencies of scale,” said Madhu, “but just because you can doesn’t mean you must or should. I think that customers need to evaluate the technology pretty well to get past the hype in the market.”

However Madhu and Webster will explore a handful of case studies to see which kinds of outcomes have been produced by advances in machine learning technology.

APPLE Pros And Cons Of The Generation 3 Apple Watch

2017-08-09T16:10:00.000-07:00

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Will the ability to make phone calls with the next Apple Watch be enough to boost its sales? The tech world is divided, with many saying this will be the move to notch the Apple Watch above the rest, even as others decry the upgrade — and the wearables category as a whole — as superfluous and doomed.

If you look at the numbers, the Apple Watch is actually doing pretty well, for a wearable. But that’s like saying a certain brand of meal replacement shake tastes better than the rest. Everyone knows that a meal replacement shake just doesn’t taste as good as actual food, and you can get all the same functionality from a delicious plate of steak and potatoes — or, in Apple’s case, the flagship iPhone — so why bother? Except in a very specific use case, neither an Apple Watch nor a meal replacement shake can replace the bigger, better version.

Yet, in the case of the Apple Watch, people are biting. The product saw a 50 percent increase in year-over-year sales, Apple CEO Tim Cook reported on the Q3 investor call. TechCrunch quoted one analyst who estimated Apple must have sold two to three million Watches to make such a leap.

The device’s compatibility with Apple’s new AirPod wireless earbuds likely helped, as did the staggered release dates of the first and second generations of the Apple Watch — a September 2016 version was more current in this year’s Q3 than an April 2015 Watch was during the same period last year, according to TechCrunch.

The Apple Watch outsold Fitbit and Xiaomi in the first quarter, and Engadget predicts it could do so again once the Series 3 is released with its beefed-up health tracking capabilities. Fitness-focused Xiaomi is currently the reigning champion in the wearables category as the Fitbit falls further out of vogue.

Here’s the good and the bad about the forthcoming Apple Watch.

Pro

The new Apple Watch will have built-in LTE connectivity, which means it won’t depend on the proximity of an iPhone to do its job. Users will be able to connect to the internet using just the Watch.

This is what consumers wanted all along, says Business Insider: a wearable replacement for their smartphones, not just an additional device that connects to — but still requires them to carry — said phones. Making the Watch its own thing, rather than a redundant, albeit luxurious, linked device could entice existing Watch-wearers to upgrade and also lure new customers to the product.

LTE connectivity could be attractive to developers, too, who have so far shunned building apps for the Watch because there just wasn’t any money in it.

Con

So, the new Apple Watch can connect to the internet by itself — so what? How often do smartphone users leave their handsets behind? Investor’s Business Daily thinks Apple has overestimated the need for an untethered wearable, with the publication’s analysts calling the addition of LTE “pointless.”

Pointless or not discussion aside, the analysts make a few good observations about the potential downsides of including an LTE modem in the device. Short battery life is already a problem for the Apple Watch, and LTE is only going to drain it faster.

Plus, it’s going to force consumers to add another device to their data plans — so they’re not just paying for a luxury wearable, but also to keep that wearable in working order, lest it become a shiny, wrist-adorning brick.

“What Apple should really be working on is a use case or function for this product that makes it a must-have, causing everyone to rush out and buy it,” said analyst Richard Windsor of Edison Investment Research.

The additional health and fitness capabilities Apple claims to be developing — including a heart function, body fat, blood pressure and emotional state reader — are a much wiser investment, according to Windsor.

Pro

It’s not just for surfing the web — the new Apple Watch will be able to make phone calls, send messages, stream music and show directions on a map, reports the New York Post. There are even rumors that it will be able to connect to gym equipment, display news stories and send payments.

The Post noted the Apple Watch has historically suffered in reviews due to its iPhone dependence, so cutting that cord is a natural and necessary next step in the product’s development arc.

Con

The next iteration of the Apple Watch is going to be “evolutionary, not revolutionary,” according to ZD Net. While it may be able to do more without the iPhone, the two can never be completely untethered, if for no other reason than the Watch’s lack of a camera. Additionally, consumers will still turn to their larger smartphone screen for web browsing, writing emails or working on documents, ZD Net predicts.

That’s because battery drain is going to be such an issue that Apple is going to have to make some compromises. It’s unlikely the revolutionary wearable pictured by fans will actually hit shelves in full, fantasized form. More likely, Apple will cherry-pick a few new features at a time to roll out while also balancing battery consumption.

In truth, ZD Net points out, Apple shouldn’t want the Watch to replace the iPhone. Because if it does, then who will buy the iPhone?