Translation:My older brother plays basketball pretty well.
Could someone please explain the syntax? Why is 打 repeated here? Thanks a lot!
You can interpret the phrase in this way: 打篮球 (且) 打得不错 — play basketball, (and) play it pretty well.
It is wrong to say 他 打篮球 得不错, because we need the previously mentioned verb 打 right before “得 + performance”.
ps. 且 (qiě) and 而且 (ér qiě) equals the conjunction “and”, but they are not used for conjunction of the nominal (persons, objects, noun phrases, etc.).
Thanks, I understand the use of 得 now. However, this use appears to be getting obsoleted.
This seems to be explained in Chinese Grammar Wiki's Degree Complements article: https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Degree_complement#Degree_Complements_with_Objects.
Based on the article, this is a "degree complement with [an] object" where "得不錯" is the degree complement and "籃球" is the object. Since both must be adjacent to the verb ("打"), one must copy the verb to get what is literally, "My older brother plays basketball, plays well.
It also looks like "打" is a special verb that "verbifies" a noun, so "打籃球" (to play basketball) is literally "to basketball" while "打電話" (to call) is literally "to telephone".
Why is "not bad" not allowed for "不错"?
“not bad” is an informal way to say “pretty good”. It is very much like how we say 不错 “not wrong (not bad)”.
Is "My brother isn't bad/half bad at basketball" a wrong literal translation? I wrote it that way and got it wrong.
不错 (literally “not bad”) is positive, not negative. It means his skill is okay and even above average.
"Isn't half bad" is positive too.
Learned it today. My mind must be tangled then, because actually 不错 is literally “not wrong”. 错 only means “bad” with this negation.
不错 means not bad/decent, not good.
Pretty well and very well?
Why not "very well" too?
不错 is literally "not bad", as in "not terrible, but not great"--just "ok". "Pretty well" is equivalent because it means "not great, but not bad" --also just ""ok". However, "very well" is more intense/more highly skilled.
What about "alright" as a colloquial synonym of "well"? Isn't "alright" close in meaning to "bu cuo"?
In regard to skills, I think 不错 means “okay”, 还不错 (hái bú cuò) means “passably okay”. So 还不错 is closer to “alright” in my opinion, although both of them could be flexibly transtated as “not bad” or “pretty good”.
Why My older brother plays basketball very well isn't allowed?
why is 得 used at the end instead of 的?
"My older brother plays basketball very well" 也应该可以了. 你们的答案数据库请调整了. You're going to have a lot of mistakes to fix. Perhaps you need to cancel this course, go back and take more time to fix everything.
Don't be so harsh Tom. It's beta, it's free, and despite the mistakes I am learning a lot and find the course very useful and quite good fun.


1. Identify signs that Charlie’s intelligence is increasing (character development).
mistakes)? Do not list specific mistakes (ex. He misspelled the word langwidge.).
3. At this point in the story, how would you characterize Joe and Frank (p. 91-95)?
4. What important event occurs on April 6th? Why is it so important?
5. Identify possible reasons why Charlie has this sick feeling inside of him. Why is he ashamed?
6. Describe how Charlie’s increasing intelligence is affecting his views of himself and of others.
8. What does the idiom “I got up the nerve” mean (p. 104)?
9. How do Charlie’s coworkers treat him now that his intelligence is increasing (pp. 103, 106107)? Why?
10. What event does Charlie think is comparable to death (pp. 105 & 106)?
Write a brief response to one of the following questions. Use appropriate paragraph structure.
relationship of intelligence to happiness. Has Charlie become happier since the operation?


It takes two dating service.
Champagne said she called It's Just Lunch, and they told her the man left a message over the weekend. The day before the date, she hadn't heard from It's just Lunch to confirm, so she called them. Now, she wants a refund and answers, which is why she came to Eyewitness News. The company also said that Champagne's date called the restaurant, but the hostess must not have told her. But, no one was working to receive that message. As far as Champagne's fear that there never were actual suitors in the first place, they said it's simply not true.
The customer and their date get an email detailing where and when to meet. Eyewitness News called the company's headquarters in Florida to get some answers. Champagne said she's not stopping her fight to get her money back. However, when she went to meet her date, he never showed up. They agreed that "Miss Champagne had a series of unfortunate events When she kept running into roadblocks getting her money back, Champagne reached out to Eyewitness News. She said the only solution is to set her up on another date, not return the money. She heard about a matchmaking service for working professionals called It's Just Lunch. Champagne said she signed the contract and was set up with a guy on Labor Day. Latest news from NBC The company also said that Champagne's date called the restaurant, but the hostess must not have told her. Champagne said she called It's Just Lunch, and they told her the man left a message over the weekend. She said she is considering taking the company to small claims court, and plans to be in touch with the state Department of Consumer Protection. The company takes care of everything from finding a potential suitor to arranging a lunch date to making the reservation. Now, she wants a refund and answers, which is why she came to Eyewitness News. After a third date setup failed, she asked the company for her money back. Company officials wouldn't tell Eyewitness News what that solution was, so the station asked Champagne. As far as Champagne's fear that there never were actual suitors in the first place, they said it's simply not true. The day before the date, she hadn't heard from It's just Lunch to confirm, so she called them. Champagne said she was growing more skeptical. The next day, she got a call from the service saying he canceled, just a couple hours before the date. Champagne said she went back and forth with the company. However, she decided to try another date with the same guy. Alison Champagne keeps a tight schedule with balancing both work and graduate school, but she still wants to find a special someone. But, no one was working to receive that message.
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After a third date setup failed, she asked the company for her money back. Champagne said she called It's Just Lunch, and they told her the man left a message over the weekend.
Alison Champagne keeps a tight schedule with balancing both work and graduate school, but she still wants to find a special someone. However, she decided to try another date with the same guy.
The company also said that Champagne's date called the restaurant, but the hostess must not have told her.


When you discuss socialism, you are guaranteed to hear someone say "socialism won't work because of human nature". This argument is particularly lazy, but I keep hearing it, so I wanted to address it in my own words.
Greed and selfishness is an essential part of human nature, hence socialism will fail.
It often follows that capitalism is the only system that works.
So where does this argument fail?
First off all, human nature is not capitalist. Capitalism means that the means of production is privately owned, and the surplus value of the labour goes to the owner of the production.
The human race has lived far longer without capitalism than with it. In fact, capitalism is a relatively recent invention. In most countries it did not exist until the 19th century. It is simply ahistorical to say that capitalism is a part of human nature, unless you think that human nature is something recent.
It is not human nature to spend most of your day producing surplus value for a small elite, who gives you little to nothing in return. Nor is it human nature to exploit child workers in the third world in order to consume endlessly. This is the inevitable result of capitalism - a system of exploitation.
¹before someone points out that this number is in fact not true: This book was written in the late 19th century and thus not with the knowledge from contemporary sciences.
Trade has indeed been going on since the early days of civilization. It is however distinct from capitalism in an important way, that many people seem to miss: Capitalism means that the means of production is not controlled by the workers, but instead a system of investors, capitalists, etc.. Trade simply means the exchange of goods for money or other goods.
Socialism is in no way incompatible with trade nor ownership². In fact, many socialists (like myself) believes in trade of goods and services.
²there is a distinction between private and personal ownership in socialist theory. Here's a video, which does a good job at explaining this distinction.
Many socialists thinks that human nature is a "spook" (to invoke the wonderful terminology of Max Stirner) and outright nonexistent. I tend to disagree with that. Human certainly have some nature, however there is one particular thing that makes it radically different from other species.
Ability to adaption. This is why the human species is so successful: We are able to adapt to almost any environment we are put in. There is a reason that humans are the only mammal to walk all continents -- it's the adaptive human nature.
The human nature adapts to whatever environment, such as economic system, it's under. If a system A rewards behavior B, then this behavior will naturally become more common under this system.
What is particularly weird about the argument is the point about "greed". Any system that rewards greed will obviously take basis in greed, and humans are greedy, which is why you want to avoid rewarding such behavior.
This is the opposite of what capitalism does: It rewards greed. If you want to build a successful business, you must create as inhumane work condition as possible³.
Capitalism is responsible for this -- and it's not an issue of "free markets", it is at the core of capitalism. Rosa Luxemburg wrote a good book on why reformism fails: Reformism fails to actually address the problems with capitalism. Reformed capitalism is still capitalism, and it will still have the same fundamental properties of capitalism.
The failure of capitalism isn't in its functioning: It clearly works, but it's in its ethical aspect. It relies on exploitation and fails to distribute wealth fairly, causing mass starvation next to extreme wealth.
³although recently this oppression have been moved to the third world. I'll elaborate on this in a future post.


I review this book with a little trepidation. Not only was Mervyn King at the pinnacle of economic policy in Britain for more than 20 years, as Bank of England chief economist and for 10 years as its governor, but it comes with glittering endorsements. Our own Niall Ferguson joins Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers and Henry Kissinger in saying what a brilliant book this is. Short of roping in the Queen and Dalai Lama, he could not have done better.
All these endorsements are, however, rather alarming, given the ideas at the heart of the book. King has brought into the mainstream theories about money and banking that used to be confined to the wilder fringes of the internet.
King's book was inspired by a conversation in 2011 in Beijing with a senior Chinese central banker who, while saying his country had much to learn from the West, added: "I don't think you've quite got the hang of money and banking yet." The book is well written, though King's technique of going back to first principles and distant history can become wearing.
The alchemy in the book's title is banking. Bankers, over the centuries, have turned, not base metal into gold, but gold into paper money, then credit. The process goes back to a time even before goldsmiths discovered that not all the coins and bars in their vaults would be demanded at the same time. This would eventually evolve into a banking system that failed during the 2007-09 crisis.
According to King: "Money and banking are particular historical institutions that developed before modern capitalism, and owe a great deal to the technology of earlier times. They permitted the development of a market economy and promised financial alchemy. But...money and banking proved to be not a form of alchemy but the Achilles heel of capitalism - a point of weakness that threatens havoc on a scale that drains the life out of a capitalist economy."
Coming from a recent Bank governor, this very narrow, limited-purpose idea of banking is pretty remarkable. In this view, banks should go back to basics, because fractional-reserve banking, the basis of the system, is inherently dangerous. Money creation should not be the preserve of private banks, continues the thinking, but of governments and central banks.
Does this make sense? As a central banker, King was for most of his time at the Bank a very good economist. Only when the crisis hit, which took him by surprise, did he throw himself into banking. His suggestions would bring an end to banking as we know it. Narrow banks would be safe, holding liquid reserves exactly equal to customer deposits. 'Wide' banks would lend but would not take deposits, funding themselves through debt and equity. There would be what he calls a 'pawnbroker for all seasons' to provide catastrophic insurance when problems hit.
There are two problems with these proposals. One is that they are not going to happen. The other is that they throw the baby out with the bathwater. We can debate whether measures taken by regulators and central bankers, including King's successor Mark Carney, go far enough. But they go a long way to ensuring the once-in-a-100-year crisis we suffered in 2007-09 does not come around again for a few more decades. Money and banking made modern capitalism possible. Take too much away and the economic stagnation King fears could become permanent.
We should also take with a pinch of salt the sales pitch for the book, and the author's prediction that the world faces another big crisis. In his later years at the Bank, King was always the gloomiest person in the room, and his often-declared position is that nobody can predict the future. We should hold him to that.


Norwegian Ambassador to China Geir O. Pedersen has had a very busy year so far. Bilateral relations are now at an all time high, which not only reflects on the dramatic increase of imported salmon from Norway but also on the rising popularity of Chinese tourists flocking to this Nordic country. In May, the new round of free-trade-agreements between China and Norway will take place in Oslo, opening doors for greater possibilities of bilateral ties.
The Global Times (GT) sat with Pedersen who shared his thoughts on Norway and its connections with China.
GT: China outlined its plan to develop a Polar Silk Road in its first official Arctic policy white paper early this year. What does the paper mean to you, and how does the Norwegian government plan to work with China on the initiative?
Pedersen: As an Arctic coastal state, Norway is of the opinion that compliance with international law and sustainable use of natural resources is the basis for the peaceful and prosperous development of the Arctic region. Norway believes it is possible to strike a good balance between sustainable economic development and protection of the environment in the Arctic. In my view, China's Arctic policy also reflects this balanced approach. I also believe that the paper's emphasis on research and climate change is very important. Global emissions cause rapid climate change in the Arctic, and it is in our common interest to deal with this challenge.
GT: Norway and Finland have agreed to explore building an Arctic rail link connecting Finland to the Barents Sea coast. Currently, the majority of sea transportation between Europe and Asia passes along a much longer route that runs through the Suez Canal. How much will this railway contribute to bilateral trade with China?
Pedersen: Norway and China already have a broad collaboration on Arctic issues, and I look forward to our continued cooperation. As ice is melting in the Arctic, many stakeholders have shown interest in the Northeast Passage as an alternative shipping route between Europe and Asia. If the Northeast Passage proves to be a commercially viable option in the future, it may offer many new opportunities for Norway if carried out in a responsible and sustainable manner. The need for improved infrastructure on land is another factor that needs to be addressed. A new railroad between Norway and Finland is an option currently being looked into by a joint Norwegian-Finnish commission. Their report is expected to be ready in 2018.
GT: Asking a local Norwegian, they would tell you that their salary is about the same as the king. In Norway, the gap between the rich and the poor is very narrow. What is the reason behind this?
Pedersen: I am very proud of the fact that Norway is an egalitarian society. There are relatively small differences between people, and we have a more even distribution of GDP compared to most other countries. Norway maintains a welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. For instance, we have free education for everybody from elementary school through university. We have a high degree of gender equality and female participation in the workforce and political life. This is important from the perspective of equal rights and opportunities, also an important factor for Norway's economic development.
GT: Norway has become one of the most popular tourist destinations for Chinese. What are some places in Norway that are still not well-known among the Chinese tourists that you would recommend?
Pedersen: There are so many beautiful places to explore in Norway. I am particularly fond of Henningsvær in the magnificent Lofoten archipelago. This is where my family comes from and where I spent many summers growing up. The natural landscape of mountains and sea is breathtaking. If you go in the summer, you can enjoy the sun that never sets. If you go in the winter, you can watch the Northern Lights.
I would also suggest exploring the Norwegian coastline by boat. I recommend the coastal ship Hurtigruten. It travels from Bergen all the way up to Kirkenes, so you can see a long stretch of the coastline. Going by the Hurtigruten is also a great way to explore Norway, allowing you to appreciate the Arctic dimension of our country. You know, as much as one-third of our country actually lies within the Arctic Circle.
Another must is a visit to the capital, Oslo, which has something to offer everyone. The exciting new part of the city along the fjord, innovative architecture, great museums and numerous restaurants, bars and cafes are just a few of the draws of the area. And for music lovers, there is always a concert or music festival to go to in Oslo.
GT: According to a worldwide survey in 2017, Norwegian people are the happiest in the world. Why is this?
Pedersen: I believe happiness is a good measure of social progress and should be a goal for public policy. In my opinion, there are several reasons why Norwegians are among the happiest people in the world. There is a relatively even distribution of wealth, a welfare system with universal health-care and a strong social security system. The fact that schooling is free and that there are systems to support you if you get sick or lose your job, gives people a sense of security. I also believe inclusion is key to explaining why Norway scores so well. Norway has succeeded well in including its people, regardless of age, social background, gender or disabilities, in the labor market as well as in important decision-making processes.
CPEC – The Dream Project And Hurdles On Its Way!


Description or summary of the audiobook: Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an 'excitement addict.' Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever. Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town - and the family - Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home. What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms. For two decades, Jeannette Walls hid her roots. Now she tells her own story. A regular contributor to MSNBC.com, she lives in New York and Long Island and is married to the writer John Taylor.


Denotes the type of document/instrument registered against the property. In this case, an "easement" that indicates that others have rights over a property. There is some confusion between the terms "easement" and "right of way", as they are currently used interchangeably, when describing rights over lands. Technically, easements refer to rights relating to utility or municipal services while right of ways relate to access or passage rights for pedestrians and vehicles. The term "SUBJECT TO" is used in the case of easements to indicate that others have rights over a property, as described in some legal documents that are available in the land registry office. Easements restrict owners of land from fully utilizing their property, for example, hydro or gas utility lines not permitting erection of permanent structures over easements. As a result of their importance, by regulation, legal plans must show the location of any easements affecting the subject and adjoining properties. Since the 1960's, these easements and the properties created by severances (re-division of land) are typically described by way of convenient "graphic legal desriptions" known as reference plans (R-plans); in the past, complex written "metes and bounds" descriptions were used. Inconjunction with "SUBJECT TO" easements are: "TOGETHER WITH" easements wherein you may have rights over your neighbour's lands; and "RESERVING AN EASEMENT" where new easements are created within legal documents such as transfer "deeds".
Identifies the existence of easements, and their location. Easement document will reveal the purpose and the impact on the property.
Easements typically restrict property owners from fully utilizing their land. Understanding if your land is subject to easement (or if you have easements over your neighbour's lands) allows you to understand what you can (and cannot) do with your property.


Can Badges Offer Viable Alternatives to Standardized Tests for School Evaluation?
Have you ever heard of badges in education?
Whenever I hear of badges, I remember being in elementary school and the merit badges that some classmates who were in the Boy Scouts would wear to school.
For those of us who were not in the Boy Scouts, we had no way to show our achievements. It's not like as if we could wear a Karate belt to school or show some art or music related proficiency like being able to finally play "Fur Elis" on the piano or Van Halen's "Eruption" on guitar.
An open badge ecosystem has the same idea. It's an attempt to answer the question of how one could show others their achievements in a way that is standardized and openly available.
Learning happens everywhere, not just in the classroom. But it's often hard to get credit for it. Badges give you public recognition for your skills, achievements and learning beyond the classroom- unlocking job and educational opportunities.
Problem: You have skills and achievements that don't show up on traditional resumes and transcripts.
Solution: Earn Badges: Get credit for learning outside of school, on the web, or from work and life experience. Collect and display your badges.
In education, badges offer a way to document different types of accomplishments that are school based and outside of school. This would give a more complete picture of a student's abilities.
On a larger level, what would be the consequences if the types of badges earned by students in a school were viewable or part of the school profile?
The public could gain an understanding of the nature of learning experiences of the overall student population at a school.
For all the talk by educators and policymakers about the need for "multiple measures" for evaluation or for the need to value other types of learning not demonstrated on multiple choice tests, there hasn't been much discussion about how exactly these alternatives could actually be implemented in reality.
More importantly, there hasn't been much discussion on how exactly the public could get information about how a school is performing or get information on the types of learning that students are doing at "some" schools.
The idea of badges could be one possible solution for providing information to the public about the quality and range of activities the students are completing at a school.
For example, at my middle school that has the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IBMYP), all 8th grade students must complete a personal project that is interdisciplinary and incorporates planning, research, reflection, and often, technology. This project is meant to signify a level of thinking that is "standard" to all students in an IBMYP school.
Unfortunately, for all the potential benefits of these types of learning, there are no policy-oriented incentives to expand these projects that could incorporate the type of "21st Century" skills we value. One could even argue that there is little public demand for these types of alternative standardized projects. As a result, we stick with our multiple-choice test as the primary source for student learning and understanding of school effectiveness.
What if there were other projects or experiences that all students at certain grade levels must complete that encouraged a level of accomplishment beyond the learning demonstrated on multiple-choice tests?
Can an Open Badge Ecosystem be a viable technology solution for offering alternatives to our multiple choice test obsessions?
If badges issued by the district, state, or other education organizations could verify student completion of other "experiences" that require academic proficiency, creativity, problem solving, or community service, and, if these badges were accessible by the public in some appropriate format, could some badges of certain accomplishments drive demand for some forms of learning?
Parents may demand that their students accomplish more projects that incorporate higher-level thinking and real world problem solving if they see other accomplishments from other schools.
Now that's real wishful thinking, but we should be open to these fascinating ideas that could bring our policy wish lists to a more concrete level. We need to devote more time and resources to explore how our ideas could actually be implemented in the real world so we can move the policy debate forward by offering solutions.
For all the potential of badges, there are serious challenges to this idea.
For example, many students from diverse socio economic backgrounds may not "register" or participate. Some may find the idea of badges a little too "Big Brotherish".
Also, all states, schools, and communities may not adopt the badge ecosystem. Another potential problem is that interpreting the exact meaning of the different types of badges for making judgments about school quality will be too subjective. Numbers and test results are popular for their simplicity.
As a result, like many solutions that are based in technology, the open badge ecosystem may become voluntary or unevenly distributed, and may not provide a viable policy alternative to relying on current forms of standardized assessments as sole indicators of school quality.
Nevertheless, if we want multiple measures in school evaluation, perhaps this is an idea worth exploring.


Trevor E.S. Smith | The Curious Case Of Cam: There Is One On Your Team!
Cam represents your mysterious co-worker. Even after years of working with Cam, you have not got to really know him or her. There is a veil that blocks the building of bonds. Cam is not unduly concerned about this gap as his or her focus is on completing tasks effectively.
This article will help to bridge the gap and foster better understanding with the Cams that you encounter.
- Doing things the right way.
- Thinking logically and analytically.
- Being compliant and cautious.
- Being precise and striving for accuracy and consistency.
- Accept the need to focus on facts and evidence when seeking resolution.
- Do not rely on an appeal to emotions.
- Present accurate and complete information.
- Expect to be held accountable.
- Weigh up options for moving forward with their pros and their cons.
- Present an agreement with the responsibilities of the parties.
Cam is not at his or her best in teams. Cam tends to prefer working on his or her own.
- Only assign team members tasks that they are competent to do. Cam wants to achieve high standards and hates being dragged down by incompetent, careless or disengaged colleagues.
- Accountability is very important to Cam. Engender a culture in which team members are disciplined and serious about achieving the stated objectives and targets.
- Evaluate performance regularly and take corrective action.
- Performance appraisals should reflect team as well as individual performance. If team goals are missed, Cam wants a system that fairly recognises outstanding individual performance.
- Be firm in dealing with freeloaders and consistently weak performers. Cam cannot understand the logic of carrying dead weight.
- Institute robust quality assurance measures.
- Respect Cam's need for private space - physically and timewise.
- Do not equate coolness to social interaction as a lack of commitment to the team. At the same time, actively working together does not mean that we are friends.
- Document the ground rules for the team and abide by them.
- The ground rules should include what is expected of everyone, the consequences of someone not meeting expectations, and how each team member is expected to interact with others.
- Accept Cam's insistence that holding persons accountable for their actions in the context of clearly defined guidelines is central to effective performance.
- Stick to accepted policies and procedures. Cam sees no reason to break rules. If a rule needs to be broken, the team should consider changing it.
- View Cam's negative feedback as a desire to improve team performance and not as a personal affront.
- Improve decision-making by relying more on concrete information, careful research and analysis. Proper planning and forethought are essential features of Cam's make-up.
- Above all, focus on why you are there in the first place ... getting the job done!
Request a no-cost consultation on how we can guide your teams to high performance.
Learn more about our DISCerning Model of Communication & Leadership. Request a free copy of our publication: DISCerning Communication - Comprehensive Guide to Interpersonal Relations, Leadership and Coaching at info@successwithpeople.org.
Learn more about the turnkey coach-mentor certification programme here: https://leadercoach.successwithpeople.org/engage.
Complete your enrolment for the Certified Behavioural Coach programme: http://www.successwithpeople.org/cbcprogram.
«Dear Doc | Are Pap tests still relevant over 65?


In a new paper, Daskalakis, Goldberg and Papadimitriou show that finding Nash Equilibrium in matrix games with four or more players is complete for the search class PPAD. PPAD is best described by the problem: Given an exponential-size direced graph with every node having in-degre and out-degree at most one described by a polynomial-time computable function f(v) that outputs the predecessor and successor of v, and a vertex s with a successor but no predecessors, find a t≠s that either has no successors or predecessors. The underlying combinatorial statement that such a t exists is used to prove Sperner's Lemma which can be used to prove the Brouwer fixed point theorem which in turn can be used to prove the existence of Nash Equilibrium.
The authors leave open the complexity of finding Nash Equilibrium for two and three players. They conjecture that for three players the problem remains complete for PPAD but two player Nash Equilibriums can be found in polynomial time.
How important a result is this?
It is essentially one of the strongest "hardness" results that one could hope to prove for the problem. Most people believe that PPAD-complete problems do not have polynomial-time algorithms, I think.
Someone asked "How important a result is this?"
Very important. PPAD is a sub-class of TFNP, which consists of all "NP search problems" for which a solution is guaranteed to exist. An easy example is factoring an integer into its prime factors. Others include computing Nash equilibria, finding "Minkowski vectors" in lattices (vectors of length no more than a poly-time computable bound that were proved to exist by Minkowski), computing Brouwer fixed points, etc. There are also other cute problems like the one Lance mentioned, and also things like: given a circuit that maps n bits into n bits, either find an input that maps to all-0's or find two inputs that map to the same thing.
How one establishes the membership of a problem in TFNP (that is, how one shows that every instance has a solution) decides which sub-class of TFNP it goes into. Two papers --- one by Megiddo and Papadimitriou and one by Papadimitriou, circa 1990 --- placed several problems into this class. The type of techniques used include the use of pigeon-hole principle (as in the lattices example and the circuit example above), the use of parity arguments (as in Sperner's Lemma, Brouwer fixed points and Nash), simple graph-theoretic principles (every directed acyclic graph has a sink), etc.
Besides being natural bridges to much of classical mathematics, problems in TFNP tend not to be NP complete (where's the decision here?!), are not often polynomial-time solvable, have formed the bases of public-key cryptosystems (factoring and lattices), admit worst-case/average-case equivalence, etc.
These are truly curious beasts. On a more speculative note, it is conceivable that we separate P and NP by showing that one of these problems cannot be solved in polynomial time.
What exactly does PPAD complete mean? That every problem whose "guarantee of solution" comes from a certain type of parity argument can be reduced to the computation of Nash equilibria on a game with 4+ players. No more, no less --- our understanding of these problems is even worse than our understanding of the "famous" NP-complete problems.
Thanks for that informative comment D. Sivakumar.
I for one, had never heard of PPAD or TFNP but they sound quite natural.
I think you must have slightly misstated the problem defining PPAD: as you describe it, t might not exist since s could be an isolated point, and everything else just a large cycle. What condition is missing?
Right, s has no predecessor but it must have a successor. I'll fix the post.
I know nothing about PPAD/TFNP, but am very interested in learning more. Do you know of a good overview reference, or at least one or two papers that cover the important aspects in some clarity?
Do you know of a good overview reference [for PPAD/TFNP], or at least one or two papers that cover the important aspects in some clarity?
I recommend Papadimitriou's 1994 JCSS paper that is cited in the Nash/PPAD paper. The definitions start in Section 2; you may wish to skip Section 1 to begin with. I must admit, when I read it, I was in the happy position of being able to quiz the author on bits that weren't clear to me, always a big help.
Well, it appears that now both the 2- and 3-player cases are solved; both are PPAD-complete.
I know the results on PPAD-Completeness of >=3 player games. But is this also true for 2 player games? Is there a reference for this?
Can someone comment on the relation between PPAD and NP? Does a polytime algorithm for one imply a polytime algorithm for the other?
"Can someone comment on the relation between PPAD and NP? Does a polytime algorithm for one imply a polytime algorithm for the other?"
Polynomial algorithm for NP implies polynomial one for TFNP (and PPAD in particular). The proof is easy - you can iteratively ask the hypothetical NP algorithm for consecutive bits of the solution for the TFNP problem.
The other implication is unproven. In particular, proving a TFNP problem to be NP-hard would imply NP=co-NP.


What happens when you bring people from across the world who dislike each other together - and hope they will laugh at each other?
LOS ANGELES - It was last summer and Israeli-Palestinian tensions were at the highest they'd been in some time when Jamie Masada hit on a formula for world peace: Forget about guns and bombs, and just tell jokes to each other.
The onetime stand-up comic is, after all, the owner of the venerable Hollywood nightclub The Laugh Factory, so the idea wasn't unfamiliar.
Still, it's one thing to get a liquored-up audience laughing at lines like, "Take my mother-in-law - please." It's another to bring people from across the world who dislike each other together - and hope they will laugh at each other. And yet, that's what he's trying to do with what he calls the first Funniest Person in the World competition.
Masada has scoured comedy festivals from Afghanistan to South Korea and Egypt to Israel for candidates and had online voters winnow the list to 10 semi-finalists who would perform at the Laugh Factory and before a worldwide Internet audience on October 20.
After online voters narrow the list to five, the finalists will travel to the Laugh Factory's sister club in Las Vegas. There, following another competition and vote, the winner will be crowned on October 24, United Nations Day.
"It might sound stupid," Masada says. "But some people, they sit down, they break bread together, they never hurt each other. Some people, they sit down, they laugh together, they never hurt each other."
He says he has already seen the approach work - at least on a small scale.
During the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli tensions, Masada, an Iranian-born Jew, got the idea of defusing them for at least one night by hosting a comedy exhibition featuring locally popular Jewish comedians sharing the stage with their Muslim counterparts.
The idea was that both sides would get together and learn a little something about each other. Instead, both sides gathered on opposite ends of the club and engaged in an unnerving staredown that prompted Masada to start the show early.
"I tell them there are two groups of people who know that I'm black - other black people and the Beverly Hills Police Department," she said.
Soon jokes were flying about wearing a keffiyeh, an Arab headdress, to an airport and watching people cower in fear. Or of mischievous Muslims who crank up Persian music on the car stereo because they have found that it frightens white drivers even more than hip-hop.
And suddenly, both sides were laughing.
"At the end of the night they were hugging each other," Croonquist marveled, and Masada was off in search of the world's funniest person.
Some suggested he might save time simply by putting in calls to people like Dave Chappelle, Jay Leno or numerous others who have headlined The Laugh Factory over the past 35 years. But Masada was having none of that.
The comedy impresario wanted an Olympics-style competition, and even if the contestants weren't strictly amateurs - which they aren't in the Olympics, anyway - they would be from all over the world.
So in Europe he found Mustapha El Atrassi, a French-born Muslim comic who sometimes dons a helmet and parodies the French music duo Daft Punk.
"They say we hide our faces to keep up the mystery," he tells the audience in thickly accented English as he impersonates both members of Daft Punk. "But it's not true. We just hide our faces because we are very ugly."
From Finland was Ishmo Leikola, who says he has found the solution to America's national-debt problem: don't pay it. "The country has an army. The bank has four cashiers and a cleaning lady."
Masada, meanwhile, learned that comedy already is an international sport.
"I'm looking forward to the competition because the Chinese guy, the Pakistani guy are friends of mine and I've crossed paths with a couple of the others on the comedy festival circuit," one of the 10 finalists, United Arab Emirates representative Nitin Mirani, said during a phone interview - from India.
But can comedy really facilitate peace?
Mirani, for one, thinks so, if you spread the jokes far and wide enough.
"I think comedy is one of the most sincere ways of entertaining and educating people," he says. "I connect with you, you connect with me and we have a good time."


Help with discursive essay on Euthanasia?
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Euthanasia would put them out of their misery and end their suffering if they so choose it. To prolong a persons life is only going to prolong their pain. There are two sides to the coin. It comes down to who's needs are greater? Would it be fair? Is it selfish to think about your own needs i want my mother to live longer for me!
Or is it cruel to prolong a persons life when there is no gain. Maybe there is no cure, maybe they are beyond an age where the quality of life is not worth the agony of the treatment. Thats the choice that need to be made, and thats the argument. Related Questions Some good titles for my pro-euthanasia essay? Euthanasia essay, need help.? Euthanasia is a fairly new problem for the United States and has gained a horrible reputation from negative media publicity surrounding the issue.
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Due to legal, moral and ethical issues regarding euthanasia, even the concept itself is controversial Euthanasia from Different Perspectives Euthanasia is a topic in which people have supported it, disagreed with it or are unsure of what they think about it. This is a sensitive subject because there are millions of instances we can evaluate and determine if they are morally right or wrong. Issues and Arguments Intro To Criminology 1 word count- Euthanasia in Canada has been a big issue, both morally and politically in Canada over the past couple years.
Discursive Essay. Euthanasia. Euthanasia, also known as “assisted suicide” is what happens when somebody takes their own life, or assists someone in taking theirs when the person is seriously ill or in extreme pain. It is loosely known as “mercy killing” as the patient is no longer suffering, hence it is sometimes allegedly compassionate.
Essay 1: Euthanasia In the essay, The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia, J. Gay-Williams states that euthanasia is inherently and morally wrong. He further argues that euthanasia is the intentional and deliberate act of taking a person’s life.
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What is 'fair play' in inducements?
Should a larger TV team be able to choose to buy lots of inducements, unopposed by a smaller, poorer team?
Personally, I would refrain from inducing as the overdog in a match where I feel I am the favorite. I sometimes bend this in tournaments, but sometimes I have not and stuck to my guns even when I *wanted* to induce.
For other folks, I don't really mind how they spend their money. BUT I think there is one way this really irks me, and that's a team that is clearly needing to buy players but is choosing to induce as an overdog instead. For example, teams running 3 Jman elves or rats or whatever, that save cash for inducements and then just put those 3 Jman on the line every time... That is just plain abuse of the system. You should be spending money to get to at least 11 before inducing as the overdog. Adding 10K so you can get a babe as 40K underdog? Fine.
Yeah, in a world where you're not supposed to abuse the Journeyman rules, splashing as the favorite while running an incomplete roster is abusive. Perhaps this is the type of behavior that constitutes "Journeyman abuse" in the new environment. Should we be reporting people who seemingly-intentionally spend 50k+ from Treasury while running fewer than 11 rostered players?
The difference between having +ST, a Wardancer or lot of Guards and inducements is that the cash-bought inducements are not calculated BEFORE the game by the matchmaking formula/scheduler (unlike the +ST, Wardancers, Guards), and this may create an unbalanced match-up.
That doesn't really matter since blackbox doesn't have the goal of creating equal matchups (in terms of equal chance of winning) in the first place. If it did it would implement TV++.
Games are already unequal in blackbox very often because sometimes one team will have much higher TV, sometimes one team will be much more minmaxed, sometimes one team will have focused on dodge while the other have focused on tackle and sometimes one of the coaches is much better or much luckier. If one of the teams can also have an advantage by having more money to spend on inducements once in a while, I don't see that much of a problem myself considering the games are often unequal in the first place. If you want games to be perfectly equal, then you should start advocating for TV++.
Also, some teams (generally the bash ones) don't need to replace players as often as low armour teams, it's not due to superior coaching skill, but just to inherent roster differences.
Low armored elves should be glad that they can afford replacing players at all in the new ruleset. When spiralling expenses was around it was barely possible for wood elves to even afford 11 players at high TV. So all in all they have been helped a lot in the new ruleset despite the fact that their opponents might be able to spend money on inducements more often than them.
That's true and it's a flaw in a competitive division. Anyway, the fact that a formula is used to arrange a match suggests that it tries to arrange balanced matches, but, since the community is small, rather than not finding a match at all the scheduler arranges sometimes unbalanced matches (hence the warning in the division description).
If balance were not a factor then the Box would have no rookie protection and the TV/number of games played would not matter.
I don't see that much of a problem myself considering the games are often unequal in the first place. If you want games to be perfectly equal, then you should start advocating TV++.
True, but the fact that games are already unbalanced due to various factors is not an excuse to be blind about inducements abuse.
I never said that high AV is overpowered, my point was simply that having some cash to spend doesn't mean that the coach deserved it thanks to his "management skill", but just because he didn't need to replace players as often as squishy teams.
For sure PO removal has helped Elves, especially at low-mid TV (I remember lot of Humans at 1400 TV when I was playing my EU in CRP).
About having 11 players at high TV: maybe it's me but I rarely have healthy 11 players at high TV, most of times my Elves are crippled (and fired) before they reach high TV.
Not to mention that Tackle is more common now and that the Wizard is not implemented.
Management skills come into play, as do AV and luck. But yeah, some races get to play with extra cash more often, while others are just happy to maintain a stable roster, and if they can drop 50k for a card once in a while, more power to 'em. This is part of the new balance. Does this new balance work? I honestly don't know, because the environment is just beginning to mature.
To come to the point, that's just bad sportsmanship. Everything more than that 50k is lame. And in most cases, if you have a fair game, even that 50k might be too much.
With the expensive mistakes I think spending over 100k will be rare. That said when Wizard comes in I can see people saving for that if they don't need to replace players. That will be a bummer for their opponents.
Yes, that's a potential issue, at 150,000 the Wizard is probably too cheap.
I guess that 200,000 would be a better price (especially because it would be exactly 1,000 higher than the first 100-199k Expensive Mistakes step).
I think it is bad sportsmanship when you complain about using money being bad sportsmansip. This thing is like t16 fouling all over.
Personally I think everything written in the rules is completely fine. If my legend dies in the hands of an overdog star player or a t16 foul, it is ok! Remember people we are playing this game against each other, not as a co-op to build us all 2000+tv teams.
I wouldn't call it abuse to spend money on inducements but I agree with you that some precision is lost in the matchmaking formula when cash-bought inducements are not calculated beforehand. But as I said in my last post I don't think that's a very big deal myself. It also seems quite hard to find a solution for it, so I guess people will have to live with it. But it's wrong to say that GW did a bad job writing the rule just because the rule isn't perfectly adapted to the current blackbox formula when the rule is a big improvement over what we had in CRP in all other ways. So I'm still looking for a strong argument why the new rule is bad. Maybe it's a bit to powerful but nothing gamebreaking I think. If the wizard comes back however things might actually become broken because with the new rule it would be possibe to induce a wizard very often and it wouldn't be fun to have 50% of all games decided by a single dice roll. But here it is the wizard that should be blamed first hand rather than the rule.
All teams have gotten increased income thanks to the removal of spiralling expenses. Elves will use the increased income to get 11 players and even some reserves, bash will use the increased income to buy inducements now and then. Who has the most use of the increased income? Of course the elves since they use it on stuff that lasts for several games and is thus more bang of the buck than using it on things that only last one game. It's more important to have a full team and some reserves (long term stability) than getting extra inducements now and then in individual games. So elves have profited most on these two rule changes.
All teams have gotten increased income thanks to the removal of spiralling expenses.
This is true only if you consider teams with TV 1750 or higher.
I guess that the majority of elf matches in the Box takes place at lower than 1750 TV.
If Elves can have some reserves it's more due to lack of PO than to removal of Spiralling Expenses, I think.
Losing 10k or 20k from the winnings was not terrible, while being cpombed/tacklepombed it was, and it happened even at TVs lower than 1750 (as I well know).
It's more important to have a full team and some reserves (long term stability) than getting extra inducements now and then in individual games. So elves have profited most on these two rule changes.
Again you don't consider that, when a bash (or not bash) team buys some inducements with its own cash before a game starts this meta-advantage is not taken into account by the matchmaking, while if a elf team carries some reserves this TV will be calculated and it might lead to play vs a team with more skills countering the elves' dodge and agility, not necessarily so advantageous.
This will be more true when the Wizard will be back.
Most of the time I play fumbbl, I play my ranked Slann team (3070 TV at the moment). I'm always the overdog, but I never spend my few bucks (150k at the moment) for buying inducements. I might just have to replace a player after the game so I like to have some reserves.
With a TV that high it's also really difficult building up huge amounts of money. I used to have enormous amounts of reserves, but I decided at some point that the game is more fun with a complete roster of 16 players instead of having just 11 or 12.
So I can simply say: spend your money for your team not your inducements, you might win all the same and yout opponent doesn't think that you play unfair.
I’d say play it as you find it until FUMBBL gets around to following the actual rule (GW have said an FAQ item is coming and BB2016 inducements are supposed to work as they did in CRP). It feels funky, but I guess everyone knows how the site currently handles it.
...but I guess everyone knows how the site currently handles it.
Fair enough. Everyone learns how the site handles it after it happens to them the first time. Better?
LOL. Better. But still wrong.
I thought I already posted it in this thread but it must have been another.
No. Some people just don't get it. Some people who do "know" still get bamboozled when they see that they have enough inducement cash to buy babes or a bribe. Then they complain to their commissioner that the league options or a site bug stole their winnings.
Commish: "You got your winnings"
Coach: "No I didn't. I don't have any more money than I had before".
Commish: "It appears that your winnings just replaced the money that you spent on inducements"
Coach: "I didn't spend my own money on inducements. why would I do that?"
Most of them seem to get it after the second time though.


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Does anyone else feel there is a contradiction between the claim in Apology that "the unexamined life is not worth living" and the fact that in Republic, most citizens aren't encouraged to 'examine' their lives - that is, to participate in philosophy?
So what does this mean (assuming this contradiction is legitimate and not just an apparent one) about Plato - that he changed his mind from Apology to Republic? Or maybe it's that Plato really reported Socrates' words in Apology but merely used him as a mouthpiece for his (Plato's) own ideas in Republic. That's what I think is the explanation.
I also think it raises certain questions about the ideal state - does it mean it's they discourage most citizens from having a life worth living? Perhaps it's about striking a balance - if certain kinds of questioning/introspection are harmful to the "non-philosophers", then SHOULD the state discourage such questioning, and as a result, encourage lives that aren't worth living?
Or maybe it's that Plato really reported Socrates' words in Apology but merely used him as a mouthpiece for his (Plato's) own ideas in Republic. That's what I think is the explanation.
Anyway, the 'just city in speech' found in the Republic is a means to an end, and if you really want Plato's political philosophy, you need to read his Laws. In the Republic, 'the city is the man writ large', and the dialogue's goal is to investigate the nature of the soul by looking at the city. For this reason, I don't think that you can really take the arguments found in this dialogue to be Plato's serious attempt at political philosophy...you have to figure out how they fit in with his initial goal of discovering the human soul.
I understand that the 'city' is simply Plato's way of exploring the nature of justice, but in Book 5 he makes it clear that he doesn't want it to be impossible for his theoretical city to come into existence.
So even though his goal at large is an investigation of human nature/justice/anything else, I think there are still legitimate questions about what throwing out Socrates' claim that "the unexamined life is not worth living" indicates about the 'city'. Is that what you were addressing when you mentioned a disregard for the 'unclean masses'? That Plato's city really doesn't have a problem with encouraging most people to lead unexamined (and so, worthless) lives? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding anything.
Is that what you were addressing when you mentioned a disregard for the 'unclean masses'? That Plato's city really doesn't have a problem with encouraging most people to lead unexamined (and so, worthless) lives? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding anything.
The 'myth of the metals' makes it quite clear that only certain people have what it takes to become philosopher-kings, and they would be in charge of the city. He says that everyone should do what they are best at; for some, it is philosophizing, for others, it is laboring.
Also, Socrates' statement can be seen as a pointed attack against Athens' honor culture, which Socrates was highly critical of. Plato's city though holds wisdom/reason as the greatest good, so Socrates' statement from the Apology could be taken out of context when applied to Plato's just City, where reason and examination are already supposed to rule.
And when looking at the city as the soul, you could make an interpretation where the soul has certain parts (the 'tripartite' soul): the appetites, the spirited, and the rational parts...that are represented by different groups of people in the city fulfilling their function. Reason should tie them all together and direct or lead them, so that the soul can achieve harmony with truth.
My interpretation of Plato's dialogues in general is that they mustn't be taken literally, and this is perhaps more clearly necessary regarding the Republic than any other dialogue. And I think Plato lets us know he doesn't mean things literally when he advocates things like taking children away from their families, women performing gymnastics along with the men, legislators writing the laws in verse and singing them to the assembly.
Plato's real concern here is not the ideal state but the ideal state of mind; not how to govern a polis, but how to govern oneself. As Gadamer put it, the Republic is a "call to philosophy": the only way a society can be free of conflict is if everyone becomes a philosopher-king and lives justly. For Plato, a just society, as Gadamer says, is one in which "a Socrates is not the exception but the rule."
Socrates was not a philosopher-king. Let's suppose that if and only if one lives an examined life, then they would become a philosopher-king. Then perhaps Socrates felt that his life was unexamined, and so voluntarily underwent the death penalty (as he had the opportunity to escape in the Crito, and, based on the Apology at least, it seems that the Death penalty was contrived by his enemies). This would still show Socrates as dying for his philosophical position. It would just be a reinterpretation of what that position is.
If there is a tension, it is between Plato's portrayal of Sokrates and his use of him as a mouthpiece for his own statement of his matured philosophy. Like Jesus, Sokrates never (to our knowledge) put his thinking into written form, and our knowledge of the Attic gadfly rests on the recollections of the general Xenophon and primarily upon certain dialogues of Plato, one of which is the Apology which was written in the lifetime of many Athenians who were either present at his trial or were personally knowledgeable about Sokrates's way of thinking, so presumably if Plato strayed from an accurate account, someone would have spoken up.
So great was Sokrates' influence on Plato (indeed, on subsequent philosophy itself) that he figures in almost all of the dialogues (even in Laws, it is obvious that "the Athenian" is Plato-Sokrates), but it is generally understood that Plato is speaking and not merely reporting his teacher's theories. Thus, while the Republic ostensibly begins with a discussion about the correct definition of justice, its primary object was the exploration of the many different implications of Plato's own theory of Forms, constituting true knowledge, in politics, religion, education---to name only a few areas.
I think that Plato thought that it was only those made of gold, not those made of brass, and certainly not lead, who should, or even could, examine their lives. The Republic is a high class-structured society. And, besides, Plato knew full well that for some people, it is the examined life that is not worth living.


Selling Cahill would be suicidal, insists Megson | City A.M.
BOLTON boss Gary Megson has categorically ruled out selling star defender Gary Cahill this season.

The 23-year-old has impressed for the Trotters ever since his move from Aston Villa in January 2008. And his eye-catching performances have not gone unnoticed with rumours rife that Tottenham and Italian giants AC Milan and Juventus are contemplating a bid.

But Megson, who managed to tie down Cahill to a new deal in the summer, is adamant the player is going nowhere.

“Football-wise it would be suicide to sell him in January,” he said. “This club got itself into a nightmare scenario over Gary. There was a set fee that he could have gone for. We did brilliantly in the summer to get rid of that and we’re in a position now where we don’t have to sell him.”

And Megson, having been in a similar situation before when Nicolas Anelka left the Reebok Stadium for Chelsea in the 2008 winter window, does not want a repeat performance.

He added: “Selling real assets in January is a nightmare. We’ve been there before with Anelka, we didn’t win in 10 games and escaped relegation only by the skin of our teeth in the last five games.”

Cahill has twice been called into Fabio Capello’s England squad though he still awaits his first cap.


Is 'Healthy' Ice Cream Too Good To Be True?
Last year, the low-calorie, high protein ice cream brand Halo Top outsold every other kind in the US, including classics like Haagen Dazs - and it arrived in the UK in January. But just how healthy is this dreamy product? ELLE investigates.
If I met a genie, one of my three wishes would be to have an ice cream I could eat every day forever without it being unhealthy.
If you’ve recently set foot in the frozen goods aisle of a Whole Foods or Tesco recently, however, you’ll know I can probably cancel the genie – 'healthy' ice cream already exists.
And it’s seriously popular, as you can imagine: in the US last year, low-calorie, high protein ice cream brand Halo Top outsold every other kind, including classics like Ben and Jerry’s and Haagen Dazs. And it arrived here in the UK in January.
But just how healthy is this dreamy product?
How much can we eat? Are there any nasty ingredients? And is it such a good idea to healthify one of our favourite treats anyway?
To find out, I spoke to food scientists, ice cream academics and nutritionists. First port of call was Professor Robert 'Bob' Roberts, head of food science and curator of two ice-cream-specific courses at PennState University, whose personal favourite flavour is full-fat dolce de leche or classic vanilla, by the way.
'I’d actually say what you’re talking about is sometimes not even ice cream, it’s more a frozen dessert because they’ve altered the ingredients that much, but I’m a purist,' he says.
Some of the ingredients Professor Roberts is talking about include artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers and stabilisers, all of which help imitate an ice cream-like texture and flavour – because sugar, for instance, does more than just sweeten the tub.
Gylcerol is a syrupy substance and polydextrose is a synthetic form of glucose.
Should we be frightened of these foreign-sounding ingredients in our ice cream?
Ingredients like maltitol – a sugar substitute – and carrageenan – an emulsifier extracted from purple seaweed – also get the seal of approval.
So too does stevia, probably the most popular alternative sweetener, which comes from the stevia plant. It has zero calories and despite its recent surge in popularity, has probably been used since the 1800s. Stevia is regarded by most experts as safe, but some researchers wish we had more evidence.
Professor Roberts is a fan: 'Stevia is fine, stevia is great.' This confidence in stevia is echoed by every expert I speak to, despite its bad rep.
Melanie Loades is a biochemist and founder of the product development company Frog Hop, which specialises in new food and drink. Her favourite flavour ice cream is raspberry ripple, with plenty of ripple.
She agrees that the alternative ingredients in 'healthy' ice cream shouldn’t panic us. I took her through all the ingredients in both Breyers and Halo Top ice creams – two of the more popular brands – and she says not to be alarmed by anything in them.
One tub of Halo Top vanilla bean flavour ice cream is 280 calories, with 5.8g of sugar per serving. Go for chocolate, mint chip or peanut butter and you jump up to 320 calories. A tub of Breyers vanilla is 290 calories, with chocolate and cookies reaching 310. That’s 38-57 per cent less calories and 45-60 per cent less sugar per 100g than similar ice cream products.
These products do actually use fresh cream so unlike something like frozen yoghurt, they have the consistency of proper ice cream. I’ve tried a few different flavours and I have to say, they’re not bad (and as Professor Roberts says: 'Even bad ice cream is still a 7 out of 10').
Not as good as a scoop from your local Italian gelato place, but more delicious than you might expect given the low-cal status.
The problem with these 'healthy' ice creams (sorry, Professor Roberts – 'frozen desserts') is less to do with the actual ingredients and more to do with the mentality they encourage. They each list a serving size of half a cup, and yet their marketing tells us otherwise: 'Save the bowl', 'No bowl, no regrets' and 'Stop when you hit the bottom' says Halo Top on some of its packaging.
These products are billed as 'Guilt-free' – so innocuous that you could eat a whole tub in one sitting without worrying about it. This not only distorts our idea of what an appropriate serving size is and encourages bingeing; it also goes against the ardent advice any trained nutritionist or dietitian will give you in your first consultation: We shouldn’t be talking about food in terms of guilt, remorse or moral merit.
Ice cream should be eaten joyously – but not excessively.
Pixie Turner, registered nutritionist and author of The Wellness Rebel, also agreed the mentality is worrying.
We have evidence that Brits are doing precisely as Turner predicts. According to The Grocer, seven out of 10 young people would eat a whole tub of ice cream in one sitting if it had fewer than 250 calories.
Research company Harris Interactive asked 1,971 consumers and found that 70 per cent of 18-24 year olds would eat the whole tub and 66 per cent of 25-34 year olds. This is likely because they’re obeying the marketing messages emblazoned on these products, and digging in with just a spoon in hand.
'It’s a very poor message, to encourage people to eat the whole thing,' says Professor Alan Mackie, from the school of food science and nutrition at the University of Leeds. His favourite flavour is ginger from a Yorkshire ice creamery.
So, there we have it: the verdict is that the ingredients are safe but the psychology of bingeing is not. If you genuinely like the taste of these ice creams, knock yourself out, have a serving – but don’t down the whole tub and try to avoid the feeling of superiority or smugness that usually comes with it because we shouldn’t be ascribing moral weight to what we eat.
That’s where these products could be dangerous.
Would You Try Red Wine Ice-Cream?


As Nepal woke up this month from the slumber of Dashain holidays, a political bombshell sent alarm bells ringing across the country.
Nepal's communist parties announced that they were forming a pan-leftist alliance, a combined communist force that would eventually become Nepal's single communist party. The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the Nepal Communist Party (United), the party of Nepal's Maoist former rebels, said that they would contest the November general election as an alliance.
The announcement comes as the Maoists are in a coalition government with the Nepali Congress, a centrist democratic party. Is it deceit, or just opportunism? Did China orchestrate this? Is Nepal heading towards becoming a communist state? Questions began to fly.
"Goal of a single Communist Party in Nepal is a goal of Communist Republic of Nepal in place of a Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal," tweeted the former deputy prime minister, Bimalendra Nidhi of the Nepali Congress.
The Maoists had waged a decade-long war against the state for a "social and political transformation" - a conflict that took the lives of more than 16,000 people.
Peace was brokered in 2006, and today, there is a general agreement among political observers that ideology has little to do with Nepal's communists and their newfound unity.
"The main reason why this alliance took place at this moment is the Maoists' perception of their own weakness," said Aditya Adhikari, author of Bullets and the Ballot Box.
After the Maoists entered the peace process, they performed well in 2008 elections, but by 2013, they had become a poorly organised, distant third party.
"Their entire party organisation became really weak, as they had gone through numerous splits, and many in the rank-and-file who fought for them, abandoned them," Adhikari said, noting that despite their waning popularity, the Maoists remained on the scene.
The final round of local elections took place in September.
According to Krishna Khanal, a professor of political science at Tribhuvan University, the communist alliance "is all about power consolidation and not about communism".
"Both the UML and the Maoists have huge stakes in private banking," Khanal said.
They are also known to have investments in private health, education and building contracting. Local journalist Narayan Wagle laughed off the idea of Nepal's "left".
"We don't have left parties. We just have parties who call themselves the left," he said.
Dhakal said that the communists had become "very good at populist propaganda, and if trends of local elections are to be repeated, the left alliance can get a two-thirds majority". In such a case, Nepal may even have a stable government; the country's fractious politics have led to successive unstable coalitions, resulting in nine governments in nine years.
But the unity card did not come out of nowhere.
"There is a general belief in the Nepali press that this is more beneficial to China, and that might be true. China has always wanted a strong partner who can maintain stability and look after its security interest," Adhikari said.
Despite India's active diplomacy in forging peace between the Maoists and the state, relations between India and Nepal have been strained in recent years.
In 2015, under the premiership of UML leader KP Sharma Oli, Nepal faced a harsh blockade - India, displeased with Nepal's constitution, severely restricted the imports of fuel, food and other essentials from India - making life difficult for average Nepalis. "India practised the worst form of diplomacy - short-term and interfering. This is a result of that failure," Khanal said.
The alliance will force India to revisit its strategies, analysts say.
"India will now have to reach out to the same leaders they called pro-China and anti-India," Dhakal said.
As for Nepali leaders, alienating India is not seen as a winning strategy in the long run: "UML hopes that the presence of Maoist leaders will improve their relationship with India," Adhikari said.
Unity between two big parties with many strong and ambitious leaders is already proving complicated. How will they decide which leader from which party will stand for elections? How will the second-tier leaders feel about not getting an election ticket? Nayashakti, a breakaway faction of the Maoists, initially joined the alliance but promptly broke away after a disagreement over electoral seats.
"Besides the size of the parties and the ego of the politicians, in the past decade they have occupied very different ideological positions," Adhikari added. "The Maoists have been campaigning for the rights of marginalised groups, identity-based federalism, and the UML is completely opposed to any kind of ethnic politics. This tension could emerge in the future too."
This new political twist has left many guessing about possible outcomes. What is clear is that the former rebels are the junior players in this partnership. How the top brass of the Maoists will swallow this reality, and how power is played out in this alliance, will determine where the story goes from here.


What portion of linear lambda calculus corresponds to using only the B and I combinators (composition and identity)? I have a hunch that it's all lambda terms that use their input variables exactly once and without permuting them, but I'm finding it hard to prove that.
and to eliminate the variable "a" here, I need to use the C combinator.
It depends on using the associativity of composition.
How can I tell which linear terms are in the span of B and I?
composition and identity are the Cut and the Identity principles of an intuitionistic (ie, single-conclusion) sequent calculus, and the arrow is some kind implication (i.e., an internalized entailment). Since presumably you're okay with currying, it seems like you want a multiple-hypothesis calculus.
However, if you want to think about banishing exchange in addition to weakening and contraction, then you should look at a fragment of the Lambek calculus. Here's one -- the loss of exchange means the context here isn't merely linear, it's also ordered.
So we want some d : (A -o B) -o Gamma -o Gamma' -o C.
and bracket abstraction could give a good term for this.


John surrounded himself with "yes men" who bent to his will; John tended towards despotic rule; John resented anyone who was smarter than him; John was arrogant; John tended towards giving mepuis; John was possessed of the common touch.
So writes Gabriel J. Christian in the preface to "The Rise and Fall of Patrick Roland John", Dominica's first prime minister, in the 487-page book by Dr. Irving W. André that as launched last Friday evening at the Open Campus of The University of the West Indies.
"To his credit the record does not reveal Patrick John to have been someone given to the speedy amassing of wealth at the expense of the national treasury," says Christian of John, better known as "PJ", who ruled Dominica from 1974 to 1979 until he was deposed in a parliamentary coup following widespread and deadly demonstrations.
For three hours on Friday, about 100 persons packed themselves in the small but cozy UWI auditorium to listen to Dr. André, a judge who lives and works in Canada, outline the history of the turbulent Seventies that ushered in Dominica as an independent state.
"The book traces the rapid rise and spectacular fall of Dominica's first Prime Minister," writes André in the back of the red-covered book. "It analyses the factors that contributed to John's rise to power, the forces that opposed him throughout the 1970's and the causes for his dramatic fall from grace after May 29, 1979".
But are there obvious lessons to be learnt from that painful era in Dominica's history and are there signs that history is about to repeat itself?
"Indeed , the scandals in governance where they have afflicted administrations…should teach us all that constant study of our past is essential to finding true north in the future," answers Christian. "The message inherent to this splendid work is that one should never squander the goodwill of the masses and become deaf to the people's cry for justice. History teaches that arrogance by any leader is a rebuke to democratic ideals of public service and ultimately self-defeating. Political power is never everlasting, and every leader must strive to serve the national interest, not just one's party or cronies".
"It is imperative that we understand history," said Dr. André. "It is imperative that we try not to whitewash it because Dominica is such a fragile democracy".
As a prescription to the creation of a more equitable society, Dr. André said: "Everyone should have this equal opportunity to achieve his or her goals; no one should be excluded because quite frankly they were colour blind or they wear the wrong colour. No one should be excluded because they did not show sufficient loyalty to any deity."
In addition to "The Rise and Fall of Patrick Roland John", on Friday at UWI, André also launched "A century of Dominican Judges and Magistrates" a 200-page book that traces "the island's proud intellectual tradition which has produced, since the early decades of the twentieth century, a number of distinguished legal practitioners and judges who blazed a trail of excellence in Dominica", the Caribbean and the world.
"A century of Dominican Judges and Magistrates", however, does not mention the infamous Leo Austin, the Attorney General who was at the centre of most of Patrick John's notoriously crazy schemes.


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Goya Foods, the nation's oldest and best-known Hispanic food company, has withdrawn its support from the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City, given the Parade's recent decision to become a vehicle with which to honor unrepentant FALN terrorist Oscar López Rivera. But what of the other sponsors?
El Diario (NY), one of the largest and oldest Spanish-language newspapers in the United States, reported that Goya withdrew its longstanding sponsorship via a letter sent to the Parade's board of directors, because of "...an aggressive media and social media campaign against our Company and its excellent products, citing as its reason that we sponsored a terrorist and FALN member by the name of Oscar López". This conflicts with the Board's own statement as reported by Latino Rebels, which states that Goya offered "no rationale" other than "...a business decision".
The National Puerto Rican Day Parade announced today that it will give Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar López Rivera—convicted in 1981 in connection with a wave of deadly bombings, including one that killed four at the Wall Street-area Fraunces Tavern—its first-ever “National Freedom Hero” designation at the 60th annual parade in June.
Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez, chairwoman of the parade, announced that the former member of the Marxist-Leninist Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional guerrilla faction will receive the designation at the annual cavalcade, which will take place on June 11 along Fifth Avenue. In January, former President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Lopez Rivera, sentenced to 70 years for seditious conspiracy, robbery, transportation of explosives and firearms and an attempt to escape federal prison.
In short, it appears that Goya's "business decision" was to not have anything to do with an organization that would march an unrepentant terrorist down Fifth Avenue while hailing him as a "National Liberation Hero".
This decision is of particular importance, given Goya's standing as the most "in-community" of the parade's sponsors. But what does this say of the other sponsors? If they continue to stay on as sponsors after the decision to honor López Rivera, Hispanic media networks such as Univision, Telemundo and SBS are also tacitly co-signing on to Oscar López Rivera's tactics, methods, acts, and intended outcomes (it should be noted that Univision, in particular, has done the most to whitewash López Rivera's actual history).
Specifically, it is troubling that we have not yet heard from JetBlue, Coca-Cola, AT&T, McDonald's, and (most painful to me because I bleed pinstripes) the New York Yankees. I get that sometimes a corporation will decide to sponsor an event in the name of fostering some community goodwill, but the celebration of an avowed Marxist terrorist is far more toxic than any short-term goodwill that may result from such a sponsorship. With just a few weeks remaining before López Rivera marches triumphantly down Fifth Avenue, it is crucial that these other Parade sponsors also 'take a stand' and go on the record.
Whatever opinion you hold regarding Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rico's status, or the financial woes that led to an accrual of $73 billion in debt and the U.S. Congress' 2016 imposition of a Fiscal Supervisory Board, know this: The core of the movement that pushed for President Barack Obama's commutation of López Rivera's lengthy prison sentence is NOT reflective of the desires of the majority of Puerto Ricans on the island and beyond, nor did it ever have grassroots support that he is someone to be celebrated.
The López Rivera commutation is nothing less than the culmination of a massive (and magnificently executed) fake news operation. Multiple elements of the radical left, the media, and the entertainment industry came together and presented a carefully-crafted image of Oscar López Rivera as a kindly grandfather who was unjustly imprisoned for supporting the ideal of independence for Puerto Rico. There was little to no presentation of the fullness of López Rivera's record, only a "political prisoner" narrative.
The lack of honesty and duplicity (i.e. "he was in prison for his political ideas") used by the organizers of the effort to secure López Rivera's early release rightfully disturbs plenty of observers, both in Puerto Rico as well as here on the U.S. mainland. From what we've seen, neither Luis Gutiérrez nor any of the others organizers of this effort ever bothered to clearly denounce what López Rivera did and his justification for what he did. On the contrary, many of them either have ties to that anti-democratic, terrorist movement or justify it.
The effort to honor López Rivera at the Parade, led by such radical leftists as San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz and New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, is little more than an effort to manufacture the appearance of broad support for Puerto Rican independence both ahead of an islandwide status referendum and in the eyes of the United States Congress. Once again, these Manhattan Marxists seek to impose burdens on their fellow Puerto Ricans that they themselves refuse to carry.
Goya Foods had the sense to see this shameless ploy for what it was. I sincerely hope the rest of the Parade's sponsors follow suit in refusing to honor terror.