_Happy boy

Welll i like V1 for effect and text

Well , i like V2 Good text & effect .

The 2020 Nissan Kicks is something that fits just between the Rogue Sport and Versa Sedan. If you need something to whip around the urban landscape and get remarkable mileage, look no further. Under the hood of the 2020 Kicks is a 1.6L 4-cylinder engine making around 121 horsepower and put to the pavement via a continuously variable transmission CVT and front-wheel drive. There’s not a lot of expectation for this car to win ¼ mile races and it definitely doesn’t “kick” you back in your seat but it’s a whole lot of predictable and efficient driving. Exterior styling won’t wow you with style or aggressive lines. In fact, it’s quite the opposite and lands on the side of boring and functional. I’m not by any means declaring the Kicks a boring car, it just works and functions well without any fanfare. At first glance, you’ll think it’s a Rogue, but after careful scrutiny, you’ll notice it’s not quite as tall, wheels are more at the corners and the windows aren’t tinted. These are giveaways to a smaller crossover vehicle. Upfront are large headlamps and at the corners are black wheels. Follow the lines up and back to the extended rear tailgate with a black bumper and single exhaust pipe. THE GOOD, THE BAD ... The Good: SV package for blackout, comfortable interior. The Bad: Small engine and boring drivability. Jump into the driver's seat and the first thing I noticed was how cozy and intuitive things are on the dash. A touchscreen centers the show with HVAC and storage just below. A traditional shifter is there as well as an old-fashioned emergency brake handle. The driver's instrument panel is mostly digital like most nowadays. Seating in front is very comfortable and there is a good amount of space in the back for other passengers. I was able to latch my child seat, but it was a little cramped for the boys around it. Rear trunk space is fairly adequate as well and was enough room for baseball equipment. Overall, the interior was a decent place to spend time and is able to carry a family around well. It also came optioned with the Rockford Fosgate sound system and I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a pulse-pounding experience and I have to say it was far from that. Either way, it’s a better-than-standard sound system, but left some to be desired.On road, the Kicks is a bit loud and a bit light on its feet. I have to say, most of the time I drove it I wasn’t completely turned off. At highway speed, it can be a little loud and get pushed around by the wind. On suburban roads, it was kind of fun to throw around the corners and held speed really well. It’s also really easy to maneuver in the city and tight alleyways. I found it was at home in the city setting with smaller roadways and areas to park.

Associated Press | PHOENIX (AP) — Bruce Babcock only has to walk across the street from his house in a residential neighborhood to get to the 10-acre patch (40,500 square meters) of farmland where he labors to help feed his community. As a community garden coordinator, Babcock works with volunteer growers and food enthusiasts to provide enough freshly grown produce every week for hundreds of low-income Phoenix residents without access to much nutritional food. The Spaces of Opportunity neighborhood food system is among several initiatives launched in Phoenix in recent years, following other U.S. communities like Oakland, California; Detroit and Chicago where urban gardens aim to improve food options in racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods. The efforts have grown increasingly important with hunger across America on the rise amid the coronavirus pandemic. For example, more than 5 million people in Arizona filed unemployment claims this year and many worry where their next meal will come from. The Arizona Department of Economic Security said as of October more than 900,000 people had applied for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Spaces of Opportunity works with the Roosevelt School District, the Orchard Community Learning Center, Unlimited Potential, the Tiger Foundation and the Desert Botanical Garden to produce and improve access to healthy food through farmers markets and distribution programs. It is located in south Phoenix, a predominantly Latino and Black community that public health officials call “food deserts” because of limited access to fresh produce and other healthy options. A map by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows such food deserts are widespread throughout Arizona and other parts of the Southwest. A lack of fresh food can cause people to depend on fast food and other items that can make them vulnerable to diet-linked health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. Babcock began volunteering with the garden in 2015, after he experimented with an aquaponics project in his backyard. He began paying for a quarter-acre plot of his own shortly after that. Babcock said growers start out paying $5 a month for a quarter-acre and can later expand to a full acre plot. More than 60 gardeners now work there and as many as 200 have worked under Babcock since 2015. “We really slowed down over the summer and I was worried it wasn't going to pick back up because of COVID-19,” Babcock said. But people returned in the fall when the triple-digit temperatures dropped and he opened up more land for gardeners. Community interest in nutrition and food education has sparked some of the growth, said John Wann-Angeles, director of the Orchard Community Learning Center. Wann-Angeles, a former principal in the Roosevelt School District, said part of his interest comes from his earlier experiences working with children, hoping to keep educating young people to build a better future for their community. Wann-Angeles gathered one early fall morning with volunteers at a Roosevelt district elementary school, wrapping vegetarian burritos for the meals they deliver each Thursday to up to 175 people with modest resources. Bags stuffed with seasonal fruits and vegetables were also lined up for delivery. The recipients that day included residents of the Justa Center, which provides shelter, food and job services to people over 55 who have lived on the street. Justa Center Executive Director Wendy Johnson said the fresh fruits and vegetables from Spaces of Opportunity “are a treat among our residents.” “The strawberries are a favorite. The oranges are gone in minutes,” said Johnson, noting that residents are used to getting canned foods. “Food is a privileged item when you are poor.” Spaces of Opportunity farmland is also where former WNBA athlete, coach and executive Bridget Pettis operates Project Roots Arizona, the group she recently founded after she retired. Project Roots offers seasonal produce bags for free to residents in Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale and Glendale; sells garden boxes that people can use to grow their own produce at home; cooks soup for homeless people and sells vegetables at farmers markets throughout metro Phoenix. “There is a lack of access, but it’s a lack of knowledge and education about food in these areas that we are trying to address,” Pettis said. “That’s what Project Roots wanted to bring — the knowledge of food.” The International Rescue Committee, a leading resettlement agency for people who come to the U.S. fleeing war and persecution, has a similar program in the Phoenix area called New Roots for refugees. New arrivals from countries such as Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan are given lots, seeds and guidance to grow crops such as tomatoes and watermelon to sell or add fresh, healthy options to their own family meals. Farm Express, another fresh food initiative, has taken a more accessible approach, converting a 40-foot (12-meter) city bus and a smaller shuttle into mobile markets selling fruits and vegetables at cost in disadvantaged Phoenix neighborhoods. “We’re trying to make sure working class families have the same access to the kind of produce the restaurants get, that are sold at farmer’s markets,” said Elyse Guidas, executive director of Activate Food Arizona that runs Farm Express. Activate Food Arizona buys the produce wholesale, then charges the same prices to shoppers who choose what they want from a list. Shoppers can use their government nutrition benefits, plus get a bit more produce for free through a program funded by a local grant. Matthew Forest, 32, said he was delighted by the low prices he found for fruits and vegetables at a recent stop Farm Express made next to a public housing project south of downtown Phoenix. It was the first time he and his girlfriend, Eboni Davis, 33, bought anything from the brightly painted former city bus. The closest grocery story is a 1 1/2-mile walk for Forest and Davis, who don’t have a car. “This has been a real experience,” Forest said after the couple spent less than $14 for a bunch of bananas, a few oranges, collard greens, a grapefruit, a butternut squash, a green apple, a red onion, strawberries and a few potatoes. “This is a lot less expensive than the supermarket,” Forest said before wheeling the produce home in a metal cart. Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

I come from people who did what needed to be done when faced with personal or community crisis. And I have a long history of experience with vaccines. So, when I heard about the COVID-19 vaccine trial taking place where I live in Salt Lake City, I didn't hesitate. I already knew the research team because I'd been through two unrelated vaccine trials in the last year. I was familiar with the pin pricks, protocols, clinic visits, informed consent forms and piles of paperwork. I already knew the trial's doctor, nurses and medical assistants. "Sure," the nurse told me when I called the clinic. "We need people for this trial and you'd be great." I seemed like a good candidate because I'm at the pandemic-risky age of 66, but relatively healthy and active. My wife Wanda fits that description as well. So, we both endured two hours of questions, medical history reviews, and checks of temperature, blood pressure, hearts and lungs. We scrupulously read informed consent forms, considered all the caveats, did our own research, and signed. Needles and vials came out and we had our first sharp but gentle jabs. It was a big production that day and later for the second round of injections. The medical assistants, nurse and doctor flitted in and out of the tiny examination room, always politely apologizing for the questions, the probing, the crowding, and especially the paperwork. We were patients 2 and 3 and they were still working out the kinks of the routine. They were checking each other along the way. "Did you have them sign this page?" "Did you tell them about that?" "Did you get their blood?" We gave lots of blood. We didn't know then and we still don't know who in our group of volunteers got the real vaccine and who got the placebo. The research team doesn't know. It's a double-blind study. So, even Moderna, the vaccine developer, isn't supposed to know. Only the independent vaccine overseers are supposed to have access to that information. Like everyone else, Wanda and I have been trying to guess, based on our reactions to the vaccines. But those reactions were minor, so it's hard to say. Moderna has promised that eventually everyone in the placebo group will be offered the vaccine, so we'll find out then. In any case, we aren't worried. We know that the Moderna vaccine uses synthetic COVID-19 mRNA. There's nothing in it that could actually give us the coronavirus. And in the early preliminary trial with a very small group, there were no serious side effects. Still, friends asked us why we did this. That got me thinking about my people and their history, and my own long experience with vaccines. First, there's the example set by my grandmother. When she boarded the New Rochelle, a massive passenger ship, in Le Havre, France, in 1921, she was 24 and pregnant. Really pregnant — close to delivery. And she feared that alone would get her kicked off the ship before it left port, or deported once she arrived at Ellis Island. She and 22-year-old Moise, the man who would become my grandfather, couldn't again face deadly pogroms, severely restricted lives, and forced service in armies fighting hopeless battles. That's what they and other Jews were fleeing in eastern Europe. Moise and Ruchel were determined to get to America, their promised land, so Ruchel did what needed to be done. She put on layer after layer of heavy coats, and wore them the entire voyage. It was winter on the high seas so that may have seemed sensible. Other immigrants wore lots of clothes, too, so they had more room for more things in their luggage. It worked for Ruchel. She hid that pregnancy from the 2,000 other migrants on board, from the ship's crew, and from the immigration officers at Ellis Island. One officer did note a medical problem on the immigration arrival form, so my family suspects that a government doctor discovered the pregnancy during an examination but let it go — doing what needed to be done for these young refugees desperate for new lives. Ruchel and Moise Berkes' daughter Reba was born four days later; the new father sold apples on the street to support his suddenly expanded family. My father Milton came along a few years after that. He eventually became a local elected official in a Philadelphia suburb. In 1957, when I was 3, the first non-white family moved into a Levittown neighborhood, and my father and other community leaders found themselves facing down white racists, who rioted night after night. The rioters burned a cross, honked horns, and screamed ugly insults and threats. My dad and a group of other leaders stood with the family, as they all stood up to the mob, which required unblinking commitment and some physical and political risk. The rioting subsided, the Black family stayed, and more families of color moved in, too. In his own time of reckoning, my father did what needed to be done. Later, as a state representative and Pennsylvania's first drug czar, my father Milton authored a law that transformed Pennsylvania's treatment of drug addiction, turning state policy away from incarceration and toward rehabilitation. His work on drug policy resulted in another test — for both of us I was in my early teens, home alone one night, forced to field the regular phone calls we'd get from people looking for my dad, often looking for his help. One caller that night was desperate. Suicidal. He talked about his drug use and his hopelessness. "There's no point in going on," he cried. So, I just talked and talked, kid to kid, thinking fast about what to say. "There's help," I told him. "There are people who can get you through this. Hang on. I'll get someone to call you." My dad phoned the desperate caller back later and he did provide help and hope, connecting him with a treatment program. That night we both did what needed to be done. There's also this, when I think about why I signed up for experimental shots aimed at COVID-19: I have my own long and deep experience with vaccines, starting at a very early age. I still have a wrinkled yellow certificate dated November 1954, from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. It proved to all who cared that I had a "successful vaccination" for smallpox in my right arm at age 9 months. And maybe more influential was my experience three years later. when the United States was panicking about the crippling infectious disease called polio. First came the Salk vaccine, which required a series of three injections. People waited in lines for hours to get their shots, my mom among them. My mom Ethel saved for decades a tiny newspaper clipping with a brief headline: "Three-Year-Old Overshot." I was that 3-year-old, and had gone with my mother to the local hospital. She was getting a Salk vaccine polio shot herself, and I was just standing in line alongside her. I'd already had my three shots — my mom made sure the nurse at the front of the line knew that. But in the rush of people getting poked, and with my mom distracted, a doctor suddenly nailed me in the arm with my own fourth shot. My mom freaked, but, the doctor told her not to worry. The extra vaccination wouldn't hurt me. Think of it as a booster shot, he said. She kept a sharp eye on me as time wore on, but I was fine. After that, I was all in for vaccines – a dutiful pincushion for shots, when necessary, against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps and rubella. There was one exception in 1976, when I was 22, and an outbreak of swine flu at an Army base in New Jersey triggered fears of a pandemic. No one off the base became infected and the vaccine that was rushed out seemed to be involved in some rare but nasty side effects. That scared me and I wound up avoiding flu shots for the next 40 years, probably at my own peril. But with advancing age and increased risk from flu I decided it was time to man up. I not only subjected myself to vaccines again, but became a voluntary guinea pig in trials for new flu and pneumonia vaccines. I suffered no major side effects from either of those vaccines (or any other) and, coincidentally, both trials were handled by the research team at my medical clinic, which is also conducting the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine trial here in Utah. So, it was easy for me to sign up for the Moderna trial. And, beneath it all, there's this: I can't make people wear masks. I can't force anybody to maintain safe physical distance. I can't revive the 280,000 Americans who've died. I can't protect the 15 million who've been diagnosed. I can't restore jobs and paychecks. I can't keep people from losing homes. I can't reopen schools, restaurants, gyms and bars. I can't keep ICU's from overflowing with coronavirus patients. I can't magically ease the burden of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals who are risking their lives every day, and sometimes falling ill and dying themselves. And I can't force politicians to exercise leadership, and to ignore the selfish political "don't tread on me" resistance to doing what needs to be done. But I can be Patient 3, tolerating two needle pricks in the arm in a month, giving up vial after vial of blood, enduring multiple deep swabs into my nostril and throat, and regularly reporting any changes in my medications or health. These are actually very small acts with negligible risk. But, right here and right now, it's precisely what needs to be done. Howard Berkes is a retired NPR Investigations Correspondent living in Salt Lake City. He spent 38 years at NPR and has earned more than 40 national journalism awards.

How big is the market for artificial intelligence software? In new research, Forrester forecasts that the size of the AI software market will approach $37 billion by 2025. That's a large number but still smaller than many investors and other analysts have projected. We believe our projection is more realistic, however, for two reasons. First, most business applications are adding AI functions without monetizing them. Second, the custom-built AI applications that businesses create for their own use don't generate market revenues. Investors, vendors, and buyers who wish to understand and/or invest in the AI software market must understand Forrester's four segments: AI maker platforms, AI facilitator platforms, AI-centric applications, and AI-infused applications. Key Takeaways Forrester has defined four AI software segments: 1) AI maker platforms for general-purpose AI algorithms and data sets; 2) AI facilitator platforms for specific AI functions like computer vision; 3) AI-centric applications and middleware tools built around AI for specialized tasks like medical diagnosis; and 4) AI-infused applications and middleware tools that differentiate through advanced use of AI in an existing app or tool category. The largest segment will be AI maker platforms, which will grow to $13 billion by 2025. New AI-centric apps built on AI functions such as medical diagnosis and risk detection solutions will be the second-largest, at almost $10 billion by 2025. Growth in AI software slowed in 2020 due to the pandemic recession and will slow again after 2023. Like the software market overall, demand for AI platforms, applications, and tools slowed in 2020. Growth in demand will resume in 2021 and remain high until 2023. But revenue growth will flatten out in 2024 as AI gets absorbed into all software products and can no longer be a differentiator between vendors or command a premium. Indeed, we project that revenues for premium-priced AI-infused apps and tools will start shrinking after 2023. AI will continue to get embedded within software. AI is fast becoming as fundamental to software as software has become to business. As a result, AI software will increasingly be embedded into existing software products by existing software vendors. Companies will find that it makes the most sense to acquire AI functions through these software vendors, rather than custom-build their own AI functions using AI platforms and facilitator tools. As a result, application software vendors will represent rising shares of the revenues of AI platform and AI facilitator revenues. At the end of the day, AI will be everywhere in software products, just as analytics, workflow, and data are part of those same software products. To understand the business and technology trends critical to 2021, download Forrester's complimentary 2021 Predictions Guide here. This post was written by Forrester VPs & Principal Analysts Andrew Bartels and Mike Gualtieri, and it originally appeared here.

ASUS's upcoming gaming notebooks have been spotted online featuring AMD's next-gen Cezanne-H Ryzen 5000 CPUs, Intel's next-gen Tiger Lake-H 11th Gen CPUs and NVIDIA's RTX 30 mobility line of GPUs. These laptops include TUF Gaming & ROG Zephyrus variants and will be coming to the PC in the first half of 2021. AMD's Cezanne-H Ryzen 7 5800H & Intel's Tiger Lake-H Core i7-11370H Spotted in Next-Gen ASUS Gaming Notebook Lineups, Also Come With NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs The two laptops will be introduced sometime in the first half of 2021 as high-end gaming options. What's interesting about the laptops is that both are based on high-end CPUs from the respective chip makers. The ASUS TUF Gaming model is based on the AMD Cezanne-H platform while the ROG Zephyrus model is based on Intel's Tiger Lake-H platform. ASUS TUF Gaming A17 Notebook With AMD Ryzen 7 5800H (Cezanne-H) CPU First up, we will be talking about the ASUS TUF Gaming A17. The laptop is powered by AMD's Ryzen 7 5800H CPU which is an 8 core and 16 thread chip with a base clock of 3.00 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. The CPU features 16 MB of L3 cache and 4 MB of L2 cache. The TDP for the chip is 35-45W. While there's an onboard Vega 8 CU graphics chip, the laptop will primarily be using the RTX 3060 discrete GPU to power the visuals. With that said, Zen 3 will deliver a huge leap in single-core performance and also efficiency figures on the laptop segment. As for the specifications of the ASUS FA706QM-HX011T (TUF Gaming A17), we are looking at a 17.3" display which features a matte IPS panel sporting a full HD resolution. The screen comes with a 144 Hz refresh rate. The screen has a maximum brightness of 250nits. The laptop weighs in at 2.60 kg & will be shipping with a 90 WHr 4-cell Lithium-Ion battery which is standard for a product of this size. Other specifications include 8 GB DDR4-3200 memory which should be upgradable to 32 GB. There is a single 512 GB SSD operating on the PCIe 3.0 protocol and you can also get up to 1 TB capacity. As for discrete graphics support, the GeForce GN 20-E3 has been listed which Videocardz reports is the internal codename for NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card. The RTX 3060 is an upcoming mobility GPU that will be part of the NVIDIA RTX 30 Mobility lineup featuring the RTX 3080, 3070 & 3060. This also explains the 6 GB GDDR6 VRAM listed as graphics memory on specs. Some listed features of the laptop include: 43.94 cm (17.3 ") matte IPS Full HD display (1920 x 1080) AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor (3.0 / 4.3 GHz, 16 MB) NVIDIA GeForce GN20-E3 graphics card 8 GB DDR4 memory 512 GB SSD hard drive Wi-Fi (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.1 1x USB-C 3.2, 3x USB-A 3.2, 1x 3.5mm combo audio jack Windows 10 Home Aside from the primary specifications, you also get NVIDIA Optimus support on the ASUS A17 TUF Gaming laptop. Some I/O include Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.1, a couple of USB 3.2 ports, and a 3.5 mm audio jack. Expect this laptop to cost somewhere between $1500-$2000 US based on the last-gen TUF Gaming lineup featuring the Ryzen 7 4800H and RTX 2060 configurations.ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE With Intel Core i7-11370H (Tiger Lake-H) CPU The second ASUS notebook to leak out is the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE (GX551Q). As per the tech outlet, My Laptop Guide, the model recently passed through certification and this variant is based on Intel's next-generation Tiger Lake-H platform. While no specific SKU was mentioned, we know that ASUS usually makes use of top-end Intel chips for its top of the line gaming products & ROG Zephyrus 2021 should go with the Tiger Lake-H based Core i7 and Core i9 processors along with high-end GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. Some interesting specifications include up to 48 GB of RAM. The source specifically mentions this as RAM which mostly means system memory but they could also be combining both system DDR4 and graphics GDDR6 memory since the RTX 3080 mobility is expected to pack 16 GB GDDR6 VRAM and the rest of the 32 GB would be featured as DDR4 inside the laptop. Harukaze5719 also gave us an early look at the ROG Zephyrus (GX551Q) model and two additional ROG STRIX variants which include the ROG STRIX G713QY(C) and the ROG STRIX G533Q. The images come from the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards and still look early at this point. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo is a top-of-the-line notebook and as such, expected to be priced well above $2000 US and closer to $3000 US. The laptop will be available in various configurations with different display resolutions, refresh rates, CPUs, storage capacities, and graphics support. In addition to these models, ASUS is also preparing next-gen TUF Gaming laptops featuring Intel's 11th Gen Tiger Lake-H CPUs and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series discrete graphics. We looked at one particular notebook last week and you can read more on that over here. AMD is making grounds in the mobility segment with its strong Zen-based Ryzen U and Ryzen H notebook/laptop CPU portfolio and Intel will be facing some heated competition next year in the laptop segment.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin has been out for just over a month now, and to celebrate it's been bumped up to version 1.04. This comes with some fixes, adjustments and various other improvements. Once again we have a translation of the latest patch notes, courtesy of Nintendo Everything: Reduced the stagger after the player uses the Divine Raiment and it catches nothing. – Fixed an issue when with Fierce Furrow where it was sometimes difficult to land a hit depending on the frame rate and skill level. – Fixed a bug with healing when using Milky Way or Mirror of Purification when a certain Spirit Bough was in effect. – Minor adjustments to the camera at home. – Fixed an issue so the release conditions will no longer randomly update when moving items in and out of the Fertilizer Pit. – Fixed an issue so recipes that can no longer be made will now disappear when adding ingredients to the Fertilizer Pit. – It is now possible to obtain Nibancha (Summer) by adding fertilizer to tea. – Increased the spawn rate of Medicinal Base at Hidden Crimson Spring. – Fixed an issue so quest information will no longer display during events. – The player can now progress through the event that requires the Soul-Stealing Mask with the Soul-Stealing Mask+, as well. – Fixed other minor bugs. You can view the previous updates here and here. Have you updated to version 1.04 yet? Have you played this game yet? If not, why not check out our review. What do you think of the latest update? Tell us in the comments.

Contra

Hello @vC KoRinT Iif u want be on the part connect projects like ( vgr GOG DH and other project ) and make activity have a good day ❤️

Hello @Ghostly. i hope u will be good . I will ask to u some questions befor i will talk pro/ contra 1- What project you like the most in the forum and why. 2-When you become a Moderator of the forum what will you do first? . 3-Do you have enemies here? We know that everyone has friends and enemies, so does he have enmity with anyone here? . 4-What do you say about the forum at the moment (is anything needed to change it) and why? . 5-Can you give me a good idea for a forum . I hope u will reply fast Greetings to you.

Well , @Mr.Sebby u are old Administrator and u have good experience on forum .

i will vote for Dh2 . nice music ❤️

your are good person there and everyone Deserves a Chance , u have my full support .

Nickname : @-Loenex Tag your opponent : @The GodFather Music genre : arabic rap Number of votes ( max 10 ) : 10 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : @Meh Rez vM ! ♫

Dh2 is better then v1 ❤️

GitOps is a term which is gaining momentum recently. As an advanced model of DevOps, it scales up the system architecture and ensures transparency, efficiency and feasibility in the process. It leverages Git as the single source of truth, for creating a mechanism that control, create and delete the system architecture. By definition, GitOps is an inter-disciplinary code-based infrastructure that intertwines the Infrastructure as a code (IaC), and DevOps practices. It empowers the system developers to perform tasks that fall under the paradigm of IT operations. A paper titled, “GitOps On AWS: Increase Velocity of your DevOps team”, by Amazon Web Services, states that GitOps helps DevOps teams to be more productive and autonomous by enabling continuous deployment through the tools they work in every day. GitOps puts Git at the centre of the DevOps toolchain and as the source of truth to analyze what should be deployed on the system infrastructure cluster. The research paper cites four principles, through which GitOps works effectively. It states that the entire system infrastructure gets described in Git. Once the system is described, all the changes, operations and applications get transitioned to Git as a single version of the truth. The changes are automatically applied using cloud-native tools. Additionally, the Software agents continuously monitor the Git repo to meet any changes or divergences from inside the cluster. While creating a DevOps framework, developers are often unable to understand the Ops part. As a result, the full potential and benefit of DevOps is not realised by the team. The paper states that by utilizing the GitOps in the infrastructure deployment, monitoring and managing Kubernetes, the DevOps can increase their overall output by 2-3 times, with advanced security and compliance regulations. As Kubernetes manage containerized workloads and automation by facilitating both declarative configurations and automation, leveraging GitOps becomes important to increase the overall output and productivity. The paper cites that by using GitOps, the DevOps team can roll back or revert any catastrophic event. The team can also build an audit log for cluster changes, and establish an end-to-end continuous integration and continuous everything principle, driven by pull requests and fully reproducible through Git. The DevOps team can also embed security by leveraging Git’s correctness and strong cryptography, for tracking and managing changes across the entire cluster. Moreover, GitOps uses declarative specification to describe every process of the whole system, which is a transparent process and anyone can view the entire audit trail process, the time stamp, changes made and the committer information. This implies that the application can be audited using the software development and delivery. The concept of GitOps is fairly nascent established in the year 2017 but have significantly deployed by organizations such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google and IBM for efficient DevOps procedure.

You’ve put all the components of your rig together with help from our best gaming PC build guide, you’ve installed your OS, and you’re ready to start playing – but there’s a few steps you’ll want to go through before you jump into your favourite game. Here’s our guide on PC optimisation, with a few steps you’ll want to go through for the best PC experience, helping you boost fps in games, and generally make your rig that much snappier. This might be the least exciting part of the build, but it’s essential in getting the most out of the expensive components you’ve lovingly built into your brand new gaming PC. But don’t worry, it won’t take long to get you up and gaming. New PCs don’t stay running smoothly forever, and they’ll slow down over time without a bit of maintenance. On the other side of the same coin, you might be looking to improve the performance of your PC that’s getting on a bit. Whichever camp you’re in, following these steps should bring a lease of life to your older gaming PC too. Let’s start with something easy. 1. UPDATE YOUR GRAPHICS CARD DRIVERS Updating your graphics card driver is one of the simplest ways to take full advantage of the best graphics cards and boost fps. They are released regularly, bringing new features, performance updates, and optimisations for the latest games. Whether you have an AMD or Nvidia graphics card, all you’ll need to do is head over to their sites to download Radeon Adrenalin or GeForce Experience respectively. There’s even a possibility you’ll already have this installed, which you can check in the Windows tray if you’re running Microsoft’s OS. Once installed, you’ll be able to auto-detect when the latest driver for your graphics card is released, replacing the old one. 2. OPTIMISE YOUR SETTINGS IN GAME If you’ve tried all possible optimisation and you’re still not getting the frames you want, you’ll want to look at reducing the graphical settings in your games to boost fps. Some particularly demanding general settings in games include Render Distance and Texture Quality. Lowering the screen resolution is an option as well – go for resolution scaling if the game has that as an option, letting you run games at a lower resolution, while keeping the HUD and menus at their native resolutions, which can look pretty unsightly if not kept at native resolution. If you’ve got an SSD and HDD combo, you’ll always want Windows installed on the SSD, then any other games that benefit from the increased speeds of solid state if there’s any room – special mention to Cyberpunk 2077, which recommend an SSD for the intended experience.3. DEFRAGMENT YOUR HARD DRIVE We’d always recommend running the best SSD for gaming if you want your games to run speedy, but if you’re still running things from a mechanical hard drive, then you will need to defragment it whenever possible. If you are solely using a high capacity SSD though, defragmentation isn’t necessary – data spread across different sectors of a solid state drive doesn’t slow down access speeds because there’s no physical drive head, like in a hard disk drive. As data is added and removed on a conventional hard drive, the empty spaces on the disc become separated. If a new file is then added, it’s data may be fragmented over multiple sectors of the drive, increasing movement of the disk head, lowering access speeds which leads to longer loading times in games, or when loading any file in general on your PC. Defragmentation should be done once a month, ideally – it moves all the pieces of your system files into one sector, and groups together all the empty space on the drive. This reduces the distance that the disk head has to travel to open a file as it’s all in one place, speeding up access time. It’s really simple on Windows 10 – simply type ‘defrag’ and press enter on the start menu, select the drive you want to defrag, then click optimize. You can set Windows to automatically carry out defragmentation, too4. CHECK YOUR BACKGROUND APPLICATIONS AND STARTUP PROCESSES You’ll want to shut any unnecessary background applications before running games, especially if you have a limited amount of RAM. Web browsers like Chrome and Firefox use a surprisingly large amount – if you have a dozen tabs open, you could be looking at over 2GB of RAM used. You might want to consider increasing the RAM capacity in your PC if you’re really struggling.Also have a look at what applications are opening when you startup which can hinder boot times – Press ‘Ctrl+Shift+Esc’ to enter task manager, navigate to the ‘Startup’ tab and disable any programs you don’t want opening when you boot your PC. Task manager will also show you how much of your RAM you’re using at any given time.5. OVERCLOCK YOUR RAM Alongside watching out for how much memory capacity you’re using, you should also check the speed of your RAM. As you might’ve guessed, the bigger the megahertz, the faster your memory will run, but it’s not as simple as buying 3,200MHz DDR4 sticks and just slotting them in. In order to account for different motherboards, RAM often defaults to a lower speed, such as 2,133MHz, requiring you to overclock it to its intended speed. If your motherboard can support faster RAM, then you can set up your memory profiles in the BIOS, which you can access when booting up your gaming PC by tapping one of the Fn or Delete keys – it should tell you what key to hit for your system. Once exclaiming you’re in, much like a hacker in a 90s movie, navigate to the overclocking tab in your BIOS and enable ‘XMP’ to match the MHz to what your RAM supports. While you’re in the BIOS, you may as well get your fan speeds set up, too, as keeping things cool does allow your components to work harder and your games to run smoother. Many BIOSes have performance/quiet mode fan curve profiles, with the former keeping temperatures low and preventing throttling at the expense of the louder whirr of each fan. Or, if you’re looking to overclock your CPU, you could go ahead and manually set your CPU fan higher. 6. PERFORM A BIOS UPDATE Speaking of the BIOS, when should you consider updating it? This is one of those things where ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Updating your BIOS for no reason isn’t going to net you any performance, and if during a BIOS update your power was to go out, there’s always the risk your motherboard could be bricked – so only update if you’re experiencing documented bugs, or to enable support of new hardware – like AMD adding Zen 3 CPU support on 400 series motherboards. Although interfaces can differ per motherboard, it’s a pretty similar procedure across the board. BIOS USB flash utilities, which allow you to update without even a CPU or keyboard/mouse plugged in, used to be reserved only the highest-end motherboards, but most motherboards in recent years support this now – still, it doesn’t take the risk out of a BIOS update, but it’s perfect if you need to update your BIOS to support newer processors and don’t have a compatible spare lying around. If you need to, it’s a pretty simple process – go to your motherboard manufacturer’s website, find your motherboard then download the latest update onto an empty USB drive. You’ll then want to start up your PC and go into the BIOS, look for available devices, select the USB drive with the update, then let it do its job. Sometimes, no amount of optimisation is going to let you run the latest titles well. It’s important to make sure you’re meeting the minimum system requirements and upgrading components if you’re lacking in any department. If you don’t want to sink the money into a CPU upgrade, however, you can just learn how to overclock your CPU and GPU to squeeze some extra performance out of your gaming PC – although this works better when your processor is paired with the best CPU cooler. But hopefully, once you’ve gone through all the steps above, you should have a well tuned gaming PC sat in front of you, ready to go and play the latest titles on Steam, Uplay, GOG, Origin, or whichever platform you prefer. Just don’t forget to bag yourself the best gaming monitor with a high refresh rate so you can see the increase in frames. The only thing that’s left to say is good luck, have fun! Get involved in the conversation by heading over to our Facebook and Instagram pages. To stay up to date with the latest PC gaming guides, news, and reviews, follow PCGamesN on Twitter and Steam News Hub. We sometimes include relevant affiliate links in articles from which we earn a small commission. For more information, click here.

Doom Eternal is now on Xbox Game Pass for PC, but it’s not the only game coming to the home computer version of Microsoft’s subscription service this month. Game Pass is loaded with excellent offerings in December, from day one launches for gorgeous-looking indie titles to massive additions from major publishers. In addition to the titles announced a few weeks ago, Microsoft lifted the veil on a bunch of new additions at The Game Awards. Though a host of further Yakuza games is coming to Game Pass for PC, we sadly won’t be playing those until next year. We will be playing Morkdredd, a cooperative physics-driven puzzle game focused on light and shadow, which just launched on December 10, and has joined both console and PC Game Pass on the day of release. (While you may have seen Skyrim is coming to the subscription on December 15, that’s only on console – so sorry, if you somehow don’t own a PC version yet.) Among Us is by far the biggest game in the new Game Pass announcement, and if you haven’t yet joined the millions already playing, you’ll soon have no excuse. The social deduction game will be available through Game Pass PC starting on December 17. December 17 is the big day for a lot of titles. We’re getting narrative-driven horror game The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, racing game MotoGP 20, and acclaimed puzzle game Wilmot’s Warehouse. We’ve already gotten a big chunk of games in December, including the long-awaited addition of Doom Eternal. There’s Haven, a brand-new, gorgeous-looking indie take on JRPGs. December has also brought us VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action and Yes, Your Grace to complete the hat trick of excellent indie games. If you’re looking for something massive, Game Pass now offers Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition, a new-and-improved version of one of the best RPG games in recent memory. There’s also Call of the Sea – the mysterious narrative adventure you might recall at the Xbox Series X gameplay debut earlier this year – as well as Chucklefish’s Starbound. Then we’ve got Unto the End, which the devs describe as a “cinematic platformer” – think Limbo, but with more sword fighting. If you were distracted by the Cyberpunk 2077 release date, there were also two notable additions on December 10: GreedFall, and Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair – the latter of which is, incidentally, one of the finest 2D platformer games this side of Donkey Kong Country 2. Those are the standalone games, but there’s one more big addition to Game Pass this month: EA Play. As of December 15, you’ll get access to a giant library of EA titles as part of your subscription, including games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. This benefit does not include the Pro tier of EA Play, which gets you access to new EA games on the day of their release – that’s still exclusive to Origin on PC. Of course, Game Pass taketh away as much as it giveth. On December 15, we’ll lose access to Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Infinifactory, Metro: Last Light Redux, MudRunner, Pathologic 2, The Turing Test, and Ticket to Ride. Then, on December 30, the service will drop Farming Simulator 17 and Football Manager 2020. Get involved in the conversation by heading over to our Facebook and Instagram pages. To stay up to date with the latest PC gaming guides, news, and reviews, follow PCGamesN on Twitter and Steam News Hub. We sometimes include relevant affiliate links in articles from which we earn a small commission. For more information, click here.

Luca Pininfarina, nipote di Sergio e figlio di Andrea, ha due società per la coltivazione di nocciole, bambù e canapa Gli Anni 50 e 60 sono stati il periodo di massimo splendore dei carrozzieri italiani, tanto è vero che realtà come Bertone, Ghia, Pininfarina, Touring e Zagato si sono conquistate un posto nella storia dell’auto. Da allora però il mercato è cambiato radicalmente e poche di queste realtà sono ancora attive. Le nuove generazioni di queste celebri famiglie hanno iniziato a guardare al di là dell’automobile, cercando di affermarsi in altri settori, come il caso di Luca Pininfarina, nipote di Sergio e figlio di Andrea, scomparso tragicamente nel 2008, che ha fondato l’azienda agricola PininAgri.MERCATO IN CRESCITA— Commenta per primo Con la PininAgri, basata a Moncalieri, nell’hinterland torinese, Luca Pininfarina, che ha seguito gli studi in scienze agrarie, si occupa della coltivazione di nocciole e bambù. Tuttavia, insieme a tre soci, ha avviato da quasi tre anni un’attività parallela, la Fact (abbreviazione di Fattoria Agricola Cannabinoidi Torino), specializzata in un settore molto promettente: la coltivazione della canapa e la sua trasformazione in prodotti derivati, fra cui oli, burri e creme con estratti di cannabinoidi in quantità legale (il Thc, il principio attivo, deve essere inferiore allo 0,6%). Con il Thc sotto tale quantità, i prodotti a base di cannabinoidi hanno effetti analgesici, ansiolitici, antinfiammatori e antidepressiviSTRADE DIVERSE— Il fratello maggiore di Luca, Sergio, è rimasto invece nel mondo dell’auto e ha fondato la Tuc.Technology, azienda che ha creato un pianale modulare per auto elettriche: grazie ai connettori nel pavimento, permette di spostare i sedili, rimuoverli e variare la configurazione interna; in modo da allestire l’abitacolo nel modo più economico e veloce rispetto ad un pianale tradizionale.

There has been an increase in stress and anxiety among people since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, says a new study. The study surveyed over 10,000 Indians to understand how they have been coping with the new normal. Conducted by Delhi-based The Center of Healing (TCOH), a preventive healthcare platform, the study noted that stress and anxiety levels have been on the rise with 74 per cent and 88 per cent Indians suffering from stress and anxiety respectively. Data showed that 68.6 per cent therapists reported an increase in the number of people they see and in the hours they spend taking therapy, and 55 per cent therapists said the number of first-time therapy seekers has risen since the outbreak of Covid-19. “Everyone’s mental health is getting impacted during lockdown but we wanted to specifically focus on whether stress and anxiety had increased and whether people who were no longer in therapy were experiencing relapses,” said Gurpreet Singh, founder – TCOH. Ever since the pandemic hit India over nine months back, followed by an unprecedented lockdown, mental health experts have pointed out how stress and anxiety are on the rise. According to the study, 57 per cent respondents were suffering from mild stress, 11 per cent were feeling moderately stress, four per cent were facing moderately severe symptoms of stress and two per cent reported severe stress. “The past months have been unexpected. The situation has taken a major toll on the mental health of citizens. With the series of lockdowns, anxiety, job cuts, health scares, and the overall volatile environment, stress levels are at an all-time high,” said Swati Sahney, co-founder – TCOH.

Douglas County’s health department and the local COVID-19 Unified Command team released a new epidemiological dashboard Friday to provide more data about virus cases within the community. The dashboard is on the health department’s website, ldchealth.org, and will be updated each weekday. While the county has provided daily updates with some virus statistics, the dashboard will provide information that the county hasn’t shared before, such as the county’s COVID-19 incidence rate, the percent positivity rate by city and the percentage of emergency department visits where patients reported COVID-19-like symptoms. The incidence rate shows how many people per 100,000 county residents tested positive in the past 14 days, and the positivity rate shows the percentage of tests done over the past 14 days that came back positive. According to the dashboard, Douglas County currently has a COVID-19 incidence rate of 567.39 per 100,000 people. The dashboard also shows that Eudora is the city with the highest positivity rate — in the past 14 days, 7.9% of virus tests in Eudora came back positive. In Baldwin City, the positivity rate was 7%; in Lawrence it was 6.1%; and in Lecompton it was 5.8%. The dashboard also features some specific demographic information that will be updated once a week, including case breakdowns by age, sex, race and ZIP code. “We are excited this dashboard is ready as another tool to communicate with our community and give them information about how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all of us,” said Sonia Jordan, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health’s director of informatics. “It gives an opportunity to present more data and provide context, particularly about how COVID-19 is affecting our community members by race and ethnicity. These perspectives will be important, particularly as all work together to address health disparities that COVID-19 will exacerbate.” The dashboard also includes information that has appeared in the county’s daily COVID-19 updates before, such as the 14-day moving average of new cases, Douglas County’s cumulative case count and the numbers of new cases, active cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Douglas County reported 5,512 cases of COVID-19 as of Friday, an increase of 50 cases since Thursday. In Douglas County, 4,457 out of the 5,512 cases are inactive or beyond the infectious period, according to Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, meaning 1,055 cases are active. The county has averaged about 48 new cases per day over the last 14 days, according to a 14-day moving average graph updated weekdays by the health department. The current average of 48.36 new cases per day is down from a recent high of 74 cases per day in mid-November and up from a recent low of 17 cases per day in mid-October. Twenty-four patients at Lawrence’s hospital had COVID-19 on Friday, one more than Thursday. Of those 24 inpatients, 16 have active COVID-19 cases and eight are recovering. Twenty-nine Douglas County residents have died of the virus. To sign up to receive the new dashboard updates each weekday, go to bit.ly/37RKBuJ. Two new cases at Lawrence Presbyterian Manor Two employees at Lawrence Presbyterian Manor have tested positive for COVID-19, according to a news release from the assisted living facility. Lawrence Presbyterian Manor has been doing surveillance testing biweekly, and the two positive cases were detected in testing done on Monday and Wednesday. One of the employees is an essential health care worker who last worked on Nov. 29, the release said; the other employee does not work in a direct care role and had not worked since Nov. 23. Both employees were screened before their shifts and wore personal protective equipment while working. Next week, the assisted living facility will move from biweekly to weekly surveillance testing because of the county’s positivity rate.