_Happy boy

Geosynthetics manufacturer NAUE is offering free software for the design of base course thicknesses. The improved SecuCalc package allows online calculation of base course thickness on a PC or mobile device. The user only has to input a one-time registration, without additional software installation. October 16, 2020 The system can be used with NAUE’s Secugrid and Combigrid geogrid products. There is no need to install the package on the user’s computer as the NAUE SecuCalc software is web-based (except the Giroud-Han version). After registration, all software functions can be carried out directly on the SecuCalc website using a computer, tablet or smartphone. Using NAUE’s SecuCalc Software, the firm says that a customer can design the required thicknesses for reinforced base courses in road construction as well as for parking lots or similar applications. The calculation allows a direct cost comparison between the firm’s Secugrid and Combigrid stabilised and reinforced base courses and conventional construction methods without geosynthetics.

After one of the strangest run-ups to launch in smartphone history, the Microsoft Surface Duo is here. Microsoft's first-ever Android phone (sorry, we're not counting the Nokia X) was announced and demoed an entire year before its release, hinting at what a long and winding road the Surface Duo took from inception to shipping. The hardware apparently dates back to plans to revitalize Windows for phones, but after that plan fell through, the hardware was upcycled into the most head-scratching Android phone of the year. The Surface Duo sales pitch is that foldable display technology isn't ready yet, so try this best-we-can-do-right-now version that features two rigid, 5.6-inch OLED displays attached together with a 360 hinge. Microsoft is calling this a "productivity" device thanks to it having the side-by-side app capability of a tablet-style foldable smartphone without any of the janky display technology. Microsoft's website also says the Duo was designed to "inspire people to rethink how they want to use the device in their pocket," indicating that the company definitely sees this as a primary device. I bring up Microsoft's sales pitch because, boy, is the Surface Duo bad at doing the things Microsoft says it's supposed to be good at. The phone feels like it was made without any respect to ergonomics, hand size, pocket-size, or anything that makes a good Android phone. It has crippling productivity problems that negate any benefit you could get from the two-screen design, it's extremely awkward in day-to-day use, and it's very buggy. The phone is missing a whole host of features you would expect for the stratospheric $1400 asking price, and even the hardware that is here seems like it's a least a year old. The Surface Duo feels like a phone that was slapped together without a plan, and the reports of the phone's history indicate that's what actually happened. We would like to gently welcome Microsoft to the Android ecosystem, but we are not grading $1400 smartphones on a curve. Microsoft needed to knock this out of the park. Instead, the company turned in a borderline incompetent smartphone that I really had to force myself to use during the review period. The word that most comes to mind when describing the Surface Duo is "flat." The body of the phone is not perfectly flat, but it's uninterrupted sheets of glass on the front and back of both halves. There's no camera bump, no curved sides, just four sheets of glass. When closed up, the outside of the phone also gives off a minimalist look with no lights, cameras, or wordmarks, just a single, reflective Windows logo Microsoft logo. The Surface Duo almost doesn't look like it's an electronic device. You could easily make a Moleskine notebook that looks just like a Surface Duo. In fact, I'd bet a Moleskine is where a Microsoft got the dimensions for the Surface Duo. The "Pocket" version of the little notebook is 140mm x 90mm, while a Surface Duo is 145.2mm × 93.3mm when closed Crack open the Duo and you'll find a series of strange decisions. First there's the two 60Hz 5.6-inch displays with a 4:3 aspect ratio, so they are way wider and way shorter than most other Android displays. Next you'll find some comically huge bezels on the top and bottom of the phone, which really ruins the "digital Moleskine" vibe the device gives off from the outside. It's not really clear why the bezels are so large. We certainly have the technology to make them much, much thinner, and as we'll get into later, the short, fat 4:3 displays would greatly benefit from the extra height. I'll guess that this is one of the Surface Duo's many concessions to thinness. Pretty much all the phone bits on the right half of the device. On the bottom edge of the right half, you'll see the USB-C port, on the right edge there's the sim tray, a volume rocker, power button, and an ultra-skinny side-mounted fingerprint reader. The right half handles phone call duty, with an earpiece in the top bezel and a microphone slot on the bottom. The internals mirror this layout, too: all the phone chips are in the right half of the phone, while the left half is almost all battery. The only thing on the left side besides another screen is the phone's only media speaker, which exits via a slot in the top of the display glass. With a mono speaker, no headphone jack, and a wonky 4:3 display, the Surface Duo is not exactly a media machine. You'll find the only camera hardware in the right side's top bezel: an LED flash sits next to a terrible 12MP sensor with a very cheap looking pinhole lens. The 360 hinge allows this to double as both the selfie camera and the main camera, which is clever. But in a device as thin as the Surface Duo, the camera never had a shot at being good. Most phones need additional thickness to squeeze in a quality camera sensor (the camera bump), and today most smartphone camera sensors are thicker than the entire 4.8mm body of the Surface Duo. There is not a market for camera sensors that fit into this thin of a profile, so Microsoft probably really had to dig through the industry parts bin and settle for anything that would fit. We know Microsoft kicked around a few ideas to try to fix this. One early Surface Duo prototype has a camera bump on the rear of one half of the device, with a divot on the other half so the phone can still fold flat. The company also has a patent for a camera lens that would fit into a thin profile and then grow taller when it was in use, like an old-school point-and-shoot. In the end, we got no camera bumps and no fancy camera tech, just a thin, smooth device and a compromised camera. The Surface Duo hinge feels exactly like a laptop hinge. It's stiff enough to stay wherever you put it but still easy to move around. Like a laptop hinge, there is continuous resistance throughout the entire movement with really no assist at all, so you won't be flipping the phone open or closed, and you'll always need two hands to open the phone. The hinge folds all the way around, so you can turn your dual-screen phone into a single screen by folding one display all the way back. It's easy to switch sides in this mode, too—just double tap on the display you want to light up. You can do whatever you want with the hinge: hold the phone like a book, flatten the phone out against a table, prop it up like a tent, or turn it into a mini laptop. One amazing thing about the hinge mechanism is that there's no padding of any kind for when you close it, yet the closing process still feels safe, soft, and gentle. The Galaxy Fold and Moto Razr have either rubber feet or a big plastic bezel to protect the screen from being slammed closed. On the Surface Duo, there are no bumpers at all, so closing it means you are pressing one slab of glass against another. You might expect to hear a shattering noise after an enthusiastic close, but it feels like the hinge is doing some cushioning work, and you never feel like you have to be gentle closing the phone. Microsoft went all out to make the Surface Duo as thin as humanly possible. If you measure the Surface Duo when it's open, it qualifies as one of the thinnest smartphones of all time at just 4.8mm thick. You'd have to go back to the thinness craze of the mid-2010s to find anything as paper-thin as the Surface Duo—the 4.75mm thick Vivo X5Max, which I think still holds the title of "world's thinnest smartphone." (It even had a headphone jack!) The Surface Duo might be the world's second thinnest smartphone, or maybe even #1, since it doesn't have a camera bump like the Vivo X5Max. The internals of this phone are really incredible and show Microsoft pulled out all the stops to get as thin as possible. In a normal, modern smartphone, the goal is to reduce the motherboard area for a bigger battery, and manufacturers have started constructing motherboards like a multi-story house. Not only does a single board have chips on the top and bottom side, manufacturers have started stacking up multiple layers of circuit board. Something like an iPhone 11 has three planes of chips. The bottom has a single-sided board that can be pressed against the back of the case, then a double-sided board is stacked on top of that. The Surface Duo is the complete opposite: It has a massively large motherboard that is actually single sided. Every single chip is on one side of the board, and the backside is flat, reducing the height as much as possible. While the push for thinness in the mid-2010s was a pointless gimmick, for foldables, thinness is a major factor for portability. This thing has to go in your pocket, after all. Folding in half means it grows to double the thickness. However, Microsoft's obsession with thinness means the phone is still only a svelte 9.9 mm when it's folded up, which is still only on the high-end of normal smartphone thickness. Staying in the realm of smartphone thickness is a nice improvement over the brick-like form factor of some other foldables. The Galaxy Z Fold 2, which made no concessions for thinness, is 16.8mm when it's folded up—that's basically two normal smartphones stacked on top of each other. Microsoft did not quite think out how the thinness of the device would clash with its material choices, though. The sides of the device are plastic, and while it looks and feels fine, thin plastic isn't very strong. Everything is fine until you get to the USB-C port, which, since the port is almost as thick as the entire phone, has only the tiniest sliver of plastic surrounding it. It's alarming how much you can move the plastic just by pushing it with your finger. There are already reports of the plastic around the USB-C port cracking and breaking off, and I have no doubt I could snap it with my finger. Half a millimeter of plastic (I measured) isn't sturdy enough for anything, let alone a high-stress point like the USB-C port. Did I mention yet that there's no wireless charging? One odd thing about the Surface Duo is that it kind of feels like you could pick it apart with your fingernail. The plastic sides don't wrap around the inner or outer glass at all, leaving the sides of the glass panels exposed. There's actually a gap between both panes of glass and the plastic edges, and you can easily stick a piece of paper in there, or even a fingernail. It's an odd way to make a phone, where normally the glass would be recessed into whatever material the sides were made out of, and any gaps would be impenetrable. If Microsoft had wrapped the plastic edges up around the glass, like normal, the area around the easily-broken USB-C port would be about twice as thick, while the overall phone wouldn't have been any thicker, which seems like a good idea! Obviously, after this description, the phone is in no way water-resistant. In addition to missing wireless charging and water resistance, the Surface Duo also doesn't have NFC, which is a big omission for a $1400 device. There's also only a 60Hz display, when most other phones in this price range will offer 90 or 120Hz displays, offering a much smoother interface.

King of King .I will give you 24 hours to create your account and comment on your report .

Brendan Sweeney didn’t know anything about the restaurant business before he and his co-founders launched the Atlanta-based startup Popmenu. What Sweeney did know was that it was nuts that while every other business was using incredible graphics, curated text, carefully crafted images and fancy videos to make their pitch to customers restaurants were — posting a text-based menu. “It’s just crazy that restaurants present their inventory, which is their whole story, their whole selling proposition in plain text,” Sweeney said. Popmenu, he company he co-founded with three former colleagues from software businesses around the Atlanta area (and which has closed on $17 million in new financing) offers a solution. What the company’s software aims to do is keep customers on restaurant’s own online real estate by incorporating third party reviews, images, recommendations, and better descriptions into the webpages that it hosts for the culinary creators that use its service. “If you had all that information on a restaurant website it would probably reduce the need to bounce out so much,” Sweeney said. Popmenu does more than just prettify webpages for the savory savants whose coding skills may not match their craft in the kitchen. The software also helps with social media management, emailing and, yes, even the all-important delivery services that have become vital in the time of a still-spreading pandemic. It’s the pandemic that juiced the company’s growth, Sweeney said. “We saw ten years of trends in the first ten weeks of COVID-19,” he said. “A lot of people were unprepared for it.” Sweeney and his co-founders Mike Gullo, Anthony Roy, and Justis Blasco had all worked together at either CareerBuilder or Commissions Inc. It was the experience at Commissions that actually gave Sweeney and his colleagues the idea to start Popmenu. Popmenu co-founders Brendan Sweeney, Mike Gullo, Justis Blasco, and Anthony Roy. Image Credit: Popmenu Where Commissions was about designing tools to help local real estate agents and brokers take some power back from the large online platforms that were eating their lunch, Popmenu is bringing the same tools for small businesses to restaurateurs. “I got this playbook for helping small business with SAAS. [And we’re] helping restaurants take control back from Yelp and TripAdvisor,” said Sweeney. Other companies around the country, like ChowNow out of Los Angeles, are trying to do something similar. But while ChowNow is focused on online ordering, Popmenu started with marketing and… well… making menus “pop”. The company is going to use the new cash it raised to add services like on-premises contactless transactions and from there could have a connection from the front-of-the-house to the back-of-the-house operations and ordering and fulfillment services. Existing investors like Base10 Partners and Felicis Ventures returned to finance the company’s Series B along with new lead investor Bedrock Capital. Popmenu has also received some celebrity financing in the form of a commitment from Mantis VC, the newly launched investment firm from the wildly po[CENSORED]r Chainsmokers band. Apparently, they wanted something just like this, according to Milan Koch of Mantis VC. “When Alex, Drew and I met the Popmenu team, it was obvious to us right away how much they really cared about restaurateurs,” Koch said in a statement. “Having close ties with owners and hospitality groups worldwide and knowing the unique challenges they face, we got excited about how Popmenu’s product could help impact their businesses in so many different ways.” Popmenu sells its software for a monthly fee starting at $269 per-location. “So many industries have experienced radically accelerated trends through the COVID crisis, probably none more so than the restaurant industry,” said Sweeney, in a statement. “They’ve embraced technology as key to weathering these challenging times. We are fired up to give them even more help attracting guests and reducing costs and complexity on the road to recovery.”

End-of-year deals may be particularly important in 2020. To this end, Dell has released details on its Black Friday and Cyber Monday events today (October 15, 2020). Those links go live from October 19 and November 29 respectively. These pages contain deals on various XPS, Vostro and Precision products that are often only available for set times on certain "doorbuster" days. For example, the latest touch-enabled version of the XPS 13 will be US$1,249 (a saving of $150) between October 19 at 8:00 EST and 07:59 on October 25, and then again from November 2 at 8:00 EST until December 6 at 07:59. The XPS 15, on the other hand, will be $200 off its normal $999 on November 26 from 16:00 EST only. Those looking for a decent new monitor may be more interested in deals such as 55% off the Dell 27 (D2721H) on on November 19 from 11:00 EST. Alternatively, the S2721HSX, a 27-inch monitor more recommended for small businesses will be discounted by 39% (to $169.99) on November 5 from 11:00 EST. Dell is also offering 50% off the Vostro 15 5501 and 15 7500 laptops on November 27 and 30 respectively. Finally, the Precision 3551 mobile workstation will also be on sale for $1,039 (45% off) on November 23 only.

The days of Google Play Music are numbered, and Google is expected to pull the service any day now. In the meantime, the company wants everybody to move to YouTube Music, its subscription-based alternative that also comes with support for Android Auto. But as far as drivers are concerned, using YouTube Music behind the wheel is a huge pain in the neck, not only because it lacks the feature parity with Google Play Music, but also because essential functionality isn’t there. The good news is that earlier this year Google promised to resolve all these drawbacks, explaining that while it does plan to further refine YouTube Music, it only needs a bit more time to do it. And it looks like the search company has finally started focusing more on the Android Auto side of YouTube Music, as it has recently released a new feature for drivers. It’s a queue option that shows up when playing a song on YouTube Music both on Android Auto and when streaming music to the car’s speakers via Bluetooth. An official announcement in this regard isn’t available, and as it turns out, the new feature isn’t powered by a new software update. Instead, what enables it in the car is a server-side switch, and users in this reddit thread explain that the queue button showed up earlier this week in their cars. At the same time, the new queue option also shows up on Android Auto for phones, so even if you don’t run the app on a larger screen, the queue is still there, and this shows that Google wants to offer feature consistency regardless of the platform that you are using. For the time being, the transition from Google Play Music to YouTube Music is still under way, so hopefully, Google would manage to resolve other shortcomings in its subscription-based service before it pulls the plug on its old media platform.

GUANGZHOU, China, Oct. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The 128th China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair), also its second virtual showcase, kicks off on October 15. 26,000 exhibitors from 50 exhibition sections have brought more than 2.358 million products across 16 categories to the 10-day event, of which 691,500 products are making their debuts. Xu Bing, Spokesperson of the Canton Fair and Deputy Director General of China Foreign Trade Centre, said that against the backdrop of massive changes in economic development and pandemic control both domestically and internationally, Canton Fair will play its role as an open platform for businesses to access international markets and to facilitate the stability of foreign trade supply and industrial chain. Register at https://fbuyer.cantonfair.org.cn/en/account/new-buyer/register for more opportunities. This year's Canton Fair digital platform includes 60,000 booths showcasing cutting-edge products and future living scenarios enabled by innovative ideas and technologies. This e-platform also features exhibits, business match-making, virtual exhibition halls, live streams, news & events, services, cross-border e-commerce zone, to enable 24-hour visits and business negotiation. The Fair will introduce 120 live streams from over 100 leading Chinese companies, presenting the latest quality products that are the result of their constant commitment to innovation targeting to create a brighter future for all. In the kitchen appliance exhibition section, built-in, multi-functional household and kitchen appliances have adopted cutting-edge technologies to provide consumers with a friendly kitchen experience. At the same time, premium new products such as furniture, ceramics and carpets feature upgrades in functionality, materials, craftsmanship and style. These products can create a more comfortable, customizable and smarter lifestyle for global consumers. Sustainable development is another highlight of this year's Canton Fair. Companies in the textile exhibition section have applied advanced technology to use environmental-friendly recycled raw materials in their new fashion products, displaying their commitment to environmental protection.To help business find trading partners and target products without having to leave their home, Canton Fair will utilize its digital platform to connect suppliers and buyers with supporting services that cover product design and trade supporting, financial, logistics, inspection, certification and customs. By working together with its partners, Canton Fair will help global businesses do business just at their fingertips amid the current economic challenges.

AMSTERDAM — A 25-year-old Amsterdam man who allegedly shot a .380 caliber handgun at a group of people was arrested Tuesday and is facing two felonies. Ismael R. Cortez, also known as “Problems,” 25, was arrested by the Amsterdam Police Department on an active warrant out of Amsterdam City Court on charges of first-degree reckless endangerment, a class C felony, and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a class D felony. Police said that on Aug. 10, around 7:30 p.m., police responded to Slater Street near Hibbard Street for a report of shots fired. When police arrived on the scene, neither the alleged shooter or any victims could be found, but they were able to recover evidence that showed a .038 caliber handgun had been fired. Members of the Amsterdam Police Detective Bureau responded to the scene and began an investigation. Detectives collected physical evidence, interviewed several individuals and obtained video surveillance from the area, according to a news release. Police said the investigation revealed that Cortez had fired at least one round from the handgun toward a group of people he had an argument with earlier in the evening before getting into a vehicle and leaving the area. Unable to locate Cortez, the police obtained an arrest warrant signed by Amsterdam City Court Judge Lisa Lorman charging him with the two felonies. On Tuesday, Cortez was located on Grand Street and taken into custody without incident. Cortez was processed and held for arraignment.

Accepted Wait few mins will done

wow . i like V2 for brush + text

Fallout 4: Nuka-World (PC, PlayStation 4 [reviewed], Xbox One) Developer: Bethesda Game Studios Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Released: August 30, 2016 MSRP: $19.99 standalone / included in the $49.99 season pass We’ve mused before at Destructoid that Fallout 4 has had one of the worst season passes worth of DLC in recent memory. With a lineup of filler Workshop DLC that mostly focused on the settlement aspect of the game, and the ambitious but ultimately disappointing Far Harbor, the final scheduled piece of Fallout 4 DLC, Nuka-World has a lot resting on its shoulders. Bethesda’s last chance to right the ship and get things back on course. Nuka-World is a road trip. A sightseeing tour to the far flung reaches of Massachusetts where you’ll meet new (terrible) people, see some hokey attractions, and pick up some novelty tchotchkes and trinkets. Like all road trips, it starts fun, but eventually you wind up exhausted, worn out, and feeling like you probably paid more for admission than you should have. Nuka-World might look like a fun place to hang out with all the cartoon mascots and cheery jingles on loop, but it quickly becomes apparent this is no vacation spot. As soon as you exit from the tram that takes you from the Commonwealth to the park, you’re jumped into the experience through a gauntlet of traps, monsters, and ambushes designed to test your mettle. The park is occupied by three rival Raider gangs tenuously held together under a shaky truce. Because this is a video game, you come in, kill their leader, and are immediately crowned the new Raider King (or Overboss if you prefer). Because this is a Fallout video game, being the Overboss somehow translates into being the errand boy for each of the three rival gang’s leaders who will endlessly test you to prove you’re fit to lead by, well, following their orders exactly. You’re chaperoned through the experience by a new Raider companion character, Gage. Gage is quickly established as a Starscream-like perpetual schemer who sets up other people to take the heat of being a figurehead while mani[CENSORED]ting things behind the scenes. Sadly, he never quite pulls a Kingslayer moment and his arc kind of peters out. It feels like a missed opportunity to try something different than the typical companion relationship. Still he’s fun to have tagging along if only to hear him run down the other Raider bosses and lame theme park attractions. Playing Nuka-World, I could really feel Bethesda swinging for the fences with this one, a real attempt to deliver something grand and new before closing the book on Fallout 4. Nuka-World introduces a massive new area, tons of new weapons, clothing, aid items, and characters to muck around with. No one can say they didn’t put the work in on this one. At the same time though, while there is a ton of stuff to mess with, lots of it feels superfluous or even padded out. Nuka-World is a sprawling park made up of six separate theme areas like a discount Disneyland. Each of those areas features custom made assets, new art, and unique monsters which is a refreshing change if you’ve spent hundreds of hours wandering around the Wastes noticing the same three shack walls used everywhere you go. But while large and new, Nuka-World still manages to wear out its welcome with repeated fetch quests that have you walk from one end of the park to another, or have you pop into and out of a building (or worse, take a quick trip back to the Commonwealth) just to kill or talk to one guy (it can really go either way when you’re acting like a Raider). Expect to stare at a lot of loading screens while establishing yourself as a tyrant of the Wastes. How much enjoyment you get from Nuka-World will depend on how much you enjoy shooting things in Fallout 4. Personally, I met my limit fairly quickly. While the shooting in Fallout 4 is leagues beyond what was present in Fallout 3 and New Vegas, it never felt particularly engaging to me. Functional sure, but not exceptional. I was never clamoring for a series of massive areas filled with dozens upon dozens of enemies to mow down in any case, but for better or worse that’s the majority of Nuka-World. Role-playing and plot take a backseat to shooting through robots, mutations, and monsters, so you can stomp over their corpses and literally plant a flag in the dirt. There is approximately ten hours worth of content in Nuka-World - and I spent nearly all of it holding down the trigger. To its credit, the DLC introduces a number of fresh and interesting faces to plunge bullets into. Mutated crocodile Deathclaws, robotic mascots run amok, and Ghouls wearing neon clown make-up like a bunch of zombified club kids are just a few of the new threats that will incessantly chase you to the ends of the earth. There are some wonderful-terrible surprises and truly imaginative beasties in store for players who explore each and every inch of the park. On the downside, much like Fallout 3’s Broken Steel DLC, Nuka-World’s enemies tend towards the unfair and the ridiculous. My character was lv 60 when I started the new content, with maxed out weapon perks, an arsenal of ridiculously upgraded machine guns, and a suit of top-of-the-line X-01 power armor - I haven’t had to sweat any of the Wasteland’s typical threats in a long time. Still, I frequently found myself in intractable battles of attrition in Nuka-World, slugging away at enemies with a patently ludicrous amount of health. These encounters were so frequent I eventually stopped caring about ducking behind cover and using V.A.T.S, opting instead to just trade hits and jam stimpaks into my thigh every few seconds while wading through the mountain of meat that is Nuka-World. I’m sure it’s difficult to design encounters that legitimately challenge long-term characters that have amassed a ton of legendary gear and prestige perks. Still, it’s disappointing that after nearly a decade of making these games (more if you count the Elder Scrolls series) Bethesda still has no better answer for to it than to just crank up the dials on HP and damage. More interesting are the new raiding mechanics that allow the player to storm the Commonwealth and subjugate the masses. Settlements can now be sacked or enslaved so your gang members can live the high-life of sitting around in impractical clothes and listening to the radio without having to dig for crops themselves. Through a slightly clunky dialog menu, you can select which settlement you want to attack and how you want to go about it. You can try to intimidate settlers off their land, bribe them to give it up, or just roll in like Kull the Conqueror and split some heads open. I’ll give you a hint, one of these options is much more entertaining than the others. The ability to raid settlements is interesting, but also casts a strange tone on the proceedings. This is particularly the case if you’re doing this content with a late-game character that has basically established and nurtured all of these settlements like I did. The Lone Survivor takes shockingly little convincing to just turn around and lay waste to everything he or she has built, and with the exception of Preston Garvey (who will chew you out for being an asshole), few other characters seem to notice or care when you turn into a psychopath overnight. It feels flimsy and thin. I can easily see this as Bethesda trying to respond to criticism of the base game, that there were not enough opportunities to play a “bad” or “ruthless” character. But it feels like too much, too late. A ham-fisted attempt at offering a badguy experience with the least nuance and style possible. Other Fallout games let you play an insidious villain, someone who would seem like a decent person before sinking a knife in their friend’s back. Nuka-World just lets you snuff people en masse the same way you might kill everybody in Sanctuary out of boredom before reloading from an earlier save. Even if you made a new character specifically to play with this content, it doesn’t open up until you reach a lofty level 30, meaning you would have to spend a real chunk of time playing around as a normal run-of-the-mill Lone Survivor before making your heel turn. Disappointingly, there is no real alternative to playing this content as anything but a badguy. You can of course choose to kill all the Raider bosses (and likely most of the random Raiders po[CENSORED]ting the park once the shooting starts) and that will end the other questlines and “liberate” the park. But outside of a free-for-all bloodbath, there is no way to say tip the Minutemen or Brotherhood of Steel to the GIANT RAIDER HAVEN perched out front of their stoop. Even Far Harbor had options to dime out the Synths of Arcadia and clean house if that was your preferred flavor, it would have been nice to have a quest option that at least acknowledged the player’s affiliation with the Minutemen or other good Commonwealth factions. The issues with tone don’t end there. While Fallout 4 has always tended closer towards the “wacky wasteland” end of the Fallout aesthetic than previous games, there is some shit in Nuka-World that is just flat-out dumb. A lot of winking at the camera and comical accounts of pre-war American dystopia that grow wearisome as the quests drag on. Why would an amusement park be staffed with robots with plasma bomb launchers and a security system of laser turrets? Cause it’s waaaaacky, yuk-yuk. And not to be all Comic Book Guy about it, but seeing Institute designed lasers on pre-war mascot robots and Enclave-made power armor in a 200 year old display case betray a real lack of care towards the established continuity and canon of the Fallout world. Whether that kind of thing will irk you will depend on your personal taste, but it stuck out to my Fallout-nerdlinger eye (I imagine the guys over at No Mutants Allowed would be shitting themselves in rage). All the raiding and bloodshed culminates in an impressive final confrontation that tasks the player with storming a well fortified facility with a small posse of your fellow gang leaders. Looking at in in isolation, it’s kind of a cool moment. There are few other opportunities in Fallout 4 to participate in a battle of that kind of size and scope and I have to admit I actually felt like a badass Raider warlord as I charged up the hill with a pack of killers following my lead. But of course, even with an impressive veneer, Fallout 4 is still Fallout 4 and all that momentary gravitas eventually unraveled in a messy pile of bad AI scripting. Maybe setting a scenario where you can have up to four AI partners following you in a maze of catwalks and stairwells wasn’t the best idea. My pack of killers spent a disproportionate amount of time walking into walls and bumbling into each other instead of burning down the weak and insolent. During the chaos, Gage must have clipped one of the other Raider bosses tagging along because the two of them got into a passive-aggressive wandering gun fight mid-way through. With both of them being essential and therefore unkillable characters at that point, they basically took turns tripping each other with bullets, trailing behind me and taking shots at each other like a pair of squabbling kids. Like any frustrated parent, I tuned them out after a few minutes and just let them go at it. Every road trip goes like this, lots of anticipation and excitement that eventually gives way to exhaustion and bickering. If you two don’t knock it off, I’m gonna turn this raid around and we can just spend the night in the motel. Nuka-World is certainly a huge chunk of content. If you were starving for more Fallout 4, this piece of DLC will give you plenty to chew on. Personally though, this wasn’t the type of Fallout I was hungry for. I wanted a deep dish of role-playing and nuanced character interaction, a send off that captured what was great about previous DLC packs like Point Lookout and Old World Blues. What I got was a bullet-buffet, a trough of ammunition and guts I could have got from any other first-person shooter. Nuka-World is big and impressive and flashy, but just like any theme park, it’s all a facade. Peek behind the curtain and you can see the struts and wires that animate the mascots. In Nuka-World’s case, that’s a scaffolding made of bones and spent magazines. It’s up to you if that’s a park you feel like visiting System Requirements Here are the Fallout 4: Nuka-World System Requirements (Minimum) CPU: Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equivalent. OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required) VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent. FREE DISK SPACE: 30 GB.

CHARLOTTE — The Charlotte-based medtech company MedShift is revamping its existing MedBox technology, including updates to its optional E-commerce platform. “The recent updates applied to both MedBox and its optional E-commerce add-on will aid our customers in offering a more unique experience to patients, as well as assist in making product and treatment purchase and delivery more manageable,” said Brian Phillips, MedShift’s CEO, in a statement. MedBox is a practice-facing web application that makes sure that all products and treatments purchased through the platform are paid in full. Among the key upgrades: a new payment method offering, which allows users to have multiple cards on file. The e-commerce add-on also provides medical practices with a unique online store for patients to utilize. Founded in 2015, MedShift is focused on disrupting the aesthetic device market by offering “permanent placement, holistic subscription services for surgeons, physicians, and their business.” MedShift’s portfolio of services for practices includes a portfolio of 24 leading aesthetic medical devices from nine manufacturers, an aesthetic eCommerce and subscription platform, in-house communications and marketing services, and inbound lead generation. For manufacturers, MedShift also delivers a secure Internet of Things (IoT) platform consisting of both hardware and software assets allowing for real-time visibility, remote management, and big data modeling of entire medical device lineups.

Want to rip some threads like a real pro? You can step up to the undisputed king of the high end desktop PC market, the 64-core 128-thread Threadripper 3990X, for $3,699. That's a savings of $290 off the normal $3,990 MSRP. B&H has the 3990X listed for sale during the Prime Day season, but you'll have to be patient: While you can order the chip, you have to wait for supply to come in two to four weeks before the processor is shipped. However, knocking $290 off the price tag and the free shipping should help soothe the pain. In exchange, you get the world's most powerful desktop PC processor, but be aware that it really excels in heavily-threaded workloads that can expose the full potential of the 64 Zen 2 cores and 128 threads. The chip earned 4.5 out of 5 stars and an Editor's Choice award in our review, and as we noted, the 64-core 128-thread Threadripper 3990X is a highly-specialized processor that provides incredible performance in a narrow cross-section of workloads, but at a very attractive price point given its capabilities. To get a sense of the horsepower on offer - the Threadripper 3990X beat a dual-socket Xeon server with $18,000 worth of Intel compute power installed in several key workloads. You'll need to pair the chip with a high-capacity memory kit, capable watercooling, and a bulky power supply to extract the most performance. Still, those costs pale in comparison to a dual-socket server platform. You can also look to our Best Prime Day Deals page for solid discounts on the supporting hardware.

Mahindra and Mahindra has now added Apple CarPlay as well as Android Auto to its po[CENSORED]r Scorpio model. Only the S9 and S11 models get it. Mahindra hasn’t increased the prices of the Scorpio either and these are being considered as regular product updates. The Mahindra Scorpio BS6 range begins from Rs 12.42 lakh for the S5, Rs 14.48 lakh for the S7, S9 for Rs 15.11 lakh and the S11 for Rs 16.27 lakh, ex-showroom. From the BS4 version, the Scorpio has lost out on 4WD. There is only a manual version available as well. The engine is the 140hp/320Nm, 2.2-litre diesel unit that comes paired to the 6-speed transmission. Moreover, the Mahindra Scorpio is one of the last of its generation with the Tata Safari being recently put to rest. If you’re looking for a rugged SUV with various seating configurations and a powerful engine, the Scorpio should be on your shopping list. Auto on these variants The Mahindra Scorpio top variants get the new feature but without a corresponding hike in the price. Mahindra claims that this feature will provide a distraction-free driving experience. By:Express Drives Desk October 14, 2020 5:59 PM Mahindra and Mahindra has now added Apple CarPlay as well as Android Auto to its po[CENSORED]r Scorpio model. Only the S9 and S11 models get it. Mahindra hasn’t increased the prices of the Scorpio either and these are being considered as regular product updates. The Mahindra Scorpio BS6 range begins from Rs 12.42 lakh for the S5, Rs 14.48 lakh for the S7, S9 for Rs 15.11 lakh and the S11 for Rs 16.27 lakh, ex-showroom. From the BS4 version, the Scorpio has lost out on 4WD. There is only a manual version available as well. The engine is the 140hp/320Nm, 2.2-litre diesel unit that comes paired to the 6-speed transmission. Moreover, the Mahindra Scorpio is one of the last of its generation with the Tata Safari being recently put to rest. If you’re looking for a rugged SUV with various seating configurations and a powerful engine, the Scorpio should be on your shopping list. By adding Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Mahindra definitely has upped the game. It will put the Scorpio in contention with smaller but petrol-only SUVs like the Renault Duster and Maruti Suzuki S-Cross. The main aim is to enhance customer experience wherein their smartphone will be mirrored on the touchscreen infotainment system. This will allow customers to have a distraction-free driving experience. Most of the Mahindra cars now boast this feature. Except for the Mahindra Bolero, all other cars in the manufacturer’s portfolio have this. Mahindra recently launched the all-new Thar. The car proved to be an instant gathering many bookings and at the same time is impressive enough with petrol as well as diesel engines. It gives the customers much more choice now and can be used as a family car at a pinch. In fact, it will also be an upgrade for customers who had the older vehicle with themGet live Stock Prices from BSE, NSE, US Market and latest NAV, portfolio of Mutual Funds, calculate your tax by Income Tax Calculator, know market’s Top Gainers, Top Losers & Best Equity Funds. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

MensXP has announced the launch of the first edition of its week-long festival shopping extravaganza, the MensXP Newhood Shopping Festival starting on Wednesday (October 14, 2020). The festival is aimed at empowering the modern man to cut through the clutter of today’s overtly po[CENSORED]ted eCommerce landscape and find the most desired and unique products across fashion, grooming, gifting and other exciting categories in a seamless and curated experience. “In this week-long festival, MensXP will showcase a comprehensive range of stylish festive curations with its blockbuster evergreen products ranging from premium skincare and grooming products, barware, party starter kits, festive fashion, footwear and other premium yet affordable products for the modern men thoughtfully curated for their evolving needs,” MensXP said in a statement. The platform along with a suite of its own brands like MensXP MUD, MensXP Basics hosts a wide range of brands including Arata, Ayca, Son of a Noble, The UoMo Co, Fancy Pastels, Fighting Fame, Dmodot, SKO, Sevdah, Rare Planet, Microsoft, SockSoho, Jimmy’s Cocktails, Phy, Freecultr, Neeman’s, Marshall, Hoofs, Crust and Brandless among others. Speaking at the launch of the Newhood Shopping Festival, Angad Bhatia, founder & CEO, MensXP said, “Today Indian men care about what they wear and how they groom themselves more than ever before, and they are not stopping just there.” “They have also started caring about where the products they use come from – and want to wear and use products from brands that share their values. “This festive season, we have launched the Newhood Shopping Festival aimed at introducing a curated selection of premium yet affordable products that celebrate and advocate this new wave of progressive dynamism men are embracing,” Bhatia added. The MensXP Shop hosts more than 250 premium brands with over 20,000 carefully curated products from bespoke homegrown labels spanning Home Decor, Kitchenware, Wellness & WFH essentials and much more to help you master the new normal. “Within a year of its launch, MensXP Shop has emerged as the go-to destination for Indian men to discover content and products that help them navigate their social lives,” the company stated. MensXP.com is one of the largest Indian lifestyle websites for men, owned by Times Internet, a division of the Times Group.

i will vote to DH2 is best then DH1 good luck :v

Viska Continues To Shine, Montez Makes The News BOULDER--#NFLBuffs rookies Laviska Shenault Jr. and Steven Montez both made news last week, highlighting the Buffs in the NFL for Week 5 of the season. FEED VISKA Shenault Jr. is turning heads in the NFL in his rookie season. He joined Brandin Cooks as the only NFL receiver over the past 25 seasons to have 200 receiving yards and 50 rushing yards through his first five career games. On the season he has 23 receptions for 270 yards and a touchdown, leading all rookies in the AFC. Over the past two weeks, he has 12 receptions for 165 yards. PFF has ranked him the No. 2 rookie receiver in social media posts for the last two weeks. MONTEZ PUT IN NEWS CYCLE Not many rookie, practice squad QB's make the news, but Montez was put into the news cycle last week when incumbent Washington starter Dwayne Haskins was benched in favor of Kyle Allen on Wednesday last week. It was widely reported that Haskins wasn't taking any snaps in practice and Allen, Alex Smith, and Montez were all taking snaps ahead of him. Allen started the game but was injured and Smith came in to close out the game. MORE COVID-19 ISSUES COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the NFL in Week 5 with the New England Patriots and Tennessee Titans. Early in the week, the Denver at New England game was moved to Monday night and on Sunday, the NFL moved the game to Week 6. Phillip Lindsay is expected to play and will now have another week to get fully healthy. Tennessee's game with Buffalo was also moved to Tuesday night at 7 p.m. SEVEN BUFFS SEE ACTION In all, seven Buffs saw action in games in Week 5. Ken Crawley (New Orleans) has spent a majority of his two weeks in New Orleans on the practice squad, but he's spent both Sunday's on the active roster and football field. Crawley played in his second game of the season, seeing nine snaps on special teams for the Saints in their 30-27 win over the L.A. Chargers. Isaiah Oliver (Atlanta) started for the fifth time this season and had six tackles on defense with one tackle for loss, playing 54 snaps on defense and eight on special teams in the Falcons 23-16 loss to Carolina. Shenault (Jacksonville) started and had another solid game for Jacksonville, leading the team with seven receptions on eight targets for 79 yards. On the season he has 23 receptions for 270 yards and a touchdown, leading all rookies in the AFC. PFF has ranked him the No. 2 rookie receiver for the last two weeks and he's had 12 receptions for 165 yards in the last two weeks. Jimmy Smith (Baltimore) started for the second time this season and responded with one tackle, which was credited as a one-yard sack, tackle for loss, hit on the quarterback, and a third-down stop on the game's first drive. Smith got to No. 1 overall pick Joe Burrow for a loss of a yard on 3rd-and-5 on the first drive of the game, allowed the Ravens to hold Cincinnati to a three-and-out. Baltimore responded with a field goal to make it 3-0 early and went on to win, 27-3 to improve to 4-1. Davion Taylor (Philadelphia) saw action for the fifth straight week on special teams to open his career in the Eagles 38-29 loss to interstate rival Pittsburgh. Tedric Thompson (Kansas City) played on defense and special teams in the Cheifs' 40-32 loss to Las Vegas, seeing action on defense for two snaps and special teams for five. Ahkello Witherspoon (San Francisco) returned to playing action after two weeks on the inactive list and had three tackles against Miami, playing 41 snaps on defense and one on special teams. NOT IN ACTION IN WEEK 5 Inactive players for Week 5 included Arlington Hambright (Chicago) and Daniel Munyer (Tennessee). Five Buffs were on Week 5 practice squads with Delrick Abrams Jr. (Atlanta) returning to there this week. Others are Tony Brown (Washington), Steven Monez (Washington), Devin Ross (New England), and Juwann Winfree (Green Bay). Lindsay and the Broncos were forced into a Week 5 bye and Mason Crosby, David Bakhtiari, and the Packers had their regularly scheduled bye week. Chidobe Awuzie (Dallas) and Kabion Ento (Packers) are on the NFL's Injured Reserve list and Nate Solder (N.Y. Giants) and Josh Tupou (Cincinnati) opted out of the 2020 season. TRANSACTIONS Delrick Abrams Jr. returned to the Atlanta practice squad on Oct. 6 … Ken Crawley signed to the active roster on Oct. 11.

Xeodrifter (PC, 3DS [Reviewed]) Developer: Renegade Kid Publisher: Renegade Kid Released: December 11, 2014 MSRP: $9.99 A lot of the kids who grew up with Metroid, Super Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda are now older than than their creators were when those legendary Nintendo franchises were first released. Some of those kids are now videogame developers themselves. Jools Watsham of Renegade Kid is one example. He created Xeodrifter in five months, fueled by financial stress, time constraints, and a raw love of Super Metroid. You can read about his process here. Showing your Metroid DNA on your sleeve is a blessing and a curse. It instantly communicates to the relatively large Metroid fan base that your game was made for them. It also sets the bar incredibly high. Begging for a comparison to Super Metroid is a dangerous thing. As we saw with the reaction to Other M, a disappointed Metroid fan can be an intensely spiteful force. My guess is Xeodrifter won't inspire that kind of caustic reaction in the Metroid faithful. If it were an official Metroid game, it would rank near or above many of the other games in the franchise. As long as you go into it expecting something short and sweet, it's hard to imagine that Metroid fans will be disappointed. Feeling trapped on a strange alien world, forced to push forward despite your fear of the unknown. Being rewarded for your bravery and ingenuity with new abilities that allow you to traverse obstacles and overcome challenges that would have been impossible before. The mixture of intimidation and fascination that you feel every time you enter a strange new environment. These are the things that define the Metroid series for me. They are also the core design principals of of Xeodrifter. In case you hadn't picked up on it yet, the game is inspired by the Metroid series. Seriously guys, it really is. In some ways, it pushes those themes farther than 2D Metroid games have gone before. From the outset, you can explore four different worlds, traveling between them in your broken-down little spaceship. You'll quickly find that you can't get very far in all of them though. Discovering through trial and error which planets to explore after obtaining what upgrade defines the general flow of the game. The flow may be similar to Metroid, but the details are largely different. The first upgrade you obtain allows you to turn into a little submarine and explore the briny, alien depths. That's something Samus has never done, though it is similar in spirit to the morph ball that she acquires first in many of her 2D titles. Right off the bat, you're given a power-up that inexplicably allows you to transform into something that people generally can't transform into. It's a nice way to set the tone for the rest of the game, establishing that anything is possible in this world of interplanetary exploration. Some of the power-ups you get later on are a little more similar to those found in the Metroid franchise, though you use them in different ways, often times in tandem. There is a super-run power-up, but instead of using it to destroy blocks and clear rapidly closing doorways, you use it to run across deadly space lava. There is a super jump too, but you don't need to run in order to charge it, and as such it's a little more practical and user friendly The ability to jump in and out of the background from Mutant Mudds is here too, and it feels a lot more useful this time around. Assuming there is an inhabitable backdrop to jump into, you can use the ability at any time, making it the most effective method to avoid incoming attacks, though you'll have to deal with the disorientation of suddenly appearing in the distance in the process. This ability is most useful in boss fights, which follow the Metroid 2 rule of pitting you against the same recurring enemy who gains more attacks and HP with each encounter. These boss fights are also where you acquire your power-ups, adding to the sense of climax each time you discover one. There are very few health pickups and checkpoints in Xeodrifter, which can lead you to feeling desperate and scared quickly. Thankfully, the game has a fine display of "gore-shadowing" that allows you to grab health and soft-save your game before every boss fight. These fights get pretty complex, layered with different patterns, leading you to feel both attached to and daunted by your old foe. While I'd love to see a wider variety of boss encounters in a new Xeodrifter title, I'll always have a soft spot for the giant alien baby crab thing that killed me so many times in this outing. The weapon power-up system in Xeodrifter works as another upgrade/tribute to past Samus adventures. Remember how in Super Metroid you could turn on and off weapons and upgrades after you acquired them? It was a cool idea, but was poorly balanced. One you got a power-up, it was never a good idea to turn it off, unless you just wanted to show off your amazing solo-Spazer skills to family and friends. Xeodrifter takes the option to turn weapons off and on and makes it worth something. Instead of acquiring new guns, you gain upgrade units that you can apply to any of five bullet properties, allowing you to mix and match. For instance, put two units on the wave beam-style upgrade and three on your bigger damage option, and you end up with a beam that's a little wavy that does medium damage. Put all five units on bigger damage, and you have a tougher bullet with no waviness to speak of. Balancing bigger damage with wider range seems to be the best way to go, though I imagine speed runners may find a way to make other combinations more effective . There are still secrets for me to find in Xeodrifter, as I haven't found all the health and bullet upgrades yet. They tend to be found through intangible walls and floors that are strewn about at random, so it will likely just take a bit of hunting before I get them all. Chances are I won't bother, but I'll definitely play through Xeodrifter again in the future, after I've forgotten most of the details about it so that the experience will be fresh in my mind again. Like the Metroid titles that inspired it, the music, graphics, and world/enemy design are more than worth revisiting a few times a year. This may be Renegade Kid's best game yet, despite its relatively short length. I hope this isn't the last time we'll be invited to adventure with this mysterious new space explorer. Were they secretly a girl the whole time? Hopefully we'll find out next mission. PS: Windows XP + Processor: 1.8 Ghz. Memory: 512 MB RAM. Graphics: 3D Graphics Card. DirectX: Version 9.0. Storage: 200 MB available space.

Tue, October 13, 2020, 3:21 PM GMT+3·3 mins read The "Software Testing Services Market in ANZ 2020-2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The software testing services market in ANZ is poised to grow by USD 569.74 million during 2020-2024 progressing at a CAGR of 12% during the forecast period. The reports on software testing services market in ANZ provides a holistic analysis, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis covering around 25 vendors. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current Australia market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The market is driven by the need for cost reduction and faster time-to-market and rise in test automation services. The software testing services market in ANZ market analysis includes product segment, end-user segment and geographical landscapes. This study identifies the increased adoption of SaaS-based solutions as one of the prime reasons driving the software testing services market in ANZ growth during the next few years. The report presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters. Companies Mentioned Accenture Plc Atos SE Capgemini Services SAS Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. DXC Technology Co. HCL Technologies Ltd. Infosys Ltd. International Business Machines Corp. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. Wipro Ltd. The software testing services market in ANZ covers the following areas: Software testing services market in ANZ sizing Software testing services market in ANZ forecast Software testing services market in ANZ industry analysis Key Topics Covered: 1. Executive Summary Market Overview 2. Market Landscape Market ecosystem Value chain analysis 3. Market Sizing Market definition Market segment analysis Market size 2019 Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 - 2024 4. Five Forces Analysis Fiver forces summary Bargaining power of buyers Bargaining power of suppliers Threat of new entrants Threat of substitutes Threat of rivalry Market condition

After a ten-month lull in flights following the previous test of Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard launch system, the company conducted a launch and landing of the fully reusable booster and capsule duo. Following weather-related and technical issues during a window late in September, the flight took place from the company’s West Texas facility — near Van Horn, Texas — on Tuesday morning at just after 8:35 AM CDT / 13:35 UTC. This mission, also known as NS-13, saw 12 commercial payloads launched to the edge of space and back, including a NASA-developed sensor suite that could enable future lunar landing craft to perform safe and precise touchdowns on the surface of the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis exploration program. As in the name, the NS-13 mission was the 13th test flight of the New Shepard launch system, and the first such flight of 2020. New Shepard is the first in a line of vehicles that Blue Origin will potentially operate. The booster and capsule were built to serve the suborbital space tourism market, which will allow paying customers to experience a few minutes of flight time in microgravity before safely returning to the surface of Earth. It also serves as a science platform, enabling cheap, safe suborbital science access to space. The New Shepard test program is meant to ensure the reliability and safety of the system, with multiple flights having been conducted on the three New Shepard vehicles that have flown thus far. The first flight of New Shepard took place in April 2015, with a successful launch to an altitude of 307,000 feet (93.5 kilometers) — just below the Kármán line, the internationally-recognized boundary where space begins — and a safe return of the capsule, or Crew Module, to the surface. However, the first New Shepard booster, which is powered by a Blue Origin-produced BE-3 engine and designed to be reusable, was not recovered after a loss of pressure occurred within the vehicle’s hydraulic system.In November 2015, the second test flight took place seven months after the first, with the second New Shepard booster lofting its Crew Module to a height of 329,839 feet (100.5 kilometers) before touching down in the West Texas desert via a retropropulsive landing. This marked the first time that a rocket successfully landed itself under retropropulsion after launching something into space — suborbital or orbital — specifically for recovery and reuse.That particular booster (New Shepard 2 or NS2) would be reused and reflown another four times, finally culminating in a successful demonstration of the Crew Module’s abort system and the unexpected survival and landing of the booster during an in-flight abort test in October 2016.New Shepard 2 was then retired, and a new rocket and Crew Module (which has been christened Crew Module 2.0) were built in order to closely resemble the spacecraft that will launch human passengers. The booster and capsule have successfully flown six times since their first flight, NS-7, in December 2017, with numerous commercial and government payloads flying onboard each mission. Thursday’s mission went into the books as the 7th flight of the New Shepard 3 vehicle – a new reusability record for the Kent, Washington-based aerospace company. New Shepard’s payloads are usually secured inside the Crew Module, where they are subjected to both the stresses of launch and approximately two minutes of microgravity before their return through the atmosphere and down to the surface of Earth. This hardware is fundamental to the development of the agency’s Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) technology suite, which aims to allow robotic and crewed missions to land precisely on the surface of the Moon, as well as other worlds. The components of SPLICE flying on NS-13 consist of a terrain relative navigation sensor subsystem, a navigation Doppler LIDAR, and a high-speed descent and landing computer. All three of these elements will control the New Shepard booster’s descent portion of flight on Thursday morning. Another SPLICE sensor subsystem – a hazard detection LIDAR – will not fly on NS-13 but will instead see a trip to space and back during another suborbital mission. NASA designed the elements of SPLICE to work together or independently, meaning one of all of these subsystems can be integrated into a spacecraft, depending on the destination and mission requirements. The flight path of New Shepard, more specifically its booster, is relevant to/mimics certain aspects of a lunar landing, thereby providing a unique opportunity for NASA to adequately demonstrate the performance of the SPLICE suite during flight conditions. Sensors and algorithms can also be matured for potential use on Artemis Moon exploration missions, such as Artemis III – the mission that will feature the program’s first crewed landing on the lunar surface. The NS-13 mission was the first of two flights to test these lunar landing technologies to help increase confidence and reduce risk for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and other destinations. Eight other NASA-procured payloads will fly on Thursday’s mission, as part of the agency’s Flight Opportunities program, and will be stowed inside the New Shepard Crew Module. These include a hydroponic chamber that will enable the growth of edible aquatic plants in space (LilyPond by Space Lab Technologies), an environment monitoring suite (provided by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory), a biological imaging system (provided by the University of Florida), and many more. Also onboard the New Shepard Crew Module were tens of thousands of postcards from Club for the Future, a nonprofit organization developed by Blue Origin to help inspire young students around the world to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and to visualize the future of life in space. During the webcast, Blue Origin also revealed that new Thermal Protection System technology for their upcoming orbital rocket, New Glenn, was also tested on the NS-13 mission of New Shepard. Following the safe return of the Crew Module, all payloads will be removed for inspection and data collection. The NS-13 mission is expected to be one of the last uncrewed flights of New Shepard before Blue Origin allows paying customers to fly, with the first crewed launch on the New Shepard 4 (NS4) vehicle likely taking place no earlier than 2021. While Blue Origin has not begun selling tickets these first crewed flights, the company is set to charge in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for these initial tickets, per several unconfirmed media reports in recent years. Nevertheless, Blue Origin has not released any information on ticket prices, and the last update from the company indicated that tickets would go on sale last year (2019) with passenger flights beginning shortly thereafter. In the meantime, Blue Origin has also been developing its portion of the “National Team” Human Landing System, alsoIn the meantime, Blue Origin has also been developing its portion of the “National Team” Human Landing System, also known as the Integrated Lander Vehicle (ILV). The National Team – comprised of Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper Labs – is currently in competition with fellow aerospace entities Dynetics (who is developing the Dynetics Human Landing System, or DHLS) and SpaceX (who have submitted a version of their Starship vehicle that is catered to lunar missions) to construct a functional lander for use on future trips to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program. Blue Origin is the National Team prime contractor, lead program manager, and developer of the ILV’s Descent Element. Lockheed Martin is responsible for work on the Ascent Element, while Northrop Grumman is developing the lander’s Transfer Element (a vehicle that delivers the landing system into low lunar orbit before the final descent). Draper Labs leads descent guidance and will provide flight avionics for the ILV. So far, the National Team has announced the delivery of a full-size engineering mockup of their lander to NASA’s Johnson Space Center for operations testing and design verification, as well as the completion of a critical System Requirements Review that marks the baselines for mission, vehicle, and ground segment requirements. The completion of these milestones has allowed the National Team to drive onward with the development of the vehicle they hope will land the return people on the surface of the Moon — specifically the lunar south pole — as part of the Artemis III mission that is tentatively scheduled to launch no earlier than 2024. Blue Origin has also moved forward with the construction of their next launch site at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, which will play host to flights of the company’s New Glenn, reusable, orbital rocket.

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An Oakland driver was drunk when he crashed his car into a utility pole, sending his female passenger to the hospital, authorities said. Tyler Pratt, 29, was driving a 2019 Hyundai Elantra that slammed into the pole on Ramapo Valley Road just south of the Oakland Diner on Sunday, Lt. Christian Eldridge said. His passenger, also 29, was taken to Chilton Medical Center in Pompton Plains with a leg injury, he said. Detective Sgt. Mark Piercy arrested Pratt, assisted by Eldridge and Officer Michael DiDonato. Pratt was charged with assault by auto, DWI and refusing to submit to a breath test before being released under John's Law pending a court hearing. Click here to sign up for Daily Voice's free daily emails and news alerts.

. A healthy lifestyle is the No. 1 preventative measure for women who want to decrease their risk for breast cancer, according to Kalisha Hill, MD, MBA, FCAP, who is Chief Medical Officer, Medical Director, Pathology and Laboratory Services at AMITA Health St. Mary’s Hospital Kankakee and Governor of the College of American Pathologists. Even women in higher risk categories can lower their own risk for breast cancer by eating healthier and exercising, Dr. Hill said. “Limit animal products,” she said. “That’s adding hormones to your body. Consider a higher intake of vegetables. Increase your intake of healthy carbs, such as of fresh fruits and vegetables.”Obesity is linked to breast cancer risk, depending on a woman’s menopausal status. Before menopause, obese women have a lower risk of developing breast cancer than do women of a healthy weight. However, after menopause, obese women have one-and-a-half times the risk of women at a healthy weight. “A normal BMI is very important,” Dr. Hill explained. “And that is achieved by balanced diet and exercise.” As women age, exercise such as running can be more difficult with knee or joint pain. However, swimming, Pilates and yoga can provide the same benefit without the pounding. “Even taking long walks. A brisk walk with minimal impact on your joints will help,” she said. Women also should stop smoking and avoid secondhand smoke. Researchers theorize smoking might equally increase and decrease risk because smoking acts against the production of estrogen, a hormone that plays a leading role in breast cancer. “It’s never too late to start,” Dr. Hill explained. “Even if you’ve already been diagnosed, adjusting your diet and exercise will increase your ability to fight cancer and make you more responsive to treatment. It can also help prevent a recurrence of your tumor or development of a second primary tumor.” Women should perform self-examinations at least once per month, as you might feel lesions mammograms don’t pick up. Using a circular motion, working your way from the outside of the breast is the most effective method of self-examination, along with squeezing the nipple to check for abnormal discharge. Breast pain, lumps, redness, changes in skin texture or swelling should be communicated to your doctor. Regularly scheduled screenings are important, Dr. Hill said, including mammograms and breast ultrasounds. African American women and women who have a history of breast cancer might want to start mammograms at age 35; otherwise, 40 is a good age to begin regular checks. Specifically, women age 40 to 54 should screen every year, and those 55 and older do yearly or biennial mammograms. In addition to traditional mammography, AMITA Health St. Mary’s Hospital is the first in the region to offer scanning using automated breast ultrasound technology. This new screening is FDA-approved for breast cancer screening and used in addition to mammography for women with dense breast tissue. Multiple studies have found dense breast tissue puts women at additional risk — more than six times likely to develop breast cancer — as dense tissue makes cancer more difficult to detect using only mammography. As breast density increases, the accuracy of mammograms decreases, so often doctors will order both mammograms and ultrasounds for early detection. Don’t delay your annual mammogram or other screenings because of concerns about the pandemic. “Come to the hospital to get your screenings,” Dr. Hill urged. “Protections are in place to limit any risk of COVID-19. Screenings are important.” While there is no guaranteed way of preventing breast cancer, you can reduce your risk with a healthy lifestyle and regular breast exams and screenings to ensure early detection and treatment.