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Slither.io[a] is a massively multiplayer video game available for iOS, Android, and web browsers, developed by Steve Howse. Players control an avatar resembling a worm, which consumes multicolored pellets, both from other players and ones that naturally spawn on the map in the game, to grow in size. The objective of the game is to grow the longest worm in the server. Slither.io is similar in concept to the po[CENSORED]r 2015 web game Agar.io and is reminiscent of the classic arcade game Snake. The game grew in po[CENSORED]rity following its promotion among several prominent YouTube users such as PewDiePie, and topped the App Store shortly after its release. Slither.io's browser version was ranked by Alexa as one of the 1,000 most visited sites by July 2016, while the iOS version ranked first in the most downloaded apps on the App Store. A mobile version of the game for Android was released on March 27, 2016. The reception of the game was positive, with reviewers praising its appearance and customization but criticizing it for its low replay value and the high price users must pay to remove advertisements. The objective of the game is to control a worm around a wide area and eat pellets, defeating and consuming other players to gain mass to grow the largest and longest in the game.[1] Once the player starts the game and is spawned into the virtual world, their avatar cannot stop moving forward. If the player's worm's head collides into a part of another worm, the player will die. The defeated avatar's body turns into bright, shining pellets for other players to consume.[1][2] As much pellets as it takes for the equivalent amount of mass as the worm had exactly before its death will be transmuted. These pellets that remain from "death" of an avatar will correspond to the color of the avatar itself, and are both brighter and bigger than "normal" pellets, which spawn naturally throughout the world.[2] Normal pellets do not give as much mass as pellets dropped from other worms. "Chase" pellets will appear individually in various places of the world, and when eaten, give a greater amount of mass than pellets dropped by other worms. Chase pellets avoid worms and flee when they draw near. Chase pellets can be obtained by boosting. By pressing and holding the space bar or left/right mouse button (on mobile, double-tapping the touchscreen), the player can use their boost, which causes the avatar to speed up.[3] When the button (or, on mobile, the finger on the touchscreen) is released, the worm will stop using its boost. When a player uses their boost, the worm loses some mass, causing the worm's size to shrink slightly, with the mass that is lost from the boost appearing as a line of small pellets where the boost was used.[3] The mass lost can be regained by consuming the pellets. Similar to pellets dropped from defeated avatars, the boost pellets correspond to the color of the avatar. The boost feature is useful to outmaneuver and defeat opponents.[4] A common strategy that is used by players to defeat opponents is of the player's avatar coiling around the opponent's in a loop, until the opponent, trapped in the loop, crashes into the player.[5] There is a border that confines avatars within the circular game board. If a worm hits the border, the player automatically dies without turning into the aforementioned pellets.[5] As of now it is removed, in 2016, the player with the biggest worm at the end of the day was able to share a "victory message" with the world.[6] On each server, leaderboards are displayed at the top right, showing the top ten players with worms that have the most mass out of all the other worms in the entire server. There are 16 default skins, each one a different solid color along with multiple repeating patterns. The colors are randomly chosen when the player joins the server.[7] Players can choose to customize their worm's appearances using custom skins with unique designs including different countries' flags, as well as skins with motifs and colors representing well-known YouTubers, such as Jacksepticeye, Jelly and PewDiePie.[7] Or, the player may choose to create their own skin, with a tool known as "Build a Slither," which shows the different colors that an avatar can be made of, that can be placed on the worm upon clicking. Previously, in order to unlock custom skins in browser mode, players were forced to share the game on Twitter or Facebook using the external links found on the website. By June 2016, the ability to add skins was also added to the iOS and Android versions.[6]

Generally speaking, people living in 2018 are pretty fortunate when you compare modern times to the full scale of human history. Life expectancy hovers at around 72 years, and diseases like smallpox and diphtheria, which were widespread and deadly only a century ago, are preventable, curable, or altogether eradicated. But let’s journey back to a time when humans were not 7.7 billion strong, and a global catastrophe was about to warp Earth’s climate and decimate its po[CENSORED]tion. It was a period so grim that scientists are calling the year it started “the worst year to be alive.” No, we’re not talking about 1349, when the Black Death killed more than half of Europe’s po[CENSORED]tion. Nor are we talking about 1918, when an influenza outbreak wiped out tens of millions. The unluckiest year to be alive, according to Science Magazine, was much further back in history: AD 536. This year was during a period medieval historians call the Dark Ages, and it was in 536 that that name took on a literal meaning. An enormous volcanic eruption in Iceland launched massive amounts of ash into the sky. The ash would create a “mysterious fog,” blocking out the sun over several continents. And this fog would last for 18 months. And it wasn’t just the dark skies that made this eruption so catastrophic. Because of the obscured sunlight, temperatures plummeted—China experienced below-freezing weather in midsummer—and crops failed throughout Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. People starved to death on a massive scale. And the medieval world still couldn’t catch a break. In 541, the Bubonic Plague reared its ugly head for the first time, long before its better-known outbreak in the 12th century. Historians call this outbreak the Plague of Justinian, and it wiped out an estimated 33 to 50 percent of the Eastern Roman Empire. Modern scientists and historians have long known about this sudden bout of darkness, but the exact cause remained a mystery until recently. A Cambridge University study published in November 2018 theorized that a volcanic eruption triggered the widespread darkness. That knowledge allowed the authors of the study to come to a definitive conclusion: The year 536 was as bad as years come. “It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,” Michael McCormick, a Harvard University historian who co-authored the study, told Science. You may not be able to choose what year you’re born, but you can make your own luck by avoiding these household items that could bring bad luck.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida officials say thousands of mailed ballots were not counted because they were delivered too late to state election offices. The Department of State late last week informed a federal judge that 6,670 ballots were mailed ahead of the Nov. 6 election but were not counted because they were not received by Election Day. The tally prepared by state officials includes totals from 65 of Florida's 67 counties. The two counties yet to report their totals are Palm Beach, a Democratic stronghold in south Florida, and Polk in central Florida. Three statewide Florida races, including the contest for governor, went to state-mandated recounts because the margins were so close. In the battle for agriculture commissioner, Democrat Nikki Fried won her election by 6,753 votes. Republican Gov. Rick Scott ousted incumbent Democrat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson by slightly more than 10,000 votes. Under Florida law, ballots mailed inside the United States must reach election offices by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Overseas ballots are counted if they are received up to 10 days after the election. A group called VoteVets Action Fund along with two Democratic organizations filed a lawsuit a few days after the 2017 election that argued the ballots should count if they were mailed before Election Day. But U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said the restriction was reasonable and that Florida election officials have a right to establish deadlines. He turned down an emergency request that all properly postmarked ballots received up to 10 days after the election be counted. The lawsuit, however, is still pending and Walker asked that state election officials report how many ballots were mailed before Election Day but ultimately were not counted. Walker was the judge involved in a half-dozen lawsuits that were filed following the razor-thin elections in Florida. In a separate lawsuit filed last month, Walker gave voters extra time to fix their mail-in ballots if they were not counted because their signature on their ballot envelope did not match the one on file with local election officials. State officials testified in court that nearly 4,000 mailed-in ballots were set aside because local officials decided the signatures on did not match. The Department of State last week informed Walker that his ruling resulted in 637 votes being counted in the final totals.

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Red Alert is a real-time strategy video game of the Command & Conquer franchise, produced by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Interactive Entertainment in 1996. The second game to bear the Command & Conquer title, Red Alert is the prequel to the original Command & Conquer of 1995,[3][4][5][6] and takes place in the alternate early history of Command & Conquer when Allied Forces battle an aggressive Soviet Union for control over the European mainland. It was initially available for PC (MS-DOS and Windows 95 versions included in one package), and was subsequently ported to PlayStation. The PlayStation version was also re-released as a download on the PlayStation Network for PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3.[1] On August 31, 2008, Electronic Arts who acquired Westwood Studios in 1998 rendered Command & Conquer: Red Alert freeware.[7] In collaboration with Petroglyph Games, EA announced a remaster of this game along with the original Command & Conquer on 14th November 2018. Players can queue commands, create unit groups that can be selected by a number key, and control numerous units at a time. The game features two factions with differing styles of play.[8] Like Tiberian Dawn, the game has split routes for most missions. The objective stays the same but the map layout differs. The single player campaign is complemented by live action cinematic sequences. Red Alert requires each player to use their side's strengths in order to compensate for their weaknesses, in contrast to games such as Total Annihilation or Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, in which both sides have units with similar abilities and rely on outnumbering or possessing a better balanced force than their opponent. Players acquire credits to purchase structures and equipment by mining for ores and minerals (as Tiberium in the regular C&C series has not yet been discovered in this timeline). Rare gems generate more credits, but unlike ores, do not regenerate within the map. Players can gain more credits and increase their buying power by building more ore refineries and ore trucks. Game play

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A massive storm brought snow, sleet, and freezing rain across a wide swath of the South on Sunday — causing dangerously icy roads, immobilizing snowfalls and power losses to hundreds of thousands of people. Accidents on snow-covered interstates caused major delays, hundreds of flights were canceled and drivers in North Carolina and Virginia got stuck in snow or lost control on icy patches. Meanwhile, kids and the young at heart took advantage of the early winter snow with snowball fights, sledding and snowmen. Police in North Carolina and Virginia said they'd responded to hundreds of snow-related traffic accidents as of Sunday afternoon, as cars, trucks and tractor-trailers all struggled with the snow and ice. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper strongly urged residents to stay off the roads Sunday, asking drivers not to put lives of first responders needlessly at risk. Cooper said emergency crews, including the National Guard, worked overnight to clear traffic accidents on major roadways. "Stay put if you can," Cooper said. "Wrap a few presents, decorate the tree, watch some football." Five members of a dive team searched the Neuse River in Kinston, North Carolina, for a missing truck driver Sunday after a tractor-trailer ran off a road and into the river, WRAL-TV reported . Police just outside of Charlotte said a driver died when a tree fell on a moving vehicle. Governors and local officials in several states declared emergencies ahead of the storm crossing several Southern states, which hit portions of North Carolina and Virginia particularly hard. Virginia State Police said Interstate 81 in far southwest Virginia was particularly dangerous, with snow coming down faster Sunday afternoon than crews could clear it. Police said several tractor-trailers slid off the highway. Slideshow by photo services Officials warned residents to prepare emergency kits and stay off roads in impacted areas. Several schools districts in North Carolina and Virginia announced they'll be closed Monday. "Virginians should take all necessary precautions to ensure they are prepared for winter weather storm impacts," said Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. The National Weather Service said a "prolonged period of snow" began late Saturday and would last until Monday in the region, with the heaviest snow expected in northwest North Carolina and southern Virginia. Some areas of North Carolina and Virginia saw more than a foot (30 centimeters) of snow by Sunday afternoon. More than 300,000 power outages were reported across the region with the majority of those — about 240,000 — in North Carolina, according to poweroutage.us. Parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia also saw outages. Charlotte Douglas International Airport, the sixth busiest airport in the country, said American Airlines reduced its operations, with more than 1,000 flights canceled on Sunday. American Airlines also issued a travel alert for nine airports throughout the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia, meaning passengers may be able to change travel plans without a fee. Travelers were advised to check their flight status before heading to the airport. Cancellations were reported on flights from as far as the Midwest.

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chas smith general manager of Roku’s hardware business, plans to retire and is expected to leave the company at the end of the first quarter of 2019, Roku announced. The company said it has a search underway with an executive-placement firm to find a successor for the exec. Smith is senior VP and GM of Roku TVs and players, overseeing retail sales and partnerships for the company’s line of hardware products. Roku CEO Anthony Wood credited Smith with the idea for Roku’s smart TV business, leading the company’s efforts to be the top licensed smart-TV platform in the U.S. The lineup of Roku TVs includes models from brands including Best Buy’s Insignia, TCL, Sharp, Hisense, Philips, Sanyo, RCA, Hitachi and Magnavox. “Over the last several years, Chas has been instrumental in transforming our business. We all wish Chas a long, healthy and happy retirement as he enters this new chapter in his life,” Roku CEO Anthony Wood said in a statement. Smith, who is 58, joined Roku in March 2010 as VP of sales, leading online sales of the company’s media players. In August 2012, he assumed the role of GM of original equipment manufacturing to lead the Roku TV business. In December 2015 he was promoted to his current role. Prior to Roku, Smith headed his own consulting company, catering to companies in the digital media market on sales and marketing strategies. Before that, he worked at Avid Technology for 10 years, most recently as GM of its worldwide video division. Before joining Avid in 1996, he worked at Digidesign, a digital-audio technology company, where ran worldwide sales and marketing. Earlier in his career, Smith was a keyboard player for a Scottish rock band and was a music writer for radio and TV advertising jingles.

Speed up, clean, repair, and secure your PC Optimization you can actually feel Built precisely for maximum optimization. Compare with other optimization software and experience how our product makes your PC function much faster. Threats/Spyware Protection The moment you decide to browse the internet without any security, is the moment your PC will become infected with spyware and various other type of threats, but don't worry, we'll keep you safe from those as well. Turbo Mode gives you maximum performance Turbo Mode dramatically increases your PC's speed by temporarily suspending unnecessary services and processes. It's highly customizable. Choose from multiple designed themes or create your own! Easily choose your desired settings to desired color. Defrag your hard drives Reorganizes files in your PC's hard drives, so the files are systematized, which helps your PC achieve tasks quicker. Oh and don’t worry, we leave SSD (which doesn’t get fragmented) alone. Safe and Effective Registry Cleaning Unlike other aggressive registry cleaners which can cause more harm than good, our Registry Cleaner will only clean entries that are considered safe for removal. Plus we make a backup of everything we clean.Download

SAN FRANCISCO — Eight months after one of Uber’s self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian, the ride-hailing company is close to putting its autonomous vehicles back on the road in a drastically reduced version of earlier efforts. Uber was driving its autonomous vehicles on public roads in four cities — sometimes at night — at speeds as high as 55 miles an hour when testing was halted after the accident. Starting within a few weeks, it plans to run the vehicles on a mile loop between two company offices in Pittsburgh. They won’t operate at night or in wet weather, and they won’t exceed 25 m.p.h., Uber said Wednesday. But even as the company has lowered expectations, its autonomous car technology has faced considerable issues. The cars have reacted more slowly than human drivers and struggled to pass so-called track validation tests, the last step before returning to city streets, according to a dozen Uber documents and emails as well as interviews with seven current and former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk publicly about the company. At a recent staff meeting, Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive, acknowledged errors in Uber’s earlier driverless car efforts. “We did screw up,” he said in comments provided by Uber. The San Francisco company took its autonomous vehicles to Arizona in 2017, deploying more than 100 on roads around Phoenix. In March, a woman in Tempe was fatally struck at night by one that was going 39 m.p.h. along a 13-mile route. It was one of about 200 Uber self-driving cars being tested on roads in Arizona, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. Some test drivers had worried that Uber was too aggressive. They complained, for example, that a software update had led to erratic driving by the cars, including once when the vehicles started running red lights, two self-driving vehicle test drivers said. After the crash, Uber vowed to keep its autonomous cars off public roads until it could ensure they was safe. The company issued a 70-page safety report and added more rigorous testing on closed tracks and in simulations. But as recently as a few weeks ago, the company’s autonomous vehicle unit, Uber Advanced Technologies Group, or A.T.G., was still experiencing track testing “failures” on different versions of its software, according internal company emails. To match the reaction time of a human driver at 25 m.p.h., the cars needed to drive “20% slower than a human,” Brandon Basso, a director at A.T.G., said in a Nov. 1 email. Even at slower speeds, the cars were passing only 82 percent of track tests, according to company documents. A week later, Eric Meyhofer, who heads the unit, declared that Uber was going back to 25 m.p.h. The faster speed would prove that the cars were “unequivocally worthy of being back on the road,” he wrote in an email. Some engineers thought there was another reason: Mr. Meyhofer wanted to demonstrate progress to his boss, Mr. Khosrowshahi. And they worried that Uber was taking shortcuts to hit internal milestones, according to two current employees. An Uber spokeswoman, Sarah Abboud, said the company would not compromise safety to meet development goals. “As we have said many times before, our return is predicated on successfully passing our rigorous track tests and having our letter of authorization from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in hand,” Ms. Abboud said. While Uber’s cars have been off the streets, its competitors have pushed ahead with similar projects. Google’s autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, started a driverless ride-hailing service in Arizona on Wednesday. Another contender, Lyft, started a robotic ride-hailing service in Las Vegas this year with the manufacturer Aptiv. General Motors acquired the self-driving start-up Cruise in 2016, has since netted major investments from SoftBank and Honda, and has been testing the vehicles in San Francisco and other locations. Mr. Meyhofer was confident that Uber’s cars could resume street testing in the summer, and he instructed engineers to start planning a party to celebrate their return, according to five people familiar with the plan. But employees worried that a party would appear insensitive, and it was set aside. Some changes were easy. When the Uber self-driving car struck a pedestrian, its solo safety driver was watching a television show on her phone and didn’t hit the brakes until after the impact, according to findings from the National Transportation Safety Board and the local police. To prevent conflicts between Uber’s software and Volvo’s, Uber had also disabled an emergency braking feature that was standard in the Volvo sports utility vehicles the company used. Government guidelines for autonomous vehicle testing are, at best, piecemeal. But under rules the company set for itself, the testing vehicles would always have at least two people driving and monitoring their systems — a standard among its competitors — and the braking system would be turned on. “It’s kind of like the wild West,” said John P. Thomas, a research engineer specializing in autonomous vehicle safety at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Everyone is just doing what they think is best.” In July, Uber put its self-driving cars back on the road in Pittsburgh, but with human drivers. The resumption of autonomous testing on city streets would take longer. Uber laid off the majority of its vehicle operators in Pittsburgh and shut down an autonomous trucking unit to focus exclusively on cars. Still, Uber received an important vote of confidence in August with a $500 million investment from Toyota with a plan to install Uber’s self-driving system in a fleet of Toyota minivans. By late summer, Uber was planning for an Oct. 12 return date. But executives worried that testing on closed tracks had been “uncoordinated and slow” at a September software leadership retreat in Montana, according to internal documents. When the deadline passed, Mr. Khosrowshahi wrote a public blog post cautioning that Uber would not rush. “We are committed to anticipating and managing risks that may come with this type of testing, but we cannot — as no self-driving developer can — anticipate and eliminate every one,” he wrote. Uber pushed the return date to Nov. 28. But when a test in early November ran Uber’s vehicles through more than 70 categories at 25 m.p.h., they failed in 10 of them, including being slow to recognize another car that didn’t yield. In an email, Jon Thomason, who leads the software efforts at A.T.G., urged employees not to “panic,” because this wasn’t the latest version of the autonomous software. Ms. Abboud, the Uber spokeswoman, said that some of the failures involved “intermittent” braking, but that the company did not consider it a safety issue. A number of engineers on the team anticipated that they would miss another deadline, but Mr. Meyhofer sent an email on Nov. 27 declaring that, as of 6:30 p.m. that day, Uber’s autonomous system was ready for on-road testing. Uber still hadn’t received permission from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, but management was ready to declare victory. Ms. Abboud said that as of Wednesday, the company had not received a response from the state. “This is a huge win,” Mr. Meyhofer wrote. “We are nearly there! I can hardly wait to see us hit this milestone.”

Alien Shooter is an isometric top-down shooter video game developed and released by Sigma Team in 2003. It is the first title in the Alien Shooter series to be followed by Alien Shooter: Vengeance. Alien Shooter has two expansions, Fight for Life and The Experiment, each of which has five new levels and include the conclusion to the Alien Shooter story. Game play: The characters have 4 stats: Strength (), Accuracy (better accuracy and damage), Health and Speed. Players can start with a male character (stronger and has more health) or a female one (faster and more accurate). Alien Shooter is presented in top-down view (3/4 perspective). The game consists of 9 levels with increasing difficulties. The objective of each level is to kill all the aliens. To achieve this, player need to access all areas of the level (by reactivating power generators, destroying walls, disabling force fields, etc.) and kill the alien creatures. Later levels have teleportation devices, which spawn enemies infinitely and can only be destroyed by special explosives scattered throughout the level. The killed aliens drop pickups, consisting of money, health and ammo among other items. Between levels, players can purchase more powerful weapon in a shop. It is also possible to purchase permanent upgrades to the 4 stats. Temporary upgrades can be purchased include "Lives", Body Armor, Attack Drone, etc. Most items in the shop can also be found in the levels.[1] game play

Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle have both been decorated for Christmas. Towering trees dripping with lights, baubles, and ornaments are the focal points. There are even special royal decorations, such as mini velvet crowns and embroidered state carriages. While some of us go for kitsch and others prefer classy, the royal family will only ever choose one style of Christmas decoration: classic. And this year is no exception - the Buckingham Palace Christmas decorations for 2018 have been revealed. The traditional decor was shared in a video posted by the royal family on social media. Every Christmas, three trees are placed in the Marble Hall, as well as a garland dripping in colourful baubles along the grand staircase. The 15 foot tall trees are grown in Windsor and delivered to Buckingham Palace at the start of December. Naturally, they're as resplendent as you'd hope, towering tall and decked out with hundreds of twinkly lights and regal decorations including mini velvet crowns and embroidered state carriages. While the trees aren't erected by the royal family themselves, tradition dictates that they will add the final decorations. Needless to say, many people expressed their love of the trees and decorations on social media, describing them as "fantastic," "spectacular," and "beautiful."