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The success of Andy Rubin's Essential Phone may depend on carriers

Android Co-Founder Introduces Essential Phone: S835, Slim Bezels, Dual Camera

The hardware inside the Essential PH-1 is what you would expect for a premium phone: Snapdragon 835 SoC, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage. It comes with the latest connectivity options too, including 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 LE, NFC, and a Snapdragon X16 LTE modem that makes the phone compatible with all US networks. However, a few items some people find essential are missing; there’s no microSD card support for storage expansion, no support for dual SIMs, and no 3.5mm headphone jack (it will come with an adapter). The 3040 mAh battery, essentially the same capacity as the Galaxy S8’s 3000 mAh pack, should be adequate for most people, but power users will likely find themselves using the Essential’s 27W quick charge feature.

No thanks.

UPDATE: Intel Announces 4 to 18-Core Skylake-X CPUs

Previously, rumor had it that Intel would pit 12-core Skylake enthusiast processors against AMD Ryzen chips with up to 16 cores. Now, a new rumor/leak adds 14, 16, and 18 core chips to the Intel lineup. They don't appear to be Xeons either.

This isn't substantial enough for me to make a submission for it, but it's interesting. Of course, while this may be a bit of a slap in the face to AMD, it's not like Intel hasn't made 18-core (Xeon) chips before, and pricing for the 18 core, 36 thread chip could be outrageous (do I hear $2,500?).

$2,500 is just a guess, but I checked and the Intel Xeon E5-2697V4 Broadwell with 18 cores has an RCP of $2,702 and is $2,799.99 on Newegg.

I'll predict $1,250 for an AMD Ryzen 16-core.

(oblig)

I'm no longer homeless - I've been in a subsidized apartment for a year.

The program is called "Permanent Assistive Housing". That means I could live here for the rest of my life without paying a dime. Ultimately the cost is borne by the American Taxpayer through the Federal Housing And Urban Development Administration.

However I have a really good consulting client. I cancelled my food stamps a couple months ago. I no longer have Medicare - last month was my first month of paying for Obamacare.

Because my income is very uneven, the agency which got me the housing - Community Services Northwest is waiting until August before I'm responsible for paying the rent.

Should I be out of work again, the American Taxpayer will pick up the tab.

I presently have five grand in the bank. I figured I'd spread the love by subscribing here. I'm also going to subscribe to Radio Paradise.

I expect to donate some to the Portland homeless shelters that kept me out of the rain and snow, but haven't decided yet how much to give them.

Unfortunately I've got to find a new shrink. Molina's health insurance won't pay for CSNW's Program for Assertive Community Treatment. My understanding is that the PACT Team is for the extra-special crazies. I've always wanted that feeling of belonging to something.

I expect Molina will cover a once per month visit to a psychiatrist. I'm doing well these days; once per month for a medication adjustment should be just fine.

Fight club: Russian spies seek EU recruits

Russian intelligence services are using martial arts clubs to recruit potential troublemakers in Germany and other EU countries, security experts have warned.

The number of clubs is higher than previously reported and the “sleeper cells” could stage violent provocations ahead of the upcoming German elections, they said.

[...] The martial arts clubs, which teach an offensive style called “systema”, all have “direct or indirect” links to the GRU military intelligence or FSB domestic intelligence services in Russia, according to Dmitrij Chmelnizki, a scholar of Russian espionage who lives in Berlin.

It's Polyamorous Polysaturation — Unconventional Relationships Abound On TV

Listened to a bit of it on the radio, found the text version.

Huawei Matebook 2017 Launch Live Blog: Starts 2pm CEST (8am ET)

Huawei Launching Two New Clamshell Laptops: The MateBook X and the MateBook D

Huawei Launches the MateBook E 2-in-1: The Next Generation (compare to Surface Pro 5)

Or at the extreme end, would you only buy Purism? Or this thing?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39993739

The Church of England's investment success has pushed it into the top ranks of the world's best performing funds of its type last year.

The fund made a 17.1% on its 2016 investments, more than double the 8.2% it made in 2016, according to the Church Commissioners annual report.

[...] "While this is only around 15% of the Church's overall income - most funding comes from the extraordinary generosity of parishioners - we are delighted to be able to play our part."

The Church's ethical investment policy dictates that all investments should be compatible with Christian values and "recommends against investment" in companies which make more than 3% of their income from pornography, 10% from military products and services, or 25% from other industries such as gambling, alcohol and high interest rate lenders.

However, in 2013 it emerged that the Church had invested indirectly in payday loan firm Wonga. It was a particular embarrassment for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, who had pledged to try to put Wonga out of business by helping credit unions compete with it.

Thousands of 'Second Life' Bunnies Are Going to Starve to Death This Saturday

Any bunny who is Everlasting will continue to function, as he or she does now: without cost.
Any bunny who is not Everlasting will be unable to eat and will hibernate within 72 hours.

"Hibernate" is a very kind word for it, considering that these bunnies are unlikely to ever be revived. In essence, every mortal rabbit in Second Life is going to starve to death on Saturday morning.

Cloud Computing wins Preakness Stakes, dashing Always Dreaming's chances for Triple Crown

I've been documenting work (and re-using some code from an under-funded project which came to a grinding halt when my last SD card burned out). As part of the documenting process, I've been dubbing audio on OpenOffice presentations. I've automated this process and the workflow is conceptually simple: .odp -> .pdf -> .png -> (quite a few more steps) -> .mp4 container with H.264 video at 10 frames per second and MP3 audio at a maximum of 128kb/s quality.

Software requirements are as follows: Unix type operating system with bash, make and perl on command path, OpenOffice or LibreOffice on command path, pdftocairo or pdftoppm on command path, ffmpeg or avconv on command path.

The directory structure is relatively simple (compared to previous projects). Populate a leaf directory with the given Makefile and an OpenOffice presentation with any name. (Or a PowerPoint presentation, if you really insist.) If multiple presentations exist in a directory, the one which numerically sorts last is chosen. This allows crude versioning to occur within a directory. Anyhow, with these two files present, type:-

make slides

and the directory will be populated with .png files - one for every slide in the presentation. (This workflow specifically doesn't work with animated images or embedded video. Feel free to add features as required. Likewise, script may fail to batch convert .odp to .pdf if OpenOffice or LibreOffice is running in foreground. Feel free to detect or correct this problem.)

With your preferred image viewer, step through slides and record audio for the presentation. Edit audio and place .wav or .mp3 with any name in the same directory. If multiple audio files exist in a directory, the one which numerically sorts last is chosen. This further allows crude versioning to occur within a directory.

Next comes the tricky part: slide transition times defined in a .csv file. The .csv file should be in the following format:-

01,1:06
02,2:33
03,5:04

where the first column is the slide number and the second column is the absolute time within the audio at which the slide should be *discarded*. (So, the last entry should be the duration of the audio plus maybe a small margin of error.) Times may be specified in seconds; minutes and seconds; hours, minutes and seconds; all with or without fractional values. Times are rounded down to the nearest 0.1 second.

Numbers in the first column should follow the numerical format of pdftocairo and therefore some slides may require one or more leading zeros.

With the audio track and transition times present, type:-

make this

and wait for the presentation to be made at 1024×768 pixels, 512×384 pixels, 256×192 pixels and audio only.

If making multiple presentaions, the second optional Makefile provides additional functionality for directory recursion and consistent titling across multiple presentations. Specifically, branch directories form sections and subsections. Each section (and suchlike) may optionally have one slide (plus audio) which prefixes every video and may optionally have one slide (plus audio) which suffixes every video. These "bookends" may be nested such that a video may be of the form:-

• common title
• section prefix
• subsection prefix
• content
• subsection suffix
• section suffix
• further info

However, this configuration is significantly more fiddly and knocks all of the timings in the .csv files.

I'll be using these scripts to process about 800 slides in 60 presentations. However, I've yet to record the accompanying audio. This will require about two minutes of audio per slide and, for me, before audio editing, that requires at least five minutes per slide with a hot microphone plus additional time to practice. So, I've got at least 4000 minutes of talking and I'll require significantly more time to edit and check my work.

Understandably, this task got me thinking about accelerated learning and it is my belief that 400 hours of finished presentations could form the vast bulk of a rigorous degree education.

Script to make one presentation:-

begin 644 Makefile.gz
M'XL(`!6B'UD"`[T8:7/;MO)S^"MV:+DB)8&'?"5RE,AM_5)/ZR23>-+WQO*+
M*1*24),$'T'*<FSWMW?!0P=U.)V7-!F3Q![8Q6)/[9BIB,T!"TT:3B!P;JBB
M[,"[B(;OAD/F4C@+HI@*`1<<3E*/<?,3\RB']PBD8>(DC(?P$P\G-!;XB;S:
M3WK;LH_@8DPE0O`X86E@*#N(DPBK;=L@$B=.YH`V"&="Y^N#ROJPLCY:6N]7
MZ/<K]/M5^O9^95VA;U?H]ZRE]8&UK.^!O5]9/\_7"/"92`Q73$",>>I[,*#`
MAY"@;88\#CH$23B`R_TT",'N0)@&-&:NXX-(\0*FDEKX:'*X9<D8?.IX+!S!
M%QIS82PQMSO@I7%^(;@W>$Q$OG,'+`1!71YZ`F['-$;!L>-**I0Q<?R4"G`0
M&O,T]*@''K\-(>%@F[95,!KR(*G(-#<].C%%@DJ`$WKY4BJ#KG.'APU8`A'>
MN#-@/DON,DXW\XX$S,A)QF;"S2'GYL")R<#Y8OXO3:=2W)1&!.%$PB6"2(1R
M<7;QVZG5I>Z80[VFO?_]9[T.#ZB6!R2&NN@9#5.[_*]YU307GGJMUL/]S+[=
M6Z;62%/OD66PZ)G-'NF-E--_7YR^M;O.A.6?>]T@VE?^]>'D_-3NVI:B.+[?
MP9MC0E%<O(?P,[,ZRC,2!T"&P((1:1A1.*I`$C$#".9CQ"Q"T#*)!-6T7+@^
MP]A6>W]Z=/B\1.W-40=V>[KW?'\-IGUP.+5?M-=@8LX3(XCV9H":EIG6ULD6
M27.BS3+G-)NESV@R%7+CH>7H5'H*Y+CN=4%EZ=?PPP_(<W[RZZD.I:45)8L"
M@7QSCS*X%TGG,2)OJ#P3/,]8A(PQ2GR9M`@I2`E2(1%<^PC$>Y]`(V/&*XN2
M_#E%GT@<Y@.QKZ']*G?M,/5]>'B`OO*,8T[\OA)\-HCI]Q4Q='Q!I0EYE*<`
M_ZZ5?0<,XSNW8W%KBU*DU/G&?R(-0I!M"]$3_,%D&\$6W+J(6_`(29QYA(3C
M(N&NPS`]$00`$9A8*9J13&6$'2X`[N#HR`()!_S&Q^]9#`+Y!3`XMIT3]2B,
MFXF+HN`?$9;?I"+SD4Q$>:#DI4(L6P1U08M,9-E6GBW:;B'M[,"0Q2)IS=BH
MXXYGO.?O3]^0BX]Y"7)Y'%,WF14;`P].8U2/8HJN)5WK6$:*=O:VI;Z<E3]5
M/[X=8_[3/#ID(?6T6LWOOCQ[^TK7[^7GG\*\[(?]^*I9JYDF%\<]VM7TXR@5
M8ZU'6[5:4\_Y,^+@7L6LWU?[_:N&]KK3[QOE2F_H:NOU`V);6`?PJ_4XTH][
M7C>FLD.A@#61)9K9,7%/>FE?Z<>UFM?%OTOKJF$WY8=]U3BTLJ_V56/OT+((
M'@O)6%>5=I-\UI4TC8I`O@1,A'HL[D1"`TUU)M*60'S.(WG'#.HJ_L=]LC<0
MMS-!^PRF[4.\^:3$>@4V8M//PR"!NW2RW[8B6:IJ6EZ-])*69V^T+1NB85[K
M]Z7LX3"(Z.@?D?V(QFE*`SZZ/A<4[UVOYVX65V(T;R8R%W,=K'OXEWLEMBCH
M9#S$VTEBZF"O^`P)9@447BV6SFIQW9$E.<9MO70`CNQ0D;VT/9MSRL5B8`U]
MQ\77K3.IY,EYL)'`B<!"2V4?=L>IV&W1*HAQ`,O;:DTOX[6XDN^KT@`7MI7]
M^[OZ%95AJ5=9SA`\C9-Q"W`>D(VI;/^*'C6[Q<4\@/UG%JG/,4+\5Y@2\$6(
M#'4,(L,PU2D"##7?:2Y%E8Z,_$BFW\]CG^F/C^5*7=$?W;\4E\EYF0EM-E>D
MY<I^E;1J#!?QDWMN1S7^X"S4U`>UU:.ZH:Z+*6ENET=W:SJYA7BE4TQ&MOY8
M+RO(/)%&&%.G;S_=9YMCXYN]'X^_B65C##A0AWC'931'9ID;^J&*UEY'L6+Y
MDOZ;V/])G63/7@:1<(84K**%EKD";VAA,B'N)MNO=?8U;;BLAT/I['(BQ@R3
M!H,08U`LY98UVS^1(#*MB"A[^-5>?B59_/\REG+"1H&Y0;[%V8HY8'4:^89G
M*V4LG6VCP++G%6PZN]*L4D""H_#-5]QI(;D<H[[R)!NX9NI@2Q+.%'+'U+T1
M:2!:P(8X0PO!!CY%W4B)(>,[S`]N.J#$Q3*)U;,J%LU4N6"$5,R"D/DTN`.4
MC<8S'7P6WD@7)WZX[DA/#(W(M.I>VV=(9%F]M>TC);+,#+H\6&Y0VQB[]E;5
M)<$&]2N\:_$;CE%A78M?/LXR1PG)6_RO'9>+<4!1J,>2SGPFKHZ,"RW%RG3[
M).WBG/HD<3&GR$%@09_9SV+;!^UM9(M:;*,K%!AP?D-##RVI>$C]F;51'<WU
MP#"D`8,;C\7R-Z8?3SZ>ZG7T-!?[WBB&!M2QA)7P19;$B7$V+WZP(_PVI+&L
M/%A0RFT,)*EG)JII;WY[]Z.^I-]UF:"6MW3_-G^148J>>UG=T1>&YWB1:35'
MY!OGW`.D:&\GF7[9CD_BE)9FM3MK^L!*8X#@;+[$J0&TWLF'-Y_R!@QZHU;>
M]:A2AOIHJ*9JJ(VB@Y!#QF.!E^90'[MY(P;8B.&81Z?4U=0R%(I;5O4ZG&-R
MRSL+Z:2C>OZ.LC=Z3?:6S7?V@>UWO3R,-8\[J5`7-__Y[(-.));("#P_U=7%
M^"MLD///F9&IJUY'MU[QNZ.8&@US.BU6=6'F.UY:Y,55(WOFWQL?<DJN7V>B
F9WGA'/6[]F1=:.[^9S?8]<CN+[OGNQ^OUVB(&>(O29%TT_H7````
`
end

Optional script to make multiple presentations:-

begin 644 Makefile.gz
M'XL(`#NB'UD"`\U7>5/;1A3_&WV*5R%'DD&'Q6$P<0:2>A*F)702AK9#&"Q+
M*WN#KM%*PN;(9^];R?(%>*"E3&!&N_ONW[ZWN\^KOQ@92XP>#0T2YA#8ET00
M5N$X)N&QYU&'P&$0)X0Q.(G@('-I9)Q2ET3P!Q))F-HIC4+X$(4Y21A.45?Y
MH%IFHPDG`\(9+$I2F@6ZL(H\SC"MA@4LM9-T2F@"LW,R65O6W'IS@;]I;<^O
M-\RY]98YK[_5V%Q8[Y1K)&2,0.2!X9+<8*E+0[!#MUQ>DR3"'1F!3P.:0HQ`
M[![U:3K2!:'SUTGG<Z-MYU00;-]O@>,3.[R@)J0#RH2554B(DR6,Z,)*3!(?
M-`+RU8#Z1'&)1T/B*I(T:+^M&T>XYQ[2WZGJ#2?]8,:W"=$P(K;'1BPE@2(Z
M+L@B_J-4,>X5^0)T+ZIWLB!4(;2$E20`S0,:]+6Z'H?]BH"I].A0EY0R?+6B
ML\R;IY>VIJ@0T*OA*7R6B/A>MOAF.D6%I:!';@QI!'KL>L(*B\H:U;0!L5V?
MEZFFC44UE$(AZ/I(=$'+H5XHWT)J4PR_T87;6_@FK$18ZR]AQZ>]A+R$(<_V
M&>&@HYB?+DSO:+V8!Q2+M42NE7F;M<5M3VW]`.M=6<9AYONH@&RTL41CF3'4
M#_*EWA[G38*=J<:9A'+A(J&<CHLTBF,4QR5HS+%]@ONF#:%AXJ&?$D;0;)K`
MZ8!S_/S))39!^P3-[9UE*#&*\3X7SAR;XBE_#7>3M$ZAHU.$GO,+%7?)SCD'
M-#^*8NZ#%CO6*,0TIY7C/=0;6MOH-<5[#&.FPPLO2&&4Y9N6&8.68%!CG<E)
MKIQ[04SZ_Y/M$M@C\5O_PH?UQ/A?R':5&#?K@<W?.'T&#;V'&DFS"?=\V\'A
MRL[GCAP6`>DG)`99.;.UZ_,S4]L]KY]AU6SOG&NWY4VLRK.UH@5V#":"*2:-
MEKT`K<"`)!N">`.K<X`O$F'IO5M]8<]^7@0]Y#7,XN\)<!;*C-Y+YW^"U=C8
M:NXBK/(I?)G$+#ZK#R;F9T3P<&(>@U,D1NA%T24)7=:J.J!7:Q@JSV7/P'R\
M3XNNX=4"*%V6[HE+T]:T-7E.^_&L%N.);83@4I9>4`M#4C!Z78<W;R"X=&D"
MLJ2\/_C:465L`QV\(N,$ZB#KNE'19U6P7\=6)LP"DE!'BZY"@FN'/^N5&1U%
MY"(L2?GX^_%[=:YFNU6US)MTGJT_O@9X2Y%X"^'VKRGBV"VBFC)*PZ5V#R6L
MY2+#Z^7\-,DFV]IHS=26%R5847[;W,/OVQW^75M3;Y!,;&<`DN2"LG_PY>.I
M>A-G;`#[_75)ZGP^O1&Y#_%.%PU1%^N&.$1-'<7O[L9\OAWB7?M[1$-%!'%]
MOZ_ND2%Q%%%2C@Y^ZZ@PSK*(I[XJ7)!Y8?3E<HR+T6%Y,?*+I9C@U2)78/CO
M!C+D/W.`!]1&X[\>?E$USM4DY>3PJ*.*/''S3ANE_E09E=IB-[YRL289<8$-
M];HQ'(Y7,C-*B]5S@M]R_NA'D@Q#[A:NQRYX+.C#M5,":[6_:T'-U6J?:D>U
0K]T'(C0%X1^4/-2PZ`X`````
`
end

(Usual instructions for uudecode process.)