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Backpacker Mia Ayliffe-Chung stabbed to death at Australian hostel

A 21-year-old British woman has died after she was stabbed during an attack at a backpackers' hostel in Australia. The victim has been named as Mia Ayliffe-Chung, from Derbyshire. A 30-year-old British man - named locally as Tom Jackson from Cheshire - was severely injured in the attack in Home Hill, Queensland, and is in a critical condition.

A French suspect, 29, who allegedly said the Arabic phrase "Allahu akbar" during the attack, was arrested. Police are treating the incident as a murder case, not a terror attack. They are investigating a number of possible motivations, including drugs misuse, mental health issues and extremism.

Homeless on D.C. streets for 17 years, woman proves Social Security owes her $100,000

She remained homeless, bedding down on the concrete in a sleeping bag. She kept a tower of three suitcases, containing her Social Security paperwork, next to her.

In 2015 social worker Julie Turner listened. Instead of dismissing Witter as crazy, Turner patiently waded through her documents and verified her story.

"She had all the paperwork there, neatly organized, in order. She was right all along. They did owe her all that money," Turner said.

Stories about two different Florida prisoners published within 24 hours of each other, as seen on Google News:

Transgender Prisoner Sues Florida to Get Hormone Treatments

Transgender inmate challenging Florida prison laws found dead in cell

Minecraft for Oculus Rift is out today

Megahit Minecraft arrives on Facebook's Oculus Rift VR headset

If you play VRcraft for longer than 4 hours, you could suffer from Minecraft persisting perception disorder and see pixelated blocks FOREVER.

Fascinating:

The Game Germany Deemed 'Harmful to Minors'

And some more fun:

'I found the intern curled up on the data centre floor moaning'

Even more fun:

At Swanky Federal Reserve Retreat, “Computer Glitch” Cancels Minority Protesters’ Hotel Reservations

Ever since Trump went toe-to-toe with the parents of a dead Muslim veteran, the Republican Party has been in crisis mode.

Pence breaks with Trump, endorses Ryan

Pence: Trump 'strongly encouraged me to endorse Paul Ryan'

Paul Ryan is expected to win, so as irritating as the Trump non-endorsement may be to Party leaders, it might have a limited shelf life.

This fact is also amusing:

The GOP's Donald Trump freak-out

A GOP source told CNN's Dana Bash that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was especially frustrated because Paul Ryan and Priebus, both from Wisconsin, are very close. The source said Trump refusing to endorse Ryan in his re-election primary was "personal" especially since Priebus has "taken on a lot of water" for Trump. "He takes this very personally," said the source. Priebus "does want to show his support" for Ryan, a source tells CNN.

The chairman has been the main point of contact between Trump and the Republican Party, on which the billionaire has been relying heavily since he lacks the political infrastructure of a conventional political candidate. Priebus, who was said by the source to be incredibly upset with Trump's behavior, had expressed his disappointment and frustration to several leading members of Trump's entourage, the source said.

Is it all for naught?

A knowledgeable Republican source told CNN Tuesday that some of Trump's campaign staff -- even campaign chairman Paul Manafort -- "feel like they are wasting their time," given their boss's recent comments. But Manafort insisted to CNN Wednesaday that isn't true and any frustration centers on the media.

According to the relevant Wikipedia article, around 6 billion people in the world identify with one of the 5 major religious groups in the world. Another couple hundred million identify with "medium sized religions". That's by far the majority of the world's population who are engaged in some form in organized religion and the common interpretations of spirituality.

I was born in the late 1980's, in the UK, my formal education spanned the 1990's and early 2000's. Unlike most who frequent this site, I never went into formal higher education beyond day releases arranged by my employer at the time.

Older generations of the family, parents and grandparents, have never displayed or discussed any religious affiliation. One of my grandparents was by all appearances an atheist. Strongly against religion being taught in school, in any form. Passing away before I was even a teenager, never had the opportunity to discuss the nuances of the anti-religion disposition.

With that, religion never being discussed in the home, the contrast to that with my state-sponsored education, in the 1990's especially, gives me pause for thought. There were christian prayers and hymns every day in my primary education. The only reason possible for not taking part in that was being one of the few Muslims or Hindus in the school. Everyone else had to participate. The only time religion was mentioned at home was "if you're asked what religion you are, you're C of E" ... I had no idea what that meant at the time, just knew what i was told to say if the question ever came up. As a child, i was never introduced to the idea you could not have a religious affiliation. We're all Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs of some stripe or other...

Both my parents, and my mother's parents were very concerned about the social isolation and stigma resulting from not publicly identifying with the established religion. I was going to be christened to ensure I would have the ability to get married.

Now times have apparently changed since then, and I doubt primary education in mainstream state schools have hymns and prayers still. In hindsight, to me it's quite surprising it was still the standard in the 1990's. There was numerous attempts made to indoctrinate the youngest and most impressionable into Christianity, sponsored by the state, there was non way to opt-out of this. It was very much part of the curriculum. It continued to a lesser extent in high-school, everyone got given a bible for some reason, although I do not recall prayers and hymns.

I do believe in a spiritual side of life, my experiences make it impossible to deny. However, that blending organized religion, faith and education, especially when state-sponsored for the general population is very troubling to me.

Organized religion is often just a tool for control, and what better time to introduce people to that than in their formative years, in a formal authoritative institution in which they have to attend continuously for years, but have little to no agency within. This kind of education does not encourage actual learning.... Text books, like the bible are gospel. Critical thinking and comprehension get in the way of rote memorization of various elements of propaganda, especially in the social sciences. Religion and formal education institutes seem primarily designed to give us a framework for our worldview to be confined within, not to expand out from, in the hopes of avoiding the difficult questions that might arise.

The psychological prison needs to be just big enough that we can't see all the bars at the same time.

Has anyone else had similar experiences of an apathetic family and a proactive state in religious indoctrination?

Los Angeles Gang Tour Puts A Twist On Drive-Bys

2010 article I found for crutchy on IRC.

NVIDIA Announces “NVIDIA Titan X” Video Card: $1200, Available August 2nd

Move Over GTX 1080, There’s A New Titan X In Town

Meaningless for anybody who doesn't want the general compute features. It's $200 more expensive than its predecessor, probably to avoid cannibalizing sales of more expensive Pascal GPUs intended for businesses.

The billion-dollar RNC question: What is Peter Thiel doing there?

Fun for everyone.