#CanMNT Alphonso Davies began the open portion of training... doing light running with his independent specialist trainer 🇩🇪Matthias Blankenburg. Jesse Marsch said Davies would hit his “max velocity” today. We’ll see if Davies plays on Sunday in LA. #FIFAWorldCup2026show more

𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒕 𝑹𝑨𝑰𝑵𝑺 𝒊𝒕 𝑷𝑶𝑼𝑹𝑺⛑️ 𝐺𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐴𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑙~𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑡 2 😇🙏... After a botched summer assignment to a new collegiate league in Texarkana, TX that saw Grant Scholzen sleeping in his car and no host family provided as promised, Grant came home and waited patiently for a summer league call. The MGF Marshalls (who by the way is one of the best run orgs in the country, more on that in a future post!) called and in his 1st game and 2nd AB with a 1-2 count in a left on left matchup with the shadows in play, Grant took a 92 mph FB off the shoulder and into the right side of his face. The only time in 5 years w/o a face shield on his helmet, it’s the only time he’s been hit above the shoulder. Was watching the game on live stream, and it was hard to tell where it actually hit him? Grant immediately started walking to the dugout and I couldn’t figure out why he was doing that, because he should be either staying at home plate gathering his bearings or going to 1B. What you don’t see is the catcher and pitcher who are close friends of Grant’s growing up facing each other in HS and teammates throughout their CBA summer/fall travel ball experiences, looking on with what just happened? The pitcher and catcher who I’m close with as well, are in shock and the pitcher then walks into the opposing dugout to see if Grant is okay? Grant was okay, but he wasn’t okay?! That helpless feeling again when you’re not there and your son has something almost tragic happen?! I was calling friends who I knew were at the game and they said he had ice on his cheek in the dugout. After the game Grant was going to drive 4 hours home and get home at 3am to attend his cousin’s church service to listen to him speak at his 2 year church missionary farewell. He got home late as I said and woke up yesterday with his face extremely swollen and his eye already black, so we saw his uncle at church, who is a pediatric dentist and he scheduled a CT Scan with an oral surgeon buddy. Grant went in this morning for the scan and to our surprise, NO broken bones. Thank you to the countless people who text and reached out with worry and wanting updates. The baseball circle is small, but big at the same time and is a comforter! Once again his mother Heidi was working overtime to protect her kids, just like my daughter’s car accident 3 weeks ago. When it rains it pours! #SwarmingBees 🐝show more

C Easton Carmichael (Oklahoma Baseball) is one of the... top college catchers in this year's Draft. Started from the get-go as a Freshman and hit .306/.346/.482 with 18 XBH and 48 RBIs. Proceeded to enjoy an outstanding Sophomore campaign to the tune of a .366/.406/.563 slash line with 31 XBH, 64 RBIs and 12 SB. Carmichael was then an All-Star and All-League selection in the Cape League after hitting .299/.372/.496 with 10 2B, 5 HR and 23 RBIs across 36 games. Prototypical catcher's frame at 6'1" and 200-lbs with strength throughout. Slightly crouched stance in the box with a high handset and the bat held horizontally above his back shoulder. Hands drift a little bit in his load, leg lift leads into a normal stride. Does a nice job of getting into his back hip. Average bat speed. Carmichael has an aggressive approach and digs into the box ready to hit. He uses the entire field and has a tick above-average bat-to-ball skills. Has shown the ability to drive the baseball into either gap. Could stand to tighten up his swing decisions a bit; chased at a 35% clip and was particularly susceptible to secondaries down and away. Present barrel skills. Would say his hit tool is a 50 right now, though it's probably closer to a 55. It's more extra-base hit and gap-to-gap power than it is HR power for Carmichael right now, but he has shown he can generate quality contact. Posted a Max EV of 109.5 during the spring and 104.2 on the Cape. If he can pull the ball in the air more (had an Air Pull% of just 20.8 in '24), it could lead to an increase in power production. 50 raw, it plays more like 45 in-game. It's been encouraging to see the progress Carmichael has made defensively. Has gotten better at corralling balls in the dirt and his transfers have gotten quicker. Best part of Carmichael's defensive skillset is his receiving. Soft and quiet, consistently works down to up and has a knack for stealing strikes. Doesn't stab at the baseball. Average arm strength, continuing to shore up his footwork will only help as it pertains to controlling the running game and delivering accurate throws down to bases. A nice cherry on top to Carmichael's profile is that he's far from a clogger on the bases. By no means a burner, but he'll pick his spots to steal a bag. Carmichael has an intriguing toolset and profiles as a 2nd-4th round pick this July. (📽️: Oklahoma Baseball)show more

On a conference call to promote American Century Championship... golf tournament, Kyle Lowry was asked if he saw any Villanova traits from ‘Nova Knicks in Game 4. Lowry: “(When) Josh Hart missed that layup & Wemby got fouled, if you looked at Jalen Brunson, he went straight to Josh & he said, 'Don’t worry about it, we’ll be OK.' "And I think that’s the one thing that us, Villanova (players)…we all understand the grit and the grind but we all understand (the importance of) having a great positive attitude and that’s what (head coach) Jay (Wright) taught us; have a good attitude.... no matter what (happens)… you’ll figure it out out. (Hart) misses a layup, Wemby gets fouled. Jalen was right there to pick him up and he said, ‘Don’t worry about it, we’ll be arlight.' And ya’ll seen what happened (the rest of the game). That’s just the type of attitude, the type of resilience that Nova brings…I just think (the Nova Knicks) just brought a different type of process and winnng culture for the Knicks." Lowry finished 38th in last year's American Century Championship, which is set for July 8-12 with coverage on NBC/Peacock, Friday–Sunday, July 10-12. He’s looking forward to this year’s tournament. When asked about his plans for next NBA season, Lowry said he doesn't know yet what he’ll do. "We’ll see. I like playing golf so I don’t know what’s next....I've gotta get my game right so I don’t know what’s going to happen (but) I need better odds (than his current odds for the American Century)," Lowry said, lightheartedly.show more

Visiting Venice changed Claude Monet's life By 1908, he... had spent forty years teaching the world to see light. He was 68, in poor health, and losing faith in his own work. He had just abandoned his water lily paintings, discouraged after a trusted advisor questioned whether anyone would even want them. The man who had founded Impressionism, whose 1873 canvas "Impression, Sunrise" had given the entire movement its name, was convinced his best days were behind him... His wife, Alice, suggested a trip to Venice. Monet resisted. The city had been painted to death by Canaletto, Turner, and Whistler, and he had always insisted, "I will not go to Venice." It was, he said, "too beautiful to be painted." He went. And the moment he arrived, standing before the light on the water, he exclaimed: "It is too beautiful to be painted! It is untranslatable!" Within days he could not stop working. He fell into a fierce daily rhythm, painting the Doge's Palace, the churches, and the palazzos along the Grand Canal at the same hours each day, chasing the shimmer of Venetian air on stone and water. In just over two months he began 37 canvases. His wife wrote home that she was overjoyed to see him so impassioned again, doing beautiful work, and something other than "those same old water lilies." In a letter to a friend, Monet wrote: "My enthusiasm for Venice continues to grow, and it saddens me that the moment is coming when I must leave this unique light." He never returned. His beloved Alice died a few years later, and for a long time he could not bring himself to finish the Venice canvases. But when he did, and when they were finally shown in Paris in 1912, they were a triumph. And the trip had given him back something he thought he had lost: the discouraged old man who had walked away from his water lilies went home and took them up again, and spent his final years creating the enormous, luminous Nymphéas, the paintings the world now loves most. Sometimes the thing that revives us is an unexpected encounter with beauty we almost talked ourselves out of. He nearly didn't go. It turned out to be the doorway to his greatest work...show more

January 2, right at 3 months ago, Fred Kerley... had his ribs broken while being beat by Miami Police Officers. He had his teeth knocked out as well. Then was pretty much banned from his house and hasn’t been able to go back. He wasn’t able to train the whole month of January. He hit the track mid Feb, still not able to breathe properly cause of his ribs. But y’all on Twitter talking forgetting that. Ok we’ll get your teeth knocked in, ribs broken, tased, and then in 7 weeks go line up and race. Half of y’all wouldn’t even be able to move for the next year. I say it all of the time. Some of y’all just dumb. So when real ninjas be like “we don’t f*** with them track ninjas. We just run track”….this what we be talking about. Only a track ninja or a community of track ninjas would watch a man get beat by the police and then try and flame him for not running “fast” just 3 months later 😂. Y’all are some heartless sick individuals. That’s all 😂. Real ninjas who run track feel everything I just said, cause they get it. Track ninjas gone have some to say back to me that’s the opposite cause they don’t understand.show more

In the spring of 2023, Kansas farmer Dale Henderson... was repairing fence posts along the eastern edge of his property near Russell County when his German Shepherd, Max, came trotting out of the tree line carrying something in his mouth. Another rock. Max had been doing this for weeks. He'd vanish into the woodland sometimes for hours, and return with dark, heavy stones clutched in his jaws. He'd drop them at Dale's feet like offerings, tail wagging, waiting for praise. These rocks were different. They were heavier than they should be. Covered in a smooth black crust that didn't match anything Dale had seen in forty years of working this land. When he held them close, they smelled like iron-metal left out in the rain. By early April, Dale had a collection of nineteen stones piled on his porch. His wife, Ellen, wanted him to throw them out. Dale couldn't explain why, but something told him to keep them. On April 14th, he loaded twelve of the specimens into his truck and drove ninety miles to the geology department at Kansas State University in Manhattan. Professor James Chen picked up the first stone, turned it over in his hands, and his expression changed. "Where exactly did you find these?" "I didn't," Dale said. "My dog did." Professor Chen ran the first round of tests that afternoon. Density measurements. Magnetic response. X-ray fluorescence. Dale paced for two hours. His neighbor, Roy Perkins, called during the wait. Roy owned the adjacent 160 acres. He'd found similar stones scattered across his fields after spring plowing. Dale told him to bring them to the university. Professor Chen emerged holding a printout of analysis results. "Mr. Henderson, these aren't rocks. They're meteorites. And based on the composition, they're from the same fall event. Probably thousands of years old." "I need to see where your dog has been finding them." The geology team arrived at Dale's farm three days later with ground-penetrating radar, metal detectors, and magnetometers. They started in the woodland where Max had been hunting. Within hours, they'd identified over sixty additional specimens buried in the soil. Beneath Dale Henderson's 200-acre farm lay the remnants of an ancient meteorite shower— thousands of fragments from a single asteroid that broke apart in the atmosphere and scattered across what is now central Kansas, likely between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. Subsequent surveys revealed the strewn field extended across Dale's entire property and onto Roy Perkins's land as well. It was one of the largest and richest meteorite fields ever discovered in North America. The meteorites were pallasites—an extremely rare type containing crystalline olivine embedded in an iron-nickel matrix. They also showed unusually high concentrations of platinum-group metals: iridium, palladium, and rhodium. The scientific value was immense. The commercial value was almost incomprehensible. Museums began calling within a week of the announcement. The Smithsonian. The American Museum of Natural History. Private collectors from Europe and Asia. A single 4.2-kilogram specimen from Dale's north field sold at auction in September 2023 for $892,000. Dale Henderson's farm, became the site of one of the most significant meteorite recoveries in American history. The total estimated value of recoverable specimens across both properties exceeded $47 million. Dale and Roy formed a partnership. They hired a professional excavation team to conduct systematic recovery while preserving the scientific integrity of the site. The University of Kansas was granted research access in exchange for authentication and documentation services. Dale kept farming. He said he wasn't going to let space rocks change who he was. But he did build a new barn. And a new house. And set up college funds for all seven of his grandchildren. Max, the German Shepherd who started it all, became a minor celebrity. A geology magazine ran a feature calling him "the most valuable dog in Americashow more

Namaste, Ma'am...Aapko 1 story sunata hoon.... In the summer... of 1980, a distraught 7th grade boy stood in the courtyard of a modest house in Mylapore, watching his father toss his cricket bat down a deep well. A fast bouncer had shattered the boy's spectacles during a local match & his father, a renowned Sanskrit logician, was terrified for his son's sight. "Your cricket days are done," his father declared, handing him a violin. "If you want to master precision, master this." The boy did not throw a tantrum. He directed his focus toward the strings, training until he was performing alongside musical legends, even taking direct corrections from Bharat Ratna M.S. Subbulakshmi. 5 yrs later, he suffered another blow: he failed to clear the IIT-JEE examination. He did not give up. He enrolled in a regional engineering college, quietly mastering computer science logic gates. He eventually worked his way into IIT Madras as a postgrad researcher, earned a PhD, joined as a prof & eventually became the Director of the very institute that had once turned him away. By 2011, while the world was building consumer mobile apps, this prof was looking at a hidden national vulnerability: every radar, fighter jet, banking server & defense system in India was running on foreign-designed microprocessors. He had a single question in his mind: "We can test that a foreign chip does what we WANT it to do. But can we guarantee it does not do something we DO NOT want it to do when a war starts?" He proposed building a completely indigenous, industrial-grade microprocessor from scratch. Global tech giants insisted it could not be done w/o billions of dollars in infrastructure & massive foreign patents. He did not care. Working out of cramped labs on long shifts, he & his team adopted the open source RISC-V instruction set. They hand-coded logic gates, mapped silicon layouts & verified billions of instruction cycles. In July 2018, a tiny 16mm² piece of silicon codenamed Risecreek arrived back at the lab. The team wired it up, flipped the switch & watched a flickering monitor as the Linux operating system booted on 100% Indian-designed silicon for the 1st time in history. Today, his SHAKTI processor architecture powers everything from defense communications to space grade controllers built in collaboration with ISRO. That young boy whose father threw his cricket bat down a well... The student who missed the JEE list in 1985... The violinist who turned down the official IIT Director's mansion to stay in his family home & protect his late father's Sanskrit library... His name is Prof. Veezhinathan Kamakoti.show more

#ZimElection2023 CHAMISA RAN HIS CAMPAIGN LIKE AN INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE... WITH NO STRUCTURES AND EXPECTED TO WIN AND BECOME PRESIDENT WITH NO MAJORITY IN PARLIAMENT This is what Nelson Chamisa said on 21 June 2023 about the strategic thrust of the campaign of his CCC in the 2023 harmonised general election held last week: "our [CCC] campaign is going to be basically a presidential... our [CCC] focus is not to be in parliament but to be in government. We [as MDC opposition] have been in parliament for a long time, that's not our [CCC] station of choice at the moment". The fact that Chamisa thought he could win the presidential election even if, or regardless of whether, his CCC won a majority in Parliament, explains his crushing defeat. An election in Zimbabwe is defined in terms of section 4 of the Electoral Act which provides that: election” means— (a) the election of a member of Parliament; or (b) an election to the office of President; or (c) an election for the purposes of the Rural District Councils Act [Chapter 29:13] or the Urban Councils Act [Chapter 29:15]; as the case may be. These three elections used to be held separately before they were harmonised for the first time in the 2008 election in terms of section 38 of the Act. It is odd and even irrational, and it defies the logic of the harmonised general election for any political party that seeks power to govern the country as a whole to only target – as did Chamisa in the 2023 harmonised general election held last week –winning only one of the three elections, just the presidential election. It is foolhardy for a political party to say its strategy and focus is only to win the presidential election, without basing that strategy and focus on winning the local authority and parliamentary elections, as well. Such a strategy, if it can be called a strategy, renders the presidential candidate no different from an independent presidential candidate who contests for the presidency without the advantage of the structures of a political party. Simply put, a presidential candidate in Zimbabwe cannot win a presidential election if the candidate does not have a campaign strategy that is based on his or her political party winning a majority of wards in the local authority election, and a majority of constituencies in the parliamentary election. If it’s an independent presidential candidate, then he or she must have ground structures of one sort or another, or forget it. Chamisa contested the presidential election as if he was an independent candidate, and he boasted about it, without relying on his CCC and without any ground structures. In the circumstances, just how or why did Chamisa expect to win the presidential election by effectively running as an independent candidate? Which structures did Chamisa expect to use, or did he in fact use to campaign for the presidency in every street and every village, across the length and breadth of the country? Since by his own admission, as quoted above and reflected on the attached video clip, Chamisa was clearly not relying on his CCC to win the presidency. This begs the question: by not relying on CCC structures, and by not having alternative ground structures in the streets and in villages, did Chamisa think that ZanuPF members and supports would vote for him, as an act of God, perhaps? Was Chamisa's presidential election campaign, for him an article of faith, in other words was it about his belief that God had chosen him, and that he would win regardless of whether or not CCC won a majority in the local authority and parliamentary elections? Where did Chamisa and his supporters in Zimbabwe and among the legions of his fans in America and Europe think he would get the necessary number of polling agents to monitor the voting and vote counting at the country’s 12,374 polling stations, and to secure the 12,374 V11s from those polling stations, given the fact that he actually ran for the presidency as an independent candidate, expecting to be supported less by his own CCC party and more by the members and supporters of ZanuPF? Does this kind of strategy make sense to anyone on earth? And, does that strategy make sense to Nerves Mumba and his Sadc Election Observation Mission or to any other foreign election observation mission that was in Zimbabwe last week like, say for example, the European Union Observer Mission or any of the several observer missions from the United States that were in Zimbabwe to observe the elections? How did the various foreign election observer missions and Chamisa’s social media supporters expect him to win the presidential election, not only where and when his CCC party was losing the local authority and parliamentary elections but, and critically, where Chamisa himself did not believe that the local authority and parliamentary elections were important or necessary for him to win the presidency? The fact that the loquacious, belligerent and inflammatory foreign election observer missions that are peddling falsehoods about the elections, and Chamisa’s social media supporters who claim with no evidence that Chamisa won, did not raise a finger against the results of the local and parliamentary elections that were declared at 1970 wards and 209 constituencies well ahead of the declaration of the result for the presidential election on 26 August, clearly means that there was no problem with two of the three elections that make up Zimbabwe’s harmonised general election. Only after the declaration of the presidential election result on 26 August did all hell break loose. It must be asked, again, how did anyone expect Chamisa to win a presidential election whose campaign was – as per Chamisa’s deliberate strategy – organised and pursued as if it was the presidential campaign of an independent candidate? Chamisa’s presidential election campaign was not based on the CCC parliamentary election campaign or on CCC’s structural capacity on the ground, strangely, it was based on the expectation that ZanuPF members and supporters would vote for Chamisa. Why on earth did anyone expect ZanuPF members and supporters to vote for someone whose base is ever singing cacophonic noise that ZanuPF must go, and hurling insults at the incumbent party, its officials and its supporters? What kind of politics is that? You are contemptuous of ZanuPF and anyone associated with it, but you expect ZanuPF members and supporters to vote for you. This expectation does not compute, certainly not in electoral politics. As things turned out, ZanuPF members and supporters who are registered voters voted for their party candidates in all the three elections: local authority election, the parliamentary election and the presidential election. As a result, in the parliamentary election, CCC won just 73 constituency seats. There's just no way that CCC's 73 constituency seats in the National Assembly would have boosted Chamisa to win the presidency. No ways. In Zimbabwe's first harmonised general election in 2008, Morgan Tsvangirai did well in the first round of the presidential election primarily if not only because the two MDC formations used their round structures to win a majority in Parliament with a combined strength of 110 constituency seats, while ZanuPF garnered 99 seats and an independent got one seat. This was the first time since independence in 1980 that the opposition commanded the majority in Parliament. So, clearly, in 2008 Tsvangirai was propelled by the solid parliamentary performance of the MDC formations. The same structural dynamic was conspicuously absent for Chamisa in the just ended harmonised general election. Chamisa ran a solo presidential election campaign and, predictably, it went horribly wrong. The fact that CCC did not field local authority candidates in 90 wards made a bad situation worse for Chamisa, and it was further compounded by the fact that CCC did not have ground structures to harness and harvest from the loose and unreliable protest vote, especially in the wards and constituencies outside CCC strongholds, which in fact used to be MDC strongholds in the days of Morgan Tsvangirai!show more

"The Royal Guard is known for standing still through... anything. Crowds can shout, cameras can flash, children can wave inches from his face, and he doesn't react. On a crowded afternoon outside St. James's Palace, 7-year-old Liam had been waiting for hours to see the soldiers in their bright red coats and tall black hats. His mother had promised him he would finally see them up close. One moment he was holding her hand. The next moment, he was swallowed by a wall of strangers. Panic hit fast. He turned in circles, calling out, but all he saw were coats and moving legs. Tears blurred his vision as he pushed through the crowd looking for someone safe. That was when he saw the guard. The soldier stood perfectly still inside his sentry box, eyes forward, posture locked. Liam ran straight toward him and grabbed the edge of the red coat. "Please, please," the boy cried. Every rule says the guard doesn't react to tourists. Training says no sudden movement, no emotional response, no break in discipline. The soldier looked down. He saw shaking hands and a child who was truly terrified. A small clock inside the box showed 1:59 PM. Relief was scheduled for 2:00 PM. "Stay right here. Do not move," the guard said quietly, barely shifting his stance. "I'm helping you in one minute." For sixty long seconds, Liam stood pressed against the uniform, breathing hard. The guard didn't step away. He didn't raise his voice. He simply waited for the change of post. At exactly 2:00 PM, the next sentry marched into position. The formal exchange lasted only a moment. As soon as he was officially relieved, the soldier stepped out of the box and dropped to one knee. "Hey, look at me," he said gently. "You're okay." The boy tried to speak but the words fell apart. "Are you safe here?" the guard asked softly. Liam shook his head and finally whispered, "I can't find my mum." The guard opened his arms without hesitation. The child leaned into him, gripping the heavy wool coat as if it were the only solid thing left in the world. "We're going to find her," the soldier said in a calm, steady voice. "You're not alone." Police officers in the area quickly began searching through the crowd. Within minutes, a frantic mother broke through the line, calling her son's name. She pulled him close, thanking the guard through tears. The soldier simply nodded once and stepped back into position as if nothing had happened. A few seconds later, he was standing still again, eyes forward, while the crowd carried on like alwaysshow more

This morning I drove into ABC place Waiyaki way... as I needed to do some shopping, as I got out of the car I heard someone shout “Baba, Baba” I turned around and a young man straight away came and hugged me. He looked and me said Baba do you remember me, it took me at least two mins but I realised who he was. This goes back some 20 or more years ago when I was a frequent customer or should I say furniture at a place called Tropicana or Gypsy’s in Westlands this boy was a teenager and together with his very very young two siblings would be there selling njugu or asking for handouts. I recall asking him why would they be doing this late past midnight and he said so they could help their mother and also try get money for fees. I did not realise what I did then, but I began helping him with frees for many years and these boys would take care of my car and even of me when I would walk out very late in the night. They had became a part of that area and the security of Gypsy would even allow them to do this extra work as I would tell them these boys aren’t the usual chokoras who will steal. They would watch over customers cars and I would support them. As time passed I grew out of that life and moved on and we never met again, even the place closed down but my nickname as most of my closest childhood friends, the waiters and everyone who I associated with still remained BABA and to date they call me BABA, and why? because I “USED” to be a die hard Raila Odinga supporter 😂😂😂. The boy told me he looked for me for a long time as he always wanted to thank me and finally we met today as he was getting to work , he told me he sent his family back to Kisumu where he helped his little brothers to complete their education and believe it or not today he is a head chef at the Seven Grill & Lounge ABC place. Good people see how hard work, honesty and focus pays. This is my boy Victor and today I am an extremely proud man.show more

this is a tribute post to share the legacy... of an artist whose work has changed my life and inspires me everyday, Jun Seba aka Nujabes. Born February 7, 1974, Nujabes was a music producer & DJ from Tokyo, Japan. He came from a family of music lovers and his father’s admiration for jazz served as an inspiration to Seba at a young age. He pursued his education at a Fine Arts school and the people in his life influenced him to explore the vast wonders of what music really is. In a 2003 interview with Sound & Recording Magazine, Seba said… “I started making tracks because I wanted to hear music that sampled the old soul and jazz I liked.” Nujabes in his early years discovered Hip-Hop and was enamored by the art of DJ-ing and breakdancing. Hip-Hop culture was being brought to life in the USA, but its influence seeped across the world and it started to gain popularity in Japan at the time as well. Seba went on to become a crucial figure in Japan’s underground Hip-Hop scene as a DJ, co-creating a label called ‘Hydeout Productions’. His love for music stemmed beyond just creating it. He had his own record store, which he spoke about in the aforementioned 2003 interview. “I recently started up a record store, Tribe, which I see as an extension of Hydeout Productions. Everything at the store is stuff I went and bought overseas myself, and my hope is for people to come in, listen to old records at their leisure, and hopefully feel inspired by those records to make good tracks themselves. That’s another thing I would like to cherish doing in the future—creating those sorts of encouraging environment” This was a genuine testament to the pure love Nujabes had for music and the community that is built as a result. This passion is what fueled the masterpieces we listen to today and it is the reason for him revolutionizing Hip-Hop production. One of his greatest achievements, in my opinion, was his contribution to the soundtrack of ‘Samurai Champloo’ alongside Fat Jon. This soundtrack set Nujabes on center stage. With a fusion of traditional Japanese musical influences, everything he learned as a student of Hip-Hop, and his early love for Jazz music, Nujabes created a new soundscape which set the tone for this acclaimed show, but also epitomized his brilliance as a musician. At a recent Nujabes tribute performance, longtime collaborator and a friend of Nujabes, Fat Jon, said a few words about him… “Our friendship went beyond music. And so yeah, we had fun making music, but we had more fun just doing regular shit in life… Nujabes as a person, separated from the music, he was a cool person.” You can tell everyone that has worked with or around Nujabes has a deep, unwavering admiration for him as a musician, but also as a person and a friend. Although his contributions to the soundtrack shot Nujabes to fame, his discography of solo music is what cemented his legacy as a pioneer of modern music. From his debut ‘Metaphorical Music’, to his most critically acclaimed work ‘Modal Soul’, Nujabes was able to create entire soundscapes by blending all the different things that made him love music in the first place. It would be a disservice to not mention his friends and frequent collaborators who had invaluable contributions to his work. Shing02, Uyama Hiroto, Cise Starr & Akin (CYNE), Substantial, Haruka Nakamura, and many more. (I’d love to give recommendations to people who want to dive into their work after seeing this!) Nujabes music heavily centered around jazz and soul samples intertwined with his intricate drum patterns and tranquil instrumentation. He fostered an atmosphere of serenity with his melodies than touched the hearts of millions around the world. From ethereal tracks like “Horizon” and “Counting Stars” to his Luv(Sic) series, Nujabes created art that transcended the preconceptions of what music’s impact is. if you made it this far, thank you for reading. i have no more characters left lolshow more

ALERT: Another Media hoax Trump: "Our whole country will... end up being like Detroit if she's (Harris) your president." The local press and politician are going berserk here in Michigan. The Outrage! (Watch the Harris commercial during the Lions/Cowboys game today.) Except it's fake. A 6 second clip was ripped from 7,380 seconds of Trump's speech delivered to the Detroit Economic Club last week, and disseminated by a bumptious blowhard who thinks his colonoscopy is worthy of a tweet. But look closer (or watch below). As has become custom with the increasingly irrelevant media, Trump's statement was taken wildly out of context. Trump spoke at great length and quite clearly about how the auto industry thrived here until politicians, greedy corporate leaders, their lobbyists and the gullible media pushed for terrible trade deals that have allowed foreign nations to come in and take our markets, jobs and factories. Trump rattled off tariffs on US products in other countries. He rightly said this was happening not only with cars but with other American products with no reciprocal pushback from US political and business leaders. He railed against neo-liberal/neo-con globalists who are destroying our country's manufacturing base and gutting our cities. That, if we let them keep going, America ad a whole will suffer as Detroit has. That was his point. About an hour into his speech, Trump said if you elect Harris, you'll get more of the same: "Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she's your president." The media ripped this 6 seconds and presented it in isolation. Misleading snippets. Ugly stuff. A true threat to democracy. What the press does not report: On Monday, before Trump's speech, ~2,500 Chrysler workers in Warren, Michigan were shown the door by their corporate masters, now headquartered in Europe. On Friday, after Trump's speech, ~2,000 Detroit Jeep workers we're put on extended "temporary" layoff. The press plays political games. And the corrupt politicians take them to lunch. They're running a hustle on us. I have attached the mayor of Detroit's tantrum tweet. Let's fact check him: + Detroit's crime data is heavily massaged to put it generously. Nevertheless, the Motor City remains rated as America's second most dangerous city. + Detroit's population would continue to be sinking if it weren't for the influx of illegal immigrants. + Detroit's tax revenues, when adjusted for inflation, are less than they were during the year of its historic bankruptcy. + Meanwhile, property taxes remain the highest of any major American city, and the schools among the worst. You are correct Mr. Mayor. You did that all by yourself.show more

🚨BREAKING: THE COUP IS OVER | WAGNER’S RETREATING This... official statement from Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner group and the leader of this coup, says it all. I don't think anyone expected this: "They were going to dismantle PMC Wagner. We came out on 23 June to the March of Justice. In a day, we walked to nearly 200km away from Moscow. In this time, we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters. Now, the moment has come when blood may spill. That’s why, understanding the responsibility for spilling Russian blood on one of the sides, we are turning back our convoys and going back to field camps according to the plan." The President of Belarus, Lukashenko, has been in talks with Prigozhin all day and has taken credit for the peace agreement. Prigozhin accepted the terms of Lukashenko’s agreement and agreed to halt the movement of his forces and return back to his bases. The agreement also guarantees security for fighters of PMC Wagner. It seems that the attempted coup has come to an end, and Prigozhin, along with his men, will return to their bases. Reports of Wagner forces not only leaving Moscow Oblas, but also leaving Rostov. Russian media reports that criminal cases have already been dropped from Yevgeny Prigozhin and that Prigozhin and his forces will receive FULL IMMUNITY Restrictions on the movement of vehicles have been lifted from the Voronezh region which saw clashes earlier during the coup. MY THOUGHTS: - I did not expect this would end peacefully with a deal as it seemed both sides seemed at the point of no return - I have no idea how Prigozhin and Putin can both operate in Russia with what just transpired, and I also have no idea what will happen with the war in Ukraine but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a space deal reached. - Today was another example of citizen journalism replacing mainstream media with UNBIASED and UNCENSORED live breaking news. - I am fried, been awake for more than 30 hours, initially doing a space with former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan before shifting to the Coup space which is at 21 hours and counting. Time for me to finally sleep!show more

49ers just wrapped up Block 2 of camp with... a reminder of how good Brock Purdy is — even without his top 3 WR (Evans/Stribling injuries are NOT serious), Purdy's offense managed some crisp success: 🏈Demarcus Robinson was Purdy's favorite WR, reminiscent of when 49ers beat Philly with a skeleton crew. The deep out was the duo's bread and better 🏈Best play: Excellent one-handed catch from TE Brayden Willis on a corner route from Mac Jones. 🏈Deommodore Lenoir had two more PBUs — including one on a Purdy-Robinson deep out. CB1 been very active this camp and said this morning on KNBR that he's as locked in as ever 🏈6-3 rookie CB Ephesians Prysock notched a nice reaching PBU vs 5-9 Junior Bergen. 🏈Speaking of Bergen, he's making quite a few plays on offense and I wouldn't be quick to discount him in the punt return battle. FWIW, Bergen has made more offensive plays than Jacob Cowing, with whom he may be in a battle for a 53-man spot 🏈49ers did some red-zone work today where safety Ji'Ayir Brown had a nice, athletic PBU in the corner against TE Jake Tonges. Jordan Watkins later caught a TD from Jones in the corner 🏈New RB Khalil Herbert is wearing No. 40. He dished out some real contact on his first run — at 212 but just 5-9, Herbert is not a player defenders enjoy running in to. He'll be in the KR mix alongside Deebo Samuel — "hell yeah, let's go!" was Boyer's reaction to the Deebo signing 🏈LB Nick Martin dropped what should've been an easy INT from Kurtis Rourke, but he was in correct position. Later he made a nice stop on a Kyle Juszczyk catch 🏈Team drills started with a nice CMC run (he's had a handful already). And yes, as I've stated already and will discuss more, rookie Jaden Dugger worked with the thinned-out DE group for the first time. He did notch a would-be sack. A lot to unpack when it comes to his talent and that move as the 49ers navigate the dog days. More soon...show more

In 1504, Michelangelo finished a sculpture that contained a... fact medical science would not catch up with for another 124 years. No doctor noticed it for centuries... The sculpture is the David, in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. The fact, hidden in plain sight on his neck, was finally observed in 2019 by an American cardiologist named Daniel Gelfman, a clinical professor at the Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Gelfman had gone to the museum like millions of visitors before him. But where most people see a perfect male body carved out of stone, he saw something only a heart specialist could see: the external jugular vein on the right side of David's neck is distended, raised visibly above the collarbone, exactly as it would appear on a real human being in a state of intense physical excitement. In ordinary anatomy, this vein is not visible. It only stands out under specific conditions — adrenaline, fear, exertion, the cardiovascular surge that comes before great physical effort. In other words, exactly the state a young man would be in moments before facing a giant. Gelfman published the finding in JAMA Cardiology, one of the most respected medical journals in the world. He called it the David Sign, and noted that it had been hiding in plain sight for more than 500 years. What makes this detail extraordinary is when Michelangelo carved it... The mechanics of the human circulatory system — the way blood actually returns to the heart through the venous network — were not formally described until 1628, when the English physician William Harvey published De Motu Cordis. Michelangelo finished David in 1504. He had sculpted, with anatomical precision, a circulatory phenomenon that medicine would not understand for over a century. "Michelangelo, like some of his artistic contemporaries, had anatomical training," Gelfman wrote. "I realized that he must have noticed temporary jugular venous distension in healthy individuals who are excited." He had. And he carved it into the marble. His contemporaries knew they were watching something more than a sculptor at work... They called him Il Divino, the divine one. In a letter dated September 1537, the poet Pietro Aretino wrote: "The world has many kings, and only one Michelangelo." If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: For the full breakdown of Michelangelo's David, check out today’s article: 5 details hidden inside what many consider the greatest work of art ever created by man. And if you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it all possible.show more

‡ The Puma in the Sam F. Davis Stakes... A three-year-old colt named The Puma made his debut at Gulfstream in a 7f. MSW race on January 10th. He raced up on the pace and held well to finish 2nd behind the Mott-trained first-starter Chief Wallabee, while 9 lengths clear of the 3rd-place finisher. It was a promising performance, and the colt recorded an 86 Beyer figure. He was entered in an 8.5f. MSW at Gulfstream on Saturday, and was listed as the 7/5 favorite. However, his connections chose to scratch the colt, and instead contest the 8.5f. Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa, against tougher company, and over a different track surface. Will it prove to have been the correct choice? Well, if providing short-term thrills for the owner(s) is the goal, then perhaps. But in terms of the development of the horse, I would say that the answer is probably not. It is possible that he will surprise me by running well, and improving further in subsequent races, without missing a beat. But I am partial to classical, old-school training methods, typically employed by the very best trainers, which include more gradual step-ups in class, and strong foundations, or "bottoms". To be fair, trainers these days are often under great pressure from their owners, especially with young colts, and they have much more limited options than those who trained back in the '70s and '80s. Charlie Whittingham raced Sunday Silence four times in MSW and Alw. races before placing his future HOF Champion into stakes company. The undefeated HOF filly Personal Ensign, undefeated through 13 starts, competed in just one stakes race through her first four starts for Shug McGaughey. Today, there are fewer options available, and particularly in the form of allowance races beyond sprint distances. This is partly due to the excessive number of restricted stakes races available to two and three-year-old runners, which has had the effect of displacing what were once more natural, less taxing, and ultimately beneficial developmental patterns. Of course there are horses that are able to overcome less than ideal development, but many others, often forgotten, fall by the wayside, either due to physical and/or mental setbacks that result from rushed programs. The breed-to-sell paradigm is a big catalyst, as is the fever that afflicts too many owners, namely KY Derby fever. *** In terms of stamina, The Puma's pedigree is encouraging, at least superficially, as his young sire, Essential Quality, was a Travers winner over 10f., and a Belmont winner over 12f., while his dam, Eve of War, won up to 9f. He is the first foal to race from his dam. But from what I can discern from the replays of of his race, and the available clips and images on the OBS site (he was a $150k purchase through last year's April sale), I'm not confident that he will ultimately stay much beyond a mile, and with just one race under his belt, the Sam F. Davis may prove to be a stiff challenge. My concerns revolve mainly around two characteristics, his action and body type. Though not as extreme as those which I have highlighted in previous posts, The Puma does display distorted action, as can be seen in the attached clip of the finish of his lone race. He is on the right (turquoise cap). There are distortions in both front legs, and such inefficient action can have the effect of limiting distance capabilities, especially with speed horses. The second characteristic is that he appears to be a strongly-made colt. If you watch the second clip, from his OBS walk video, you should be able to see that he appears to have a muscular shoulder, and a fairly wide chest. Taken together, The Puma's action and body type are more likely to be found in sprinters than "two-turn" horses, and as suggested above, I would be surprised if he were ultimately able to stay effectively over Classic distances. In terms of pedigree, The Puma should have no trouble with the 8.5f. distance of the Sam F. Davis. But given all of the above, and an honest pace, I'm of the opinion that he is unlikely to win. It will, in any case, be interesting to see how he fares, and how he develops over the coming months.show more

Ronan Farrow just did to Sam Altman what he... did to Harvey Weinstein... The New Yorker dropped an 18-month investigation this morning based on 100+ interviews and a stack of internal documents that were never supposed to leave OpenAI. Ilya's secret memos, Dario Amodei's private journal. Board communications, the full picture of who Sam Altman is when the cameras are off. And the pattern starts way before OpenAI. At his first startup Loopt, senior employees went to the board and asked them to fire Sam as CEO. This happened twice, over concerns about leadership and transparency. He left, joined Y Combinator, and the same thing played out. Partners complained to Paul Graham about Sam's behavior. Graham's private take to colleagues: Sam had been lying to us all the time. Nobody removed him, he kept getting promoted. Eventually he landed the CEO seat at what is now the most consequential AI company in the world. Inside OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever spent months compiling evidence: 70 pages of Slack messages, HR documents, and photos taken on personal phones because employees knew company devices were being monitored. He sent everything to the board as disappearing messages so Sam couldn't make it go away. The very first line of his memo lists Sam's core pattern, and the first word on that list is: Lying Dario Amodei saw the same thing and handled it differently. He kept a private journal for years, over 200 pages, titled "My Experience with OpenAI" with a subheading that said "Private: Do Not Share" After all those pages, his conclusion was one sentence: the problem with OpenAI is Sam himself. He eventually left and built Anthropic. 2 of the smartest people in AI independently reached the same verdict. Neither could stop what was happening. The superalignment team, the group responsible for making sure AI doesn't go off the rails, was promised 20% of OpenAI's compute. 4 people who worked on or with the team told The New Yorker the real number was 1-2%, running on the oldest cluster with the worst hardware. The team got dissolved before finishing its work. Safety was a talking point, not a priority. Sam told the board that a safety panel had approved controversial features in GPT-4. When board member Helen Toner asked for the documentation, it turned out the most sensitive features had never been approved at all. Separately, Microsoft released an early version of ChatGPT in India without completing a required safety review and Sam never mentioned it to the board. When the board finally fired him in November 2023, he texted Satya Nadella directly with his own replacement board lineup. Thrive Capital put its planned $86B investment on hold and signaled it would only close if Sam came back, giving every OpenAI employee a financial reason to support his return. The 2 board members selected to run the "independent investigation" into Sam's conduct were chosen after close conversations with Sam himself. He engineered his own reinstatement and nobody blinked. The New Yorker quotes a board member describing Sam as having two traits you almost never see in the same person: a desperate need to be liked in every interaction, and a near-complete indifference to the consequences of deceiving someone. Multiple sources used the word "sociopathic" without being prompted and without talking to each other. The article also drops a line that might be the best summary of the whole thing. They compare Sam to Steve Jobs and his famous "reality distortion field" then point out that even Jobs never told his customers that if they didn't buy his MP3 player, everyone they loved would die. Sam wrapped that exact pitch in the language of AI safety and rode it to a potential $1T IPO. That IPO is being prepared right now, while OpenAI signs government contracts spanning immigration enforcement, domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons deployed in active war zones. Meanwhile, The Information reports that his own CFO told colleagues she doesn't believe the company is ready to go public in 2026. Farrow is answering questions on Hacker News right now. The full piece is open access. Read it before Sam figures out how to make this disappear tooshow more

Bolt knew something was wrong before the wrench hit... the floor. He was the shop dog at Martinez Auto Repair, a brown rescue mutt with oil stains permanently coloring the fur near his paws. He had been found sleeping behind the tire rack one winter and never really lett. Everyone loved him. Customers brought biscuits. Mechanics blamed him for missing sandwiches. Bolt greeted delivery drivers like he owned the place. But he belonged most to Frank. Frank was sixty-four, stubborn, and the kind of man who ignored pain if there was work to finish. On a Tuesday afternoon, he was under a lifted pickup changing a brake line when Bolt suddenly stood up. The dog had been asleep beside the office door. Now his ears were forward. He walked to Frank's legs and whined. "Move, buddy," Frank muttered. Bolt didn't move. He pawed the floor. Frank rolled out from under the truck, annoyed. Then he grabbed his chest. The wrench slipped from his hand. Bolt barked once. Sharp. Ditterent. Wrong. The young mechanic in the next bay looked over just in time to see Frank sink to one knee. Bolt ran to the office, jumped against the counter, and knocked the red service bell onto the floor. The sound brought everyone running. Paramedics said later it was a heart attack. They said the timing mattered. Frank survived. At the hospital, when he finally opened his eyes, his tirst question was, "Where's the dog?" The nurses didn't allow pets in that unit. So the mechanics took turns holding their phones up for video calls. Bolt stared at the screen every time, head tilted, contused but listening. When Frank came back to the shop two weeks later, Bolt walked to him slowly. No jumping. No barking. No wild greeting. He simply pressed his head against Frank's knee and stayed there. Frank sat on an overturned bucket and cried in front of all the mechanics who pretended not to notice. Now Bolt wears a little patch on his collar that says Assistant Manager. He still sleeps near the office door. But if Frank works too long without sitting down, Bolt stands up and stares. Frank listens now. Sometimes the best employee in the building does not know how to hold a wrench. But he knows exactly when the man holding one needs saving.show more