Talking tech with NBA legends Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley

Von

January 8, 2017

This year at CES we sat down with the Turner Sports team to hear about what tech-related plans they have for 2017.
First we got a chance to speak with Turner Sports’ analysts and NBA legends Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley, who discussed what cool tech they saw at this year’s CES and also how technology is changing the way fans watch sports.
Then we talked to Craig Barry, EVP & Chief Content Officer at Turner Sports about how things like e-sports and VR fit into the brand’s content strategy.
When it comes to VR, Barry noted that Turner Sports thinks it is just getting started, and the VR content we see being put out today (like a basketball game shot with a 360-degree camera) doesn’t take advantage of all the technology has to offer.
So the company is keeping an open mind and exploring all the ways that VR could strengthen the viewing experience. One way Barry sees this potentially happening is via social viewing experiences, where you could put on a VR headset and be seated next to your best friend (who may be across the country with his own headset) courtside at a basketball game.
Check out the video above to hear directly from Shaq, Charles Barkley, and Craig Barry.

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On bots, language and making technology disappear

Von

admin

January 8, 2017

There’s a new buzzword in computer design circles every year. This year, the buzzword is without question bots.
As with anything we build, we give bots names. It’s something most of us don’t even question. They come pre-personified and ready for us to start that human-computer relationship, just like HAL 9000 or Her : there’s Siri in our iPhones, Alexa in Amazon’s Echo and there’s even Facebook Messenger’s PSL (Pumpkin Spice Latte) Bot.
A name can be a way of expressing trust in an object — or expressing control over it. In design terms, a name is a kind of affordance — a handle we can hold onto.
As the resident language expert on our product design team, naming things is part of my job. When we began iterating on a bot within our messaging product, I was prepared to brainstorm hundreds of names. Gendered, non-gendered, functional, etc.
But first, we did some testing with actual end users to understand their relationship with bots, language and names. We learned that giving a bot an identity isn’t always for the best. Calling a bot Siri does not necessarily have the same relationship-building effect as calling your car Bessie or Old Faithful.
In a voice-activated bot, names are pretty functional: saying “Siri,” “Alexa” or “OK Google” is the conversational equivalent of opening Google and entering a search term. When you see a search bar, your brain leaps from idea — there’s something I want to find — to action. We do this so often — more than 40,000 times a second — that we don’t think of it as conversing with the system, though we are asking a question and expecting a response.
But names don’t trigger an action in text-based bots, or chatbots. Even Slackbot, the tool built into the popular work messaging platform Slack, doesn’t need you to type “Hey Slackbot” in order to retrieve a pre-programmed response.
Speaking our searches out loud serves a function, but it also draws our attention to the interaction. This can have both good and bad effects. Voice is fundamentally more “humanizing” than text. A study released in August showed that when we hear something versus when we read the same thing, we are more likely to attribute the spoken word to a human “creator.”
But what is humanizing can also be irritating. We may find it far more exhausting, as humans, to say “OK Google” 75 times a day than to silently open a laptop and search.
From a design perspective, bots are aligned with the whole concept of messaging-as-a-platform — we could build a bot right into our own messenger using the same simple elements we’d already designed for human-to-human conversation.
So when we experimented with building a bot, we wanted to use those simple elements to communicate. We gave our test bot a name and let it introduce itself like a real person would: “Hi, I’m Bot, Intercom’s digital assistant.”
What we found was surprising. People hated this bot — found it off-putting and annoying. It was interrupting them, getting in the way of what they wanted (to talk to a real person), even though its interactions were very lightweight.
We tried different things: alternate voices, so that the bot was sometimes friendly and sometimes reserved and functional. But we didn’t see much change.
It was only when we removed the name and took away the first person pronoun and the introduction that things started to improve. The name, more than any other factor, caused friction.
We’ve been telling ourselves scary stories about robots for more than a century, stories in which we simultaneously pity and mistrust them. When we name the tools we use, we assert control over them; we do that because we want to be the ones having the interaction, doing the job.
The digital tools we make live in a completely different psychological landscape to the real world. We can’t get a handle on them, literally. There is no straight line from a tradesman’s hammer he can repair himself to a chatbot designed and built by a design team somewhere in California (or in Dublin, in our case).
Unlike most writers in my company, my work does its job best when it’s barely noticed. Control is incredibly important in designing digital tools — most language we see and experience in a product is about affording control and understanding to you, the person using the product — not me, the writer. To be understood intuitively is the goal — the words on the screen are the handle of the hammer.
Names and identity lift the tools on the screen to a level above intuition. They make us see the tool in all its virtual glory, and place it in an entirely different context to the person using it — and not always a relationship that person asks for or appreciates.
This might be because of novelty — we might become more comfortable with the virtual, more trusting of it (though this year’s headlines haven’t given us much to trust). But despite the hundreds of movies we’ve made and books we’ve written about robots, introducing personality into technology might not be the way we become more comfortable.
There’s another school of thought in design, one that describes it as almost invisible. Siri and Alexa might have been thought of as examples of this type: you can’t really “see” them, and so they disappear into the background. But that’s not necessarily true.
As humans, we’re visual people — we respond to what we see. But even more than that, we’re social — we respond to the things we can speak to. It’s why we name our possessions, and why we fear the pretend humans we’ve been imagining for so long.
The real measure of success for today’s designers is making technology disappear so that it becomes a true tool for humans. The true measure of success for a designer who deals in words is making tools quieter to use, so we can use them more intuitively.

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Watch TechCrunch’s last day at CES 2017

Von

admin

January 8, 2017

We’re cold and we’re tired. But we’re nearing the end, and we saved the best for last.
We’ll be making Crepes live on stage. We’re chatting with the CEO of Arduino, and we’re also hanging out with LeEco and will chat about their global plans.
Then, at 2:00, we will have the final round of Hardware Battlefield where four hardware companies will pitch four expert judges in a bid to win $50,000.

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“I want to cheat on him and set him on fire”: why are we sadistic towards our Sims? Why, in spite of everything, I'm hopeful about 2017

Von

admin

January 8, 2017

There are 5,200 results if you search the words “ Sims torture chamber ” on YouTube.
Among these are videos of virtual people locked in rooms with mirrored walls, trapped in skydiving simulators with blocked exits, and – of course – flailing in swimming pools from which, after the removal of the ladder, the Sim cannot escape.
“PLEASE NOTE THAT I WOULD NORMALLY NEVER DO THIS KIND OF STUFF WITH MY SIMS!! I ONLY GOT BORED OF THE SIMS 1!!!” reveals a disclaimer on one video created by the unnervingly-named user StarSweetieSqueaker , who forced eight Sims to wet themselves before setting them alight in a single room decorated with circus wallpaper.
Eight sleep-deprived Sims set alight in a windowless room, via YouTube
StarSweetieSqueaker is probably not a deranged psychopath living out sick, twisted fantasies of murder and torture. They are, most likely, an ordinary person – or at least, an ordinary The Sims player.
Sandra Donselaar runs the tutorial website sims-online.com and reveals that the page “ The Sims 4 Death Guide, Killing your Sims ” is the second most-visited this month (the first being the cheats page). “The total unique pageviews for this guide are 287,222 and 90 per cent of them landed on this page by searching through Google,” she says.
It is clear, then, that many people enjoy murdering their Sims. The question is: why?
“When people are immersed in virtual environments, a phenomenon called the disinhibition effect may be evoked,” says Berni Good, the founder of Cyber Psychologist, a team of academics specialising in the psychology of the gamer. “In this state, people do not perceive any authority and even if their names are clearly apparent they perceive anonymity. Thus, the normal social interactions people have face-to-face fall to the wayside and people may act in virtual worlds in a way they would not in the real world.”
A Sim being electrocuted, via Imgur
Adam, a 16-year-old student who wishes to be identified only by his first name, explains his motivations for acting sadistically in The Sims. Last month, he adopted a Sim child, locked him in a glass room in the garden, forced him to watch a pool party going on around him, and slowly starved him to death.
“I guess my motivations were boredom and a desire to play the game outside of conventional play styles,” he says. “I suppose it was also a way to relieve some anger that I had been feeling that day, if I recall correctly. Just a harmless way of taking it out on something. .. It didn’t have any effect on a real person, and I’m certainly not going to torture a kid in real life because I did it in a computer game.”
Good notes that this behaviour can be psychologically beneficial. “Taking out one’s aggression out in videogames may be a safe way to deal with difficult thoughts and allows the player to have elements of control that they could not display in the real world,” she says.
Five identical Sim toddlers left to die, via YouTube
I understand Adam’s motivations. After purchasing a copy of Sims 4 last week, I played for an hour, found an in-game boyfriend, engaged in some titillating WooHoo and then grew bored with the traditional way of playing the game. That is how I found myself, without a single trace of emotion, uttering the words: “I want to cheat on him and set him on fire.”
But is this a worrying insight into my psyche? Are all humans fundamentally bad? Does the way we play The Sims prove that none of us can be trusted with power?
“There is a concern about social learning theory, ‘I see I do’,” says Good, referring to the age-old debate about whether violent video games inspire children to act violently in the real world. “But the research does not suggest those people playing violent games are any more violent in the real world than those not participating in this kind of play.”
I personally believe that murder in the The Sims is enjoyable because it differs from murder in games that are intended to be violent. When you stab someone in Grand Theft Auto or mutilate someone in Skyrim , you are fulfilling the gameplay and advancing with the game as was intended. When you force someone to swim themselves to death in The Sims , you are simultaneously breaking the rules, getting creative, and exploring the boundaries of the game. These same experiences are gained with many other nostalgic simulator games intended for children, including Theme Hospital and Rollercoaster Tycoon.
Sims, dressed as hot dogs, being forced to work in a sweatshop creating art, via Imgur
Ben Brock, a 27-year-old who works in publishing, experienced this while playing a game called Zoo Tycoon as a child. Brock discovered that he could make his zoo visitors be mauled by animals, and he could click on an individual to read their thoughts. “They would actually repeatedly think to themselves, ‘Oh no! I’m being mauled by Bengal Tiger 7!‘ if such a thing happened to them,” he says.
Since the visitors couldn’t actually die, Brock enjoyed watching them running around and screaming, and trapping them when they tried to escape. “God, I should probably be locked up,” he says.
Brock agrees with my thesis that it isn’t so much about the violence as it is about experimenting with the game, saying he was never a “gamer” or into outwardly violent games. “Videogames, even open-ended ones, often feel so restrictive – there’s only so many buttons you can press – so playing them against the grain feels very freeing,” he says.
Good concurs. “It’s about people having autonomy and choice when playing games. Autonomy is a basic psychological need that feeds into motivation and happiness, whereby in the real world people have many obligations. In video gameplay being the master of one’s own destiny without constraints can be very compelling,” she says.
Yet although Sim murder and/or torture isn’t usually a sign of anything pathological, sometimes it can be.
A woman in her mid-twenties, who wishes to be identified only by the pseudonym “Eve”, tells me she was diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder and has scored 33/40 on the psychopathy test PCL-R. “I think my real-life diagnosis ties into how I play games somewhat,” she says. “My reasons for creating my Sim torture chamber were partially as a way to vent and partially as a way to entertain myself. If I had a particularly annoying encounter that day, I’d blow off steam by creating a Sim of the person who wronged me and putting them through hell. These days I use therapy to vent my desire to harm and kill, but games are still a great outlet.
“The thing is, if I could run the same experiments on real people without any chance of being caught, I absolutely would.”
But only 1 per cent of the population are psychopaths, whereas thousands of The Sims players enjoy murdering their creations. The fact that drowning your Sim by removing the pool ladder has become a trope and a meme in its own right proves this.
A hot dog ghost, via Imgur
For the most part, then, killing our Sims doesn’t make us bad people – though, I suppose, nor does it make us good. While I built four walls around my virtual neighbour and enclosed her in there with multiple plates of rotten food and an unflushed toilet, other players were acting more innocently.
“I consistently switched a Sim to wear their swimming trunks every time a fellow Sim visited,” says Dan Bougourd, a 34-year-old business intelligence analyst, when I ask about his experiences playing the game as a child. “I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I made myself smile with the regularity with which I did it. I fear he may have found it difficult to form relationships.”
/* */
Turkey was the main topic of conversation for my family over the Christmas break. Not in the usual way, when we discuss which celebrity chef’s turkey roasting technique we’re faddishly going to mimic this year. (The blessed bird always tastes exactly the same, without fail.) On the day my family was first reunited for the holidays, news came of the assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey. “You don’t want to mess with the Turks,” my youngest brother offered, predictably. “Or the Russians, for that matter,” he said.
The room was heavy with worrying about global politics. With peace in the world so fragile, my father was looking around at his sons and grandsons and thinking of the young men of his 1940s childhood. A week later we shared the announcement of the ceasefire in Syria, brokered seemingly against the odds by Turkey and Russia at the UN. Let’s hope that my brother is right and that no one will mess with the Turks and the Russians, and that the Syrian people, whose lives and losses haunt us all, can have a glimmer of hope for 2017. No one in my family is convinced that peace is on its way, but we made promising noises nonetheless.
Wish upon a star
As I’m sure he will be doing for the next six years, my son demanded a family outing to watch the latest Star Wars flick. Rogue One did not disappoint. We’re a bunch of Star Wars fanatics. My brother Luke was named by our older siblings in homage to Mr Skywalker. My mother vetoed calling me Leia.
The news of Carrie Fisher’s death hit us hard, but none more so than my eldest son, who took to YouTube (as all of his generation do) to watch every interview with her. He sat down at breakfast and said: “Carrie Fisher had a mental health problem, Mom, and she was a really big feminist, did you know?” “Yes,” I answered, “I did know, and the fact that she was willing to talk about it made her pretty special.” “She was pretty ace, wasn’t she, Mom?” he said.
Yes, bab, she really was.
Straight to video
Perhaps until this year I lived under a rock, or was a normal person who didn’t seek out the New Year messages of political leaders. My metamorphosis into a Westminster bubble-dweller must be complete, though, because this year I watched the offerings of both Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May. Next year I mightn’t bother.
I watched Mrs May’s at 1.15am on 1 January – after returning from an evening out dancing and drinking with my mates. Perhaps this set it up for a fall, because I felt she wasn’t really grabbing the New Year spirit. It left me thinking that although the message of unity wasn’t bad, she could have cheered up a bit.
Jeremy’s offering was hampered by the version I watched sounding as if he was on a building site. I think expectations let this one down, as it had been trailed as the beginning of a new move to grasp the populist nettle. I was expecting the pizzazz of a slogan such as “Make Labour great again”. Aside from mentioning the establishment, the text of his message could have been written by Ed Miliband’s speechwriters.
I think neither of these videos will launch a thousand ships and, alas, the privileged few chided in both videos will, I am certain, be resting as comfily in their establishment beds in 2017 as they were in 2016. I’m not pleased about this, but I am more of a realist than a populist.
All’s fair in love and war
I like to poke fun at the idea of resolutions, and to pretend that I’m a cynic who can’t be won over by the endless “new year, new you” lifestyle articles about losing weight or becoming a better version of yourself, which are all so heavily gendered in tone. I’ll be the same shape and size and as good as I’m going to get at the end of 2017 as I am at the start. In 2013, inspired by the Boney M hit (“Ra-ra Rasputin”), I made a resolution to become Russia’s greatest love machine. Had I put in the effort, perhaps geopolitics today might be in better shape.
Land of hope and glory
Despite my cynicism, I find myself looking forward to 2017 with hope. I’m as terrified of a Donald Trump presidency and the unknowns of Brexit as the next person, but I spent the break with my friends and family, who range from political nerds to people who don’t vote and couldn’t name a single member of the cabinet. I find that most people are just crossing fingers for the best in their own lives. They don’t give a toss about half the stuff that haunts us in Westminster, but they do give a toss about each other.
French connections
My brother and sister-in-law are classic examples of what Theresa May calls the “just about managing”, or Jams. When we chatted about it on Christmas Day, they rolled their eyes at being the new Tory target audience. They want things to be easier and better for them and their young son, but they wouldn’t use their vote to damn other people. My other brother and his family live in France and, for them, 2017 brings an impossible choice between a Continental version of Thatcherism and the BNP. They are both convinced that liberté, égalité, fraternité will remain in their lives and in those of their neighbours, regardless of the vote.
Critical events
This year could see a huge crisis in the world, for all sorts of reasons. My mother used to say, “Never waste a crisis,” and I hope we won’t. If we do our best, 2017 and all the possible macro horrors will be counteracted by simple British shrugging and getting on with making sure that the way we live does not look like the crazy hate fuelled by figureheads like Trump.
I expect that most people wouldn’t call themselves socialists, yet deep down we all believe that we are all better off when we are all better off – and I hope that in 2017 we show it. It’s the only chance we have to clear out the gloom.
Jess Phillips is the MP for Birmingham Yardley (Labour)

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What jokes would The Canary allow Charlie Brooker to make about Jeremy Corbyn? Want to really shift the pounds in January? Get drinking water

Von

admin

January 8, 2017

/* */
Journalist and TV presenter Charlie Brooker has come under intense scrutiny for mocking Jeremy Corbyn in his 2016 Wipe – the latest instalment of his annual dose of spiky mockery of the past year.
And by “intense scrutiny”, your mole is of course referring to that great organ of free expression, the nation’s last bastion of speaking truth to power, The Canary. Yes, those click-thirsty conspiracy mongers over on the alt left “news” site have written a DEVASTATING BLOG POST about what Brooker’s show should and shouldn’t have said about the Labour leader and other politicians.
The piece takes issue with an Ant and Dec pun Brooker makes in an aside about Corbyn being unable to recognise the presenting duo: “If you think that’s tough, try getting him to recognise Ant n’ Semitism.”
Your mole’s chuckles at this quip at the time could be heard in neighbouring burrows.
But The Canary was not amused. “The quip cements a fabricated smear campaign from media pundits, the pro-Israel lobby, Conservative MPs, and Blairites who all have a common enemy: Corbyn,” it moaned, before going on to complain that Brooker dared mention “ Traingate ” – that beautiful time in August when Corbyn sat on the floor of a train for a little bit and then Virgin produced some CCTV footage suggesting there were seats available.
This Twitter conversation between the writer of the cutting-edge investigation and Brooker is particularly revealing, with Brooker at long last admitting: “We originally planned a 25min pro-Corbyn musical number but our shadowy Blairite handlers insisted we scrap it.”
@wrightismight I don’t understand the question. What do you mean by „agenda“?
— Charlie Brooker (@charltonbrooker) January 3, 2017
@wrightismight We (that is, the show) have free reign. BBC never suggests or requests anything be specifically covered / ignored.
— Charlie Brooker (@charltonbrooker) January 3, 2017
@wrightismight We originally planned a 25min pro-Corbyn musical number but our shadowy Blairite handlers insisted we scrap it.
— Charlie Brooker (@charltonbrooker) January 3, 2017
The Canary argues Brooker should have made more jokes about Theresa May, although it does admit: “No one is asking political items to be ‘pro-Corbyn’.”
So, as some baffled commentators have been asking , what kind of digs would it accept at the Labour leader’s expense? Here are a few suggestions:
How many Jeremy Corbyns does it take to change a lightbulb?
None. Jeremy Corbyn inspires change from within.
*
What’s the difference between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith?
Principles!
*
Why did Jeremy Corbyn cross the road?
Because the trains had all been privatised.
*
Why did the chicken cross the road?
There was a coup against Jeremy Corbyn on the other side!
*
How do you tell the difference between Jesus and Jeremy Corbyn?
The MSM only crucified Christ once.
*
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Jeremy.
Jeremy who?
Is that the Blairite commentariat pre-September 2015 at the door?
*
Jeremy Corbyn walks into a bar. The barman asks: “Why the long history of campaigning against all forms of racism?”
*
What’s black, white and red all over?
Jeremy Corbyn’s favourite newspaper!
*
Doctor, doctor – I feel like Jeremy Corbyn!
So do I. It’s time for a real alternative to the neoliberal consensus.
*
An Englishman, a Welshman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. “What’ll it be?” asks the barman. “We all want the same thing,” they reply in unison. “A Labour leader who supports a wider discussion about devolution policy across the whole of the UK.”
“Jeremy Corbyns all round then!”
*
What do you call a man with two left feet?
Jeremy Corbyn when he’s kicking the establishment!
You’re welcome, Charlie.
If you’ve been struggling to come up with a suitable New Year resolution, may I suggest a determined plan to drink more? That might sound superficially attractive (depending on what kind of New Year you had) but I should make clear from the outset that it’s water, not alcohol, that I have in mind.
Ensuring adequate hydration has certain benefits, medically speaking. A good fluid throughput reduces the chance of urinary tract infection, and helps prevent attacks of gout and kidney stone formation in people prone to these conditions. If we’re short of water, the bowel will reabsorb every last drop from what doctors euphemistically term the “stool”, which can lead to constipation. And our kidneys function best when there is plenty of water around – they respond to dehydration by concentrating urine to conserve body water, but in doing so they can sustain damage through metabolic stress.
Aside from these medical aspects, there may be softer benefits. As the body starts to dehydrate, water within cells is drawn out into the circulation. The resultant cellular water loss can affect function in a variety of tissues. Athletes’ fluid balance has been the subject of extensive research, and even mild levels of dehydration measurably reduce physical performance. Studies of brain function have shown conflicting results, but overall it appears that mild to moderate dehydration impairs concentration and the ability to think through complex tasks. Headache is a common symptom of water depletion and, although it’s not a miracle cure, studies show that the severity and duration of headaches can be reduced by optimising hydration. So frequent swigs from a bottle of water may help ensure we’re in top condition to tackle our day.
Beyond this, water is a critical ally in the fight against the modern plague of obesity. Quenching our thirst with pretty much any other drink freights in energy along with the H2O, adding to our overall calorie load. There is also some suggestion that we readily confuse thirst for hunger. This might sound daft, but both sensations are mediated by the same region of the brain, and our highly adaptable brains rapidly forge associations between behaviours and the biological drives that they satisfy. All foodstuffs contain water, so it has always been possible to ease thirst by eating; but many of the fluids we consume nowadays are highly calorific, so we often sate our hunger by drinking. As a consequence of these crossed wires, we may be taking substantial excess energy into our bodies when all we’re after is some H2O. Anyone wanting to tackle an expanding waistline should respond to apparent hunger pangs with a good drink of water. If twenty minutes later you no longer crave food, then what you were experiencing was thirst.
As we age, our sense of thirst diminishes, and many elderly people completely lose the cues that ordinarily prompt fluid intake. Of itself, this increases susceptibility to urinary tract infection, but dehydration is also a frequent and severe complication of otherwise minor illnesses such as flu or gastroenteritis in this age group. The rapid downward spiral of low blood pressure, kidney failure and mental confusion frequently leads to hospital admission, or even death. We assume that if someone isn’t thirsty then they’re not short of fluids, but the most important advice I give elderly patients is to ensure that they drink regularly, even if they don’t feel like it.
If you are interested in increasing your own daily water intake, get yourself a bottle to refill from the tap, rather than adding to the mountain of plastic waste we produce. How much to drink varies according to individual circumstances, but two litres over 24 hours should be fine – three at a push. The best gauge is your urine colour: pale straw is what you’re looking for. Darker suggests you should drink more, but if you’re constantly peeing stuff that’s as clear as Evian then you’re overdoing it. And with that, I wish you a happy, hydrated new year.

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Chris Berman's wild-card round NFL picks

Von

admin

January 8, 2017

Chris Berman has taken his Swami Sez NFL picks segment, seen on SportsCenter, to ESPN Chalk. He’ll give his favorite picks against the spread here with a little further analysis.
Season record: 51-32 ATS (last week: 2-3)
Oakland Raiders at Houston Texans
Editor’s Picks Betting guide for NFL wild-card games
Where does the betting value lie for NFL wild-card weekend? ESPN Chalk experts provide against-the-spread, over/under and prop bet advice on every game.
This is a very difficult game to handicap. It’s hard to imagine Connor Cook generating a ton of offense in his first NFL start, especially against a very tough Houston defense. If Oakland runs the ball 38 times for 100 yards, the Raiders are in trouble. If they can run it 38 times for 140 yards or so, then it will be a ballgame. Brock Osweiler played perhaps his best game of the season against Oakland in Week 11 in Mexico City and threw the ball well. Maybe he has a bunch of confidence from that game. In the end, however Oakland tries to move the ball, I think Houston’s D carries the day. Texans advance.
Score: Houston 19, Oakland 17
Detroit Lions at Seattle Seahawks
Will the real Seahawks please stand up? I’m waiting for them. These are pros who know when the playoff button has been pushed, but it’s clear they miss safety Earl Thomas. Seattle is just 2-3 without him, and he’s out for the rest of the year. But this defense usually steps up at home in front of its 12th Man. Even though Detroit’s Darius Slay is a good corner, I like Seattle’s offense to do pretty well against the Lions‘ defense, especially tight end Jimmy Graham. Keep an eye on receiver Paul Richardson , who will be Tyler Lockett ’s replacement. I have a ton of respect for what Matthew Stafford has done this season, but I think the Lions are running out of gas a little bit. I’m looking for Seattle to be the team I picked to represent the NFC before the season.
Score: Seattle 27, Detroit 16
Miami Dolphins at Pittsburgh Steelers
Running back Jay Ajayi isn’t going to run for 200 yards again, as Pittsburgh has had plenty of time to get a game plan ready. Quarterback Matt Moore doesn’t scare me like Connor Cook does, as Moore has started more than 20 games and has a good record in them. This was a very hot team until it ran into New England in Week 17. Miami has a chance to hang around but only if Ndamukong Suh , Cameron Wake and the defensive line get after Ben Roethlisberger. Pittsburgh has too many offensive options, though, and I think the Steelers pull this out. Big Ben is 5-1 at home so far this season. He makes it 6-1.
Score: Pittsburgh 27, Miami 20
New York Giants at Green Bay Packers
I understand that Eli Manning and the Giants have gone into Lambeau and won in the postseason in 2007 and 2011, but I’m not sure that matters much. Eli is the most important player left from those teams, and he’s not going to shrink from the big stage anyway. The question is: Can a very good Giants defense make Aaron Rodgers good, not great? Rodgers has 15 TDs to zero INTs during this six-game winning streak. He’s feeling it and finding Jordy Nelson early and often. To me, the big matchup on the other side of the ball is if Green Bay can get a pass rush against Manning. If the Packers can’t, then Odell Beckham Jr. could burn a depleted Packers secondary. But Rodgers is so hot right now, I think he melts the tundra. Packers get it done.
Score: Green Bay 23, NY Giants 16

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Cavaliers acquire Korver in deal with Hawks

Von

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January 8, 2017

The Cleveland Cavaliers filled a need at guard by acquiring Kyle Korver from the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for Mike Dunleavy , Mo Williams and a protected future first-round selection, the teams announced Saturday.
„We are extremely pleased to be able to add a player and person the caliber of Kyle Korver to our Cavs family,“ Cavs general manager David Griffin said in a statement. „Among the most prolific and dynamic 3-point shooters in NBA history, a selfless and team-first competitor, Kyle brings all of the elements of Cavs DNA that we covet on and off the floor. “
Editor’s Picks Trade grades: Who wins the Korver deal?
How much does Kyle Korver help the defending champion Cavs? How did the Hawks do in the trade? Kevin Pelton grades the deal.
The move comes one day after the Cavaliers shipped their first-round pick in June’s draft to the Portland Trail Blazers for a 2018 protected first-round pick, which Cleveland originally sent to Portland along with Anderson Varejao in exchange for a future second-round pick at the February trade deadline last year.
The protections on the pick Cleveland sent to Portland are the same they were when they sent the pick to them before: top-10 protected in 2019 and 2020. If it doesn’t happen in those two years, it becomes second-round picks in both 2021 and 2022.
Korver, a 14-year veteran, is one of the league’s best 3-point shooters, making 43 percent of his 3-pointers during his career. The Cavs have been looking for depth on the perimeter after the loss of J. R. Smith in December for three months to a broken thumb. They also lost Chris Andersen for the remainder of the season to a torn ACL.
„It adds another dynamic piece to our team,“ LeBron James said. „Hell of a sharpshooter and just a great guy. Great professional, as you’ve seen over his career — a guy that’s played at a high level for a long time, has championship aspirations. And he has another rocket launcher. “
The 35-year-old Korver, who is earning $5.2 million this season in the final year of his current contract, is averaging 9.5 points per game and shooting 40.9 percent on 3-pointers. He was an All-Star in 2015.
Korver has 72 hours to report to the Cavs and will still need to undergo a physical. It’s possible he could join them on Sunday in Phoenix, the first of five games out West for the Cavs, whose trip will conclude with a Jan. 16 matchup at Golden State.
„There’s definitely mixed emotions,“ Korver said after Thursday night’s game regarding potentially leaving Atlanta. „There’s a lot of hard ties to Atlanta, for a lot of reasons. A lot of friendships, relationships. It’s where I had my best basketball years, honestly. It’s where I had all my kids. It’s hard to leave that behind.
„Obviously, it’s a great opportunity for me to go to Cleveland. So I’m very excited about that part of it. But there’s a lot of relationships that I care about here that I’m going to miss. From a basketball perspective, [Cleveland is] a great, great fit for me. And I know that. “
Dunleavy appeared in 23 games for the Cavs this season, averaging 4.6 points and 2.0 rebounds. The 14-year veteran has averaged 11.4 points and 4.3 rebounds with five teams over his career.
Williams, a 13-year veteran, is averaging 8.2 points and 2.4 assists this season. The Hawks will be his 10th stop, including two stints with the Jazz since entering the league in 2003. He has averages of 13.2 points and 4.9 assists per game over his career.
ESPN’s Dave McMenamin and Marc Stein, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Similarity rank: 1

Sentiment rank: 3.8

© Source: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/18425842/cleveland-cavaliers-acquire-kyle-korver-trade-atlanta-hawks
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Mississippi St. players aid woman after car flips

Von

admin

January 8, 2017

The Mississippi State men’s basketball team and coach Ben Howland came to the aid of a woman whose car flipped on a slippery highway Friday afternoon.
The woman — Carolyn Ashley, a nurse from McComb, Mississippi — did not appear to be seriously injured in the accident, according to team officials.
Scary moment as a car flipped in front of our bus en route to LSU. Glad we were able to help this lady get out of her car. #HailState pic.twitter.com/YanATdwrJe
— MSU Men’s Basketball (@HailStateMBK) January 6, 2017
The MSU basketball squad, which had to travel by bus to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for a Saturday matchup against LSU because the de-icing machine had malfunctioned at the airport in Columbus, Mississippi, watched Ashley’s SUV slide across the highway and flip.
„She just spun out and went flying off the road,“ Howland told ESPN. „There were multiple tumbles and turns. “
Howland said he left the bus and ran toward the car with Michael Moynihan, the team’s director of operations, and David Deets, the team’s strength coach.
Ashley was initially unresponsive but soon woke up after Deets pounded on her door. Then she began to scream, „Get me out of here! “
Howland said Ashley’s pleas and the smoke coming from the mangled hood made him fearful.
Then his players got off the bus to help, but Howland told them to stay where they were because he thought another car might slide and cause another accident.
„We were worried this thing was going to explode,“ Howland said. „It was really scary. “
Howland said he eventually opened a back door on the driver’s side of the car, and Deets and Moynihan pulled Ashley from her SUV. Ryan Dotson, the team’s trainer, examined Ashley, who appeared to be disoriented and complained of a sore neck and knee, but had no significant injuries.
„I can’t even tell you how surreal this was,“ Howland said.
After the accident, players and staffers led Ashley onto the bus so she could wait for medical personnel to arrive before they proceeded to Baton Rouge. The team arrived a few hours later.
„It’s really a blessing she walked away from that,“ said Howland, who called to check on Ashley prior to Saturday’s game. „The car was totaled. I’m really thankful we weren’t seeing something that was more of a disaster. Wearing her seatbelt saved her life. “
Ashley underwent tests at a local hospital after the accident, but „everything turned out fine,“ according to her boyfriend, Robert Bates. Bates said Ashley is grateful to Howland and the team for their assistance. He said Howland left a voicemail for Ashley but that she hasn’t heard it yet because she has been resting.
„I was just want to thank him and the team for their help,“ Bates said.
Howland said the squad saw five more crashes before it reached Baton Rouge.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation had advised all motorists to stay off the roads Friday after a rare winter storm caused chaos on the region’s highways.
Mississippi State will fly home after Saturday’s game, perhaps a sidebar now to what the team witnessed Friday.

Similarity rank: 0

Sentiment rank: 3.9

Ivory Coast mutineers hold defence minister in pay standoff

Von

admin

January 8, 2017

Mutinous soldiers were holding Ivory Coast’s Defence Minister Alain Richard Donwahi on Saturday, rejecting the terms of a deal announced by the president to end their mutinous pay protest.
An AFP correspondent reported that soldiers were firing Kalashnikov rifles and heavy weapons outside local government offices in Bouake, blocking the minister and his team from exiting talks to defuse the crisis sparked by troops‘ takeover of Ivory Coast’s second city on Friday.
The standoff came shortly after President Alassane Ouattara announced that the government and mutineers had reached an agreement, with tensions escalating in the world’s biggest cocoa producer as the unrest spread to the economic capital Abidjan and several other towns.
Shots had rung out at a military base in Abidjan on Saturday as soldiers put up barricades in the city, a day after troops took over Bouake where they terrified residents by firing rocket launchers in the streets.
The soldiers are seeking bonuses, pay rises, housing and faster promotion.
Bouake was the headquarters of an armed rebellion that broke out in 2002 and split the west African country in two until 2011, sparking a decade of clashes and crises.
The current mutiny appears to have been spearheaded by former rebel fighters who have now been integrated into the army.
– ‚Panic‘ –
Ouattara did not give details of the deal offered to the mutineers, saying in his brief televised announcement that it took into account „the demands relating to bonuses and improving the living conditions of soldiers“.
„Having given my agreement, I ask all soldiers to go back to their barracks to allow decisions to be carried out calmly,“ he added.
Soldiers in Bouake appeared furious after the announcement, with one mutineer saying: „The president must tell us the date we will be paid and the amount we will be given. “
In Abidjan — the bustling commercial hub that is home to the presidency, government and parliament — national television reported earlier that shots had been fired at the Akouedo barracks in the city’s north.
Troops closed off a major junction nearby, leaving the surrounding roads gridlocked and hampering access to several districts.
„The soldiers stopped at the roundabout in front of the barracks, demanding that drivers do a U-turn. This created a panic,“ a local journalist told AFP.
„All the shops in the area are closed. The soldiers are wearing balaclavas. “
AFP journalists reported that troops had also put up barricades near a fire station in central Abidjan, where a dozen armed soldiers were forcing cars to turn back.
– All-night shooting –
The rattle of automatic gunfire had raged in Bouake into Saturday, with sporadic shooting still heard by the afternoon, AFP journalists said. Schools and businesses remained shut.
The unrest erupted in Bouake in the early hours of Friday when troops broke into a weapons depot, arming themselves with rocket-launchers and other weapons mounted on pickup trucks before attacking police posts, manning strategic junctions and putting up barricades.
Soldiers also took to the streets of Daloa and Daoukro in the country’s centre as well as Korhogo and Odienne in the north on Friday. Though the protests there eased, the unrest had spread to Man in the west as well as Abidjan by Saturday.
„Most garrisons in the country where there are ex-rebels have risen up, shooting in the air and looting in some places,“ a military source said, adding that better-equipped loyalist units, such as the special forces, had not joined the mutiny.
– ‚Emerging from crisis‘ –
Donwahi had said in a televised address before heading to Bouake on Saturday that the situation was „understandable but regrettable“.
„We are emerging from a crisis and our army is being rebuilt,“ the defence minister said.
„Things are not moving as quickly as we hoped but they are moving none the less. “
A similar dispute over pay by rebels-turned-soldiers erupted in Bouake in November 2014 which spread to Abidjan and briefly brought the country to a standstill.
Bouake was the capital of a rebellion which erupted in 2002 in a failed attempt to oust then president Laurent Gbagbo.
The effective partitioning of the country between a rebel-held north and a loyalist south triggered years of unrest. Rebel forces generally backed Ouattara, the current president who took office in April 2011 after a bloody post-electoral showdown with Gbagbo that left 3,000 people dead.
Gbagbo was arrested and turned over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where his trial began in January last year for crimes against humanity.

Similarity rank: 1.1

Sentiment rank: -0.7

Top 10 Ways to Avoid Joint and Wrist Pain at the Office

Von

admin

January 8, 2017

Working long hours at a desk, whether you use a computer all day or some other tool to get your work done, can wreak havoc on your wrists, knees, and other joints. Here are ten ways you can keep them in good health, and reduce the pain and discomfort your day-to-day may be putting you through.
Drinking more water has a ton of benefits , one of which being better joint health (not to mention better overall health.) You don’t have to drink a pre-prescribed amount or anything— just drink when you’re thirsty , or better yet, keep a nice big bottle of water near your desk and make a point to drain it every now and again.
Keeping yourself hydrated will keep your body happy (and seriously, you’ll feel better too,) but it’ll also keep you from reaching for hand-to-mouth snacks. Perhaps more importantly from an at-the-office perspective though, it’ll get you up and moving around on a regular basis as you go to refill that water bottle, and…well, as you go to the bathroom because you’ve been drinking so much water. Consider them small, short breaks where you get a chance to get up from your desk and move around a bit.
Speaking of taking every opportunity to get up and move around, doing so is another good way to stave off muscle and joint pain or soreness at work. Whether it’s giving your poor wrists a chance to rest and recover between long sessions of typing, or giving your knees a break and alleviating the pressure on them that comes with sitting for long periods (not to mention all the other ways sitting for hours on end is bad for you ,) getting up just to stretch, walk around the office, and maybe get some face time with your coworkers, is a great idea. Ideally you wouldn’t go more than 9o minutes without taking one.
Of course, once you’re sitting at work doing your thing, inertia makes it really difficult to break that focus and get up to stretch. That’s where technology comes in. Apps like previously mentioned Rest for Mac , Aware for Mac , or Workrave for Windows and Linux , can all remind you to take breaks periodically. Either way, make it as painless as possible so you actually do it, and your body will thank you. Bonus, taking more breaks will actually make you more productive , as well as healthier.
If you have the flexibility to, switch up where you work. If you have a work-issued laptop and an office with common areas or conference rooms—or even phone rooms you can escape into, grab one for a few hours at a time. Of course, not everyone has the privilege to have a desk they work at for a few hours, and then some comfy couches or a common area they can work at for the rest of the day (especially if people swing by your desk looking for you often), but if you do, take it.
Alternatively, consider switching desks with a colleague from time to time, or even hitting a nearby coffee shop , or better yet, a library , where you can settle in, focus, and there’s Wi-Fi and power aplenty. Wherever you roam, here are some tips to stay productive when you’re working from not the office.
In the same vein as working from different desks and locations whenever you can, consider working from home too, if you have space to do so. For many of us, working from a home office is more relaxing, more comfortable, and in most cases, just more space. Of course, just like above, your home office, a coffee shop, or a library may not offer better ergonomics, but being able to choose and change the position you work in can be a benefit in itself.
Even if you opt to work from bed, you can do so with good posture —better than sitting at an uncomfortable desk all day, for sure. In fact, just about anywhere you go, you probably have some control over ergonomics , so don’t hesitate to exercise it.
If you can’t just work from a place not your desk, and you do have a little flexibility about what your desk is like, consider a sit/stand setup. You don’t have to go full standing desk ( unless you want to, of course!) but a flexible sit-or-stand desk gives you the best of both worlds. Check out our guide to choosing (or building) the perfect standing desk for some inspiration.
Keep in mind though, sometimes you’ll just want to sit, and other times it’ll work better to stand. The real point here is to make sure you get some regular movement and don’t wind up in one place and position all day long. If you do use a standing desk, check out this standing desk yoga routine. Either way, there’s plenty of other things you can do to keep yourself limber , even while you sit.
Regardless of the dress code at your office, make sure you wear comfortable, well-fitted clothes. Even if you have to squeeze on professional garb every day, the least you can do is make sure it’s not too tight, uncomfortable, or worse, so hard to move around in that you can’t stretch or move your arms and legs with full range of motion. After all, you spend eight hours of the day in these clothes. They should be comfortable, supportive, and healthy to work in, whatever your job may be.
I learned a long time ago that even if your approach to work clothes is to buy cheap as long as it remotely fits, you’re doing your look—and your health—a disservice every time you cut off circulation to your legs, or wear something just too tight around the arms or sleeves that your wrists feel awful at the end of the day. Then you inevitable have to replace them. Bottom line: cheap clothes are too expensive. Buy quality instead.
Maybe you don’t have the type of job that allows you to just up and walk around whenever you want, or take a break whenever you’d like to stretch. That’s okay—frankly, few of us really do. Most people have to be at their desk to get work done, and if they’re not at their desk working, someone’s missing them, whether they have to take calls, crank out reports, or write code. For those folks, fidgeting and small movements are where it’s at.
When I worked in a call center and had to be on a phone for hours and hours a day, fidgeting and other minimal exercises I could do while I was on the phone with someone or within reach of my headset from my desk were a windfall. Embrace them. Swing around in your chair a bit. Stretch out your legs where you can, either into the space behind your desk or under it. Do wrist stretches and small exercises through the day. Get whatever activity in your joints and muscles you can, even if you can’t get away from your desk. Bonus: it helps you focus , too.
Stretching, bending, working from different locations, and staying hydrated are all good, but there’s a certain point where you just need to buckle down and rearrange your desk. If your desk is set up to cause you pain, well, no amount of trying to fidget and stretch will really fix it. Take a little time to completely reboot your workspace, and do it with ergonomics and healthy posture in mind.
Start by cleaning everything out and come up with a plan for how you’d ideally like to work. Then start with your chair, then your keyboard and mouse, and your monitor, working around all of the items you have and use on your desk and position them so you’re not craning to use them , bending awkwardly to type or read, and the things you need are within easy reach. If you need to make a few ergonomic upgrades to your desk while you’re at it, we have some suggestions there, too.
The next big thing you can do to relieve joint and wrist pain while you work is to make sure you keep yourself flexible, limber, and healthy outside the office as well as inside the office. Luckily, good joint health and flexibility isn’t hard to maintain. Simple stretches, foam rolling, and some easy-to-do mobility drills can do a world of good but at and outside the office. Foam rolling is also good for improving your posture , and can even help you with strength training.
Beyond keeping your joints limber, don’t neglect the rest of your body. A good bodyweight workout will keep you healthy and you don’t need any special equipment, but if you already hit the gym regularly, don’t forget to do some strength training. They can do a world of good for those aching joints and muscles. Even some simple hip flexes and regular stretches at home can offset some of the effects of all that sitting.
Finally, no matter where you work or what you do, there’s always room for some light stretches at your desk , a little office yoga ( at your desk , or even in the stairwell,) or some posture exercises and stretches up against a wall to help you combat the effects of sitting in front of a screen or over a keyboard all day. If you have a little room to stretch out, these three exercises only take four minutes. Even shorter on time? Try thirty seconds.
Don’t neglect your posture , either. These exercises are perfect for the gym , while these ones are easy enough while you sit. These back stretches keep your lower back healthy , and these ones will keep your neck from craning forward. They’re just the tip of the iceberg though. Find some good ones that work for you, your desk, and the amount of time you have between meetings, calls, or other activities, and you’ll do your body good.
Illustration by Angelica Alzona. Additional images by Sam Woolley, Brian Robinson , etraveler ( Shutterstock ), Tony Alter , Angelica Alzona, Barry Peddycord III , Rennett Stowe , and Joe Loong.
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