Daily Archives: September 26, 2021

IBM CIO: ‘Quantum computing will be important in the IT landscape’ – Siliconrepublic.com

Posted: September 26, 2021 at 4:51 am

The CIO of Big Blue discusses the importance of AI and hybrid cloud, along with emerging tech such as quantum computing and cryptography.

Kathryn Guarini is the CIO of multinational tech giant IBM. Big Blue has been switching its focus to AI and cloud services in recent months, following the news that it is set to undergo a major restructuring.

Guarini and her team are responsible for developing, deploying and transforming the companys internal IT including hardware, software and services across more than 170 countries.

Her tenure at IBM spans more than two decades. Prior to being named CIO earlier this year, she was COO of IBM Research and vice-president for Impact Science, a research team within IBM that sought to apply deep technical expertise to the most pressing global challenges facing society while advancing the underlying science.

Guarini told Siliconrepublic.com that her CIO team supports every part of the business including digital workplace services, as well as thousands of business applications used by professionals in HR, sales, marketing, finance and more.

The recent rise in sophisticated cyberattacks requires us to take innovative approaches to secure the enterprise KATHRYN GUARINI

There are many major IT initiatives that we are focused on at IBM. Let me highlight three here.

First, Kyndryl. My team is playing a key role in supporting the separation of IBMs managed infrastructure business into an independent market-leading company called Kyndryl. IT plays a critical role in ensuring Kyndryl is set up for success with robust and secure infrastructure and applications, segmented to protect data and configured to run each business.

Second, hybrid cloud. We are adopting hybrid cloud at scale in IBM. That means we are moving IBMs internal IT workload from legacy data centres into public and private cloud environments to get the benefits of hybrid cloud from faster deployments to better availability to improved sustainability. Hybrid cloud offers a unified experience with end-to-end security and observability, harnessing the power of the open community.

Third, AI. AI is critical for business agility, resilience and growth. We are applying AI to automate business processes, modernise applications, predict outcomes and secure everything. As one example, we have applied AI to personalise and automate the IT support experience for IBMers, with AI-powered voice response, chat and search that improve the user experience.

Our CIO team is made up of more than 10,000 IBMers with a wide range of technical skills and expertise required to architect, develop, modernise and run IBMs internal IT systems. Our global team is organised into empowered agile squads doing iterative development in support of specific business solutions.

We partner with IBMs businesses, who simultaneously serve as stakeholders for our IT delivery and providers of differentiating technology and services that we adopt on behalf of IBM.

We recognise that building, fostering and advancing a pipeline of diverse talent is key to our long-term success. Weve made focused investments in critical skills that enable transformation, including software development, design, AI, automation, cloud computing, cybersecurity and software-defined networking.

We also have domain expertise in areas like human resources, sales, marketing and finance to help us better serve the IBM company and improve the employee experience.

Like most enterprises, IBM is on its own digital transformation journey, leveraging technologies like hybrid cloud and AI to unlock new business value and accelerate innovation. Hybrid cloud is the foundation of our cognitive enterprise. AI helps make better decisions, automate tasks, streamline processes and enable self-service across the enterprise.

Our CIO team is responsible for modernising our infrastructure and application environment and redesigning our business architecture into end-to-end intelligent workflows.

For example, we have transformed IBMs sales processes, launching a new solution that offers simplification and insight. The solution involved consolidating more than 160 different sales tools into one scalable, global platform to optimise IBMs relationship with our customers.

In another example, we transformed IBMs global client support process, providing improved experience, operational efficiency and AI-driven insights.

Ive already talked about how hybrid cloud and AI are hugely important technologies today to drive business transformation. Were using both to enable intelligent operations, modernise applications and automate insights.

Whats next? Quantum computing will become an important part of the IT landscape, offering competitive advantage to those who can capitalise on the unique capabilities of this new computing paradigm.

Quantum is maturing quickly, with rapid advances in the technology, software ecosystem and use cases across industries. Along with quantum computing comes advanced quantum-safe cryptography solutions that enable encryption that even large-scale fault tolerant quantum computers cant crack.

Theres a tremendous amount of technology innovation happening here that promises to have outsized impact on our industry and the world.

Cybersecurity is a business imperative and the recent rise in sophisticated cyberattacks requires us to take innovative approaches to secure the enterprise.

We have adopted a zero-trust framework, which includes advanced identity protection, vulnerability management and threat detection.

We are adopting security-by-design approaches in the development of our IT solutions to ensure they are foundationally secure against growing threats. And we are adopting IBMs confidential computing technologies to protect sensitive data at all times.

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Trailblazing Supercomputer Will Enable Scientists And Engineers To Optimize Its Hardware To Support Groundbreaking Research – Texas A&M University…

Posted: at 4:51 am

The system will let researchers perform calculations and solve problems that current supercomputers cannot handle.

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Backed by a multi-million-dollar federal grant, a research team from three major universities will soon start working on a pioneering supercomputing system that allows scientists and engineers to align its processors, accelerators, memory and other hardware components to best serve their needs.

This innovative system will operate increasingly complex levels of software while sidestepping the hardware bottlenecks that often hinder high-level computations. This system will let researchers perform calculations and solve problems that current supercomputers cannot handle.

On Oct. 1, 2021, researchers from Texas A&M University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) will begin collaborating on a prototype for what they call the Accelerating Computing for Emerging Sciences (ACES) system.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) will provide $5 million for ACESs development and an additional $1 million per year over five years to pay for system operation and support.

Texas A&M Interim Vice President for Research Jack Baldaulf expressed gratitude to the NSF for its substantial investment in the ACES project. We are thankful to NSF for the opportunity to lead such an important initiative and to our Texas A&M HPRC staff and collaborators at UT Austin and UIUC for making this a successful effort, Baldauf said. Computational science is critical to our national needs and the ACES platform will not only advance research but also help educate the future workforce in this area.

The teams goal is to develop an all-inclusive system that will serve researchers across a wide range of scholarly disciplines and computer skills, according to Honggao Liu, executive director of Texas A&Ms High Performance Research Computing (HPRC) and the projects principal investigator.

These disciplines include artificial intelligence and machine learning, cybersecurity, health population informatics, genomics and bioinformatics, human and agricultural life sciences, oil-and-gas simulations, new-materials design, climate modeling, molecular dynamics, quantum-computing architectures, imaging, smart and connected societies, geosciences and quantum chemistry.

The ACES system will support the national research community through coordination systems supported by the NSF, Liu said. In this way, the ACES system will provide invaluable support to cutting-edge projects across a broad spectrum of research disciplines in the nation. ACES will also leverage HPRCs efforts that promote science and broaden participation in computing at the K-12, collegiate and professional levels to have a transformative impact nationally by focusing on training, education and outreach.

Researchers should think of ACES as a cyber-buffet, said Timothy M. Cockerill, director of user services, TACC at UT Austin, and a co-principal investigator on the ACES project. Theyll be able to essentially build the custom environment they require on a per job basis and not be constrained to the contents of a physical server node, Cockerill said.

ACES will open new avenues to scientific advancement, said Shaowen Wang, head of the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, professor at UIUC and a co-principal investigator on the ACES project. Exciting advances on many science frontiers will become possible by harnessing the hybrid computing resources and highly adaptable framework offered byACESto enable increasingly complex scientific workflows driven by geospatial big data and artificial intelligence, Wang said.

Also serving as co-principal investigators are Lisa M. Perez, associate director for advanced computing enablement, and Dhruva Chakravorty, associate director for user services and research, both from HPRC at Texas A&M.

Research that generates breakthrough discoveries will require highly advanced computer designs that can meet the challenge, Texas A&M Senior Associate Vice President for Research Costas N. Georghiades said. With the increasing complexity of computational problems in the big-data era we live in, it is no longer sufficient to use traditional supercomputers which rely only on optimizing the software, Georghiades said. The ACES system will also be able to adapt hardware resources on the fly to tackle complex computational tasks more efficiently. Texas A&M is proud to lead this effort in collaboration with our university partners at UT Austin and Illinois.

Technical description

ACES leverages an innovative composable framework via PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) Gen5 on Intels upcoming Sapphire Rapid (SPR) processors to offer a rich accelerator testbed consisting of Intel Ponte Vecchio (PVC) GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), Intel FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), NEC Vector Engines, NextSilicon co-processors and Graphcore IPUs (Intelligence Processing Units).

The accelerators are coupled with Intel Optane memory and DDN Lustre storage interconnected with Mellanox NDR 400Gbps InfiniBand to support workflows that benefit from optimized devices. ACES will allow applications and workflows to dynamically integrate the different accelerators, memory and in-network computing protocols to glean new insights by rapidly processing large volumes of data and provide researchers with a unique platform to produce complex hybrid programming models for effectively supporting calculations that were not feasible before.

About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the worlds leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M generated annual expenditures of more than $1.131 billion in fiscal year 2020. Texas A&M ranked in the top 25 of the most recent National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development survey based on expenditures of more than $952 million in fiscal year 2019. Texas A&Ms research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental, and applied contributions resulting in economic benefits to the state, nation, and world. research.tamu.edu

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CSC-IT: Finnish businesses start cooperation to capture the benefits of quantum technologies – Science Business

Posted: at 4:51 am

As the global quantum computing market is forecast to reach over EUR 50 billion by 2030, Finnish companies have started cooperation to capture the business opportunities emerging from advances in quantum technologies.

OP Financial Group, Accenture, CSC IT Center for Science, and globally recognized quantum technology companies Bluefors and IQM are the first to join BusinessQ, a VTT-coordinated network to support businesses in the adoption and development of quantum technologies and solutions. The companies will work together to build a business roadmap for Finland around the opportunities of quantum technologies.

Bringing together companies and organisations with quantum expertise, as well as potential end-users, BusinessQ works to position Finnish businesses to the global forefront of adapting new quantum-enabled technologies.

Developments in quantum technologies will create new opportunities for Finnish companies. At VTT, we have decades of experience in turning emerging technologies into viable business, and now we want to foster an active community and support Finnish industries and society in capturing the benefits of quantum technologies early on, says VTTsErja Turunen, Executive Vice President, Digital technologies.

BusinessQ wants to grow and attract new companies from different industries to join the network. Cooperation and dialogue can benefit both companies and the quantum research community as it provides a better understanding of the different industry challenges that quantum-based technologies could tackle in the future.

Discussions with our first BusinessQ partners have shown that Finnish businesses have curiosity, ambition, and an open approach to quantum technologies. We are eager to welcome more companies from different industries and want to build an active business community around the opportunities of quantum technologies,explainsHimadri MajumdarManager of Quantum Programmes at VTT.

Finland also has an active research community that fosters innovation around quantum technologies. In April 2021, Aalto University, Helsinki University, and VTT announced InstituteQ: The Finnish Quantum Institute aims at raising the readiness of Finnish society for the disruptive potential and implications quantum technologies will have for society and the economy at large. In this context, it coordinates operations that foster collaboration in research, education, innovation and infrastructure in the field of quantum technologies. BusinessQs activities share the mission of InstituteQ in strengthening Finlands growing quantum ecosystem. VTT also hosts Finlands first quantum computer that is being built in Espoo in partnership with IQM.

This article was first published on September 22 by CSC.

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TECH TALK WITH MIKE: How to optimize your Google My Business listing – Evening News and Tribune

Posted: at 4:50 am

Initially known as Google Places for Business, Google My Business is an important tool for businesses looking to leverage location-based marketing. It is a free marketing tool from Google that enables business owners to manage the visibility of their business on search engines. GMB is best suited for businesses looking to improve their brand awareness and visibility to local clients.

However, like other digital marketing strategies, making the most from Google My Business goes beyond setting up your account and waiting for results. You should optimize your business listing to enable search engines to display your business as part of the search results. Below is a guide on how to optimize your GMB and its benefits.

Google My Business is part of Googles Knowledge Graph. This is a service that businesses and individuals can optimize to position their services on the first page of Google search results. Knowledge graph displays various information, including phone numbers, operational hours, address, customer reviews, offers/promotions, and photos.

Below are Google My Business optimization steps:

Create or claim your business Begin by creating or claiming your business listing on Google. Some businesses, especially those that have been operational for some time, can show up automatically on Google maps. If your business doesnt show up, you can easily create a business listing. If it shows up, simply claim the business.

Verify your listing After creating or claiming your business, Google will send a postcard with detailed instructions on how you can verify your business within five days. Ensure that you verify the listing. Otherwise, your performance and visibility on Google will be affected negatively. Without verification, Google wont display the business, allow edits to your business information, or provide insights.

Complete your business profile Like social media accounts, you should complete your business profile with accurate information for the listing to rank higher. The main goal of completing your profile is to provide customers with sufficient information about your listing.

The basics include, choosing an accurate business category, writing a clear description, and completing all other important fields. Also, remember to include your phone number and local area code. Some other important tips to optimize your business profile include:

The main benefit of optimizing your Google My Business is to improve your businesss local search visibility. Current Google algorithms factor user intent as search queries increasingly become location-specific.

For instance, if youve searched for a business near you before, Google often shows results of open business within your current locality. The businesses displayed have GMB pages and are one step closer to getting online customers than businesses without GMB listings.

Some of the other benefits of optimizing your Google My Business listing include;

Making it easier for customers to find your business. Customers wont be frustrated by old phone numbers and wrong addresses anymore.

It is an additional website citation. Information provided through GMB is displayed on Google search and Google Maps.

Google My Business provides beneficial insights about your business, helps to collect reviews and gives your business better credibility.

You should ensure that your business has a detailed and updated Google My Business page. If you havent, you are missing out on this simple method of ranking higher in Googles search engine results. Therefore, you could be missing out on crucial traffic and potential customers.

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TECH TALK WITH MIKE: How to optimize your Google My Business listing - Evening News and Tribune

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Google Meet will automatically adjust webcam brightness in your browser – TechCrunch

Posted: at 4:50 am

Kris Holt is a contributing writer at Engadget. More posts by this contributor

Google Meet will soon make it easier for you to see all of your co-workers or friends properly on video calls. The web version of the app can detect when someone is underexposed due to bad lighting. Meet will then increase the brightness so its easier to see your cohorts and perhaps make your feed clearer if you have a terrible webcam.

The low-light mode hit the Google Meet iOS and Android mobile apps last year. It uses AI to examine light levels and tweak the brightness. Theres no admin control for the feature, though users will be able to switch it off Google says having it enabled might slow down your device.

The feature is coming to all Workspace and G Suite basic and business users. Google is rolling it out to Rapid Release domains starting today and Scheduled Release domains on October 4th. The rollout will take up to 15 days in both cases, so by mid-October, bad webcam feeds could be a thing of the past on Meet calls.

Editors note: This article originally appeared on Engadget.

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UT Austin’s Liberty Institute? What’s that, professors ask – Inside Higher Ed

Posted: at 4:48 am

Faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin still have lots of questions about the Liberty Institute, a think tank apparently coming to campus. Thats even after the university provost addressed the matter at a recent Faculty Council meeting.

What more do professors want to know?

Everything, said Domino Renee Perez, chair of UT Austins Faculty Council and associate professor of English. The faculty need to hear directly from the president, since he is the one who identified this as a priority for the university.

Most professors first learned of the Liberty Institute idea late last month, via a Texas Tribune investigation finding that university leaders had been working with private donors and Texas Republican lieutenant governor Dan Patrick for eight months to launch it. Internal proposals describe the institute as dedicated to the study and teaching of individual liberty, limited government, private enterprise and free markets, according to the article.

The Tribune found that Texas legislators had already approved $6million in initial funding for the institute in the 2022-23 state budget. The university reportedly committed another $6million, and a private donor promised $8.5million to a center back in 2016. No details about the project had been made public, and the university did not provide them, according to the report, which was based largely on documents obtained via open records requests.

The article names Jay Hartzell, UT Austins president, as being involved in the project, along with Patrick and Kevin Eltife, a Republican former state senator who was appointed to a second term to the University System of Texass Board of Regents this year by Republican governor Greg Abbott. Donors Bud Brigham and Bob Rowling, both conservatives, are also involved, per the report.

Following the Tribune report, faculty members have sought more information about the project and expressed concerns that the Legislature is earmarking money for an academic endeavor that few, if any, professors seem to know anything about.

Members of the council, for instance, submitted a list of eight questions to the university, including whether the Tribunes account is accurate and how the institute will uphold intellectual freedom and faculty governance. What will the institute offer that is not already available or possible within existing programs in law, government, business and public affairs, the council also asked. How exactly is the institute funded, and are any strings attached?

What role will the faculty play, including in faculty recruitment? And how will the center be structured?

Provost Sharon Wood attempted to answer some of these questions at the council meeting earlier this week. Yet Wood, who became provost in July, said she didnt have answers to some of their questions because discussions about the institute predated her arrival in the presidents office.

The goal is to provide students who cross traditional boundaries and consider problems from multiple points of view, Wood said. The institute will help students understand how regulatory and legal environments are going to impact markets. They also will have the analytical and quantitative skills to solve complex problems and understand more economic drivers.

Regarding the Tribunes report, Wood said it ignored the role of faculty governance and faculty hiring and also developing new degree programs and implied there was no interest among students. But she did not share a clear plan for faculty governance or the faculty role in hiring.

Jeffrey Abramson, professor of government and law, said after the meeting, The normal thing for a self-respecting university to have done, once it raised the money for the institute, would have been to go to the regular faculty and empower them, in the exercise of academic freedom, to make the hiring and curricular decisions. Abramson said the possibility that the institute could stand outside of the normal ways mature universities make academic decisions is a threat to the integrity of UT and gives far too much power to private donors over who teaches what to our students.

Centers dedicated to the study of free enterprise, individual freedom and limited government exist elsewhere. Many are funded by the Charles Koch Foundation and are seen by their supporters as a counterpoint to the less conservative systems and approaches students encounter in the classroom. The BB&T bank foundation also used to offer Moral Foundations grants to colleges and universities, stipulating that they offer classes on or provide students a copy of Ayn Rands pro-free market novel Atlas Shrugged. In some cases, these grants came with stipulations about faculty hires. A 2011 Western Carolina University advertisement, for instance, said applicants for its BB&T Distinguished Professor of Capitalism should be at least familiar with, if not actively receptive to, the writings of Ayn Rand. Also in 2011, it was revealed that in cases at more than one university, Koch grant agreements stipulated that the foundation have a say in faculty hiring. A third institution, George Mason University, said in 2018 that some of its earlier agreements with Koch involved donor influence in faculty hiring.

Koch has since said that it always valued academic freedom, and that it has purposely moved away from agreement language of this nature. Its also released a template for current donor agreements. BB&T has also ended its Ayn Rand-based program to concentrate on financial literacy-based philanthropy.

Faculty concerns about these centers remain, beyond the issue of donor influence in faculty hiring. Academic freedom advocates worry, for instance, that the underfunding of higher education makes public institutions, in particular, at risk for compromising on faculty rights to secure private funding. The state of Texas appears committed to funding this particular project, but that raises eyebrows, as well, given that politicians may know more about it than professors.

Another concern is that these institutes may be used to promote political ideas as academic research. Immunologists at Stanford University, for instance, worried about this with respect to Scott Atlas, a fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution, when he was challenging the effectiveness of wearing masks as the Trump White Houses coronavirus adviser. Atlas wasnt working directly for Hoover in this role, but his academic credentials, including his medical degree, were often cited regarding his public comments.

Elsewhere faculty members have rejected proposed centers on the grounds that they would compete with existing academic departments, namelyeconomics.

The Hoover Institution is reportedly one model for the UT Austin institute. Wood also said at the council meeting that Tom Gilligan, former dean of the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin, had been helping plan the Liberty Institute before he left for the Hoover Institute, in 2015. Gilligan, who is now a fellow emeritus at Hoover, did not respond a request through Hoover Thursday.

Abramson said that in the current political climate, Americans are divided, and rightly argue about the proper balance to strike between individual liberty and the public good. But he said his fear is that the Liberty Institute, while promising to bring diversity of thought to campus, will in fact be stacked in its hiring and course decisions to favor only one side of this essential debate.

Not all professors are so skeptical of the Liberty Institute, as they understand it thus far, however. Richard Lowery, an associate professor of finance, said during the council meeting that he was confused by some of the criticism, as the university already funds various programs that are "explicitly political," including social justice and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Lowery declined an interview request but provided the following written statement:

The University of Texas at Austin administration, with the enthusiastic support of the faculty, has implemented a diversity, equity and inclusion plan, the original version of which was described by the Foundation [for] Individual Rights in Education as follows: [T]he proposals mandates present a serious threat of establishing a viewpoint based litmus test for both hiring and promotion, with the final version being, in my opinion, as bad or worse than the original draft. Thus, not only are the supposed concerns about a political test in a potential Liberty Institute hypocritical, but in light of this explicit, and many implicit, political tests being used at the university, it is absolutely essential to establish some structure at UT-Austin where academic freedom can be restored. While I support the principle of establishing such a structure, the Provosts plan is clearly designed to give control over such a unit to the existing faculty, who generally oppose academic freedom, and thus would serve as little more than a fig leaf.

Daniel Brinks, chair of government, said he knew little about the institute but that hed heard it could involve a cluster hire of faculty members who research areas including collective decision making, government regulation and its effects on economic and other outcomes, market design and social welfare, and drivers of social prosperity.

Speaking only for himself, he said, I imagine that whether our department would support a hire within this cluster would depend on how the scope of the cluster is defined, and how well it lines up with our priorities and disciplinary standards. And as with any hire, he said, Im sure we would all expect that our normal governance processes will be respected, including our normal role in selecting the faculty we hire.

J. B. Bird, spokesperson for the university, said he was conferring with the provosts office on a request for comment or an interview. Late in the day, he shared a link to a new bullet point-style information page on the institute. Bird highlighted the following point: Any new professors will be hired within normal university protocols, which include deans anddepartment chairs." Hedistinguished new professors from current professors who become affiliated with the institute. As for academics, the page says, we plan to do an inventory of existing courses to develop a list of new classes that may be added.

Bird added that the institute is still in a planning phase.

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FROM THE OPINION PAGE My literary palate continues to expand with each passing year – Bluefield Daily Telegraph

Posted: at 4:48 am

Most of my children are readers, especially my oldest daughter, who is quite busy but makes time for a lot of reading.

I have always taken that for granted, I guess, but a mutual friend told me the other day she does not really have time to read any more and listens to books instead.

In recent years, I have heard others say the same thing and I have also realized I do not read nearly as much as I once did, other than articles or research materials. But I have not yet switched to audio.

Listening may have the same impact, but I am a visual learner and retain and understand information much better if I actually see it rather than hear it. So I am not sure what I will do and my inclination is to simply make time for more reading, a routine pastime for me when I was growing up.

Other than the Bible, which I grew up with of course and, believe it not, have read in its entirety, the first book I remember having a profound impact on me was Call of the Wild by Jack London. I was convinced it would always be my favorite book of all time.

For a boy who loved the outdoors and dogs and adventure, yep, it was quite an experience. I think it came at a time when I was also reading The Hardy Boys mysteries, devouring every one of them as soon as I can get my hands on them.

These books are still popular, thank goodness. The characters are basically solid, steady and believable personalities who use a lot of common sense and logic.

With maturity comes a taste for more complicated reading fare, of course, so I graduated to Ian Flemings James Bond series.

Just like The Hardy Boys, I loved every one of those books. They went from small city shenanigans by the bad guys to global confrontations often involving the use of nuclear weapons or other devices of mass destruction.

If I wanted to be Frank Hardy when I was 11, James Bond took his place when I was 14. Both characters were smart, quick-thinking and fearless, of course. Things a boy aspires to be.

Obviously, James Bond also possessed a knack for attracting women, which, by the time I was 14, was a far more interesting element than when I was 11. Not that it mattered. I was no James Bond, or Frank Hardy for that matter. Fantasy is a wonderful thing.

Most of that time, I actually felt more like Buck, the dog in Call of the Wild, trying to overcome adverse circumstances and to be free, hoping to find a safe haven from the trials and tribulations of being a teen.

I also enjoyed Agatha Christie and still love Edgar Allan Poe. Of course, my literary palate kept expanding, from Ayn Rand to Kurt Vonnegut. My favorite books changed as I got older too, with Rands Atlas Shrugged taking that top spot for years.

This happens to everybody who reads, I think, as we explore the world of experiences, cultures, philosophy well, about everything. We always find things that make a difference in our lives and thoughts. Cinema and TV can do the same thing, depending, just like books, on the quality of the material.

Fortunately, I also had good teachers who always urged me to read and praised me when I did.

Gosh, for those of us who grew up in these mountains, isolated in many ways from the rest of the world, reading opened up the world to us. We could go everywhere and experience countless things, learning about the world and ourselves in the process.

Reading presents the most diverse, intense, in-depth, profound and often life-changing impacts. And those of us who loved to read traveled to every corner of the universe of experience and emotion and thought, never being satisfied with the here and now.

After all, curiosity and the desire to learn and experience and understand are the foundations of being rational human beings.

Every now and then, I make a list of my favorite books, usually my top 10 based on the impact they had on my life. But that list changes every time with only a few exceptions.

The Bible is in a category all by itself, so that list includes my favorite books, with the top one in the Old Testament Job and in the New Testament Galatians. For anyone who discounts the Bible as not having any literary, creative, historical or philosophical value, you have no idea what you are missing.

And for anyone who doesnt read, well, remember what those wonderful teachers told you.

They were right.

Charles Boothe is a reporter for the Bluefield Daily Telegraph and can be reached at cboothe@bdtonline.com

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FROM THE OPINION PAGE My literary palate continues to expand with each passing year - Bluefield Daily Telegraph

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In Texas Holdem, players construct the best 5 card hand based on the poker hand rankings using the best available five cards using there two hole cards and the five community cards. An example would be a player holding 10 and a 4 and the board is 10,10,7,Q,A. That player would have three 10s. The best five cards would be 10,10,10,A,Q.

You should strive to memorize the poker hand rankings. That is your very first step to becoming a good Texas Holdem Player.

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Learn more on How to Play Poker

To learn more about How to Play Poker and all the basics for How to Play Texas Holdem Poker, visit our How to Play Poker Page. Here you will find How to Play Texas Holdem, Poker Hand Rankings, Tips on Hosting Home Games, and much more.To Learn more about How to Play Poker

Whether you are Playing Poker Online Free, Playing Online Poker for real money, at the Casino, or in a Home Game, knowing the Poker Hand Rankings is a must when you first start playing Poker. Learn the Poker Hand Order by visiting our Poker Hand Rankings page.To Learn the Poker Hand Rankings

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Arkadium’s Texas Hold’em: Tournament | Play Online Free

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How to Play Arkadium's Texas Hold'Em: Tournament

Texas Holdem is a complex game for beginners, but it's easy to learn after a few hands. Luckily, this game includes in-game tutorials on how to play and win big. To play a hand, you must offer a minimum bet and "call" the highest bet by any player. If you're feeling good about your cards, you can "raise" the bet and see if your AI opponents are just as confident in their cards. Alternatively, if the round is getting too rich for your blood, you can "fold" and play again in the next round. Now, if you're really feeling lucky, you can go "all in" and bet all of your chips on your hand - this is only recommended for skilled players or risk-takers. So, are you ready to win Arkadium's Texas Holdem Poker tournament?

Texas Hold 'Em is one of the most-played card games of all time, and for good reason - it has the ideal mix of luck, strategy, and skill! Knowing when to hold em and when to fold em will certainly keep you in this tournament longer than your AI opponents. It's time to place your bets.

Enjoying Texas Hold'Em: Tournament? Try your hand at our other free online casino games - good luck!

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Basics of Poker Card Game Rules | Bicycle Playing Cards

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As early as the sixteenth century, Germans played a bluffing gamecalled "Pochen." It later developed into a French version, called "Poque," which was eventually brought over to New Orleans and played on the riverboats that plied the Mississippi.

In the 1830s, the game was refined further and became known as Poker. During the Civil War, the key rule about drawing cards to improve one's hand was added. A variation - Stud Poker - appeared at about the same time. There are hundreds of versions of Poker, and the game is played not only in private homes, but also in countless Poker rooms at famous casinos. Poker can be played socially for pennies or matchsticks, or professionally for thousands of dollars.

There is plenty of luck in Poker, but the game requires incredibly great skill as well, and each player is the master of his own fate.

The standard 52-card pack, sometimes with the addition of one or two jokers, is used. Poker is a one-pack game, but today, in virtually all games played in clubs and among the best players, two packs of contrasting colors are utilized in order to speed up the game. While one pack is being dealt, the other is being shuffled and prepared for the next deal. The procedure for two packs is as follows: While the deal is in progress, the previous dealer assembles all the cards from the pack he dealt, shuffles them, and places them to the left. When it is time for the next deal, the shuffled deck is passed to the next dealer. In many games in which two packs are used, the dealer's left-hand opponent, instead of the right-hand opponent, cuts the pack.

In clubs, it is customary to change cards often and to permit any player to call for new cards whenever they wish. When new cards are introduced, both packs are replaced, and the seal and cellophane wrapping on the new decks should be broken in full view of all the players.

While Poker is played in innumerable forms, a player who understands the values of the Poker hands and the principles of betting can play without difficulty in any type of Poker game. Except in a few versions of the game, a Poker hand consists of five cards. The various combinations of Poker hands rank from five of a kind (the highest) to no pair or nothing (the lowest):

Five of a Kind This is the highest possible hand and can occur only in games where at least one card is wild, such as a joker, the two one-eyed jacks, or the four deuces. Examples of five of a kind would be four 10s and a wild card or two queens and three wild cards.

Straight Flush This is the highest possible hand when only the standard pack is used, and there are no wild cards. A straight flush consists of five cards of the same suit in sequence, such as 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 of hearts. The highest-ranking straight flush is the A, K, Q, J, and 10 of one suit, and this combination has a special name: a royal flush or a royal straight flush. The odds on being dealt this hand are 1 in almost 650,000.

Four of a Kind This is the next highest hand, and it ranks just below a straight flush. An example is four aces or four 3s. It does not matter what the fifth, unmatched card is.

Full House This colorful hand is made up of three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank, such as three 8s and two 4s, or three aces and two 6s.

Flush Five cards, all of the same suit, but not all in sequence, is a flush. An example is Q, 10, 7, 6, and 2 of clubs.

Straight Five cards in sequence, but not all of the same suit is a straight. An example is 9, 8, 7, 6, 5.

Three of a Kind This combination contains three cards of the same rank, and the other two cards each of a different rank, such as three jacks, a seven, and a four.

Two Pairs This hand contains a pair of one rank and another pair of a different rank, plus any fifth card of a different rank, such as Q, Q, 7, 7, 4.

One Pair This frequent combination contains just one pair with the other three cards being of different rank. An example is 10, 10, K, 4, 3.

No Pair This very common hand contains "nothing." None of the five cards pair up, nor are all five cards of the same suit or consecutive in rank. When more than one player has no pair, the hands are rated by the highest card each hand contains, so that an ace-high hand beats a king-high hand, and so on.

Two hands that are identical, card for card, are tied since the suits have no relative rank in Poker. In such a case, the tied players split the pot. Note that if two hands contain the same high pair, then the ranking of the next card in the hands determines which one wins. For example: 9, 9, 7, 4, 2 beats 9, 9, 5, 3, 2. Likewise, two hands that have identical pairs would be decided by the fifth card. For example: Q, Q, 6, 6, J beats Q, Q, 6, 6, 10.

Betting is the key to Poker, for the game, in essence, is a game of chip management.

In the course of each Poker deal, there will be one or more betting intervals in which the players have an opportunity to bet on their hands. Minimizing losses with poor hands and maximizing winnings with good hands is the underlying skill that Poker requires.

Before the cards are even dealt, the rules of the Poker game being played may require that each player put an initial contribution, called an "ante," of one or more chips into the pot, to start it off.

Each betting interval, or round, begins when a player, in turn, makes a bet of one or more chips. Each player to the left, in turn, must either "call" that bet by putting into the pot the same number of chips; or "raise," which means that the player puts in more than enough chips to call; or "drop" ("fold"), which means that the player puts no chips in the pot, discards their hand, and is out of the betting until the next deal.

When a player drops, they lose any chips that have put into that pot. Unless a player is willing to put into the pot at least as many chips as any preceding player, they must drop out.

A betting interval ends when the bets have been equalized - that is, when each player has either put in exactly as many chips as their predecessors or has dropped. There are usually two or more betting intervals for each Poker deal. After the final interval there is a "showdown," which means that each player who remains shows their hand face up on the table. The best Poker hand then takes the pot.

If a player makes a bet or a raise that no other player calls, they win the pot without showing their hand. Thus, in Poker, there is a bluffing element, and the best combination of cards does not always win the pot! Bluffing is one of the key reasons why Poker is so popular.

If a player wishes to remain in the game without betting, they "check." This means, in effect, that the player is making a "bet of nothing." A player may check provided no one before them in that betting interval has made a bet. If another player has bet, they cannot check but must at least call the bet or drop. A player who checks may raise a bet that has been raised by another player. This is called "sandbagging," which is allowed, unless it has been decided beforehand that this practice is forbidden. If all players check during a round of play, the betting interval is over, and all the players still in the pot remain in the game.

In each betting round, one player is designated as the first bettor, according to the rules of the game. The turn to bet always moves to the left, from player to player, and no one may check, bet, or even drop, except when it is their turn.

The ranking of Poker hands is based on mathematics. The less likely a player is to get a certain hand, the higher it ranks and the more likely it is to win the pot. For example, a player should not expect to be dealt a straight flush more than once in 65,000 hands, but they can expect to be dealt two pair about once in every 21 hands.

Unless a player is planning to bluff, they should not make a bet without holding a hand that they think may be the best. No Poker player can bet intelligently unless they know what constitutes a good hand, a fair hand, and a bad hand. A table of the various Poker hands and the number of combinations of each in a pack of cards is provided.

By unanimous or majority agreement, the players may establish a special fund called a "kitty." Usually the kitty is built up by "cutting" (taking) one low-denomination chip from each pot in which there is more than one raise. The kitty belongs to all the players equally, and it is used to pay for new decks of cards or for food and drinks. Any chips left in the kitty when the game ends are divided equally among the players who are still in the game. Unlike the rule in some other games, such as Pinochle, when a player leaves a Poker game before it ends, they are not entitled to take their share of chips that comprised part of the kitty.

Poker is almost always played with poker chips. For a game with seven or more players, there should be a supply of at least 200 chips. Usually, the white chip (or the lightest-colored chip) is the unit, or lowest-valued chip, worth whatever the minimum ante or bet is; a red chip (or some other colored chip) is worth five whites, and a blue chip (or some other dark-colored chip) is worth 10 or 20 or 25 whites or two, four or five reds. At the start of the game, each player "buys in" by purchasing a certain number of chips. All of the players usually buy in for the same amount.

One player should be designated as the banker, who keeps the stock of chips and records how many have been issued to each player or how much cash the player has paid for their chips. Players should make no private transactions or exchanges among themselves; a player with surplus chips may return them to the banker and receive credit or cash for them, while a player who wants more chips should obtain them only from the banker.

There are different ways of fixing a betting limit. Some limit is necessary; otherwise a player with a lot more money would have, or would be perceived to have, an unfair advantage. Once fixed, the limit should be unalterable throughout the game unless the players unanimously agree to change the stakes. Some popular limit systems follow:

No one may bet or raise by more than a stipulated number of chips, for example, two, or five, or 10. Usually this limit varies with the stage of the game: In Draw Poker, if the limit is five before the draw, it might be ten after the draw. In Stud Poker, if the limit is five in the first four betting intervals, it is 10in the final betting interval (and often ten whenever a player has a pair or better showing).

Any bet or raise is limited to the number of chips in the pot at that time. This means that a player who raises may count as part of the pot the number of chips required for the player to call. If there are six chips in the pot, and a bet of four is made, the total is 10 chips; it requires four chips for the next player to call, making 14; and the player may then raise by 14 chips. But even when the pot limit is played, there should be some maximum limit, such as 50 chips.

The limit for each player is the number of chips the player has in front of them. If the player has only 10 chips, they may bet no more than 10 and he may call any other player's bet to that extent. In table stakes, no player may withdraw chips from the table, or return chips to the banker, until they leave the game. A player may add to their stack, but only between the deal just completed and the beginning of the next deal.

In a fixed-limit game, it is often agreed that following any very good hand - a full house or better, for example - there will be one deal by each player of Jackpots, in which everyone antes double, and the betting limit is doubled for these deals as well.

A maximum limit is put on the number of chips any player may lose. Each takes out one stack at the start; if they lose that stack, the banker issues the player another, without charging for it, and in many cases, the player can get still a third stack free before dropping out of the game. (Some limit should be placed on the number of free stacks so that a player will have the incentive to play carefully.)

In these sessions, the "sky's the limit," but such games are rarely played today.

In almost all games played today, there is a limit on the number of raises at each betting interval, and this limit is invariably three raises.

The players should first decide what form of Poker they will play

The main forms of Poker are Draw Poker and Stud Poker. In Draw Poker, all the cards are dealt face down to the players. In Stud Poker, some of the cards are dealt face up as the betting progresses, so that all of the other players get to see a part of each player's hands.

Unless the host, or the rule of a club, has already established the game, the players should first decide what form of Poker they will play. Two factors should influence their decision: the number of players, and whether the group has only experienced players or has some inexperienced players. The following selections are recommended:

2, 3 or 4 players: Stud Poker in any form. Usually, with so few players, only the very experienced play Draw Poker and they will often use a stripped deck, which is a pack with cards removed, such as all the deuces (twos) and treys (threes).

58 players: Any form of Poker, either Draw or Stud.

9 or 10 players: Five-card Stud Poker

More than 10 players: One of the games in which fewer than five cards are dealt, such as Three-Card Monte or Spit-in-the-Ocean. All of the Poker variations are described later in this chapter. Another alternative with so many players is to simply form two tables and organize two separate games.

When the Poker session is Dealer's Choice, each dealer has the privilege of naming the form of Poker to be played and to designate the ante, wild cards (if any), and the maximum limit of chips that can be wagered during each round. However, the dealer may not require one player to ante more than another. If a game such as Jackpots is selected and no one opens the betting, the same dealer deals again and everyone antes again.

While most Poker purists choose to play with no wild cards, in many games, especially Dealer's Choice, various cards may be designated as wild. A wild card is specified by the holder to be a card of any rank or suit, such as a fifth queen, or the card needed to combine with the other four in a player's hand to form a straight or a flush. Wild cards in a Poker game add variety, and of course, they greatly increase the chances of getting a rare combination such as a full house or a straight flush. The usual choices for wild cards are as follows:

Note that most packs of cards include two jokers for use in such games as Canasta. Poker players are increasingly adding one or both jokers as wild cards.

This is the joker, but its wildness is limited: It counts as an ace; or as a card of any suit for making a flush; or as a card of any rank and suit for making a straight or straight flush.

"Deuces Wild" is a popular form of Draw Poker. Every two is wild. Sometimes the joker is included as a fifth wild card. Note that the number of wild cards in a hand does not diminish it in anyway; thus, with deuces wild, five of a kind comprised of 10, 10, 2, 2, 2 (five 10s) beats 8, 8, 8, 8, 2 (five 8s).

The king of diamonds and the jacks of spades and hearts show only one eye, whereas the other face cards all have two eyes. One-eyed jacks are sometimes designated as wild cards, but the king of diamonds is rarely selected to be wild.

In Stud Poker, each player's lowest "hole" card (that is, the lowest card that is dealt face down and not seen by the other players) is wild. In Draw Poker, the wild card would be the lowest card in a player's hand. When such a card is designated, it means that every card of that rank in that player's hand is wild, but the fact that a certain card is wild in one player's hand does not make that same rank of card wild in other players' hands.

In every game, a written code of Poker laws should be used as the final arbiter for settling all questions. No Poker laws are universally followed - there are many local customs and preferences - but the Poker laws on this site embrace the latest customs of the most expert games and are recommended for adoption. It is a tradition of Poker that any club or group of players may make special rules, called "house rules," to suit their personal preferences. Of course, any such house rules should be written down.

Before play begins, the players should set a time limit for when the game ends and stick to it. Violation of this principle could eventually turn pleasant sessions into unpleasant ones. Often when the time for quitting is approaching, the host or one of the players will say "three more deals" or "through Zane's deal," so that players will know how many deals are left and can gauge their strategies accordingly.

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