Category Archives: Singularity

Steam Theory Brewing Company poured its last beers from its facility in West Dallas on June 19, 2022. The restaurant and bar which former Bachelor and Bachelorette host Chris Harrison invested in has closed permanently. But it isnt the end for this 4-year-old Dallas company.

For about a year, Steam Theory has operated what co-owner Chuck Homola calls a virtual brewery with North Carolina company Bevana. From an East Coast facility, Bevana is brewing four Steam Theory beers and mailing them to customers in dozens of states, Texas included.

Through the pandemic, Steam Theorys restaurant and taproom remained open, but it struggled because of decreased traffic.

We were very dependent on people coming through the door, Homola says.

The company received two rounds of PPP money and some Restaurant Revitalization Fund money. It wasnt enough, so Homola says he started looking for other ways to save Steam Theory.

Im an extremely stubborn person, he says. I love this company and I didnt want to see it go.

Homola believes the virtual brewery could keep his business afloat and cut out rent costs. (Though hell miss the taproom, which was especially beloved for its French fries.) His ambition for Steam Theorys virtual brewery charts a new path for businesses in the craft brewing industry, which has endured a tough two years. Recent brewery closures in North Texas include BrainDead in Deep Ellum, Legal Draft in Arlington, Armadillo Ale Works in Denton, and Cedar Creek Brewhouse & Eatery in Farmers Branch.

Homola describes the dilemma as creatively challenging.

His company is one of the only Dallas-Fort Worth based companies pivoting to a virtual brewery model. Restaurants have taken similar steps, selling their food nationwide in ghost kitchens.

Steam Theory engages in taste tests to check the quality of their product being made some 1,000 miles away. From North Carolina, Bevana is currently brewing and selling: Vamonos Hermanos, a Mexican lager; Juice Caboose, a hazy IPA; Hops Against Humanity, a West Coast IPA; and Threat Level Midnight, a stout with coffee, chocolate and caramel notes.

Bevana has partnered with nine beverage companies, and Steam Theory is the only one from North Texas.

Homola says hes choosing to look forward, despite the loss of the taproom.

Well still be in beer festivals and beer competitions. Well be doing all the things we always did. Just not in a brick and mortar, he says.

We figured youd want to know.

One of TVs most famous reality dating show hosts, Harrison, was a silent partner in Steam Theory. Hes a friend of a friend, Homola says, and a Dallas native.

Harrison told The Dallas Morning News in 2018 that he thought it would be neat to invest in a Dallas-based brewery and set some roots back in Texas.

And is he really into craft beer? Well, he is now: We actually turned him into a beer drinker, Homola says.

Harrison seemed to most enjoy one of Steam Theorys popular beers, Singularity. Its so named because its a simple beer, a blonde ale, says the website. But surely Singularity is also named after Harrison, the former dating show host.

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Steam Theory Brewing in Dallas has closed. Well, kinda - The Dallas Morning News

Designing a new art and design building for the Royal College of Art is a balancing act. On the one hand, the RCA is an outward-facing institution, looking to showcase its facilities, students and their work in part to attract the very best students of the future and to give its many funders (including the government) something to boast about. On the other hand, it is all about experimentation and safe spaces: trying out ideas, testing them until they break.

Successful studio spaces give their occupants licence licence to screw things into the walls, paint the ceiling, take an angle grinder to the floor. Experimentation, and the inevitable failure that goes with taking risks, requires a degree of introversion, ownership and control, rather than picture windows to Battersea Bridge Road. Similarly destructive transformations of space are not obviously welcome activities in 135m flagship buildings.

>>Also read: Inside Googles global HQ: a temple to post-covid working culture

>>Also read:The Procurement Bill the key impacts for construction

Herzog & de Meurons solution to this dilemma is essentially a shell and core: the practice has designed a strong, urban figure wrapped in a decorative facade and a simple, robust interior with an emphasis on flexibility. Studio spaces areraised above the ground floor, and windows are arranged to prioritise light and air rather thanviews in.

The elevation to Battersea Bridge Road has astrong, almost graphic quality that you can imagine being adopted as a logo for the campus in years to come. Five thick bands of brick, all in plane, slightly offset from each other.

The first two are a generous storey height, with the ground floor interrupted by two large picture windows. The next two are deep balconies, while the fifth, also in plane, describes the roof.

To the south the roof is flat, and the same thickness as the balconies, whereas to the north it rises to form a pair of great saw-toothed northlights, perhaps a nod to Haworth Tompkins adjacent Dyson and Woo buildings.

Our working environments have apowerful influence onthe way we create and collaborate, and I am so excited for this new chapter in the life of thecollege and the inspirational work its graduates will bring into the world

Sir Jony Ive, chancellor, Royal College of Art

Ribbon windows are set back well behind these brick elements, providing light and views, but also giving occupants a degree of privacy. The brick is a pinkish grey-brown stock brick in a Flemish bond and, continuing Herzog & de Meurons experimentation at the Tate Modern extension, the horizontal positioning of the bricksshifts.

Above the ground floor the headers protrude by approximately 10mm. This serves to emphasise the bond and give a three-dimensionality to the facade, especially as it is repeated in the brick soffits to the first floor; but it also draws attention to the scale of the brick itself a monumental skin built out of simple repeating elements.

The slight shadow from each header has the cumulative effect of making the upper storeys look as if they are formed from a slightly darker brick. And that, barring a hit-and-miss brickwork detail to both the ground and first floors, forms the entire elevation to the main road.

The north and south elevations to the Studio Building are even simpler simple extrusions ofthis form for the entire length of Howie Street approximately 100m in all. At ground-floor levelthis length is traversed by three cross-cuttingpassageways, while two of these are semiinternalised.

The central one leads to what will be a cafe courtyard at the rear of the site, drawing in students from across the campus, and perhaps even members of the public.

Windows have been located to reinforce the idea that the RCA is a place of making a place where art and technology intersect. So the plate glass to Battersea Park Road showcases the timber and metal workshops, while the route to the cafe is animated by views of a robotic arm.

This wonderful new building embodies all that is best and most vital about the RCA open, collaborative, interdisciplinary and bold

Dr Paul Thompson, vice-chancellor, Royal College of Art

The studios above are thus literally and metaphorically built on a foundation of workshops, emphasising a culture of making thatis central to both the RCA and Herzog & de Meuron.

Another of these cross routes (previously Radstock Street) has been largely internalised and forms the new entrance and gallery space for the building, the Hangar. This is a double-height, brick-lined volume with sliding folding glazed doors to each end, enabling it to be returned to astreet-like status. This is a robust space. You could drive right onto the black terrazzo floor, and indeed the dropped kerb of the old road hasbeen retained.

This is the closest the building gets to a front door the security lines that demarcate most university campuses are pleasingly absent. Aswell as an entrance of sorts, this is a place of assembly or exhibition, a place that could host very large work or product launches.

Vice-chancellor Paul Thompson noted that Herzog & de Meuron won the competition not just on the strength of its architects vision for thebuilding, but also on the depth of their understanding of theDarwin building in Kensington and the neighbouring Dyson building, where routes through the buildings encourage the intermingling of disciplines. Herethe singular building form and the simple structure (thick concrete slabs supported on concrete-filled steel columns) allow for big spans, with each floor of the Studio Building effectively comprising two giant rooms. Each of these rooms has its own core and toilet block as a central element, with the studio space wrapped around.

The studios are effectively open plan internal partitions, designed in conjunction with LTS Architects, provide different levels of separation on different floors.

On the first floor, the sculpture studios are defined by Douglas fir plywood on timber studwork. The studwork spans from concrete floor to concrete ceiling but the boards are standard 8ft and 10ft boards stopping short at the base to give a negative skirting, and finishing in line with the clerestory windows, some way short of the 4.5m high ceilings.

This is a careful balance how to maintain a sense that this is one room, and allow the free exchange of light, students and ideas, while at the same time creating sufficient separation to allow different activities to take place in different areas of the room. Herzog & de Meuron talk about recreating the atmosphere of a street yes, there is noise, dust and smells; but equally there is sufficient privacy to get stuff done.

This seemed plausible on a press day with no students in situ, but a list of the measures taken to ensure the space is sufficiently robust gives pause. The partition walls are sacrificial. The ceilings have pre-established load points and scaffolding bars for fixing work to the ceiling but just in case, no services run through them (power sockets are instead suspended above head height).

Likewise the floor has an additional 100mm of concrete a layer designed to mitigate damage should a student go all Gordon Matta-Clark as the vice-chancellor would have it. There is little by way of acoustic mitigation here all surfaces are hard, and while there are curtain racks, what curtains there are seem more designed to contain sparks than dampen noise.

The top floor (contemporary art practice and design) follows a similar pattern. The floor is marginally softer grey linoleum rather than concrete; the windows are more prominent, including a wraparound balcony that forms an alternative circulation route.

On the balcony, the heavy brick facade is revealed to be just half a brick thick, and the advancing headers emphasise the fragility of thestructure, which is stabilised by steel fins and astructural balustrade.

It is telling that, when asked about the buildings sustainability, vice-chancellor Paul Thompsons first response is to mention that the college anticipates using it for 120 years. This is illuminating in two ways.

Firstly, because it points to an aspect of sustainability that is often ignored: just how longwill this building be here and be used for this purpose? Or in other words, over what period will the sunk cost of all that concrete and steel be amortised? Secondly, it hints that environmental performance was not a key client driver.

Nonetheless, this is a building that achieves BREEAM Excellent. It does this through bold architectural gestures such as the deep balconies that reduce overheating paired with exposed concrete floors that act as a heat sink for low-angled sun, and the open-plan floorplates that allow passive cross-ventilation throughout.

Attention is also paid to detailed technical specification so the amount of GGBS in the concrete mix is varied by the season in which it was poured, in order to reduce cement use to anabsolute minimum. This, and reusing the formwork to the point of disintegration, should result in noticeable variations in the fair-faced concrete but nonetheless the exposed concrete is of uniformly high quality.

Could more have been done? Possibly. Not covering the rear sides of the saw-toothed rooflights with photovoltaics feels like a missed opportunity. These face south by south-east, and are pitched at roughly 25 or in other words, pretty much exactly what you would do if you were designing for maximum solar efficiency.

Instead, a smaller number of solar panels have been arranged on the adjacent portion of flat green/blue roof sufficient to meet planning andBREEAM requirements but providing a mere fraction of the electricity that the building will consume in use.

Again, all the services are overhead, which feels counterintuitive in a room where the ceiling is pitched to accommodate a giant high-pitched northlight. It turns out that the second northlight sits largely above the core, and so is simply blocked out for the majority of its length.

Despite this, and like the building as a whole, this space is impressive in its singularity: a striking volume defined by its relationship to daylight. The challenge will come when these spaces are occupied; and here the school worked with Vitra to design new partition and storage systems, designed to be demounted and reassembled in under 20 minutes.

The Studio Building is complemented by the Rausing Research and Innovation Building. Theskin here is aluminium aerofoils, designed toemphasise the verticality of the eight-storey block in contrast to the horizontal extrusion of the student facility.

Although this faculty block houses very different functions from the studios, interior details, finishes and fittings are repeated to theextent that sometimes only the floor finish changes. A pragmatic solution for a sculpture studio (moving the power to a ceiling-mounted rack) is clunkier in a seminar room or the offices of InnovationRCA, the RCAs business incubator but serves as a physical reminder that the college is first and foremost a place of making.

This feels like a significant building. Herzog &de Meuron founding partner Jacques Herzog described the design as not flashy, claiming that the flash should come from inside; and how the use of brick grounds the building in its context. He is being modest the brick is somehow both heavy and delicate at the same time, and its scale and singularity is deeply weird and intriguing in a London context.

He also talked about how the practices previous work in the capital the Tate Modern and the Laban cance centre helped to shift the global centre towards London in their respective fields. The RCA will very much be hoping for a repeat.

Client Royal College of ArtArchitect Herzog & de MeuronStructural and services engineer and cost consultant Mott MacDonaldFit-out design LTS ArchitectsContractor KierFit-out QS AecomFit-out contractor ISG

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The fine art of creating a new campus for the RCA - Building

A hypothetical gravitational singularity without an event horizon

In general relativity, a naked singularity is a hypothetical gravitational singularity without an event horizon. In a black hole, the singularity is completely enclosed by a boundary known as the event horizon, inside which the gravitational force of the singularity is so strong that light cannot escape. Hence, objects inside the event horizonincluding the singularity itselfcannot be directly observed. A naked singularity, by contrast, would be observable from the outside.

The theoretical existence of naked singularities is important because their existence would mean that it would be possible to observe the collapse of an object to infinite density. It would also cause foundational problems for general relativity, because general relativity cannot make predictions about the evolution of space-time near a singularity. In generic black holes, this is not a problem, as an outside viewer cannot observe the space-time within the event horizon.

Naked singularities have not been observed in nature. Astronomical observations of black holes indicate that their rate of rotation falls below the threshold to produce a naked singularity (spin parameter 1). GRS 1915+105 comes closest to the limit, with a spin parameter of 0.82-1.00.[1]

According to the cosmic censorship hypothesis, gravitational singularities may not be observable. If loop quantum gravity is correct, naked singularities may be possible in nature.

From concepts drawn from rotating black holes, it is shown that a singularity, spinning rapidly, can become a ring-shaped object. This results in two event horizons, as well as an ergosphere, which draw closer together as the spin of the singularity increases. When the outer and inner event horizons merge, they shrink toward the rotating singularity and eventually expose it to the rest of the universe.

A singularity rotating fast enough might be created by the collapse of dust or by a supernova of a fast-spinning star. Studies of pulsars[2] and some computer simulations (Choptuik, 1997) have been performed.[3]

Mathematician Demetrios Christodoulou, a winner of the Shaw Prize, has shown that contrary to what had been expected, singularities which are not hidden in a black hole also occur.[4] However, he then showed that such "naked singularities" are unstable.[5]

Disappearing event horizons exist in the Kerr metric, which is a spinning black hole in a vacuum. Specifically, if the angular momentum is high enough, the event horizons could disappear. Transforming the Kerr metric to BoyerLindquist coordinates, it can be shown[6] that the r {displaystyle r} coordinate (which is not the radius) of the event horizon is

where = G M / c 2 {displaystyle mu =GM/c^{2}} , and a = J / M c {displaystyle a=J/Mc} . In this case, "event horizons disappear" means when the solutions are complex for r {displaystyle r_{pm }} , or 2 < a 2 {displaystyle mu ^{2} M 2 {displaystyle J>M^{2}} ), i.e. the spin exceeds what is normally viewed as the upper limit of its physically possible values.

Disappearing event horizons can also be seen with the ReissnerNordstrm geometry of a charged black hole. In this metric, it can be shown[7] that the horizons occur at

where = G M / c 2 {displaystyle mu =GM/c^{2}} , and q 2 = G Q 2 / ( 4 0 c 4 ) {displaystyle q^{2}=GQ^{2}/(4pi varepsilon _{0}c^{4})} . Of the three possible cases for the relative values of {displaystyle mu } and q {displaystyle q} , the case where 2 < q 2 {displaystyle mu ^{2} M {displaystyle Q>M} ), i.e. the charge exceeds what is normally viewed as the upper limit of its physically possible values.

See KerrNewman metric for a spinning, charged ring singularity.

A naked singularity could allow scientists to observe an infinitely dense material, which would under normal circumstances be impossible by the cosmic censorship hypothesis. Without an event horizon of any kind, some speculate that naked singularities could actually emit light.[8]

The cosmic censorship hypothesis says that a gravitational singularity would remain hidden by the event horizon. LIGO events, including GW150914, are consistent with these predictions. Although data anomalies would have resulted in the case of a singularity, the nature of those anomalies remains unknown.[9]

Some research has suggested that if loop quantum gravity is correct, then naked singularities could exist in nature,[10][11][12] implying that the cosmic censorship hypothesis does not hold. Numerical calculations[13] and some other arguments[14] have also hinted at this possibility.

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Naked singularity - Wikipedia

Since Johnny Depp has been all over the news lately, this would be a great time to review his contribution to the world of sci-fi, Transcendence (2014), or as I like to call it, Oh Great. Now, We Have to Kill the Internet.

The movie plays on two themes. First, there is the idea that futurist Ray Kurzweil calls the Singularity, a moment where AI surpasses humanity. Second, the movie explores two closely related questions: Is there a soul, and does this soul reside within the brain?

Johnny Depps character, Will Caster, does not believe in the soul, but he does recognize that there is some unmapped region within biological life that allows a human to distinguish between right and wrong. This aspect of the brain prevents humanity from building more advanced AI. His solution to the problem is to experiment with the concept of uploading brains onto a computer he calls PINN (Physically Independent Neural Network). He does this with a monkey first; however, he keeps the experiment quiet.

Then, while speaking at a conference, he is shot by a member of the terrorist organization RIFT (Revolutionary Independence From Technology). The bullet has been laced with a radioactive element that poisons his blood with radiation. He is left with only a month to live. Will is resigned to his fate but his wife and co-researcher, Evelyn Caster, discovers his research with the monkey and decides to try the same experiment on him. Wills friend, Max Waters, hears Evelyns plan and reluctantly agrees to help. Over the course of the next month, they upload the information inside Wills brain onto PINNs hard drive.

They have no trouble uploading Wills brain into the computer, but they have a great deal of trouble translating his minds code. When Will dies, they continue to work on the experiment, but with little progress. Eventually, Evelyn is on the verge of giving up, but just as they are about to wipe PINNs hard drive, a message appears on the screen. Its Will.

Evelyn is overjoyed and begins to work on improving Wills somewhat fragmented mind; however, once Will is awake, he takes over the experiment and begins to fix himself.

Max has been somewhat quiet about all of this, but when Will begins wanting to link into the internet so he can access everything, Max has had enough. He tells Evelyn that this thing inside the machine is not Will. It may have his memories and basic information, but whatever made Will human is gone. Evelyn will have none of this and tells Max to leave.

Conveniently, RIFT has been working in the shadows this entire time. They find Max chilling out at a bar and kidnap him.

A strong point of this film is that, while RIFT is not necessarily presented as a positive force in the story, the groups motivations are easy to understand. The leader is a former student of Will Caster. She was present when he did the experiment with the monkey. Later in the film, she tells Max that the moment she heard the monkey over PINNs speaker, it simply screamed without ceasing. They monkey was begging them to turn it off. This was what caused her to form the terrorist organization in the first place.

Transcendence does a good job presenting everyones view on whether its possible to upload a man into a machine and all their actions remain in character. The only character whose motives are in question, is Will and we dont get our answer until the end of the film.This ambiguity creates an element of horror that works rather well. The tension between Evelyn and Will, as she begins to wonder whether this computer really is her husband, gives the viewer a sense of unease.

Eventually, RIFT finds Evelyn and attempt to capture her. In a moment of desperation, she uploads Will onto the internet and escapes. Will calls her on her cell phone as she is driving away. Using the Internet, of course, he floods her bank account with money and reserves her a hotel room. At the same time, he gives the FBI all the information they could ever need on RIFT who must then flee to a militia group somewhere far away from civilization. Will eventually leads Evelyn to the small desert town of Brightwood where he plans to have her build him a facility.

Evelyn follows his orders and the facility is soon built. Will has enough power to do a plethora of experiments. That plays into one of Maxs warnings earlier in the movie that the computer will be motivated only by a perpetual expansion of its own power and knowledge.

Before we move on to the climax, one issue with the film does need to be mentioned. Because of its grand scope and timeline, Transcendence feels choppy at certain points. A number of pieces must be moving for new alliances to be formed, literal armies to be raised, government to intervene, and a multi-billion-dollar lab to be constructed, but less than thirty seconds are often devoted to these individual plot developments. One moment, RIFT has been utterly decimated and forced to flee into the forest and the next, they have fresh troops and the equipment needed to practically lay a siege. The only sense of the passage of time in the film that we get is a caption which tells the viewer how many years have passed since the previous scene.

This isnt a plot hole so much as it is a trade-off. On the one hand, the logistics are not really that interesting, and strictly speaking, a detailed explanation isnt essential. On the other hand, these logistics are used to build the viewers emotional stake in the story. So, its a matter of pacing versus tension. The writers chose to prioritize pacing over building tension which, again, isnt really a bad thing but it tends to give the viewer whiplash at certain points. Well finish reviewing Transcendence in Part 2 of this review.

You may also wish to read: Is Ray Kurzweils Singularity nearer or still impossible? AI might help us unlock our potential, a panel concludes, but it wont take over. Oren Etzioni of the Allen Institute for AI warns, dont mistake a clear view for a short distance. Whats easy to envision may be intrinsically impossible.

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Review: Transcendence The Soul Meets the Singularity - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

NEW YORK, June 19, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C., a nationally recognized shareholder rights law firm, is investigating potential claims against Inotiv, Inc. (NASDAQ: NOTV), TG Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: TGTX), Singularity Future Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: SGLY), and Allianz SE (OTCMKTS: ALIZY). Our investigations concern whether these companies have violated the federal securities laws and/or engaged in other unlawful business practices. Additional information about each case can be found at the link provided.

Inotiv, Inc. (NASDAQ: NOTV)

On May 20, 2022, Inotiv disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that "[o]n May 18, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ'), together with federal and state law enforcement agents, executed a search and seizure warrant on" a Cumberland, Virginia facility of Inotiv's subsidiary Envigo RMS, LLC ("Envigo"). Inotiv further disclosed that "[o]n May 19, 2022, a complaint was filed against Envigo in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. The complaint is a civil action by DOJ alleging violations of the Animal Welfare Act at the Cumberland, Virginia facility. The complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and costs."

On this news, Inotiv's stock price fell $5.19 per share, or 28.31%, to close at $13.14 per share on May 23, 2022.

For more information on the Inotiv investigation go to: https://bespc.com/cases/NOTV

TG Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: TGTX)

On November 30, 2021, TG Therapeutics issued a press release "announc[ing] the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has notified the Company that it plans to host a meeting of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) in connection with its review of the pending Biologics License Application (BLA)/supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for the combination of ublituximab and UKONIQ (umbralisib) (combination referred to as U2) for the treatment of adult patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL)." TG Therapeutics advised that "[t]he FDA has notified the Company that potential questions and discussion topics for the ODAC include: the benefit-risk of the U2 combination in the treatment of CLL or SLL, and the benefit-risk of UKONIQ in relapsed/refractory marginal zone lymphoma (MZL) or follicular lymphoma (FL). In addition, as part of the benefit-risk analysis, the overall safety profile of the U2 regimen, including adverse events (serious and Grade 3-4), discontinuations due to adverse events, and dose modifications, is expected to be reviewed", stating that "[t]he FDA's concern giving rise to the ODAC meeting appears to stem from an early analysis of overall survival from the UNITY-CLL trial."

On this news, TG Therapeutics' stock price fell $8.16 per share, or 34.93%, to close at $15.20 per share on November 30, 2021.

For more information on the TG Therapeutics investigation go to: https://bespc.com/cases/TGTX

Singularity Future Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: SGLY)

On May 5, 2022, Hindenburg Research (Hindenburg) published a report entitled Singularity Future Technology: This Nasdaq-Listed Companys CEO Is a fugitive, on the Run for Allegedly Operating a Massive Ponzi Scheme. The Hindenburg report alleged, among other things, that singularitys CEO, Yang Jie, is a fugitive on the run from Chinese authorities for running an alleged $300 million Ponzi scheme that lured in over 20,000 victims and fled to the U.S. while at least 28 other individuals involved in the case were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 6 months to 15 years. The Hindenburg report further alleged that Singularitys massive [cryptocurrency] mining rig deal appears to be a brazen undisclosed related party deal and that [w]e see little evidence that Singularitys proprietary crypto mining rigs ever existed in the first place. The photos and descriptions of Singularitys miners match precisely with another brand called KOI Miner.

On this news, Singularitys stock price fell $1.95 per share, or 28.89%, to close at $4.80 per share on May 5, 2022.

For more information on the Singularity Future investigation go to: https://bespc.com/cases/SGLY

Allianz SE (OTCMKTS: ALIZY)

On August 1, 2021, Allianz disclosed that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has begun an investigation concerning the Structured Alpha Funds, and that there is a relevant risk that the matters relating to the Structured Alpha Funds could materially impact future financial results of Allianz Group.

On this news, Allianzs stock price fell $2.00 per share, or 8%, to close at $22.85 per share on August 2, 2021.

Then, on May 17, 2022, Allianz pleaded guilty to securities fraud, admitting that it lacked internal controls and oversight for a series of private-investment funds and made false and misleading statements to investors. The Company agreed to pay $6 billion in penalties and restitution.

On this news, Allianzs stock price fell $4.54 per share, or 2.1%, to close at $208.00 on May 18, 2022.

For more information on the Allianz investigation go to: https://bespc.com/cases/ALIZY

About Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C.:

Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. is a nationally recognized law firm with offices in New York, California, and South Carolina. The firm represents individual and institutional investors in commercial, securities, derivative, and other complex litigation in state and federal courts across the country. For more information about the firm, please visit http://www.bespc.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Contact Information:

Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. Brandon Walker, Esq. Melissa Fortunato, Esq. (212) 355-4648 investigations@bespc.comwww.bespc.com

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Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. Is Investigating Inotiv, TG Therapeutics, Singularity Future, ... - KULR-TV

All Good Tova Goodman by Mary E. Carter

Mary E. Carters new novel All Good Tova Goodman is for anyone heartened by stories of independence, singularity and tenacity. The novels lead character, Tova Goodman, possesses those qualities in spades. So do other characters, including a tree.

Tova is on a lifelong pursuit of the meaning of the word good. Its her calling.

As with the main female characters in two previous Carter novels, Tova represents ordinary people grappling with big philosophical, ethical or moral issues as best as they can, the author noted.

The word good is built into Tovas name. Twice. Obviously its part of her last name; and Tova is a female name that means good in Hebrew.

A young Tova questions the origin of the word good in her studies with a rabbi. Shes studying Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

She asks if God (he-she-or-it) should have defined major concepts before describing how the word good is used.

Good question, the rabbi says.

The discussion leads Tova to ask and ask, she will about good versus evil in the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. God wants to destroy the cities because of their wickedness.

Abraham asks God to spare the people. Just how many people have to be righteous (good) to make up for the bad people in order for God to save the whole population?

Carter said she chose that biblical story for Tova to explore because the author sees parallels between Abraham bargaining with God and Tova negotiating with the rabbi.

Study of Torah is not to memorize chapter and verse, not to memorize ritual beliefs and then to recite back mere doctrine. Study of Torah is meant to engage our minds, hearts, souls, Carter wrote in an email.

The adult Tova lives in Placitas, New Mexico, just above the rising shoreline of what is the New Pacific Ocean. The backdrop of the novel is a post-apocalyptic world in which nature has taken over the built environment of Washington, D.C.

Jerry Sterns, one of Tovas friends, alliteratively describes what he saw in the nations capital: All the fine white buildings were overgrown with poisonous tendrils and enormous twisted trees with treacherous thorns strangling their trunks

Tova, Jerry and their companion Emmanuel Epps evoke optimism. They are stout survivors, supporting each other into their twilight years.

All Good is the sequel to Carters 2017 prize-winning novel I, Sarah Steinway. Sarah had lived in a treehouse overlooking a bay in northern California facing its own rising floodwaters.

Near the conclusion of All Good is a memorable, tender episode, as seen by Tova, a centenarian approaching the World to Come. The episode is also about renewal, the renewal of the almost 100-year-old split oak tree whose limbs had generously given Sarah a home.

Now the trunk and branches swallowed the small structure. The tree has become an arboreal goddess, holding firm, unyielding the novel explains. Soon the tree struggles to regain all of its heartwood stamina What else was there for that tree but patience, to heal and to attain revenge, to mediate its injuries?

The tree had been a good home for humans in bad times. Now the tree needed to be a tree.

Sans debate of good versus bad.

Readers will find light moments peppering the text with multiple usages of the word good. Here are some of them:

Good grief!

Good looking and a real good-looker

I repeat: These are not the good old days.

The Good War (Tovas Dad fought in World War II)

Well, goody for her.

Tova retained her jaunty gait and good posture even into her 90s.

So, All good, as we used to say and shrug.

Mary E. Carter, the author, is a Placitas resident who has studied Torah for more than 25 years.

At the back of the novel is a list of books on related topics, a readers guide and questions for discussion.

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Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Tova pursues the meaning of the word good - Albuquerque Journal

The universe might meet its end in a big freeze, a big crunch, or a big rip. But whether time ends with the demise of the cosmos depends on whether it is even real after all

By Richard Webb

TO GRAPPLE WITH questions of times end, lets first look the other way, to its beginning. Some 13.8 billion years ago, our universe, once thought to be eternal and unchanging, began. Space and time popped up spontaneously, out of nothing, in the big bang. Except we dont know for sure that is what happened. It is an extrapolation based on the equations of general relativity Albert Einsteins theory of gravity and our observations of a universe that, over billions of years, has been expanding and cooling from something denser and hotter.

Our observations take us back to some 380,000 years after a putative beginning, when the universe had cooled enough for the first atoms to form, sending radiation pinging through the cosmos. We hear that radiation today as the hiss of the cosmic microwave background.

With Einsteins theories, we can go back further, to the first microsecond, when the entire observable cosmos was about the size of our solar system. Beyond that, we are all at sea, with neither theory nor observations to help us. Wind Einsteins equations back enough, and you end up in a singularity of infinite temperature and density that seems to be a physical nonsense. Did time did everything really begin then?

The answer to that might depend on where you think the universe is going. There are a couple possibilities there, says Katie Mack at North Carolina State University, author of The End of Everything (Astrophysically speaking). The expansion could continue forever, or it could stop and reverse.

That second, big crunch, scenario has generally been more favoured. On its own, the

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Will time ever end? The answer lies in the death throes of the cosmos - New Scientist

The number of packages people orderand the number of people ordering packagesisnt likely to go down anytime in the foreseeable future, and companies are working on ways to get those packages delivered quickly and cheaply. Too many delivery trucks cause traffic and congestion; youve doubtless seen the Amazon, FedEx, or UPS trucks take over loading zones on your block for an annoyingly long time (I sure have).

All sorts of wacky solutions have been proposed for better package delivery, from an underground hyperloop network of pipes to swarms of last-mile robots dispatched from mothership vans.

Lets not forget ever-elusive delivery drones. The widespread assumption was that Amazon would be the first to have its packages take to the skies, but as it turned out, Walmart beat them to the punch, piloting drone delivery in North Carolina in 2020.

Now Amazons catching up. The company announced this week that its starting drone delivery service in Lockeford, California later this year. South-east of Sacramento in the states hot, dry Central Valley area, the town had a population of just 3,521 as of the 2020 census. An Amazon press release says the town has historic links to the aviation industry thanks to a former resident who built and flew planes there in the early 1900s.

The company doesnt give additional details around why it chose Lockeford for the Prime Air pilot, though the towns rural location, the fact that most customers there have backyards for the drones to drop packages in, and the lack of numerous obstacles youd find in a more urban or densely-populated area likely all factored in.

Amazon has been trying to get drone delivery off the ground (pun intended) since 2013, when then-CEO Jeff Bezos went on 60 Minutes and demoed a drone he claimed could deliver packages weighing five pounds or less in under 30 minutes. Since then, the company has cycled through various iterations of delivery drones (more than two dozen, according to the press release), from a quadcopter that carried packages in its fuselage to a helicopter/airplane hybrid to its current hexagonal model, whose propellers were designed to minimized high-frequency sound waves.

The companys progress on bringing its delivery drones to market has been slow due to safety concernsincluding multiple crashesand regulatory approvals. In fact, Prime Air is still waiting for Part 135 certification from the Federal Aviation Administration, which allows companies to operate commercial delivery drones.

On the safety front, among other measures, Amazon has built what it calls an industry-leading sense-and-avoid system to keep its drones from crashing into thingsthings like other aircraft, people, pets, or unexpected obstacles (like, say, a chimney or an antenna). When a drones sensors detect objects within a certain radius of it, it automatically changes course, and as it descends to drop packages, it checks that the surrounding space is clear.

Customers in Lockeford will know when placing their Amazon orders whether a given package will arrive by drone or by truck, as specific items will be marked as Prime Air eligible. Amazon will use feedback from Lockeford residents to improve and expand the service in coming years. The company hasnt announced a specific date or month for the pilots launch yet, but says its happening before the end of the year.

Image Credit: Amazon

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Amazon Will Pilot Drone Delivery in California This Year - Singularity Hub

Who was Stanislaw Lem? The Polish science fiction writer, novelist, essayist, and polymath may best be known for his 1961 novel Solaris (adapted for the screen by Andrei Tarkosvky in 1972 and again by Steven Soderbergh in 2014). Lems science fiction appealed broadly outside of SF fandom, attracting the likes of John Updike, who called his stories marvelous and Lem a poet of scientific terminology for readers whose hearts beat faster when the Scientific American arrives each month.

Updikes characterization is but one version of Lem. There are several more, writes Jonathan Lethem in an essay for the London Review of Books, penned for Lems 100th anniversary at least five different Lems with five different literary personalities. Only the first is a hard science fiction writer, the genre originating not with Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, but in H.G. Wells technological prognostications.

Represented best in the pages of Astounding Stories and other sci-fi pulps, hard sci-fi advertises consumer goods like personal robots and flying cars. It valorizes space travel that culminates in successful, if difficult, contact with the alien life assumed to be strewn throughout the galaxies. The genre also became tied to American exceptionalist ideology, technocratic triumphalism, manifest destiny and libertarian survivalist bullshit, says Lethem.

Lem had no use for these attitudes. In his guise as a critic and reviewer he wrote, the scientific ignorance of most American science-fiction writers was as inexplicable as the abominable literary quality of their output. He admired the English H.G. Wells, comparing him to the inventor of chess, and American Philip K. Dick, whom he called a visionary among charlatans. But Lem hated most hard sci-fi, though he himself, says Lethem, was a hard sci-fi writer with visionary gifts and inexhaustible diligence when it came to the task of extrapolation.

Much of Lems work was of another kind, as Lethem explains in the short film above, a condensed version of his essay. The second Lem wrote fairy tales and folk tales of the future. The third, wrote just two novels, yet he could easily be, on the right day, ones favorite. Lem number four is the pure post-modernist, who unified his essayistic and fictional selves with a Borgesian or Nabokovian gesture.This Lem, for example, wrote the very BorgesianA Perfect Vacuum: Perfect Reviews of Nonexistent Books.

Lem number five, says Lethem, is another major figure, this one a prolific literary essayist, critic, reviewer, and non-fiction writer whose breadth is staggering. Rather than confining him with the label futurist, Lethem calls him an anythingist, a point Lem proved with his 1964Summa Technologiae, a masterwork of non-fiction, Simon Ings writes atNew Scientist, with the ambition and scope of the 13th-century Aquinas work for which its named.

This fifth and final Lem will be a fabulous shock to those who know only his science fiction, writes Ings. Only translated into English in 2014, hisSummapresages search engines, virtual reality, and technological singularity. It attempts an all encompassing discourse on evolution, commented biophysicist Peter Butko, not only of science and technology but also evolution of life, humanity, consciousness, culture, and civilization.

The last Lem makes forheady reading, but he imbues this work with the same wit and wickedly satirical voice we find in the first four. He operated, after all, as Lethem writes in his essay celebrating the Polish author at 100, in the spirit of other Iron Curtain figures who slipped below the censors radar by using forms regarded as unserious. Yet few have taken the form of science fiction more seriously.

via Aeon

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Josh Jonesis a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at@jdmagness

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An Introduction to Stanislaw Lem, the Great Polish Sci-Fi Writer, by Jonathan Lethem - Open Culture

When I first encountered the writer Jim Harrison, I was not a happy man.

It was 30 years ago. I had come north to this resort community along Grand Traverse Bay to run a marathon, only to find that the intern with whom Id talked at the local chamber of commerce had given me the wrong date.

After stewing for a bit, I went for a long solo run along the water, then found my way to a bookstore.

A local weekly newspaper I picked up there featured an interview with Harrison, who lived then in this part of Michigan. I hadnt read him at that time. I knew he sometimes was labeled a kind of latter-day Hemingway because he often wrote about Michigan, hunting and fishing. I learned that it was a comparison he resisted, even resented.

I was at loose ends in those days, not feeling particularly centered in either my personal or professional lives. I wasnt sure of what I wanted or what I was supposed to do.

As I read the interview with Harrison, I was struck by his voice, authentic, honest and questing. He saw this world as a place to be experienced, to be savored, to be endured, to learn from.

Well into the interview, he delivered a short sentence that became a kind of credo for me. When I got back home, I scratched it out on an index card and taped it to the desk where I wrote.

It stayed there for years.

You cant away your life with nonsense, he said.

True then.

True now.

True always.

After I finished the interview, I headed back to the bookstore and picked up a couple of Harrisons books.

That night, I sat in a rather tired hotel room and read Jim Harrison for the first time.

His voice as a writer was raucous, relaxed, sometimes ribald, often revelatory. Although he was capable of reflection, his writers eye most often drifted outward to take note of the world and the singularity of each moment. He found great beauty in existences essential evanescence.

As I learned more about him, I discovered that he had been first and perhaps foremost a poet, which made sense. Few writers Ive read have taken more joy no, more deep satisfaction in the limber elasticities of language well used.

When I got back home, I began to acquire and work my way through a personal library of Harrisons works. Each time I read him the larger and the lesser Harrison works I found myself reminded that there are few things more powerful than truth captured and conveyed in words.

Harrison died a little more than six years ago. I never met him. Thats a regret.

I almost did, though, twice.

Once, when my wife and I took our then-infant daughter to Key West a haunt of Harrisons I stopped at another bookstore. As I was leaving, a shortish, stout older man about to enter the store opened the door for me. He looked vaguely familiar.

Only when I was in my car did I realize that it had been Harrison.

A few months later, when my wife, my daughter and I were here in Traverse City, I saw Harrison leaving a bookstore while I was searching for a parking place.

If he keeps stalking me like this, I may have to take out a restraining order, I joked to my wife.

It was a jest I think I hope Harrison would have appreciated, even laughed at.

Now, Im back in Traverse City for the first time in more than 15 years, this time as an old man, one more content with his life than the young man who tried to run through all his frustrations, a human being more attuned, one hopes, to the beauty of evanescence.

A guy still striving not to away his life with nonsense.

Im rereading Harrison while Im up here, for pleasure and because he reminds me of the power of an active mind and great writing.

He does not disappoint.

Moving water is forever in the present tense, I read as the surface of the bay nearby shifts and shimmers, a condition we rather achingly avoid.

Amen, brother.

Amen.

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John Krull column: Savoring the words, observations of a writer forever in present tense - The Herald Bulletin