Open source game developer Perttu Ahola talks about Minetest with Wikinews

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Recently, Finnish open-source video game developer Perttu Ahola discussed Minetest, his “longest ever project”, with Wikinews.

Started in October 2010, Minetest was an attempt by Ahola to create a sandbox game similar to Minecraft. Minecraft is a multi-platform commercial game, which was in alpha version when Ahola challenged himself to create something similar to it from scratch, he told Wikinews.

Minetest is an open-source game, which is free for anyone to download and play. It is written in the C++ programming language, and the source code is available on code-hosting site GitHub. According to Ahola, Minetest attempts to run on older hardware, with limited graphics, but to be accessible to more people: those who have outdated technology, and making it available for no cost. Minecraft, on the other hand, is a paid game, currently costing USD 26.95 for its computer version. Minecraft is currently owned by Microsoft, and performs poorly on older hardware.

A correspondent from French Wikinews contacted Perttu Ahola via Internet Relay Chat a few weeks ago, discussing Minecraft. This interview is built on top of the previous interview, as we take a deeper dive into knowing more about this free game which is about to turn ten years old in a few months.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Open_source_game_developer_Perttu_Ahola_talks_about_Minetest_with_Wikinews&oldid=4589276”

Australian government to tackle banks on mortgages

Sunday, January 13, 2008

In response to higher than expected mortgage rate increases last week, Australian treasurer Wayne Swan flagged changes to banking regulations to increase competition between lenders on home mortgages.

Swan announced yesterday he had sought a Treasury report on the banking sector ahead of talks over the next fortnight on reforms to make it easier for bank customers to move mortgages between lenders by forcing banks to reduce exit fees, to “make the market more competitive”.

“Everybody knows we’ve been impacted upon by the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis that has pushed up the cost of money,” Swan said.

“But, as I said last week, some of the increases we saw by the banks were not justified. In my view, they were excessive. I urge people to vote with their feet. If there are obstacles to people voting with their feet, switching their accounts, we’ll have a look at those.”

The banking industry, however, insists that loan refinancing is not a complicated process currently, according to the head of the Australian Bankers Association (ABA), David Bell. “There is a competitive marketplace for home loans and the Cannex website shows the many products that are available,” said Bell. “Regarding the switching of transaction accounts, the Australian Payments Clearing Association is conducting a community consultation process on this issue. ABA member banks support this process.”

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Australian_government_to_tackle_banks_on_mortgages&oldid=626128”

IRA disbands military structure

Thursday, October 5, 2006

The Independent Monitoring Commission has reported that the Provisional Irish Republican Army has undergone major changes within their military structure and shows that the IRA Army Council wants to put its military campaign behind it. The Commission consists of John Alderdice, a former Alliance Party leader; Joe Brosnan, former Secretary General of the Department of Justice, Republic of Ireland; John Grieve, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and former head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terror Branch; and Dick Kerr, former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Agency.

The report states the IRA no longer has the capacity to mount a military campaign anymore or return to one. The units that have been shut down were responsible for weapons-making, arms smuggling and training. The IRA decommissioned their arms last year.

The report also mentions that the IRA has also put its criminality beyond use and is “clamping down” on criminals within the organization, said Lord Alderdice, as he presented the report. He also added, “That doesn’t mean that criminal activity by all members has stopped but the leadership has made public statements and internal directions, investigated incidents of breach of the policy, even expelled some members and has emphasised the importance of ensuring that business affairs are conducted in a legitimate way.”

Finally, the report added that there is not enough evidence or intelligence to identify who killed Denis Donaldson, a British spy who infiltrated the IRA and Sinn Fein, before revealing his status as a spy.

However, the report added that splinter groups like the Real IRA (RIRA) and Continuity IRA (CIRA) are still threats and are still continuing their activity. The Real IRA was the group behind the deadly 1998 Omagh bombing. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) “was not capable of undertaking a sustained campaign [against the British State], nor does it aspire to” according to the report.

It is also noted the creation of two new organizations, Oglaigh na hEireann (Irish Gaelic for “Volunteers of Ireland” and is used by the Irish Defence Forces and the various IRAs.) and the Republican Defence Army. However, the groups are small dissident factions according to the report.

The report also added that the two loyalist paramilitaries, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) are also beginning to move from violence but at slower pace and not at a grassroots level like the IRA. Another loyalist paramilitary, the Loyalist Volunteer Force

The report was received warmly by Irish Toaiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Ahern, said “These positive and clear-cut findings are of the utmost importance and significance. It is time to make decisions and for Northern Ireland to look to the future.”

“The IRA has done what we asked it to do, and while issues like policing remain to be solved, the door is now open to a final settlement, which is why the talks next week in Scotland are going to be so important.” said Tony Blair in a live statement.

In a surprising reaction, the notoriously hardline leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Ian Paisley, also welcomed the report. He believes that his party’s pressure is working and if Sinn Fein signs up to policing there could be a deal. Paisley said, “If the police question is settled absolutely on a democratic basis and principle we would have come a long way along the road.”

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said “The DUP don’t have anything other than very limited options. They will or will not participate in power-sharing arrangements. If they don’t participate they are condemning people here, but particularly their own constituents, to second class public services, run by second class fly-in, fly-out British ministers. All the DUP can do is to delay, is to attempt to slow down, but they can’t stop the process of changing.”

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=IRA_disbands_military_structure&oldid=4511284”

The Immune System S Smallest Enemy With The Biggest Problems

Submitted by: Kevin Gianni

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s Renegade Roundtable, which can be found at http://www.RenegadeRoundtable.com. In this excerpt, Dr. J.E. Williams shares on the smallest enemy that causes the biggest problems, viruses.

Renegade Water Secrets with Dr. J.E. Williams, a pioneer in integrative medicine, an educational leader in green medicines and an internationally known speaker and published author, including his latest book, Viral Immunity .

Kevin:

Dr. Williams, welcome to the show.

Dr. Williams:

Thank you so much for having me. I really look forward to the discussion, Kevin.

Kevin:

Well, this is great. We got over 300 questions. I think that I ve kind of filtered them out into specific categories, so we ll be able to address some of them.

But first, why don t you tell everyone just a little bit about yourself? Just tell us a little about how you got into this and why you re really just speaking very highly of all this sort of natural medicine in terms of viral and bacterial and just immunity in any sort of way.

Dr. Williams:

Kevin, I m going to just give you a quick update on what I m doing right now, and then I m going to jump back about thirty-some years, because your question s highly important.

I am currently working with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, in their department of integrative medicine, and upgrading and working with them and bringing in other universities from around the world into the same areas that I work in to drive, really a scientific model. There s both intuitive and scientific model in this work.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDQR0IXhvgI[/youtube]

And I think, as you know, my books are both current, up-do-date, they re science-based, but they really touch that soul of natural medicine. Now, jump back 30 plus, plus, plus years. I recognized very early on, because of my patients that were coming in, now, in the late 70s, early 80s, that was just when the tip of the iceberg of AIDS was, we didn t even have it diagnosed then, and Hepatitis C, we didn t have it diagnosed, not until 89, if you can believe that or not.

And then we were looking at chronic fatigue and environmental syndromes, increasing incidences of cancer, all types of allergies, very strange things that didn t show up. We were seeing diseases that occurred typically only in older people, some of them very rare diseases or very uncommon like MS, for example, and other autoimmune diseases, and I started to look at this.

You know, what could be the cause? And at the time, everybody was blaming viruses, and so I said, well, let me take a closer look. It turned out that it really wasn t viruses that were causing all of these problems whatsoever. It was environmental reasons, but when I looked at the viral issue more closely, and then AIDS came up, and then Hepatitis C and then SARS, and many, many, many, many, many others, I realized, and then with my latest book Beating the Flu, about pandemic influenza, that probably our number one weakest link was our immune system.

And our number one greatest problem was viral illnesses. We had no medications. It was an undefeatable enemy. It was the smallest thing known. Viruses can even infect bacteria. That s how small they are.

Kevin:

Um-hmm.

Dr. Williams:

So I got on the viral trail, and I tried to educate lay people, the public, as well as physicians, because medical doctors had absolutely no idea, had zero training on viruses at the time. They have very little today.

Kevin:

Right. And how has that changed over the last 30 years?

Dr. Williams:

Well, unfortunately it s changed in kind of skewed way. We have kind of a limping drunk, you know, the son of a rich man, or something like that, who s gone out for the evening and has gained a lot of experience, but in the wrong things.

Kevin:

Gotcha.

Dr. Williams:

And immunology itself, the science of immunology, has just become revived, and we ve looked at it in a much, much deeper way. We now understand that what we used to think, and the old paradigm is still in place, that what we used to think is completely not only outdated but mostly wrong. It s a much more highly complex system. It s an intercommunicative system, and it works within all areas of the body. It s dependent on hormones, nutrients, and immunity, as well as environmental pressures.

We slanted our interest in viral research onto AIDS and what we thought were the more serious diseases because that s where a lot of the research money was in, but not where the real problem was. And, for example, some of the highest incidences of viral infections is in Denge fever, but that hardly ever touches the United States, so if the poor people of the Philippines and the Brazilian Amazon are dying from Denge, we don t really fund that type of research.

But, you know, if a senator s son or something has AIDS, then we re going to fund that. So it became a little bit too political, and now thankfully, it s slanting away from that. Because what we re seeing is this idea that four or five years from now, we re going to have a vaccine. We ll have a cure. Never, ever happened.

It s now been, let s take 84 as kind of a lynchpin year, when we started to realize that viruses were becoming a more serious problem than we ever could have imagined. That s more than 20 years ago. And they were saying at the time, every four or five years, that we d have a cure. And so that s about eight times that s been said, and we re no closer than we were 24 years ago.

So, I think we re starting to take that more seriously. Clinicians are starting to take it more seriously. And we have to upgrade our education, reeducate ourselves, and then help the public to understand that if there s any one thing that is truly a serious issue, and this is my most significant point, is that the environmental changes that we re experiencing, you know, we re looking at global warming as kind of the big umbrella aspect of it, but there s so many insidious changes that are dampening and weakening or disrupting our immune system, and that are at the same time allowing for viruses to be spread easier and to mutate easier. So we re having strengthening viruses and weakening humanity without any medications to deal with it.

Kevin:

Wow. Now, the conventional approach, or the conventional thought, is that once you have a virus, you can t do anything about it. It s just there. Why don t you just go through the basics of, and very, very quickly because I want to get into a little more detail, but the basics of viruses? And what are some of the implications of having a virus? I mean, a lot of us have viruses. It s definitely more the norm. And how do they affect us generally? And then we ll kind of delve into the specifics of it.

Dr. Williams:

The word virus comes from Latin. It means poisonous fluid and it s a beautiful word in a strange sort of way. And we use this old word because it still fits, but they have technical names to them. But they re very, very small. As I said, they re so small they can infect bacteria, which everyone knows we can t see with the naked eye. We only started to be able to see viruses with electron microscopes in the middle of the last century, and only up until recently. Still we can t see them all. We kind of guess what they look like.

They re intracellular molecular parasites, so they enter the body silently as a rule. And then the immune system, the fever and so forth, it s not the virus causing that, that s our own immune system. But many of them are stealth-like, and they enter completely silently. They don t arouse the immune system. It s like a burglar who knows how to tiptoe around your sleeping watchdogs in a way, or circumvent your alarm, and in the morning everything s gone. Some of them do cause the alarm to go off, but many of them don t.

They have no metabolic life of their own. We don t know how to classify viruses. Are they living organisms, or are they dead? Well, they re not dead, because they can come back to life. We don t know how long they can exist. Some scientists believe that viruses could exist in intracellular space. They don t need oxygen to survive, and they go into a type of dormancy where they act completely shut down, as if they were dead, as if they were stone on your driveway. They can live in ice, they can live in different extremes of temperature with or without moisture, or even suggesting an intracellular space. And then at the right moment when they connect with the living organism it has to be the right organism, it can t just be any, it has to have an affinity to it then they wake up, they come alive, they rise up. And they have a remarkable intelligence and this superb ability to survive and adapt to the new environment.

They link up then, they enter the body, if it s in a human, and enter the cell itself and then penetrate the cell and enter into the nucleus of the cell and then link up with the genetic material. In other words, they access the computer program or they access the library, learn everything that there is to know about you, particularly your immune system, and then, in a way, hijack it. So that s in a brief way what a virus is. And they re essentially proteins wrapped in a kind of a slippery, fatty envelope.

Now, they re not all bad, which is important. Viruses pass from generation to generation in the embryo genetically. And as I said, they read the material, they transcript or recode or they kind of rewrite history. In some ways, which we really don t know hardly anything about how this might take place, but they may be involved in human evolution or the evolution of animals and plants. Everything, as I said, even bacteria, can be infected by viruses. So they may play a very important role. We suspect that they play a role in how the body manages disease. For example, when we eradicated smallpox, I think everyone knows that was in Africa in the 70s when the last case was discovered, through a massive vaccination campaign, but at the same time, it s not completely eradicated because we have stockpiles of smallpox live virus in several storage vaults around the world.

But at the same time, the incidence of asthma went up. So smallpox was going down, asthma was going up. And we first thought it was this pollution in the air and other things like allergies and so forth that may have caused that. But now we suspect that there s an inter-linking of even deadly viruses like smallpox that somehow retool or program our own immune system to help handle the environment in which we live, in this example, asthma. So that as we breathe the air, there s all kinds of things that come in the air, microscopic, typically, but smoke, that s something that might be visible. Also infectious elements and pollutants, and so forth. And another part of our immune system has to deal with that. If they can t, then it causes respiratory distress and closing down of the airways and irritation and inflammation. Some viruses may participate in helping our mucouso-immunity, that immune system that is highly active and that lines all of our inner membranes, to adapt to the environment in which we live.

About the Author: To read the rest of this transcript as well as access The Renegade Roundtable experts just like Dr. J.E. Williams please

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Kevin Gianni is an internationally recognized health advocate, author & film consultant. He has helped thousands of people take control of their own health naturally. For more information visit

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7.1 magnitude earthquake strikes Araucanía, Chile; no tsunami warning

Sunday, January 2, 2011

A strong earthquake struck central and southern Chile on Sunday evening. The earthquake reached a magnitude of 7.1, and occurred at 20:20:16 UTC (17:20:16 local time), at a depth of 16.9 kilometers, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The earthquake was centered near the town of Tirúa; 70 kilometers northwest of Temuco, Araucanía Region; 90 kilometers south-southeast of Lebu, Bío Bío Region; 130 kilometers southwest of Los Ángeles, Bío Bío; and 595 kilometers south-southwest of Santiago, Santiago Metropolitan Region.

“At coastal locations which have experienced strong ground shaking, local tsunamis are possible due to underwater landslides,” the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a statement. Radio Bío Bío reported that the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service of the Chilean Navy had ruled out the possibility of a tsunami in Chilean coasts. However, according to ADN Radio, coastal zones are undergoing precautionary evacuations.

The National Office of Emergency of the Interior Ministry reported that there were power outages, although some of these appear to have been controlled outages, where power was purposefully cut to access damage. The earthquake was felt from the O’Higgins Region to the Araucanía, in cities such as Rancagua and Talca. The earthquake was also reportedly felt in Temuco, where officials at the city’s airport said it caused no damage. According to Vicente Núñez, director of ONEMI, this earthquake “is not related to the February 27, 2010 one.”

The University of Chile Seismological Service reported that the earthquake occurred offshore Lebu, 149 kilometers west of Tirúa, at a depth of 29.5 kilometers, and that it reached a magnitude of 6.5. The service later updated the magnitude to 6.9.

Many aftershocks have been reported by residents in the area, although only one has been reported by the University of Chile Seismological Service: a magnitude 5.3 seism that occurred 54 kilometers northwest of Tirúa, at a depth of 32.1 kilometers.

“[I’m] arriving at the National Emergencies Office, [in order] to monitor consequences [of] tremors in the south and the needs of the people,” President Sebastián Piñera (@sebastianpinera) said on Twitter. Piñera announced in a press conference that the National Emergencies Office “would be reorganized into a new agency.”

Several other seisms have occurred throughout the day in Chile: a magnitude 3.7, east of Valparaíso; a 4.7, and a 3.7 magnitude seism centered west of Pichilemu, O’Higgins Region; a 3.6 tremor centered northwest of Los Vilos, Coquimbo Region; and a 4.7 seism that occurred northwest of Talca, Maule.

It was reported at 19:25 local time (22:25 UTC) that electricity has been restored almost completely in the Tirúa area.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=7.1_magnitude_earthquake_strikes_Araucanía,_Chile;_no_tsunami_warning&oldid=4510087”

Air Canada back in the black in 2010

Saturday, February 12, 2011

In the final quarter of 2010, airline Air Canada (TSX:AC.B) earnings rose to 134 million CAD, 42 cents per share, capping a sharp return to profitability in 2010.

The year resulted in the company’s highest-ever earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortisation, and rent (EBITDAR) of $1.39 billion, 707 million more than the previous year. Operating income for fourth quarter was reported as $85 million, which compared very favourably with an $83 million loss in 2009.

Only 21 months ago Air Canada was threatened with bankruptcy and using its financial weakness in negotiations with its employees, achieving status quo contracts. With labour contracts scheduled to end this month and next, the strong position of the airlines is expected to stiffen union resolve to share in the increased net revenues.

Those revenues were helped by increasing numbers of passengers and reducing costs, as well as foreign exchange gains. International travel, especially to the Pacific region, led the rises. US travellers through the main Toronto hub more than doubled, indicating the increase in foreign air traffic to and through Canadian airports.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Air_Canada_back_in_the_black_in_2010&oldid=4539770”

Picking A Portland Service Provider For Air Conditioning Portland Or And Other Heating And Cooling Issues

Picking a Portland Service provider For Air Conditioning Portland Or and other Heating and Cooling Issues

by

Mariam Knoedler

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Furthermore Portland Air Conditioning Portland Or as well as hvac issues typically cause frustration, costly repair works and diy projects gone awry. Not every climate-control problem is one that ought to set you back hundreds or even hundreds of dollars, yet left without treatment or handled poorly, a relatively slight Air Conditioning Portland Or or HVAC complication could conveniently spiral unmanageably.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwL3TKvBx2Y[/youtube]

The good news is, taking the easy step of hiring a Portland Air Conditioning Portland Or as well as a heating and air professional when these problems develop is likely to save the ordinary home owner time, money, and a bit of sanity. When it comes time to search for a reputable professional, the procedure can easily seem like a difficult process, specifically if you have actually never ever needed to tap the services of someone in the past, or understand little concerning your residence\’s cooling and heating system. Before choosing to work with a person to look into the problem, take the time to examine your potential professional.

There are a lot of websites around that concentrate on testimonials of Portland home Air Conditioning Portland Or service specialists, and you must be able to find a minimum of a few basic feedback on the contractor or the business you\’re thinking about.

It\’s likewise a great concept to ask the business for references, and actually make the effort to follow up on those calls, considering that hearing exactly what others have to point out regarding their past experience with a solution professional could aid you in making an informed choice. An additional great resource of details is your local Better Business Bureau; a basic call is all it takes in order to discover if a professional has had complaints versus them in the past, or is currently involved in pending litigation.

As soon as you find a Portland Air Conditioning Portland Or and heating and air professional that appears trustworthy, includes positive recommendations, and has actually wanted to answer any sort of questions you could have, see to it that all negotiations are tape-recorded in writing, not simply by means of a spoken contract or explanation. Everything from the initial estimate to the home analysis to the itemized bill must be taped thoroughly, and both you and the specialist ought to keep a copy on file. This helps safeguard both parties against any sort of future disagreements or misunderstandings, should the task go awry or not satisfy expectations.

When heating and air problems arise, it\’s important to pick a high quality professional to repair the issue.

Simply for the residents in the great State of Oregon, Right Now Portland Heating and Cooling supplies trustworthy along with expert Air Conditioning Portland Or Services. Give us a phone call when searching for Air Conditioning Portland Or or other Heating and Cooling projects! You will get honest and fair pricing when you hire us for your repairs, service or also if you need brand-new units/systems. To insure that you will receive all that you need within your project Right Now Heating and Cooling provides a warranty for all of our Portland Heating and Cooling Service Solutions. So when you have any heating, cooling or Air Conditioning Portland Or requirements for your home or business, give Right Now Portland Heating and Cooling a telephone call and let us help you! For support with all your Air Conditioning Portland Or needs, give Right Now Portland Heating and Cooling a call! It doesn\’t matter just what sort of Air Conditioning Portland Or you need, giving Right Now Portland Heating and Cooling a phone call will certainly get the task done!

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Article Source:

ArticleRich.com

Heavy lift Delta IV rocket launch problems

Saturday, January 8, 2005

A launch on December 21, 2004 by Boeing with a new “Delta IV Heavy” rocket from Cape Canaveral failed to place a ‘dummy’ satellite into geosynchronous orbit, but the launch was considered successful by Air Force officials.

The dummy satellite, the purpose of which was to monitor the Delta IV launch, as well as two experimental nanosatellites, provided by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to take digital photos of cloud formations and to test the effectiveness of materials in spacecraft, were lost.

Boeing’s Vice President for Expendable Launch Systems, Dan Collins, said that the rocket malfunction was caused by a shorter first stage burn than was expected. This was compensated for during flight, however the fuel lost in the process limited final stages of the burn and was responsible for the payload not achieving orbit.

A Boeing spokesman, Robert Villanueva, agreed that many flight objectives were achieved, but did not call the launch a success. “We do have an outstanding issue we need to work on before our first operational launch next year,” Villanueva said. [1]

Boeing was paid at least $140 million by the U.S. Air Force to place a ‘dummy’ satellite into geosynchronous orbit, 22,300 miles from Earth, according to the FAA. The launch was a demonstration for the Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.

Collins also reported, “We now have enough information and confidence in the Delta IV Heavy to move forward with preparations for the upcoming Defense Support Program launch in 2005. The mission has met all its major objectives. The US Air Force – was very, very happy.” [2]

The 23-story rocket, a heavy-lift variant of the Delta 4 family, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Dec. 21 at 4:50 p.m. (2150 GMT). The launch was delayed three times in December due to weather problems and technical glitches.

The Delta IV Heavy is scheduled to carry the final Defense Support Program missile launch detection satellite to orbit this August. A National Reconnaissance Office classified payload is set to be aboard the second operational launch scheduled for December 2005.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Heavy_lift_Delta_IV_rocket_launch_problems&oldid=4524114”

Australia/2006

[edit]

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