2018 FIFA World Cup Russia



The 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia (Russian: Чемпионат мира по футболу Россия 2018) was the twenty-first edition of the Football World Cup. Football is called soccer in the United States Of America and Canada. It was held in Russia between June 14 and July 15, 2018, being the first time that an Eastern European country organizes the championship.

In the final match France defeated Croatia with 4-2. France secured the the World Cup trophy for the second time since 1998.

Watching free FIFA live stream

A TV live stream might be provided by local TV stations to watch all or selected matches. If no free streaming services are available you can use video publishers like YouTube or Netflix which offer live streaming for their customers. There might also be third party companies offering TV streaming over the internet for the FIFA Worldcup.

Committee decision from 2010

FIFA decided that the 2018 World Cup venue would be chosen in conjunction with that of 2022 at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the organization, held in Zurich, Switzerland, on December 2, 2010. The FIFA World Cup 2026 will be held in the three countries of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Making it the first time a FIFA World Cup is held in more than one country.

According to the system of continental rotation implemented by FIFA, the member or associated associations of CAF and CONMEBOL were banned from participating in this bid. As a result, Russia officially submitted its candidature alongside those of Japan, South Korea, Australia, Belgium-Netherlands, England, Spain-Portugal, the United States and Qatar. Finally, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Qatar and the United States withdrew a few months before the decision to focus on the 2022 election.

In the first round of the vote, England reached two votes, the Netherlands-Belgium won four, Spain-Portugal reached seven and Russia won nine. As the necessary majority of twelve did not reach, England was eliminated because it was the candidate with the least support and a second round was necessary. Here Russia got thirteen on the seven that the Iberian pair received and the two that received the Belgium-Netherlands candidacy.

After the election, Vladimir Putin, the then Russian prime minister, said that "Russia 2018 will be fantastic" and planned the construction of new stadiums and the presence of "the highest quality standards". On his part, Blatter made the official trip to the selected country and assured "that there will be a wonderful cooperation between FIFA and Russia". Russia confirmed twelve stadiums in 11 cities for the World Cup: Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Kazan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, St. Petersburg, Samara, Saransk, Sochi and Volgograd, which will host all 64 World Cup matches.

Of the twelve stadiums designated, only two were fully completed at the time of their election as headquarters, which had to be remodeled so that they could host the matches. Another, the Spartak in Moscow, was inaugurated in August 2014. The others, including the Luzhnikí in that same capital and with capacity for 81,300 spectators (main venue and the largest stadium), began to be built in later years.

As a way to reduce the distances, times and costs of equipment transfers, only cities that are in the European part of the country (the most densely populated and developed) were chosen, with the exception of Yekaterinburg, which is located in Asia just east of the Ural Mountains.

Matches

Portugal vs Morocco (Group B)

Uruguay vs Saudi Arabia (Group A)

Iran vs Spain (Group B)


Thursday 21 June

Denmark vs Australia (Group C)

France vs Peru (Group C)

Argentina vs Croatia (Group D)


Friday 22 June

Brazil vs Costa Rica (Group E)

Nigeria vs Iceland (Group D)

Serbia vs Switzerland (Group E)


Saturday 23 June

Belgium vs Tunisia (Group G)

South Korea vs Mexico (Group F)

Germany v Sweden (Group F)


Sunday 24 June

England vs Panama (Group G)

Japan vs Senegal (Group H)

Poland vs Colombia (Group H)


Monday 25 June

Uruguay vs Russia (Group A)

Saudi Arabia vs Egypt (Group A)

Spain vs Morocco (Group B)

Iran vs Portugal (Group B)


Tuesday 26 June

Denmark vs France (Group C)

Australia vs Peru (Group C)

Nigeria vs Argentina (Group D)

Iceland vs Croatia (Group D)


Wednesday 27 June

South Korea vs Germany (Group F)

Mexico vs Sweden (Group F)

Serbia vs Brazil (Group E)

Switzerland vs Costa Rica (Group E)


Thursday 28 June

Japan vs Poland (Group H)

Senegal vs Colombia (Group H)

England vs Belgium (Group G)

Panama vs Tunisia (Group G)

Retro consoles

The modern retro gaming revival with retro-consoles and dedicated consoles started around 2001 with some Jakk's Pacific TV games. 2004 saw the Atari Flashback. The same year the C64 Direct-to-TV was released. A joystick modeled after the Competition Pro joystick with some 30+ games built-in, then the C-One. But it really kicked off in the 201X with for example the Nintendo Classic Mini from 2016, the C64 Mini from 2018 as well as the Atari VCS, formally known as Ataribox.

Don't get me wrong, I love retrogaming. But I would not go with any of these. Well may be the Jakk's Pacific, as it doesn't claim to be any computer. And the C-One at least had a 6502 clone as hardware. But in my opinion most are just software emulators with a modern CPU (usually ARM), running on Linux in a fancy box. And like in the case of the C64 Mini not even have a functioning keyboard. You can instead go with any emulator, like VICE, running it on your modern PC. That is free of charge.

It's okay for me though to recreate an original main board, add the vintage CPU (or a modern clone) and other support chips to a new retro console. Even add some logic to handle USB for an external keyboard or joystick and an HDMI jack.

Tesla - SpaceX - Elon Musk



Tesla, Inc. (stylized as T☰SLA, formerly Tesla Motors) is an US-American company located in Silicon Valley, California, designing, manufacturing and selling electric cars, such as the Tesla Roadster 2, components for the propulsion of electric vehicles and battery storage systems. The CEO and founder of Tesla is Elon Musk.

The core of the company is in the engineering of the propulsion system of the electric vehicle that includes battery packs, motors, power electronics, gearboxes and control software, allowing all components to form one system. The modular design allows to reuse components in different models of Tesla and other manufacturers. The system is very compact and contains far fewer moving parts than a heat engine. Tesla Motors uses three phase induction motors that incorporate a copper rotor and copper windings optimized to reduce resistance and loss of energy. Tesla developed fundamental patents for its manufacture.

Tesla vehicles contain many processors to control safety and power functions. Tesla Motors builds the firmware of many processors with algorithms that control traction, vehicle stability, acceleration, regenerative braking, the state of charge of each cell of the battery pack and security systems.

SpaceX

SpaceX (or Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) is an American company working in the field of astronautics and spaceflight. Founded on May 6, 2002 by the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, it is one of two private contractors to whom NASA has awarded a freight contract to the International Space Station.

SpaceX designs, builds and markets Falcon 9 launchers, the Merlin engines that propel them, and the Dragon cargo ship and its manned version. The Falcon 1 launcher was the first launcher of the company is no longer in service. After three failures in 2006, 2007 and 2008, the first successful Falcon 1 launcher was launched on September 28, 2008, which then put the Malaysian observation satellite RazakSAT into orbit on its fifth flight on July 13, 2009. The space cargo ship Dragon launched by a rocket Falcon 9 is part of the supply program of the International Space Station. SpaceX employs more than 4,000 people primarily in California, also has two launch facilities on the Cape Canaveral base (the SLC-40 and 39A pads), one at Vandenberg Air Force Base (the SLC pad -4E) and another is under construction in South Texas at Boca Chica. SpaceX also has a test bench for its engines in Texas.

Canada plastic bag ban

The City of Montreal is banning thin plastic bags. The law was put in place on January 1st 2018, but merchants were given time until June 5th of the same year to actually follow it. After that harsh penalties would rain down on those ignoring it. Interestingly after the whole of Canada discussed this plan in 2016 only Montreal emerged as the only city enforcing it. I suppose not even her suburbs do, let alone other cities in Quebec.

But does this make sense? Of these bags, the conventional plastic bag banned in Montreal is the one that has the least impact in the category of disposable bags, while the thicker plastic bags and Paper bags ar always allowed, are overall more polluting.

Let's not forget food wrapped in plastic. Like bread, cookies. You might need one plastic bag to carry 5 to 10 articles usually wrapped in plastic from your grocery store. Thus a plastic bag ban only reduced the waste by about 10%. Many bags you take from the cashier are bio degradable. Suppose that means in the landfill they just degrade without harming the environment. If so, why ban them?

Stephen Hawking 1942-2018

Stephen William Hawking, born January 8 1942 in Oxford, died March 14 2018 in Cambridge, was a British theoretical physicist and cosmologist.

Stephen Hawking was a mathematics teacher at the University of Cambridge from 1980 to 2009, member of Gonville and Caius College and researcher distinguished from Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is known for his contributions in the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. His success is also linked to his popular science books in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general, such as the bestseller A Brief History of Time, which remained on the list of Sunday Times bestselling records for 237 consecutive weeks.

Illness and continuation of this work

As soon as he arrived in Cambridge, he began to develop the symptoms of early amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a motor neuron disease that almost took away any neuromuscular control. During his first two years in Cambridge, he did not stand out, but after stabilizing his illness and with the help of his doctoral tutor, William Dennis Sciama, he is pursuing his doctoral thesis. He reveals that he did not see much interest in obtaining a doctorate if he were to die soon. Hawking later said that the real turning point was his marriage to Jane Wilde in 1965, a linguistics student. After completing his PhD, Stephen became a researcher at Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge. The study of singularities, a recent physical and astronomical concept, allows the researcher to develop different theories, which will later lead him from the Big Bang to black holes.

Private life

Jane Wilde Hawking, Hawking's first wife, took care of him until 1991, when the couple split up. They had three children: Robert (1967), Lucy (1969), and Timothy (1979). 1999 Jane Hawking published a memoir, Music to Move the Stars, detailing her own long-term relationship with a family friend with whom she will later marry. Hawking's daughter, Lucy, is a novelist. Their eldest son, Robert, emigrated to the United States where he is married, and had a child, George Edward Hawking. In 1995 Hawking married to his nurse, Elaine Mason, who had already been married to David Mason, the designer of the first version of Hawking's talking computer. In 2004, several reports are published. reports involving Elaine in mistreatment cases against her. In October 2006, Hawking filed for divorce from his second wife.

Research

Hawking's main areas of research were cosmology and quantum gravity. In the late 1960s, he and his friend and colleague from Cambridge, Roger Penrose, applied a new complex mathematical model, which they created upon Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. This led Hawking to prove in 1970 the first of many theorems on singularities, such as theorems capable of providing a set of sufficient conditions for the existence of a singularity in space-time. This work has shown that, far from being a mathematical curiosity that only appears in particular cases, the singularities are rather generic in general relativity.

Lucifer - Let the pinhead sing

As with the episode before we hear music classic close or at the climax of the episodes. Last time it was Yahoo - or Yaz for the audience in the USA - performing Only You while in Let the pinhead sing Tom Ellis and Skye Townsend perform "I will survive" by Gloria Gaynor. According to some sources I found Tom Ellis loves to sing.

Computer generated alien intoning Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive"

Now while there is nothing wrong in my opinion to reproduce or just play some classic tunes it should not be overdone. I'd say if this happens in the next two episode The Last Heartbreak and Orange Is the New Maze. But if they continue this this with Orange Is the New Maze I might think the show ran out of ideas to fill the 45 minutes run time with content.

The usefulness of Daylight Savings

Twice a year it's Daylight Savings time. Well once you advanced the clocks by one hour, months later clocks are set back. Luckily in our automated world there are rarely any clocks left you have to set. NTP (network time protocol) or radio signals do this for us. But do we need Daylight Savings?

Different countries have adopted Daylight Savings in different years, handle them differently, some countries ignore them completely. The USA used Daylight Savings inconsistent between 1916 and 1966. But only in 1966 a federal law was established to regulate the proper use. During the oil crisis 1973 a year-round experiment was conducted to extend DST. 1976 the National Bureau of Standards found no significant energy savings or differences in traffic fatalities. Still DST was observed until today.

Benefits and drawbacks

Longer summer evenings

The daylight phase is at a later time. This is perceived by many people as an extension of the daylight time. Let's assume the time of sunrise at the beginning of summer is 4:30 am summer time instead of 3:30 pm standard time. Accordingly, the time of the sunset moves from about 9:00 pm normal time to 10:00 pm summer time. As the majority of people sleep at 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning, but not at 10 o'clock in the evening, and since today's society is based more on the time of day than the actual time of day, the wake-up phase of most people shifts more in the bright phase of the day. Thus, the leisure activities in the afternoon and evening are longer in daylight and pleasant outside temperatures possible; In contrast, daylight and temperature can be felt as disturbing at night.

Energy consumption

One of the official reasons for the introduction of summer time was already at the beginning of the 20th century the saving of energy. This argument has been controversial for most of the time. Because compared to other influences, the effect of the time shift on the energy consumption is negligible.

Although it was clear very early on that summer time could not have a decisive influence on energy consumption, this argument persisted in public awareness. However, in particular with the reintroduction of summer time in the Central European countries between 1976 and 1981, a possible energy saving - if at all - played only a minor role compared to the argument of a world wide standardization of times.

Summer time can have regionally adverse effects on energy consumption. In parts of Indiana, for example, it increased by about one percent after the 2006 summer season, which compares the electricity consumption of nearly 224,000 households. The originally pursued goal of energy saving could not be achieved. Rather, the energy balance was unfavorable, as "slight savings in the spring opposed an even greater power consumption in late summer and autumn". In particular, an increased need for heating in the early morning hours and a greater use of air conditioning in the longer afternoons and warm summer evenings increased overall energy consumption, for which the inhabitants of the examined parts of Indiana paid about 8.6 million US dollars per year more. The authors also calculated the cost of more pollution for society at $ 1.6 million to $ 5.3 million annually.

The data of this study, however, referred only to private households. Industrial plants and other economic sectors were not included. However, the authors suspect that most companies stick to normal working hours in daylight and are therefore less affected by the summer time change than private households.

The Federal Environmental Agency also found no positive energy-saving effects, since the saving in electricity for lighting is "overcompensated" by the additional consumption of heating energy due to the advance of the main heating time. The increasing use of energy-saving lamps would further increase this effect in the future.

Human nature

Advocates of summer time argue that it is beneficial for people to be able to spend more time in the evening in daylight hours, which increases their productivity. Opponents argue that adapting to the new daily rhythm takes at least several days, is harmful to health and reduces productivity during the changeover phase. Physiological studies suggest that some circadian fluctuating hormone levels, similar to those of stress hormones, may take up to four and a half months to fully adapt to new circumstances. Otherwise, "natural" direction when deferred to normal time, this adjustment would take only about two weeks. Whether these hormone level fluctuations already promote disease, but is not proven.

Technical effort

All watches have to be changed twice a year. More and more clocks are automatically set today via a radio signal, only few have to be changed manually, especially in private households. Computer clocks can also be set automatically via a function of the operating system. However, there are computer programs with real-time function, which do not use the operating system function for daylight saving time conversion and must be manually reconfigured. The same problem also exists with leap seconds.

Why we don't abandon Daylight Savings?

Suppose because in our interconnected world one country cannot just get rid of DST. Might cause too many problems negotiating around these obstacles. The United Kingdom BREXIT is not much of a help since countries from continental Europe are still her biggest trade partner. On the other hand if we tried hard enough to get rid of it everybody should benefit from it in the long term.