ORDER’s Australian CS:GO lineup has been depleted to four players after the organization parted ways with Jordan “Hatz” Bajic ahead of the return of the competitive season.
The move comes a little over two months after ORDER acquired the roster from Renegades in June 2022. Although Hatz spent just a couple of months under the ORDER banner, he had been playing alongside Simon “Sico” Williams and Joshua “INS” Potter since January 2020, when he joined Renegades.
“I’ve worked with Jordan (Hatz) all the way back from the beginning of Renegades – over the years, he’s been a teammate, long-term housemate, dominant CS force, and most importantly a great friend to not only myself but the entire team throughout,” ORDER’s manager William “MrGrayhound” Gray said in a statement. “This team has always been a group consisting of real friendships and for that, it’s with an incredibly heavy heart to see him go.”
Hatz only got to play at two events during his stay with ORDER: the ESL Pro League season 16 Conference in June and IEM Cologne in July. He averaged an underwhelming 0.94 rating across these two events, according to HLTV’s statistics, and was among the team’s worst individual performers.
It’s unclear at this point who ORDER will pick up to replace Hatz. The pool of Australian players is limited and there’s not a big signing the organization can make with the exception of former Renegades, 100 Thieves, and EXTREMUM in-game leader Aaron “AZR” Ward.
Hundreds of dog lovers and dozens of dogs have gathered for the World Dog Surfing Championships in California.
Key points:
Dogs compete to be surf champion in different size categories
They are judged on technique, confidence and length of ride
The San Francisco event started in 2006
The event, held at Pacifica State Beach near San Francisco, saw wave-riding pooches judged on everything from technique to confidence and size of their wave.
The hounds are placed in groups according to size, from small to medium and large-very large.
There were also tandem dog classes, as well as tandem human-dogs, with owners joining their pups on the board.
Saturday’s event, billed as the “premier dog surfing event in the world”, has been held in the San Francisco area since 2006.
Jeffrey Niebor’s seven-year-old Labrador Charlie, who started surfing at the age of two, walked away with second place in the large-very large group.
“I can’t even explain his passion for it and how much he enjoys it,” Mr Niebor said.
“He has such a good time. Even when we’re not surfing competitively, if we just go to the beach and we’re hanging out and he takes his surfboard to the water and he’ll bark on the waves, people just love it and we just like to keep it positive.”
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
Proud owners talk about their board-riding hounds
James Wall went one better with his dog Faith, a 10-year-old rescue dog, winning first place in the same category.
“She was scared of a lot of stuff as a puppy. And we just started going to the beach. She jumped on one of the surfboards and I was like, yeah let’s give it a try… and she hasn’t looked back since,” he said.
Prerana Rani, a dog owner and spectator from Santa Clara, was curious if her pup would take to the waves like those competing.
“It was amazing to see so many dogs come together and just surf. This is the first time I’ve seen dogs surf so it was really good, and I hope my dog will be inspired,” she said.
Since May, authorities have now uncovered four sets of human remains at Lake Mead, as the country’s largest reservoir deals with extremely low water levels.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Since May, authorities have now uncovered four sets of human remains at Lake Mead, as the country’s largest reservoir deals with extremely low water levels.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
More human remains were found at Lake Mead, according to officials Saturday.
Park rangers responded to reports of human skeletal remains uncovered at the lake’s Swim Beach — the fourth set found at the lake since May.
Park rangers and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s dive team set a perimeter to recover the remains, officials said. The investigation is ongoing and the county’s medical examiner is determining the cause of death.
Located roughly 20 miles east of Las Vegas, Lake Mead was formed by the Hoover Dam, and can hold more water than any other reservoir in the United States. It supplies water to millions of people.
Here’s a brief timeline of human remains found in Lake Mead in recent months:
May 1, 2022: Hemenway Harbor
Boaters found a body inside of a barrel after extremely low water levels exposed the bottom of the lake.
Authorities said the person’s belongings indicated they had died between the 1970s and 1980s. They believe the person’s death was a homicide that resulted from a gunshot wound.
The barrel containing the skeletal remains was found in an area close to the lake’s Hemenway Harbor, according to earlier reports from the Associated Press. That’s also close to Swim Beach.
May 7, 2022: Callville Bay
Two sisters found skeletal remains at Callville Bay. Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse believes the remains were from a person between the approximate ages of 23 and 37, according to CNN.
Rouse said this set was more skeletal than the previous remains found, which had organ tissue, CNN also reported.
The cause of death in this case remains unknown.
July 25, 2022: Swim Beach
Reports emerged about another set of remains found at Swim Beach, according to authorities. The investigation is still ongoing and the cause of death has not been identified.
A worsening drought
The newest discovery of human remains found in the lake comes as the reservoir suffers from an ongoing 22-year-long drought.
Lake Mead has hit its lowest water levels since 1937 and is filled to 27% of capacity, according to NASA.
Las Vegas began pumping for its water supply from deeper in the lake because of how depleted the reservoir became, the Associated Press reported in May.
These droughts — exacerbated by climate change — continue to disrupt the West. The area is dealing with its driest period in at least 1,200 years.
Nevada, Arizona and California, along with the federal government, reached a $200 million deal to try to keep more water in Lake Mead this year and next, according to Alex Hager from Colorado’s KUNC member station.
(A) Schematic diagram of the material identification process of the triboelectric tactile perception smart finger. (B) Structure of the triboelectric tactile perception smart finger, consisting of a triboelectric sensor array, data acquisition and transmission module, and display module. (C) Schematic diagram of the output signals of the triboelectric sensor array when the smart finger identifies different materials. au, arbitrary units. (D) Typical materials located in different positions in the triboelectric series: Electronegativity increases from right to left; conversely, electropositivity increases from left to right. (E) Flowchart of the interaction between the modules of the smart finger when identifying materials. Credit: Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq2521
A team of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed an artificial finger that was able to identify certain surface materials with 90% accuracy. In their paper published in the journal Science Advancesthe group describes how they used triboelectric sensors to give their test finger an ability to gain a sense of touch.
Prior research has led to the development of robotic fingers that have the ability to recognize certain attributes of certain surfaces, such as pressure or temperature—the team with this new effort, have taken such efforts further by adding the ability to identify a material that is being touched.
The finger was created by applying small square sensors to the type of a finger-shaped object. Each of the squares was made of a different kind of plastic polymer, each chosen because of their unique electrical properties. When such sensors are moved close to an object, such as a flat surface, electrons from the sensors interact with the materials in unique ways.
The sensors beneath the polymer were all connected to their own processors inside of the finger, which were then connected together to allow for comparison of results and for machine learning-based data analysis. The researchers also attached a tiny LCD screen for displaying results. The researchers then tested their finger by having it touch various flat surfaces such as those made of glass, wood, plastic and silicon. They found it capable of detecting the right material on average 96.8% of the time, with a minimum accuracy of 90% for all of the surfaces. The researchers also tested the finger for endurance by having it touch a surface thousands of times and found that it held up well enough for industrial applications.
The researchers suggest that if their finger were to be used in an industrial setting it could be connected directly to a control mechanism. They also suggest it could be used to test products to ensure they meet manufacturing standards. And they also note that such a finger could also be used on a full-sized human robot, adding to its capabilities. They point out that the technology behind their finger could likely be used in prosthetic devices to help restore a certain degree of touch for people who have lost such an ability.
Warehouse robots that feel by sight
More information:
Xuecheng Qu et al, Artificial tactile perception smart finger for material identification based on triboelectric sensing, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq2521
citation: Artificial finger able to identify surface material with 90% accuracy (2022, August 8) retrieved 8 August 2022 from https://techxplore.com/news/2022-08-artificial-finger-surface-material-accuracy.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
It was sheer, cold-blooded murder—everything you would expect of a team of champions.
It is only a penalty shoot-out loss to Belgium at the Tokyo Olympics in the gold medal match last year that stops the Kookaburras being in the same conversation as the Aussie women’s cricket team as our greatest national teams going around right now.
They have everything you can want.
Ruthless, silky ability to find goals in the final third. Check.
Brutal intensity off the ball. Check. Even ahead 7-0 in the fourth quarter, the Aussie defense was screaming and scrambling like their lives depended on it. “They have really had each other’s back,” former Hockeyroos star Georgie Parker said on Channel 7.
A humble, classy Aussie spirit that conceals a killer-instinct. Check. Veteran Eddie Ockenden was selected to carry the Aussie flag at the Opening Ceremony for a reason.
Ockenden, at the age of 35, didn’t rule out the possibility of playing through to the 2026 Commonwealth Games — admitting the lure of competing in Victoria had real appeal.
For all these reasons and more, poor India didn’t stand a chance in Monday night’s Commonwealth Games final at the University of Birmingham.
It ended 7-0 and the score was a fair reflection of the Kookaburras’ dominance.
It was a fourth Commonwealth Games gold medal for Ockenden — and the Kookaburras kept their perfect record of winning every gold medal since hockey was introduced at the Commonwealth Games in 1998. They are the only team to win every gold they have competed in since that time .
The first half was a surgical carve-up that quickly turned into a bloodbath.
India simply had no clue how to stop the onslaught and it was 5-0 at the half time break.
Australia was denied an early goal when Daniel Beale stumbled on the ball as he was running in to tap it past the goal keeper.
It didn’t matter as gun finisher Blake Govers got Australia’s opening goal when he converted on Australia’s third penalty corner. It was 2-0 before quarter time as Nathan Ephraums finished off a sweet mid-field run to leave Australia in a dominant position.
When Jacob Anderson tapped in the third goal early in the second quarter, Channel 7’s Alister Nicholson said the Kookaburras were looking “lethal”.
When the fourth goal came he said: “This is just looking like a clinical side, used to playing in big matches, asserting itself.”
He said it was a “state of despair” for India in the second half.
The Kookaburras made the final on the back of an epic comeback win over England in the semi-final where controversy surrounded Australia’s winning goal.
On Monday morning (AEST) the Hockeyroos fell just short in the final where hosts England won gold in hockey for the first time ever.
President Donald Trump once told a top adviser that he wanted “totally loyal” generals like the ones who had served Adolf Hitler — unaware that some of Hitler’s generals had tried to assassinate the Nazi leader several times, according to a new book about the Trump presidency .
Trump complained to John Kelly, then his chief of staff and a retired Marine Corps general, “why can’t you be like the German generals?” according to “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021” by journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser.
When Kelly asked which generals he meant, Trump replied: “The German generals in World War II.”
“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said, according to the book.
Trump didn’t believe him, the book says. “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” Trump insisted.
An excerpt of the book, published Monday in the New Yorker, paints a picture of a president at conflict with his own military leaders, who were torn between resigning in protest and staying on as members of the Trump administration to prevent greater catastrophe.
According to those interviewed for the book, Trump’s military leaders and advisers were regularly trying to pull back on Trump’s desire to inflate his image and power, and to reconcile that desire with the values of the United States.
In one conversation from the book, Trump reportedly told Kelly he didn’t want any injured veterans to be part of an Independence Day parade he was planning.
“Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” Trump said. “This doesn’t look good for me.” He explained with distaste that at the Bastille Day parade there had been several formations of injured veterans, including wheelchair-bound soldiers who had lost limbs in battle.
Kelly could not believe what he was hearing. “Those are the heroes,” he told Trump. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are—and they are buried over in Arlington.” Kelly did not mention that his own son Robert, a lieutenant killed in action in Afghanistan, was among the dead interred there.
“I don’t want them,” Trump repeated. “It doesn’t look good for me.”
A spokesman for Trump had no immediate comment about the revelations in the book.
In another portion of the book, the authors describe how Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drafted a resignation letter in the days after military police fired gas canisters and used grenades containing rubber pellets, clearing racial justice protesters from Lafayette Square ahead of Trump’s photo op in front of nearby St. John’s Church.
That event and other recent ones had prompted Milley to do “deep soul-searching,” Milley wrote in the letter, adding that he believed Trump was “doing great and irreparable harm” to the country. He wrote that he thought the president had made “a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military” and that he no longer believed he could change that.
“You are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people — and we are trying to protect the American people,” Milley wrote. “I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people.”
Trump, he added later, did not seem to believe or value the idea, embodied in the Constitution, that all men and women are created equal. Lastly, Milley said he “deeply” believed that Trump was ruining the international order and causing significant damage to the United States overseas and did not understand that millions of Americans had died in wars fighting fascism, Nazism and extremism.
“It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what [World War II] was all about,” Milley wrote. “In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that.”
Though the resignation letter was ultimately never sent, it showed the degree to which Milley believed Trump had already inflicted damage on the country. And though he was convinced by several not to quit, Milley would later fear two “nightmare scenarios” related to Trump’s attempts to hang onto power at home, according to the book.
“Milley feared that Trump’s ‘Hitler-like’ embrace of his own lies about the election would lead him to seek a ‘Reichstag moment,’ ” Baker and Glasser wrote, referring to a 1933 fire in the German parliament that Hitler seized to take control of the country. “Milley now envisioned a declaration of martial law or a Presidential invocation of the Insurrection Act, with Trumpian Brown Shirts fomenting violence.”
Milley later feared that the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — in which a pro-Trump mob overran the US Capitol to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory — was in fact that “Reichstag moment.”
“They shook the very Republic to the core,” Milley later said about the Capitol attack, according to the book. “Can you imagine what a group of people who are much more capable could have done?”
All the best advice about bullet journaling says you don’t have to be neat or artistic or organized to create an effective journal. In fact, the original Bullet Journal Method created by Ryder Carroll, who has a book and a website and a $249 course teaching the technique, ignores artistry altogether. But let’s be real. The bullet journal pages you’ve seen on Instagram and TikTok are intimidating because only an artist could have made them. And with that intimidation comes the fear of ruining the notebook you paid $25 for.
That’s why many people get bullet journal paralysis. They hesitate to write anything at all for fear it’ll be ugly and sloppy, and thus their notebook collects dust. (Note that I use “bullet journaling” in a generic sense. When I refer to Carroll’s method specifically, I capitalize it.)
Or maybe bullet journaling failed you for other reasons, like you found the supposed mindfulness aspects to be time wasters. As Anna Russell put it in The New YorkerThe New Yorker, “You get the sense, in some of the more beautiful posts, that it took more time to make the to-do list than it would have to complete the to-dos.”
There is a better way. You can get nearly the same benefits of bullet journaling using a method that’s:
Do not intimidate
Allows for corrections and changes along the way
Doesn’t require lengthy transfers of useful notes to a new section or notebook each month
Won’t cost you any additional money if you already own a computer or mobile device
The trick? Go digital. And I’m not even talking about buying a specialized bullet journal app, because you can get better results with the right to-do list or note-taking app.
If you’re committed to writing your bullet journal by hand, you can still do that and digitize your notes—I’ll explain how in a moment. But by going digital you give up almost nothing, except the tactile feel of paper, and you gain so much more.
A Brief Overview: What Is a Bullet Journal?
Here’s a very brief overview of bullet journaling: The original namesake Bullet Journal Method uses a paper notebook, where you create an index in the front and use the rest of the pages to write down and organize everything you have to do and need to remember for each month. There’s a formula for creating each page, which Ryder Carroll explains clearly in his original 2013 video about bullet journaling.
The Bullet Journal Method involves using page spreads in a paper notebook to make an entry for every day of the month and write down tasks (checkbox), events (open circle), and ideas (bullet point).
Since that first conception, people have riffed on the idea so that now it can include pretty little sketches, calligraphy, and other designs that look so beautiful they ultimately discourage nonartistic people from trying.
At its core concept, the bullet journal is a wonderful tool for getting organized by doing what nearly all organizational techniques do. They get ideas out of your head and onto paper so that you are no longer burdened with having to remember them. Journaling in general also helps people process thoughts and emotions, articulate goals, and review what’s happened in the past.
But there are reasons to do it electronically instead of on paper.
Why Apps Are a Better Place to Bullet Journal Than Paper
Digital journals are superior to paper ones in so many ways. I’m not saying paper is bad or wrong to use, but there are clear advantages to working electronically.
You can edit and reprioritize cleanly and simply without crossing out your work or rubbing an eraser across the page.
You get reminders. A paper notebook can’t pop up a notification on your phone one day before you need to make a cake for your kid’s birthday reminding you to buy ingredients, but an app can.
Electronic files are easy to rifle through and they’re searchable. Good luck finding an idea you wrote down in a notebook two years ago. In a digital journal, you can jump back 10 years in a second or two, search for keywords, and browse through old notes without ever leaving your computer or mobile device.
You can upload photos, images, PDFs, and other files to your notes, which you can’t do with a bullet journal unless you start gluing and stapling inside your pages.
With digital journals, you typically get access to templates, or you can make your own, plus you get stickers (or icons) that never run out the way physical ones do. Everything you need is always there unlike your favorite pen that you’ve misplaced or the journal that’s down to its last page.
Which App Should You Use for a Digital Bullet Journal?
What a lot of people don’t realize is bullet journals are not at all different from to-do list apps. Proponents of bullet journaling think they’re different, but that’s because they aren’t up to speed on what to-do lists apps are these days. I’ve been testing and writing about to-do list apps for nearly ten years. I know them inside and out. If you write your to-do list strategically and use one of the best to-do list apps, you’ll quickly realize that it’s more than just a digital checklist of things you need to do.
For example, the Toodledo app has sections for writing down tasks, as well as one for tracking habits, writing freeform notes, and creating outlines. Then there are note-taking apps that look exactly like the blank pages of any journal but which contain features for making to-do lists, adding stars and other icons, and even in some cases doodling and sketching. In short, a to-do list app covers everything a bullet journal does, and offers more.
Here’s a closer look at some of the apps I recommend using instead of a paper bullet journal.
Because of its organized setup, Microsoft OneNote is a superb app for commandeering for bullet journaling.
Microsoft OneNote
Every single thing you would do with a paper bullet journal you can also do in Microsoft OneNote (free). This app lets you create blank notes that are more like canvases than word document files. You get a wealth of icons, including checkboxes and stars, that you can add anywhere on the page. As you can see from the image, OneNote has sections where you can organize different kinds of lists and ideas. There’s no need to create an index because you essentially have one visible to you at all times from those sections at the left.
Aside from being free, the other huge advantage of Microsoft OneNote is that it works everywhere. No matter what kind of device you have, you can create and access notes.
Free templates for the Notability app make it a tidy place to keep a journal and to-do list.
iPad Apps: Notability, Notes X Plus, or Penultimate
If you want to preserve the feeling of writing by hand and sketching with a pencil and you have an iPad, try a note-taking app that reads handwriting and perhaps even smooth lines as you draw.
Notability is one option. There’s a free version with limitations, or you can pay a reasonable $11.99 per year (or $2.99 per month) for extra features such as handwriting recognition and smoothing, math conversion technology, and iCloud syncing. You can get fantastic free templates for it to guide your journaling. While Notability is best on an iPad, it’s also available on Macs and iPhones.
Next are Notes Plus X ($9.99) and Notes Plus ($9.99), also for iPad and iPhone. The key difference between the two is Notes Plus supports older versions of iPadOS and iOS, should you need it. This app comes with some nice features that reduce distractions so you can focus on your work.
Last in this group is Penultimate, another note-taking app for the iPad that supports sketching and stylus input. It’s useful for people who also use Evernote, as it’s owned by the same company and you can easily store your notes there. It’s free to download, though you don’t get the full experience of being able to search your notes and save them to all your devices unless you have a paid Evernote account, which is expensive.
If you explore digital journaling, you’ll come across plenty of other app suggestions, especially for the iPad. I’ve tried many of those other apps, and I don’t feel confident recommending them because they’re finicky to use, or light on features, or something else about them doesn’t result in a high quality experience. I do have a few more recommendations for note-taking apps and devices that go beyond the iPad.
Toodledo’s Notes section can be repurposed as a bullet journal, alongside its habit-tracking and to-do list features.
Toodledo
I already mentioned Toodledo, but let’s get into it. It’s primarily a to-do list app, and to be frank, it could be improved in a few areas. But when I think about which to-do list app would be best for people who want to make a bullet journal, Toodledo is it. It has a ton of features for creating to-do lists and adding detail to them. You can write down additional thoughts, like your goals, in Toodledo’s notes or outline sections. If you are someone who enjoys spending a lot of time customizing your tools, then you’re going to love this app. It’s available on the web, and as a downloadable app for Android and iPhone. There are no desktop apps for Windows or macOS, but the web app works fine as long as you’re online.
Toodledo’s to-do list includes a calendar view.
What do you do? Yo Use?
I don’t use the Bullet Journaling Method, but I have consistently kept a daily journal for more than seven years and I’m fastidious about using a to-do list, grocery shopping list, list of ideas, etc. What do I use for them? For a long time I was an Evernote user, but after I got frustrated with it, I switched to Joplin, and the majority of my notes go there. For my daily tasks and lists, I use Todoist and I couldn’t imagine using anything else.
Those two apps work for me in part because I’m not a doodler. My notes are all typed. Plus I like compartmentalizing my daily journal and ideas from my tasks and other lists. If Joplin doesn’t speak to you, you might consider a few other alternatives to Evernote with a different look and feel.
keep it up
Have I not convinced you that digital is the way to go? No problem! Pen and paper work better for some people, and that’s fine. Even I keep a good pen on hand (alongside other high-quality necessities for remote work) to jot down ideas and take notes. Digital notes aren’t the end-all-be-all.
If bullet journals haven’t worked for you in the past, however, and you’re still hungry for everything they promise, then make a digital journal instead. Pick a time every day when you’ll write in it, set a reminder for that time, and keep it up. It takes a few months to make the habit stick.
A 37-year-old nurse suspected of killing six people and injuring eight others when her speeding Mercedes-Benz plowed into several vehicles in a Windsor Hills intersection last week is scheduled to be in court Monday.
Formal charges could also be filed Monday against the driver, identified as Nicole Linton, who was working in Los Angeles as a traveling nurse out of Texas, authorities said.
Linton was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.
Jail records show she is being held on $9 million bail.
Relatives of the Windsor Hills crash victims visit the makeshift memorial. Aug 6, 2022 (KTLA)
Authorities believe Linton’s car was going at least 80 mph when it traveled through a red light and hit the vehicles passing through a busy intersection at the corner of La Brea and Slauson avenues.
Twenty three-year-old Asherey Ryan, who was six months pregnant, her 11-month-old son Alonzo, and her fiancé, Reynold Lester, were on their way to a prenatal checkup when the speeding Mercedes-Benz hit them.
Everyone in Ryan’s vehicle died, including her unborn son.
Loved ones gathered over the weekend at the site of the horrific crash in Windsor Hills.
Sha’seana Kerr, Ryan’s younger sister, spoke about the crash and the person responsible.
“I just want to tell her that we forgive her,” Kerr said. “She will have to live with this for the rest of her life. That’s why she was spared. We understand it already.”
GoFundMe pages have been set up to help the families of Lester and Ryan, Alonzo and her unborn son pay for funeral expenses.
This month we take a dive into magnesium alloys in wheels, frames and pedals – looking back to some classic products as well as checking out those at the cutting edge from VAAST, DMR and the e-bike newcomer Honbike.
Alongside that, we take a look at the new crit-specific race tires from Challenge and Vittoria’s recently released Corsa N.EXT performance tires – designed to be a Continental GP5000 killer.
Finally, after attending the launch of Enve’s Melee road bike, we take a look at what exactly the frame has to offer.
Competition
But just before all of that, we just wanted to let you know that we’ve partnered with Garmin to give away a brand new set of Rally XC100 power meter pedals.
These are compatible with two-bolt Shimano SPD cleats, making them well suited to gravel and more adventurous road riding. As a ‘100’ series model, these only measure the power output of your left leg – but it is possible to upgrade the right pedal down the line, should you wish for more granular power data.
It’s also possible to swap out the pedal bodies and convert them to power pedals for Look or Shimano road cleats – there’s a lot of versatility packed into Garmin’s new Rally platform.
To be in with a chance of winning, simply click this link or fill in the form below. We’ll get in touch with the lucky winner by the end of this month. If you don’t end up being the lucky one – don’t worry, we’ll be running it again next month.
VAAST R/1 magnesium road bike
(Image credit: VAAST)
VAAST has recently released its R/1 road bike which, as with all of VAAST’s bikes, is built with a magnesium alloy frame. It’s not a material you see so often these days, although there have been many notable products released through the years that do make use of the alloy.
The Kirk Precision is perhaps one of the most striking, but Pinarello also produced a Dogma in magnesium for a number of years. American Classic – now relaunched as a tire brand – produced a set of super light magnesium wheels, whilst magnesium flat pedals have pretty much a constant through the decades.
VAAST claims that the R/1 frame weighs just 1,250 grams – which is about 250g lighter than what would be considered very light for aluminium. VAAST believes that its frames can be made more feathery still, admitting that they are still near the start of their manufacturing experience with the material and that further refinements are yet to come.
Considering that aluminum bikes have had the best part of 40 years to hone their production, for VAAST to be dropping in at this level is pretty impressive. It’s also claimed that magnesium can offer a smoother ride feel, closer to that of titanium than aluminum – but with modern wide tires and low pressures, nuances such as this can be hard to detect.
Either way, we’ve got one in on test, so stay tuned for our review!
Challenge Criterium RS and Vittoria Corsa N.EXT tires
(Image credit: Future)
The Criterium RS from Challenge are quite a ‘traditional’ tire in a few respects. They utilize a 350 Thread Per Inch (TPI) cotton casing, which is a very high TPI count and should make the tires more supple and better able to cope with deflection. The tires are also offered in only 25 and 27mm widths – no larger ‘plus size’ options here.
But in other ways, the Criterium RS are quite up to date – they’re tubeless compatible and will work with hookless rims. It doesn’t come cheap though, with each tires setting you back €84.90 / $94.99.
On the other hand, we’ve got Vittoria’s new Corsa N.EXT tyres, which are designed as a cheaper and more accessible performance tyre. Rather than the cotton casing that the flagship Cora Speed and Corsa Control tires use, there a nylon casing is employed – similar to that of Continental and Schwalbe.
This allows Vittoria to reduce the price, selling them at £54.99/$74.99, which undercuts both Continental’s GP5000 S TR and Schwalbe’s Pro One TLE. We’ll publish a full review once we’ve spent more time on them, but so far they do feel like a strong competitor.
send melee
(Image credit: Send)
Enve had already dipped its toes in the frame-making game with the ‘Custom Road’ last year. That was a high-end, bespoke carbon bike, made to measure in the USA and with an understandably high price to match: $7,000 for the frameset only.
Now, Enve has launched the Melee, a lower priced model ($5,500/£5,300) that comes in stock sizes, is made “overseas”. It’s still a very expensive frame, comparable to the Specialized Aethos and Colnago C68, but while those models come from brands with a proven heritage, the this is a bit more of an unknown.
Still, Enve certainly has plenty of experience in manufacturing carbon, with high-end wheels, handlebars, forks and seatposts all in its portfolio. If it can mass produce a frame to the same standards, that’s certainly something to look out for.
We’ve got one on order and will bring you our first impressions as soon as we’ve put some thousands into it.
During his time in the Oval Office, Donald Trump wanted the Pentagon’s generals to be like Nazi Germany’s generals in the second world war, according to a book excerpt in the New Yorker.
In an exchange with his former White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, Trump reportedly complained: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”
Kelly asked which generals, prompting Trump to reply: “The German generals in World War II.”
According to the excerpt published by the New Yorker from The Divider: Trump in the White House, by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, an incredulous Kelly pointed out that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was almost assassinated by one of his own generals.
“No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” Trump replied, apparently unaware of Claus von Stauffenberg’s plot in July 1944 to kill Hitler with a bomb inside his Wolf’s Lair field headquarters.
Kelly reportedly told Trump that there were no American generals who observed total loyalty to a president. Instead, they swear, like all military personnel, to “support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
The stunning back-and-forth came during a dispute touched off by Trump’s admiration for military parades, gleaned in part by personally observing Bastille Day celebrations thrown in France by that country’s president, Emmanuel Macron.
Trump stubbornly wanted a similar military parade to mark the Fourth of July independence day holiday. But his cabinet staff was less enthusiastic, and it became a point of contention.
According to the excerpt, a French general overseeing the 2017 Bastille Day parade in Paris turned to one of his American counterparts in Trump’s delegation and said: “You are going to be doing this next year.” The idea was seeded.
Trump, on his return to Washington, hatched a plan for the “biggest, grandest military parade ever for the Fourth of July.” But the plans went down badly with Trump’s cabinet staff.
“I’d rather swallow acid,” the defense secretary and former Marine Corps general, James Mattis, is reported to have said, offering that a similarly grandiose military parade was unfeasible in part because of the cost and the fear that tanks would tear up the streets of Washington.
But Trump was already formulating his vision, telling Kelly: “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade. This doesn’t look good for me.”
According to the publication, the subject came up repeatedly. With each pushback, Trump’s admiration for the military advisers which he used to fawningly refer to as “my generals” cooled.
In one exchange involving Kelly and Paul Selva, then vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Trump appeared surprised that the former military men were not supportive.
Selva, who had grown up in António de Oliveira Salazar’s Portuguese dictatorship, informed Trump that “parades were about showing the people who had the guns. And in this country, we don’t do that.” I added: “It’s not who we are.”
“So, you don’t like the idea?” Trump responded.
“No,” Jungle said. “It’s what dictators do.”
In a statement to the magazine, Trump said: “These were very untalented people and once I realized it, I did not rely on them, I relied on the real generals and admirals within the system.”
