Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 127
June 27, 2017
Woman severely burned in acid attack on 21st birthday
A young woman has told of a terrifying acid attack on her 21st birthday that left her hospitalized and her cousin in a coma.
Resham Khan said she was in a car traveling through Beckton, East London, on June 21 when the horrific incident occurred.
Resham tweeted: “On my actual birthday, my cousin and I went for a drive in the morning, blasting music and chilling like cousins do, hyping it as I WAS 21.”
But out of nowhere, she said a man approached the car as they waited at a traffic light and threw a liquid at her through the open window.
Resham, who said she had just returned from a year exchange in Cyprus, told how the assailant ran around to the other side and threw more over her cousin.
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She said: “The pain was excruciating, I was struggling to close the window. My cousin struggled to get us away. I saw my clothes burn away in front of me.
“He put his foot down as we were coming onto a dual carriageway but the pain took over and we crashed.
“We stripped off in the middle of the road, running around screaming and begging for water.
“We did this for 45 minutes.”
Resham said another driver eventually stopped and drove the pair to hospital, before they were transferred to a specialist unit.
She continued: “I have had a skin graft, they are waiting on what my face will actually look like. And I have burns across my body.
“My cousin was put into a coma as his burns were worst.
“He was been woken up and I’m waiting to be told I’m no longer bed bound to visit him.”
Resham added: “I’m devastated. I keep wondering if my life will ever be the same. Acid attacks in the UK are unheard of for me.”
“My 21st birthday… Just got back to the country. And now I’ll probably never look the same.
“I am so grateful to everyone that has prayed for me. I feel as though I’m blessed to have my limbs and senses. But I loved my face and body.
“I just want this guy caught.”
One of Resham’s student pals has now set up a GoFundMe page to raise cash to support them in their long recovery.
Daniel Mann said his uni friend and her cousin, who he named as Jameel Muhktar, have had to put their lives on hold since the shocking attack.
He wrote: “Resham is usually a very confident young woman. She was preparing to open her own business over the summer, and had plans to model for Asian bridal, make-up and hair artists.
“But now she feels as though her identity has been stolen from her, on her 21st birthday.”
Resham said she had made a full statement to cops, adding that one officer told her he was “certain [the attacker] will be found and sent away for a long time.”
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police told Sun Online: “Police were called at approximately 9:15 a.m. on Thursday, 21 June to reports that two occupants of a car had been sprayed with a corrosive substance.
“The occupants, a man aged 37 and a woman aged 21, were assisted by members of the public and had been taken to an east London hospital prior to the arrival of police and the London Ambulance Service.
“Both victims have suffered burn injuries described as life-changing.
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“It is believed the victims were inside a parked car when a man approached and threw a corrosive substance through the open window.
“The car made off pursued by the suspect on foot before it collided with a fence. The suspect made off.
“Officers from Newham and the Met’s Territorial Support Group executed a warrant at an address in E16 on the afternoon of [June 21] in connection with the incident. There were no arrests; inquiries continue.”
Source:
http://nypost.com/2017/06/26/woman-severely-burned-in-acid-attack-on-21st-birthday/
June 26, 2017
Jackie Chan Gets Violent Revenge In Trailer For His Next Movie
A new trailer for the Jackie Chan movie The Foreigner has arrived. If you ever doubted that veteran actor Chan was no longer a badass, this video will remind you that, of course, he still is.
Based on the novel “The Chinaman,” The Foreigner follows a London businessman Quan (Chan) who is seeking revenge after his daughter is killed in an act of terrorism. Starring alongside Chan is James Bond star Pierce Brosnan, who plays a British government agent who may or may not know the identity of the bombers and their motivations. If the new trailer is anything to go on, The Foreigner looks like an action-packed, explosive film with some nice set-pieces.
If the trailer is giving you 007 vibes, there’s a good reason for that, as The Foreigner was directed by GoldenEye and Casino Royale director Martin Campbell.
The Foreigner opens on October 13.
Source:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/jackie-chan-gets-violent-revenge-in-trailer-for-hi/1100-6451198/
2 Kids Die In Hot Car After Mom Locks Them In As Punishment
Two children in Texas died after their mother locked them in a hot car for several hours as a punishment.
Cynthia Marie Randolph, 24, told investigators she was hoping to teach her 2-year-old daughter and 16-month-old son a lesson, reports The Associated Press.
Randolph is now being held in jail for causing serious bodily injury to her children, 1-year old Cavanaugh Ramirez and 2-year old Juliet Ramirez, both of whom died.
Initially, the mother told authorities the kids had locked themselves in the car while playing outside their house as she was folding laundry on May 26.
Her account of what happened was constantly changing, leading to holes in her story, which eventually led to the truth.
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Randolph eventually admitted after Juliet refused to leave the car, she left her there to teach her a lesson. Assuming the children knew how to get out by themselves, she smoked some marijuana and napped for two to three hours.
When she returned to the car, they were unresponsive. She broke the car window to make it appear they had locked themselves in.
They died 30 minutes after authorities received a call about the kids.
The incident disturbed many on social media, causing much debate.
Some blamed the marijuana.
“So she smoked a joint and fell asleep for some two to three hours?” commented one individual on CBS News’ website. “And we’re scurrying to legalize pot across the County including here in California.”
Others argued the drug was not responsible.
“Horrible accident,” replied another. “Yep, addicts make stupid decisions as do sober people .. we’ve all done something horrific. Condolences to all these gorgeous baby’s loved ones!”
Many were angry with the mother, refusing to believe it was an accident.
“I doubt there are any ‘accidents ‘ that involve kids dying in hot cars,” said one.
“I think there are a few,” replied a second. “Like that school principal who left her infant when her schedule changed, but I am also starting to think it’s a way for some parents to get rid of their children when they no longer think being a parent is fun and the reality of the 24/7/365-ness of having children sets in.”
Some wondered why she was only being charged for causing bodily injury to a child.
“Why is she not being charged with murder or at the very least manslaughter,” wrote one person. “One way or the other this cruel stupid woman deliberately killed her children.”
Source:
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/2-children-die-after-mom-locks-them-hot-car-punishment
YouTube has hit a milestone and announced a slew of new features
YouTube announced that 1.5 billion logged in users visit the platform each month and several new features at Vidcon 2017, an annual digital video-focused convention, VentureBeat reports.
YouTube also unveiled a new virtual reality (VR) video format, called VR180, announced the expansion of YouTube TV to 10 more markets, and showed glimpses of 12 upcoming YouTube Red originals. The most impactful announcements made are listed below.
Messaging and sharing features within the YouTube app: Users will be able to chat and share YouTube videos with their friends in-app, as opposed to leaving the app to share a link. This could help retain users and boost average app engagement time. YouTube previously unveiled these features last year as an initial pilot. With this update, YouTube is becoming more of a social platform, like Facebook. On the other hand, Facebook has been pushing its video offerings for a while, in part to be able to compete with and draw eyeballs from YouTube. Facebook also recently started testing new features on its Videos tab on Android.
Flexible format for mobile YouTube video viewing: This will adapt the aspect ratio of any video, regardless of whether it is filmed vertically or horizontally — meaning users will no longer see mattes, or black bars, on sides of their videos. This could improve the user experience, but also provides opportunities for creators and ad formats shot vertically. These new creative opportunities and ad formats could attract content creators and brands to YouTube.
TV as a medium of consumption: TV is the fastest-growing medium of YouTube consumption, currently advancing at a 90% annual clip. According to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, people watch one hour of YouTube on mobile devices, and up to four hours of TV, per day — suggesting there is room to grow for YouTube consumption on TV. This could indicate YouTube’s push to become more TV-like is gaining traction. Also, this a signal to TV brand advertisers that YouTube is a platform worth investing in.
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Source:
http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-hit-milestone-announced-slew-new-features-2017-6
Building a Personal Brand to Support Your Business
Personal brands are useful tools for job-searchers; like corporate brands, personal brands are a collection of characteristics and traits that constitute a unique identity and generate popularity.
In the job market, people with strong personal brands are more visible, more popular and more authoritative; but personal brands are useful for more than just getting a job. If used in conjunction with a corporate brand, they can earn you a host of benefits, including:
Trust. People trust other people more than they trust corporations; when they read content written and promoted by a person, they’re more likely to believe its sincerity and importance than when that same content is pushed by a business attempting to generate a profit.
Visibility. Every personal brand’s social media account is an opportunity to reach a new segment of your target demographics; three accounts with 1,000 ollowers each will reach three times the eyeballs that a single account will.
Niche availability. Branching out with personal brands gives you the opportunity to target different niches, either within your corporate brand’s main expertise, or as a complementary extension of it.
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So, how can you create a personal brand that can support and complement your corporate brand? Seven ways:
1. Identify your key players.
First, you need to decide what people within your organization are the best candidates for personal brands. There’s no necessary rubric for evaluation here, but generally, more experienced people (and those with pre-existing social media followings) are easier to build up.
Many businesses start by designating their CEO, founders, and/or their most experienced account managers, but you can choose anyone with a realm of expertise that will be of interest to your target demographics. You’ll also want to choose people who have a few extra hours a week to manage the development of their own personal brands.
2. Designate expertise and optimize your profiles.
Next, you’ll need to lay the foundation for your growth by claiming and optimizing the social media profiles of each personal brand you choose to develop. The social media platforms will depend on your business and its target audience; generally, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are core necessities, and Instagram is nice to have.
You may also want to separate out the true “personal” social accounts from your personal brand accounts. Either way, you’ll need to optimize your personal brand accounts with professional headshots, wording that reflects each personal brand’s expertise and, of course, links or other ties back to your corporate brand.
3. Create and promote content.
If you want to take personal branding seriously, you can create a professional, separate blog for each of your individual profiles. Otherwise, it’s fine to use your corporate blog with individual author profiles for each of your personal brands.
Take the time to create high-quality content for each personal brand, relevant to that person’s respective areas of expertise. Next, make sure to promote that content across the person’s social channels. And, while you’re at it, syndicate your core “corporate” content through each of your personal brands.
4. Get involved in groups and conversations.
If you want to grow your personal brand’s visibility, you need to do more than simply write and promote content. You need to get involved with other individuals, so they can see and appreciate your content. The best ways to do this include getting involved with groups, which you can easily find on LinkedIn, or by engaging in conversations, which are easy to find on open public platforms like Twitter.
Look for topics relevant to your area and expertise and get involved with comments, answers to questions and even some questions of your own. It’s a good way to build your presence and reputation at once.
5. Follow new people.
Go out of your way to follow new people — it’s a good way to get their direct attention. However, it’s inadvisable to follow total strangers; instead, follow people once you’ve had an interaction with them, even if it’s an indirect one.
For example, if you were involved in the same Twitter conversation, follow them; they’ll likely follow you back. Over time, you can attract many quality followers this way.
6. Engage with your followers.
It’s not enough to attract followers to your personal brand; you also have to keep them interested in you. Continuing to produce and promote content is a good start here, but it’s better to interact with your followers directly.
Give them rewards for following you, such as discounts or special promotions, and make sure to respond to all their comments and questions.
7. Strengthen the ties between personal and corporate.
Eventually, you’ll also want to strengthen the ties between your personal and corporate brands. Occasionally, toss in a promotion of your corporate brand, and remind your followers where your allegiance lies. You may also use your corporate brand to direct followers to individual personal brands, highlighting those people for their unique modes of expertise.
Building a personal brand may seem simple, but it takes attention to detail and a commitment to a long-term strategy; you won’t attract an audience of tens of thousands of followers overnight.
However, within the span of a few weeks, you should have enough of a foundation to support your corporate brand, and within a few months, your company’s personal brands may have the potential to multiply the reach of your content — not to mention the trust of your customers.
Source:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/295886
Divers use custom Snapchat Spectacles to explore deep underwater
With the exception of professional deep-sea divers and filmmakers, underwater scenery has largely remained unexplored territory on social media. But that could change with an unusual invention from Royal Caribbean, which plans to strap waterproof cameras on cruisegoers’ faces to help them get enviable vacation pics.
This week, the company is debuting a scuba mask with built-in Snapchat Spectacles, which could soon enable everyday divers to swim and shoot videos and photos of marine wildlife in places like Belize and Mexico. The “SeaSeekers” goggles were built by Sexton, an Oregon-based firm that specializes in custom underwater housing. (The concept was developed by Boston ad agency MullenLowe.)
To promote its #SeekDeeper campaign, Royal Caribbean equipped three well-known divers with their own SeaSeekers, which they wore while exploring water that tours often visit. The company dispatched marine wildlife photographer and conservationist Roberto Ochoa to Cozumel, Mexico, to provide a new look into the migration of whale sharks. It sent marine biologist Gabriela Nava to examine a coral reef restoration project. And in Belize, free diver Ashleigh Baird wore a pair while visiting the Great Blue Hole, one of the largest underwater sinkholes of its kind.
According to Royal Caribbean chief marketing officer Jim Berra, the goal is to receive a patent for the product and then equip ships with the goggles so guests can rent them by this fall. He said one purpose of the campaign is to remind people of the biological diversity of the Caribbean.
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“You can get off the beaten path and have these types of water-based adventures and then capture it in a really fun and unique way,” Berra said.
Royal Caribbean only made 10 prototypes of the product, but it gave Adweek an early preview. And while doing a demo in the Caribbean would have been ideal, the next best thing was a luxury hotel pool a little closer to home in New York.
During an early-morning swim on Thursday at the Marmara Park Avenue Hotel, I got a chance to try the SeaSeekers. To the untrained eye, it might look like a colorful scuba mask. However, to anyone who’s seen a pair of Spectacles in action, there’s no mistaking the yellow-ringed circular cameras on the polarized lenses, fastened safely behind the waterproof plastic. (This week Snap Inc. won three Cannes Lions for designing Spectacles, which one judged described as both “functional” and “beautiful.”)
While I’m a proficient swimmer, I’m far less proficient as a scuba diver, so the goggles felt foreign at first. And while the overall design was fairly comfortable, the nose had no padding (a minor inconvenience but one that proved a little painful over time). There was just one other problem: The suction around the eyes and nose was not 100 percent waterproof, which made it tough to stay underwater for too long without getting water in my eyes and nose. However, that in no way seemed to affect the function of the glasses themselves, which worked underwater perfectly.
Compared with the Caribbean there’s not a lot to document in terms of wildlife in a Manhattan pool. But I brought a friend along, who helped keep things interesting while we documented an improvised form of spontaneous synchronized swimming—underwater handstands and torpedoing through the blue like whatever fish might be floating off the coast of Belize. And the Specs worked each and every time, syncing to my water hazard of an iPhone 6 sitting safely on the side.
Viewing the underwater snaps afterward felt more immersive than a lot of other content, and it makes a lot of sense why a cruise line would want to have a way to show people on land what they’re missing. And, to be honest, the SeaSeekers were actually pretty fun to use—they even made me wish I could actually go out in the deep blue sea. (All that organic content cruisegoers will generate onboard could make for good social marketing just in time for the winter travel months.)
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Minnesota Woman Sues Disney-Pixar for Using Her Ideas in Film ‘Inside Out’
A Minnesota woman has filed suit against The Walt Disney Company and Pixar for breach of implied-in-fact-contract, claiming the companies took her idea of emotion and color-based characters and used it in their blockbuster hit “Inside Out.”
Denise Daniels is a nationally recognized for her work to “help children better manage and deal with their emotions,” according to the lawsuit.
In doing so, Daniels and a team of four, developed “The Moodsters,” which is a cast of five characters who live “deep down inside every child.”
The lawsuit states that every year between 2005 to 2009, Daniels and her team pitched their characters and curriculum to people to Disney-Pixar.
One of those points of contact was Pete Docter, the Minnesota-native who directed “Inside Out.”
The ideas were disclosed, “with the understanding, as is custom in the entertainment and motion picture industry, that Daniels would be compensated if Disney-Pixar used the idea. Disney-Pixar accepted these disclosures under these circumstances.”
Her characters were “anthropromorphus figures with human characteristics, including body, language, voice, and facial expressions,” representing the following emotions: happiness (yellow), sadness (blue), anger (red), love (pink) and fear (green).
The plot and color coordination of the characters in “The Moodsters” is closely followed with the film “Inside Out,” but Daniels did not receive credit for her idea or compensation, the lawsuit alleges.
The characters in “Inside Out” are named: Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling).
“Inside Out” was released in June 2015 and goes inside the brain of an 11-year-old who moves from Minnesota to California.
The production budget for the film was $170 million, and Disney-Pixar generated a gross revenue of $1.2 billion for the film, the lawsuit states. The film has also raked in more than $100 million in DVD, Blu-Ray, streaming and downloads.
The lawsuit states: “One reason Inside Out is considered so novel, creative, and inventive is because Disney-Pixar had never before released a movie that anthropromophized emotions,” and it notes one reviewer called the film “inventive.”
Yet, Daniels maintains that she is the “exclusive owner” of the original ideas, and Disney-Pixar continues to profit from those ideas through merchandising and other means.
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Source:
http://kstp.com/news/disney-pix-inside-out-moodsters-lawsuit/4522693/
Idris Elba slays in new preview for Stephen King’s The Dark Tower
The first bullseye The Dark Tower movie hit was casting its lead: Idris Elba as Roland Deschain, the last of the knights known as gunslingers, a lost man wandering an apocalyptic wasteland in search of the Man in Black, whose next stop on his march of destruction is our world.
The casting choice by director Nikolaj Arcel was a change from the novels. Stephen King had envisioned a Clint Eastwood-style, blue-eyed, white man as his six-shooting knight, but the author has applauded the choice of Elba for the lead character in his epic saga. Tough is tough; it doesn’t have a color.
Sunday during the BET Awards, Sony Pictures aired a new teaser for the Aug. 4 fantasy adventure that focused on the Mandela and Beasts of No Nation actor — and the royal legacy of his hero in The Dark Tower, a man seeking justice… although revenge will do, if that’s all that’s available.
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In the story, the tower is a mythic structure at the nexus of all space and time. Its levels constitute different worlds and realities, and our world is stacked among them — a critical building block, actually. Matthew McConaughey’s magic-wielding Man in Black wants to bring it down, collapsing the worlds on each other and allowing his trapped master, the Crimson King, to be freed to rule them.
He needs others with power — like Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), a boy from present-day New York who possesses a psychic ability known as a “shine” (an obvious homage to another classic King novel). By harnessing people with this strength, the Man in Black can use them to break through the dimensions and attack the tower.
So, by protecting the boy, Roland the Gunslinger is protecting these worlds. He does not hesitate to draw his irons to save Jake. He does wonder if we have guns and ammunition here — though he’s certain such weaponry is difficult to acquire and only available to the highly trained.
For more on the upcoming film, read Entertainment Weekly‘s profile of Elba from our visit to The Dark Tower set, and check out our full coverage of the Stephen King adaptation.
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Idris Elba slays in new preview for Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’
Twenty years of Harry Potter
1 Some first editions can appreciate in value pretty fast. There were only 500 hardback copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone printed in the first run in 1997, of which 300 went to libraries. If you find one of these knocking about in your downstairs loo – the print line on the copyright page is 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 – it’s worth a small fortune. Expect upwards of £30,000 for it. Fun fact: there was one of these in the Daily Telegraph’s books cupboard for many years, but it mysteriously went missing in the early noughties. If you’re the bastard who stole it, please have a word with the paper’s former literary editor, Kate Summerscale.
The release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, on 26 June 1997, passed practically unnoticed
2 Even Homer nods. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry is fighting a duel with Voldemort when he accidentally does something (Priori Incantatem) that causes the Dark Lord’s wand to spit out, in reverse order, spectral images of the people he has killed. Harry’s father, James, comes out before his mother, Lily – when, according to the established story, he died in the process of trying to help his wife and child escape. Fans feverishly speculated as to whether JK Rowling was setting up some crafty plot twist. She eventually admitted it was a mistake (Erratum Cockupis Normalis), due to “late-night writer’s fatigue”; the text was corrected in later editions.
3 Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, on 26 June 1997, passed practically unnoticed. That day, people were more interested in the news of the election of Bertie Ahern (remember him?) as taoiseach of the Irish Republic. They were still making a fuss about Cool Britannia (remember that?) and the fresh-faced, new prime minister, Tony Blair (remember him?); going bananas about the Spice Girls (remember them?), and wondering about Diana, Princess of Wales’ love life. The bestselling novel of that year was a John Grisham.
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4 Children’s books can be political. Rowling’s brilliant decision was to have her characters grow up at the same rate as her readers. Each book was set in one school year, and grew longer, darker and more adult in theme. By the time we reached book four, Goblet of Fire, we were seeing do-gooding Hermione’s Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare formed in response to the bond slavery of these sock-loving poppets. In the person of the hack journalist Rita Skeeter, Rowling sent up the tabloid press. The ministry of magic sent up Whitehall bureaucracy. And, as any fool could plainly see, the story’s master narrative – with purebloods fighting a war of annihilation against “mudbloods” – is about the struggle against your basic blood-and-soil fascism.
Harry Potter studies is a flourishing corner of the humanities and theory industry
5 Academics can give us all a laugh. Harry Potter studies is a flourishing corner of the humanities and theory industry. See “The Hippogriff in Harry Potter As a Prime Example for Intertextuality”, “No Grace for James: James Potter and the Noble Heathen”, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: A Psychoanalytic Viewpoint”, and “From the Holocaust to 9/11: Harry Potter and the Contemporary Struggle with Evil” for details.
6 Some people can be as dumb as stumps. In several places in the US, copies of Rowling’s books were burned by fundamentalist Christians who believed they were encouraging children to take up witchcraft. “Behind that innocent face is the power of satanic darkness,” said pastor Jack Brock of the Christ Community church in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 2001. “Harry Potter is the devil and he is destroying people.”
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