Nov 30, 2017
Nov 29, 2017
The digital currency dropped more than 18 percent
Bitcoin plunges 18% after topping $11,000 in extremely volatile trading
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and worldwide payment system. It is the first decentralized digital currency – the system works without a central repository or single administrator
- The digital currency dropped more than 18 percent from a record high of $11,388.33 to current levels around $9,292 on Wednesday, according to CoinDesk.
- Trading was extremely volatile as exchanges such as Coinbase's GDAX struggled to keep up with the surging demand.
- "There's no fundamental value to any of this stuff and it's all based on ... supply and demand at any point in time," said Leigh Drogen, a former trader who now heads Estimize, a 6-year-old company that collects and publishes financial estimates for data such as earnings.
idiosyncratic
Relating to idiosyncrasy; peculiar or
individual.
- ‘The differences are sometimes idiosyncratic, but they may also reflect deeper divisions of allegiance.’
- ‘It is idiosyncratic to the individual carer, staff member, or nursing home.’
- ‘You get the sense that you were surrounded by idiosyncratic and iconoclastic people.’
- ‘The other type of risk is idiosyncratic risk, or risk that is unique to an individual in the market.’
- ‘The aim of linguistic research is to discover the general rules, not to list the idiosyncratic and the irregular.’
- ‘And that, as much as its unlikely origins, sums up the idiosyncratic charms of a unique golfing venue.’
- ‘Nor does she swamp the material with idiosyncratic, personal embellishments.’
- ‘His fans long ago came to terms with the intensely coded, idiosyncratic and bizarre thing that is Dylan.’
- ‘His operating model is thus entirely personal, and entirely idiosyncratic.’
- ‘He dapples and sprays his canvas with sound, and the fact he is self-taught makes his music even more idiosyncratic and unique.’
- ‘And the picture is made more confused by McLean's own idiosyncratic personality.’
- ‘It remains to be seen whether Irish television can prove a sympathetic home for more idiosyncratic talents than that.’
- ‘Always an idiosyncratic individualist, he seems to have introduced his own pronunciations for the names of players.’
- ‘One longs for less to distract you from his unique world-view and wonderfully idiosyncratic voice.’
- ‘Penn does a marvelous job in fleshing out the little idiosyncratic elements of his character.’
- ‘She is warm, funny, idiosyncratic and a dedicated people watcher.’
- ‘However grand or private or idiosyncratic a state of affairs I have in mind, I can go on hoping for it in the only way that remains possible to me.’
- ‘They're just so idiosyncratic and quirky - and yet, they're also still being made.’
- ‘The author has a distinctive, idiosyncratic style that draws you in and keeps you reading.’
- ‘When a lot of diverse people pursue their idiosyncratic interests, unexpected things happen.’
Gertrude Jekyll: The inspirational wisdom of one of the world's greatest horticulturalists
Today’s Google Doodle pays tribute to horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) on the 174th anniversary of her birth.
Jeykll was a much-admired landscape gardener who created over 400 unique green spaces, cultivated and bred new flora of her own and was a pillar of her period’s Arts and Crafts movement.
Known for her work with architect Edwin Luytens, her home in Munstead Wood, Surrey, remains a popular tourist spot to this day for those keen to see a well-maintained example of her approach.
In addition to being an expert practitioner of her craft, Jekyll was also something of a philosopher on the subject and often wrote of the soothing qualities of gardening as a leisure activity, wisdom we in the hectic modern world would be well advised to bear in mind.
Here are ten of her most insightful remarks on the Zen pleasures of cultivating a natural garden:
- "The love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies."
- "There is no spot of ground, however arid, bare or ugly, that cannot be tamed into such a state as may give an impression of beauty and delight."
- "A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust."
- "The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives."
- "If you take any flower you please and look it over and turn it about and smell it and feel it and try to find out all its little secrets, not of flower only but of leaf, bud and stem as well, you will discover many wonderful things. This is how you make friends with plants, and very good friends you will find them to the end of our lives."
- "More than half a century has passed, and yet each spring, when I wander into the primrose wood, I see the pale yellow blooms and smell their sweetest scent - for a moment I am seven years old again and wandering in that fragrant wood."
- "I do not envy the owners of very large gardens. The garden should fit its owner or his or her tastes, just as one's clothes do; it should be neither too large nor too small, but just comfortable."
- "The good gardener knows with absolute certainty that if he does his part, if he gives the labour, the love, and every aid that his knowledge of his craft, experience of the conditions of his place, and exercise of his personal wit can work together to suggest, that so surely will God give the increase. Then with the honestly-earned success comes the consciousness of encouragement to renewed effort, and, as it were, an echo of the gracious words, 'Well done my good and faithful servant'."
- "I plant rosemary all over the garden, so pleasant is it to know that at every few steps one may draw the kindly branchlets through one's hand, and have the enjoyment of their incomparable incense; and I grow it against walls, so that the sun may draw out its inexhaustible sweetness to greet me as I pass."
- "In garden arrangement, as in all other kinds of decorative work, one has not only to acquire a knowledge of what to do, but also to gain some wisdom in perceiving what it is well to let alone."
Tampa serial killer suspect used same gun in 4 killings, police say
He suspect in the serial killings spanning a 51-day period that terrorized a Tampa neighborhood used the same gun in four killings, but had "no apparent motive," the city's top law enforcement official said Wednesday.
The suspect, 24-year-old Howell Emanuel Donaldson III, admitted he owned the gun that was turned over to police Tuesday and that cracked the case, but did not admit to the killings, Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan said at a news conference.
"He was cooperative, but did not tell us why he was doing this," he said.Donaldson was arrested at a McDonald's in Ybor City based on a tip given to Tampa police after he brought the loaded gun to his job at the restaurant and asked a co-worker to hold it. The employee then told her manager about the gun, who alerted a Tampa police officer at a table in the restaurant, according to an arrest report.
When Donaldson returned to the McDonald's, police were waiting for him and took him into custody. Dugan praised the tip from the employee on Wednesday.
"The person who called us, I cannot thank them enough for standing up and doing the right thing and saying 'this doesn't seem right, why does this person have a gun in a bag?'" Dugan told reporters.
The suspect, 24-year-old Howell Emanuel Donaldson III, admitted he owned the gun that was turned over to police Tuesday and that cracked the case, but did not admit to the killings, Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan said at a news conference.
"He was cooperative, but did not tell us why he was doing this," he said.Donaldson was arrested at a McDonald's in Ybor City based on a tip given to Tampa police after he brought the loaded gun to his job at the restaurant and asked a co-worker to hold it. The employee then told her manager about the gun, who alerted a Tampa police officer at a table in the restaurant, according to an arrest report.
When Donaldson returned to the McDonald's, police were waiting for him and took him into custody. Dugan praised the tip from the employee on Wednesday.
"The person who called us, I cannot thank them enough for standing up and doing the right thing and saying 'this doesn't seem right, why does this person have a gun in a bag?'" Dugan told reporters.
Marvel Studios' Avengers: Infinity War Official Trailer
The explosive first trailer for “Avengers: Infinity War” has finally arrived.
Marvel Studios dropped the official trailer Wednesday during ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
The powerful first footage shows the mother of superhero team-ups — the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and almost every other major Marvel hero joining forces to take on Thanos (Josh Brolin), who is trying to collect the Infinity Stones, on several battlefronts.
“There was an idea to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if we could become something more. So when they needed us, we could fight the battles that they never could,” the characters say in the trailer’s opening.
The movie picks up four years after the events of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.”
The trailer arrives five months after the first footage was screened at Disney’s D23 Expo and at San Diego Comic-Con.
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo from a screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the ensemble cast includes Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Brolin as Thanos, Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, and Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Star-Lord. Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Sebastian Stan, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cobie Smulders, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Rudd, and Don Cheadle will also appear in the film.
“Avengers: Infinity War” hits theaters on May 4.
NBC Fires Matt Lauer Over Sexual Misconduct Allegation
The fast-moving national reckoning over sexual harassment in the workplace reached the highest level of television news on Wednesday when NBC fired Matt Lauer, the co-host of its most profitable franchise, the top-rated morning show “Today,” following an allegation that he made inappropriate sexual contact with a subordinate.
NBC News told its staff it was firing Mr. Lauer some 34 hours after the woman and her lawyer visited the network headquarters in Midtown Manhattan to share details of her interactions with Mr. Lauer with company executives. Earlier that day, she had also met with reporters from The New York Times but said she was not ready to discuss it publicly.
“On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer,” Andrew Lack, the NBC News chairman, said in a memo to the staff. “While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”
In a division-wide meeting with his staff later in the morning, Mr. Lack said Mr. Lauer’s involvement with the woman began while they were in Sochi, Russia, for the Winter Olympics in 2014, according to two people briefed on the meeting, and that their involvement continued after they returned to New York.
