Micah Xavier Johnson (July 2, 1991 – July 8, 2016) was an American Army reserve Afghan war veteran, black nationalist, and mass murderer who perpetrated the 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest. He ambushed and killed five officers and wounded eleven others in Downtown, Dallas, Texas. He was killed by police during a standoff after expressing anger over police killings of black men. The shootings were the second-deadliest targeted attack on law enforcement officers in U.S. history, surpassed only by the September 11 attacks. == Early life == Micah Xavier Johnson was born in Magee, Mississippi, on July 2, 1991, and he was raised in Mesquite, Texas. When he was four years old, his parents divorced. At 17, Johnson enrolled at John Horn High School, where he joined the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, as reported by the Mesquite Independent school district. He faced academic challenges, graduating in 2009 with a 1.98 GPA and ranking 430th out of 453 students in his class. In Spring 2011, Johnson registered for four courses at Richland college but did not complete any. Evidence suggests his enrollment at Richland gave him access to El Centro College, due to his pre-planned and coordinated movements throughout Building B during his standoff with police in 2016. == Military service == === Enlistment and early service === Micah Xavier Johnson enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in March 2009 at the age of 18, shortly after graduating high school in Mesquite, Texas. His initial service was primarily stateside, where he trained as a carpentry and masonry specialist (military occupational specialty 51B). This role involved engineering tasks such as construction and repair in support of military operations. During his reserve tenure, Johnson served part-time while living at home, and he was described by family and friends as initially idealistic about the military, even aspiring to become a police officer. === Deployment to Afghanistan === In September 2013, Johnson was activated for full-time duty and deployed to Afghanistan as part of the 420th Engineer Brigade, a unit based in Seagoville, Texas. His tour began in November 2013 and lasted approximately eight months, ending in July 2014. During this period, he performed non-combat engineering duties, though the stresses of serving in a combat zone were noted by those close to him. Associates from his service later suggested he experienced significant psychological strain, including the loss of friends and general disillusionment with military life, which contrasted with his pre-deployment enthusiasm. His mother later reflected that "the military was not what Micah thought it would be." === Sexual harassment allegation and early return === About six months into his deployment, in May 2014, Johnson faced a serious accusation of sexual harassment from a higher-ranking female soldier. She filed for a military protective order against him, prompting an investigation. As a result, his chain of command recommended an "other than honorable" discharge—the second (more severe is a dishonorable discharge, which does not require a court martial) most severe administrative separation short of a court-martial—and he was sent back to the United States ahead of schedule. Despite this, Johnson was not court-martialed, and the case did not lead to criminal charges. A military lawyer who represented him described the handling as unusual, noting that "someone really screwed up" in allowing him to avoid harsher consequences. === Post-deployment and discharge === Upon returning stateside in August 2014, Johnson resumed reserve duties with his engineering brigade until April 2015. He was honorably discharged at the rank of private first class (E-3), a relatively low junior enlisted rank after six years of service, which military sources attributed partly to the unresolved harassment allegation impacting his promotions and evaluations. Friends and family observed a marked change in his demeanor post-deployment: he became more reclusive, resentful toward the government, and withdrawn, with some speculating that the Afghanistan experience and the scandal contributed to a "small breakdown." In July 2016, following the Dallas shooting, the U.S. Army launched an internal review of his service record, including the harassment claims, to assess whether all misconduct allegations had been fully investigated. == Shootings == On July 7, 2016, a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest marched through downtown Dallas, Texas, drawing about 800 demonstrators. The event responded to the recent police killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 5, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, on July 6—both black men shot during encounters captured on video. Around 100 officers monitored the march, which passed near El Centro College without incident until gunfire erupted around 8:45 p.m. Johnson arrived in a dark SUV, armed with an SKS semi-automatic rifle, a handgun, extra ammunition, and ballistic vests. He parked near the protest's end, chatted briefly with two officers, then opened fire on police from an elevated position on Lamar Street (now Botham Jean Boulevard). He shot from behind barriers, through windows, and while moving, targeting white officers specifically. The ambush killed five officers and wounded seven more, plus two civilians. Gunfire scattered protesters in panic as Johnson used military-style tactics, like quick position changes, to prolong the assault. === Standoff and Johnson's end === Johnson fled into El Centro College's Building C, then Building B, navigating pre-planned routes with familiarity from prior enrollment at nearby Richland College. He barricaded in a parking garage, wounding more officers in close-range fights. During two-hour negotiations, he taunted police via phone—laughing, singing, asking kill counts, and claiming planted bombs (none found). He admitted solo action, rage at White officers, and no group ties. At 2:30 a.m. on July 8, SWAT ended the standoff by detonating a bomb via remote-controlled robot in the garage, killing Johnson. This marked the first U.S. police use of such a tactic. === Victims and investigation findings === The slain officers were: Brent Thompson (Transit Authority, 36), Patrick Zamarripa (Dallas PD, 33), Michael Krol (Dallas PD, 40), Lorne Ahrens (Dallas PD, 48), and Michael Smith (Dallas PD, 55). Wounded officers included Sheik Smith, John Mitchell, and others; civilians She Tamara El-Sobky and Hillary Castro. Searches of Johnson's home revealed bomb-making materials, rifles, vests, and notes on tactics, suggesting plans for a larger attack. He had practiced explosions and honed skills post-discharge, including marksmanship. === Aftermath and impact === Dallas mourned with vigils and memorials, while national protests against police violence continued amid grief. President Barack Obama, the first African American president of the United States, called Johnson a "demented individual" and formed a task force on race and policing. The incident fueled debates on gun control, race relations, and veteran mental health—Johnson had sought VA treatment for stress and anxiety but showed no prior violent signs to friends. El Centro College canceled all classes on July 8. Police barricaded the perimeter and began canvassing the crime scene. The explosion that killed Johnson also destroyed the school's servers, further delaying reopening. The school partially reopened on July 20, with staff returning that day and students on the following day. Buildings A, B, and C remained closed pending the FBI investigation. == Motive == An investigation into his online activities uncovered his interest in black nationalist groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and news outlets reported that Johnson "liked" the Facebook pages of black nationalist organizations such as the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), Nation of Islam, and Black Riders Liberation Party, three groups which are listed by the SPLC as hate groups. On Facebook, Johnson posted an angry and "disjointed" post against White people on July 2, several days before the attack. NBPP head Quanell X said after the shooting that Johnson had been a member of the NBPP's Houston chapter for about six months, several years before. Quanell X added that Johnson had been "asked to leave" the group for violating the organization's "chain of command" and espousing dangerous rhetoric, such as asking the NBPP why they had not purchased more weapons and ammunition, and expressing his desire to harm black church preachers because he believed they were more interested in money than God. Following the shooting, a national NBPP leader distanced the group from Johnson, saying that he "was not a member of" the party. Further investigation into his digital footprint showed that Johnson visited the sites of Marxist Leninist groups associated with "Revolutionary Black Nationalism",
Confused deputy problem
In information security, a confused deputy is a computer program that is tricked by another program (with fewer privileges or less rights) into misusing its authority on the system. It is a specific type of privilege escalation. The confused deputy problem is often cited as an example of why capability-based security is important. Capability systems protect against the confused deputy problem, whereas access-control list–based systems do not. Such systems can mitigate the confused deputy problem by eliminating ambient authority, allowing programs to act only on resources for which they hold explicit capabilities, whereas access-control list–based systems are more susceptible to it. However, this protection depends on correct implementation; in formally verified capability systems such as seL4, it can be shown that the kernel enforces capability constraints correctly, preventing such behavior at the system level. == Example == In the original example of a confused deputy, there was a compiler program provided on a commercial timesharing service. Users could run the compiler and optionally specify a filename where it would write debugging output, and the compiler would be able to write to that file if the user had permission to write there. The compiler also collected statistics about language feature usage. Those statistics were stored in a file called "(SYSX)STAT", in the directory "SYSX". To make this possible, the compiler program was given permission to write to files in SYSX. But there were other files in SYSX: in particular, the system's billing information was stored in a file "(SYSX)BILL". A user ran the compiler and named "(SYSX)BILL" as the desired debugging output file. This produced a confused deputy problem. The compiler made a request to the operating system to open (SYSX)BILL. Even though the user did not have access to that file, the compiler did, so the open succeeded. The compiler wrote the compilation output to the file (here "(SYSX)BILL") as normal, overwriting it, and the billing information was destroyed. === The confused deputy === In this example, the compiler program is the deputy because it is acting at the request of the user. The program is seen as 'confused' because it was tricked into overwriting the system's billing file. Whenever a program tries to access a file, the operating system needs to know two things: which file the program is asking for, and whether the program has permission to access the file. In the example, the file is designated by its name, “(SYSX)BILL”. The program receives the file name from the user, but does not know whether the user had permission to write the file. When the program opens the file, the system uses the program's permission, not the user's. When the file name was passed from the user to the program, the permission did not go along with it; the permission was increased by the system silently and automatically. It is not essential to the attack that the billing file be designated by a name represented as a string. The essential points are that: the designator for the file does not carry the full authority needed to access the file; the program's own permission to access the file is used implicitly. == Other examples == A cross-site request forgery (CSRF) is an example of a confused deputy attack that uses the web browser to perform sensitive actions against a web application. A common form of this attack occurs when a web application uses a cookie to authenticate all requests transmitted by a browser. Using JavaScript, an attacker can force a browser into transmitting authenticated HTTP requests. The Samy computer worm used cross-site scripting (XSS) to turn the browser's authenticated MySpace session into a confused deputy. Using XSS the worm forced the browser into posting an executable copy of the worm as a MySpace message which was then viewed and executed by friends of the infected user. Clickjacking is an attack where the user acts as the confused deputy. In this attack a user thinks they are harmlessly browsing a website (an attacker-controlled website) but they are in fact tricked into performing sensitive actions on another website. An FTP bounce attack can allow an attacker to connect indirectly to TCP ports to which the attacker's machine has no access, using a remote FTP server as the confused deputy. Another example relates to personal firewall software. It can restrict Internet access for specific applications. Some applications circumvent this by starting a browser with instructions to access a specific URL. The browser has authority to open a network connection, even though the application does not. Firewall software can attempt to address this by prompting the user in cases where one program starts another which then accesses the network. However, the user frequently does not have sufficient information to determine whether such an access is legitimate—false positives are common, and there is a substantial risk that even sophisticated users will become habituated to clicking "OK" to these prompts. Not every program that misuses authority is a confused deputy. Sometimes misuse of authority is simply a result of a program error. The confused deputy problem occurs when the designation of an object is passed from one program to another, and the associated permission changes unintentionally, without any explicit action by either party. It is insidious because neither party did anything explicit to change the authority. Another example is when an administrator authorizes an AI agent to act on their behalf, and that AI subsequently delegates authority to another AI agent neither vetted nor authorized by the original administrator. The unvetted AI can then act without permissions or oversight from the original developer. == Solutions == In some systems it is possible to ask the operating system to open a file using the permissions of another client. This solution has some drawbacks: It requires explicit attention to security by the server. A naive or careless server might not take this extra step. It becomes more difficult to identify the correct permission if the server is in turn the client of another service and wants to pass along access to the file. It requires the client to trust the server to not abuse the borrowed permissions. Note that intersecting the server and client's permissions does not solve the problem either, because the server may then have to be given very wide permissions (all of the time, rather than those needed for a given request) in order to act for arbitrary clients. The simplest way to solve the confused deputy problem is to bundle together the designation of an object and the permission to access that object. This is exactly what a capability is. Using capability security in the compiler example, the client would pass to the server a capability to the output file, such as a file descriptor, rather than the name of the file. Since it lacks a capability to the billing file, it cannot designate that file for output. In the cross-site request forgery example, a URL supplied "cross"-site would include its own authority independent of that of the client of the web browser.
Degree of truth
In classical logic, propositions are typically unambiguously considered as being true or false. For instance, the proposition one is both equal and not equal to itself is regarded as simply false, being contrary to the Law of Noncontradiction; while the proposition one is equal to one is regarded as simply true, by the Law of Identity. However, some mathematicians, computer scientists, and philosophers have been attracted to the idea that a proposition might be more or less true, rather than wholly true or wholly false. Consider this pizza is hot. In mathematics, this idea can be developed in terms of fuzzy logic. In computer science, it has found application in artificial intelligence. In philosophy, the idea has proved particularly appealing in the case of vagueness. Degrees of truth is an important concept in law. The term is an older concept than conditional probability. Instead of determining the objective probability, only a subjective assessment is defined. In adjudicative processes, 'substantive truth' is distinct from 'formal legal truth' which comes in four degrees: hearsay, balance of probabilities, proven beyond reasonable doubt and absolute truth (knowledge reserved unto God).
Hyperion Cantos
The Hyperion Cantos is a series of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. The title was originally used for the collection of the first pair of books in the series, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, and later came to refer to the overall storyline, including Endymion, The Rise of Endymion, and a number of short stories. More narrowly, inside the fictional storyline, after the first volume, the Hyperion Cantos is an epic poem written by the character Martin Silenus covering in verse form the events of the first two books. Of the four novels, Hyperion received the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1990; The Fall of Hyperion won the Locus and British Science Fiction Association Awards in 1991; and The Rise of Endymion received the Locus Award in 1998. All four novels were also nominated for various science fiction awards. == Works == === Hyperion (1989) === First published in 1989, Hyperion has the structure of a frame story, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. The story weaves the interlocking tales of a diverse group of travelers sent on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs on Hyperion. The travelers have been sent by the Hegemony (the government of the human star systems), the All Thing, and the Church of the Final Atonement, alternately known as the Shrike Church, to make a request of the Shrike. As they progress in their journey, each of the pilgrims tells their tale. === The Fall of Hyperion (1990) === This book concludes the story begun in Hyperion. It abandons the storytelling frame structure of the first novel, and is instead presented primarily as a series of dreams by John Keats. === Endymion (1996) === The story commences 274 years after the events in the previous novel. Few main characters from the first two books are present in the later two. The main character is Raul Endymion, an ex-soldier who receives a death sentence after an unfair trial. He is rescued by Martin Silenus and asked to perform a series of rather extraordinarily difficult tasks. The main task is to rescue and protect the daughter of Brawne Lamia (one of the main characters of Hyperion), Aenea, a messiah coming from the time period just after the first books via time travel. The Catholic Church has become a dominant force in the human universe and views Aenea as a potential threat to their power. The group of Aenea, Endymion, and A. Bettik (an android) evades the Church's forces on several worlds through use of the Consul's spaceship, ending the story on Earth. === The Rise of Endymion (1997) === This final novel in the series finishes the story begun in Endymion, expanding on the themes in Endymion, as Raul and Aenea battle the Church and meet their respective destinies. === Short stories === The series also includes three short stories: "Remembering Siri" (1983, included almost verbatim in Hyperion) "The Death of the Centaur" (1990) "Orphans of the Helix" (1999) == Development == The Hyperion universe originated when Simmons was an elementary school teacher, as an extended tale he told at intervals to his young students; this is recorded in "The Death of the Centaur", and its introduction. It then inspired his short story "Remembering Siri", which eventually became the nucleus around which Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion formed. After the quartet was published came the short story "Orphans of the Helix". "Orphans" is currently the final work in the Cantos, both chronologically and internally. The original Hyperion Cantos has been described as a novel published in two volumes, published separately at first for reasons of length. In his introduction to "Orphans of the Helix", Simmons elaborates: Some readers may know that I've written four novels set in the "Hyperion Universe"—Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion. A perceptive subset of those readers—perhaps the majority—know that this so-called epic actually consists of two long and mutually dependent tales, the two Hyperion stories combined and the two Endymion stories combined, broken into four books because of the realities of publishing. == Influences == Much of the appeal of the series stems from its extensive use of references and allusions from a wide array of thinkers such as Teilhard de Chardin, John Muir, Norbert Wiener, and to the poetry of John Keats, the famous 19th-century English Romantic poet, Norse mythology, and the monk Ummon. A large number of technological elements are acknowledged by Simmons to be inspired by elements of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World. The Hyperion series has many echoes of Jack Vance, explicitly acknowledged in one of the later books. The title of the first novel, "Hyperion", is taken from one of Keats's poems, the unfinished epic Hyperion. Similarly, the title of the third novel is from Keats' poem Endymion. Quotes from actual Keats poems and the fictional Cantos of Martin Silenus are interspersed throughout the novels. Simmons goes so far as to have two artificial reincarnations of John Keats ("cybrids": artificial intelligences in human bodies) play a major role in the series. == Setting == Much of the action in the series takes place on the planet Hyperion. It is described as having one-fifth less gravity than Earth standard. Hyperion has a number of peculiar indigenous flora and fauna, notably Tesla trees, which are essentially large electricity-spewing trees. It is also a "labyrinthine" planet, which means that it is home to ancient subterranean labyrinths of unknown purpose. Most importantly, Hyperion is the location of the Time Tombs, large artifacts surrounded by "anti-entropic" fields that allow them to move backward through time. In the fictional universe of the Hyperion Cantos, the Hegemony of Man encompasses over 200 planets. Faster than light communications technology, Fatlines, are said to operate through tachyon bursts. However, in later books it is revealed that they operate through the Void Which Binds. The Farcaster network was given to humanity by the TechnoCore and again it was another use of the Void Which Binds that allowed this instantaneous travel between worlds. The Hawking Drive was developed by human scientists, allowing the faster than light travel which led to the Hegira (from the Arabic word هجرة Hijra, meaning 'migration'). The Gideon drive, a Core-provided starship drive, allows for near-instantaneous travel between any two points in human-occupied space. The drive's use kills any human on board a Gideon-propelled starship; thus, the technology is only of use with remote probes or when used in conjunction with the Pax's resurrection technology. The resurrection creche can regenerate someone carrying a cruciform from their remains. Treeships are living trees that are propelled by ergs (spider-like solid-state alien being that emits force fields) through space. === The Shrike === The region of the Tombs is also the home of the Shrike, a menacing half-mechanical, half-organic four-armed creature that features prominently in the series. It appears in all four Hyperion Cantos books and is an enigma in the initial two; its purpose is not revealed until the second book, but is still left nebulous. The Shrike appears to act both autonomously and as a servant of some unknown force or entity. In the first two Hyperion books, it exists solely in the area around the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion. Its portrayal is changed significantly in the last two books, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. In these novels, the Shrike appears effectively unfettered and protects the heroine Aenea against assassins of the opposing TechnoCore. Surrounded in mystery, the object of fear, hatred, and even worship by members of the Church of the Final Atonement (the Shrike Cult), the Shrike's origins are described as uncertain. It is portrayed as composed of razorwire, thorns, blades, and cutting edges, having fingers like scalpels and long, curved toe blades. It has the ability to control the flow of time, and may thus appear to travel infinitely fast. The Shrike may kill victims in a flash or it may transport them to an eternity of impalement upon an enormous artificial 'Tree of Thorns,' or 'Tree of Pain' in Hyperion's distant future. The Tree of Thorns is described as an unimaginably large, metallic tree, alive with the agonized writhing of countless human victims of all ages and races. It is also hinted in the second book that the Tree of Thorns is actually a simulation generated by a mystical interface which connects to human brains via a strong and pulsing (as if it were alive) cord. The name Shrike seems a reference to birds of the shrike family, a family of birds that impales their victims on thorns, spines, or twigs. === Worlds and Systems === In the fictional universe of the Hyperion Cantos, the Hegemony of Man encompasses over 200 planets. The following planets appear or are specifically mentioned in the Hyperion Cantos. Planets of
The Quantum Thief
The Quantum Thief is the debut science fiction novel by Finnish writer Hannu Rajaniemi and the first novel in a trilogy featuring the character of Jean le Flambeur; the sequels are The Fractal Prince (2012) and The Causal Angel (2014). The novel was published in Britain by Gollancz in 2010, and by Tor in 2011 in the US. It is a heist story, set in a futuristic Solar System, that features a protagonist modeled on Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief of Maurice Leblanc. The novel was nominated for the 2011 Locus Award for Best First Novel, and was second runner-up for the 2011 Campbell Memorial Award. == Setting == Several centuries after the technological singularity largely destroyed Earth, various posthuman factions compete for dominance in the Solar System. Though sentient superintelligent AGI has never been successfully developed, civilization has been greatly transformed by the proliferation of Hansonian brain emulations (termed "gogols" in reference to Nikolai Gogol, and in particular his novel Dead Souls). An alliance of powerful gogol copies rule the inner system from computronium megastructures housing trillions of virtual minds, laboring to resurrect the dead in religious devotion to the philosophy of Nikolai Fedorov. This alliance, the Sobornost, has been in conflict with a community of quantum entangled minds who adhere to the "no-cloning" principle of quantum information theory, and so do not see the Sobornost's ultimate goal as resurrection, but death. Most of this community, the Zoku, was devastated when Jupiter was destroyed with a weaponized gravitational singularity. Among the last remnants of near-baseline humanity exist on the mobile cities of Mars, where advanced cryptography and an obsessive privacy culture ensure that the Sobornost cannot upload their citizens' minds. The most notable of these cities is the Oubliette, where time is used as a currency. When a citizen's balance reaches zero their mind is transferred to a robotic body to serve the needs of the city for a set period, before being returned to their original body with a restored balance of time. == Plot summary == Countless gogols of the legendary gentleman thief Jean Le Flambeur are trapped in a virtual Sobornost prison in orbit around Neptune, playing an iterated prisoner's dilemma until his mind learns to cooperate. A warrior from the Oort Cloud, which has been settled by Finnish colonists, successfully retrieves one of the Le Flambeur gogols and uploads it into a real-space body. Acting on behalf of a competing Sobornost authority, this Oortian, Mieli, ferries the thief to the Martian city known as The Oubliette, where he has stored his memories for later recovery. The two intend to recover his memories so that he may return to an operating capacity sufficient to serve his Sobornost benefactor in a theft and repay his liberation. On the Oubliette, the young detective Isidore Beautrelet helps vigilantes catch Sobornost agents illicitly uploading human minds. These vigilantes are revealed to be in the service of a local colony of Zoku. Beautrelet is employed to investigate the arrival of Le Flambeur, and in the process becomes aware that the Oubliette's cryptographic security was always compromised. The memories of its citizens are fabrications, and the "King of Mars" long believed ousted in a revolution, still reigns behind the scenes. This King, who is another copy of Jean Le Flambeur, is defeated in the ensuing conflict. Le Flambeur fails to recover all of his memories, which he had locked with a quantum entangled revolver that required him to kill several of his old friends to open his stored memory. He and Mieli escape a liberated Mars having recovered only a mysterious "Schrödinger’s Box" from the Memory Palace. == Themes == Themes central to The Quantum Thief are the unreliability and malleability of memory and the effects of extreme longevity on an individual's perspective and personality. Prisons, surveillance and control in society are also major themes. In the book, the people living in the Oubliette society on Mars have two types of memory; in addition to a traditional, personal memory, there is the exomemory, which can be accessed by other people, from anywhere in the city. Memories about personal experiences can be stored in the exomemory and partitioned, with different levels of access granted to different people. These memories can be used, among other things, as an expedient form of communication. The Oubliette society has an economy where time is used as currency. When an individual's time is expended, their consciousness is uploaded into a "Quiet". The Quiet are mute machine servants who maintain and protect the city. Although the quiet seem to have little interest in the world outside their occupations, they do seem to retain some traces of their former personalities and memories. The conspiracy central to the plot involves the hidden rulers, called the "cryptarchs", manipulating and abusing the exomemory and through the citizens' transformations to quiet and back, the traditional memory as well. In the book, the Oubliette society is compared to a panopticon; a prison, where every action of the dwellers can be scrutinized. == History and influences == The first chapter of The Quantum Thief was presented by Rajaniemi's literary agent, John Jarrold, to Gollancz as the basis for the three-book deal that was eventually secured. Rajaniemi has stated that he had "come up with an outline that had every single idea I could cram into it, because I wanted to be worthy of what had happened." The outline eventually expanded into three parts, and the first part became The Quantum Thief. The novel's plot was inspired by one of Rajaniemi's favorite characters in fiction, Maurice Leblanc's gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, who operates on both sides of the law. What intrigued Rajaniemi were the cycles of redemption and relapse Lupin goes through as he tries to go straight, always falling short. Besides LeBlanc, Rajaniemi mentioned Roger Zelazny as a strong influence. Ian McDonald was the other science fiction author he mentioned as influential, plus Frances A.Yates's book The Art of Memory, for memory palaces. In an interview, Rajaniemi said he wasn't trying to write the novel as hard science fiction: "For me, the more important consequence of having a scientific background is a degree of speculative rigour: trying hard to work out the consequences of the assumptions one begins with." == Reception == The novel has received generally positive reviews. Gary K. Wolfe writes in his Locus review that Rajaniemi has "spectacularly delivered on the promise that this is likely the most important debut SF novel we'll see this year". James Lovegrove, reviewing the book in his Financial Times column, notes that "many an anglophone author would kill to turn out prose half as good as this, especially on their maiden effort." Eric Brown, reviewing for The Guardian, finds the novel to be "a brilliant debut", while alluding to the "apocryphal" (and incorrect) myth that "this novel sold on the strength of its first line." Sam Bandah, at SciFiNow, praises the novel for "its engaging narrative and characters backed by often almost intimidatingly good sci-fi concepts." Criticism for the novel has generally centred on Rajaniemi's sparse "show, don't tell" writing style. Brown notes that "the author makes no concessions to the lazy reader with info-dumps or convenient explanations." Niall Alexander, of the Speculative Scotsman, states that "had there been some sort of index, [he] would have gladly (and repeatedly) referred to it during the mind-boggling first third of The Quantum Thief", while proclaiming the novel to be "the sci-fi debut of 2010." == Awards == Nominee for the 2011 Locus Award for Best First Novel. Third place for the 2011 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
List & Label
List & Label is a professional reporting tool for software developers. It provides comprehensive design, print and export functions. The software component runs on Microsoft Windows and can be implemented in desktop, cloud and web applications. List & Label can be used to create user-defined dashboards, lists, invoices, forms and labels. It supports many development environments, frameworks and programming languages such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Embarcadero RAD Studio, .NET Framework, .NET Core, ASP.NET, C++, Delphi, Java, C Sharp and some more. List & Label either retrieves data from various sources via data binding, or works database independent. Reports are designed and created in the so-called List & Label Designer and then exported into a multitude of formats like PDF, Excel, XHTML and RTF. Since version 27 a web report designer for ASP.NET MVC is available. == History == The product was first released in 1992 by combit. The current version is 30. A new major version of List & Label is released every fall, usually in October. Updates are available several times a year via Service Pack. == Features == === Report Designer === The Designer enables users to graphically layout the report. It offers report objects such as tables, charts, crosstabs, gauges, HTML, conditionally formatted text, barcodes, matrix codes, and graphics, and is extensible using third-party add-ons. User applications can interact with the report via the programmable object model of the report. The real-time preview functionality allows users to view changes instantly. Usability features include layer and appearance management, enabling conditional logic to dynamically control the visibility of objects in reports. The Designer also supports the inclusion of multiple report containers in a single project, accommodating complex layouts such as parallel tables and charts. A formula wizard and support for scripting languages such as C# facilitate advanced calculations and logic. The Designer's object model (DOM) provides developers with the ability to modify layouts and behaviors programmatically. === Web Report Designer === The web report designer works browser-based and independent from printer drivers and spoolers - that makes deployments to the cloud easier. Just like the use of the Visual Studio deployment pipeline. === Data Sources === Depending on the programming language, the product offers automatic support for data sources: Databases such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, IBM Db2, SQLite, MariaDB, MongoDB, Cosmos DB XML data, CSV Business objects Data sources that can be accessed via OLE DB, ODBC or ADO.NET LINQ data and data from web services GraphQL Additionally, the product offers support for unbound data and can be extended to support other data sources via interfaces. === Output Options === Printer Image Formats (JPEG, BMP, EMF, TIFF, PNG, SVG, HEIF, WebP) Document Formats: PDF, PDF/A, Word (DOCX), Excel (XLS), PowerPoint (PPTX) HTML, XHTML, MHTML Barcodes Plain Text, RTF, CSV, JSON XML, ZIP, Email, JSON List & Label preview file === Target Audience === List & Label can be used in Windows development environments. While it competes most notably on the Microsoft .NET platform with other products such as Crystal Reports, SQL Server Reporting Services, ActiveReports, there are few competing products for other programming languages (e.g. Progress, Alaska Xbase++, Visual DataFlex). == Awards == Reader's Choice Award 2005–2008 Stevie Awards 2021: Best Technology for Data Visualization Top 100 Publisher Award Component Source 2013-2014, 2014-2015,2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022
Argument technology
Argument technology is a sub-field of collective intelligence and artificial intelligence that focuses on applying computational techniques to the creation, identification, analysis, navigation, evaluation and visualisation of arguments and debates. In the 1980s and 1990s, philosophical theories of arguments in general, and argumentation theory in particular, were leveraged to handle key computational challenges, such as modeling non-monotonic and defeasible reasoning and designing robust coordination protocols for multi-agent systems. At the same time, mechanisms for computing semantics of Argumentation frameworks were introduced as a way of providing a calculus of opposition for computing what it is reasonable to believe in the context of conflicting arguments. With these foundations in place, the area was kick-started by a workshop held in the Scottish Highlands in 2000, the result of which was a book coauthored by philosophers of argument, rhetoricians, legal scholars and AI researchers. Since then, the area has been supported by various dedicated events such as the International Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument (CMNA) which has run annually since 2001; the International Workshop on Argument in Multi Agent Systems (ArgMAS) annually since 2004; the Workshop on Argument Mining, annually since 2014, and the Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA), biennially since 2006. Since 2010, the field has also had its own journal, Argument & Computation, which was published by Taylor & Francis until 2016 and since then by IOS Press. One of the challenges that argument technology faced was a lack of standardisation in the representation and underlying conception of argument in machine readable terms. Many different software tools for manual argument analysis, in particular, developed idiosyncratic and ad hoc ways of representing arguments which reflected differing underlying ways of conceiving of argumentative structure. This lack of standardisation also meant that there was no interchange between tools or between research projects, and little re-use of data resources that were often expensive to create. To tackle this problem, the Argument Interchange Format set out to establish a common standard that captured the minimal common features of argumentation which could then be extended in different settings. Since about 2018, argument technology has been growing rapidly, with, for example, IBM's Grand Challenge, Project Debater, results for which were published in Nature in March 2021; German research funder, DFG's nationwide research programme on Robust Argumentation Machines, RATIO, begun in 2019; and UK nationwide deployment of The Evidence Toolkit by the BBC in 2019. A 2021 video narrated by Stephen Fry provides a summary of the societal motivations for work in argument technology. Argument technology has applications in a variety of domains, including education, healthcare, policy making, political science, intelligence analysis and risk management and has a variety of sub-fields, methodologies and technologies. == Technologies == === Argument assistant === An argument assistant is a software tool which support users when writing arguments. Argument assistants can help users compose content, review content from one other, including in dialogical contexts. In addition to Web services, such functionalities can be provided through the plugin architectures of word processor software or those of Web browsers. Internet forums, for instance, can be greatly enhanced by such software tools and services. === Argument blogging === ArguBlogging is software which allows its users to select portions of hypertext on webpages in their Web browsers and to agree or disagree with the selected content, posting their arguments to their blogs with linked argument data. It is implemented as a bookmarklet, adding functionality to Web browsers and interoperating with blogging platforms such as Blogger and Tumblr. === Argument mapping === Argument maps are visual, diagrammatic representations of arguments. Such visual diagrams facilitate diagrammatic reasoning and promote one's ability to grasp and to make sense of information rapidly and readily. Argument maps can provide structured, semi-formal frameworks for representing arguments using interactive visual language. One avenue of research and development is the design of online platforms to leverage collective intelligence to populate such maps and to integrate data, optimize and assess arguments. === Argument mining === Argument mining, or argumentation mining, is a research area within the natural language processing field. The goal of argument mining is the automatic extraction and identification of argumentative structures from natural language text with the aid of computer programs. === Argument search === An argument search engine is a search engine that is given a topic as a user query and returns a list of arguments for and against the topic or about that topic. Such engines could be used to support informed decision-making or to help debaters prepare for debates. === Automated argumentative essay scoring === The goal of automated argumentative essay scoring systems is to assist students in improving their writing skills by measuring the quality of their argumentative content. === Debate technology === Debate technology focuses on human-machine interaction and in particular providing systems that support, monitor and engage in debate. One of the most high-profile examples of debating technology is IBM's Project Debater which combines scripted communication with very large-scale processing of news articles to identify and construct arguments on the fly in a competitive debating setting. Debating technology also encompasses tools aimed at providing insight into debates, typically using techniques from data science. These analytics have been developed in both academic and commercial settings. === Decision support system === Argument technology can reduce both individual and group biases and facilitate more accurate decisions. Argument-based decision support systems do so by helping users to distinguish between claims and the evidence supporting them, and express their confidence in and evaluate the strength of evidence of competing claims. They have been used to improve predictions of housing market trends, risk analysis, ethical and legal decision making. ==== Ethical decision support system ==== An ethical decision support system is a decision support system which supports users in moral reasoning and decision-making. ==== Legal decision support system ==== A legal decision support system is a decision support system which supports users in legal reasoning and decision-making. === Explainable artificial intelligence === An explainable or transparent artificial intelligence system is an artificial intelligence system whose actions can be easily understood by humans. === Intelligent tutoring system === An intelligent tutoring system is a computer system that aims to provide immediate and customized instruction or feedback to learners, usually without requiring intervention from a human teacher. The intersection of argument technology and intelligent tutoring systems includes computer systems which aim to provide instruction in: critical thinking, argumentation, ethics, law, mathematics, and philosophy. === Legal expert system === A legal expert system is a domain-specific expert system that uses artificial intelligence to emulate the decision-making abilities of a human expert in the field of law. === Machine ethics === Machine ethics is a part of the ethics of artificial intelligence concerned with the moral behavior of artificially intelligent beings. As humans argue with respect to morality and moral behavior, argument can be envisioned as a component of machine ethics systems and moral reasoning components. === Proof assistant === In computer science and mathematical logic, a proof assistant or interactive theorem prover is a software tool to assist with the development of formal proofs by human-machine collaboration. This involves some sort of interactive proof editor, or other interface, with which a human can guide the search for proofs, the details of which are stored in, and some steps provided by, a computer. === Ethical considerations === Ethical considerations of argument technology include privacy, transparency, societal concerns, and diversity in representation. These factors cut across different levels such as technology, user interface design, user, service context, and society. There is concern about unethical misuse for "generating arguments on controversial topics with specific stances and deploying them on social platforms". Another issue may concern the design of conclusion-making algorithms, such as e.g. enabling such to conclude that certain key data is needed instead of only making lists of best-fit conclusions or enabling the generation of multi