The Knog Oi Bicycle Bell politely moves pedestrians from your path

Kong Oi Bicycle Bell

Once you add riding a bike to your daily routine, you start to realize what accessories you would benefit from. If you live out in the country with limited street lighting, then adding visibility will be your priority. If you’re in a bigger city, visibility will be equally important, but navigating your way through hoards of pedestrians will be another aspect to worry about.

If you want to politely get people to move out of your way without blasting an air horn, the Kong Oi Bicycle Bell could move them of their own accord. This is a small circle that you can fit on any type of bicycle bar, and you only need to pull back the tab and release it to get a clear bell sound. It’s not anything like the obnoxious bike bells you’ve heard in the past, and take on more of a wind chime approach, sounding pleasant, light, but crisp.

This comes in large and small, fitting 22.2mm bars or 23.8-31.8mm bars. The size will affect the price, which is in a range of $12.99-$27.99, and it comes in black, brass, copper, and silver. These are made of stainless steel, high tensile springs, aircraft grade aluminum ringers, a reinforced nylon mount, and are sure to make anything who hears them move out of the way.

Available for purchase on Amazon
[ The Knog Oi Bicycle Bell politely moves pedestrians from your path copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Mega Fidget Spinner Made from Other Fidget Spinners

Man, I hate fidget spinners. They are so stupid. In fact, I’m only sharing this one to illustrate how stupid this whole thing is. Then I hope to never do a fidget spinner article again. Anyway, at least this guy did something creative with them, aside from just fidgeting like a moron.


This is a fidget spinner made from other fidget spinners, which now becomes some kind of Transformer-evolution-mutant fidget spinner. It was made by Louis Weisz, who needed only an order of fidget spinners and trip to Home Depot to pull of this crazy spinning toy. He combined them into one giant fidget spinner to rule them all. Honestly, as much as I hate this fad, this build is really cool.

He needs to add more. Then more. Then more, until he has created a monster spinner that will never be outdone.

[via The Awesomer]

We Can Hate 'Elites' But They Helped Build Modern Democracy

Hedwig Richter, University of Greifswald

“It’s so easy!” Trump constantly said during his 2016 election campaign. And, indeed, his particular idea of democracy may sound simple: the people rule. But that populist cry from both the left and the right has driven some of the more unsettling elections of our times. The Conversation

As the masses protest against “elites,” calling them too intellectual, too liberal, too neoliberal, too cosmopolitan, too whatever, candidates such as Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen imbue themselves with the authority of the people and declare themselves the representatives of the 99 percent.

But modern democracy has always been connected to the interests of these so-called elites. As the American historian Edmund S. Morgan writes in his book Inventing the People (1989), “Sober thought may tell us that all governments are of the people, that all profess to be for the people, and that none can literally be by the people.”

Who are the people?

Germanic tribes in their forests and the Greeks in their city-states may have voted collectively on public policy. Being few enough to fit into a public square, they could communally process their problems.

Such plebiscites are not possible today. There are too many people, and our problems are too complex.

That makes representative democracy, in which citizens elect people whose job is to manage diverse interests, the most effective form of government. It works not in spite of but because of restrictions such as the separation of powers and checks and balances.

Since the Enlightenment, elites have helped develop the system many voters seem to take for granted today. They’ve done so for pragmatic, political, idealistic or self-interested reasons, seeking to promote, install, defend and reform democratic ideas and practices or represent citizens in parliaments.

Around 1800, this class of people began to gain more influence in the U.S. and in Europe, as they realized how important it was for the state to win over citizens.

After an electoral turnout of five percent in 1813, French clerks assumed that no one would object to abolishing the right to vote. In a young United States, political parties lured unwilling citizens to the polls with threats, money or alcohol.

By the early 19th century, though, reformers in Prussia and elsewhere were already launching a top-down effort to herald voting as a privilege to “spark the public spirit.” In journals and flyers, educated people intensely debated the ideas of equality and participation, urging people to vote and warning against demagogues.

These elites also called for expanding the right to vote and for protecting free polling. Over the course of the early 19th century, municipal ordinances introduced across Prussia ultimately gave suffrage to almost three percent of the population (this was quite a lot back then, on par with America’s four percent enfranchisement).

Universal suffrage

In the 19th century, elections also served as a governance tool. Each vote was as a census in miniature. Over decades, those who went to the polls were registered, their lands valued, their tax burden defined. Men became accomplices of the state apparatus through the simple act of voting.

Educated, newspaper-reading elites may have been abstractly debating the parliament and the right of co-determination back then, but most people still struggled with problems such as hunger and scarcity.

Lacking the resources for cultivating participatory ideals, they expressed their needs through protest, leading to Europe’s 1848 revolutions.

Napoleon III, emperor of France from 1852 to 1870, who was quite an expert in public relations, realized that the gem of popular approval would look great in his imperial crown. So he set up elections as a spectacle, handpicking candidates and forcing his subjects to vote for them.

Around 1870, the US, Germany and several other countries enacted universal male suffrage. Again, this was mostly driven by elites interested in deepening democratic practice.

But it was not universally popular. The U.S. had just finished a bloody civil war in 1867 when its government extended the right to vote to all male citizens. Most white people fiercely opposed this move, and they said so at referendum, even in the supposedly more enlightened North.

It was an elite bloc inside the Republican Party that pushed for military enforcement to defend the right to vote for black citizens in the south.

As in other elite-driven enfranchisement efforts, motivations here were mixed: one of the Republicans’ goal surely was to be reelected. Still, their efforts helped usher in the short period of relative black empowerment known as Reconstruction from 1865 to 1877.

Likewise, Germans have their elites to thank for getting the right to vote in 1867. Otto von Bismarck, like other statesman of his era, saw universal (male) suffrage as a cornerstone of nation-building and believed that a strong centralised state would help him apply German egalitarian aspirations to all citizens.

Citizens, for their part, found voting more attractive because it would help define their nation-state and establish them as equals. Foundational national pride motivated men to go to the polls, to pay taxes, even to die as soldiers.

The thing about elites

Obviously, elites did not act as a unified bloc in expanding voting rights in the U.S. and Germany, and many upper class citizens resisted these changes.

For Americans, race has always been a cleavage among white people, regardless of class. When malicious voting restrictions quickly disenfranchised African Americans in the 1890s, their introduction was thanks in no small part to elites who had embraced new racist thought with vigor.

Some of these were likely the same educated liberals who helped introduce polling booths and secret ballots to contribute to the ideal of a free and fair election. Deepening democracy was ― and remains ― a meandering, contradictory process.

By 1900, women worldwide were claiming the right to vote and Western democracy was quickly becoming a subject for the masses.

People were also more educated and generally better off than they had been 50 years earlier, giving them time and the wherewithal to read newspapers and engage in politics. This, too, is part of democracy’s complex history: without education and relative prosperity, it’s hard to effectively exercise the vote.

Recent events such as the Brexit vote and President Donald Trump’s win have demonstrated the appeal of a foreshortened, populist understanding of democracy. History tells us that this notion ― democracy as unchecked people power ― is a myth. And in the sprawling modern world, it is now an impossibility.

Democracy, when it works, has always been in part an elite project.

Hedwig Richter, Historian, University of Greifswald

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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News Roundup for May 29, 2017

The world distilled down to five short headlines.

1. In Texas, your college ID is no longer a valid form of voter identification BUT your gun permit is. More here.

2. Japan is ready to take action on North Korea. Goodbye world, we hardly knew thee… More here.

3. Paris’ mayor, Anne Hidalgo, is moving to ban a black feminist festival in Paris and wants to prosecute the organizers for discrimination. More here.

4. Muslim security guards have lodged complaints against Amazon for religious discrimination. The company has denied it, but are offering Amazon Prime memberships as a settlement. More here.

5. Angela Merkel said Europe cannot rely on their allies. We all know who she’s talking about. More here.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Legendary Sports Writer Frank Deford Dead At 78

Frank Deford, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest sports journalists ever, has died at the age of 78.

The Washington Post reports that Deford died Sunday in Key West, Florida. His wife confirmed the news to the paper.  

Deford spent half a century crafting words for magazines, radio and television. During his decades at Sports Illustrated, he published some of the most iconic sports profiles in magazine history. Starting in 1980, he delivered memorable sports monologues on NPR’s “Morning Edition.” And for two decades, he served as a senior correspondent for HBO’s “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel.”

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates. 

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Mercedes-AMG's F1-based Project One rewrites the hypercar rulebook

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SlashGear’s E3 2017 Wishlist

E3 2017 is right around the corner, and so far there hasn’t been very much indication of what we’ll see there. Obviously, we know what companies like Microsoft and Nintendo will talking about in a general sense, but we’ll have to wait for specifics until the show is finally here. With that in mind, I’ve put together a wishlist of … Continue reading

Tillerson Declines Request To Host Ramadan Event

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has declined a request to host an event to mark Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, two U.S. officials said, apparently breaking with a bipartisan tradition in place with few exceptions for nearly 20 years.

Since 1999, Republican and Democratic secretaries of state have nearly always hosted either an iftar dinner to break the day’s fast during Ramadan or a reception marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the month, at the State Department.

Tillerson turned down a request from the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs to host an Eid al-Fitr reception as part of Ramadan celebrations, said two U.S. officials who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

According to an April 6 memo seen by Reuters, the office – which typically initiates such events – recommended that Tillerson hold an Eid al-Fitr reception.

His rejection of the request suggests there are no plans this year for any high-profile Ramadan function at the State Department. The month of fasting and prayer for Muslims gets under way in many countries on Saturday.

When asked by Reuters to comment on Tillerson declining a request to host an Eid al-Fitr event in July for Ramadan, a State Department spokesperson said:

“We are still exploring possible options for observance of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the month of Ramadan. U.S. ambassadors are encouraged to celebrate Ramadan through a variety of activities, which are held annually at missions around the world.”

Muslim activists have accused President Donald Trump’s administration of having an unfriendly attitude toward Islam, encapsulated by its attempts to ban citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

The administration says that while it strongly opposes Islamist militants, it has no quarrel with Islam. Aides point to Trump’s visit this month to Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam where he addressed the leaders of more than 50 Muslim countries, as evidence of that.

Members of Congress, Muslim civil society and community leaders, diplomats from Muslim countries and senior U.S. officials usually attend the State Department Ramadan event, a symbol of the U.S. government’s diplomatic efforts with Muslim countries and people.

 

If Tillerson avoids hosting one this year, that could send a message “that it is not as important to this administration to engage with Muslims,” said former U.S. diplomat Farah Pandith, who served in the Bush and Obama administrations and helped plan Ramadan events at the White House and State Department.

Tillerson issued a statement on Friday to mark the start of Ramadan, which he called “a month of reverence, generosity, and self-reflection.”

“Most importantly, it is a cherished time for family and friends to gather and give charity to those who are less fortunate,” he said.

PAST RAMADANS

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright started the tradition 18 years ago of America’s top diplomat hosting a public event for Ramadan, a lunar month.

The secretary of state of the time usually gives remarks there on the meaning of Ramadan.

In April, the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs made a request to Tillerson’s office that he deliver remarks at an Eid al-Fitr reception this year, and suggested a two-week range of dates in July. The event would serve to “highlight State Department initiatives and the importance of Muslim engagement,” the memo said.

It noted that by hosting a reception just after Ramadan, rather than an iftar – an often sumptuous dinner at sunset – a State Department event could be held any time of the day, thus preventing “a very late evening for the Secretary.”

Several weeks later, that office and other offices at the State Department were alerted that Tillerson declined the request, the officials said.

Reuters was told of the request being declined but did not see Tillerson’s reply. An official with the Office of Religion and Global Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

Several prominent Muslim-American groups in the Washington area who are normally invited to the Ramadan event told Reuters this week that they had yet to receive an invitation from the State Department, which they said was unusual.

“If they’re having one, we haven’t been invited,” said Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Washington. A representative for her group has been invited to the State Department event in the past, she said.

 

FRAUGHT RELATIONSHIP

Trump’s administration has had a fraught relationship with Muslims. As a presidential candidate, the Republican urged a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, called for more surveillance of mosques and warned that radical Muslims were “trying to take over our children.”

Trump has since toned down his rhetoric and courts have halted his temporary travel ban on people from six mostly Muslim countries.

White House officials did not respond to a request for comment on whether they would continue the tradition this year of hosting a Ramadan-related event at the White House.

The State Department celebrates other religious traditions though some of those commemorations are not as well-established as the State Department’s Ramadan event. In 2014, then-secretary of state John Kerry hosted the first ever celebration at the State Department marking Diwali, the Hindu festival.

The White House also traditionally hosts annual Christmas and Easter events as well as a Seder dinner to mark the Jewish Passover.

The top U.S. diplomat has personally hosted a Ramadan event every year since 1999, often in the State Department’s grand Benjamin Franklin room, apart from three years.

In 2006 and 2015, deputies of the secretary of state at the time hosted either an iftar dinner or an Eid al-Fitr reception. In 2014, Kerry hosted a reception for Eid al-Adha, another important Muslim holiday.

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UK property developer to trade parking spots for Uber credit

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Here's everything ASUS unveiled at Computex 2017

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