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Microsoft is following the customers and the ecosystem, but pragmatic investment in Linux doesn't diminish the company's commitment to Windows.

Microsoft adopts or supports Linux when the customers are there.

Image: Microsoft

'Microsoft and Linux' should be a phrase we're used to hearing by now. Microsoft is a member of not only theLinux Foundationbut also the Linux kernel security mailing list (a rather more select community). Microsoft issubmitting patchesto the Linux kernel "to create a complete virtualisation stack with Linux and Microsoft hypervisor". And when Microsoft wanted to add container support to Windows, it picked an open-source specification designed originally for Linux rather than the internal Windows-centric implementation it had already written.

Now Azure customers get the same hybrid benefits for Linux support contracts as they do for Windows Server licences; Windows runs Linux binaries; some key Microsoft applications are available on Linux; and new services might be built with Linux. That's not just the obvious ones like the Azure Kubernetes Service:Microsoft Tunnel-- the VPN replacement for iOS and Android apps connecting to corporate resources on-premises through Azure AD -- installs as a Docker container on a Linux server.

SEE: Windows 10 Start menu hacks (TechRepublic Premium)

At the recentAzure Open Day, Kubernetes co-founder and Microsoft corporate vice-president Brendan Burns talked about Microsoft having a deep understanding of Linux and contributing to existing open-source projects based on Linux as well as founding new ones likeDapr(Distributed Application Runtime).

"Azure can provide best-in-class support for Linux and container infrastructure and I think this is because we have a deep understanding of what it takes to run Linux in a hyperscale cloud," said Burns. "We have a deep understanding and engagement in both Linux and container communities. We contribute source code to all of these environments."

In short, Microsoft 'hearts' Linux.

But forget the idea of throwing away the Windows kernel and replacing it with a Linux kernel, because Microsoft's approach to Linux is far more pragmatic and comprehensive. Although the company is now thoroughly cross-platform, not every application will move to or take advantage of Linux. Instead, Microsoft adopts or supports Linux when the customers are there, or when it wants to take advantage of the ecosystem with open-source projects.

Microsoft's Tunnel VPN gateway is provided as a container running on a Linux host.

Image: Microsoft

Back in 2008, when Hyper-V was released, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server became the first non-Windows operating system officially supported (and 'enlightened' to improve performance) on Hyper-V -- two years after Microsoft and Novell signed an agreement to work on interoperability and seven years after then-CEOSteve Ballmer infamously comparedLinux licensing to "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches".

Microsoft was no doubt hoping to win over Linux users to the enterprise features in Windows Server, but customer support mattered too. In 2009, Microsoft and Red Hat announced that Microsoft would validate Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V, Red Hat would validate Windows Server guests virtualised on Linux, and the companies would offer joint technical support to enterprise customers using the two operating systems together.

Over time, Linux support at Microsoft became rather more enthusiastic, if no less pragmatic: .NET had to go open source and cross-platform or it was going to lose its customer base; that also meant becoming a modular, agile project built on GitHub with the community, rather than a framework that shipped once every three to five years with a new version of Windows.

Linux workloads on Azure began to outpace Windows Server VMs, both for customer's own applications and for apps from ISVs. "If you look at the images that we have on Azure Marketplace, sixty percent of them are based on Linux," Talal Alqinawi, senior director in Azure marketing, told TechRepublic recently. "We support some of the largest enterprise workloads in Azure -- like SAP, for example -- and they are almost completely run on Linux today."

As a result, Microsoft began working with distros like Red Hat and Ubuntu totune the Linux kernel for Azure; and if customers run into bugs in Linux when it's running on Azure, Microsoft will work on the bug and contribute code to fix problems (or just to make workloads likeSAPrun better).

SEE:60 Excel tips every user should master

Similarly, bringing SQL Server to Linux in 2016 meant that Microsoft could carry on competing with Oracle for database customers who didn't want to move to Windows Server because they'd invested in containerisation and DevOps. In 2017, Tony Petrossian, then in the Microsoft database systems group, told us: "Apart from all the obvious reasons -- that people are using Linux -- one of the big motivators for us was that a lot of the container and private cloud technologies are built on Linux infrastructure and we wanted SQL Server to be part of that ecosystem."

By the time PowerShell became a cross-platform, open-source project in 2018, Jeffrey Snover (creator of PowerShell and then the chief architect for Azure infrastructure) could say quite sincerely: "The company is becoming a cross-OS company; I like to say 'the sea refuses no river' and we want to be the company for everybody, no matter what platform you're using."

Linux support is important for hybrid cloud with Kubernetes, for edge computing with containers, and for IoT devices that often don't have the resources to run Windows. Although Windows has become modular over the years, and stripping the GUI out of Nano Server makes it a much smaller image than full Windows Server, a custom Linux build can be smaller still.

When Microsoft started work onAzure Sphereas a secure, updateable IoT platform in 2015, it wasn't surprising that Azure Sphere OS combined security innovations Microsoft had first used in Windows with a custom Linux kernel rather than an IoT version of Windows. At the time, Azure was already buildingSONiC, the network OS based on Microsoft's Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) specification and Debian.

Microsoft's buying power meant it could ask network hardware suppliers to support SONiC so that all the network hardware it bought for Azure would run the NOS (which makes SONiC support widespread enough that advanced enterprises can start adopting it themselves). And making it open source and submitting it to theOpen Compute Projectmeant that hardware vendors and other cloud providers like Alibaba and (even before the acquisition) LinkedIn could contribute improvements.

Microsoft also used a custom Linux kernel for the AzureOpen Network Emulator(originally called CrystalNet), a system that runs both containers and VMs to emulate the entire Azure network for testing network changes before they're made.

Teams is the first Microsoft 365 app to come to Linux.

Image: Microsoft

TheLinux Systems Groupat Microsoft also created an internal Linux distribution,CBL-Mariner, designed for IaaS; (it stands for Common Base Linux). It's used for running the Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI -- but again, it's not a general Linux distribution like Ubuntu.

The same group creates theLinux kernel used for WSL2, theWindows Subsystem for Linuxthat puts a Linux kernel in Windows so you can run Linux binaries. That's to make developers' lives easier, because so many tools and frameworks assume developers are using Linux -- and even though Visual Studio Code is available on Linux, Microsoft has spent the past few years working on wooing developers onto Windows.

"We're really trying to meet developers where they're at in terms of what they can do," Andrew Clinick from the Windows developer platform team told TechRepublic. WSL started out as a way of accessing Linux command-line tools, but developers wanted more than that. "So now you can run GUI apps, and you can run, essentially, what you would expect from Linux, so you can run all your workflows," said Clinick. "We're trying to provide you a complete solution so that it's not, 'oh, I guess I can run some Linux on Windows'. We want to make Windows the best place for you to be able to build any application. WSL is part of that, as Linux integration with Azure. No matter where your code is running, you can create it on Windows and you can utilise it on Windows -- and obviously in the cloud."

At the launch of.NET 5, the Visual Studio teamexplained the value of WSL 2for developers in very pragmatic terms. "For a Windows .NET user targeting Linux, WSL 2 lives in a sweet spot between production realism and productivity". Debugging in a remote Linux environment or container means the code is running where it will run in production, but debugging locally in WSL is faster and more convenient.

Microsoft seems to have taken some convincing to create aTeams client for Linux-- the first Microsoft 365 app to come to Linux -- instead of telling customers to use the web client. Customers who had staff using Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Linux could get everyone except the developers and admins working on Linux devices on the same collaboration platform, and over 9,000 requests on User Voice and unofficial Linux clients for Teams showed there was a clear customer demand. The status of the Linux Teams client bounced from 'working on it' to 'declined' to 'under review' to 'on the backlog' before it was confirmed.

That back-and-forth is a reminder that Microsoft's relationship with Linux is a journey: internal developers have become increasingly comfortable working with Linux and playing key roles in open-source communities, but product teams still need to think about business models and resource allocation. Developers and infrastructure are the areas where these decisions seem to be clearest for Microsoft.

Just as organisations want all their staff talking on the same platform, attackers looking for targets as they move around inside a network don't care if an application server is running Windows or Linux. So bringing the variousDefender security tools to Linuxis much like bringing them to macOS, iOS and Android to offer customers a comprehensive endpoint solution.

"With Microsoft Defender, we've delivered Linux support over the last year or so, we're completing our work on Android and we have a preview for iOS," general manager for Microsoft security Andrew Conway told us.

"And then if you look at the Azure Defender components on the Azure platform side, the team has been utilising Azure Arc to extend all of the Azure defender protections, not just across assets in Azure but also assets that would live in hybrid clouds and GCP and AWS, and so on, " Conway added. "It's absolutely part of our cross-platform and cross-cloud approach to delivering security for all workloads."

When the idea of bringing the new Chromium-based Edge browser to Linux first came up, the question for the Edge team was whether the people saying 'Microsoft should bring Edge to Linux' wanted to use Edge on Linux or whether they wanted Microsoft to prove something about making Edge cross-platform. While the enthusiasts who were vocal about asking for Edge on Linux are one part of the target audience, developers were a big part of the decision, technical program manager Sean Larkin explained in asession at Ignitethis year.

"We know that Linux has a huge market share for CI/CD and automation and browser automation, so we wanted to be able to give you the ability to test on any browser across any system and any platform so that you could have a consistent experience, whether it be your test running, your test failing or having your automation tools working as seamless as possible," said Larkin.

Hyper-V has been able to virtualise Linux for a long time, and making it work well used to explain Microsoft's significant contributions to the Linux kernel, because having Hyper-V support in the kernel meant it would be in every Linux distro. But why is Microsoft offering to make Hyper-V run with Linux rather than Windows Server as the host?

Ben Armstrong, one of the veteran Hyper-V developers at Microsoft, gave us a cautious answer: "While we were developing Windows 8, we dedicated resources to take Hyper-V (which until that point in time had been exclusively a Windows Server offering) and bring it over to Windows Client. Enabling Hyper-V on Windows 8 allowed us to implement VBS, VSM, Credential Guard and more in Windows 10 -- and more."

"That is where we are at with the recent Linux kernel contributions to enable Hyper-V to utilize Linux as the root partition. We want to be ready to support this configuration quickly if a business need arises," Armstrong added.

Microsoft isn't saying what the business opportunity here might be. But it's more likely to involve enabling hybrid cloud or Kubernetes support with services likeAzure Stack HCI(or even being ready to compete with Apple if it makes another play for the server market using Arm silicon) than throwing away the Windows kernel, where it's still investing deeply, from security improvements to making low-level changes to optimise the performance of APIs that virtual machines rely on.

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What is Microsoft doing with Linux? Everything you need to know about its plans for open source - TechRepublic

When officers working a construction detail at 1 Post Office Square Wednesday evening noticed a guy trying door handles on cars near them and he ran when he saw them approaching, they gave chase, police say.

Police report officers caught up with Michael OLeary, 36, formerly of Somerville and now of Boston, a couple blocks away on Kilby Street, near State Street, and arrested him.

But they did not charge him for trying door handles in Post Office Square but because he seems to have missed court dates for an incident in February, 2019, in which officers allegedly caught him in the act of rummaging around a car on North Washington Street and grabbing a gun he found in it.

O'Leary will now head into court to face charges of breaking and entering in the nighttime and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition for that incident, police say.

Innocent, etc.

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Man already wanted for breaking into a car is arrested while trying to break into more cars, police say - Universal Hub

Running Android apps on Windows 10 generally requires an emulator, with loads of programs out there to fill this gap. Fortunately, it emerged last week that Microsoft is thinking about bringing native Android app support to Windows 10.

Windows Central reported that this initiative is dubbed Project Latte and could be coming in 2021. This would allow developers to port their Android apps to the Microsoft Store with little in the way of code updates.

That got us wondering whether Android Authority readers would like to see Android app support in Windows 10. So we asked you last week, and this is how you voted.

A grand total of 2,681 votes were cast in this Android Authority poll, and the overwhelming majority of respondents (94.3%) were keen for Android app support to come to Windows 10. We can see why so many users voted for Android app support, as it would instantly give Windows 10 users a ton of choice when it came to apps and games.

Only 5.7% of those surveyed didnt want to see Android app support come to Windows 10. It seems like at least some of these users point to the possible omission of Google Play Services as a reason to skip these apps on Windows.

Well likely have to wait for more info to land in the coming months to figure out exactly how Microsoft could be planning to implement this feature. It wouldnt be the first time Microsoft dabbled with Android app support on its own platform though, having tested Android app support on early Windows 10 Mobile builds.

Thanks for voting in this poll and for all your comments! What do you think of Android app support on Windows 10 or the poll results? Let us know below!

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We asked, you told us: A ton of you really want Android apps on Windows 10 - Android Authority

BUCKTOWN The Hideout has teamed up with local artists to create gifts and merchandise for the holidays.

The beloved dive bar and indie venue, 1354 W. Wabansia Ave., is hosting a holiday merchandise sale. Gifts were inspired by pieces of The Hideouts history and its iconic interior, manager Alice Blander said.

We kind of pulled from all these things The Hideout has in it, she said. Part of everything that we do is made by an actual artist who typically either ate, drank or was in a band at The Hideout.

For example, the back of the The Hideouts hoodies ($50) depicts the iron window grate created by a Finkl Steel worker in 1997.

When Tim and Katie Tuten bought the Prohibition-era bar, the riverfront part of Bucktown was heavily industrial. A local steelworker, Brad Frost, remarked on how arty the Tutens seemed and how their ownership of the bar was a sign of changing times.

Because break-ins at the bar were frequent, Frost offered to weld bars for the bars front and back windows. For the front window, he told the Tutens, We gotta do something cool with this.

He welded bars in an intricate geometric pattern. When he unveiled his work, he told the Tutens, You didnt think I had it in me, did you?

Frost went to the bar and got a beer. Then he told everyone to look closer at the grate.

We all freaked out when we saw Hideout, Tuten said. And Brad just stood there, drinking a beer, smiling.

Since then, The Hideout has become a staple in Chicagos independent music and arts scene. The bar has hosted countless neighborhood and charity events.

The Finkl steel plant was torn down in 2015. Its being replaced by Lincoln Yards, a $6 billion, 55-acre mega-development.

Brad is in his 60s now, Tuten said. He comes by once in awhile and says, I made that. Thats gonna be on a sweatshirt.

Other gifts for sale:

Though not yet on the website, look out for scarves depicting The Hideouts namesake stage banner, a metal camping mug ($17) and puzzles depicting Tim Tutens beer can collection and The Hideouts interior ($39).

These gifts will be added to the bars virtual shop and will be shipped to buyers.

In addition to shopping The Hideout-specific gifts this month, you can shop the bars virtual craft fair.

The Hideout will feature local artists and makers on its website and Instagram Thursday-Saturday. All sales will directly benefit the artists; however, shoppers can tip the The Hideout or donate money to a charity of their choosing.

Independent theaters and music venues were among the first businesses to close when the coronavirus pandemic swept Chicago in March and willlikely be the last to open, industry experts say.

In Chicago, venue owners say 90 percent of the citys indie clubsdont think they can surviveseveral more months of being closed without federal support.

Its critical supporters of The Hideout step up by shopping the holiday sale, Tuten said.

The money we make in December is gonna help us get through January and February, he said.

The Hideout isnt the only bar capitalizing on the holiday shopping season to make ends meet. In West Town, the Irish Nobleman is selling bar-themed clothing and face masks as part of a holiday pop-up market.

Gov. JB Pritzkers plan for reopening Illinoissays Chicago wont be able to reopen theaters or allow indoor service at bars until the region exits the Tier 3 restrictions of the larger Phase 4 category which is only possible if the city sees a continued decline in new coronavirus cases and if hospitals have space.

But even then, gatherings could be limited and businesses that reopen will have capacity limits. Large gatherings, including concerts, wont be permitted until Phase 5, which wont happen until theres a vaccine, widespread treatment for COVID-19 or no new cases at all.

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Help The Hideout Make It Through Winter By Picking Up Bar-Themed Ornaments, Puzzles And More - Block Club Chicago

PowerToys, which is principally a group of extraordinarily useful instruments for energy customers, is getting an enormous replace on Windows 10. Microsoft PowerToys replace features a new interface for built-in picture resizer, Color Picker, and a bunch of bug fixes.

PowerToys is an open-source instrument and its been round because the days of Windows 95. In late 2018, Microsoft revisited PowerToys and created new utilities particularly for Windows 10.

Earlier this yr, Microsoft added a brand new utility known as Image Resizer that can assist you resize pictures and cut back their measurement in bulk. It comes with a quite simple strategy but it surely has been lacking a user-friendly interface.

With at presents replace, Microsoft is bringing Windows 10s Fluent UI to the picture resizer. It makes use of each Fluent Design and ModernWPF to imitate the WinUI feel and look, and the replace additionally allows assist for themes.

With the improved Image Resizer, now you can instantly resize the chosen photographs by selecting the pre-defined sizes Small, Medium, Large, Phone and Custom. You may also customise the default sizes for the pre-defined modes.

Microsoft has even added rounded corners to the PowerToys and its additionally following the design strategy of Windows 10X.

As we talked about on the outset, Microsoft can be introducing a brand new and improved Color Picker with Fluent UI and WinUI-like rounded corners. For these unaware, Color Picker is a instrument that permits you to scan any space of your desktop, apps or screenshots to detect and choose colours.

After the brand new PowerToys replace, the Color Picker makes use of drop shadows for higher distinction and now you can additionally choose a distinct shade of coloration by clicking on the smaller rectangles.

Heres the whole changelog:

If youre , youll be able to obtain the newest replace of PowerToys from Microsofts Github.

The put up Microsofts PowerToys for Windows 10 will get a contemporary replace with new options appeared first on Windows Latest

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Microsoft's PowerToys for Windows 10 will get a contemporary replace with new options - Enter21st

It took longer than expected, but a long-vacant Old Town space is roaring, well as much as that is possible during a pandemic. Uproar is open near Wells and Division with playful drinks and late-night bites. Its the first project from a new company comprised of Chicago restaurant veterans and members of Ohio-based Forward Hospitality Group.

Uproar is independent of Forward, and the first project from Uproar Hospitality Group who instructed crews to gut the space where modern Mexican restaurant Salpicon operated for 22 years at 1252 N. Wells Street. Ownership has big plans for the space, even without indoor dining during the pandemic. The first floor features a bar and a takeout window in back that will eventually open late night. Carryout and delivery is available on Grubhub, Uber Eats, and DoorDash.

The main bar has been replaced.

The foods from chef Jamie Fischer (Cindys Rooftop, S.K.Y.) who presents familiar American diner dishes with a refined gloss. The menu is divided into vintage and modern categories. The former includes hush puppies (white cheddar, Crystal Hot Sauce) and an Uproar Burger (special sauce, Hooks aged cheddar); the latter features squash soup (yellow curry, giardiniera, toasted pepitas) and a fried chicken sandwich with Calabrian chili. Fisher also features a rotating weekly family meal: The current iteration stars Japanese-style items like pork gyoza and matcha cream puffs. The first week was Americana themed, and proffered short rib pot roast and apple cobbler.

Cocktail kits, beer, and wine are available to go.Uproars drink selection lavishes attention on cheapish beer theres an entire Champagne of Beers section dedicated to Miller High Life. With room for about 100 between both floors, Uproars space includes two bars and various loungy drinking spaces with lots of bold, geometric shapes, busy modern wallpaper, and a large pink neon sign of a hand making a peace sign. The 40-person sidewalk patio is tented and outfitted with purple lights and large heaters.

Partners want to eventually replace the second-floor windows with glass that could open up. That could be essential to help air flow and to allow safer operations during the pandemic. Theres no timeframe for those changes, as time doesnt flow normally during COVID-19.

Various sections of the space feature different aesthetic approaches.

When patrons can safely gather indoors, operators aim to feature a music program thatll be the best in the city, with DJ sets featuring sounds from pop performers, rockstars, and Motown legends. They also plan to host live music events.

Uproar partner Dante Deiana is a DJ and promoter who has spent time on Barstool Sports Blackout Tour. He is also a partner in Ohio-based Forward Hospitality Group. Thats the same group behind Shake-It, a forthcoming Ukrainian Village burger bar from James Beard Award-winning chef Jonathon Sawyer (Adorn).

Uproar, 1252 N. Wells Street, (312) 643-0797, Carryout and delivery available online, Open 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; Noon on Saturday and Sunday. Call to confirm closing time.

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Uproar Launches in Old Town with Spicy Pickled Pepper Martinis - Eater Chicago

The vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs indoors, mostly from the inhalation of airborne particles that contain the coronavirus. But in spite of the obvious risks posed by being inside, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, small household gatherings are driving much of the recent surge in cases.

The best way to prevent the virus from spreading in a home would be simply to keep infected people away. But this is hard to do when an estimated 40% of cases are asymptomatic and asymptomatic people can still spread the coronavirus to others. Next safest is to entertain outside, but if you cant, there are a few things you can do to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

First and most important always wear masks, make sure everyone stays at least 6 feet away from other people and dont spend too much time indoors. But in addition to these precautions, making sure the air inside is as clean as possible can also help. I am an indoor air quality researcher who studies how to reduce the transmission of airborne infectious diseases. Using increased ventilation or running an appropriately sized air cleaner or filter can add an extra layer of protection.

A safer home is one that constantly has lots of outside air replacing the stale air inside.

Homes are typically ventilated through open windows or doors, or from air leaking in through unintentional openings and cracks in the building itself. A typical air exchange rate for a home is around 0.5 air changes per hour. Because of the complicated way air moves, that translates into taking about two hours to replace two-thirds of the air inside an average home, and about six hours to replace all of it.

This slow air exchange is not good when you want to limit the spread of an airborne virus. The higher the ventilation rate the better so how much fresh air is ideal? While the exact exchange rate depends on the size of a room, as an example, a 10-by-10-foot room with three to four people inside should have at least three air changes an hour. In a pandemic this should be higher, and the World Health Organization recently recommended six air changes per hour.

Knowing the exact air exchange rate for your home isnt necessary; just know that more is better. Thankfully, increasing the ventilation of a house or apartment is easy.

Open as many windows as you can the larger the opening the better. Open doors to the outside. Run the exhaust fans in your bathroom and above the stove though only do this if the exhausts go to the outside and if you also have a window or door open. Additionally, you can place fans in open windows and blow the inside air out to even further boost your air flow.

I live in Colorado, and the winter cold has arrived. I still think it is worth it to have windows open, but I open them only about halfway and turn on the heaters in my house. This wastes energy, but I keep the time I have to do this to a minimum, and once visitors leave, I keep the windows open for at least an hour to completely air out the house.

All of these things add up and increase ventilation.

If you are worried that your home ventilation is still too low, air filtration can offer another layer of safety. Much the way an N95 mask works, running air in your home through a filter with small openings can capture airborne particles that could contain the coronavirus.

There are two ways to filter air in a home: using a built-in system like central heating, for example or using stand-alone air cleaners.

In my home, we use both air cleaners and our heating system to filter the air. If you have central heating, make sure your furnace filter has a minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) of at least 11. This value describes how effective a filter is at removing airborne particles and contaminants from the recirculated air. The standard on most furnaces is a MERV 8 filter and many furnaces are not capable of running with a more efficient filter, so make sure to check your filter and ask a technician before replacing it. But a MERV 8 filter is better than no filtration at all.

You can also use a stand-alone air cleaner to remove airborne particles, but how effective they are depends on the size of the room. The bigger the room, the more air needs to be cleaned, and stand-alone cleaners are only so powerful. My home has an open floor plan, so I cant use my air cleaner in the main living space, but it can be helpful in bedrooms or any other smaller enclosed spaces. If you consider buying an air cleaner, I worked with some colleagues at Harvard to build a tool that can be used to determine how powerful an air cleaner you need for different room sizes.

And dont forget to also consider how effective an air cleaners filter is. Your best option is a cleaner that uses a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, as these remove more than 99.97% of all particle sizes.

If you decide to share your home with others in the coming months, remember that being outside is by far the safest. But if you must be inside, shorten the length of time your guests stay, wear masks and socially distance at all times. In addition to these precautions, keeping air flow high by opening windows as wide as possible, driving more air into your home with exhaust fans and using air cleaner and filters can help further reduce the chance of spreading the coronavirus.

Shelly Miller, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Open windows and doors to boost air flow and help remove airborne particles | Opinion - pennlive.com

LOUISVILLE, Ky. The Miller Transportation bus was idling in the parking lot at noon Thursday as Scotty Davenport reached into his car and stuffed things into an already-full duffle bag. A couple shirts were squeezed in. A belt went in the side compartment.

The journey of a coaching lifetime was about to begin.

Think of all the years in that gym, Davenport says, cocking his head toward Knights Hall a few feet away. Think of all the hoursaround the clock sometimes, literally. And think of where were going now.

Davenport paused, blue eyes sparkling above his maroon mask. It can be done, he says. It can.

Where the Bellarmine University Knights are going now is Cameron Indoor Stadium. Their first game as an NCAA Division I basketball program will be Friday night against none other than the Duke Blue Devils. After decades at the Division II level playing in nondescript, Great Lakes Valley Conference gyms around the Midwest, the DI baptism will come in the games cathedral.

Bellarmine is one of four 2020 additions to D-I, alongside Tarleton State, UC San Diego and Dixie State. That swells the ranks to 357. But only one of the newcomers is opening like this, finding an opponent suitably grand to match the ambition that got Bellarmine here.

Bellarmine University's men's basketball team prepares for its first season of Division I basketball.

Matt Stone/Courier Journal-Imagn Content Services, LLC

The school is new to Division I, but Davenport is nothe was an assistant to Hall of Famers Denny Crum and Rick Pitino at Louisville before getting the Bellarmine head-coaching job in 2005. Davenport put his connections to work when constructing the teams original schedule.

In July, the opener was going to be on different sacred ground in the sport: UCLAs Pauley Pavilion. Davenport arranged that through Bruins coach Mick Cronin, who also was on Pitinos staff at Louisville in the early 2000s. The second game was Duke, a matchup that came to be with the help of assistant coach Nolan Smithhis late father, Derek, was a standout for Louisville when Davenport was a walk-on junior varsity player in the early 1980s. A trip to Gonzaga also was on the slate.

But as everyone in college hoops knows, summer schedules became as disposable as cocktail napkins. Everything was torn apart and has been pieced back together. As recently as Wednesday morning, Davenport was still hoping the game against Duke was on for Friday, with a second game in Cameron Sunday against Howard.

To Bellarmines elation, the schedule held.

As the sun crept into the morning sky Thursday, Davenport went out for his daily run. The 62-year-old logged four miles around the Crescent Hill reservoir, puffing clouds of breath into the 27-degree air, as his mind raced. When he got to the office, Davenport wrote a thank you note to Mike Krzyzewski for scheduling the game, hoping to hand-deliver it Friday.

Then the Knights practiced Thursday morning in their own gym before embarking on the eight-hour bus ride to Durham. (They opted not to fly to minimize contact with the outside world and keep their team healthy.) After practice, Davenport read his team a text he received from a retired Louisville Metro Police officer, George Rodman, whose son and fellow officer, Nick, was killed in the line of duty in 2017:

Coach D, in this crazy world, life experiences are invaluable. When you experience a tragic loss youre always searching for a ray of sunshine in life. Please tell the team theyre more than basketball players, they are the ray of sunshine that helps us put one foot in front of the other. They give us something to be excited about! We will be watching and cheering. Have a great year!

Scotty Davenport couldnt get through reading it to his team without tears.

Bellarmine men's basketball head coach Scott Davenport watches a recent practice.

Matt Stone/Courier Journal-Imagn Content Services, LLC

If the baptism is Friday, conception came in June 2019. Thats when the small Catholic college in the Highlands neighborhood of Louisville was announced as a member of the Atlantic Sun Conference. (Davenport received a congratulatory call then from Pitino, who touted him for the Bellarmine job.) Official delivery date was July 1, 2020, when school president Susan Donovan hit send on the paperwork to NCAA offices.

On that day, the Birth of a Program, Davenport walked into a darkened Knights Hall, sat down in Section 208 and cried.

The winningest coach in Bellarmine history took over a program coming off five straight losing seasons and by year four had the Knights in the Division II tournament sweet sixteen. In 2011, Bellarmine won the D-II national championship, then made three subsequent Final Fours. Davenport built the thing, and July 1 was the emotional payoff.

The coach doesnt just wear his emotions on his sleeve; he wears them on his trousers, his collar, his forehead everywhere. North Carolina coach Roy Williams has declared himself the corniest man in college basketball, but he better make room for the new guy. The guy whose ring tone on his phone is One Shining Moment. The Louisville lifer who will tell stories for hours about growing up here and wanting to make his hometown proud.

If a guy like me can get right here, right now, he says, anyone can.

Davenport lived at 1508 Central Avenue, just a few blocks from Churchill Downs, in Louisvilles gritty South End. (There are few things he loves more than holding court in the mornings of Kentucky Derby week in the Churchill barn area.) His father, Lawrence, died of a heart attack on Halloween when Scotty was 9 years old. Raised by his mom, Evelyn, who had a sixth-grade education and worked for 43 years as a hair stylist, he rode the city bus to junior high. He was not blessed with abundant athletic talent, but had an unquenchable love of basketball and played at Iroquois High School.

That quickly channeled him into coaching after college. The first job was as a graduate assistant to Crum, then as an assistant coach for one season at Virginia Commonwealth, then back home as the head coach at Ballard High School.

In his first two seasons, Ballard was part of two epic state championship games. The Bruins, led by sophomore and future NBA star Allan Houston, lost the 1987 title in overtime to Clay County, a rural school from deep in Appalachia led by future Kentucky guard Richie Farmer. In the 1988 rematch, Ballard withstood a 51-point barrage from Farmer to gain revenge.

The second game garnered national attention and brought ESPNs Scholastic Sports America show to town to cover it. The fresh-faced reporter on the story for ESPN: Chris Fowler, the current face of college football for the network. After Ballard won, Davenport cajoled Fowler into joining the victory party at Gerstles Tavern, and convinced the owner to keep the place open all night.

Crum brought Davenport back to his staff in the mid-1990s, and Pitino wisely chose to keep him on staff for institutional memory when he took over in 2001. But that job came with one condition: Davenport had to lose weight. Pitinos famous preoccupation with his players conditioning didnt stop when it came to his staff.

Think of all the things your dad never got to see you do, Pitino said to Davenport before putting him on a workout regimen.

At the time, Davenport weighed 249 pounds. Within a year, hed lost 78. Hes kept the weight off ever since.

As with most Pitino staffers, there was always a chance for upward mobility. When Bellarmine opened, Davenport jumped at the chance to be a college head coach in his hometown. He set the same hard-work expectation for his players that had guided his life, and told them that meeting expectations might require some extra hours.

The back door [to the gym], Davenport says, if you yank it hard enough, sometimes it opens. And the ball rack, I set it right by the office door for a reason. I can tell if theyve been used.

The wins piled up, and Bellarmine found its niche in a basketball-mad city preoccupied by rival powers Kentucky and Louisville. The Knights were Switzerland. And a fun Switzerland at that.

Everyone in this town can argue every day about red and blue, and one side hating the other, Davenport says. But they can all like us. Two guys sitting in an office arguing all day can say, Lets go watch Bellarmine, and eat popcorn together and cheer for the same team.

What few people ever saw comingincluding Davenportwas Division I status. Lacrosse actually paved the way, moving to D-I in 2005. Given the basketball programs prowess, the school gradually started envisioning the entire athletic program joining the big-time.

Sitting in Section 208 on July 1, Davenport had one more reason to be emotional. A few feet away was a plaque honoring his late mother, who sat there in her wheelchair in later years for home games. If Lawrence and Evelyn could have seen him then

Bellarmine men's basketball head coach Scott Davenport smiles while talking with his team during a recent practice.

Matt Stone/Courier Journal-Imagn Content Services, LLC

On July 5, Bellarmine welcomed its first Division I basketball team back to campus. They had physicals, checked players into dorms, and had a meeting on COVID-19 protocols. Then Davenport herded all the players into Section 208 for a quick talk.

The theme: privilege and opportunity.

What about those Cincinnati soccer players? he asks, referencing a program that had just been eliminated. You think theyd like to be you? What about all the players that came before you here? You get a chance to win the first Division I game in school history, and when that happens Im going to shake the other coachs hand and then sprint to watch you.

You feel lucky now? Nobody in the history of this place is going to do what you get to do.

Davenport asks the veteran players who their opening opponent was in 2019.

Northwoods, comes the response.

Oh! He shoots back. This year its UCLA.

(Or was.)

Then he asks who the second opponent was in 2019.

Saginaw Valley.

Oh! This year its Duke.

The players dispersed to play pickup, while Davenport went into his office. He and his wife, Sharon, had spent the previous night at Costco buying snacks for the locker room, laying out practice gear, putting new name plates on the lockers. At a D-I startup, the head coachs duty list is long.

These guys left here last spring disappointed they didnt get to play in the D-II tournament, Davenport says. They come back staring UCLA and Duke in the face. You think things changed in your life in the pandemic? Ill see you and raise you one.

That was in the swelter of a Louisville July. By early December, when it was time to get on the bus and actually stare Duke in the face, everyone was wearing coatseveryone but Davenport, bustling around the parking lot in a T-shirt that said, RISE.

A son of Louisvilles gritty South End has risen, and brought a basketball program with him. Next stop is the first stop in a newborn Division I basketball programs slightly miraculous journey: Cameron Indoor Stadium.

See the article here:
The Rise of the Bellarmine Knights: How a Rick Pitino Disciple Built a Division I Basketball Program in His Hometown - Sports Illustrated

Amazons Lord of the Ringsseries just announced their second wave of casting and we are excited by the twenty (yes, 20!) new additions to the epic series set in Middle Earths second age. These actors join the first group announced in January of this year. With alumni from beloved series likes Spartacus and Westworld, the list is seriously impressive, and it also includes some new faces you havent heard of.

Firstly, the folks we know: At the top of the list is Cynthia Addai-Robinson, who I absolutely adored in Starzs Spartacus series and who also played Amanda Waller on Arrow. Another Spartacus alum, Simon Merrells, who played Ceasar on the series, is also joining the cast. Sir Lenny Henry is a well-established British actor and comedian who co-founded Comic Relief and was seen in Broadchurch andHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Peter Mullan, who has impressed genre audience on Westworld and more recently on Netflixs Cursed is also joining the cast, and I cant think of a better actor to play a corrupt king of men, though Im just guessing there.

Other established names joining the cast are: Maxim Baldry (Years and Years), Maxine Cunliffe (Power Rangers Megaforce), Trystan Gravelle (A Discovery of Witches), Thusitha Jayasundera (Broadchurch), Fabian McCallum (You, Me & The Apocalypse), Geoff Morrell (Grassroots), Lloyd Owen (Apollo 18), Augustus Prew (The Morning Show), Peter Tait (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, as an Orc), Alex Tarrant (The Other Side of Heaven 2: Fire of Faith), Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and Sara Zwangobani (Home and Away)

The new batch also includes several New Zealands actors and relative newcomers for American audiences: Ian Blackburn, Leon Wadham, Kip Chapman, Anthony Crumwho we will see in Amazons upcoming series The Wilds.

What I love about this casting list isnt just that its clearly a group of talented actors, but that it is inclusive and diverse. We have actors who provide a wonderfully wide range of representation, which is something we really didnt get in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films.

The series will be set in Middle Earths second age, when Sauron was still hanging around with mortals pretending to be just a nice friend, and when the Island of Nmenor hadnt yet been cast into the sea (again, thanks to corruption from Sauron). So yes, theres totally a chance one of the announced actors is playing hot Sauron. This series promises to be an epic (and maybe even more adult?) story, and we cant wait to return to Middle Earth.

(via Entertainment Weekly, image: New Line Cinema)

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Amazon's Lord of the Rings Series Adds TWENTY New Cast Members - The Mary Sue

Parkour organizers are opposing the sports addition to the 2024 Olympics over a sport governance dispute with some intriguing parallels to swimming.

Parkour Earth is a group that organizes the sport of parkour, or free-running, on an international level. The groups site says it was established by an agreement of six national parkour federations in the summer of 2017. Parkour Earth describes itself as the International Federation for Parkour/Freerunning.

But Parkour Earth has been publicly critical of what it calls a hostile takeover of parkour by the international governing body for gymnastics: FIG. This AP story from 2018 details the conflict, in which FIG recognized parkour as a new discipline within gymnastics and scheduled a parkour world championship event. FIG has now begun lobbying the International Olympic Committee to get parkour added as an Olympic sport for the 2024 Olympics.

But parkour practitioners have complained about the gymnastics federations maneuvers, arguing that the gymnastics body was trying to co-opt the sport of parkour to make money off of a younger fan base.

They are completely whitewashing our sport, its integrity, its history, its lineage, its authenticity, said Parkour Earth headEugene Minoguein that 2018 story. They want to codify it, they want to monetize it. Its about money, about influence, about power, about control. Its about having a seat at the table.

The AP reports this week that Parkour Earth has urged the International Olympic Committee to reject parkours addition to the Olympics, criticizing FIGs encroachment and misappropriation of our sport.

Why am I reading about a parkour dispute on a swimming news website, one might wonder? Aside from the Olympic connection (the IOC is finalizing its program for the 2024 Olympics this week, and additions of new sports or new events within a sport are all somewhat interdependent), the parkour debate comes as swimming explores its own debate about who owns a sport on the international stage.

FINA has governed swimming on an international level since 1908. But criticism and corruption allegations leveled at that organization have come to a head recently with the introduction of the International Swimming League, which runs its meets outside of the FINA umbrella.

Established international federations like FINA or FIG (established in 1881) have accumulated enough size and power to make it difficult for smaller, less-established governing bodies like Parkour Earth to operate. Early in the International Swimming Leagues formation, FINA leaned on its authority over Olympic swimming to threaten two-year bans on athletes who competed in meets not approved by FINA among them, the Energy for Swim 2018 meet put together by the same organizers who were working to launch the ISL.

Ultimately, organizers canceled that Energy for Swim event rather than forcing athletes to decide whether to withdraw or risk an Olympic ban. But the ISL did launch the following year and just wrapped up its second competitive season.

More:
Parkour Organizers Oppose The Sport's Addition To 2024 Olympics - SwimSwam