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In the structure of the title salt, second-order Jahn–Teller distortion of the coordination octa­hedra around V ions is reflected by coexistence of short V—O bonds and trans-positioned long V—F bonds, with four equatorial V—F distances being inter­mediate in magnitude. Hydrogen bonding of the anions is restricted to F-atom acceptors only, with particularly strong N–H⋯F inter­actions [N⋯F = 2.5072 (15) Å] established by axial and cis-positioned equatorial F atoms.

The title compound exhibits exceptionally weak inter­molecular C—H⋯π hydrogen bonding of the ethynyl groups, with the corresponding H⋯π separations [2.91 (2) and 3.12 (2) Å] exceeding normal vdW distances. This bonding compliments distal contacts of the CH (aliphatic)⋯π type [H⋯π = 3.12 (2)–3.14 (2) Å] to sustain supra­molecular layers.

In certain scenarios, a Subsystem Reference block changes its position. It can happen during: 

1. Loading of top model which contains the Subsystem Reference block 
2. Synchronization of Subsystem Reference block's contents
3. Converting a subsystem to Subsystem Reference block 

The title compound, C14H16, exhibits exceptionally weak intermolecular C—H...π hydrogen bonding of the ethynyl groups, with the corresponding H...π separations [2.91 (2) and 3.12 (2) Å] exceeding normal vdW distances. This bonding complements distal contacts of the CH (aliphatic)...π type [H...π = 3.12 (2)–3.14 (2) Å] to sustain supramolecular layers. Hirshfeld surface analysis of the title compound suggests a relatively limited significance of the C...H/H...C contacts to the crystal packing (24.6%) and a major contribution from H...H contacts accounting 74.9% to the entire surface.

In the structure of the title salt, (C7H12N6)[VOF5], second-order Jahn–Teller distortion of the coordination octahedra around V ions is reflected by coexistence of short V—O bonds [1.5767 (12) Å] and trans-positioned long V—F bonds [2.0981 (9) Å], with four equatorial V—F distances being intermediate in magnitude [1.7977 (9)–1.8913 (9) Å]. Hydrogen bonding of the anions is restricted to F-atom acceptors only, with particularly strong N–H...F interactions [N...F = 2.5072 (15) Å] established by axial and cis-positioned equatorial F atoms. Hirshfeld surface analysis indicates that the most important interactions are overwhelmingly H...F/F...H, accounting for 74.4 and 36.8% of the contacts for the individual anions and cations, respectively. Weak CH...F and CH...N bonds are essential for generation of three-dimensional structure.

A Nintendo Entertainment System.; Credit: Mark Ramsay/Flickr Creative Commons

There have been plenty of video game movies over the years, but there have been far fewer actually good ones. "Ready Player One," based on the 2011 video game-inspired novel, has the chance to be a great one thanks to the announcement that Steven Spielberg has signed on to direct.

That book was inspired by classic video games, and was written using classic video game cheats to play parts of classic games and write them into his book, author Ernest Cline said in a recent talk. That got us thinking about the classic video game cheats and secrets that stuck with us from our younger days playing classic video games — here's our top 11.

1. The Konami Code

Up up down down left right left right B A start! This code became such a part of video game culture that it got its own name. It was popularized in various games made by Konami, particularly Contra, leading to it also being known as the "Contra Code" for its ability to give you 30 lives in the game. Before the Internet, it was spread through gaming magazines and word of mouth — it was so influential that there are still developers who put it in their games. (There's even an entire Wikipedia page of games, both from Konami and others, that use the Konami Code. It's even been used on some websites.)

What is the Konami Code

2. Street Figher II Turbo's turbo

The game that I actually used a code for the most as a kid, the Super Nintendo code down, R, up, L, Y, B on the second controller didn't give you any advantages — it just kicked the speed up. By default, you had a few selections for how fast the game would be, but you could multiple that several-fold with this code, letting you and your friends battle at what at the time felt unbelievably fast.

3. Super Mario Bros.'s Minus World

This one doesn't involve a code, but players managed to discover what was deemed a glitch in the game that put you into a messed up version of another level, dubbed by fans the Minus World due to just "-1" instead of a full level number appearing at the top of the screen. There was no way to escape the glitched level, no matter how hard you might try, sending you to play it over and over again until your time ran out or you were killed by enemies. Still, modern players have found that you can go on thanks to various computer emulators and the like; see some of the worlds beyond below:

Minus World video

4. Metroid and Justin Bailey

Fans early on discovered that the password JUSTIN BAILEY allowed you to start with all of the available weapons along with plenty of life and ammo. Fans didn't know whether Justin Bailey was a reference to an actual person, just a code coincidence or something else, but that didn't stop them from eagerly playing through with this code. It also removed lead character Samus Aran from her armor, allowing players to discover that the game's star was an early female lead character, even if her armor didn't clue players in before the end of the game without the code.

Justin Bailey video

5. Doom's God mode

By typing the letters iddqd in PC game Doom, players could enable God mode, making them essentially invincible and letting them power through the early first-person shooter. The code had been available in developer id's earlier game Wolfenstein, but hadn't been quite as easily accessible. So, if you ever need a power boost when you're fighting on Mars, Doom has the answer. (Unfortunately, we don't believe this provides any extra protection for NASA's Mars rovers.)

6. Mortal Kombat's Reptile

The developers of Mortal Kombat made a battle against Reptile unbelievably hard for Mortal Kombat fans, including putting some randomness into whether doing what you were supposed to do to unlock the character would even work. Still, players happily pumped in extra quarters for the chance to face off against Reptile, a character with a look that mirrored that of characters Sub-Zero and Scorpion, just with a different color. Players had to achieve a Double Flawless victory on the Pit level, finish the match using their fatality move, and there also had to be a silhouette flying past the moon in the background — which only happened every sixth game.

Mortal Kombat: Reptile

7. The Legend of Zelda's Second Quest

The Legend of Zelda was a pretty challenging early adventure game, one of the first releases for the Nintendo home video game console. When you beat the game, you were given the option to go on a "Second Quest," which was a tweaked version of the game you just played except waaaaay harder. However, if you thought you were the coolest kid on the block and were so awesome you didn't need a warmup, you could name your character "ZELDA" (in one of the more obvious cheats in video game history) and skip ahead to that Second Quest from the start. You would then likely cry from how hard it was and start another new game with a different name.

8. NBA Jam's celebrity secret characters

A variety of celebrities from sports, music, and even politics were available by putting in various initials combined with buttons on the controller. These included then-President Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Warren Moon and more. That tradition has been continued in more recent NBA Jam games, with President Obama and others available for your video gaming pleasure.

9. GoldenEye's extra modes

There were a wide variety of cheat codes for GoldenEye, widely considered one of the all-time great first-person shooters. Sure, you could use codes to unlock different levels, but the reason these codes are remembered is because it gave you all sorts of new ways to play against your friends. The game also had an actual cheat menu that would appear if you accomplished one of a variety of goals, and from that menu you could cheat extra hard by using your controller to unlock things like a paintball mode, turbo mode, modes with both giant heads and teeny-tiny James Bonds and more.

10. Sonic The Hedgehog 2's Debug Mode

The Sonic debug mode is the perfect example of why so many games included cheats back in the day: They were often for the developers to be able to more easily play the games while looking for bugs and doing other testing. Sonic 2 let you get to an actual debug mode by playing various sounds from the level select screen (1, 9, 9, 2, 1, 1, 2, 4, for your reference), then pressing start and holding the A button. Developers later put them in for fun and intended them for the players to discover, but some of the early cheat codes were just meant for developers — but players proved more intrepid than they may have anticipated.

Sonic debug mode

11. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out: Go straight to Mike Tyson

There was actually a password mode in this game — before games had the option to save, plenty of games gave you codes that let you get back to where you were before. This is one of the examples from that darker time, where whether you played through opponents like Glass Joe and Bald Bull or not, you could try your changes against Lightning Mike (at least until the video game's license ran out and he was replaced in future editions with the way less exciting "Mr. Dream"). You better have had a pen and paper ready when your friend started yelling at you 007 373 5963 for you to use on your own copy of the game — no sharing. The game is hard enough that even Mike Tyson had some trouble fighting himself:

Mike Tyson vs. Mike Tyson

Let us know in the comments the classic video games — and the classic cheat codes and secrets — that inspired you.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

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Child care provider Antonia Rivas leads children in yoga at her Reseda home on Feb. 13. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon is introducing a bill to fund child care and provider training, and set up a structure to facilitate collective bargaining for family child care workers.; Credit: File Photo: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon is introducing a new bill on Wednesday that aims to address the state's critical child care shortage and give providers the right to unionize.

The lack of sufficient child care has been statewide. In Los Angeles County, a recent study found only 2 percent of infants and toddlers have access to a licensed child care facility; for preschoolers, it's about 40 percent.

The shortage is most acute in low-income areas, and the bill aims to inject more child care vouchers into the system so poor families can have free child care.

A more controversial provision, however, would allow collective bargaining for those who provide child care in their homes whose earnings can fall near or below the minimum wage. Child advocates cite poor pay as a major reason why providers often leave the field.

“The turnover in the child care field is approaching 30 percent. So the lack of continuity and quality care is a major obstacle,” said El Cerrito Mayor Mark Friedman.

Friedman co-chairs a coalition of early childhood groups called Raising California Together. Preschool advocacy groups, anti-poverty and immigrant groups, NAACP, and the Santa Monica school district count among its members.

“I think one thing everybody agrees on as a high priority is getting more resources in the system, and if there is a strong union presence in the field that then there will be a stronger voice for those additional resources,” said Friedman. 

Under the bill,  a network of 32,000 home childcare providers statewide could unionize. Currently, providers operate as independent business owners and typically lack the right to organize and collectively bargain for wages.

Finding child care

For many families, having a quality child care option is their most pressing need.

Vicky Montoya, a Reseda mother of three, is desperate for a child care alternative to family members. Montoya’s 18-month-old son, Esteban, is a bright-eyed toddler who loves balls. He can fling one clear across a room, even a field. But all too often, when both his parents are at work, he’s not doing much.

“Sometimes he’s with an aunt, sometimes with my eldest daughter,” Montoya said in Spanish. “But he doesn’t really do anything, all he does is watch cartoons on TV. And he’s alone, there’s no other children around.”

Montoya works five hours a day at a solar company, where she makes $10 an hour. Her family depends on her income to supplement her husband’s low-wage, full-time job. Montoya applied for a child care voucher so Esteban could go to a properly licensed day care. She submitted two applications to a local agency over the last two months.

When she called the agency to find out the status of her applications, she said she wasn't given much information. “'You are on the waiting list,'” she said they told her, “'and there are people ahead of you.'”

Seeking unions as a solution

In Maryland, unionized providers reduced the wait list for poor families by 80 percent by securing state dollars to fund more free child care slots. According to a 2010 report by the National Women's Law Center, 14 states guarantee home-based child care workers the right to unionize.

SEIU Local 99 spokesperson Terry Carter said what local providers tell her is that they want a seat at the table where child care decisions are made.

“What collective bargaining would do for providers is it would let them sit down with the top decision makers in the state and say these are things that are simple to fix, they would vastly improve our ability to operate our businesses and they would give us the time to direct more of our attention and energies into raising California’s kids,” Carter said.  

Some of those issues include delayed government payments for subsidized child child and the low reimbursement rate from the state for serving low-income kids.

Antonia Rivas, a Reseda child care provider, knows well the struggle of providing care in her home. She infuses yoga and meditation into daily lessons, and buys organic food, her major expense.

But she also has to pay her assistants, buy toys, books, and supplies. After her costs, she said there is not much left.

“I just got my 2014 W-2 and it's $24,000,” Rivas said. Her W-2 comes from the agency that pays her for the low-income kids she serves. Add to that the $15,000 from her private paying families and Rivas pulled in about $40,000 last year. After expenses, she estimates she netted less than the minimum wage for her time.

Rivas said with her low wages and delays in receiving payments from government agencies for subsidized child care, she is constantly relying on credit to keep her business running.

“We need to get a contract [and] better pay,” Rivas said.

Even if the child care legislation passes, a contract with the state would be a long way down the road. All child care providers would need to vote on whether they want union representation. And, if all that is successful, child care providers could then negotiate a labor contract.

Similar bills granting child care providers the right to unionize have made it out of the legislature, but both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gov. Jerry Brown have vetoed them.

Opponents have called the effort to organize providers a move to empower labor unions, not fix a broken child care system. 

Recent legal rulings are also presenting challenges to unions seeking to organize both child care workers and health care workers. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year in an Illinois case that home health workers could opt out of paying union dues, even though they are paid with state subsidies.

While Vicky Montoya waits for a better solution for her son's care, she pays Esteban’s aunt or a neighbor $10 a day to watch him while she works.

“I know lots of families who have to leave their children with a babysitter, usually just a woman who watches the child. But they are not trained and even their homes are not suitable for childcare,” she said. 

Correction: A previous version of this story erroneously described a U.S. Supreme Court case as originating in Minnesota. 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

At a recent LAUSD District 3 school board debate, teachers dressed as FBI agents in protest of board member Tamar Galatzan's support of the iPad program.; Credit: Annie Gilbertson/KPCC

As the city's March 3 primary election draws near, Los Angeles Unified school board candidates are blasting incumbents for the controversial iPad program.

Opponents sharply criticized the $1.3 billion bond-funded program at a debate Tuesday in West San Fernando Valley, where District 3 school board member Tamar Galatzan was elected in 2007.

"Galatzan said the district is going in the right direction," declared candidate Carl Petersen, a parent and businessman. "I don’t know how anyone can look at the events of the past year and come to that conclusion."

RELATED: LAUSD District 5 school board candidates face off in debate

The program attracted national attention last December when the FBI raided district offices and carted off 20 boxes of bids, evaluations and correspondences with executives at Apple and its subcontractor Pearson, the manufacturer of the learning software loaded on to each device. The investigation is ongoing.

At the debate, teachers dressed in dark windbreakers with FBI plastered on the back in protest to Galatzan's support of the program. (They have not held similar demonstrations at election events in East Los Angeles' District 5, where Bennett Kayser, a teacher union ally, is running for re-election.)

Tom Richards, a Granada Hills parent, said he considers the iPad program a central issue as he weighs candidates.

"I think it's absolutely ridiculous," Richards said. "I don't believe that's a good way to spend the money that they have. Looking at some really fundamental needs — we don't have a librarian, but we want to give iPads?" 

Galatzan was an early advocate for more technology in the classroom; it was her goal even before the iPad was on the market.

"There is a whole world out there that can be accessed through technology, and we need to take advantage of that," Galatzan told KPCC.

Her advocacy of technology hasn't always been controversial. Galatzan points to her 2010 initiative to fund school computer labs with a settlement from Microsoft.

The school board's support of the iPad program varied the first year, but waned in August after KPCC published a series of emails showing district administrators had close ties with Pearson, calling into question whether the bidding process was fair. Problems with the rollout of the devices and the effectiveness of the software they contained also eroded support for the program.

Still, school board members unanimously approved more iPad purchases after the FBI investigation came to light. Superintendent Ramon Cortines said the tablets were necessary for new digital state tests scheduled this spring and offered to purchase them under a different contract with Apple to avoid complications involving the federal probe.

If the candidates' positions are a measure of support for the program, it's unpopular at best.  All of Galatzan's opponents are against it. 

When asked in a KPCC election survey conducted if he supported the iPad program, Scott Schmerelson, a retired administrator and District 3 contender, responded: "Not when you are paying for them from LAUSD Bond Money! The taxpayers generously supported the bond issue with the belief that the money would be used to repair and modernize our schools." 

Candidate Ankur Patel said in his answer to the survey, "I oppose the LAUSD’s iPad program. Throughout the program, important questions were not asked enough, and when they were, they were not answered properly."

Filiberto Gonzalez, another Galatzan challenger, said of the iPad project: "It was a mistake and ill-conceived from the very beginning. As was noted in the report by the U.S. Department of Education last month, the Common Core Technology Project (iPad program) lacked 'established metrics of success' and 'was difficult to show the impact of the investment.'

Elizabeth Badger Bartels is also running for the District 3 seat, but did not respond to the survey by deadline.

For more information on the school board candidates' positions and their backgrounds, read KPCC's 2015 Los Angeles primary election guide.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

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