text:
Google plays waiting game on China ICP licence renewal
Application submitted, fate unknown
The operator of Google.cn submitted an Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence renewal request yesterday on behalf of Mountain View.
Xinhua news agency reported that Guxiang Information Technology Co. Ltd, which runs Google's China website, applied for the licence and vowed to "abide by the Chinese law".
The application was submitted to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Wednesday.
Xinhua, which is China's official news agency, cited an unnamed internet administrator in its report.
Google's ICP licence was set to expire yesterday. It's understood that Beijing will respond "soon" to the company's renewal request.
Guxiang reportedly said in its application that it would "ensure the company will provide no law-breaking contents as stated in the 57th statement (PDF) in China's regulations concerning telecommunications."
On 22 March this year Mountain View closed its China-based search engine and announced that it would redirect Google.cn visitors to its Hong Kong-based engine, Google.com.hk, where it would provide uncensored search results in simplified Chinese.
Earlier this week Google agreed to halt the automatic rerouting of its China search engine users to Hong Kong after Beijing officials threatened not to renew the firm's internet licence if it continued with the switcheroo.
Since then, Google has been shifting its Google.cn users to a "landing page" that links to Google.com.hk, where China-based folk can use Google.cn services such as music and text translation provided "locally" without filtering.
The firm is now hoping that Chinese officials will be satisfied with Google's latest approach, otherwise it could be lights out for the web kingpin in the People's Republic. ®
Sponsored: Minds Mastering Machines - Call for papers now open


text:
New Resources to Help Servicers Implement the Freddie Mac Standard Short Sale
October 29, 2012
You now have two new resources to help you implement the new Freddie Mac Standard Short Sale:
- Real estate professional marketing flyer: A resource to help you explain the distinct advantages of the new Standard Short Sale requirements to real estate professionals and how working with you can prove to be mutually beneficial. It focuses on the recent improvements to the short sale process, helping their clients avoid foreclosures.
When you download the flyer, simply customize it with your contact information and logo before distributing it. With this customized approach, you can further help borrowers avoid foreclosure with the assistance of real estate professionals.
- Obtain Valuation fact sheet: A tool that highlights the benefits and gives high-level detail on how you use this online functionality when requesting the estimated market value and minimum net proceeds for a Standard Short Sale. The estimated market value will help you provide listing price guidance to borrowers and real estate professionals. You are encouraged to download the fact sheet and use it as a reference when you process Standard Short Sales.
Effective Date Reminders
You must begin implementing the Standard Short Sale for new borrower evaluations conducted on or after November 1, 2012. As a reminder, you must:
- Refer to Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide (Guide) Chapter B65, Workout Options, for the complete requirements.
- Use the Obtain Valuation functionality for borrowers who are 31 days or more delinquent. If you did not enroll for a new authorized user role, Workout-Specialist, you must do so immediately using the applicable forms on the Service Loans Application Resource Center.
- Continue to request the property value from BPOdirect® and request the minimum net proceeds from Freddie Mac by sending an email to firstname.lastname@example.com for borrowers who are current or less than 31 days delinquent.
More Information and Training
- Download the Standard Short Sale real estate professional marketing flyer and Obtain Valuation fact sheet.
- Register to attend the Bulletin 2012-16: Freddie Mac Standard Short Sale webinar.
- Register to attend the Standard Short Sales: Obtain Property Valuation webinar.
- Access the following secure tutorials using your Servicing Applications ID and password:
- Read Guide Bulletin 2012-16.
- Visit the Standard Short Sale Web page.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
yeah it's the recipient who can copy the message.
he can read it, he can copy it.
this is just copying a feature from a popular teens chat program..
Came here to say this. Without using shared secret encryption it either requires a (potentially coercible) central authority or is vulnerable to MITM attacks. And any kind of "time deletion" is only good for security on the receiver's device, not security of the message sent - the important thing to remember with computers is that if you can see it on your screen or hear it through your speakers, you can own it forever. No exceptions.
Or public key encryption.
Private key on your phone, public key on that key server network that's used for encrypting and authenticating emails.
Nope this can't work. Unless you physically control the server it could be accessed through coercion. If you send the public key to the server through the Internet using anything less than symmetric key encryption with a key that only you have, and have never sent through the Internet, that's at risk of being snooped by the NSA.
For a while I thought high-level ECDH SSL, if self-generated, might work as NSA-proof encryption but after reading this article [wired.com] I'm not so sure.
Well you're right that I got the two sides messed up...but it doesn't solve the physical access problem.
Who cares if the NSA gets the public key?
I want to send you a message so I ask you for a key. You generate a public/private key pair and send me the public one. NSA gets it. I then encrypt my message with the public key and send it to you. NSA gets it. You then receive the message and read it. The NSA is SOL because they've got the public key, not the private one. They COULD still impersonate me though, so to avoid that we do a key exchange in the opposite direction and I sign my message with my priv
I want to send you a message so I ask you for a key. You generate a public/private key pair and send me the public one. NSA gets it.
And generates their own public/private key pair. They then forward their public key to you instead of mine. You encrypt a message using it and the NSA gets it, decrypts it, and recrypts it using the public key I sent you, then forwards it to me.
MITM works for public keys too if you can't trust the public key exchange. That is why before you sign a 3rd party key (outside of your
OK, so assuming the intelligence agencies have the power to secretly coerce all of those public key servers to do their bidding.
Which they probably do.
Is the only solution out of band?
What about authentication?
A way to encrypt a message in a way that the recipient know that you encrypted it.
Which probably doesn't work because they have that guy's public keys too.
There's got to be *some* trusted 3rd party they can leverage.
Wait a minute.
Why can't you just check the public key on the server is equal to your o
So much for updating the decor of my secret volcano lair. I dont want my arch nemesis stealing my interior designer's plans. Guess we'll just paint the walls beige.
I think what you're forgetting is that the content of the message is really only useful (from a big brother standpoint) if you can definitively pin the message on someone.
Sure, if a message appears on my phone, I can write it down and SAY it's from you, but without that transaction log, it's just your word against mine. There's no paper trail except a message you claim I sent you. A picture of the message or anything else that doesn't include that signature is meaningless.
So the REAL question is whether or
I think this gives a false sense of security.
All senses of security are false.
this got modded insightful?
Hint, the more broad and absolute a statement is ("all" and "false") the less likely there is to be any truth to it.
I could see it being interpreted as "funny", but it doesn't really get past the joke stage.
Nice try. I never made the broad and absolute statement that you seem to be implying. "the more it is..." leads to "...the less likely". But I'm guessing you knew that.
It IS funny. It's not quite as funny as saying "who says?" to an anarchist wearing a question authority t-shirt, but it's not horrible. It says something about the average Slashdotter that it's modded insightful though.
I am still trying to figure out what everybody is texting and messaging that is so private?
I kind of work on the idea that anything that private I say face to face.
I wonder just how much of this worry about the NSA is some form of narcissism. Frankly I am not important enough or interesting enough for the NSA to spy on me.
In lots of places in the world you can be arrested for saying or writing things that most of us would consider perfectly harmless, never mind saying things that are unflattering to a government that would do things like that to it's citizens. In those places unsnoopable communications are extremely valuable.
In places that currently aren't in such a situation, the existence of secure communications are essential to keeping it that way. Assuming you're American, your constitution has an amendment that makes
There's a button on my Ubuntu PC for creating private/public key pairs and uploading the public key to a ring of public key servers.
Then, people can encrypt emails that only I can read because only I have the private key.
I've always wondered why this isn't better integrated/more automatic when it comes to email systems (gmail?)
Why not just leverage that type of mechanism?
1) Install app
2) it creates a key pair for your phone number
3) It uploads the public key to one of these servers
4) Anybody who texts you using a compatible app, it looks up your private key and encrypts the message only for you.
Job done.
If you can't fit the encrypted message in 120chars, it uploads the encrypted data to a 3rd party and all it sends is a message ID.
Or it uses IP only (like imessage/whatsapp)
Or is uses email as the bulk carrier
All those IP messaging systems must use a 3rd party anyway as you're always NAT'ed behind a real IP address anyway on a mobile connection.
I'm always on a 10.x.x.x address.
I've always wondered why this isn't better integrated/more automatic when it comes to email systems
The extra step needed (entering passphrase to use private key) are too cumbersome for most people. Implementing a work-around to make it "easier" negates the whole point of protecting the key in the first place.
It can't get much easier than Enigmail in Thunderbird yet still nobody will use it. We live in the times of patheticosis.
I've always wondered why this isn't better integrated/more automatic when it comes to email systems (gmail?)
3 reasons
1) Technical - gmail needs to have your private key to decrypt messages sent to you with your public key. Or to sign messages sent by you with your private key. They absolutely cannot offer a webmail service, if they can't descrypt your mail to show it to you over the web. If gmail has your private key, its not a very private key. The NSA can just quietly ask google for the key.
2) Business -
Job done.
Except it's not even close to done. This protocol is far more secure than no security at all, but is vulnerable to a number of different attacks. If you think the solution is simple, it's because you don't really understand the scope of the problem.
1) How do you trust that the keys posted on the public key servers? Say I wanted to send you a message, How do I know that the key posted on the key server is in fact, from you? (See Certificate Authority) If a malicious party could intercept messages to you and
How do you trust that the keys posted on the public key servers? Say I wanted to send you a message, How do I know that the key posted on the key server is in fact, from you? (See Certificate Authority) If a malicious party could intercept messages to you and decrypt them (using the bogus public/private key pair) and then re-encrypt the message to you using your formerly available public key, you'd receive the message and have no knowledge of the MITM attack.
You are, of course correct, but that is what key
I've always wondered why this isn't better integrated/more automatic when it comes to email systems (gmail?)
If you encrypt your email it will prevent Google from parsing the text and shovelling targeted ads at you.
Because I can grab you and torture you until you give me your private key. Then I've got all the messages you've sent or received.
With this system, each message gets it's own private key that's deleted after a specified time period. If that time period is short enough I won't have time to grab and torture you. Even if I do, I'll only get the most recent messages.
This system is less convenient than a persistent key pair because you can't keep an archive of messages. On the other hand, it's much more secu
1. Send order to Google saying, "give us unrestricted read/write access to the persistent storage of all android devices. Oh, and you cannot tell anybody about it."
2. Download the contents of all devices, including the keys.
3. Install keylogger to capture any necessary passwords.
4. Profit!
You don't even need to do the whole device. Apps run as their own user, so all you need to do is grab files owned by that user.
The only way around this is for an app to use 'su' to escalate it's privileges, which requires a rooted device.
That's incorrect. On Android every app is a separate user. Only files stored in the "SD Card" area are visible to other apps. So in theory you need a root exploit to get at this data.
That's what I just said?
no, no, they will need the entire file system just in case there was something else they needed. Once you've read government requests (I'm not talking the secret ones, just regular investigatory) the fishing expedition methodology employed quickly becomes apparent.
5. hacked rom authors discover this, post the information to their forums.
6. news picks it up.
7. Public outrage until some teen star twat shakes her butt on stange...
8 Rinse
9 repeat.
I think this speaks to the fact that post-Snowden, the game has entered a new stage.
Pre-Snowden the NSA or whoever would not have been willing to do such a thing, due to the very high likelyhood of detection. Yes, 99.9% of people aren't going to notice their phone doing something unexpected. But if you apply it to everyone because you want the ability to grep their communications for keywords a.k.a. selectors then you need all of it, all the time. There are over a billion Android activations now. Even 0.01%
The "Burn Notice" feature lets the sender set a time for a text, video, voice recording or picture to be erased from the recipient's device.
No, it can't. The recipient could be using a tampered application that ignores the timeout directive. Or it could modify the JVM to lie to the executable about the time or refuse to fire timers. Or modify the JVM to write all the memory transactions to disk (or host) even after the application frees (or GCs) it. Or modify the screen rendering APIs to capture the rendering. Or attach with JDB over ADB and halt the executable while the plaintext is in memory and slurp it out. And, of course, there are apps in the store that will just take a video of the screen.
FWIW, I support the app and I believe the encryption-in-transit is a very worthwhile feature. But the "Burn Notice" is, from a security point of view, useless. If you trust the recipient with the plaintext, you trust the recipient with the plaintext, end of story. Anything else is DRM-esque attempts to put restrictions on a device that you do not own.
AFAIK an app could execute binaries that it packages. They just execute within that user's context. It doesn't have to be done via the JVM.
No, it can't. The recipient could be using a tampered application that ignores the timeout directive.
Now is probably a bad time to point out that all phones have the ability to have their firmware rewritten and software updated silently, and this functionality is enabled by, er... turning it on. Any data stored on a mobile phone is inherently, by design, enforced by hardware mandate... insecure.
You cannot secure a mobile phone anymore than you can build a bull pen using construction paper and string and expect it to hold an angry bull. Stop trying people. Fix the fucking hardware, then maybe all your "Ther
The "Burn Notice" feature lets the sender set a time for a text, video, voice recording or picture to be erased from the recipient's device.
No, it can't. The recipient could be using a tampered application that ignores the timeout directive
Ok, the solution is obvious: don't depend on recipient software to do the deletion. Rewrite the sending app so it sends
The point is not to force the recipient to delete messages, it's to delete messages for the recipient. It's a convenience feature. You and I could send each other e-mail, exchanging one-time use public keys each time and dutifully deleting both the plain text and private keys as soon as we'd read the messages. OR, we could use this app, that does all that work for us.
Yes, if the person you're sending messages to is compromised you're screwed. But if he's merely imperfect, a timed auto-destruct prevents
You might try overwriting the data, but that makes the assumption that a write is to the same place as the data was a second ago. Ext3 does not guarantee that and SD cards avoid it to ensure wear levelling. It is harder than you think.
TFA makes it sounds like the sender can make decisions about what the receiver's machine does. That is insane (and also impossible, or it's irresponsible to lead users to believe they'll get that). I hope I am misreading the claim.
If the receiver has that control, or if the sender gets to specify advisory info in the hopes that the receiver uses it, ok. If not, then I think one of the most respected programmers ever (PZ) has left the path of wisdom.
No, you the receiver can make the decisions.
Software like this is old, even Microsoft sell software with similar options.
Instead of using the normal mail you have to you their software. Since the email only unencrypts in that software it can control how long it is kept, if you can forward it, if you can save it, etc. So unless you do screen captures if the sender only wants you to be able read it once that is all the software is going to allow you to do.
Also, what about the weakness that an update of the app (forced on them by NSA/etc) may send your private keys upstream. Like Mega they claim it is hands-off, but in reality there is a mechanism through which they could obtain the private key if pressured/blackmailed/waterboarded/whatever.
It's possible that Silent Circle has been compromised by the NSA.
And even if they are unable to understand what you send (John has a large beard. I repeat: John has a large beard) they will be interested to see that there is a connection between you two.
The only way to win is not to play.
When the hardware, the software, and the transport medium are all compromised it is moronic to continue this "security" game.
Or encode your messages OUTSIDE of the technology. At one time codes and cyphers were used for secret correspondences before creation (writing on paper) and transmission (hand carried by courier), but of course that takes effort at both ends.
Sadly, I'm forced to wonder how long before it will be illegal to do anything which would prevent the NSA from spying on you.
Because, after all, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.
It is closed source right? And even if it is not, you need to be able to build the binary from a vetted copy of the source and associated libraries.
What people seem to fail to recognize about encryption is that it's not some kind of magic that makes the data perfectly "secure" forever. All it does is vastly increase the work factor for an attacker to read the data, because he first has to reconstruct the key.
Moore's law, GPU programming, and elastic clusters are radically lowering the costs of brute force attacks. An organization with the nigh-unlimited resources of the NSA is going to be able to crack your file a lot faster than J. Random Hacker. I i
That fact that we've adhered so closely to Moore's law makes encryption more secure. Someone in the early 80's, at the invention of RSA, could have accurately predicted how much it would cost today to break a message encrypted with a given key size. You could have picked your key size accordingly, including one that would make your message essentially impossible to decrypt at any time in your lifetime (or the lifetime of the Earth) using all the theoretical computing resources of the solar system.
In fact,
We need an organization whose mandate is similar to the NSA. When the FBI, for instance, lawfully obtains evidence that gives them probable cause to get a warrant to invasively follow a chain of evidence, we need this information-gathering capability.
But the NSA over-stepped their bounds, broke the law, and betrayed all Americans and their allies. As a result, people are now more motivated to produce tools to evade organizations like the NSA. Because American citizens have the right to privacy, and they now have to go out of their way to get it, criminals are now gaining more sophisticated tools they can also use to evade the NSA. Looking at the other comments, the app mentioned in particular here isn't necessarily all that effective, but give it time. Pretty soon, you'll be able to put up an impenetrable wall around your data that the NSA can't break through.
The "problem" with this is that there are only two groups who will use these tools. Innocent privacy enthusiasts and criminals. The NSA will be unable to distinguish between them, essentially making rationally paranoid people targets of criminal investigations. And the NSA will be stupid about everyone else, seeing people NOT using encryption as low-hanging fruit, criminalizing countless innocent citizens merely in an effort to show that the NSA is catching *someone*, justifying their enormous budget. (In other words, they will make up criminals to justify their existance.)
If the NSA had obeyed the law, we wouldn't be in this mess, where it is inevitable that we can no longer spy on real criminals, probable cause or not.
We need an organization whose mandate is similar to the NSA.
For a second there I thought you were going to propose an anti-NSA organization: a government agency whose mandate and sole purpose is to protect Americans from NSA spying.
The "problem" with this is that there are only two groups who will use these tools. Innocent privacy enthusiasts and criminals. The NSA will be unable to distinguish between them
Are you implying that they can distinguish between them now? I don't think they particularly care. They are just building a database they can search, a private NSA Google.
We need an organization whose mandate is similar to the NSA.
For a second there I thought you were going to propose an anti-NSA organization: a government agency whose mandate and sole purpose is to protect Americans from NSA spying.
I feel dumb for not having thought of this. Mind you, protecting us from violations of our rights in general should be the job of the executive branch. The law is that we're not to be spied on without a clear chain of evidence constituting probable cause. The executive branch is supposed to enforce the law. Too bad they don't.
The "problem" with this is that there are only two groups who will use these tools. Innocent privacy enthusiasts and criminals. The NSA will be unable to distinguish between them
Are you implying that they can distinguish between them now? I don't think they particularly care. They are just building a database they can search, a private NSA Google.
True. And as someone who knows just enough about information retrieval to be dangerous, I can assure you that what they get out will be almost entirely garbage. Look up "precisio
Then use a 1 time pad book and hand encrypt and decrypt your text messages. The NSA will never EVER decrypt your communications. Why has nobody made that simple app? a 1 time pad file that you pre-share out of band and then have it send and receive your text messages. Under Android this would be trivial.
Hight-tech computer forensics applications can't retrieve a copy of a message that was deleted long ago, along with it's decryption key. That's the point.
"I prefer the blunted cudgels of the followers of the Serpent God." -- Sean Doran the Younger


text:
Here is a new skits thread since the last one was getting kind of long and the current skit had apparently finished.
*Keep the mating skits confined to the VMT...not here.
*Keep it PG.
*This is not a place to promote your fanfic.
*Keep the skits about the characters in the book. When you start adding yourselves it gets confusing and difficult for new people to get involved


text:
PlayStation 4 a doddle to fix: Handy if it OVERHEATS, for instance
Taking this apart is as simple as 1, 2, 3 ... 20, 21
Teardown Electronics repair biz iFixit gave Sony the thumbs-up after finding the PlayStation 4 console to be fairly easy to repair.
The screwdriver-wielding bods said a first look at the new Sony games machine turned up a system with components which can easily be accessed by owners to service or repair.
Peeling away stickers on the case reveal T9 Security Torx screws that must be taken off. Digging deep inside exposes the Blu-ray/DVD drive (the PS4 won't play your PS 1, 2 nor 3 games, by the way) and a few protective metal plates.
Below that we find the CXD90026G system-on-a-chip that includes the 1.6GHz 64-bit AMD eight-core "Jaguar" processor and AMD Radeon Graphics Core Next GPU. These sit on a motherboard with 4GB of Samsung GDDR5 RAM, SCEI CXD90025G co-processor for networking, 2Gb of Samsung DDR3 SDRAM, 256MB of Macronix serial flash, and a Marvell Ethernet controller.
The brains of the beast ... the CXD90026G SoC in the PS4 (Click to enlarge. Credit: All photos by iFixit)
The underside of the mobo has other silicon including a Genesys Logic GL3520 USB 3.0 hub controller, a Panasonic MN86471A HDMI chip, and a Marvell Wireless Avastar 88W8797 7 system-on-chip that does Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM radio.
As for repairable parts, the guys noted that opening the console and accessing the PS4 hard drive (by far the most oft-upgraded piece of equipment) was particularly easy, requiring only the removal of an outer plastic casing and a pair of holding screws to remove the drive carriage from the system. From there, the 500GB hard drive could easily be replaced and reinserted.
Replacing the hard drive with a higher capacity or SSD should be a breeze
For gamers looking to do more than just swap out a hard drive, the chip fiddlers noted that the PS4 will become more difficult to access. Components such as the system's customized fan will require a near complete disassembly to get to. The firm said the fan issue could prove particularly bothersome, as the use of an entirely internal power supply (rather than an outer brick unit) will increase the internal heat in the PS4 and make a smooth-running fan of the upmost importance.
A compact internal supply will help simplify and save room for PS4 owners
Additionally, the iFixit crew noted that the angular design of the system has put sharp corners and edges on some of the internal housing components, increasing the risk of gamers cutting their hands when poking about the system's innards.
Finally getting to the fan could be a bit of work, a rare con from iFixit's report
Overall, however, the biz praised Sony for its ease of repair, awarding the PS4 with a repairability score of 8 out of 10. The score puts the console in line with desktop PCs such as the Apple Mac Mini on the ease-of-repair scale. By contrast, portable systems such as the Apple iPad and Microsoft Surface 2 are generally considered among the least-fixable with scores in the bottom end of the iFixit spectrum.
The ease of repair could come in handy for owners of new PS4s should the early reports of system errors prove serious. Many owners have already reported problems with the system's HDMI output and errors that prevent the system from starting or case the unit to shut down after a short period of time. ®
Sponsored: Minds Mastering Machines - Call for papers now open


text: Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums :: View topic - Really useful resource for Task 1 Academic writing in IELTS Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!" FAQ Search Memberlist Usergroups Register Profile Log in to check your private messages Log in Really useful resource for Task 1 Academic writing in IELTS Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums Forum Index -> TOEFL and Other English Exams View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message Paul EJoined: 18 Jan 2007Posts: 18Location: Bolivia Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 12:34 pm Post subject: Really useful resource for Task 1 Academic writing in IELTS The First Measured Century at http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book.htm is a collection of essays about American life in the 20th century but also has many excellent descriptions of graphs, diagrams and charts, with lots of the language that you need for the task 1 question. Very handy _________________Try www.activeielts.com - good stuff, most of it free.. Back to top raddaneshJoined: 14 May 2007Posts: 5 Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:54 am Post subject: Hi there, I'd like to invite everyone to visit www.IELTS-Exam.net . IELTS-Exams offers free help in preparation for IELTS exam. It is filled with tips and strategies for studying, multiple links to free IELTS ... Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums Forum Index -> TOEFL and Other English Exams All times are GMT - 8 Hours Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Student Forums----------------ComputersCurrent NewsCultureEnglish SchoolsFamilyFilm and CinemaFoodHealth and FitnessHelp CenterHobbiesHolidaysLearning EnglishLiteratureMaking FriendsMusicOpinionsPetsScienceSportsThe Strange and MysteriousTOEFL and Other English ExamsTravel You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum Dave's ESL Cafe is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling. Banner Advertising | Bookstore / Alta Books | FAQs | Articles | Interview with Dave Copyright © 2018 Dave's ESL Cafe | All Rights Reserved | Contact Dave's ESL Cafe | Site Map Teachers College, Columbia University: Train to Teach English Here or Abroad Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group


text: Boston author Dennis Lehane is offering a pretty big reward for anyone who finds his lost dog, Tessa. He posted a note on his Facebook page on Christmas saying that he will name a character in his next book after anyone who finds the black and tan beagle and gets her back home. Lehane wrote that Tessa "jumped the fence in Brookline and has been roaming through the wilds of Coolidge Corner for the last 24 hours. It's possible she's staying in some good Samaritan's home right now or has tucked herself away on a porch. But if anyone sees her or knows of her whereabouts, please reach out to this page. . . . She's smart, fast, and immeasurably sweet. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body. She's micro-chipped, but her tags were off when she was let out into the yard." Lehane posted a picture of the dog on the page. Lucy Alert, a site that helps find lost dogs, is also helping with the cause. Lehane told us via e-mail on Wednesday morning, "Last unsubstantiated sighting had her heading toward Cambridge. Big Harvard fan, our Tessa."


text:
that legacy was no go. it had an auto transmission anyway
yea, that's an EA81. DOHC engine won't fit without notching the frame rails.
Although I don't know what turbo DOHC '96 legacy you might be looking at. They didn't sell 'em like that....not in North America, anyway.
i wonder if the whole subframe from a donor (with suspension and steering, brakes and rotors etc.) could be swapped?
then i wouldn't have to shorten drive axles, only the drive shaft
though i guess i'd have to roll the fenders
Edited by alexinvancouver, 16 June 2011 - 12:00 PM.


text:
New patches -- I'm still not sure how I feel about them every time that they come around. Sometimes, you get the overjoyed feeling of being buffed; other times, you get the heart-wrenching experience of nerfs. I'm not quite sure if the pleasure is always worth the pain. All in all, though, I am not seeing 4.1 as being a major class balancing patch -- if Blizzard is to be believed -- so this should hopefully be a quick, short rollercoaster ride.
As of right now, there aren't too many druid changes in the patch notes, but what there is seems to be rather disheartening for balance. More specifically, though, I want to brush up on the hot button issue of the day: the nerf to Starsurge. There are a lot of opinions floating around out there and a lot more misinformation. Although I wanted to avoid posting about the patch notes until there was more to tell, I think now would be the best time to go into this issue before something gets out of hand.


text:
Shifting Gears
Independent U.S. explorers spent more than $53 billion during the past decade snapping up drilling leases as breakthroughs in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing allowed explorers to access previously impenetrable formations.
Of the 17 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Index, Chesapeake was the biggest spender on prospective U.S. oil and gas leases with $19.9 billion from 2003 through 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company, whose shares lost 36% from 2010-2012, on May 20 said it hired former Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Senior Vice President Robert Douglas Lawler as its new chief executive.
Chesapeake, the world's largest driller of horizontal shale wells, said as early as March 2012 that all of the major untapped petroleum deposits in the continental U.S. had been discovered.
Expanding Sights
EOG Resources Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Papa told analysts on May 7 that the company's exploration unit is now looking for overlapping, oil-bearing geological formations that can be simultaneously tapped to extract "substantially larger" quantities of crude. Houston-based EOG is the largest owner of drilling rights in Texas's Eagle Ford shale.
The payoff for the deeper-farther-faster approach remains to be seen for Chesapeake and explorers such as Devon Energy Corp., QEP Resources Inc. and Southwestern Energy Co., which have the poorest records of turning untapped reserves into barrels of crude for sale.
Producers use a calculation called the recycle ratio as a measure of profitability, dividing profit per barrel of production by the cost of discovery and extraction. So a $40 profit divided by $20 in costs yields a recycle ratio of 2:1, or 2. A higher number represents more profitability.
Recycle Ratio
Denver-based QEP's recycle ratio was 0.69 in 2012 and Chesapeake posted a 0.97, data compiled by Bloomberg show. In contrast, Exxon scored a 4.5 and Total SA had a ratio of 3.3. The ratios include three-year averages for reserves used in calculating costs for the companies.
The best performers in the exploration and production index were Denbury Resources Inc., which uses carbon dioxide to coax more oil from wells, and Range Resources Corp., the second- largest holder of drilling rights in the Marcellus Shale. Both logged recycle ratios that surpassed Chevron Corp.'s 2.5 and BP Plc's 2.8.
Devon and QEP said several factors lowered their recycle ratio numbers in the past couple of years, including falling gas prices that cut revenue as they shifted more drilling to oil projects, which are costlier than gas.
During the shift, the company is recording higher costs without yet getting the full benefit of bigger profits, said Vince White, Devon's senior vice president of communications.
Improving Results
QEP incurred costs from an acquisition before production materialized from the assets, said Greg Bensen, director of investor relations at the company. QEP looks at the ratio using a multi-year view, he said.
Though Southwestern has some of the lowest costs in the industry, gas prices that collapsed to a decade low in 2012 reduced cash flow and forced the company to erase some proved reserves from its books, elevating per-unit costs for finding and development, or F&D, CEO Steve Mueller said in an e-mail.
"As the gas price increases, the F&D will drop dramatically as reserves are returned to the books and the yearly recycle ratio will be one of the best in the sector," Mueller said.
Jim Gipson, a Chesapeake spokesman, declined to comment.
Analysts expect rising profits and stock prices will come to producers who embrace a manufacturing model, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


text:
CHAPEL HILL – Laurin Easthom is the second person to announce her intention to seek the North Carolina House seat in District 50, formerly held by Valerie Foushee.
Easthom is currently a member of the Chapel Hill Town Council but previously announced she would not seek reelection. She says that she will apply the same commitment to the House that she did in the Town Council.
"It is a broader geographic distance that I will be representing, but I am committed to going out and getting to know those folks that I don't know, in addition to helping those I already know," Easthom says. "That's all part of the job."
So far Laurin Easthom and Tommy McNeill are the only people to announce an intention to seek the Dist. 50 House seat.
WCHL's Ran Northam spoke with Easthom about her intention to seek the House seat.
Part 1
Part 2


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Chelsea and Dylan get closer, Victor makes a request, and Summer plots with Courtney.
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At the station, Chloe listens as Michael tells Kevin he's lucky Christine is cutting him a deal. Chloe rants at her husband. Kevin says he's sorry, but she doesn't think that will cut it. She storms off. Fen appears wanting to talk to Michael. Fen talks about Summer having another guy. Michael doesn't think Summer is appropriate to date anyway. Fen asks if Michael will date someone more appropriate than Mom. He feels his life is a hole. Michael reassures him. Fen isn't sure he wants someone special - they'd probably end up like him and Mom.
At On The Boulevard, Adam thanks Sharon for listening last night. Victor and Nikki sit down nearby. They discuss Adam. Victor admits they've reached an impasse on a certain issue. Adam kisses Sharon and leaves. Victor tells Nikki he thinks he's found a solution, and leaves. Noah arrives and chats with Sharon about his life and romance. Nikki interrupts to hug Noah. Once alone, Sharon tells Nikki she's sorry about her diagnosis. Nikki doesn't need her pity - her life is fuller than Sharon's. They bicker.
Chelsea meets Dylan at Crimson Lights. She says he didn't tell her where they were going. He grins. "You'll have to trust me." Nearby, Summer and Courtney agree tonight will be great as long as Nick doesn't figure it out. They are still plotting when Noah appears. He asks Summer to tell him what they're up to so he can talk her out of it. They call him old. He remembers what prom was like but doesn't want them getting hurt. Noah steps away and Courtney tells Summer she's into him. Fen arrives. Courtney tells him Summer needs a prom date. He agrees. Summer thinks it's going to be an awesome night.
Avery visits Nick at the tackhouse to make sure things are okay. He says they're not. Avery starts rambling about them sleeping together. Nick stops her - there is stuff he has to figure out, but it's nothing to do with them. Avery learns it's about Summer. He says nothing can happen with her and Kyle - ever. Avery tries to reassure him. He says his past is starting to come back and he's concerned. Nick wonders if Avery loves him, no matter what he's done. Avery knows his soul and says he can tell her anything. Nick says he has something to tell her after he deals with an issue first.
At the penthouse, Victor and Adam bicker about the funding issue. Adam wants his trust. Victor says he's right - he will allow the outside source of funding. In return, Victor wants Adam to show him an act of faith by cutting Sharon out of his life. Adam shrugs that she doesn't work for him, and they aren't married. They debate. Victor says Sharon has damaged the Newman family - if he wants him to approve the funding he has to get rid of Sharon. Victor advises that Sharon is not the right woman for him - to have his children. He adds that Chelsea has trapped two men with pregnancies - thankfully it's not him. Adam is touchy. Victor tells him to get back to him once he's removed Sharon from his life. Sharon arrives. Adam tells her it's not a good time. She asks if it's over. He says it had to end sometime. He's not interested anymore. Sharon tears up thinking of all the times she defended him. "You really are the bastard everyone says you are, and I'm the fool they say I am."
Dylan shows Cheslea around the warehouse apartment he bought. She asks, "What will this space be?" He tells her, "My bedroom." Awkwardness ensues. Dylan pulls out a picnic lunch. Chelsea's impressed. They talk about whether he'll spoil the child too. Chelsea invites him to talk about being deployed. He says he's there for her too if she needs to talk. Dylan mentions Adam's money. Chelsea says it's most important that the baby will have unconditional love. "This is dining in style."
Kevin tries to explain to Chloe about the stealing at Crimson Lights. She's insulted that he had to do it to have sex with her. Kevin asks how he can make it right. Chloe says she'll never forget what he did. Kevin won't give up - she and Delia are his life. He leaves. Chelsea and Dylan return from their date and kiss goodbye. Chloe asks Chelsea about her goo-goo eyes. Chelsea says Dylan will be the baby's father forever - no one will ever know the truth.
Victor rejoins Nikki at the restaurant. Sharon enters crying.
Genoa City Spoilers for Tomorrow on The Young and the Restless:
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Kevin asks Michael, "What's Carmine done now?" Michael replies, "He's sleeping with my wife."
Lauren asks Carmine what he's doing. "Were you following me?"
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UK's non conference schedule was released yesterday for the 2011-12 season. A good non conference sked with a decent number of cupcakes. I won't identify the cupcakes at risk of ofending fans of other teams on this site.
Mark down December 3rd as must see TV. UK host UNC that day in what could be an early season battle of number 1 against number 2. UK also plays Kansas,St.Johns and their annual battles with Indiana and Louisville. The UL game is a New Years Eve game.


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First Major Retrospective for Key Living Artist at El Museo del Barrio
Rafael Ferrer, Untitled, 1960. Oil paint, spackle, metal hooks, rat trap, aluminum, collage on wood, 35 x 20 3/4 inches. Collection Françoise Ferrer.
El Museo del Barrio
presents Retro/Active, The Work of Rafael Ferrer, the first solo exhibition in a museum to examine the breadth and depth of the artists influential production over the last 55 years, will be on view June 8 August 22, 2010. The travelling retrospective, curated by Deborah Cullen, Director of Curatorial Programs at El Museo del Barrio, includes approximately 100 works from the mid-1950s to the present in a vast variety of media including collage, sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, and mixed-media. It is part of El Museos FOCOS series, which highlights the work of mature, under-recognized, and groundbreaking artists.
Rafael Ferrer is a greatly important living artist. This expansive retrospective strives to spark a critical re-consideration of his work, notes Cullen. El Museo is proud to be showing his entire oeuvre, from documentation of his earlier better-known works to his post-1980 creations, for the very first time.
In many ways, Rafael Ferrers career reflects El Museos own history, states Julián Zugazagotia, Director of El Museo del Barrio. His work both stands within and moves beyond the major art movements of the 20th centuryDada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Performance Art, Conceptual Art, as well as large-scale, figurative painting. The course of Ferrers artistic development runs parallel to, but often outside of the art historical cannon, enriching and troubling any preconceived idea of what an artist of Puerto Rican birth is or should be.
Rafael Ferrer was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico in 1933, and from an early age was exposed to international groups and artists in Puerto Rico, New York, and Los Angeles. He attended Syracuse University where he focused on playing jazz timbales. Upon his return to the island in 1953, he studied painting with the exiled Spanish surrealist, Eugenio Fernández Granell, at the Universidad de Puerto Rico. Ferrer joined Granell in Europe during the summer of 1954, where he met Wifredo Lam, as well as André Breton, Benjamin Peret, and other renowned artists associated with the Surrealist movement. This trip would have great influence and long lasting impact on his oeuvre.
After notorious and critically-excoriated exhibitions of collaged paintings, environments, and welded steel combines in Puerto Rico during the early and mid-1960s, Ferrer moved to Philadelphia in 1966. The artist began to carry out ephemeral actions and to create improvisational sculpture with chain link fencing, corrugated steel, neon tubing, leaves, ice, hay, and grease. Ferrer became internationally recognized between 1969 and 1971 for his participation in seminal postminimalist exhibitions, including: Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials (Whitney Museum of American Art, 1969); Live In Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form, Works-Concepts-Processes-Situations-Information (Bern Kunsthalle, 1969); and Information (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1970). His 1968 and 1970 exhibitions at Leo Castellis Warehouse, 1969 and 1970 solo exhibitions in Essen and Amsterdam, and his Deflected Fountain as part of a 1970 Duchamp homage at the Philadelphia Museum of Art sealed his reputation within the avant-garde. His attempts to bring the New York avant-garde to the island were again, critically misunderstood and his relationship with his birthplace continued to be fraught.
During the early 1970s, Ferrer began creating room-sized installations that were more poetic, literary, and allusive. Building off his earlier use of natural and industrial materials he continued to incorporate ephemeral elements in his work such as found objects, neon and either painted or printed imagery. Madagascar (Pasadena, 1972); Museo (MCA Chicago, 1972); Deseo (Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, 1973); and Isla (MoMA-Project Room, 1974) all stem from this period. While Ferrer had previously been colleagues of artists such as Robert Morris, Yvonne Rainer, and Alan Saret, his travels introduced him to other groups that were to have a direct impact on his subsequent work. He became friendly with Claes Oldenberg, the Chicago imagists including Roger Brown, and several of the American New Image Painters, including Neil Jenney and Alex Katz.
Ferrer developed various long-standing series in the 1970s. In this period, he received several NEA Fellowships and a Guggenheim Foundation Grant. Nonetheless, through his change of format, his work began to be positioned outside of the cutting-edge, and pigeonholed within several Latin American projects as well as along primitivist and intuitive lines. His ongoing series included Maps (approximately 100 drawings on printed maps and navigational charts); Faces (over 500 visages drawn on paper bags of various sizes); Kayaks and Constructions (assembled and painted, often hanging, sculptures). In the mid 1970s, Ferrer began creating intimate and magically-named Tents, with painted sides and often with a crowning word over the portal.
He was excited to observe Katz painting from life while vacationing in Puerto Rico, and soon he returned to painting. In 1980, Ferrer began his nearly 20-year engagement with large-scale Painting (1980-1997), incorporating portraits, nudes, musicians, nightclub and cockfight scenes, landscapes, and scenes in the Dominican Republic where he lived and worked part-time. He also produced homages to various artists, including Wilfredo Lam, David Smith, Alberto Giacometti, and Giorgio Morandi.
Despite the fact that Ferrer remained consistently engaged with, and responsive to, the changing trends of the larger art world around him, his involvement with large-scale painting has never been considered alongside American New Image Painting or Italian transavanguardia or German Neo-Expressionism. His entire body of work after 1980 has never been critically recognized or examined together with his earlier, better-known production. This retrospective will, for the first time, note the continuities of Ferrers interests and themes over his lifetime.
During his long career, Ferrer has created artists books, fine prints, and has had major public art commissions in the Bronx (1979), Philadelphia (1982), and Puerto Rico (2004). Currently, his smaller-scale work involves drawing, collage and mixed-media on paper and canvas, and engages language, topical news, and artistic events culled from newspapers and magazines to express his sharply critical, witty observations.
Rafael Ferrers work has been acquired by prominent private and public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, yet his contributions remain outside of U.S. or western art histories, as well as the standard histories of Puerto Rican and Latino contemporary art.
El Museo del Barrio
Rafael Ferrer
Deborah Cullen
Today's News
June 8, 2010
Renowned British Sense of Humor is on Display in a New London Exhibition at Tate Britain
Sotheby's to Offer Treasures: Aristocratic Heirlooms for Sale
New Public Art Commission by Anish Kapoor to be Unveiled
Sotheby's Important Russian Art Sale Brings $15 Million, Almost Top Estimate
Largest-Ever Show of Harold Edgerton's Photographs Opens in Spain
Christie's to Offer Important Collections of Chinese Archaic Bronzes
Red List of Cultural Objects at Risk to be Announced Today
Bauhaus Archive Opens Comprehensive Exhibition of Ingo Maurer's Work
London Art Auctions Target the Former Soviet Union's Growing Middle Classes
New and Recent Work by Artist Rachel Khedoori at Hauser & Wirth
Leon Levinstein's NYC Street Photographs On View at the Metropolitan Museum
Archives of American Art's Exhibition Portrays "Hard Times, 1929-1939"
First Major Retrospective for Key Living Artist at El Museo del Barrio
Winner Announced in the Piranesi 2010 Prison Series Design Competition
"Revealing Culture" Exhibition Opens at Smithsonian's Ripley Center
Huis Marseille Explores 'Infatuations' that can Affect Both Photographers and Curators
Hirshhorn Launches iPhone App, the First by a Smithsonian Art Museum
Dallas Museum of Art Presents Its 2010 Awards to Artists
Gladiator Graveyard Discovered in Northern England
Everett Fahy Appointed Senior Consultant at Christie's
Most Popular Last Seven Days
Boy and an amateur archaeologist unearth legendary Danish king's trove in Germany
Exhibition at The Met illustrates what visitors encountered at The palace of Versailles
Philadelphia Museum of Art opens "Modern Times: American Art 1910-1950"
Exhibition at Michael Hoppen Gallery presents a cross-section of works from Thomas Mailaender's career
New York's Chelsea Hotel celebrity door auction raises $400,000
Stevie Ray Vaughan's first guitar drives Entertainment & Music Memorabilia Auction to nearly $2.9 million
Lichtenstein's Nude with Blue Hair tops $2.4 million sale of Modern & Contemporary Prints & Multiples
$6.7 million Fancy Intense Blue Diamond sets auction record at Sotheby's New York
Mexico court blocks sales of controversial Frida Kahlo Barbie doll
Dutch museums to conduct new research on the paintings of Pieter de Hooch
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HARVARD - Due to the blizzard conditions predicted, Harvard's Town Caucus scheduled for Saturday night at 7 p.m. at Harvard Town Hall has been postponed. Town Clerk Janet Vellante confirmed the postponement on Friday afternoon.
Originally, it was hoped that Harvard town counsel would be able to obtain a court order granting the town relief to continue the caucus warrant due to the emergency weather situation. However, Vellante said that the attorney was unable to get to the Worcester County Superior courthouse before it closed on Friday. The courts were all ordered closed as of noontime on Friday due to the weather.
"There is no provision in the law to change the date," said Vellante.
"The only options are to either get a court order to change the date or to open the caucus and adjourn it to a date and time specific," said Vellante. Vellante will now execute on the later course of action.
"I will be going to the Town Hall Saturday evening, opening the caucus and immediately adjourning it to another day," said Vellante.
At least at this point in time, only essential vehicles are permitted on the roadways during the State of Emergency declared by Governor Deval Patrick. Non-emergency personnel are to be off the roadways as of 4 p.m.
So, Vellante will have a special ride - a Harvard DPW truck - to make the trek to Town Hall. Vellante said Bragan arranged the lift for her and her husband Gabe Vellante, who is the town's Building Inspector. Vellante said one other registered voter must accompany her to bear witness to the continuation of the caucus. Vellante said she also believes the DPW plow driver assigned to transport her is also a Harvard voter for a second witness to the event.
Generally, the caucus lasts all of ten minutes, yet attracts town politicos by the dozens. The opportunity is ceremonial in part because candidates for town wide office may pick up nomination papers at the Clerk's Office during regular office hours before the Caucus is convened.
But with dozens crowded in the room, neighbors generally sign one another's papers and hand them back in to Vellante that same evening, securing themselves a place on the warrant. Candidates also have 10 added days to turn in their completed nomination papers or if they did not attend the caucus itself.
With the Town Caucus rescheduled until Saturday, March 2 at 7 p.m., the nomination paper deadline will likewise follow ten days later - March 12 at 5 p.
The selectmen voted on Tuesday night to make the Harvard Annual Town Election co-incide with the state primary to replace former Senator John Kerry on Tuesday, April 30.
Follow Mary Arata at twitter.com/maryearata.


text:
Graduates (L-R): Shelley Barton, Jo Brown, Connie Garrett, Gail Houlette, Lorinda Collins, Lori Spencer, Marilyn McVey
Photo courtesy of: Catherine Meyer
Graduate Jo Brown reflects on her CDP experience at the ceremony
Photographer: Catherine Meyer
Gail Houlette holds her certificate while posing for picture with Steve Golding, vice president for finance and administration
Photographer: Catherine Meyer
Apr 16, 2012
By George Mauzy
Graduation day finally came for the 15 members of the inaugural class of the Classified Development Program (CDP).
After taking one course for 10 consecutive quarters to earn a professional development certificate, seven of the graduates gathered with friends and coworkers to celebrate their accomplishment in a Friday afternoon ceremony in the Human Resources and Training Center.
The CDP is designed to help classified staff meet the changing needs of technology, higher education, and position responsibilities with more knowledge, flexibility and skills, as well as opportunities for upward mobility. The price of books and general fees are covered by the program. Participants receive a professional development certificate upon completion.
Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding and Chief Human Resource Officer Linda Lonsinger congratulated the graduates for persevering through the tough times in order to improve their job skills and general knowledge.
"The CDP was a long time coming and there were a lot of University discussions held to make this happen," Lonsinger said. "You were the experiment … and you are really impressive. The thought was to give you the support needed to help you develop greater skill sets and to put you in position to take advantage of job promotion opportunities. The program will change in the future – but thanks to you it will go forward."
Golding called the graduates "pathfinders" and said there is a whole new level of training coming at the University. He added that there will be many new opportunities for employees to meet the needs of academic units as the University transitions to a new responsibility centered management budget model.
The graduation ceremony was hosted by Teri Combs, CDP program coordinator, who praised each of the graduates for their determination and perseverance. She said many of the graduates are now pursuing bachelor's degrees and have significantly improved their overall writing, comprehension and public speaking skills.
"You had to be dedicated to this program because this was a long-term pursuit," Combs said.
Other ceremony speakers included Jenny Klein, director of the Allen Help Center, and Traci Winchell, chair of Classified Senate, which spearheaded the creation of the CDP.
Graduate Jo Brown also took time to reflect on her CDP experience, while her fellow graduate Gail Houlette shared a humorous poem that she wrote about her most memorable moments as a member of the program.
The ceremony ended with a reception and a PowerPoint presentation featuring some of the graduates' best academic work.
Combs said University Human Resources is currently accepting applications for the second CDP cohort, which is scheduled to begin in the fall. For more information, contact Combs at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Denver Outlaws at Rochester Rattlers
Saturday, July 20, 1:00 PM (ET) - Sahlen's Stadium, Rochester, N.Y.
TV : CBS Sports Network
ochester -
The Rochester Rattlers will host the Denver Outlaws in their last Sahlen's Stadium matchup of the season this Saturday, July 20, at 1 p.m. (ET). Denver will look to continue their record setting best start in MLL history, as Rochester will aim to steal the thunder.
This weekend's contest marks the eighth all-time meeting between the two programs, with Rochester owning a 4-3 advantage. Denver and Rochester last met two months ago, when Denver dismantled the Rattlers 20-7. Outlaws attackmen Chris Bocklet, Jeremy Boltus, and Brendan Mundorf paced the way with eight, seven, and six points respectively.
The Denver Outlaws have had little trouble piecing the parts together this season. Jesse Schwartzman is producing peak performances week in and week out, leading the League in save percentage and goals-against average thus far. Anthony Kelly is boasting the best numbers of his career at the X, Lee Zink leads a swarming defense, and the offense is too potent to name just one player. The Outlaws have clinched their trip to Championship Weekend, presented by Smartlink, on August 24 and 25, and will spend the next few weeks fighting for the top seed.
Denver hits the road for the first time in four weeks, last traveling to face the Chesapeake Bayhawks on June 15. Denver's road games this season have been the closest matchups of the year for the Outlaws, seeing two 4-point games, and two 5-point games. The team is averaging 3.7 less goals for, and giving up 1.8 more goals against while away from Sports Authority Field. Denver is still dominant on the road, but if Rochester can pull it off, their best chance of a win will be away from Sports Authority Field at Mile High.
The Rattlers enter the contest 4-6, and need the win to stay within playoff contention. Rochester has lost three of their past four games, most recently to the Hamilton Nationals on July 7. In that outing, Rochester produced a season-low six goal output, where offensive leader Ned Crotty was held to a single shot. The offense needs to come together, as dynamic midfielder Jordan MacIntosh has been held pointless in three of the past four games, and team captain Kevin Leveille is questionable after suffering an injury in their most recent game. Goaltender John Galloway has been the rock, consistently anchoring this team's defense. He currently posts a 11.92 goals-against average, as well as a .55 save percentage.
Tune into CBS Sports Network to see these teams in action this Saturday, July 20, at 1 p.m. (ET).


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George Ranch Museum Collection - 1 Matching Results
Search Results
- [Albert Peyton George and an unidentified man astride saddled mules]
- Photograph of Albert Peyton George and an unidentified man astride saddled mules. In this Sepiatone professional outdoors photograph, the two men are holding black umbrellas in their left hands and fans in their right hands. Both are wearing slacks, jackets, and hats. Man on right has a cigar in his mouth. A limb extends across the length of the (bottom) foreground. Trees in background. The photograph is mounted on a cardboard substrate. The back of the photograph has a picture of a town with crowd of people labeled "M'Leodsville.--Happy Hollow." Printed in black under picture and label: "HAPPY HOLLOW for outdoor amusements. FREE ENTERTAINMENT every pleasant day. Cages open all the time. DONKEYS and PONIES for mountain rides and phuny fotos. All owned and managed by McLEOD, THE WILD WEST PHOTOGRAPHER, Hot Springs, Ark." In black ink in back at top: "Left - Albert George". Image dimensions are: 11.3 cm x 17.5 cm.


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indeed seems like a massive breakthrough this one!!!! lots of old projects calling me for completion with this new feature also leaves on trees is huge for me ..... tempted to shut down life and go zbrush zbrush zbrush again haha!!
indeed seems like a massive breakthrough this one!!!! lots of old projects calling me for completion with this new feature also leaves on trees is huge for me ..... tempted to shut down life and go zbrush zbrush zbrush again haha!!
Oh my word this one took me by surprise.... made this bison ages ago and thought it would make a good test piece wow wow wow the effect is awesome! beyond my expectations by far.....
this last one was just created using the light cap again wow effects!
Last edited by earthtriber; 01-26-12 at 08:46 AM.
Absolutely fantastic. This is a great result!! Lovely grooming :-)
I let go of the rope once, but now, I am climbing like a monkey.
thanks very much guys! never thought id be grooming bison today!....
Hey EarthTriber
Nice FiberMesh Exploration on that Bison of yours ...
Last edited by SpiritDreamer; 01-27-12 at 02:35 AM.
thanks guys...... its a whole new hairy world!
so this was my starting point an old sculpture I did way way back.... perfect fibermesh testing ground... first task was to get the general low fur on...... so total beast was masked then de-mask eyes eyelids mouth nose and hooves also the tip of the tail... above is the fibermesh preview.... here is where I did lots of grooming and then rendering out to see the results... tried to get that wild look also very pleased the thickness and colours... see below for a render of that first fur level..... here I masked out the mane, beard and the tip of the tail.... adding a longer fiber for all those as a second fiber tool.... there is lots of wild grooming which I may still tweak for the final image great fun to do and to see the instant effect is a huge difference from rendering fibers blind as before! also I painted the tips of the ridge-back fur and the beard and edges with a lighter colour sometimes white.... basically like dry brushing....... brushes used where the twists and a combo of lots of others more testing to be done for me for sure before I have a understanding of what they are all capable of..... here is that rendered.... when adding the main I did have the original fur visible to see the results together. I also remember having to delete a couple of failed attempts..... the two combined and rendered poly-paint for the original model to help the render.... super fast and not much blacked out the tip of the nose and hooves result...... and a test render.... next stage is to make a base I have reworked the eyes and the ears plus finished the hooves properly and will take this all the way to completion... awesome awesome work guys on this release...... zbrush rulez!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Last edited by earthtriber; 01-28-12 at 03:28 AM.
The result looks stunning, I miss some more "chaos" in that fur. But is probably the best approach to animal fur I've seen thsi week.
Thanks very much LapsusMental
I hear you for the final image i will look at reference and have the beast stood on a snow plinth
hopefully with a hint of that kind of mange effect and with a scar or two...
I've been travelling the world for a year! I am now sitting in a hotel in Borneo in Tawau making the most of a power socket catching up on old projects, whilst i have access to the net and opportunity
to learn some of these amazing new features of Zbrush!here is a development from a sketch i did on the way to New Zealand which I sculpted there in the land of the long white cloud back in November!
it was taken to the level of this first picture and now with the amazing new fibermesh i get to fix the trees up in style! I will be working on this at my next point of rest where ever that is.... maybe
Koto Kinablu if I get a commission to paint there in a posh hotel or maybe on the tip of Borneo where i found a awesome beach cafe and great crew to hang with.....
we shall see what the road brings.... heres the work so far.... i'll post a pic of the sketch in time.....
First work roughed out original trees pre fibermesh
the power of fibermesh is amazing.... I would liker to get my trees even tighter but loving this first test results....
I paint jungle on walls for a living and I know that the more leaves you are prepared to detail out the more awesome the painting looks....
oh how i wish zbrush could help me paint!
Wow...Some people have all the luck... Sounds like you are one of them.....Jealous of all of what must be great adventures
Luv this piece that you are working on now...Elegant design..Beautiful..and Great symbolism also..
Keep Inspired and Inspiring EarthTriber...and safe in all of those adventures that lay ahead.
Hehe Thanks Glen.....
I've rendered out some more of the bison this time with one material..... Ive been working on the base too.... going for a spring snow melting plinth.... starting to look good in the poly paint.... the pose is proving trickier with the fibers but ill get there.... i want the bison to have its legs closer together like a kind of mountain goat stance.... worked it through and then in the Tpose mesh which has not realigned all the fur in the last attempt... nothing a few well timed saves cant fix.....
so here are a couple more renders with lighting tweak tests and the base started.... using the material dj_darkorange_01
Looking Great...
I finally got a decent BPR render on my lions this morning.. after about a hundred failed attemps..LOL...Slow learner here..
Anyway, really enjoying seeing this bison of yours evolve, and also learning alot by studying what you have done so far with him.
Thanks for sharing your process...Some trial and error envolved, but that's the name of the game..Great Job so far.


text:
A classic Trojan horse manouver pulled off in style by Steven Elop. Now he can go back to Redmond, where they'll hold a Triumph in his honor.
I appreciate the way that Stephen has been a good steward of the brand and business in his time here, and look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role at Nokia. [microsoft.com]
I would mirror that if you want to keep it. Seems likely to go away at any moment.
As Quoted from: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2010/sep10/09-09statement.aspx [microsoft.com]: (Archive mirror [archive.org])
Microsoft Business Division Transition
Sept. 09, 2010
E-mail to Microsoft full-time employees from Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer.
Sept. 9, 2010
I am writing to let you know that Stephen Elop has been offered and has accepted the job as CEO of Nokia and will be leaving Microsoft, effective immediately. Stephen leaves in place a strong business and technical leadership team, including Chris Capossela, Kurt DelBene, Amy Hood and Kirill Tatarinov, all of whom will report to me for the interim.
The MBD business continues to grow and thrive, with 15 percent growth in the last quarter. It has been good to see the great response to Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, the growth of our Dynamics business and the way we have been successful in extending all our MBD products and services to the cloud. I appreciate the way that Stephen has been a good steward of the brand and business in his time here, and look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role at Nokia.
Please join me in wishing Stephen well.
Bollocks to it.
We just can't let this happen, it's almost a full blown disaster, the one ray of sunshine is the patent deal.
We need to find a way to buy Nokia out before this deal goes through.
Microsoft gets a free pass for all the damage they did and gets a licence to all the Nokia patents that they know they cannot survive in mobile without?
For the price of the Nokia-Siemens buyout?
So Nokia shareholders are to sell their entire mobile business to the scumbags that ruined it for just enough money to own the rump end of their own business free and clear?
Screw that.
I'll offer the Nokia board $7.5B for 51% of the whole company, less any long term investors that want to assign their proxies to me, and I'll re-organize the whole company, turf out all the losers that have managed the company into the ground and spank the living crap out of the company that did this to them. The company that deliberately did this to them.
If Microsoft thinks those patents are worth so much, stick 'em under a GPL-like licence that lets anybody play in mobile so long as they share and tell Microsoft and Apple to go screw themselves.
I posted the following on Groklaw the day it died, in the desperate hope of getting some reasoned help. I was too late.
Looks like I might be too late again.
Stuff that for a game of soldiers, Slashdot might be full of loonies and Trolls but there are still some sane voices hidden amongst the noise.
Have at it.
I've been working up to posting this for weeks.
I don't really want to post it now but I may never get another chance.
I'm not ready so the link will be to nowhere till at least tomorrow.
Apologies in advance for any offence but I won't take the chance that I miss the opportunity to reach members of the Groklaw community that I may never be in contact with again.
I'm hoping you guys will be able to help me out.
I've been silently standing on the sidelines here almost since the very beginning. I, like you, feel very deeply that what we have been watching happen here is an outrage.
Watching monopolies desperately trying to destroy the open-source world like a bunch of petulant toddlers makes me want to bang my fists and smash things with rage. (Yes I do see the irony there.)
I have, for a long time, felt powerless to do anything about it but I have come to a decision to make a stand.
The real problem is that we lack the sort of wealth and influence that the corporate elite possess. We are forced to contend with them on a battlefield of their choosing with little or no resources.
I think it is about time we stopped putting up with that and started fighting fire with fire.
If we want to win this war we need to acquire more money and influence than our opponents and, ludicrous as that idea seems on the surface, I don't think it's something that is beyond the realm of possibility.
You see the thing is that the businesses that we face here are either monopolists or practising outmoded models, they are desperately trying to hang on to a way of doing business that has been out-evolved. They look on the surface like the 800lb Gorillas but in reality they are more like Giant Pandas. They are tottering on the edge of extinction because they are too myopic to realize that their ecological niche has gone or that they are in the process of destroying it with their own stupid greed.
So here's what I plan to do and what I think I can achieve given a bit of help.
I plan to buy Nokia.
I think Nokia could easily be re-organized into a vastly profitable enterprise and its enormous collection of patents could be used to beat the snot out of the trolls and proprietary monopolists. I think a licensing scheme similar to the GPL could be created that forced everyone in the mobile space to 'share and share alike' and to compete on merit rather than in litigation.
I want to create something that is inherently, by
Yeah, the conspiracy theory is now cemented. Impossible to prove or disprove, and just too likable to not believe.
Do you have another explanation?
From what I can see they sent in Elop to use Nokia to make WinPhone popular and if that failed were prepared to buy Nokia to keep it selling WinPhone.
A long time Finnish stock analyst wonders the same (on the record)
Oh bullshit. First of all when it comes to MSFT pretty much ALL of their successes in the past can be preceded by "and then the other guy did something REALLY dumb" thus giving MSFT a free shot, from BE-OS tying itself to one niche CPU after another to netscape putting out the abomination that was NS4 not once did MSFT "come up with some brilliant plan" they just got lucky and were able to capitalize on having a competitor that was a moron.
Second of all Nokia WAS ALREADY TOAST by the time the board called in Elop, they had not one, not two, but THREE OSes, not one of which was up to the task of competing with Android and iOS, the ONLY place they were ahead was in dumbphones which was like being the biggest 8-track manufacturer in 1987, they couldn't go with Android because not only was the Android market then as now the most cutthroat commodity market in mobile (only HTC and Samsung has made any real money and I'd argue they are on borrowed time, Hong Kong was showing off dual core Android phones that retail for $70 not 4 months ago so like PCs its gonna be profits measured in pennies) but Samsung and HTC frankly would have curbstomped them as nobody does high end Android units better, and they just didn't have the money to compete with HP for WebOS which IMHO would have been the best choice. Add in the fact that a couple of Maemo devs were quoted as saying Maemo wouldn't have been ready for another year and a half MINIMUM (it was having serious memory corruption and CPU issues at the time) and the app devs wouldn't have made shit for maemo anyway after Nokia burnt their bridges to the community by changing the framework? yeah there really wasn't any choice, it was take WinPhone or close the doors and give the money back to the shareholders.
All those that hate MSFT frankly ought to be dancing in the street, as this gives ballmer the chance to piss away...what? 9 billion US dollars? And while shitting away a mountain of money Ballmer's retarded attempt to turn Windows into a WinPhone is frankly killing the Windows desktop, talking to other shop owners we have all even stopped carrying Win 8.x anything as its a bigger bomb than WinME, and finally you KNOW that Ballmer is gonna push hard for his little yes man Elop to get the big chair because it will let him still push his "vision" which consists of burning the desktop and server business to the ground so he can push half assed Apple clones that are worse in every way compared to the real thing, worse walled garden, worse performance, worse app selection, everything mobile under Ballmer/Elop has been half assed and piss poor and I don't see that changing if Elop gets the big chair.
But I leave you all here with a warning, be careful what you wish for. So many wanted MSFT dead for being douchebags they aren't even noticing they are replacing one douchebag for an even worse one, Between the big brother levels of data that Google is gathering on every android user and the fact that their new ChromeBooks took what SHOULD have been a completely bog standard X86 laptop and made it so proprietary that the ONLY way to install a different OS is to throw it into "Dev mode" and then and ONLY then can you install not whatever you want, but only one of a handful of Linux distros supported by some guy in his basement? say what you want about MSFT but at least i could grab any Windows desktop or laptop and be booting to install not only any previous MSFT OS but pretty much any other OS, Linux,BSD,Haiku, whatever, in under 20 minutes.
So while we all know where this is gonna end, another shitpile of money pissed away, declining sales on the X86 front and flatline numbers in mobile for MSFT, lets not replace one asshole company for another shall we? as for Nokia...oh well, between Samsung, HTC, LG, and a bazillion Chinese brands there really isn't a place for Nokia anymore now that the dumbphone market is dead. Hell when I was shopping for my Android phone several of the shops had refurb android phones starting at just $20 and new for $50, with prices THAT low for smartphones? Nokia might as well pack it in, no point in even making dumbphones anymore.
Read a little Tomi: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/ [blogs.com]
NOK was not even close to dead/dying when Elop was brought in. His 'burning platform' memo killed it.
That's one way to look at it.
The other way to think about it is that the rest of Nokia just unloaded a boat anchor of a mobile phone business and a horrific CEO onto Microsoft, with the added bonus of him possibly becoming CEO of that combined corporation.
Or, if you prefer, "beware of Finns bearing gifts".
So Elop left Microsoft to head up Nokia, where he made supposedly very idiotic changes that had the effect of destroying Nokia's share price. Microsoft then buys Nokia at a fraction of the cost it would otherwise have been, and Elop returns to a prestigious role at Microsoft, where he's in with a shot at the CEO role.
That doesn't look the slightest bit dodgy at all.
One article says the share price is down 53% during his tenure, just under three years. That's damn fine work, especially in this market!
[aside: yes, we know pretty much everybody on Slashdot called this from day 1]
So Elop left Microsoft to head up Nokia, where he made supposedly very idiotic changes that had the effect of destroying Nokia's share price. Microsoft then buys Nokia at a fraction of the cost it would otherwise have been, and Elop returns to a prestigious role at Microsoft, where he's in with a shot at the CEO role.
That doesn't look the slightest bit dodgy at all.
So Elop left Microsoft to head up Nokia, where he made supposedly very idiotic changes that had the effect of destroying Nokia's share price. Microsoft then buys Nokia at a fraction of the cost it would otherwise have been, and Elop returns to a prestigious role at Microsoft, where he's in with a shot at the CEO role.
That doesn't look the slightest bit dodgy at all.
Well in this case it looks more like: INFILTRATE - WEAKEN - ASSIMILATE
MS did not buy Nokia, MS bouth Nokia phone business, which I think is roughly half of Nokia. Nokia shareholders will not become MS shareholders here.
What's incredible is that I haven't seen any mention of the shareholders or board of directors attempting to sue Elop's ass off for malfeasance.
That was precisely the plan all along. The only surprising piece of this is that the this purchase is about a year earlier than expected. The remaining parts of Nokia, including the patent portfolio, will be snapped up by Redmond soon enough (read: after the stock value deflates more).
So Elop left Microsoft to head up Nokia, where he made supposedly very idiotic changes that had the effect of destroying Nokia's share price. Microsoft then buys Nokia at a fraction of the cost it would otherwise have been, and Elop returns to a prestigious role at Microsoft, where he's in with a shot at the CEO role.
If Elop becomes CEO at Microsoft, it will essentially prove the company still has absolutely no idea how to move forward in today's technological world.
And I'm perfectly okay with that.
This wouldn't be the first time that MS has come from behind: Word utterly crushed Word Perfect to become the standard in the early 90s, Excel pushed Lotus 1-2-3 into has-been status, Internet Explorer killed Netscape as a viable company, and people were surprised when MS released the Xbox and went on to make a fortune in the console industry
Hmm. Of course most of those victories were achieved at least in part by leveraging MS' control of the underlying operating system. Admittedly the Xbox didn't have that advantage. That said, while the platform is certainly making money, it's still not clear that MS have recouped the massive investment they needed to brute force their way into the market.
This situation is different again. MS aren't competing against Apple, Google and Samsung. They're competing against Apple and Android. Every hardware manufacturer in the far east is eyeing Android and thinking "we could sell our phones under our own brand". So all the hardware guys that usually support are potential competitors. That's on top of Apple, Google and Samsung.
Even worse, they're pretty much tied to the windows brand for whatever phone they use. So the symbol that everyone sees when they're bored at school in computer class and the one that everyone sees when they're bored at work and wishing they were elsewhere doing something, anything else
What might save them in this market is big business. If they can get some large corporations to declare themselves as winphone shops and make everyone use the platform for all work related activities they could use that to make inroads into education and home use. But the business dudes all have iPhones or Android already and it works for them. It's going to be hard work getting them to give up those machines for windows. Especially with BYOD as an emerging trend.
If you ask me, their best hope might be to launch an Xbox phone. Xbox users tend to like the platform; load it up with plenty of free mobile games and they could build a user base pretty quickly, to say nothing of finally finding takers for their app store. But that wouldn't get them a "serious" offering so I don't think they'll do it.
Nokia used to be a solid hardware manufacturer. One of Elop's bone-headed moves was to move to the same outsourced manufacturing model as the competition.
the difference now is that everybody's used Microsoft's software for a couple of decades, and have decided that they really would rather use something else when given the option.
MS didn't make a fortune in the console industry, the amount they paid to make the xbox successful has roughly only just been paid back. Any other company (ie without a big sugar daddy parent company) would have been bankrupt long ago. That's how 'successful' xbox has really been.
Microsoft crushed its competition via illegal and immoral tactics by controlling the underlying operating system. Throwing up fake error messages when running rival products to make them seem unstable, using hidden APIs to give their own products an unnassailable advantage, even pretending IE was built into the OS to ensure it came pre-bundled onto every computer. The one I didn't like was when a new company announced a great new product, Microsoft would fake having the same product coming out shortly after. Everybody would wait for the "official" Microsoft version, the new company would go bankrupt, and Microsoft would buy them for pennies and release their software.
On an even playing field Microsoft has never done so well. On phones and tablets their propensity to launch slow and buggy products has come back to bite them. The Xbox did ok but they took an awful hit to get it where it is today. The best product they ever made was their mouse, so I guess they can do hardware
Yeah, it's vastly easier to acquire a company when it is failing... People have been known to sabotage a company just to drop the stock prices to the point that they can buy a controlling interest in that company, then stop the bleeding and turn things around.
You know what's sad? Nokia's smartphone division, back in the Symbian days, was consistently profitable. They used to sell more phones than Apple and Samsung put together. Since the move to Windows Phone, they were never profitable. Not a single semester out of the red... except that one time when they sold a building and did some scuzzy math with that.
Google bought Motorola for the patents. Microsoft bought Nokia because everyone else had almost abandoned Windows phones and Nokia was about to abandon them as well.
Only Samsung and Apple make money from phones. Nokia, HTC, Blackberry, and Motorola all make a loss. Btw, Nokia and HTC are 9th and 10th on the top smartphone list. Blackberry and Motorola aren't in the top ten.
At this point the phone business has turned into the PC business. Phones are a commodity. They all have 300-400 ppi screens. Anything higher than that is silly. The screens are all as large as you can hold comfortably. They all have the same CPU and and the same RAM and the same battery life. It's easy to design a high end phone.
For some reason it's harder to make money with smartphones than with PCs. You have to first become one of the few subsidized phones. I think the phone companies know you have to go through them so they don't pay very well?
"Only Samsung and Apple make money from phones."
You missed the two mainland Chinese companies. Too lazy to Google for them right now but that would be two of the following: Lenovo, Huawei or ZTE. LG is probably still porfitable until they get steamrolled by yet another rising Chinese company.
Microsoft succeeded in its strategy to take-down and take-over a major phone rival. First plant a CEO to destroy the company and lower its shares.... wait... and take over the company. What is left of Nokia is not likely to survive as they all had synergies with the devices unit, which will be taken-over by Microsoft.
Clearly, Nokia had problems when Elop took over... but he destroyed any potential Nokia had left (think N9/MeeGo). And now he gutted the company even further and will take the devices unit with him as a rejoins the Microsoft family he was clearly so fond of. The poor must have really missed his family.
...I keep trying but no matter how hard I work at it, no useful syllables are formed.
This probably encompasses the user experience of an MSNokia phone, so maybe that's apropos.
Microsoft has been paying Nokia $1B/year. As part of a much larger organization, it will be much easier to hide how much money Microsoft is dumping into Windows Phone, including support for marketing and selling handsets below cost.
Nokia handsets, meet XBox!
You break it you buy it.
I worked at Nokia from 2011-2012. Everyone was saying then that the reason for Elop (who was otherwise so useless) was to devalue Nokia enough that it would be a good deal for Microsoft. And here we are... the other shoe drops. But there will be a third shoe when he becomes CEO of Microsoft. They deserve each other.
Its not that anyone didn't see this coming, both inside and outside Nokia. I wrote at that time that clearly Elop was doing the same thing Belluzo did to SGI, all the time working for Microsoft's benefit, not the shareholders of Nokia. And that the reason he would go along and do so is that he was promised to be Ballmer's heir when he returned after Microsoft purchased Nokia cheaply. But where are the Finnish authorities in all this? They should arrest that thug for securities fraud if nothing else, and run him out of the country.
I am certainly glad they sold off Qt first. If Microsoft got their hands on it the writing would be on the wall even in the face of pledges to KDE.
How I read the open letter:
"Nokia has an identity spanning 150 years of heritage, innovation, excellence, and change. That ends today. By this evening those 150 years will be a rumor. They never happened. Think about that. Today is history. Today will be remembered. Years from now, the young will ask with wonder about this day. Today is history, and you are part of it..."
Do you find it peculiar the Elop never sold his house in Redmond and his family didn't move to Finland though Stephen said hey would ? Can you avoid thinking of a conspiracy ?
I mean, everybody and their mother could see his "moves" were suicidal, the only reason to not expect that he was destroying the company for MS to pick it up cheap was the sheer audacity of the fact...
As a side note, I finally switched to a Galaxy S3 from a Nokia N9 over half a year ago, due to the fact nobody was developing for the abandoned platform. However, in every other way (except screen size I guess) the N9 and Maemo/Meego was so superior to S3/Android that for about 2 months I was constantly on the verge of getting another N9. In retrospect, my favorite feature of the N9 was how multitasking and switching between apps worked. On Android and iOS, apart from the fact that it is much slower to switch between apps, I am never certain my apps have not exited in the background and will launch from scratch and you have to jump some serious UI hoops if you actually want to force an app to restart. N9's swipe interface was the thing closer to a full desktop - fast switching between active apps (a swipe and a tap), exiting vs minimizing app having the same UI cost (single swipe from different side) and apps not dying by themselves in the background (at least in the same usage pattern that in iOS and Android kills them).
On Android and iOS, apart from the fact that it is much slower to switch between apps, I am never certain my apps have not exited in the background and will launch from scratch and you have to jump some serious UI hoops if you actually want to force an app to restart.
Alternative viewpoint: If apps are constantly running in the background, they are using up resources, and if you feel the need to force apps to restart, there's something wrong with them.
Yeah, everybody could see it coming, but it doesn't make sense from the POV of Microsoft shareholders.
Nokia Mobile built its success on two things: excellent relationships with its channels, the telcos; and a superb market segmentation model. (Its designs were robust, reliable, and well-liked by their users, but conservative; and its manufacturing division
Nokia's value resided in these two things: channel relationships, and a deep understanding of all market segments: a willingness and ability to make phones for every demographic and national market, and sell them via the established channels. Those were Nokia's core competencies, the places it created value, the things it did better than its competitors. Not manufacturing. Not design innovation. Marketing, market research, selling a large range, nearly everywhere. (The one geographical market in which Nokia didn't have good telco relationships was the USA. So it didn't sell many phones, except to the discriminating.)
That was before Elop and the "only Winpho, only North America, Apple me-too" strategy. Elop has admitted to channel resistance to selling Windows Phone, and he has pruned Nokia's tree of products down to a stump, pretty much. He's ignored (at best) nearly all markets outside North America.
Nokia's value is gone. Sacrificed to the belief that Nokia could out-innovate companies which excel at that.
Microsoft's buying Nokia in the hope of obtaining massively successful product innovation is
Oh, right: it's a Ballmerism.
Given that Microsoft all but ensured that it would be an acquisition, Elop was the person who burnt the platform.
Shame that they took over Nokia and bastardized it to be an unremarkable Windows Phone platform.
Any alternate headlines? Here are some:
"Headless software company buys brainless phone company"
"Rumours of Dinosaur extinction greatly exaggerated (And their mating habits haven't changed)"
I'm sure there's more
Depressing Inevitability
This was the only likely scenario once Elop tied Nokia to the MS mast and cut away the lifeboats. It was always going to be we sail together and we sink together.
In many ways Nokia has fulfilled their side of the bargain by generating some hardware which is as good as any phone out there. What has held them back is the OS, which despite having some good features is always lagging behind the iphone and android, and seems incapable of introducing the needed changes at the rate required in a consumer device.
In a perfect world, Nokia would take over responsibility of the MS mobile division and it would be left alone to force the changes that the engineers of Nokia know are required. However what is more likely is that Microsoft will smother the innovative culture in Nokia to make it more like itself, so that we will get a company more concerned about how Office runs on the phone than offering the best consumer experience. I also can't wait to see how the trolls of Helsinki react to their first stack ranking session.
What is confusing about this is the timing. Is this Ballmer's last hurrah or Elop's last desperate grab for power. If your CEO had just announced he would be leaving so would not be taking long term responsibility for such a decision, as a board wouldn't you say Whoa, maybe we will get the next guy in to look at this? Lets face it with Baller's acquisition track record it may be more profitable to take the billions of dollars, pile it the middle of Oulu and set fire to it....
if they think they will find a place in my mobile phone or tablet, they are loony.
(gosh, that is how long ago I replaced Windows95 with Slackware
The CEO has a fiduciary duty to his company and its shareholders. Elop pretty obviously violated that duty by acting in the best interests of MS, not Nokia. It seems to me that there would be strong grounds for a Nokia shareholder lawsuit against Elop personally, and possibly against MS as well. Discovery proceedings could be quite interesting – civil attorneys can demand just about any relevant documents, emails, and so forth. Unless everything was done verbally with no record, there ought to be some evidence of Elop's malfeasance.
The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first. -- Blaise Pascal