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HOLBROOK, SANDRA LEE Flint
Sandra Lee Holbrook, age 61, of Flint, passed away peacefully surrounded by all of her family on Tuesday, July 23, 2013. A memorial service will be1:00PM Saturday, July 27, 2013 at Brown Funeral Home, 1480 E. Hill Rd., Grand Blanc. Pastor Jim Reid officiating. Visitation will be Friday 4:00-8:00PM at the funeral home. Memorial donations may be made to the family. Sandra was born August 7, 1951 in Flint the daughter of Aubrey and Lavina (Rouse) Mathers. She retired from General Motors and lived life to the fullest. In her spare time, she loved to sing and was a lead singer for several bands performing at several different venues. Sandra will be missed dearly and remembered always. Surviving are her two daughters, Kim Navarre-Jones (Matt), Shanette Kidd (John); son, Shawn Navarre (Pilar); mother, Lavina Mathers; brothers, Rick Mathers (Nancy), Aubrey Mathers Jr. (Julie), Rhonda Adams (Doug); grandchildren, Joshua, Jesse, Madison, John, Aubrey; nieces and nephew, Brent, Danielle, Angie, and Jenna. She was preceded in death by her father, Aubrey Mathers Sr., twin brother and sister, Aubrey Dale and Bonita Marie; grandparents, Daniel and Vera Rouse, Aubrey and Ruth Mathers, special friend, Nas Douros; beloved pets, Neeka and Baba; and many aunts, uncles and cousins.
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Ed Cunningham
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Show Summary
Adam opens the show talking about his very busy weekend. First, a dinner with friends filled with gossip. Then, he details his weekend at the racetrack in Fontana. He also talks about a drag race he got into, and the importance of being well manicured. Bald Bryan then reviews the film World War Z, and Adam shares his thoughts about fighting giant monsters.
Ed Cunningham is in studio next, and he talks with Adam about his experiences in the NFL. They also discuss some of the exciting docs Ed has worked on, like 'King of Kong', 'Undefeated', and his latest project, 'Finders Keepers'. Alison then starts up the news discussing the controversy surrounding Paula Deen's racist remarks, and the reveal of the Kanye-Kardashian baby name. As the show wraps up, the guys discuss the hunt for Edward Snowden.
Visit http://Kickstarter.com and search for 'Finders Keepers'.
You can also follow Ed on Twitter @LegInGrill
Jerry Porter
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Click Here for Superfan Giovanni's recap and commentary on today's episode.
For more, go to AdamCarolla.com/Gio.
Show Credits
Producers: Mike August, Mike Lynch, and Mike Dawson
Co-Producers: Gary Smith, Chris Laxamana, Matt Fondiler and Jeff Fox
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We Speak For The Dogs From This Paper Magazine Shoot
For this month's issue of Paper magazine, photographer Emily Shur took a series of photographs with the models' backs to the camera as they held up adorable dogs. It's clear what the models are trying to say — "This is my back!" — but no one is speaking for these dogs. Here's what we think they would say, if given the chance.
Photos by Emily Shur via Buzzfeed


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Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says protected bike facilities are important to retain hi-tech jobs in his city.
"By next year I believe the city of Chicago will lead the country in protected bike lanes and dedicated bike lanes and it will be the bike friendliest city in the country," Emanuel said Sunday at Malcolm X College.
"It will help us recruit the type of people that have been leaving for the coast. They will now come to the city of Chicago. The type of companies that have been leaving for the coast will stay in the city of Chicago."
Emanuel cited a recent meeting with executives from the hot Internet startup company GrubHub who told him that when they recruit engineers they show the new protected bike lanes which Chicago has been installing since last summer.


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Stolen Mumford & Sons Banjo Found Next To Australian Highway – Just In Time For Tuesday's Webcast!It sucks when some loser robs a band of their precious musical gear. But sometimes, these stories have a happy ending. Like the time this guy found one of Mumford & Sons' stolen banjos just chilling on the side of a highway in Australia. Seriously.


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Stone of Erech
- This page should be merged with Erech.
The Stone of Erech was a great black stone, spherical in shape and roughly six feet in diameter. It was half-buried at the top of the Hill of Erech. The Stone was a mysterious and eerie place, shunned by the people of the valley, who claimed it had fallen from the sky, and was haunted by restless spirits. In fact, the Stone had its origins in Númenor, and was brought to Erech after the Downfall by Isildur himself.
It was at the Stone of Erech that the King of the Mountain swore allegiance to Isildur's cause in the time of the Last Alliance. Because he failed to fulfil his oath, the Oathbreakers haunted the hills until they made good their promise.
In the time of King Arvedui of Arthedain a prophecy was made regarding the arising of the dead during the War of the Ring. In this prophesy the Stone of Erech was mentioned:
- "The Dead awaken; for the hour is come for the oathbreakers: at the Stone of Erech they shall stand again and hear there a horn in the hills ringing."
- ― Malbeth the Seer
When the Grey Company came to Rohan the sons of Elrond brought with them a reminder of these words from their father to Aragorn, who acted upon these words to brave the Paths of the Dead.[1]
After waiting through the long years of the Third Age, their chance came at last when Aragorn Elessar led them out from beneath the Dwimorberg to the Stone of Erech. There at last they fulfilled their ancient bond, and marched to the aid of Gondor.[2]


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Browsing by Subject "Domain modelling"
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Situation awareness in context-aware case-based decision support. (IEEE http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/COGSIMA.2011.5753761, 2011-02)NWIABU, N., ALLISON, I., HOLT, P., LOWIT, P. and OYENEYIN, B., 2011. Situation awareness in context-aware case-based decision support. In: IEEE Conference on Cognitive Methods in Situation Awareness and Decision Support (CogSIMA 2011). 22-24 February 2011. Piscataway, New Jersey: IEEE. Pp. 9-16Humans naturally reuse recalled knowledge to solve problems and this includes understanding the information that identify or characterize these problems (context), and the situation. Context-aware case-based reasoning ...


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Whether it's a high-profile tech company like Yahoo!, or a more established conglomerate like GE or Home Depot, large companies have a hard time keeping their best and brightest in house. Recently, GigaOM discussed the troubles at Yahoo! with a flat stock price, vested options for some of their best people, and the apparent free flow of VC dollars luring away some of their best people to do the start-up thing again.
Yet, Yahoo!, GE, Home Depot, and other large established companies have a tremendous advantage in retaining their top talent and don't. I've seen the good and the bad things that large companies do in relation to talent management. Here's my Top Ten list of what large companies do to lose their top talent :
1. Big Company Bureaucracy. This is probably the #1 reason we hear after the fact from disenchanted employees. However, it's usually a reason that masks the real reason. No one likes rules that make no sense. But, when top talent is complaining along these lines, it's usually a sign that they didn't feel as if they had a say in these rules. They were simply told to follow along and get with the program. No voice in the process and really talented people say "check please."
2. Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. Big companies have many moving parts -- by definition. Therefore, they usually don't have people going around to their best and brightest asking them if they're enjoying their current projects or if they want to work on something new that they're really interested in which would help the company. HR people are usually too busy keeping up with other things to get into this. The bosses are also usually tapped out on time and this becomes a "nice to have" rather than "must have" conversation. However, unless you see it as a "must have," say adios to some of your best people. Top talent isn't driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend the time to figure this out with those people.
3. Poor Annual Performance Reviews. You would be amazed at how many companies do not do a very effective job at annual performance reviews. Or, if they have them, they are rushed through, with a form quickly filled out and sent off to HR, and back to real work. The impression this leaves with the employee is that my boss -- and, therefore, the company -- isn't really interested in my long-term future here. If you're talented enough, why stay? This one leads into #4....
4. No Discussion around Career Development. Here's a secret for most bosses: most employees don't know what they'll be doing in 5 years. In our experience, about less than 5% of people could tell you if you asked. However, everyone wants to have a discussion with you about their future. Most bosses never engage with their employees about where they want to go in their careers -- even the top talent. This represents a huge opportunity for you and your organization if you do bring it up. Our best clients have separate annual discussions with their employees -- apart from their annual or bi-annual performance review meetings -- to discuss succession planning or career development. If your best people know that you think there's a path for them going forward, they'll be more likely to hang around.
5. Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities. I applaud companies trying to build an incubator or "brickhouse" around their talent, by giving them new exciting projects to work on. The challenge for most organizations is not setting up a strategic priority, like establishing an incubator, but sticking with it a year or two from now. Top talent hates to be "jerked around." If you commit to a project that they will be heading up, you've got to give them enough opportunity to deliver what they've promised.


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For years it was considered one of the most flood prone areas in northern Illinois. The City of Loves Park can rest a lot easier now that a $30 million flood protection project has been completed.
The project has been more than 30 years in the making, but as of Monday morning it's officially finished. The flood protection project consists of 18,000 feet of improved channels and advanced storm water runoff in the Windsor Lake System.
Leaders are celebrating Monday's completion as the long-awaited end to paying thousands of dollars in flood insurance premiums. The project was a cooperative effort between the City of Loves Park and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The federal government picked up three quarters of the $30 million bill, while the City of Loves Park and the State of Illinois kicked in the other 25 percent.


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Then you know what it will do? Put thousands of people out of work!
Think of the Pharmacists!
I'll trade in the pharmacists for unfettered, unprotected sex for all. A world without STDs would be an awesome world, indeed. Seinfeld's dream of an intercourse hello would be realized.
Um. HIV is one that gives people the chills today but there are other STD's. Some, like genital herpes are highly contageous and incurable. Hepatitis C is less contageous but also incurable and potentially lethal. There are even antibiotic resistance forms of gonorrhea.
Hold it right there!
As if HIV was the only STD and the others weren't dangerous or troublesome. Even today, HIV is the least of my concern. There is also HepB/C, HPV, Herpes, Syphilis... And unlike HIV, the infections usually come and go and you never know if you're still transmitting or if it'll get worse and cause cancer after a few decades (Hepatitis and HPV, specifically) either to you or your loved one.
Syphilis? Come on man, this isn't the 19th century. You get syphilis you realize it and see a doctor. Some antibiotics later and you are cured. How can you compare that to HIV? Herpes would suck but it's common and controllable.. It doesn't result in slowly wasting away taking 100s of pills a day as you are treated like some sort of leper who is already dead. HPV I believe is already covered by a recent vaccine and hepatitis would suck but you can get it in other ways then sex anyway. HIV is the winner for
Syphilis = kinda agreed
Herpes = it's annoying as fuck but agreed
HPV = vaccine is only for two types and they are not the ones that cause cancer... the other non-genital types? I don't care about 'em.
HIV = kinda biased, the country where I live in (Brazil) gives away the medication since they broke the patents and chug away low cost pills without paying royalties
I don't know, but it's my opinion that a bomb ticking that you never know if/when it'll hit and take you or someone you love is much worse than some
Uh, the HPV vaccine IS for the types of HPV that cause cancer. That's the entire point of the vaccination program. It is not a cure for all possible types of cervical cancer (only ~60% of them) but the HPV strains it vaccinates against are those linked to cancer + some other common ones (to encourage men to get the vaccine too and thus promote herd immunity).
That must be why Africa has so few problems with overpopulation oh wai---
The delta CCR5 mutation was already well known, and the subject of several (at least 4) different experimental receptor blocking and gene therapy medications, all of which were blocked by the FDA citing safety concerns.
This is not meant to be a conspiracy theorist bottom feeding post, but simply intended to inform. There have been many studies of this mutation for thereputic uses conducted in Europe over the past decade, including seeveral promising phase 2 trials.
Like most life saving medications though, any prospective cure for HIV will probably be developed in the US, and approved in Europe. (Then approved in the US after decades of routine use overseas.)
While this particular gene therapy might be new, the mechanism is not novel.
I might point out that FDA rejection of thalidomide saved thousands of children from being born as flipper babies.
There have been strong calls for informed participation in clinical trials, especially for terminally ill patients. The FDA has been very responsive as far as I am aware.
I suggest not operating on rumor or whatever Fox News is peddling and check the facts for yourself. It isn't difficult.
So, it looks like the risk/reward relationship is slightly different in both cases, doesn't it...
But, at the end of the day, the methodology for demonstrating the effectiveness of the therapies is the same.
This reminds of all that BS about multiple sclerosis vein theory, and all the M.S. lobby groups demanding governments pay for it and fast-track the research, despite the fact that dozens of researchers who were experts in M.S. were more than a little dubious and insisted that any potential therapy needs to be adequately tested. And now a bunch of quacks in Latin American countries offer it and lo an
Furthermore, if you want to blame high drug prices in the US on anything, this is the problem right here - the gross majority of employees in any big pharma company are responsible for some FDA requirement. On the upside, they do create a ton of jobs.
Glass making is a far better job than filling out paper work. Also is far more exciting smashing the windows in the first place.
Like most life saving medications though, any prospective cure for HIV will probably be developed in the US, and approved in Europe. (Then approved in the US after decades of routine use overseas.)
So, HIV is likely to be wiped out in Africa before the US?
Um, I don't think this is going to work for the masses, even if we can now do DNA sequencing for about 1/10th what it cost just two years ago, and we have protein folding solutions for HIV thanks to the work of the UW's Baker Lab and all you great volunteers.
Look, the vast and overwhelming quantity of infections are in areas where not only are people very very poor (no, poorer than that, think a couple hundred dollars a year for a family), but they have 2-3 other major infectious diseases to cope with.
Polio is back, actually, thanks to anti-immunization Saudi policies.
I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but it is unlikely to provide solutions for the majority of our planet's infected and at-risk populations.
The diseases that catch the imagination aren't necessarily the bad ones. Breast cancer gets considerably more funding and attention than is justified when compared with the mortality rate and ability to treat it.
And what was the mortality rate from breast cancer fifty years ago?
If this works, five bucks says within a decade there are hoards of twats screaming about all the 'hidden dangers' of the treatment that mainstream science doesn't want you to know and about how AIDS never killed anyone in the first place and claiming it was dropping before the cure. This will happen, especially if it involves gene therapy.
You're completely forgetting the religious aspect. Only fornicators destined for hell are going to get AIDS. Clearly we need to bomb the free clinic.
Also, it causes autism.
But ironically autism makes it harder to get HIV.
I assume you mean that the social awkwardness makes it harder to get laid. I actually once told a doctor that that was my "birth control plan". I suppose anti-STD plan too. (and if I do get lucky, condoms)
Don't worry. The procedure requires them to apply the gene therapy to stem cells before the transfusion. That will keep it illegal in the U.S. for at least 50 years.
umbilical cord blood is a life!
It's posts like that this that make me really smile. Science -- the faithful and playful (but expensive) dog often blamed for farting during dinner even when it was one of the diners -- is responsible for directly raising someone's... and hopefully a lot more people's, over time... quality of life.
I know what's going to happen, though. Some religious person/group will end up trying to take credit. People will say, "God cured him of his HIV"... well, no, the Delta CCR5 mutation cured him. Modern science cure
Jesus! It's not that I don't agree with you more or less, but why don't you and science get a room?
Science has good taste in men, unfortunately... believe me. I've been barking up that tree for ages.
I'll be in my bunk.
The transplant treatment itself, given only to late-stage cancer patients, kills up to 30% of patients.
Good for them if they have such a low mortality. I still don't see it being used regularly with that mortality rate. You are going to kill 1/3 of your patients?
No, the treatment they are working on is gene therapy, not the transplant that seems to have cured the man. They are related, but not the same.
"The survival rate of a bone marrow transplant is around 40% even in the best hospitals in the world."
The survival rate for people dying of nasty forms of leukemia who get a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor when they're already on death's door might be about 40%, but the procedure itself isn't nearly that dangerous. Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant has a mortality rate around 5% on average, and groups who specialize in it are getting quite a bit better than that. Presumably that
Just let them fight and bet on the winner.
And leukemia to cure HIV.
(Yeah, that's actually completely wrong because the HIV was cured as a side-effect of the treatment against leukemia. Still, nicely circular.)
Well, it worked for Mr. Burns [wikia.com].
Umm, on the incurable front there's still Hepatitis C, HPV (thanks to Michele Bachmann), and good ol' Herpes to worry about.
If you suspect a man, don't employ him.


text:
Greenpeace India activists put up a satirical caricature in front of the Vidhan Sabha in Delhi, questioning Chief Minister Shiela Dixit's power strategy. The caricature said 'ab ki bar bijli lagathar' (uninterrupted power from now on) playing on the CM's assurance of uninterrupted electricity this summer.
© Greenpeace/SudhanshuMalhotra
37 - 48 of 2565 results.
Follow @greenpeaceindia


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Ebooks and Antitrust
The Justice Department sues Apple and five book publishers for fighting Amazon, April 11, 2012
By Ryan Chittum
Back in 2010, a giant retailer had 90 percent of a market—a near total monopoly (monopsony, if you want to be precise).
This company tried to dictate pricing in the industry via its dominant position (aided significantly, to be sure, by its early innovation in the market) and by the fact that it can use its profits elsewhere to subsidize heavy discounts, selling them at a loss so other retailers can't match its prices. That threatened to further cement this company's grip on the market, as did the fact that it sold a device that locked consumers into its proprietary software. This company used its monopoly power to demand lower prices from manufacturers, removing their products from its store (and thus cutting off almost all sales) when they didn't comply.
Manufacturers in this market—the folks who actually make the stuff people buy—were gravely concerned about the power this retailer had assumed over their business.
Another giant company came along and told manufacturers it had a better model. It would let them set their own prices for their own goods in exchange for a fixed cut and for barring other retailers from selling for less. The manufacturers agreed and individually set their own prices for their products.
While this would have been vertical price fixing and considered illegal five years ago under the Sherman Antitrust Act, a 2007 Supreme Court ruling has changed that, saying that retailers can set minimum prices for their products to "give consumers more options so that they can choose among low-price, low-service brands; high-price, high-service brands; and brands that fall in between."
Two years later, the model has made an impact. The monopoly retailer's position in the market has been reduced to 60 percent. Prices have risen about 25 percent, which allows for the emergence of two new major retailers who wouldn't have been in the market since they would have been competing to lose money on every book sale. Sales have continued to boom.
The Justice Department sues for antitrust violations. But whom does it sue? The companies fighting the monopoly, naturally.
The dominant retailer I'm talking about above, of course, is Amazon. The competitor is Apple (and, later, Barnes & Noble), and the manufacturers are the major book publishers.
But the Obama administration is missing the forest for the trees in suing them for colluding to raise prices in the ebook market.
While this may look like price-fixing, and the DOJ has some damning-looking meetings and timelines (that Penguin's CEO says contain "material misstatements and omissions"), it's ultimately about companies being forced to do what the government wouldn't do: Take on a monopolistic competitor that abused its market power to dictate how they do business.
How do we know this? Because the publishers sued here made less money under Apple's agency sales model than they did under Amazon's loss leader policy. As Macmillan CEO John Sargent, who is fighting the DOJ suit, says: "When Macmillan changed to the agency model we did so knowing we would make less money on our e book business. We made the change to support an open and competitive market for the future, and it worked." What kind of sense does it make for companies to fix prices to make less money? The publishers were gravely worried about the monopoly power Amazon was accumulating over their market and they acted to break it. If anybody was anticompetitive here it's Apple, which leveraged its heft and the publishers' weak position vis a vis Amazon to ensure itself a 30 percent profit margin on ebook sales.
This kind of market distortion is unsurprising when companies like Amazon, which doesn't play nice, are allowed to accumulate dominant positions and to use their power to dictate terms.
GigaOm's Mathew Ingram writes that "A case against Amazon wouldn't make any sense unless it could be shown that Amazon's behavior was causing higher prices." It's true antitrust laws are there primarily to protect consumers, but they do that in part by protecting competitors and suppliers from chokeholds in markets. Doing so ultimately protects consumers in the long run—on prices and on selection.
Taking a loss on something to establish or maintain a dominant market position is predatory pricing. In the short run, that may benefit consumers, but it won't in the long run. (UPDATE: I've made several copy edits to fix tenses in the opening few paragraphs.)
Reprinted with the kind permission of the CLR, whose motto is "Strong Press, Strong Democracy"


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|2007-04-29, 12:13
|Link #41
Team Player
Join Date: Apr 2004
I seem to have stirred up a hornet's nest - I suppose it says something about the potential of MKV that its defenders are so dedicated.
To start - I didn't call anyone a republican, I compared someone to a republican, in respect to the practice of using ad hominem and straw man arguments to make a point, and the ineffectiveness of such points upon myself. Liberal vs conservative wasn't really what I was aiming at or talking about.
There seem to be two assumptions here that I operate from, and yet aren't being applied generally. So I will explain them here, in the hopes of better defending my position.
First, at least in an American court, a verdict is not a yes or no thing. It is true that it starts with guilty or not guilty - but the charges offered in the first place and the sentence that ultimate results are based on a sliding scale that allows the judge to take into consideration all of the elements of a case when making the final decisions. As an example - if you get arrested for carrying drugs, you can be charged with possession of an illegal substance - generally a misdemeanor. If you were planning to sell it, then that results in a more severe charge (possession of an illegal substance with intent to distribute - a felony charge), and if you were planning to sell it to kids, then you're in even bigger trouble (possession of an illegal substance with intent to distribute to minors - a major felony). That's a sliding scale that applies even before the trial has begun. Once found guilty (there's considerations there, too, BTW, that can get you cleared even if the state can prove a crime was committed) the judge has to pass a sentence, which is generally within a preset range of fines and penalties. Among the things a judge considers when deciding your sentence is what kind of drug it was, whether you'd actually managed to sell it, where you got it, how well you cooperated with the police, and even how remorseful you are that you committed such an act in the first place. This is just an illustrative example, but it demonstrates my point - there is no black and white standard in the legal world, for anything. Even murderers get subjective sentencing.
Also at stake here is potential future rulings. IP law is still in its infancy, especially with respect to the internet, so many of these issues are undecided as of now. Future rulings will depend in part on the intent and degree of criminality practiced by the defendants. It's not implausible that choices made by the fansubbing community today could have unforeseen results in the future. In such a case, I can't help but preach caution and responsibility.
The second point is that the consumer deserves respect - even leaches. I deliberately said "consumer", not "customer", the key difference being that no money was exchanged - one doesn't have to have paid for something to consume it.
Consumers are the reason for this whole setup. Without consumption there is no demand for the product, and as a result no underground cottage industry to produce it. If you really make fansubs just for yourself, then why distribute. You can obtain recorded copies of things for yourself and even translate and sub them for the enjoyment of yourself and a few friends under the fair use standard - otherwise we wouldn't be allowed to record television. The critical point that makes this illegal is mass distribution - so why break the law if you don't care about the general consumer?
As I said, those are the assumptions I start with. The end results I have already posted, so I won't repeat myself. I respect the differences in opinion sited in the previous posts, but I continue to worry about the careless decisions made for the sake of new technology and the directions it could lead in the future.
BTW, TheFluff - the whole video quality issue is a long established legal test, going back to the Sony VCR ruling, and more recently applied against Napster and Grokster. You may want to check out the case law, if you want to continue to imply that people are stupid for using it.
|2007-04-29, 12:46
|Link #43
Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
in either case, if its "high quality" or 160x120 .rm stuff that is blurry as fuck, the licensing company is most likly going to rape you for all you are worth.
Last edited by epic59; 2007-04-29 at 12:55. Reason: angsty
|2007-04-29, 13:05
|Link #45
Excessively jovial fellow
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: ISDB-T
Age: 31
Whether I "respect" them or not doesn't matter in the slightest. I don't fucking care if you only have an extremely shitty computer or if you are so poor you can't afford a HDTV or whatever. There are numerous guides that explain how to re-encode, demux, transcode etc. etc. ad nauseam. If you can't figure out how to do it, that's your problem, not mine. I don't do this for you, I do it for my own satisfaction. I guess that by "deserves respect" you really mean "leeches should decide what fansubbers should do because they are so many more and they are the ones who are watching the stuff anyway", but I'm sorry, I don't think I can agree with that.
2. As I said, I think copyright law as it is right now is really really stupid, and since the risk of getting caught is approximately zero at the moment I'm going to ignore it
3. I believe free enjoyment of anime for more people than just myself and my select few friends is a good thing
Although, sometimes people like you makes me wonder why the heck I bother at all. :V
Also, I guess that by this argument you mean that by established case law, you can get away with "a slap on the wrist" for distributing illegal full-length movies, musical albums or anime episodes, as long as the quality is shit. Well, I've seen weirder interpretations of the law, but not many. :V
Summary: your entire argument is completely absurd. Fansubbing is already (and has always been) highly illegal. Adding or subtracting small things like softsubs or HD resolutions from the current XviD/MP3 fansubs may possibly make a difference of a few million in fines... but when you're going to have to pay at least $50 million or something absurd like that anyway, why the heck would it matter?
|2007-04-29, 13:41
|Link #46
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Everyone else has taken care of the other parts of this post, but there was something left untouched.
|2007-04-29, 14:12
|Link #47
Join Date: Dec 2005
Well, in MY country(Singapore), as long as you carry more than 15g of heroin with you, you are charged with a compulsory death sentence, no matter what you plan to do with the drugs.
By the way, do you know that there are established copyright related laws pertaining to Japanese song lyrics? JASRAC has shut down several sites over the years which post kanji lyrics etc...
Guess what is found on practically all the anime being fansubbed these days?
|2007-04-29, 17:43
|Link #49
In exile
Join Date: May 2006
Location: There! Not there! There!
Age: 30
What a horrid topic this became...
My responses:
1. mkv can be viewed on a PC that can view avi as long as the right software is installed. (There is no hardware limitation between mkv and avi)
2. Fansub ethics? Caution and responsibility?... lol?
|2007-04-29, 18:03
|Link #50
Translator, Producer
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Age: 38
Actually, I'm no legal scholar, but I suspect that the issue of generational copy degradation is one that will quickly go into the annals of legal history. I don't think any court has had the balls to rule against previous precedents in that respect from the VHS days, but once they do, it'll be out the window.
I mean, in this world of perfect digital copies, the lowering of quality is a CHOICE, not a NECESSITY. If I wanted a perfect copy of a DVD, that's easy to make. In the VHS days, making nearly perfect copies was almost impossible except with multi thousand dollar professional equipment (and even then, it's impossible to make PERFECT copies). So then, where does a court draw the line in terms of today? If I lower the bitrate by 10%? 50%? It's an arbitrary decision and the only reasonable definition would be to declare all copies, no matter now degraded in quality, as illegal duplications.
All those rulings from the VHS days will eventually be overturned and they will not matter one whit in how current day intellectual property law is applied. That's my opinion, anyway.
Now, wasn't this discussion supposed to be about how "great" mkv is? (Yay mp4!)
|2007-04-29, 18:05
|Link #51
Doremi-fansubs founder
Join Date: Mar 2004
I"ll just throw my hat in and say that .avi is still the easiest to work with in Virtual Dub. Takes around 30 minutes to do a 2 pass Xvid on a Core solo laptop.
Then again, I don't use any filters at all and I don't see many people complain anyway.
|2007-04-29, 18:06
|Link #52
Translator, Producer
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Age: 38
Hah! I wouldn't put it past them, either. Japanese record companies are scary.
|2007-04-29, 18:08
|Link #53
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Texas
30min? Fast indeed. 47-54min on average here.
|2007-04-29, 23:39
|Link #54
Team Player
Join Date: Apr 2004
|2007-04-30, 13:02
|Link #55
Give them the What For!
Omg Prepositions and nomilizations.
Due to the continuation of such flaming, I think we should come to a decision to stop this humiliation of person in question. and go back to the topic on hand. Mkv is good
|2007-04-30, 20:22
|Link #56
The Supreme Pontiff
Join Date: Dec 2005
|2007-05-04, 09:54
|Link #58
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
Keep the discussion clean now eh people
Meh, had some help from TheFluff on IRC regarding encoding in H.264 with MeGUI.
I'm confronted with another issue.
Whenever I encode in H.264, the only result is either, blocking, blocking or lots and lots blocking.
And I still don't know where the @#$% the blocking is coming from since I use pre-defined settings, which arn't working either >_<
So for now I encode to AVI (h.264) and mux that in MKV until I find out why meGUI is making such a crap out of my encodes.
Vdub I still use for XviD btw ^^
|2007-05-04, 10:18
|Link #60
Junior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Netherlands, The
Age: 29
Blocking in dark areas is a known issue with x264, but I have no idea why this does not happen to you when using x264 in VFW mode, and it should not be that noticeable. Do you see the same artifacts in x264 encodes done by others? Try going to the Zones tab in the Video configuration tab, selecting your favorite profile and typing in --aq-strength 1.1 in the Custom Commandline Options text box. Press Update to confirm the change and encode another video. Did this fix your problem? Most likely not, but I'm trying to narrow down the problem.
|Thread Tools


text:
This morning, I had a meeting at 2nd & Jackson at 8 AM and so had to catch the 14 at 23rd & Jackson at 7:44 AM. When I got to the bus stop (a few minutes early, as usual), I immediately took out my pass. Then I sat down to wait, clutching it with the confidence and satisfaction of a transit geek who's got an annual, peak-fare pass and is ready to use it.
Except, my friends, it was no longer a peak-fare pass. (Ahem.)
This morning's ride was my first peak trip since the fare increase, you see, and it (the fare increase, that is) had temporarily slipped my mind. I'd been meaning to upgrade my pass, but, after several off-peak rides–on which my $1.75 pass still worked–I had grown complacent.
Of course I had no change–not even a dollar. The driver, who had no doubt been dealing with similar issues all morning, was cool about it (no problem–just pay me next time), but I was utterly mortified–in part because I have a phobia of being without transit fare (remind me to tell you about the time I lost my transfer in 4th grade and the 2 driver made me ride to the end of the line), but mostly because my bus chick pride was hurt. (Other people make those kinds of basic bus mistakes, but not bus experts like me.)
On the way home, I paid 50 cents extra.


text:
Blizzard Entertainment has sent word that a new patch filled with balance changes and bug fixes has been injected into the world of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty.
Most notable--according to fan reaction on the patch's announcement post--is the timing change on researching Warp Gate technology. The gate development time has been increased from 140 to 160.
All three races see balance tweaks in this update along with a few bug fixes, including one that saves players from a possible crash after unplugging their USB headset. Rage-quitting just got slightly safer.
- General
- The default hotkey to toggle in-game music on/off has been reverted to its hotkey prior to Patch 1.3.0. The hotkey to display APM in the observer stat panel has been changed as a result.
- Balance
- Archon
- Now a massive unit.
- Range increased from 2 to 3.
- Research Warp Gate time increased from 140 to 160.
- Sentry train time decreased from 42 to 37.
- Warp Gate unit train times remain unchanged.
- Pylon power radius has been decreased from 7.5 to 6.5.
- Bunker
- Salvage resource return reduced from 100% to 75%.
- Ghost
- Cost changed from 150/150 to 200/100.
- Thor
- Thor now has 200 max energy, and starts with 50 energy.
- 250mm Strike Cannons now cost 150 energy to use (cooldown removed)
- Infestor
- Speed decreased from 2.5 to 2.25.
- Spore Crawler
- Root time decreased from 12 to 6.
- Cybernetics Core
- Gateway
- Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where Ghosts could not quickly EMP the same location.
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to stack air units when issuing a queued stop command before the units reached the end of their patrol point.
- Fixed an issue where unplugging your USB headset while another player was talking to you could cause a crash.
- Fixed an issue where the APM statistic could be artificially increased.
- Fixed an issue where 3D unit portraits were not animating smoothly at slow game speeds.
- Fixed an issue where, when viewing a replay, no text message was displayed when a player left a game.
- The Taiwanese hotkey to display/hide the game UI while in Observer mode now works correctly


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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures fell Wednesday to settle back below $1,600 an ounce. A rally in U.S. equities drew investors away from the precious-metals market, after gold's hefty 2.7% climb over the past two sessions. April gold gcj3 settled at $1,595.70 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, down $19.80, or 1.2%.
Read the full story: Gold settles under $1,600 after two-session climb


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Friday, September 19, 2008
The war on industry supported CME
What's Dr. Carlat worked up about? He's taking aim at the Center for Medicine in the public Interest (which he calls a reactionary unthink tank) for their upcoming seminar "Industry Support for Continuing Education of Healthcare Professionals: An evidence-Based Evaluation." And what, pray tell, is wrong with making an appeal to evidence in this debate? It's about time somebody did. All the agitators have to offer are personal attacks (did you know that if you favor industry supported CME you're a dinosaur?) and ad hominem arguments about people's commercial affiliations (true to form, for the symposium in question Dr. Carlat provides the usual litany). OK, Dr. Carlat, they're biased. Just like you and me. We get that. But I'm concerned that you're shedding more heat than light on this debate. Why not attack the arguments instead of the people?
Well, today Drugwonks, the CMPI blog, responded in kind. Go and read the whole exchange. It's rich. This will be great fun to watch for a while, but eventually I'd like to see a sober evaluation of the question based on evidence along with a little respect for the law of unintended consequences.
4 comments:
Sadly, our efforts to try and reduce industry influence in CME and medical information feels like we're going backwards. We now have medical bloggers organizing and being funded by J&J, and joining up with a group of so-called science bloggers who are paid by a media marketing company. No one seems able to differentiate medical information from these companies from marketing and to recognize the bias. Medical professionals can't even see the conflicts of interest anymore, as it seems natural to them to shill for industry, regardless of the venue. I'm not sure what the answer is if so few even see a problem.
There is an irreconcilable conflict of interest between those who make drugs and those who prescribe drugs. Whether you find particular evidence to the severity of consequences of this conflict does not change the fact that it exists.
Big Pharma is in business to make money. Their multi-billion dollar for-profit model means that from their perspective, using their vast resources to game the system is rational and acceptable. They're not interested in increased patient outcome. They're interested in, at base, making it unprovable that any decreased patient outcome is attributable to their product. Deniability.
That people in the medical field are not qualified to understand this type of conflict is hardly a surprise. It is fundamentally an argument of economics, not medicine. The fact of the matter is that Merck (for the sake of argument) stands to make more money by providing mediocre drugs which are borderline unsafe, provided that they don't get in trouble for it, than they would make by providing excellent drugs which are positively safe.
"Getting in trouble for it" is a question of gamesmanship with federal regulators, and not so much with anything published in JAMA that might make them look bad. From their perspective, medical researchers are the easiest people to fool, and congressmen are the easiest people to buy.
That Big Pharma might be a mixed bag of good and evil is beside the point, and whether they're putting on a good show with respect to CME alone is beside the point. In the end game, any association with them at all is bad, because their behavior is primarily parasitic, and not symbiotic.
By the way, in economics, we call the particular way they game the system "rent seeking". Look it up.
- R. W. Donnell said...
I believe Pharma has a business interest in good patient outcomes.


text:
There is no way Cam moves back to WR. He was making strides on the defensive side of the ball and is probably in line to start at one of the OLB positions.
I would think that at least one of the safeties will move to LB. Several of those guys are hybrid type safeties that are essentially just really athletic LBs.


text:
When is a suspension not a suspension? When the NFL says it isn't.
A week after the NFL inexplicably unshunned Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, allowing him to attend the game between Seattle and St. Louis, the league has granted permission to suspended Saints coach Sean Payton, suspended Saints G.M. Mickey Loomis, and suspended Saints interim head coach Joe Vitt to attend Sunday night's game between San Diego and New Orleans.
According to Larry Holder of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, quarterback Drew Brees sought and received permission for the three men to attend what should be a historic night. With touchdown passes in 47 straight games, Brees can move to 48 and break his current tie with John Unitas.
"Drew Brees requested permission for Sean Payton, Mickey Loomis, and Joe Vitt to attend Sunday night's game in which Drew will attempt to set the record of 48 straight games with a touchdown pass," the league said in a statement. "Commissioner Goodell has granted that permission. Coaches Payton and Vitt and Mickey Loomis will be permitted to watch the game in a private area of the stadium and will have no contact with the team."
Payton previously said he didn't want to attend the game.
The black light of justice likely would reveal extensive lawyer fingerprints on this decision. It was horribly misguided to let Williams attend a game, especially after he gave a sworn statement implicating Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma as offering $10,000 to anyone who knocked former Vikings quarterback Brett Favre out of the 2009 NFC title game. To erase the appearance of preferential treatment, the NFL had to extend a similar courtesy to the other folks who have been suspended.
It's possible, if not probable, that Brees made the request not because he wants them there, but because he knows in his capacity as a member of the NFLPA Executive Committee that a rejection would have helped the cause of the players who face re-issued bounty suspensions, particularly Vilma.
Even with permission granted, the handling of Williams' situation justifies suspicion regarding some sort of a quid pro quo, and it means that if/when Williams testifies at an appeal hearing before Commissioner Roger Goodell, Williams will face a withering cross examination that will give new meaning to one of his favorite terms: Kill the head.


text:
Ann, you'll vote for Obama anyway this cycle. I like your blog and all that, but it's your M.O. to criticize , then vote contrary to your criticisms.Now, now. I don't like that. In 2008, I took a vow of cruel neutrality....
Who am I supporting in the presidential contest? You shouldn't know, because I don't know. In fact, I'm positioning myself in a delicate state of unknowing, a state I hope to maintain until October if not November. In the meantime, I will spread the attacks around and give credit where credit is due....3 years later, I've got exactly the same attitude. And, seriously, if you're distracted by the issue of me actually, in the end, needing to vote for somebody, I would rather — in addition to a 2012 vow of cruel neutrality — vow not to vote at all.
So I'm taking a vow of neutrality, but it won't be dull beige neutrality. I think partisanship is too tedious to read. This is going to be cruel neutrality.
I'm not committing to abide by the results of this poll, but give me some input:


text:
On Friday night, Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal stood on a stage in downtown Manhattan and asked moviegoers if there were any Islander fans were in the house. A good chunk of the audience applauded; they were there to see the premiere of a documentary called "Big Shot" about John Spano, the man who briefly owned the team in the late 1990s. (Spoiler alert: Spano turned out to be the fraudiest fraud who ever frauded.)
The film is terrific -- it'll air on ESPN in the fall -- but the period of time it focuses on was a low point in the history of a proud franchise. And other reminders of the organization's decline abounded, from on-screen images of the team's ill-advised fisherman-logo jerseys to the presence in the last row of Mike Milbury, the much-maligned former coach and general manager.
Those fans that applauded before the film began really have been through a lot: After Spano's scam unraveled, the team was eventually sold to Charles Wang, and it's hardly flourished under his watch. They haven't played in the postseason since 2007, haven't won multiple games in a single postseason since 2002, and haven't won a playoff series since 1993, years before the Spano debacle. Along the way, the Islanders have routinely been a punchline. (Common areas of ridicule have included the terrible contracts given to Alexei Yashin and Rick DiPietro, the outdated Nassau Coliseum, and players like Evgeni Nabokov and Lubomir Visnovsky straight-up refusing to report to Long Island.)
But the Isles aren't a joke anymore. As a collection of hockey players, they're finally relevant again, improving in the standings in 2013 thanks to young talent and cost-effective acquisitions. More importantly for those that bleed orange and blue, the Islanders, as a franchise, are no longer in danger of moving out of the area. With less than a week remaining in the regular season, the Islanders are on the verge of securing their first playoff berth in six years. Things are happening on Long Island, and they're happening ahead of schedule.
The Islanders have had trouble drawing fans in recent years -- they finished each of the last five seasons either last or next-to-last in the NHL in average attendance -- but unlike in some of the league's less-established markets, it's not because their fanbase doesn't exist. The die-hards never went away, but the Islanders have given everyone else every reason to stay home in recent years: uncompetitive teams, lousy facilities, and, of course, the growing possibility that the team might up and move to Kansas City or Quebec City or some other far-away place when its lease at Nassau Coliseum expires in 2015.
The question of where the team would play beyond 2015 was answered last fall, when Wang announced the Islanders had signed a lease to play in Brooklyn's Barclays Center when its Coliseum lease was up. It wasn't a perfect solution -- a new building in Nassau County would have been ideal -- but it was good enough. It kept the team in the New York metropolitan area, and it meant that long-time fans could still get to attend home games in person without purchasing a plane ticket.
Of course, that stability only means so much if the product on the ice isn't worth watching. And in recent years, that's been changing on Long Island: The Isles have made their share of missteps, but GM Garth Snow now has some players he can build around, with former No. 1 pick John Tavares at the center of everything. Snow works on a shoestring budget -- the Islanders have been more concerned with the salary floor than the salary cap -- and that's meant developing players the team has drafted themselves, working the waiver wire, and signing players on the low-cost end of the free agent spectrum.
Still, his efforts hadn't yet translated into wins: They finished fourteenth in the East in each of the last two seasons, and in the five seasons since they last made the playoffs, they've finished no higher than thirteenth. The Isles had been increasingly watchable in recent seasons -- but they hadn't necessarily been good.
Indeed, not a whole lot was expected of them this season: The Hockey News, for instance, picked them to finish dead last in the East. "Eventually," wrote the mag in January, "this team is going to take a step forward and it's probably going to come out of nowhere to surprise everyone." The consensus in that particular season preview was that such a step wouldn't happen in 2013. But the thing with surprises is that they, you know, tend to take you by surprise.
And so not only are the Islanders getting production from the usual suspects -- Tavares and Matt Moulson have both surpassed the 40-point mark, no small feat in this shortened season -- they're getting contributions from the likes of Brad Boyes (signed to a cheap one-year deal last summer and currently third on the team in scoring) and Visnovsky (acquired for a draft pick June and helping to bolster an improved defensive corps). And for all the goaltending drama of the past few seasons, Nabokov has proven to be capable, if not necessarily spectacular.
The culture around the Islanders had started to change in recent years: The Tavares pick alone put them on the radar of the average hockey fan. (Worth noting: For all the jokes about the Islanders being such a miserable destination that guys were refusing to report, both Nabokov and Visnovsky eventually signed extensions to stick around.) The thinking went that the changes to the culture would accelerate in the coming years: The team, in theory, would continue to improve on the ice in the franchise's final years in Nassau County, and the eventual move to Brooklyn would mean more buzz and more attention (and hopefully more money, not to mention a more attractive destination for future free agents).
But the team itself is developing ahead of schedule -- they finished the weekend in sixth place in the East -- and there's even the possibility that the move to Brooklyn could happen sooner than was anticipated. (The team and Nassau County will reportedly discuss the possibility of the Isles getting out of their Nassau Coliseum lease a year early, which would make next season their last at the old building before moving into Barclays Center in 2014, one year early.)
But that's looking ahead. The future may be bright, but for a change, Islanders fans can do more than simply wait till next year. This year's team isn't among the conference's elite -- let's not give them more credit than they deserve -- but they're thoroughly watchable, and they're on the right side of the postseason cut-off line. Months after their post-Coliseum future was announced, they've made progress on the ice. It's a step in the right direction, and for Islanders fans who've waited a long time for their team's return to relevance, that step means everything.
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Joe DeLessio is a senior producer at New York Magazine's website, nymag.com. Follow him on Twitter @joedelessio.


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Social media like Facebook are transforming the landscape of politics and even encouraging the young voter.
As election day approaches, you might be getting sick of the political bickering in your News Feed. You can try to fight it, but political participation on social media is contagious.
Since 2004, politicians like Howard Dean and Ron Paul have been using social and new media to advance their causes and put themselves in front of younger voters who aren't just tech-savvy, they're tech-centric. Facebook and Twitter are powerful tools for spreading information and news, as Barack Obama used to his advantage in his 2008 bid for the presidency.
But Facebook can do more than just familiarize voters with a candidate or let them "Like" a campaign page. For the younger demographic of new voters, social media can be a push to the ballot.
Via Mau


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SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) - After sitting for much of the tail end of his freshman year and watching exclusively from the bench during the NCAA tournament last spring, Syracuse guard Michael Carter-Williams is off to a stellar start as a sophomore.
``I just try to pick apart the defense,'' he said. ``I've worked very hard at it, creating angles for my teammates to get open. I'm just getting communication with my teammates, getting more comfortable each and every day.''
That comfort level sure made Colgate coach Matt Langel a bit more uncomfortable than usual on Sunday. A week after recording 11 assists in a win over Wagner, Carter-Williams had a career-high 13 against the Raiders.
Langel was not the least bit surprised. The 6-foot-6 Carter-Williams was a recruiting target when Langel was an assistant at Temple.
``He's a hard worker,'' said Langel, in his second season with the Raiders. ``His size at the point guard position is something that you don't find a lot in college basketball. I think he's still improving and his potential is probably untapped still at this point. He's understanding his role on this team to be a facilitator, and when he gets penetration to be able to see over the defense and find his big guys and find his shooters, with the minutes he's getting I think he's starting to learn what he can do to really help this team.''
Carter-Williams has 37 assists with 11 turnovers, 16 steals, and is averaging 10.3 points and 5.5 rebounds.
Syracuse (4-0) plays next at Arkansas (3-2) on Friday in the SEC/Big East Challenge, and so far, this Orange team is different from last year's model, when Dion Waiters, Brandon Triche and Scoop Jardine shared most of the load at guard. Though adept passers, they looked to score and did, finishing second, third, and fourth on the team behind Kris Joseph.
``Mike is really good with his eye. Coach says in practice, `Expect the ball any time because any time you're open, he's going to throw you the ball.' Sometimes, you don't expect it,'' center Baye Moussa Keita said. ``That's different this year.''
In the first four games, Carter-Williams has taken 36 shots - one fewer than his assist total. He is behind Triche (46) and James Southerland (38), and has one more than C.J. Fair.
``He's getting better,'' coach Jim Boeheim said of Carter-Williams. ``He still has a lot of work to do, but he's playing well. He's getting the ball in the right places.''
Carter-Williams has vowed to be ``more aggressive scoring if my team needs me.''
What's not different on this team is the performance of the first player off the bench. Southerland has taken up where Waiters left off, averaging 15.3 points to tie Triche for the team lead. Waiters averaged 12.6 points in 2011-12 despite not starting one game to earn Big East Sixth Man honors. He was also the fourth pick of the NBA draft.
Syracuse will face an Arkansas team that thrives on pressure defense, and Carter-Williams will attract more than his share of attention. Triche says he's ready for the challenge of handling the ball more, even though he's struggled with 13 turnovers and only 12 assists in the first four games.
``They're very tough playing at home,'' Triche said. ``They're a transition team and they're going to press us the whole game, but I think we're ready for it. We've got guys that can handle pressure.
``These guys - one or two guys, sometimes three - are going to come at you at once. You're going to have to make different types of passes. I think we're going to be able to beat the pressure.''
Syracuse lost two of its best outside shooters in Waiters and Jardine, and has struggled so far as redshirt freshman Trevor Cooney has misfired from long range. The Orange are 17 of 64 (26.6 percent) from beyond the arc, with Cooney shooting a miserable 2 of 15 (13.3 percent). Against Colgate, he missed all seven tries.
But it's early, and the coach has seen this all before, of course. The solution is simple.
``He's a shooter,'' Boeheim said. ``You've just got to keep shooting.''
Copyright 2018 by STATS LLC and Associated Press.
Any commercial use or distribution without the express written
consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.


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The Annual Owen and Carroll Counties Charity Golf Scramble to benefit the Kentucky Sheriff's Boys and Girls Ranch was held Monday, Sept. 12, 2011, with Owen County Sheriff Zemer Hammond and Carroll County Sheriff Jamie Kinman hosting the event.
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Daily Roundup: Carrie Underwood, Ronnie Dunn + More
Carrie Underwood has never declared her political allegiances, but someone in politics is certainly claiming her… along with a handful of other country artists. That's the top headline in the Taste of Country Daily Roundup, but by scrolling through you'll also find Ronnie Dunn's thoughts on being a first time grandfather, Miranda Lambert's surprise guest at a show in Colorado and what Taylor Swift is doing to get your vote for the ACM Awards.
Today on Taste of Country:
Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw + More Make Mitt Romney's Spotify Playlist
Ronnie Dunn Opens Up About Life as a First-Time Grandpa
2012 ACM Award for Video of the Year – Who Will Win?
Taylor Swift's Cat Wants You to Vote for Her as 2012 ACM Entertainer of the Year
Josh Turner is Star of Board Room and Basketball Court in New 'Time is Love' Video
Caption This Picture: The Band Perry's Neil Perry Shows Off Hairy Mug Shot
LeAnn Rimes Reveals Title of Her Forthcoming New Album
Gloriana to Appear in Season 8 of 'The Bachelorette'
Miranda Lambert Sings With Surprise Guest Kelly Clarkson in Colorado
Josh Kelley Shares Hidden Talent With Charcoal Drawing of Wife and Daughter
Taylor Swift Performs 'Eyes Open' Live in New Zealand
The Band Perry Looking Forward to Sold Out Shows Overseas
Miranda Lambert vs. Jason Aldean – The Showdown
Zac Brown Band, Sonia Leigh + More Included on New Southern Ground Artists Compilation Album
Rhett Akins Invites Jake Owen, Dierks Bentley + More to Annual Country Goes Huntin' Charity Turkey Hunt
Taste of Country Also Recommends:
Justin Bieber Beaten to a Pulp on Complex Cover
Should TSA Have Patted Down a 3-Year-Old in a Wheelchair?
Gene Simmons Talks Marriage at the 'Hotter Than Hell' Chapel
Jack Johnson Plays 'Mudfootball' for a Good Cause
Adele Trying to Lose Weight
2012 Lowe's 'Coloring Book' Commercial – What's That Song?


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North Carolina DREAMers can breathe a sigh of relief. After a lengthy debate, the state's Department of Transportation announced Thursday that deferred action recipients will be eligible for driver's licenses.
Young undocumented immigrants granted a two-year reprieve from deportation can begin to apply for licenses on March 25. The licenses will have a clearly marked expiration date that coincides with the end of the holder's deferred-action status.
See Also: DREAMers in Limbo as States Flip Flop on Driver's Licenses
The deferred-action program did not originally specify that recipients were lawfully present in the United States, a sticking point with some states who said lawful status was required before they would issue licenses. But updated program guidelines from U.S. Customs and Immigration Services changed that, and North Carolina's attorney general said last month that DREAMers should receive licenses.
The state's DOT acknowledged the recommendation at the time but said they were still considering the issue.
"We are focused on customer service and committed to improving the quality of life for all North Carolinians," DOT Secretary Tony Tata said in a statement on Thursday. "After weeks of review, study and consultation we've found a way to make this right by developing a process that will allow qualified deferred action for childhood arrival applicants to obtain driver licenses, while protecting the rights of all United States citizens."
North Carolina issued more than a dozen licenses to DREAMers before suspending the practice in January, saying it required further review. Those licenses will be reinstated.
Local DREAMers praised the decision but said the process lasted too long and that the delay was a political ploy by opponents of the deferred-action program.
"We will have zero tolerance to being used as political pawns when it comes to the safety of our communities" Cinthia Marroquin, a deferred-action recipient and lead organizer for the North Carolina DREAM Team, said in a statement. "We know this is politics as usual… moving forward, the North Carolina DREAM Team welcomes a better reception from the leadership of this state and especially from our Governor, Pat McCrory who can show true leadership to move North Carolina forward."
According to a post on the DREAM Team's website, DREAMers who tried to attend the press conference announcing the new license policy were denied entry and ignored.
Marroquin told ABC/Univision that the group was told when they tried to enter the conference that it was "only for press." She added that her team has pressured the DOT to grant licenses to deferred action recipients and that the relationship has had its tense moments.
A spokesperson for the DOT said any exclusion was not intentional and that there were members of the community in attendance.
"I don't know what happened there," the spokesperson said. "It was not intentional. I don't know how that misunderstanding happened, but there were other people there."
Each state is tasked with deciding whether to issue licenses to DREAMers. Most states issue the licenses and several, including Michigan and Iowa, reversed their original decision not to after the updated guidelines specifying that deferred action recipients are "lawfully present" came out. Arizona and Nebraska do not issue licenses although the director of Nebraska's Department of Motor Vehicles said in early February that the state was reviewing that policy. A spokesman for the Arizona governor's office did not return repeated requests for comment.


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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
A few weeks ago, I talked about the difficulty of maintaining an active raiding schedule all summer long -- and what you can do about it. This week's e-mail is from yet another victim of the summer raiding slump, but his guild has some other issues going on here, too.
Hey Scott,
I'm an officer of a relatively new raiding guild (3-4 months old). We formed a few weeks before 3.1 and built the guild up from almost nothing besides the group of friends we had. The core group started out almost in Best in Slot gear but most of the people we recruited were undergeared so we ended up having to run Naxx for almost a month after 3.1 before we had the gear to really push Ulduar. That being said we have done phenomenally well in the time we have spent in Ulduar. We have downed all the watchers[. . . .] We consider ourselves way ahead of where we should be for such a young guild.
However we seem to have numerous problems.
We can never field full raids for 3 days a week and often have to go with offspec healers and 22-23 people one night of the week. This leads to times when we have to call raids on raid nights because not enough people show up. Some other nights are just bad nights; we go from one shotting Thorim one week to spending 3 hours on him the next.
This leads to a very tense feeling in the guild since we never seem to know how good we will do; and some of the members that I've talked to are upset with the guild even with our great progress. There is little guild cohesion and people view the original members of the guild as an exclusive clique who have priorty on loot council (which they don't). There are also some key problem members or just bad players[. . . .] We keep pushing recruiting hard on the forums and in game but the few apps we get are people in mostly 5-man gear which we can't take to Ulduar with us.
To me it feels like a guild on the brink and I hold my breath every time before we raid regardless of the amazing progress we have made. Do you have any suggestions on how to address these problems or at least make people feel more at home with the guild so they will stick with it?
A concerned officer
Hi, ACO. Your members seem to have concerns about you and the other officers, and you seem to have concerns about them. You say you're "on the brink."
My question to you is this: Besides recruiting, what are you doing about it? Are you talking to your players? Are you asking them if three days per week is too much to handle? Are you aggressively addressing scheduling issues? Are you actively and constructively communicating about mistakes that cause a 3-hour wipe-athon on Thorim? Are you explaining your loot system clearly so people understand it and feel comfortable with it? Are you offering to have a dialogue about other possible loot systems that everyone can agree on? Is every conversation among the officers, even those having nothing to do with guild business, held in /o chat instead of /g?
I'm sure you and your fellow founding members are all on the same page, but that doesn't mean the rest of the guild is. In fact, it sounds like there's a pretty major disconnect between the founders and the players you recruited and geared up. I'm not saying you have to change all your policies to suit them, but you've got to reach out to them somehow. Hear them out. Maybe they'll have good ideas. Maybe they won't. Either way, they'll feel like someone at the top is listening to them, and that's the most important part.
It's not fun to be part of a guild where you feel like you're just along for the ride. Players can put up with it while the ride is smooth. If things get bumpy, and your members don't seem to have a say in the course that's been chosen, they may get off the bus at the next stop.
As far as your raids go, like I've said, summer is tough. Sometimes you have to look outside the guild for help. PUG players can be a disaster, but considering the amount of info you can call up from the Armory about a potential raider, it's becoming less of a risk. Plus, if you're recruiting, you might find some diamonds in the rough, or a small guild that wants to form an alliance with you. Two or three PUG players probably aren't going to break your raid, and it's better than sending your members back to Dalaran empty-handed.
It's also possible that, since you've been pushing so hard after 3.1, some of your players might need a break. Consider taking a week off to regroup. Set some goals for when you return so your players have motivation to come back. Talk to players about their own goals, too.
If any of your issues are gear related, you and every other guild will get a big injection of loot in a few weeks when Conquest badges start dropping from everything.
A final question for you: Have you considered dropping down to 10-player raids? It sounds like you have an incredible core of players who are all good friends. If you don't want to deal with the issues that are being raised by your recruits, if bridging the gap is too difficult or it's just too late to make a difference, you might be better off raiding with the players you already know and like.
Sure, the loot's not as good, class balance plays a bigger role, and individual mistakes are magnified. But you might find out that you have more fun when it's just you and your friends filling up the slots. I'm not saying you definitely should. It's just an alternative if things go downhill.
Based on what you've written, I'd say your biggest problems are social ones. When the officers are all friends, it's easy to stay hidden away among your inner circle. That habit can lead to a clique mentality, and an officer clique can ruin a guild. Communication has to go both ways if you want to foster a healthy social environment. And that leads to a more comfortable raiding environment, for both officers and members.


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posted by Thom Holwerda on Thu 21st Jun 2012 19:34 UTC
Through the Google Play Store, the next version of Android has been confirmed: Android 4.1, Jelly Bean. I'm hoping for just a single new feature: something to address the update mess. I don't care how, as long as they do something.


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UH oceanographer among Pew Marine Conservation Fellows that call for international action on marine protected areasUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Professor of Oceanography
NEW YORK — Thirty-eight of the world's foremost ocean experts issued a joint statement today urging "the nations of the world to fulfill their commitment to the future of the oceans" through active support of Marine Protected Areas. University of Hawaii Oceanographer Craig Smith, who was named a fellow of the Pew Marine Conservation Program in 2004, was among those who signed the statement.
Dr. Ellen Pikitch, Executive Director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, announced the statement at the sixth meeting of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea. She said that the statement calls for local involvement in planning, managing, and implementing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs); linking MPAs into networks; evaluating those networks; and taking global action to restore and maintain marine populations, habitats, and fisheries.
"Establishing a network of representative, fully protected marine reserves is an essential component of the ten recommendations the Task Force has made to set us on the path to environmental sustainability," said Pikitch, a member of the UN's Millennium Task on Environmental Sustainability and a professor at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
"The future of the world's oceansand ultimately of ourselvesdepends on our taking immediate steps to protect them. The Pew Fellows have outlined a set of priority actions that will help put the oceans on that path to sustainability. Leaders of every nation should view this as an urgent wake-up call, and take action now," she added.
Experts from all areas of marine science and policy agree that the world's oceans are in crisis, as study after respected study shows extreme depletion of fish and marine life. However, powerful scientific evidence continues to accumulate that MPAs can do much to protect ocean life and habitats. Issued by 38 Pew Fellows in Marine Conservation, some of the most important voices in ocean conservation today, the statement says, "MPAs are among the most powerful and reliable tools available for marine conservation, whether along the coast or in the open ocean. They help maintain populations and protect habitats, while revealing how areas outside their borders are changing. MPAs serve as elements of a larger, integrated strategy of ocean management.
Smith's conservation efforts focus on the vast and poorly understood deep sea, where high diversity, fragile habitats, and slow recovery rates allow human activities to be especially damaging. He is using his Pew Marine Conservation Fellowship to design marine protected areas in the Pacific Ocean, with the goal of conserving the delicate and diverse ecosystems of seamounts and abyssal plains in the face of fishing and future mining. The deep seas of the Pacific harbor ecosystems of extraordinary biodiversity and fragility, in the form of seamounts (underwater mountains) and the relatively flat seafloor expanses known as abyssal plains. These communities typically are easily disrupted byand very slow to recover fromphysical disturbances. Yet deep seafloor ecosystems are being increasingly impacted by human activities such as bottom fishing, waste disposal, and seafloor mining. To preserve biodiversity in these delicate and important ecosystems, Smith says, "It is imperative to create a system of MPAs that will be based on sound science, off limits to fishing and mining, and well integrated into the international legal framework."
In addition to Pikitch and Smith, the 89 Pew Fellows in Marine Conservation include Elliott Norse, Director of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute near Seattle; Kristina Gjerde, High Seas Policy Advisor to the Global Marine Program of IUCNWorld Conservation Union; and Alan White, Director of the Coastal Resource Management Project in the Philippines. The signatories to the MPA Statement are world-renowned scientists, educators, policy experts, writers, and lawyers, working in every ocean around the globefrom Nova Scotia to Patagonia, northern Europe to Tasmania. They have planned and implemented MPAs in locations as far-flung as California, the Philippines, Kenya, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, and the high seas beyond the jurisdiction of any individual nation.
The Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation is an initiative of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, which strives to undertake, sponsor, and promote world-class scientific activity aimed at protecting the world's oceans and the species that inhabit them. Funding for the Pew Institute is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts and other organizations and individuals seeking to preserve and protect the world's oceans.
For more information about the MPA statement, visit www.pewoceanscience.org.
About the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology
The School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) was established by the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii in 1988. SOEST brings together in a single focused ocean, earth sciences and technology group, some of the nation's highest quality academic departments, research institutes, federal cooperative programs, and support facilities to meet challenges in the ocean and earth sciences. Scientists at SOEST are supported by both state and federal funds as they endeavor to understand the subtle and complex interrelations of the seas, the atmosphere, and the earth. For more information, visit www.soest.hawaii.edu.
For more information, visit: http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/SOEST_News/