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BEIJING (Reuters) - China's annual industrial output growth quickened more than expected in October and fixed asset investment also ticked higher, cementing investors' expectations of a modest rebound in the final three months of 2012.
The data, key barometers of both domestic activity and output from China's export-oriented factory sector, offered further evidence that a cyclical recovery gained strength last month after the world's second largest economy suffered the slowest period of growth since early 2009 in the third quarter.
"October industrial output growth beat market expectations and confirmed a recovery trend," said Jiang Chao, an analyst at Guotai Junan Securities in Shanghai.
"But given the uncertainties in the outside world, we expect the recovery momentum to be limited and the full-year industrial output is likely to be around 10 percent for this year."
October saw a 9.6 percent year-on-year rise in industrial output, an improvement on the 9.2 percent growth achieved in September and ahead of the 9.4 percent consensus forecast from a Reuters poll.
Year-to-date fixed asset investment rose an annual 20.7 percent, a touch faster than the 20.5 percent reported for January-September and just ahead of the 20.6 percent forecast this time.
Retail sales also beat forecasts, rising 14.5 percent last month from a year ago, which compared to predictions of 14 percent and September's 14.2 percent reading.
The consensus view among economists is that a seven-quarter long cyclical downturn in China's growth ended in Q3, when it dipped to 7.4 percent year-on-year.
A tepid rebound to 7.7 percent is anticipated in Q4, with its mild nature restraining many investors from making aggressive turnaround bets, as evidenced by 10 of the 27 analysts polled by Reuters having forecasts below the median.
Data released earlier in Friday showed consumer inflation eased to its slowest pace in nearly three years in October, giving policymakers scope to further loosen monetary policy if needed to support growth in the world's second-biggest economy.
The consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.7 percent from a year ago, slower than the 1.9 percent posted in September. Economists polled by Reuters had expected inflation to hold steady.
Factory-gate prices in October fell 2.8 percent from a year earlier, a touch faster than the forecast fall of 2.7 percent but easing from September's 3.6 percent annual drop, which bodes well for a corporate sector struggling to cope with falling profits due to producer price deflation.
The headline consumer price index reading was the lowest since January 2010.
"I don't expect any easing in monetary policy until the end of this year because it would be unnecessary as the economy is recovering," Yao Wei, China economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong, told Reuters.
Beijing has been fine-tuning economic policy for a year to support growth, and analysts expect that program to broadly remain in place after a new leadership of the ruling Communist Party is unveiled at a congress that began on Thursday.
Outgoing party chief, President Hu Jintao - almost certain to be succeeded by Vice President Xi Jinping - said in a speech to the congress that China would stick to policies fostering sustainable, long-term economic development with the aim of doubling GDP over the 10 years to 2020.
China has cut benchmark interest rates twice this year, lowered bank reserve ratios three times since late 2011 and made repeated, large-scale liquidity injections into the financial system to underpin slowing growth in the short-term.
Additional reporting by Beijing Economics Team; Editing by Alex Richardson

subset: commoncrawl


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When Saturday night's leap second glitch hit Reddit, Jason Harvey didn't realize it was the leap second glitch. He thought it was some sort of internet slowdown related to the massive Amazon cloud outage that brought down some of the web's most popular services less than 24 hours earlier.
"It looked like the network was just moving really poorly," says Harvey, one of the system administrators who oversee the operation of Reddit, the popular news aggregation and discussion site. "With Amazon going down, a network problem just made sense."
But after about half an hour, Harvey and his team traced the problem to a group of their own machines running the open source Linux operating system. These servers had almost ground to a halt after failing to properly accommodate the "leap second" that was added to the world's atomic clocks on Saturday night, as June turned into July.
Depending on how quickly the earth is spinning, the planet's official time keepers periodically add an extra second to these clocks to keep them in sync with the planet's rotation. This keeps us from drifting away to a place where sunsets happen in the morning, but it can cause problems with computing systems that plug into these clocks but aren't quite agile enough to deal with that extra second.
In Reddit's case, the problem could be traced to a glitch in the Linux kernel, the core of the open source operating system. A Linux subsystem called "hrtimer" – short for high-res timer – got confused by the time change, and suddenly sparked some hyperactivity on those servers, which locked up the machines' CPUs.
Reddit was just one of several web outfits that were hit by leap second glitches just after midnight Greenwich Mean Time on Saturday, including Gawker Media and Mozilla, and these sorts of problems tend to pop up with every time there's a leap second adjustment. In January 2009, for instance, the leap second reportedly caused problems with Sun Microsystems' Solaris operating system and an Oracle software package.
"Almost every time we have a leap second, we find something," Linux's creator, Linus Torvalds, tells Wired. "It's really annoying, because it's a classic case of code that is basically never run, and thus not tested by users under their normal conditions."
The hrtimer glitch was patched in the Linux kernel this past March by a Linux kernel hacker named John Stultz, but some versions of Linux have not yet been updated to include this fix. Stultz was unavailable for comment on Monday, but in an post to an online mailing list, he discusses the problem that seemed to hit Reddit.
Inside the Crash —————-
What actually happened to these machines? It's complicated. Even Linus Torvalds said that in order to really understand what went on, we should talk to Stultz. But after interviews with several others familiar with the problem, we have a pretty good idea of what went down.
Hrtimer is a subsystem that is used when an application is "sleeping," waiting for the OS to complete some other task. In some cases, it sets a kind of alarm clock for these sleeping applications that will go off when the OS is taking too much time with its other work.
Judging from Stultz's mailing list post, when the leap second hit and these hrtimers were suddenly a second ahead of the core OS, they started ringing those alarm clocks, waking up countless sleeping applications at once and overloading the machines' CPUs.
Reddit, however, saw something a little different. Its servers were running an open source database known as Cassandra that was built with the Java programming language and runs atop Linux. From what Jason Harvey can tell, Cassandra was failing to pause Java processes, and these processes were caught in constantly spinning loops, eating up the CPU power on Reddit's servers.
Eventually, Reddit solved the problem by rebooting its servers. The site was all but inoperable for about 30 to 40 minutes, and it was entirely offline for about an hour and a half.
While Reddit was struggling with its Cassandra servers, Gawker had issues with its Tomcat servers, and Mozilla had trouble with Hadoop. Both Hadoop and Tomcat also depend on Linux and Java, and it would seem they were hit by the same glitch.
Other systems, however, experienced problems a day before the leap second arrived. Systems such as Linux use the Network Time Protocol, or NTP, to plug into the world's atomic clocks and check the time. On Friday, NTP began warning servers that this year's leap second was on the way, and according to Opera Software system admin Marco Marongiu, at least some Opera servers started locking up when they received the announcement. This issued is discussed on a Linux mailing list here, and it's unclear how closely this issue is tied to the hrtimer problem experienced by Reddit.
The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Linux Geniuses ———————————————-
We don't know when the next leap second will be. It depends on how quickly the earth spins – and that can slow down or speed up, depending on tides, weather and the flow of molten metals in the earth's core. But when the next leap second does come, there could be more problems.
Whenever you mess around with time, things have a pretty good chance of going wrong, Torvalds says. Developers may test for this stuff before-hand, but there's it's hard to predict how things will play out in the real world.
"Leap seconds and daylight savings time changes are particularly painful, though, because they have the added complexity of being ad hoc without strict rules," he says. "And of those two, leap seconds are the even more painful of the two."
As Torvalds points out, synching up the earth with the time measured by atomic clocks is a tricky business. But, in general, the tech industry hasn't had much experience with leap seconds over the past decade and a half. In fact, that may be part of the problem, says Steve Allen, a programmer with the Lick Observatory, just outside of San Jose, California. "From 1999 to 2005, there hadn't been leap seconds. So all of the notions of cloud services and multiprocessors and so on came into existence during a period of time when leap seconds weren't happening," he says.
Since then, there have been leap seconds in 2005, late 2008, and now 2012. "So there was a long interval when people created all sorts of new stuff and didn't have to think about that," he says. "And then the earth stopped accelerating."
Some have called for an end to leap second – so that these problems can be avoided. But in the meantime, others have proposed master fixes that seek to hide the sudden time changes from systems such as Linux. Opera's Marongiu suggests pausing a system's NTP system for a second, rather than actually moving a system's clock back.
"Basically, you trick NTP, so it won't take that sudden step back, but still adds the extra second," says Marongiu.
But he calls this a "poor man's workaround." The better solution, he says, is the one used by Google. Last fall, with a blog post, Google described a method it calls "leap smear." Rather than add the extra second all at once, Google has modified NTP so that it adds milliseconds to clocks over a relatively long period of time.
It's a clever fix. But don't expect it to become the norm. When the next leap second hits, someone somewhere will go down.


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The Prada Spring/Summer 2013 ad campaign unveils a mouth-watering cast of veteran and up-and-coming models shot by Steven Meisel. Amber Valletta, Raquel Zimmermann, Saskia De Brauw, Sasha Pivovarova, Eva Herzigova, and Kirsten Owen make up the somewhat surprising cast of heavyweights while Sung Hee Kim, Irene Hiemstra, Irina Kravchenko, Vanessa Axente, and Prada worldwide exclusive for Spring/Summer 2013, Maartje Verhoef –who opened the show– make up the list of exciting newcomers.
"Flowers are a recurring motif: there is nothing girly or ostentatious about these blooms or these women; full-length shots are paired with cropped images, accentuating the contrasting characteristics of these eleven eclectic and iconic models."
A relatively different take from its previous ad campaigns, this dynamic cast of models do take the attention off the clothes which although iconic in their own right, felt a tad less wearable and trend-setting than its previous collections of late. This concept of "contrasting characteristics" also resulted in 20 pairings (images) with repeat shots that felt slightly overdone but still, Amber Valletta, Sasha Pivovarova, who is slowly edging her way back into the scene post-pregnancy, Vanessa Axente, Irene Hiemstra, and Maartje Verhoef were draws for me.
Check out the rest of the Prada Spring/Summer 2013 ad campaign by Steven Meisel below.
Image Credits: Prada
Related articles
- Prada Fall/Winter 2012/2013 Ad Campaign | Anne Vyalitsyna, Elza Luijendijk, Iselin Steiro, Madison Headrick, Magdalena Frackowiak & Vanessa Axente by Steven Meisel
- Prada Spring/Summer 2012 Ad Campaign | Elise Crombez, Natasha Poly, Meghan Collison, Katryn Kruger, Ymre Stiekema by Steven Meisel
- Prada Presents "A Therapy" | A Film by Roman Polanski
- Prada Fall/Winter 2011/2012 Ad Campaign
- Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2013 Ad Campaign | Various Models by Steven Meisel


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One of the best known shows in reality TV history is at it again! American Idol has revealed their top ten finalists and once again the candidates for American's hearts are more loveable and talented than ever. Read the article below to find out more about the contestants and you can even click on their facebook and twitter links to get personally connected with them! Tell us who your favorite is.
– J.V. Olivé
Bon Jovi and AMERICAN IDOL Winner Phillip Phillips to Perform
On Results Show Thursday, March 14, on FOX
AT&T Allows Audience to Pick 11th Idol to Join "American Idol Live!" Tour this Summer
Tonight in the first LIVE results show of the season from Los Angeles, AMERICAN IDOL revealed the Top 10 finalists, including Lazaro Arbos, Janelle Arthur, Curtis Finch, Jr., Candice Glover, Kree Harrison, Amber Holcomb, Paul Jolley, Angie Miller, Burnell Taylor and Devin Velez.
In addition, host Ryan Seacrest announced an exciting new opportunity for fans to choose an 11th Idol to go on the "American Idol Live!" tour this summer, brought to you by AT&T. Next week, AMERICAN IDOL will hold a sing-off between the sixth-place runner-up girl and guy for that coveted spot. This season, AT&T is giving the audience brand-new ways to be involved with the show.
Next week, Wednesday, March 13 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), the Top 10 finalists will perform "Music of the AMERICAN IDOLs," which includes songs performed by any past IDOL winner.
Tune in the following night, Thursday, March 14 (8:00-9:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), as America finds out who received enough votes to continue in the competition and who will be sent home. In addition, world-renowned rock group Bon Jovi will perform their lead single "Because We Can" and quadruple-platinum, Billboard chart-topper and AMERICAN IDOL winner Phillip Phillips will perform "Gone, Gone, Gone," the second single from his debut album. "Gone, Gone, Gone" also will serve as the "goodbye" song of the season and will be featured when the IDOL finalists are eliminated each week.
The finalists will also perform their first group number, "Shine Your Way," from the motion picture soundtrack for the upcoming DreamWorks Animation comedy, "The Croods." The original track is performed by multi-platinum recording artist Owl City and artist Yuna.
Below are the Top 10 finalists on AMERICAN IDOL who will be vying for America's vote(s) after their LIVE performances on Wednesday, March 13 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed):
Hometown: Naples, FL
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LazaroAI12
Twitter: @LazaroAI12
Hometown: Oliver Springs, TN
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JanelleAI12
Twitter: @JanelleAI12
Hometown: St. Louis, MO
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CurtisAI12
Twitter: @CurtisAI12
Hometown: St. Helena Island, SC
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CandiceAI12
Twitter: @CandiceAI12
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Facebook: www.facebook.com/KreeAI12
Twitter: @KreeAI12
Hometown: Houston, TX
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AmberAI12
Twitter: @AmberAI12
Hometown: Palmersville, TN
Facebook: www.facebook.com/PaulJolleyAI12
Twitter: @PaulJolleyAI12
Hometown: Beverly, MA
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AngieAI12
Twitter: @AngieAI12
Hometown: New Orleans, LA
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BurnellAI12
Twitter: @BurnellAI12
Hometown: Chicago, IL
Facebook: www.facebook.com/DevinAI12
Twitter: @DevinAI12
At the end of each performance show, fans will be able to cast their votes for their favorite contestants. Viewers will be able to SuperVote – cast multiple votes at one time – via any of these AT&T AMERICAN IDOL VOTE destinations: americanidol.com, the AMERICAN IDOL mobile app (data and message rates may apply) and Facebook. To SuperVote, fans can allocate any number of votes for one contestant or multiple contestants, for a total of 50 votes (across all online voting destinations), and in a unique interactive experience, they can adjust their vote selections as performances happen during the show. When the voting window officially opens, fans can submit their final votes – all at once. [Only fans with a registered Facebook account in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will be able to cast their vote(s) online.]
In addition to online voting, fans will continue to be able to vote during the voting window via toll-free phone lines, as well as text-messaging for AT&T wireless customers (standard text-messaging rates may apply). At the end of each performance show, the phone lines will open for at least two hours and AMERICAN IDOL viewers will be able to vote for their favorite contestant(s) via the toll-free telephone numbers (1-866-IDOLS-01, -02, etc.). AT&T wireless customers can use their cell phones to vote by texting the word "VOTE" to the four-digit short code (5701, 5702, etc.) that corresponds with the contestant of their choice. AMERICAN IDOL voting is managed by Telescope, Inc.
"Like" AMERICAN IDOL on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AmericanIdol. Follow the series on Twitter @AmericanIdol and join the discussion at #idol. Also, follow host Ryan Seacrest at @RyanSeacrest, and follow the judges: @MariahCarey; @yo_randyjackson; @nickiminaj; and @keithurban. Download the AMERICAN IDOL app for iOS devices from the App StoreSM; and for Android devices at Google PlayTM Store.** Data rates may apply for app download and usage.
AMERICAN IDOL is produced by 19 Entertainment, a division of Core Media Group, and FremantleMedia North America. The series is created and executive-produced by Simon Fuller, CEO, XIX Entertainment. Cecile Frot-Coutaz, FremantleMedia, Trish Kinane, FremantleMedia North America; Ken Warwick, FremantleMedia North America; and Nigel Lythgoe, CEO, Nigel Lythgoe Productions also serve as executive producers.
Article and all photos courtesy of FOX


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Burning Man becomes a hot spot for tech titans
Like moths to a flame, Burning Man is drawing more CEOs and venture capitalists to the playa for high-powered networking. Welcome to the business bacchanalia.
Serial entrepreneur and Haight district resident Richard Titus was trying to finish a deal last year between his company and Yahoo, but he kept butting heads with Yahoo's very stubborn London lawyer.
In late August, they both e-mailed each other to say they'd be on vacation and that this potentially doomed negotiation would just have to pause.
A few days later, Titus was riding shirtless on a dune buggy that had been decorated to look like a scorpion when an attractive young woman jumped in and sat on his lap. Slowly, he started to recognize her voice.
"I said, 'Don't freak out, but what do you do in the real world? Because I think we might know each other," he said. "She was like, 'I'm a lawyer at Yahoo, why?' "
"After that, I'll tell you what - negotiations went much smoother," said Titus, who's in his mid-40s. "I like to think she even looked forward to my phone calls."
Burning Man, which gets under way Monday, is best known as a hedonistic weeklong art festival 110 miles north of Reno on a dry lake called the playa. But almost imperceptibly over the last few years, it has become a place where CEOs, venture capitalists and startuppers can network (while wearing, at most, swimsuits). While neither money, branding nor barter are allowed, suddenly companies are getting funded, co-founders are meeting, and people are getting jobs right on the playa. Among the 68,000 costumed and dust-covered attendees are some unexpected names - Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg goes. So do Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. And Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk. Anarchists parking Priuses next to ramshackle tents and tarps are now sharing the sand with wealthy techies arriving, via private jets, at luxury desert camps fully staffed with cooks, masseuses and assistants.
Venture capitalist and legal scholar Dustin Boyer got a job while he was at Burning Man.
"How do you think I ended up working at Google? I met Larry and Sergey on the playa," said Boyer at a recent dinner party in the Mission District. "They were running around in full spandex bodysuits, so no one could see who they were - it's hard to be a billionaire at Burning Man, even though there are so many of them."
Burning Man founders are happy about the changes - even courting them. Those captains of tech also fund the enormous temporary art installations in the city center and support the Burning Man nonprofit efforts.
"What we're seeing are many more of the Fortune 500 leadership, entrepreneurs and small startups bringing their whole team," said Marian Goodell, Burning Man director of business and communications.
Like a corporate retreat?
"A little bit like a corporate retreat. The event is a crucible, a pressure cooker and, by design, a place to think of new ideas or make new connections."
'Fiscally conservative'
She said that, contrary to what people may think, she is not particularly liberal and, as a sign of her conservative cred, added that "my sister's godfather is Antonin Scalia," t he staunchly conservative Supreme Court justice. "Burning Man on the outside has very liberal and socially strong principles, but I've been running it with very fiscally conservative policies."
These new burners, she said, are to be celebrated.
"If you're in the longtime Burning Man community, maybe it's easy to frown on certain types of people coming. But the more we have a variety of influencers - folks from London and New York - the better off we will be and the better off the Burning Man Project."
When Bear Kittay, 26, who runs a camp with an innovation theme, met five Israeli entrepreneurs in Barcelona, he told them to come to the desert. On the spur of the moment, the young men, founders of a virtual reality startup, took time off work and joined him.
On the playa, Kittay introduced them to Shervin Pishevar, managing partner of the venture capital firm Menlo Ventures. And there, coated in desert dust, Pishevar agreed to lead the first round of funding - $15 million.
That company, Shaker, won the prestigious TechCrunch Disrupt conference award for best new startup in 2011.
"It's a big testament to Burning Man," Goodell said.
At Burning Man, attendees often pick new names and wear costumes, which, some said, allows them to think more creatively about their careers.
Dr. Molly Maloof decided to quit her job as a pediatrician and go into digital health during her first trip to the playa.
"When I went to Burning Man, I was no longer a pediatrician. There were suddenly all these possibilities. The connections I've made there have helped me get every tech job since," she said. "People are like, you go to Burning Man to network? I'm like, listen, I go to Burning Man to have fun and meet people - real networks are made from real friends."
Maloof, who is now helping to lead four health-related startups, thinks the connection between Burning Man and Silicon Valley is philosophical.
"The tech scene has this sense that you can do anything, build anything, no rules - Burning Man is all about that, so it's a really conducive place for those conversations to start."
When Boyer, who calls himself a "venture communist," met the founders of Google at the festival, they "just talked and hit it off, as people first," Boyer said. "Burning Man is a space that is unconstrained by expectation."
The influx of capital is raising some concerns - but only because the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wants to tax it.
'The turnkey camp'
At Burning Man headquarters in downtown San Francisco, co-founder Larry Harvey, in dark aviators and black jeans, smokes Marlboros on the roof. He said the wealthy techies are bringing large staffs, which is drawing attention to Burning Man's increasing affluence.
"What people are noticing is the rise of the turnkey camp, where a whole economy of people come in to set up people's camps before the guests arrive and then stay as butlers, cooks, mercenary efforts," said Harvey, 65. "And now the BLM wants a cut of it."
This year, organizers will be conducting an extensive survey to identify exactly how many attendees are being paid to go as part of this burgeoning service economy. They'll have volunteers march through the city interviewing everyone who arrives before the event officially begins (if setting up art or particularly elaborate camps, you're allowed to show up early).
"We want to have conversations with some of the people who might be conducting business or hiring a staff," he said, but he doesn't want to intimidate the new tech philanthropists who are funding many of the art installations. "Well over $1 million in funding goes into the art. And we don't want to dictate how people live."
Titus, the Haight entrepreneur, was at the first Burning Man in 1986 - when it was a messy party on Baker Beach (the ceremonial Burning Man didn't burn, and the cops were called).
"People always say, 'Don't you miss those old days?' And I'm like, 'No! No way.' Today it's way more interesting and powerful than ever."
He thinks the $380 festival ticket should count as a work expense.
"I've tried to write it off on my taxes for many years, considering how much business I get done out there. But my accountant won't let me."
Union Squared: Burning Man was a hot spot for couple, who returned to the festival to wed. L10
Nellie Bowles is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: email@example.com Twitter: @NellieBowles


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Tuesday, September 1, 2009
SPEED Adds Benson To Truck Series Telecasts
Fan favorite Johnny Benson has been added to three upcoming Camping World Truck Series telecasts on SPEED. Benson will join Rick Allen and Phil Parsons on the dates where regular analyst Michael Waltrip has a Sprint Cup Series conflict.
The first race for Benson with SPEED will be this Saturday night in Iowa. His remaining races will be Gateway in St. Louis on Sept. 12 and Las Vegas on Sept. 26.
Waltrip was added to the truck series broadcast booth several seasons ago to add some spark to the telecasts. Fans posting at TDP continue to be divided by his presence on the races, but the reviews for the last CWTS event were overwhelmingly favorable.
Benson was a staple on Monday night for many years as SpeedVision and then SPEED continued to carry a one hour program about NASCAR. Both Benson and host Allen Bestwick were suddenly released from the series after a change in SPEED's production management.
TDP welcomes your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.
21 comments:
- Unknown said...
Awesome news! Not as good as driving (that will come in time), but at least there will be JB sightings at the next 3 races.
- September 1, 2009 at 10:04 AM
- Zieke said...
Way to go Speed. JB will show Waltrip how a real broadcast is done without promoting himself and his sponsors. Thanks to John for accepting the job.
- September 1, 2009 at 10:33 AM
- Ken-Michigan said...
Benson is NOT a good choice in this role.
He does not have the enthusiasm to go along with Parsons & Allen in the TV booth.
I like him as a person / driver.... but from a TV standpoint... bad decision.
- September 1, 2009 at 10:40 AM
- The Loose Wheel said...
That is all.
- September 1, 2009 at 11:02 AM
- Buschseries61 said...
Cool move! I'm excited to see how this goes.
- September 1, 2009 at 11:23 AM
- glenc1 said...
Johnny's not the most animated speaker, but I don't think he lacks enthusiasm. I'm certainly going to keep an open mind; he's smart & knows his stuff.
- September 1, 2009 at 11:40 AM
- HEATHER said...
This is wonderful news! JB is an awesome addition to any broadcast for the very reason that the man knows that NASCAR rule book and can quote it. Whenever there is a caution or a penalty he can tell you exactly why. He's great! Now I will make an extra effort to catch the truck races.
- September 1, 2009 at 12:13 PM
- Anonymous said...
I don't know that JB's the guy for this job. He's a great driver, but I'm not sure he's cut out for TV.
And, yes, I happen to like MW in the booth.
We'll see...
- September 1, 2009 at 12:46 PM
- Alan R. said...
I like MW, too.
- September 1, 2009 at 1:38 PM
- Hotaru1787 said...
Great to here!
- September 1, 2009 at 2:27 PM
- Vicky D said...
This is terrific news and the telecasts will be super. Way to go Johnny!
- September 1, 2009 at 2:27 PM
- Delenn said...
I like JB. Looking forward to hearing his thoughts. Well done SPEED.
Of course, I'd rather he be in a truck...
- September 1, 2009 at 2:28 PM
- Jonathan from SouthSide of Chicago said...
Good for Johnny, he deserves it. It was sad, his picture of him winning the championship was on the tickets for the truck race in Chicago this past Friday and hes not even on the racetrack now.. but this is good for him!
- September 1, 2009 at 4:17 PM
- Dot said...
- September 1, 2009 at 5:11 PM
- Anonymous said...
Great news for Johnny B!
I hope that it'll lead to bigger and better things for him!
Yes he's a bit shy but I hope he'll find his footing and jump in there!
- September 1, 2009 at 6:27 PM
- 50 yr. fan said...
Benson will do great. His superior
intelligence and gentlemanly
personality will send Waltrip packing.
- September 1, 2009 at 6:58 PM
- Tracy D said...
Like Benson, like Waltrip with the trucks. This sounds like a good deal all around. Truck fans, rejoice.
- September 1, 2009 at 9:09 PM
- Newracefan said...
Sounds like a great idea to me
- September 1, 2009 at 10:22 PM
- KoHoSo said...
I am extremely pleased that JB is gong to get this opportunity. I understand the reservations of those who commented that he might not bring "excitement" to the booth considering his very mellow and sometimes downright quiet demeanor on the old IWC/INC shows. To that I would counter with let's let Johnny be Johnny and see how it turns out. Not everybody has to act like a giggly little schoolgirl to be a good color commentator. ;-) If Benson brings good, concise observations to fill in what we cannot perceive from the pictures alone, what more could we ask when the other two in the booth supply more than enough outward (and genuine) "enthusiasm?"
The main thing will be this. If JB is not good in the booth no matter how much most NASCAR fans like and respect him, will Speed do the right thing and not ask him to return...you know, unlike a big mistake that another network has been making for three years now with a guy we all like and respect but who is boring most of us to tears. ;-)
- September 2, 2009 at 2:13 AM
- Sophia said...
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- September 2, 2009 at 2:53 AM
- Anonymous said...
It will be nice having Johnny instead of that dumbbell Waltrip. Even if JB only adds a little to the broadcast , it will be more than the man he replaces. I'm sure of one thing, the SPEED/FOX execs who hire the Waltrips don't watch all of the shows they are on because if they did , they too would be sick of them, period.
- September 3, 2009 at 4:28 PM


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From an interview with Elton John on Larry King Live:
Well, I was making a record, and I had to choose a name, because they said, you know, you can't make a record under the name of Reg Dwight, because it's never going to — you know, it's not attractive enough. And I agreed with that, and I couldn't wait to change my name anyway, because I'm not too fond of the name of Reginald. It's a very kind of '50s English name.
So I picked Elton because there wasn't — nobody seemed to have the name Elton. And I picked John to go with it. And it was — it was done on a bus going from London Heathrow back into the city. And it was done very quickly. So I said, oh, Elton John. That's fine.
From The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography by Lois Potte:
Though contemporary sonneteers populated their world with lovers called Astrophil, Parthenophil, Stella, Delia, and Idea, the only names that appear in Shakespeare's sonnets are Adonis, Helen, Mars, Saturn, Philomel, Eve, Cupid, Diana, and Time — and the one non-mythological figure, the author, "Will."
From An Apology to Every (White) Girl Named Becky by Dara T. Mathis:
Black people commonly use the term "Becky" when referring to generic white women. It has a slight negative connotation (airheadedness), but white women don't have to do anything to deserve the title.
Clearly, this is as problematic as sexual stereotypes against any demographic of people. Women fight on a daily basis not to be objectified, but this portrayal takes it further and assigns white women a role to which they may not ascribe.
Despite my dislike for using a proper name as a slur, it took an actual person to bring it home to me. After my tweet, a white colleague nicknamed Becky told me about how she's been forced to use Rebecca instead. A group of black men were catcalling her down a sidewalk and she was doing her best to ignore them. One of them yelled out, "Hey Becky!" That's her name: she automatically swung her head around. But this had the opposite effect of validating the men's impression that she was a Becky, not a woman named Becky. They laughed. She laughed, too, because…it is kinda funny.
But I stopped laughing quickly. I had never thought about the implications of people using your name as a stereotype against you. Where can you run to escape that?
From a post about unusual personal names at Futility Closet:
A memo to every parent who's ever lived: Giving your kid a special name does not make him special. It never has. It never will.
You know what I mean. It's one thing to give yourself a screwy moniker. Body-modification enthusiasts have changed their names to Swirly Wanx Sinatra, Grenade Bee of Death, and RooRaaah Mew Crumbs, among other things, and there's a U.S. Army Ohio National Guard firefighter who named himself Optimus Prime. That's fine, you're the one who has to live with it.
It's worse when you inflict a harebrained epithet on a newborn, who will have to drag it through life like a neon hairshirt.
From a post about Ameribella cheese at Cheese Notes:
Originally named Arabella, this cheese underwent a slight name change recently; as Leslie told me, it's always been named after Matthew's great grandmother, whose name was America Arabella. To honor her, they combined her two names and came up with the Ameribella, which also has the unique quality of honoring this cheese's American terroir and Italian origins.
(I discovered Ameribella via the Baby Name Pondering post Cheesy Baby Names.)
From an article by Kerry Parnell in The Daily Telegraph:
[W]hen I was born and my parents proudly announced my name to the family, my great-grandma was disgusted and informed them Kerry was a dog's name.
She never wavered from this conviction until one day, when I was about five, we visited her to see her new poodle puppy.
"What's his name?" I asked. "Kerry," she replied, stony faced. There was a long, awkward silence and no one ever mentioned it again.
Ironically, great-grandma went by the name of "Pete", which, unless I am very much mistaken, is a man's name.
One day, I vow, I will get a dog just so I can call it Pete, for revenge.
Have you read anything interesting about names lately? Please send me the link so I can add it to a future quote post! Email me, Tweet me, or just leave a comment below.


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It had already been a long day for Liz Seccuro by the time she arrived at Fuel Co. bistro at 5pm on Friday, March 24. She was there to meet a group of her sorority sisters and other friends who had come to downtown Charlottesville to show their support.
Nearly 22 years after she'd allegedly been raped in a UVA fraternity house, and six months after her assailant first contacted her to apologize, Seccuro had come face to face with him. In a small courtroom in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court earlier that afternoon, Judge Edward DeJ. Berry had certified the rape charges against William N. Beebe to a grand jury.
Seeing Beebe after so long, Seccuro says, was even harder than she'd imagined. "Because of the small size of the courtroom and the way he was ushered in," she says, "it was shocking."
During the hearing, Seccuro and Beebe, who is free on bond and staying with friends in Richmond, sat at opposite tables approximately eight feet apart.
Following the hearing, Seccuro and her husband left through a back door, avoiding the cameras and boom mics gathered out front from nearly every Central Virginia media outlet.
Beebe smiled but remained silent as he was mobbed by inquisitive journalists as he and his attorney, Rhonda Quagliana, walked the one block to her Park Street office about 4pm. He declined comment.
By the time Seccuro arrived at Fuel nearly an hour later, the throng had been cut to a single camera crew from national NBC news show Dateline and this Hook reporter.
After speaking with Dateline in the store area of Fuel, Seccuro and her husband, Mike, entered the small private room they'd reserved as a reception area for friends and family.
Dateline's cameras captured the immediate outpouring of support she received from six of her Alpha Phi sorority sisters, who had dressed in pink as a symbol of unity and to commemorate Seccuro's new nonprofit, STARS (Sisters Together Assisting Rape Survivors). The organization will provide funds, Seccuro says, for sexual assault education and resources on college campuses.
"You were so strong," said Seccuro's Alpha Phi sister Shannon Humphries. "You did absolutely fabulous," said Shari Larson, with the rest of the group huddling around her.
Nearby stood Susan Russell, who founded the website uvavictimsofrape.com, after her daughter, Kathryn, who was also present at Fuel, reported being raped at UVA in early 2004.
"I thought she was very strong," said Russell of Seccuro's testimony.
After mere minutes of filming, however, Seccuro's husband counted backwards from 10 and then said, "That's it; cameras out." With the intrusive glare of camera lights and the insistent presence of microphones removed, the reunion between Seccuro's friends– some of whom hadn't seen each other in nearly 20 years– continued.
"It was exhausting," said sorority sister Donna Wade of the hearing, during which Seccuro had offered nearly two hours of testimony about the events of October 4, 1984.
That night, Seccuro, a 17-year-old first year student, had accompanied a male friend to the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house for a party. In an upstairs room, Seccuro testified, she accepted a drink called the "house special" from two fraternity brothers. Soon after drinking a small amount of the "tart, sour in a citrusy way" drink, however, Seccuro testified she began to feel "immobilized, like a marionette."
Though Seccuro has previously said she did not remember talking to Beebe, then a second-year student who was pledging the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, she testified that she now remembers spending some time making "very brief small talk" with him in an upstairs room. Beebe, she testified, seemed "intoxicated, extremely so."
During that conversation, Seccuro testified, Beebe "grabbed me by my arm and led me down the hall toward a room" where he eventually lifted her onto his lap and began to read poetry.
Seccuro testified that she freed herself and fled into the hallway to try to retrieve her purse from a nearby bedroom where a friend had passed out. Seccuro says the door had been padlocked from the outside. "I began screaming and kicking the door," she testified, but two men (one of whom she believes was Beebe) carried her back to Beebe's room.
Seccuro testified that Beebe quickly shut the door and turned out the lights. "He proceeded to very swiftly take my clothes off," she said.
She testified that Beebe threw her on the bed and raped her. "He was extremely forceful," testified Seccuro, who choked up at times during her testimony. "Because I was a virgin, he was having a difficult time," she testified.
Seccuro says she lost consciousness sometime during the attack and that the next morning, she awoke on a sofa, naked, wrapped in a blood-stained sheet.
During her testimony– which covered events inside the fraternity house– Beebe silently watched Seccuro without expression. Seccuro, looked directly at Beebe only once, when asked to identify her assailant. She visibly shuddered.
"If you have been raped, you know that you never forget your rapist's eyes," she said after the hearing. "That's where I didn't want to look."
Though Quagliana sought at times to point out discrepancies in Seccuro's testimony based on a University Journal article written in November 1984, Berry sustained Commonwealth Attorney Dave Chapman's objections that it had not been established that the article using the pseudonym "Kate" was actually about Seccuro, and so he did not allow Quagliana's cross examination on that subject.
Both Chapman and Quagliana declined comment for this article.
Although Seccuro says she felt shaken by some of Quagliana's questioning, she says it should be understandable that she may not remember every detail of an event from 22 years ago.
"There are going to be some places where I simply don't know," says Seccuro. "Do I recall the rape itself? Of course I do."
Seccuro's husband, who at times during her testimony covered his face with his hands and rocked back and forth, says watching his wife testify was painful.
"I can't imagine how difficult it was for her," he said afterwards. "It was difficult for me in that I wanted to do it for her if I could."
But Seccuro's sorority sisters say that while they worry about Seccuro, if anyone can handle the stress of a rape trial, she can.
"She's one of the strongest people I've ever met," says Wade.
A grand jury will consider the case April 17.
Walking the one block from the courthouse to his attorney's office after the March 24 hearing, accused rapist William Beebe remained silent.


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It's no secret: money is tight.
America is still recovering from the trauma of the Great Recession, and although economic indicators seem to be moving in the right direction, the fragility of other economies (looking at you, Europe) means we're not out of the woods yet. Not even close.
Given that uncertainty, is now the right time for you to buy a new car? Can you really afford it?
If you live in 24 of America's 25 biggest cities, the folks at Interest.com say "nope".
Analysts at that website looked at the median gross income for families in each of those areas — from Washington, D.C. to Tampa, Florida. They then applied what's know as the "20/4/10" rule, which says that the smartest way to purchase a vehicle is to (a) put down at least 20%, (b) finance the car for no longer than four years, and (c) pay no more for the loan and insurance than 10% of your gross monthly income.
They then determined the average price of a new car — $30,550 in 2012 — and the cost of financing 80% of that sum over 48 months. That works out to $601 per month, plus insurance, at current interest rates.
Based on that rationale, the site's analysts say that only residents of Washington, D.C. can really afford to purchase new cars. The average D.C. family could manage to spend $628 per month for a ride, plus insurance. Folks in the other 24 top cities? Not so much.
Interest.com's Mike Sante says, "Car costs are one of the most controllable parts of a household's budget. For example, if you live in New York City or San Francisco, you're probably going to have to pay a lot for housing, but you don't have to pay a lot for a car. You're better off driving something more affordable and saving or investing the difference."
Our take
Interest.com has an interest (pun intended) in guiding people to car loans, mortgages, and credit cards. It might seem counterintuitive that such a site would advise consumers against taking out big loans, but Interest.com doesn't provide those loans directly. It earns revenue by convincing banks and other loan providers to advertise on its site based on traffic, which studies like this are sure to generate.
None of which is to say that we doubt Interest.com's findings, per se. However, we want to keep its assumptions at arm's length.
Our biggest beef with this study is that the 20/4/10 rule doesn't take into account the widely varied cost of housing in America's large cities. For example, there's another rule of thumb that says your mortgage or your rent shouldn't total more than about 30% of your monthly income. Anyone living in a city like New York or San Francisco knows that's nearly impossible unless you're in a very high-paying job.
All of which goes to show that one-size-fits-all formulas like this are at best rough guidelines, and at worst complete rubbish. The only way to know for sure whether you can afford a car loan — or a mortgage, for that matter — is to (a) be aware of your own household expenses, (b) speak to a range of lenders to get a sense of your loan options, and (c) be brutally honest with yourself about what you can reasonably afford.
This article originally appeared at The Car Connection.


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SBI investigating elections board in NC county
Franklin County sheriff called for criminal investigation
The sheriff of a small county in the North Carolina mountains has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to open a criminal probe into the local elections board.
Franklin County Sheriff Robert L. Holland said Tuesday that he and District Attorney Mike Bonfoey asked for the state investigation. That comes after a county official raised concerns last week about "possible questionable business practices and some possible irregularities with some records" at the board of elections.
After a brief investigation, Holland said the locks on the building were changed to "deny all access to the office until further notice."
Holland would not provide further detail about what prompted the closure.
SBI spokeswoman Noelle Talley confirmed that an investigation is underway, but would not discuss the nature of the allegations.


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Last Friday (25th May) I took my second trip of the week to London (having been at the Symplectic User Conference on Monday). This time it was the gentle stroll from St Pancras to the British Library Conference Centre to participate in the first JISC/BL DataCite workshop. Billed as an introduction to data citation and DataCite, this seemed an ideal follow up to the Research Data Management Forum event in Southampton back in March. As the role of the LRA Manager migrates to look increasingly at how we will manage, share and curate research data outputs as well as publications it was the sort of thing that I felt I really needed.
Data Citation
Following the house keeping and welcome from the BL's Lee-Ann Coleman and JISC's Simon Hodson (owner of the finest waxed moustache I've seen in many a moon), Lee-Ann kicked off with an overview of Data Citation; what it is and why is it important. The fact that there is an expectation from the RCUK that research data will be shared, to assist in validation of research conducted by their funded investigators, is perhaps the most major driver. At the same HEIs want oversight on their research outputs, and as such the curation of their organisations data resource is important to them for building on earlier work and enabling collaborative research to organically evolve. Given that many academics in adjoining offices are often unaware of what colleagues are producing, increasing this transparency and accessibility to a rich, queriable and reusable research resource is believed to be of value in not only progressing collaboration but enabling genuine novel research from preexisting work.
Lee-Ann cited some examples included the importance of data sharing in speeding up the sequencing and generation of a vaccine for the African strain of Avian flu. Her other examples were also in the STEM field which slightly concerned me, given that two-thirds of research here at Leicester is in disciplines outside this domain; whom in my experience often need a greater assistance in capturing and sharing technological resource. Lee-Ann stressed that one question that needed to be addressed by HEIs was what is critical/worthy data to curate? A microbiologist might see all the raw data output from an instrument as worthy of this, and yet for many other people it would be the processed data given context and analysis that would be of value.
What is DataCite?
Next up was Elizabeth Newbold (British Library) who gave an overview of what is DataCite. Founded in 2009 it is a registration agency, effectively an allocating agent for DOIs (which I had never realised are based on the Handle system that I use daily in the LRA). However, it was made very plain that DataCite does not work directly with researchers, they are expected to deposit their data (in whatever way possible) to an appririate data centre, and then come to DataCite to "mint" a DOI. Minting of DOIs was new phrase for me, but clearly one that I can see slipping into my regular conversations about this subject here at Leicester.
It was noted that the UK Data Archive had a strong definition of what was data (termed data collections) as groups of all outputs from a single project source. Commented that other data centres across the country were working along similar lines and methodologies.
DataCite Infrastructure & Working with DataCite
After an excellent lunch (BL London catering never fails to delight) Ed Zukowski (British Library) gave a very useful, if in part quite detailed and technical, overview of both DataCite and DOIs. Handles being the technology that underpins them, where DOI is actually a trademarked derivative. DOIs importantly point to landing pages not to the objects themselves (akin to our implementation of Handles on the LRA), and in practice using the DataCite front-end take around a minute to mint. He went on to detail how DataCite resolves contents from DOIs minted via them, but I think I'll wait and link to the slides once available rather than try and make sense of my slightly confused notes. I was content to see that the service worked, rather than worry about the technicality.
Following this Elizabeth Newbold returned to talk briefly about working with DataCite and the data client responsibilities. In terms of their metadata schemea there were only 4 required elements needed to make it work. However, locally people may well augment this with many more fields as they felt appropriate for discovery and description. I confess one nagging worry I have is whom will create this metadata? Is it a task we will anticipate a PI will perform at the conclusion of a project? Personally I have concerns over the quality, accuracy, uniformity and standardisation of such input; going on my experience of manually created records submitted to the LRA via IRIS. From the academics' perspective I can see the challenge being that this will be seen as yet another piece of administration trivia that they are expected to deal with, and achieving the cultural change to embeded this into their standard workflows will be challenging with some serious and time-consuming carrot-whipping. Given the struggle to work deposit of publications into our open access repository into their routine over the past four years, it is a serious challenge and the scale of this should not be underestimated!
Elizabeth noted that metadata created must be shared under a Creative Commons Zero licence, noting that for example the British Library OPAC makes data available for sharing and reuse in this way. There were some concerns from those present in the room that this might cause problems in cases where institutions, funders or even publishers made claim over such data. Another speaker also highlighted the problem of having data (with a minted DOI) then having a third party mint a different DOI to it which could interfere with metrics of access as well as uniformity of reference. There didn't appear to be a clear consensus or answer to these concerns, and the discussions broke up over tea.
Challenges Around Managing Research Data
The final session of the day was a workshop format where we were broken into small groups, and then smaller groups, an then finally into pairs (!) to discuss and document what we perceived as the challenges around managing research data. I think it was a shame we were so subdivided, since while I had a valuable chat with my counterpart I would have relished a broader chat with a slightly larger group. Given that there was a wide disparity between the role of delegates (from publishers to project manages to editors to directors of service through to repository managers) I feel we lost some of the benefit that we could have achieved through putting more of these diverse heads together. I also sensed a slight bias in the broader discussion when each pair's issues were categorised and resolutions discussed – it did feel like the expectation was that the answer to "How do we solve this problem?" was intimated to be "DataCite". It wasn't in our room, although in at least one of the other two larger groups DataCite seemed ready to answer more of their challenges.
My slight concerns over the value of the final session aside, this was an eye-opening and valuable day. It has for me perhaps opened up more questions than answers, although some of those were provided as well. Importantly what I think it offered was a chance to gauge where other people are on the research data management question and more importantly it gave shape to the bigger operational and strategic questions that we need to be asking ourselves within our organisations. As such the day was most certainly worthwhile, and my thanks to all the speakers, organisers and delegates for a thought-provoking day.
Further reading
- Liz Lyon (2007) Dealing with Data: Roles, Rights, Responsibilities and Relationships: Consultancy Report
- Ball, A. & Duke, M. (2011). How to Cite Datasets and Link to Publications. DCC How-to Guides
- Garfield, E. "When to Cite ," Library Quarterly, 66 (4) p.449-458, 1996.
A twitter archive of discussions around the day is also available.


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Shia LaBeouf might have found the best way to get into the part of a character being sucked into the Wall Street game -- the star became a trader to fully flesh out the role.
While he's continued trading even as "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" opens in theaters on Friday, he admits the business has a serious impact on his world outlook.
"That's the thing it does for you, it changes you," he tells PopcornBiz, admitting it can often lead to a thought-process that's "cynical and nihilistic"
For example, he viewed he news of the massive Russian fires last month more as a business opportunity than through his usual lens of seeing humans in peril.
"A normal person sees a huge fit in Russia and they show some empathy for these people," LaBeouf says. "What are they going to do? Who is going to help?"
"My mind doesn't work like that anymore," he admits. "I hear there's a fire in Russia and I'm buying wheat."
"It's a dark way to think."
While the sometimes intense practice started as training for the film, LaBeouf has continued long after it wrapped and admits his trading portfolio was having "a good September" after a poor August.
The practice also allowed him to humanize the character he was going to play by showing that people on Wall Street are just people as well.
"Before I had any info it was very easy to vilify Wall Street and capitalism," says LaBeouf. "It was so black and white. These people are villains. But you cannot just blame it on these people."
Americans are also to blame for their out-of-control spending habits which led to the economic problems which plague the country.
"When you have a bunch of heroin addicts at a party who are trying to clean up, you don't throw a dime bag on the floor," says LaBeouf. "Americans, we're a bunch of heroin addicts. And Wall Street threw the dime bag."
"Who is wrong there? They are both wrong. It's the American way of thinking that needs to change," he adds.
By the way, there's little chance that LaBeouf will quit the acting day-job to take trading on full-time.
"Money doesn't give me passion like what I do," the star says. "I don't thrive off money the same way."


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text: Women's Health Care Guidelines Get regular checkups, preventive examinations, and immunizations. Learn about disease prevention and ask your physician for specific information regarding your needs. A Woman's Guide to Cancer Screenings You run two miles every other day and lift weights twice a week. You've been trying to eat more fruits and vegetables and less meat. You don't smoke. When it comes to your health, you figure you've got everything covered. But when was the last time you saw your doctor for a health screening? Putting Disease Risk into Perspective The way we gauge the peril a given disorder poses is called risk perception. Self-Treat or See a Health Care Provider? When you're sick, knowing whether you should treat yourself at home or see your doctor can save you time and hundreds of dollars a year. You Can Choose to Have a Healthy Life Each year, two out of every three deaths in the United States are caused by cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or stroke. That figure could be significantly reduced if Americans made healthier food choices, got more exercise, and stopped smoking. 5 Ways to Avoid Colds and the Flu You don't want to spend this winter battling a runny nose, a nagging cough or a fever. Here's what to do. Special Vaccination Requirements Review your immunization history with your health care provider and be sure that children over the age of 2 are on schedule with their vaccine series. Routine Vaccination Recommendations Specific vaccine recommendations vary depending on age, geographic location, and other risk factors. Debunking 10 Aging Myths Many older Americans lead healthy, interesting, and productive lives well into their later years. But that's not what we usually hear about. Medical Symptoms You Should Never Ignore Some symptoms may indicate the possibility of a serious condition and should be evaluated immediately by a health care provider.