text:
Unconfirmed assertion about a possible new Campo del Cielo impact crater
Detectan el cráter de un gran meteorito en Campo del Cielo
(El Liberal, 2 December 2014)
Detectan el cráter de un gran meteorito en Campo del Cielo
(El Liberal, 2 December 2014)
Carbonaceous meteorite fall (>2.1 kg) in Sitahan Barat hamlet, Pasar Onan Hurlang, and Satahi Nauli area, Kolang subdistrict, Central Tapanuli Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia at ~ 16:00 WIB (9 a.m. UTC) on 1 August 2020
'Forrest (prov.)' (18 November 2019) and 'Madura Cave (prov.)' (19 June 2020) – Two falls found on the Nullarbor Plain, Western Australia
Blaubeuren (30.260 kg, H4-5, S2, W3) meteorite find (1989) in Blaubeuren-Weiler (Alb-Donau-Kreis), Baden-Württemberg, Germany
On exhibition in Blaubeuren (30 July – 25 October)
Narashino (習志野市, Narashino-shi) (prov.) meteorite fall (~316 g)in Narashino and Funabashi (船橋), Chiba Prefecture, Japan on 1st July at 17.32.03-10 UT (2nd July, 2.32.03-10 a.m. JST)
Meteorite (~ 5 kg) fall in Bimbe (Limbe ?) village, Chitanda chiefdom, Chibombo District, Central Province, Zambia at ~7:00 a.m. CAT (~5:00 UT) on 7 June 2020
FLENSBURG (C1-ung, 24.5 g, W0) meteorite fall in Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany on 12 September 2019 at ~14:49:48 CEST (~ 12:49:48 UTC)
Meteorite "Hocheppan" –
a Forensic Study
by Karl Wimmer
MetSoc position on Discrimination and Racial Bias
June 09, 2020
"The following message has been approved by the Council of the MetSoc:
Dear Meteoritical Society Members, We have been watching with the rest of the world the unfolding of recent events in the United States and the resulting turmoil. This brings home to us yet again that we have a ways to go before we achieve the just and equitable world that we all aspire to. If unacknowledged and unchecked, discrimination and injustice can enter any organization or community – and can destroy the very foundations upon which we are building our future. We are a small society, but our membership is diverse and spans the globe. As an international scientific society, and per our position statement on inclusiveness (https://meteoritical.org/society/governance/position-statement), we are committed to a diverse and inclusive community that promotes the well being of all its members. We realize that change comes with both small and bold steps in the right direction. As an example, we have asked our Endowment Committee to proactively consider support of initiatives and programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in our community. We affirm that discrimination and injustice have no place at the Meteoritical Society, in science, or in society as a whole. I am confident in our ability to be a force for science, a force for good, and for positive change in society. It is our hope that we come together as colleagues and friends to support one another and to support others in our communities beyond our Society. Science, scientists, and science advocates are going to be critical to ensuring we successfully navigate these challenging times together.
Meenakshi Wadhwa, President, The Meteoritical Society"
26Al Allende aqueous alteration asteroid bolide CAI carbonaceous carbonaceous chondrite Chelyabinsk / Челябинск chondrule chondrule formation CI CM CO comet CR CV earth enstatite chondrite H impact iron L LL lunar Mars martian meteor meteoroid moon Murchison ordinary chondrite organic matter oxygen isotopes planetesimal presolar grains shergottite Vesta water witnessed fall
Boron partitioning between zircon and melt: Insights into Hadean, modern arc, and pegmatitic settings ►
Reappraisal of purported ca. 3.7 Ga stromatolites from the Isua Supracrustal Belt (West Greenland) from detailed chemical and structural analysis ►
Compositional heterogeneity of Archean mantle estimated from Sr and Nd isotopic systematics of basaltic rocks from North Pole, Australia, and the Isua supracrustal belt, Greenland ►
Unraveling the complexity of zircons from the 4.0-2.9 Ga Acasta Gneiss Complex ►
An andesitic source for Jack Hills zircon supports onset of plate tectonics in the Hadean ►
Sulfidization of 3.48 billion-year-old stromatolites of the Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton: Constraints from in-situ sulfur isotope analysis of pyrite ►
Paleomagnetism indicates that primary magnetite in zircon records a strong Hadean geodynamo ►
Origins of high δ18O in 3.7–3.6 Ga crust: A zircon and garnet record in Isua clastic metasedimentary rocks ►
A comparison between zircons from the Acasta Gneiss Complex and the Jack Hills region ►
Accumulation of Transition Metals and Metalloids in Sulfidized Stromatolites of the 3.48 Billion–year–old Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton ►
Disturbances in the Sm–Nd isotope system of the Acasta Gneiss Complex—Implications for the Nd isotope record of the early Earth ►
The accumulation of non-formula elements in zircons during weathering: Ancient zircons from the Jack Hills Western Australia ►
Nano−porous pyrite and organic matter in 3.5-billion-year-old stromatolites record primordial life ►
Lack of late-accreted material as the origin of 182W excesses in the Archean mantle: Evidence from the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia ►
The Eoarchean legacy of Isua (Greenland) worth preserving for future generations ►
A new 3.59 Ga magmatic suite and a chondritic source to the east Pilbara Craton ►
Reassessing evidence of life in 3,700-million-year-old rocks of Greenland ►
Evidence for evolved Hadean crust from Sr isotopes in apatite within Eoarchean zircon from the Acasta Gneiss Complex ►
Petrogenesis and tectonics of the Acasta Gneiss Complex derived from integrated petrology and 142Nd and 182W extinct nuclide-geochemistry ►
Earth's oldest stable crust in the Pilbara Craton formed by cyclic gravitational overturns ►
Most Ancient Evidence for Life in the Barberton Greenstone Belt: Microbial Mats and Biofabrics of the ∼3.47 Ga Middle Marker Horizon ►
Ideas and perspectives: hydrothermally driven redistribution and sequestration of early Archaean biomass – the "hydrothermal pump hypothesis" ►
HCN production via Impact Ejecta Reentry during the Late Heavy Bombardment ►
Secondary magnetic inclusions in detrital zircons from the Jack Hills, Western Australia, and implications for the origin of the geodynamo ►
The origin of the Moon within a terrestrial synestia ►
Halogen Chemistry and Hydrogen Isotopes of Apatite from the >3.7 Ga Isua Supracrustal Belt, SW Greenland ►
Remarkably preserved tephra from the 3430 Ma Strelley Pool Formation, Western Australia: Implications for the interpretation of Precambrian microfossils ►
A 4463 Ma apparent zircon age from the Jack Hills (Western Australia) resulting from ancient Pb mobilization ►
Cluster analysis on a sphere: Application to magnetizations from metasediments of the Jack Hills, Western Australia ►
SIMS analyses of the oldest known assemblage of microfossils document their taxon-correlated carbon isotope compositions ►
Geochronology of Hadean zircon grains from the Jack Hills, Western Australia constrained by quantitative scanning ion imaging ►
Spatially-resolved isotopic study of carbon trapped in ∼3.43 Ga Strelley Pool Formation stromatolites ►
SIMS Microanalysis of the Strelley Pool Formation Cherts and the Implications for the Secular-Temporal Oxygen-isotope Trend of Cherts ►
Earth's volatile contents established by melting and vaporization ►
Magnesium isotope evidence that accretional vapour loss shapes planetary compositions ►
Early trace of life from 3.95 Ga sedimentary rocks in Labrador, Canada ►
Impact-driven subduction on the Hadean Earth ►
Cubic zirconia in >2370 °C impact melt records Earth's hottest crust ►
Elements of Eoarchean life trapped in mineral inclusions ►
CO2 fluid inclusions in Jack Hills zircons ►
Processes of Crust Formation in the Early Earth Imaged through Hf isotopes from the East Pilbara Terrane ►
Earliest signs of life on land preserved in ca. 3.5 Ga hot spring deposits ►
Formation of Hadean granites by melting of igneous crust ►
Large and robust lenticular microorganisms on the young Earth ►
Tungsten-182 heterogeneity in modern ocean island basalts ►
Evidence for early life in Earth's oldest hydrothermal vent precipitates ►
Earth's first stable continents did not form by subduction ►
SHRIMP U–Pb zircon geochronology establishes that banded iron formations are not chronostratigraphic markers across Archean greenstone belts of the Pilbara Craton ►
The Hunt for Shocked Zircon in the Jack Hills: 21,000 and Counting… ►
Initiation of plate tectonics in the Hadean: Eclogitization triggered by the ABEL Bombardment ►
Highly siderophile element and 182W evidence for a partial late veneer in the source of 3.8 Ga rocks from Isua, Greenland ►
Iron and oxygen isotope fractionation during iron UV photo-oxidation: Implications for early Earth and Mars ►
Coupled zircon Lu–Hf and U–Pb isotopic analyses of the oldest terrestrial crust, the >4.03 Ga Acasta Gneiss Complex ►
Sluggish Hadean geodynamics: Evidence from coupled 146,147Sm–142,143Nd systematics in Eoarchean supracrustal rocks of the Inukjuak domain (Québec) ►
The effect of weathering on U-Th-Pb and oxygen isotope systems of ancient zircons from the Jack Hills, Western Australia ►
No evidence for Hadean continental crust within Earth's oldest evolved rock unit ►
Rapid emergence of life shown by discovery of 3,700-million-year-old microbial structures ►
Petrology and geochemistry of mafic rocks in the Acasta Gneiss Complex: Implications for the oldest mafic rocks and their origin ►
Recovering the primary geochemistry of Jack Hills zircons through quantitative estimates of chemical alteration ►
The birth of a cratonic nucleus: lithogeochemical evolution of the 4.02–2.94 Ga Acasta Gneiss Complex ►
Preservation of Earth-forming events in the tungsten isotopic composition of modern flood basalts ►
Geochemistry and Nd isotopic characteristics of Earth's Hadean mantle and primitive crust ►
Early Earth Differentiation Investigated Through 142Nd, 182W, and Highly Siderophile Element Abundances in Samples From Isua, Greenland ►
Excavation and Melting of the Hadean Continental Crust by Late Heavy Bombardment ►
Potentially biogenic carbon preserved in a 4.1 billion-year-old zircon ►
Core formation and core composition from coupled geochemical and geophysical constraints ►
Pervasive remagnetization of detrital zircon host rocks in the Jack Hills, Western Australia and implications for records of the early geodynamo ►
— Comment by R. Bono et al (4 July 2016) ►
— Benjamin P. Weiss et al. (19 July) Reply to Comment by R. Bono et al (4 July 2016) ►
Copyright © 2020 karmaka.de
Powered by WordPress and Ascetica.


text:
Click a candidate icon to find more information about the candidate. To compare two candidates, click the "compare" button. To start over, click a candidate icon.
To make a selection for a candidate and create a ballot, you must enter an address.
You have already selected the maximum number of candidates for this race.
You must uncheck an existing selection before making another selection.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I am Heidi Pungartnik. The surname is kind of a mouthful, so you can call me Heidi Pun. It totally fits with my terrible sense of humor!
If we met before, I probably either told you I make websites or breed cats to earn a living, none of which is 100% true.
I used to work as a web and graphic designer for about 6 years. Now I make products online and run a few pretty popular websites. It is the best job ever!
Do you think we'd have something to talk about? Reach out — I love meeting cool people.
I wrote a book on design. If you don't know anything about it but would like to learn, it's the perfect starting point.
[hi-dee phun-ghart-neek]. Feel free to use "Pun" instead.
Believe or not, I actually get asked this quite a lot. And yes. It is my real name.
Currently I don't offer any services other than to selected LGBTIQ organisations.
|web coding
Watch the recording of my 15-minute talk on meditation.
Heidi is one of those great designers that have a unique ability to successfully combine design and business.— Tomas Laurinavicius, Forbes writer
Heidi is truly gifted and knows what she is talking about with regard to generating website traffic.— Jaime Jay, entrepreneur
Excellent experience with a knowledgable seller and marketer.— Dave Subers, Subers Web Group
Heidi [...] covers each topic with amazing attention to detail in an engaging tone. What impresses me most are the insights she shares based on her own experience [...].— Michael Choke, entrepreneur
Heidi cuts to the chase, gives you useful and current information, and provides specific and step-by-step instructions for validating your ideas.— Braden Bruington, CEO
Design Blog & Products
Organiser of local meetups
Chief Marketing Technologist
Curious about my old freelance work? Check out the Behance portfolio.


text:
Engineering Clinics
Engineering Clinics
Engineering Clinics
Clinic History
Engineering education in the United States is undergoing many changes brought about by several factors including: our society's need for more engineers, pressure to reduce credit hours leading to degree, newly implemented accreditation criteria, industry demands, and a renewed interest in student-centered learning. Among the many challenges arising from these changes, perhaps the most formidable is the incorporation of more design into the curriculum. Design represents the solution of open-ended problems, usually in the development of a product. It challenges students to use the engineering skills, knowledge and tools that they have acquired. It encompasses such higher level skills as analysis, synthesis and evaluation, and is a highly valued skill set in engineering graduates. It is also arguably the most difficult to learn (and teach). At Rowan University , we have infused design into the curriculum through an eight-semester course sequence called the Engineering Clinic in which students learn the art and science of design in a multidisciplinary team environment.
The most outstanding feature of the engineering curriculum at Rowan University is its emphasis on multidisciplinary interactions through courses and, especially, the Engineering Clinics. The Clinics are an eight-semester sequence of courses taken by all engineering students.
Clinic Program
The Freshman Clinic is focused on engineering measurements and reverse engineering. The Fall semester of the Freshman Engineering Clinic has laboratory components from all major engineering disciplines. In the Spring semester, students work on a semester-long reverse engineering project. Reverse engineering is the systematic testing of existing products, for the purpose of improvement. For example, students have reverse engineered coffee makers, hair dryers, remote-control cars, electric toothbrushes, and portable water filters.
The Sophomore Clinic is focused on engineering design. For perhaps the first time, students are exposed to realistic design problems best solved by multidisciplinary engineering teams. This course has significant communication components, both writing and speaking. Past projects include the design of landfills and baseball parks, and the design and construction of guitar effect pedals and small bridges.
In Junior and Senior Clinics, students work in small teams of juniors and seniors on open-ended projects under the supervision of one or more professors. Each team works on a unique project, which can be multiple semesters in length. A typical sequence includes: information search and review; development of a clear and concise problem statement; research and/or design and testing activities; and presentation of results via written report and presentation. Projects have ranged from evaluating the Betsy Ross Bridge to designing new wastewater treatment systems. Most projects are funded by industry or governmental agencies.
Clinic Affliate Sponsors
|Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence *
|MacKissic, Inc.
|Alliance Partners/PHI Lighting
|MACTEX, Inc. *
|American Chemical Society
|Mannington Mills
|Angelo J. Falciani, L.L.C./C.W. Brown
|Mesa Environmental Sciences
|ARCADIS BBL, ARCADIS U.S. Inc./NJ Water Environment Assoc.
|Mr. Nunnenkamp
|Biothane Corporation
|National Science Foundation *
|Campbell Soup
|Naval Air Warfare Center - Aircraft Division Grant
|Combustion Byproducts Recycling Consortium *
|Naval Surface Warfare Center
|Commerce Bank
|NJ Department of Military & Veteran Affairs *
|Northeast Hazardous Substrance Research Center *
|Construction Industry Advancement Program of NJ
|Cooper, Willard
|Omega Engineering
|Coriell Institute for Medical Research
|Physical Acoustics Corp.
|Pitman, NJ *
|Domino Foods
|DURABLA Fluid Technology
|Earth Tech, Inc. *
|PTC Value Recovery
|EarthSolve, Inc.
|RL Associates
|Egg Harbor Twp. Police Athletic League
|Robson Goldberg
|Electric Mobility
|Energy and Environmental Research Center *
|Schroth Development Svcs
|Engineers Without Borders *
|Sony Music
|General Mills
|South Jersey Gas Company
|Gil Wal Technologies
|Stryker Orthopaedics
|Glass, John and Alice
|Glassboro, NJ *
|Inductotherm industries
|SureID LLC.
|Johnson Matthey
|Terra Systems, Inc. *
|Kandle Lake Associates
|Thomson Consumer Electronics
|Lake Kandle Swim Club
|US Army Corps of Engineers *
|Lemelson Foundation
|US Department of Energy *
|Lindback Foundation, Minority Jr. Faculty Grant
|US Environmental Protection Agency
|Lockheed Martin
|Valero Refining
|M&A London (Helios Products)
|Water Environment Research Foundation
|* Grant Funded
|Wheaton IndustriesGrant/Contract funded


text:
Friends and admirers of Marvin Hamlisch including Bill Clinton and Ann-Margret gathered Tuesday in New York City to bid farewell to the celebrated songwriter hailed as "the people's composer."
Clinton called Hamlisch, whose casket was covered in yellow flowers, a "great, giving genius." Howard Stringer, head of Sony, called him "the merriest of minstrels."
Hamlisch died Aug. 6 in Los Angeles at age 68.
Other guests included Liza Minnelli, ex-Yankee manager Joe Torre, Idina Mazel, Kelli O'Hara, Raul Esparza, Leslie Ughams, Richard Gere and Tony Danza.
Hamlisch composed or arranged hundreds of scores for musicals and movies, including "A Chorus Line" on Broadway and the films "The Sting," ''Sophie's Choice," ''Ordinary People" and "The Way We Were."
His funeral was held at Congregation Emanu-El, a prominent synagogue where George Gershwin's funeral was held in 1937.
Get the latest from NBC 4 New York anytime, anywhere. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Get our apps here and sign up for email newsletters here. Get breaking news delivered right to your phone -- just text NYBREAKING to 639710. For more info, text HELP. To end, text STOP. Message and data rates may apply.


text:
I am researching programming languages used for AI programming. I know that LISP is taught as an AI programming language in my university, but Prolog rarely is. I am kind of fond of Prolog, but I'm not an AI programmer so I don't think I'm qualified to judge for myself why Prolog is better than LISP/Scheme. I was wondering if Programmers had any input on this topic.
How could you argue that Prolog would be more useful for AI programming?
I have been researching it a bit, and the basic argument I've seen over and over is that since thoughts are presented in logic, and Prolog is a logical programming language, Prolog can build decision machines easily, or something to that effect.
Is there anything else that can be said for Prolog in AI?


text:
Item #1020
Biennial. "Excellent as a cut flower, this very sturdy variety has flowers larger and wider than most foxglove varieties. As a biennial, it produces foliage the first year, flowers the second year; but it self-sows readily, making it great for "naturalized" areas. Performs best in partial shade. Attracts pollinators and hummingbirds. Biennial in USDA zones 4-8.
Caution: All plant parts are poisonous if ingested.
Seedling Image
Part shade
Blooms spring to summer
3' - 5' tall
Days to Emerge:
Seed Depth:
Seed Spacing:
When to sow outside: RECOMMENDED. 1 to 2 weeks after average last frost, until 2 months before first fall frost.
When to start inside: 6 to 8 weeks before average last frost. Sow in biodegradable pots to reduce root disturbance.
Special germination instructions: Light aids germination; do not cover with soil.
Artist: Jackie McFarland
Item #1020
0.35 grams
You may have nestled your dormant vegetable beds down for a good winter's sleep with a nice blanket of mulch. But, don't forget your perennial flowers…More…
These are some simple techniques you can use to extend the life of your cut flowers from days, to over a week.
1) In the morning or early evening,…More…


text:
As caretaker of a service with a billion users, Mark Zuckerberg is used to sparking protest. Any time his company releases a new product, adjusts a privacy setting, or even tweaks the design, thousands of outraged Facebookers take to the Web to decry the change. So Zuckerberg can expect to hear sirens today, as he announces Home, Facebook's most dramatic response to the pivot from desktop and web to phones and tablets. New paradigms like mobile can be the ill winds that blow down card-houses of tech dominance, and to maintain its status as the alpha social network, Facebook must get this right.
First, what it's not: Home isn't the long-rumored Facebook Phone. That was always a red herring. Instead, Home turns your phone into a Facebook device. Even with the lock screen on, a photo stream of your friends' activities fills the screen. Updates appear on your home screen, too. What's more, Home makes Facebook the primary means of communication on your device. The company's messaging software merges with SMS, and you can continue using its "chat heads" to text while inside another app. Zuckerberg believes that the social network plays too big a role in its users lives to be drowned out by a vast sea of apps. "Apps aren't the center of the world," he says. "People are."
Home does put people—your people—front and center. And Zuckerberg is probably hoping that most users choose it over the standard Facebook app. The catch is that not everyone can participate, even if they want to. At launch, Home is limited to a few Android phones; iPhone users are shut out. Apple enforces its own look and feel, and allowing a developer to take over the lockdown screen is currently unimaginable.
But there are plenty of things that were once unimaginable that have come to pass. One of them is the personal evolution of Facebook's CEO. Accounts of Zuckerberg's early years as a founder paint him as callow. But in recent appearances—and interviews like this one—he has been articulate, engaging, and at ease. Clearly Zuckerberg is at home at Facebook. Now his task is to make us all feel that way.
What led to your building Facebook Home? Facebook occupies an interesting space in mobile. We're not an operating system, but we're not just an app either. Facebook accounts for 23 percent of the time people spend on smartphones. The next-biggest ones are Instagram and Google Maps, which are each at 3 percent. For the past 18 months, we spent our efforts building good versions of Facebook's mobile apps. But the design was still very close to what we have on the desktop. We knew that we could do better.
Why not just build a phone? I've always been very clear that I don't think that's the right strategy. We're a community of a billion-plus people, and the best-selling phones—apart from the iPhone—can sell 10, 20 million. If we did build a phone, we'd only reach 1 or 2 percent of our users. That doesn't do anything awesome for us. We wanted to turn as many phones as possible into "Facebook phones." That's what Facebook Home is.
It's only available on Android phones. Isn't it ironic that your mobile strategy is now tied to Google's operating system? We have a pretty good partnership with Apple, but they want to own the whole experience themselves. There aren't a lot of bridges between us and Google, but we are aligned with their open philosophy.
So do you think in, say, two years you will have this on the iPhone? That's above my pay grade to be able to answer that.
That's a pretty high pay grade. Look, I would love for that answer to be yes. Facebook is in a very different place than Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and Microsoft. We are trying to build a community. We have a billion folks using our services now, and we want to get to 3 or 5 billion one day. We're going to do that by building the best experience across all devices. Android is growing quickly, and we're excited that the platform is open and that it allows us to build these great experiences. I think that this is really good for Google too. Something like this could encourage a lot of people to get Android phones, because I think people really care about Facebook. In a lot of ways, this is one of the best Facebook experiences that you can get. Of course, a lot of people also love iPhones—I love mine, and I would like to be able to deliver Facebook Home there as well.
Facebook now calls itself a "mobile first, mobile best" company. If you had started the company in 2013, would you have done it as a mobile app? I don't know. Maybe once or twice a year I'll just take a few days off and wander around and ask myself, if I were starting from scratch today, and I weren't running Facebook, what would I build? I look at this mobile trend in light of the law of sharing, our equivalent of Moore's law, which states that the average amount of information that a person shares doubles every year or so. Figuring out what the next big trend is tells us what we should focus on.
OK, so what is the next big trend? The big stuff that we're seeing now is sharing with smaller groups.
How would you implement that? Do you do it within Facebook or with separate apps? There's a place for both. There's a place for a service that only communicates with your core friends and family, and I think that's going to be ubiquitous. But there are other great services out there doing great things. Instagram is a good example of this. They just crossed 100 million active users. It's a much smaller product by Facebook standards, but it's a really meaningful product.
"Let's say we did build a phone. We'd reach 1 or 2 percent of our people. That doesn't do anything awesome for us."
Mark Zuckerberg
A lousy 100 million. It's big, but it's not a billion. I hope one day it will be. One of our big challenges over the next few years will be figuring out our relationships with companies that clearly have the same kind of social sharing mission. Because Instagram is part of our team, we can really work through that stuff. That experience will help improve all the things that we do with Pinterest and Foursquare and Twitter. There are some really hard problems we need to solve. If we can, it'll make the web of all these services so much more valuable.
So you don't want a walled garden? We've had a platform strategy for six years. Obviously, there aren't many good platforms that don't build really good first-party apps. We're very focused on making News Feed really good, making our photos experience really good, making messaging really good, and creating great location apps. That's the nature of a platform business of our scale. Most companies that are relevant to us will have some overlaps in some competitive way. But we choose not to be very paranoid and instead try to look for the ways that we can work with them.
Let's talk about News Feed. People have complained that they're missing important stories from friends and instead are seeing sponsored content. How do you find the right balance? Everything that we have seen shows that ranking content is good for people. If you only have time to look at 10 or 20 stories, it's much better to have the best ones at the top. I think that's a better experience than missing your cousin's announcement that she's pregnant, because it appears 30 stories down. We run experiments all the time where 1 percent of users get an unranked feed and all the metrics that we have show that those people's experience is meaningfully worse.
Some of those stories may be ads, which you call "sponsored stories." These find their way into the organic News Feed. The ad ranking doesn't influence the organic ranking at all. Basically, for every 10 or 15 pieces of content, we insert one that's paid. There's no interaction between those two things. And we try to make the ads as good as possible too. Also, whenever we do some correction to show users more of what they want to see, the result is less "page" stories from businesses and brands. That makes the sponsors unhappy, even if it actually is the best thing for the billion people who are using Facebook.
You'll please the users over the advertisers? That's the only thing that matters.
There's been a lot more effort to boost the business side at Facebook in recent months. Did going public force you to push the gas pedal on that? Two things happened at the same time, and I think it's easy to conflate them. One is that we went public. But more important, a lot of usage transitioned from desktop to mobile. That's what's driven a lot of our decisions. We'd built a really nice business that scaled to billions of dollars on the desktop with ads only on the side of the page. But it was really a cop-out, because we weren't tackling the hard problem of figuring out how to actually make the ads good enough to integrate with the user experience. With phones, there's no room for a right-hand column of ads. That forced us to think about what the business looks like on mobile. But I want to push back on the idea that there's been some wholesale shift within the company toward monetization. We're making an even bigger investment in consumer products than we are on monetization.
Earlier you mentioned a Moore's law of increased sharing. But some reports indicate that sharing might be leveling off. Sharing is not just about status updates doubling every year. It's made up of all these different trends. In the beginning, people shared by filling out basic information in their profiles. Then we made it so that people could update their status. Then came photos. Now people are sharing through apps like Spotify.
We talk about the Moore's law of sharing, but we never meant that all this will happen on Facebook—it will happen in the world. Our challenge is to make that happen on Facebook. I draw an analogy to Intel. Moore's law was great for them, because they could point at the world and say, "OK, in 18 months, someone's going to fit this many transistors on a circuit board—we'd better be the ones to do it or else someone is gonna eat our lunch!" I look at this the same way. Three years from now, people are going to be sharing eight to 10 times as much stuff. We'd better be there, because if we're not, some other service will be.
"Sometimes we are going to do stuff that's controversial, and we're going to make mistakes. We have to be willing to take risks."
Mark Zuckerberg
But sharing can be exhausting. You hear about people taking "Facebook vacations." It's an interesting phenomenon. We have two ways to turn off Facebook: deactivate and delete. The group who chooses to turn Facebook off permanently is relatively small, but there's a larger set of people who will deactivate their account for a day or two because they want to focus and study for a test—it's the equivalent of locking yourself in the library. It's actually a very popular feature.
Did you ever take a Facebook vacation? I don't think I ever have. I certainly turn off my phone from time to time.
Changes made to Facebook used to reliably draw outrage, especially over privacy concerns. But when you announced Graph Search, which allows users to find more personal information shared by their friends, there wasn't much of an outcry. What have you learned? One of the things we did a lot better this time is we talked to a lot of folks to understand the concerns of organizations and others. Typically we have an iterative approach, but here we felt, in terms of privacy, everything had to be there at the beginning. The project was actually ready to go in December, but we took an extra month to build more privacy tools.
You say Facebook follows "the Hacker Way." How is it core to what happens here? It really is our philosophy for how we build stuff. There are a bunch of companies that try to make every release perfect, and Apple is the best at that. That's wonderful, but there's another way of doing things that's potentially even better over the long term—allow yourself room to experiment and don't try to make each individual release as polished as possible.
You're not yet 30 and you've begun to make some significant charitable contributions. What's your thinking on this? Bill Gates offered me some advice: Don't just give your money away—it's something that requires practice to get good at. So why wait? Clearly I have a day job that takes up 99 percent of my time, so I can't be running a foundation. But I can take a venture capital approach, where you invest in people. I made the investment in Newark schools because I really believed in the governor and mayor over there, and they've delivered.
Why education? It's not a coincidence—my wife, Priscilla, was a teacher when she graduated from Harvard. And I teach a middle school class over in East Menlo Park.
You're teaching a class? Yeah, every week. It's on how to build a business. Every Tuesday we go over one skill, and each group has a side project. When the class ends, they'll come to Facebook and sell the products they've made, like they're marketing them.
Speaking of people you support, you recently held a fund-raiser for New Jersey governor Chris Christie. You got a lot of crap for that. No more crap than usual. We build a service that a billion people use. It's an important part of a lot of people's lives. We take that really seriously, and it's a lot of weight. The people who want to work here are the ones who relish the impact and enjoy having the responsibility of holding up that weight—the positive and the negative. Sometimes we are going to do stuff that's controversial, and we're going to make mistakes. We have to be willing to take risks.
Steven Levy (email@example.com) is senior staff writer at Wired and the author of seven books.


text:
The Central Connecticut women's basketball team earned a 62-61 victory over Fairleigh Dickinson on Saturday afternoon. The Blue Devils (11-16, 5-12 NEC) trailed by 12 points in the second half, but came back to win on a pair of free throws by senior Jessica Babe with 20 seconds remaining in the game. The Knights (2-26, 1-16 NEC) scored just three points over the final seven and a half minutes of the contest.
Sophomore Raven Makins sparked the Blue Devils in the second half with eight points including a go-ahead three-pointer with 2:09 left to play.
Makins' three put CCSU in front 60-58 with just over two minutes remaining. FDU countered with a three by Kelsey Cruz with 37 seconds on the clock, but Babe was fouled on the ensuing CCSU possession and converted both free throw attempts.
The Blue Devils opened the game with a 7-0 run over the first three minutes and 45 seconds, but, following a FDU timeout, the Knights rolled off six straight points and eventually took a 10-9 lead.
The Knights opened up an eight-point lead by halftime behind nine points from Desiree Crawford and eight from Cruz.
In the second half, FDU expaned its lead to 12 points with 9:40 left to play and then led by 10 with 7:35 left in the game after a three-pointer by Cruz that put FDU up 58-48.
FDU would only score three more points in the contest as the CCSU defense held the Knights scoreless over a seven-minute period.
The Blue Devils comeback was fueled by Makins who dropped in eight points in the second half. She also had two steals and an assist.
Sophomore Amanda Harrington scored eight of her team-high 16 points in the second half. She finished the game with a near double-double of 16 points and eight rebounds.
Senior Lauren Arbogast also had a strong showing with 12 points and seven rebounds. Arbogast was an efficient five-of-eight from the floor, including two-of-two from beyond the arc.
The Blue Devils held a 46-35 advantage on the boards, including 22 offensive rebounds that led to 25 second chance points.
Babe finished with six points, nine rebounds and five assists.
For FDU, Cruz led all players with 20 points.
The road victory is the first for CCSU since defeating Wagner on Jan. 11, 2014.
The Blue Devils will wrap-up the 2014 season on Monday night against Bryant. CCSU and the Bulldogs will tip-off at 7 p.m. from Detrick Gym.


text:
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani Speech At The RNC! (Gets At Obama) [Full 27 Min]
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the 2008 Republican National Convention.
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


text:
Personal Notes: I would rather have a kid who yelled and argued than one who whined any day. My middle son is the one who seems to think nothing is fair if he doesn't get his way exactly how he wants it, on his own time schedule.
He, um, kind of got that from me. Existentially, I'm very bossy.
I got the letter yesterday, the one telling me, despite the agent really liking my work, and thinking I'm a "wonderful writer", she couldn't offer to represent Silver. It gave a whole new meaning to the term 'paper cut'. I don't want any of my awesome betas or ladies getting angry with her, because the agent was really amazing about it. Really, really. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt, if I made you think I've brushed myself off and forgotten it. I haven't. I still want to cry. All the fore-knowledge and scary publishing statistics in the world can't immunize you to the pain of coming so close and missing. The part I found the most perplexing was being told a few parts of the novel sounded too young, or too immature. After everyone kept telling me the opposite.
I need to fall back in love with this book, because I have lost my faith in it a little. The rejection brought doubt with it. Of course it did. That is part of the nature of rejection. "No" is negative, after all. Anyway, I need to have myself a good sit down and remind myself why I want what I want for this book, all the wonderful reasons outside of myself to get it out there. Things like loving the characters, and loving my readers, and loving how the book brings me closer to them, giving me the oppotunity to pass on what I learned during the chaos of my own teendom, and how I intend to donate to so many causes from sales. I need bigger reasons than fame, and material gain to put myself out there again.
But just so you know I'm still human, there is definitely a part of me going, "WHAT THE HADES?!?"
Bruised Purple
Personal Notes: I would rather have a kid who yelled and argued than one who whined any day. My middle son is the one who seems to think nothing is fair if he doesn't get his way exactly how he wants it, on his own time schedule.
Scotts Taped
Personal Notes: My youngest, Ben, is terrified of cats. I'm not terrified of much, except cockroaches. If I see a roach (not other bugs, or even spiders, snakes, rodents, etc.--I'm kind of cool like that) and there's someone else around of a grown-up nature who can kill it instead of me, THEY are going to. I'll be over here in my corner, huddles in revulsion until it's all over, thanks. On the other hand, if I'm the sole adult in residence, I can make myself do the deed . . . because I'd much rather know I killed that sucker, risking it touching me, then think it's going to crawl away somewhere and send out a cattle call to 500 of its closest friends.
Also, sometimes our neighbor's cat shows up in our house. That--and I am not a bad mother for saying this--is hilarious because suddenly the house if RIFE with panicked toddler screaming.
So, I think I finally overcame that whole character-block thing a couple days ago. The thing, of course, is I can't really tell you about it, because it's some major spoilerific, and would probably ruin Golden and quite possibly aspects of Bronze for you. I am not a fan of spoilers, and can only think of two times in my who reading career when I stooped to look up "what happens" online or wherever.
But suffice to say, I'm a very character-driven writer. Most of you know that. Before I do anything, I ask myself, 'Who is this person, and if I stick him or her in this situation, what is the natural thing or or she will do in reaction?" before I do anything else. And that has a domino effect for me. That question's cousin is, "Okay, this is the way I want the EVENTS to take place, so, knowing this character so well, what do I have to do to him or her to make her take that particular action?" Yeah, it's kind of like putting mice in a maze and expirimenting to find out what makes them take the long route verses the short one, to the end. On a basic level, it's pretty obvious; most characters will redirect to avoid a 'bad' thing or redirect to come into contact with a 'good' thing. So you have to ask yourself, "What's my character consider good? Bad? And when faced with two bad options, or two good ones, what's the factor that will make one a lesser evil or a greater good?"
I was fighting with myself. I couldn't write the next scene. I didn't know why. I didn't know why I couldn't just sit down and say "character A is going to do and say this to character B", but I didn't understand why not. And then it hit me. I didn't have all the information. It was one of those monster "story math" problems, you know, the ones where you get a little story about Christopher and Pam, and eating apples, only instead of the problem asking me, "So, how many apples did they have left after they ate X amount?" it randomly wanted to know what the temperature was in Nova Scotia. How the Hades was I suppose to devine the weather patterns on another continent from Christopher's and Pam's lunchtime brouhaha???? How was I suppose to know what Character A needed to say and do around Character B right now to produce the outcome I wanted later . . . when I wasn't--um, quite sure, I mean I kind of knew, but not totally--what was happening at that unspecified future date?
Well, I know now. And even better, I know WHY, and what it all means not just for Characters A, B, and maybe even C, but for the whole rest of my insane Dionadir posse.
Someone, I'm am not even kidding, you better be sending me some brownies. With no nuts.
Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Foe
Personal Notes: First off, seriously, why in the world are all the sounds effects in the old-school computer RPG game MYST so freaky? I've been scared of the elevator 'whoosh!' and the 'half-tuned static' noises since the first installment, and any other game or movie with similar sounds makes me cringe. For the record, I'm not normally scared of elevators or static. Just the MYST ones.


text:
The CT ski poles are crafted from strong, lightweight Aluminium with 2k soft rubber grips and adjustable straps to ensure comfort and dependability when you're pushing it, whether grabbing tail in the park or tracing that perfect turn through the deep stuff.
Colour: Blue
FREE UK Mainland Standard Delivery (3 - 5 days) on all orders
FREE Click+Collect Order online and collect from your local store for free
UK Mainland express delivery (1-2 days) from £6.50
Orders received before 12pm Mon - Fri will be dispatched same day.
If you are purchasing ski's and bindings and require them to be mounted please provide mounting details in the notes box at the checkout. to mount bindings we require the skiers; age, weight, height, ability level and boot sole length (in mm stamped on the boot). Ski orders recieved without mounting information will be dispatched un-mounted.
Find out more about delivery and charges
No additional taxes or charges apply if your parcel is delivered inside the EU. For countries outside the EU, local import duty and tax may apply. Any such charges must be paid by the customer. Please check with your local tax authority before placing your order.
Returns Period - We will happily refund or exchange any item purchased from Ski Bartlett within 14 days. Exceptions apply to certain products such as ski's that have bindings fitted.
Exchanges – For a speedier exchange, we recommend that you return your original item for a refund & reorder online.
Ways to return your goods:
Return to store FREE
Return via Post Royal Mail costs apply


text:
Come stay with us for a perfect get-away. You will be entranced from sunrise to sunset by the magnificent scenery surrounding the cabins.
Our cabins are located two miles from St.Rt.33 on secluded wooded sites and equipped with a hot tub, fireplace and air conditioning.
Hocking Hills Cabins are rustic, charming cabins located in the heart of the Hocking Hills. Feel free to take long leisurely walks on one of our many trails and enjoy the natural beauty of wildlife, foliage and wildflowers that are abundant in our area. After your walk, you may want to relax on the front porch in the swing or rock your troubles away in a wooden rocker. After spending a great day enjoying the out of doors, slip into the hot tub and watch one of the spectacular sunsets that glorify the evening skies.
|Click Here for Availability and Reservation Requests
"We did not expect a cabin in the woods to be so clean, amazing." - The Holm's
The Anniversary and Honeymooner Cabins have a cozy loft just for two. The perfect place for that special occasion.
Ask about our Honeymooner and Anniversary Specials!
"This is, by far, the best cabin we have ever stayed in. We will definitely be back!" - Steve & Debbie
Our couples only cabins are very roomy with an open floor plan and cathedral ceilings:
Our two bedroom cabins feature a roomy loft with one queen sized bed. An attractive bedroom on the main floor with one queen sized bed. Sunset and Wildflower will sleep 4.
All of our cabins have all the comforts of home and more!
Enjoy fishing and swimming in our pond that is only a short walk from your cabin.


text:
PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Ebola in Lagos
Ebola in Lagos
View Single Post
29th Aug 2014, 09:12
Keke Napep
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Ogba
Age: 49
Posts: 137
Ebola is Rapidly Mutating
The WHO now reports that the present strain of Ebola is mutating rapidly and could infect up to 20,000 people before it is contained, but this could take as long as 6 - 9 months.
Rapidly mutating Ebola could infect up to 20,000
The Ebola outbreak sweeping through West Africa will get significantly worse before it subsides, infecting as many as 20,000 people, the World Health Organisation said, even as US researchers announced plans to begin human safety trials next week in a race to develop an effective vaccine.
Adding more urgency to the crisis, new research detailed how the virus at the heart of the outbreak has mutated repeatedly in recent months, a fact that could hinder diagnosis and treatment of the devastating disease the longer the crisis stretches on. Five of the paper's 50 co-authors died of Ebola before they could see their findings about the sequencing of the virus' genome published.
Despite the bad news continuing to flow out of West Africa of overfilled and understaffed treatment centres, of airlines suspending service into affected areas, of controversial quarantines, of body counts climbing by the day Thursday also brought a sense that the international response to the crisis, widely criticised as slow and inadequate, is shifting into higher gear.
The World Health Organisation issued a "roadmap" aimed at stopping the Ebola outbreak within the next six to nine months. It includes dramatically scaling up efforts to contain the spread of the disease and treat those stricken by it, increased resources at hospitals and isolation centres, ensuring safe burials and more aggressive public awareness campaigns.
The agency said it also will work to clear logistical "bottlenecks" that have made it difficult to get disinfectants, body bags, gloves and other medical supplies to the areas where they are desperately needed.
The plan will cost an estimated $US490 million ($524 million) over the next six months and require thousands of experts and local volunteers, the agency said. That doesn't include support for other essential services or helping West African health systems recover from the epidemic.
The organisation also offered sobering new numbers of Ebola's toll in West Africa. At least 1552 deaths and 3069 people infected have been recorded in the four countries battling the virus Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria though the actual totals almost certainly are higher.
Scientists from the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, said the experimental vaccine that will undergo human trials beginning next week has shown promising results in non-human primates. If the trials are successful, officials said, they could have 10,000 doses available in short order to immunise health workers and others at risk of contracting Ebola.
The NIH and other groups, such as the British public health charity Wellcome Trust, are trying to line up similar human Ebola vaccine trials in Britain, Gambia and Mali beginning as early as next month. And the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is in talks with Nigerian officials about conducting trials in that country.
As researchers work toward effective treatments for Ebola, the study published on Thursday in Science offered new insights into the origins of the outbreak and how it ended up in West Africa. By genetically sequencing samples of the Ebola Zaire strain one of five types known to infect humans researchers said the virus appears to have diverged about a decade ago from a related strain in Central Africa, where previous outbreaks have occurred.
Ebola's arrival in Sierra Leone this spring appears to have begun with a single funeral, according to the findings. A young woman who had recently suffered a miscarriage arrived at Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone in May with a high fever. During her treatment, doctors discovered she had been infected with Ebola, becoming the country's first diagnosed case.
The woman recovered, but health workers who traced her contacts discovered that she and more than a dozen other women recently had attended the burial of a traditional healer who had been treating Ebola patients near the Sierra Leone-Guinea border. All had been infected.
The study also details more than 300 genetic mutations that make the present Ebola outbreak different from any in the past.
Washington Post
Keke Napep
View Public Profile
Find More Posts by Keke Napep


text:
deflation(redirected from Negative Inflation)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Encyclopedia.
Decline in the prices of goods and services. Antithesis of inflation.
A situation in which a currency gains value, often resulting from a decrease in prices. Many economists believe that deflation is the result a fall in demand for goods and services, which causes producers to reduce prices. This reduces their profits and causes a reduction in investment, which contributes to a further drop in demand. Because of this deflationary spiral, deflation is often associated with recessions and depressions and has been known to cause unemployment. It is also called negative inflation. See also: Lost Decade, Inflation.
A reduction in consumer or wholesale prices. The term generally applies to more than just a temporary decline. Compare inflation. See also disinflation.
Deflation, the opposite of inflation, is a gradual drop in the cost of goods and services, usually caused by a surplus of goods and a shortage of cash.
Although deflation seems to increase your buying power in its early stages, it is generally considered a negative economic trend. That's because it is typically accompanied by rising unemployment, falling production, and limited investment.
deflationa fall in the rate of growth of the general level of prices in an economy, or an absolute reduction in the general level of prices (see PRICE INDEX). The authorities may seek to deflate the economy in order to combat INFLATION and eliminate a BALANCE OF PAYMENTS deficit by using restrictive monetary and fiscal measures, i.e. increasing interest rates and taxes to cut spending. See ECONOMIC POLICY, MONETARY POLICY, FISCAL POLICY, PRICES AND INCOMES POLICY.
deflationa reduction in the level of NATIONAL INCOME and output usually accompanied by a fall in the general price level (DISINFLATION).
A deflation is often deliberately brought about by the authorities in order to reduce INFLATION and to improve the BALANCE OF PAYMENTS by reducing import demand. Instruments of deflationary policy include fiscal measures (e.g. tax increases) and monetary measures (e.g. high interest rates). See MONETARY POLICY, FISCAL POLICY.


text:
Is Rahul Gandhi fit to lead India and enable it to take its rightful place as an Asian power on par with China?
2. It is very difficult to give a comprehensive answer to this question because there is very little known about him and the Congress (I) has seen to it that his personality and stature do not become the subject of public scrutiny. Without any scrutiny and without any enumeration of his positive and negative qualities and track record as a political personality, his followers in the party want to impose him on the country as the next Prime Minister in the unlikely eventuality of the Congress (I) returning to power in the next parliamentary elections whenever they are held.
3.I consciously called him a political personality and not a political leader because his ability to exercise leadership over the country has not so far been tested. Even in his own party, in which he has been holding office as the General Secretary for some time now, he has not set the Jamuna on fire. If one has to prepare a comprehensive CV on him for dissemination through the Internet similar to the CVs on political leaders circulated in the US and other democracies before elections, one will have difficulty in completing the task because there is so little known about him except the flattery disseminated by the members of his party.
4. When we are told by his party members that he is fit to be the next Prime Minister of India, we have a right to know on what basis they have come to that conclusion. Leadership does not necessarily require high educational qualifications.K.Kamaraj, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, who subsequently became the President of the Congress (I) and played a key role in post-Nehru transition, was hardly educated. And, yet, he turned out to be one of the successful leaders produced by India.
5. Let us, therefore, keep aside the question of Rahul Gandhi's educational qualifications which, in my view, are not important for this debate. My perceptions of Rahul Gandhi are marked by the following thoughts:
* A potential leader must have something more than good personal qualities. He must have an intellectual spark which does not necessarily come from his or her educational qualifications. Rahul Gandhi has not so far given evidence of such an intellectual spark.
* Till now, he has not demonstrated any leadership qualities by way of ideas and actions.
* His ability to understand and logically analyse the complex internal and external problems facing the country is yet to be proved.
* His views tend to be very simplistic and do not indicate wide reading and an ability to think deeply.
* A good leader of the future must excite the younger generation. Rahul doesn't---not even in his own party.
6.. Under such circumstances, the Congress (I) will be doing a tremendous diservice to itself and the country if its tries to have him imposed initially on the party and then on the country as the next Prime Minister of India. His track record till now---whether in respect of contribution to new ideas or new policies---has been mediocre. Apart from the fact that he has come from a highly privileged political family, which has made a tremendous contribition to the nation, he is yet to demonstrate any qualities which compel attention and could make us look upon him as a leader of the future.
7. It is important to have an objective and balanced debate on this subject devoid of rhetoric, abuses and ideological arguments so that we have a complete picture of him before our eyes on the basis of which we can decide whether he is fit to lead India in the difficult years to come.Congress (I) could contribute to this debate by opening a separate web site for him in which they could give all data about him relevant to this debate,
8. If the Congress (I) expects the people of this country to seriously consider him as a potential leader, he should not be treated as a sacred cow which has to be accepted by the people without any scrutiny. (23-3-11)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com )
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


text:
You've been admiring Emily Mortimer for some time, and now she's got your kids revving their engines, too.
The actress' lilting British accent stars as Holly Shiftwell, the skillful secret agent who mistakes small town tow truck Mater for a master spy, in Pixar's "Cars 2," which hits DVD and Blu-ray today. Aftee that, the actress reunites with her "Shutter Island" director Martin Scorsese for the family-friendly 3D extravaganza "Hugo" November 23rd. She tells PopcornBiz those parts have been great for scoring brownie points with her eight-year-old son Sam (Moritmer and husband Alessandro Nivola are also parents to daughter May Rose, neary two), but she's also got some more grownup work ahead, thanks to word-meister Aaron Sorkin.
On adding her voice to the Pixar chorus:
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
"It's just so gratifying. Kids are such an amazing audience, and there's nothing more gratifying and pleasurable as a performer than feeling that you've held their attention and that something you've been a part of has grabbed their imagination or inspired them in some ways. And I've really felt that with this film. It's such a great revelation being in something that is entertaining for young audiences – It's an amazing feeling, as an actor. And I'm really excited about the prospect of having it again because I'm in this other big family movie called 'Hugo,' which Martin Scorsese made, which is coming out towards the end of the year. And I now know what it feels like to have captured this younger audience and to feel part of something that they've really taken to their hearts. It's wonderful."
On kids' reactions when they realize she's Holly Shiftwell:
"It's funny: I've found a lot of friends of mine have gone along to the movies with their kids and didn't realize that I had done the voice. And it's their KIDS that tell them. That's happened two or three times where they said, 'Hey Mom, that's Emily. Isn't that Emily?' And they're like, 'No, no. Don't be ridiculous.' And then, of course, they realize that it is. And I think that that's been more the way around, where the kids have known absolutely from the second that they've heard me speak exactly who it is, and seem much more tuned in to what's going on than their out of it] parents! Maybe that's just a bad reflection on most of my friends who are sort of half-asleep most of the time."
On being the mom with the coolest jobs EVER:
"I've got so many incredible memories and photographs of Sam at Pixar: there's one incredible photo of him just standing looking up at the storyboard for 'Toy Story 3.' I made him dress up all fancy because we went to some cocktail party at Pixar. And he's standing there, this tiny little figure, with this fancy jacket on looking up at this big storyboard of one of his favorite movies – and it's just very sweet. It sort of says it all. He's just totally captivated by all of it, and he's adorably sort of proud and felt like he was part of the whole thing. He was one of the first kids to ever even see a cut of 'Cars 2', because me and Larry the Cable Guy had to go and watch the very, very early version of it before we did some press for Pixar. Sam was with me, so he got to see a real, real sneak preview, and he was totally delighted. I think that 'Cars 2' just hit at exactly the right moment, because he was old enough to really appreciate it as it all was, and not too old to be sort of jaded and kind of too cool about the whole thing."
On reteaming with Scorsese for "Hugo":
"Oh it was just incredible. I've worked with Martin Scorsese twice now, and both times have been experiences I will treasure forever. Again, I made sure Sam was a part of that business and filming experience, too, because I could just tell there was just something about the whole project that to me felt like it could go down in history in some way. That here was Martin Scorsese –one of the great cinema and moviemakers of all time, if not THE greatest – making a film in 3-D using the latest absolutely up to date technology. And making a film about the history of movies, the very first movies that were special effect movies that were made at the turn of the 20th century, and recreating it on film but using this incredibly innovative technique. It just felt important for me, and I made sure Sam came and stood on that set which was incredibly impressive. It was absolutely thrilling and I can't wait to see it. And he went into the little tent one day and Marty showed him some of the footage and gave him his 3-D glasses to wear. And he's still got them, these little plastic 3-D glasses that Marty gave him. It was just so cool."
On being part of the ensemble of Sorkin's new HBO series "More As This Story Develops," set in the world of broadcast news:
"I'm just about to start shooting the series. It starts at the end of November, just after Thanksgiving, and I'm going to see i[the pilot] for the first time tomorrow - and I'm very excited! But it went really well and everybody in it is brilliant. I mean, incredible actors, and obviously it goes without saying the most amazing script I think I've ever had the pleasure of getting to perform."
"Cars 2" is out on DVD and Blu-ray November 1st. "Hugo" opens everywhere in 3D November 23rd.


text:
In a couple of hours, Windows Phone 7 will make its big debut. Reviews of the preview build of the OS were generally favorable, but the technology is just the beginning. Cellphones are completely different beasts than they were when Microsoft first entered the mobile market 10 years ago. WP7 is challenged like other major smartphone OS has been. Here's why.
Simple Math
Over the last six months, Nielsen says smartphones running the Android operating system (32%) have outsold phones running BlackBerry (26%) and iOS (mostly just the iPhone 4, 25%) in the U.S.
Some quick addition… 32, 26, 25 — that's 83% of all smartphones sold. That means 17% of smartphone users are still using a phone running Symbian or, God help you, Windows Mobile 6.x, are either satisfied (you're kidding, right?) or been patiently waiting for something that's not quite Apple, not quite Android, and not quite BlackBerry.
Today, these somehow unfulfilled smartphone users will have a fresh choice: Windows Phone 7. Will WP7 be the smartphone they've been waiting for?
If you're an iPhone, Android or BlackBerry user, it's highly doubtful you're going to wake up Tuesday morning and go "Gee, that WP7 looks real good. I think I'll just toss my iPhone/Android/BlackBerry phone into the trash and start all over paying for new apps and completely reorganizing my mobile life!"
Since that's not going to happen in the real or Bizarro worlds, that means either Microsoft is hoping to attract new non-smartphone users with WP7, a reasonable hope, or convert a large chunk of the remaining 17% of the current smartphone audience, even more reasonable.
But how in heck can Microsoft think WP7 will have or be or do something that Apple, Google or RIM haven't thought of and already covered with their devices?
Ballmer's Last Mobile Stand?
First, a story: Way back in the 20th century, RCA bestrode the technology landscape like Dr. Manhattan. It essentially invented the radio and TV businesses, it founded NBC and ABC radio and television networks, developed color videotaping, it formed RCA Victor records (Caruso's and Elvis' labels), it sold more radios and TVs than anyone, it introduced the VHS VCR. How big was RCA? Add Sony to Apple, toss in satellite maker Rockwell, throw in News Corp., HP and Bell Labs, and you had RCA. Big.
In 1981, four years after launching VHS and body-slamming Beta, RCA introduced Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED), a videodisc. CED worked like a vinyl record player — a needle rode grooves around a disc to read analog video information.
But — VHS, speeding its way up the old sales bell curve, could both play and record vs. CED, which could only play. And but but — little bits of the CED disc were dug out by the needle, denigrating the video signal with each successive play.
Needless to say, CED flopped miserably. RCA spent a reported $600 million, from which it could not recover. The company, already being beset on all sides of its business by newer, nimbler and more inventive companies, foundered, finally leaving only that lonely fox terrier peering longingly into a gramophone horn.
I'm not saying there's a direct parallel between CED and WP7 and the possible collapse of Microsoft if WP7 fails. But Microsoft already has shown zero aptitude in mobile — previous incarnations of Windows Mobile were more tolerated than loved, and the Kin, well, the less said about Kin the better. Microsoft chairman Steve Ballmer already has been financially punished for the company's mobile failures, and during the summer stories surfaced about a power struggle over the company's mobile division.
Knowing what you know about the Kins, and having a plethora of iPhone, Android and BlackBerry choices — would you take a shot at a WP7?
What We Know About Windows Phone 7
From what I've seen, WM7 (the operating system, as opposed to WP7, the phone) likely will look a lot like Kin, since the Kin interface looked a lot like the WM7 demo I got at CES last January. WM7 looked a lot less constricted on a larger screen than it did on the restrictive Kin screens, which will help.
AT&T will be WP7's initial carrier, which isn't great news considering how iPhone users barely tolerate the often persnickety network, and T-Mobile, who's 3G network is still short-sheeted nationwide. WP7 will be launched globally with handsets from HTC (the likely T-Mobile handset) and Samsung and probably LG.
Hopefully WM7, based on Silverlight, will have at least a couple of hundred of apps ready at launch, although rumors abound of developer coolness to yet another mobile OS. We know there'll be Office and Outlook Mobile apps, which might convince Windows Mobile 6.x and Symbian owners to switch.
It'll need some Zune-like desktop client to make it easy for non-smartphone buyers to dump their music and photos onto the WP7. (Wikipedia actually has extensive info on WP7.)
All aspects of the WP7 ecosystem may be perfect and great. But given how late to the party Microsoft is, given how small the slice of the smartphone market Microsoft is chasing, given the competition from Apple and Android for non-smartphone users, and given Microsoft's poor (mostly business) mobile reputation, especially post-KIN, WP7 has to be more than great. It has to be orgasmic. Transformative. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
And we all know it won't be. So… would you buy a Windows smartphone?


text:
Submit your opinion:
- You must be logged in to post a comment. Please log-in.
- Not a member? Please register.
- Have you forgotten your password?
By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Sept. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they have developed a new and better method of freezing human sperm for later use in pregnancy attempts.
The new technique could potentially improve in vitro fertilization treatment and perhaps make it possible for HIV-positive men to donate sperm safely, the researchers say.
The freezing approach used in the study is already used for embryos and eggs, "and this is the next step, so it is logical," said Dr. Ian Cooke, emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Sheffield in England, who is familiar with the study.
"Any improvements in sperm freezing would be welcome," said Mathew Tomlinson, a fertility specialist and scientist at Nottingham University Hospitals in England.
"We can store sperm for many years, but only 25 to 30 percent of sperm survive from even the best samples," said Tomlinson.
Among cancer patients who want their sperm stored before they undergo chemotherapy, as little as 5 percent of sperm may survive, he added.
When study lead author Raul Sanchez of La Frontera University in Chile and colleagues tested their alternative freezing approach, known as vitrification, they found that almost 80 percent of sperm remained viable after thawing.
In the traditional approach, sperm is frozen slowly and stored in liquid nitrogen. Vitrification involves removing the plasma in sperm, suspending the sperm in a sucrose solution and fast-freezing it in liquid nitrogen. It is then stored in liquid nitrogen or another kind of deep freeze.
This process results in greater sperm vitality and motility, and is less damaging to sperm, the researchers explained in a news release from the International Federation of Fertility Societies.
Because the sperm plasma -- potentially home to the virus that causes AIDS -- is extracted, the researchers think their approach may also allow HIV-positive men to donate sperm without passing on the illness to a mother or baby.
But Dr. Robert D. Oates, professor of urology at Boston University School of Medicine, said he's skeptical of the researchers' claims. The findings don't "translate directly into anything related to whether this allows better pregnancy rates," he said.
Moreover, the research doesn't prove that the freezing approach leaves the sperm free of disease, he added. "This is a technique that may have an application," Oates said, "but their claims are way overstated."
The findings are scheduled for presentation Tuesday at the World Congress on Fertility and Sterility in Munich, Germany.
More information
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has details on semen analysis, which measures the quality of sperm.
SOURCES: Ian Cooke, M.D., emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology, University of Sheffield, England; Mathew Tomlinson, Ph.D., consultant scientist, Nottingham University Hospitals, England; Robert D. Oates, M.D., professor of urology, Boston University School of Medicine; International Federation of Fertility Societies, news release, Sept. 14, 2010
|Previous: Health Tip: Teach Kids Internet Safety
|Next: U.S. Meets Initial Breast-feeding Goal, Falls Short on Others
Reader comments on this article are listed below. Review our comments policy.


text:
Confused about how the emerging identity standards and systems fit together and which to work with? You're not alone. There's a lot of talk – and quite a few demos – of interoperable identity systems, but how do you know how well they really fit together?
That's what the ITU focus group on identity management (FG IdM) was set up to thrash out: how do we turn promising developments into an identity layer for networks that everyone can work with?
User names and passwords as we use them today are enough of a security and usability problem on the Web; as converged next-generation networks become a reality, many of the services that are planned simply couldn't work that way. According to the chairman of the focus group Abbie Barbir "What we really need in the long run - or the short run - is the identity layer as the enabler of the service layer; I see the identity layer as the enabler of federation of services at the end of the day".
With only nine months to work, the focus group can't solve the whole problem, but it can, explains Barbir, document how the different systems are solving it: "What we want to do is a framework for defining what you do with identity rather than being technical about how it's done." It's looking at CardSpace (formerly InfoCard), Open ID, the Higgins project, IBM's Identity Mixer, openLiberty and other identity frameworks.
While many of these frameworks are already looking at interoperability, there are also overlapping areas and rivalries to contend with. Barbir says the problems aren't all in the technology: "A lot of them are political. The technical issues - they are solvable. It's mostly a political problem. Speaking as the chair of this focus group, this is where the ITU comes in. This is a global industry. If it can be done, the ITU is the place to do it."
Tony Rutkowski, Verisign's VP for regulatory affairs, agrees that the aim is to "formalise and fill holes". Although there are many approaches, there's general agreement that identity management services need discovery, interoperability – and, of course, security.
"There may well be solutions everyone could agree on to provide these," Rutkowski says, "What exists that everyone could buy into as a common global solution; or what can we do to make existing solutions work together? We're casting the net very wide, from authentication of people, authentication of providers - which is increasingly important - and identity management of objects from RFIDs [radio-frequency identity tags] up. There will be a ratio of 400 objects [with an identity] per person very shortly and it's still growing. We're also focusing on trust mechanisms; so that when you deal with another party under a particular set of circumstances and using a particular kind of asserted identity, you have the ability to measure in some quantitative sense what the level of trust is."
And, of course, "All these systems create their own problems and insecurities," as Rutkowski points out, and "one has to ask what vulnerabilities we're creating within the systems."
Trust is vital. Along with identity services come identity providers and there has to be a way of knowing who's reputable, says Barbir. "Part of our aim," he explains, "is to enable an identity provider to be an anchor of trust; whether at the user, application or network level. Currently that anchor of trust is not communicated to the upper level. This is needed, that what we call 'trusted identifiers' can be available - we need that glue before we can have any [safe] interaction with the identity layer."
So, how long before we get away from 'silos of identity' (whether it's Active Directory or your Amazon account) to an interworking identity system. Going by Barbir's estimates, you shouldn't hold your breath – at least in part because of those political issues. "I'm expecting three-five years," Barbir says,
"that's the timeframe - you have to get that silo mentality to go away. I think the pressure from Open ID will put enough pressure on the other silos. We are certainly heading that way; I think the Liberty Alliance [people] will eventually see that this is coming down and they have to do something about it. The key is how we are going to do federation; I see federation as a key component of how we do this identity layer. The whole concept revolves around the use of the Web services stack, a protocol that more and more identity information is being based on. After all, 'identity' is nothing but some data that need to be exchanged and updated… data in a database that need to be synchronised."
The next FG IdM meeting is in Geneva, 23-25 April 2007 and the focus group Wiki is here.


text:
Inspiring titles for status levelsjsummers Aug 17, 2011 10:33 PM (in response to grantc)
We have custom ranks and custom Icons as well. Our members like to.
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelsShaun Slattery Sep 2, 2011 2:24 PM (in response to grantc)1 person found this helpful
Good question, Grant. The status level system is a great way to encourage and reward community participation. Many of our customers use Jive's default status level settings. But others replace those with Levels (e.g. 1-5) or other easily-identified status structures. For international communities with members from different cultures, broadly recognizable statuses can be especially important.
Still other customers use status levels to express their community's identity with unique schemes such as color-coded stars, conceptual themes (Rising Star, Super Star, Supernova), or fun terms like Hot Shot or "They call me Encyclopedia". Do consider playful, contextually relevant terms that are less clearly hierarchical to keep participation fun and less competitive.
Think carefully about your community's identity. Is your industry straight-laced or laid back? (If you've got a Fun Stuff link under your Resources, chances are, you've got some theming leeway.) Is it kiwis only? Is it appropriate to tie in to the fish theme going on in the ON-Brand Partners site? How do community members view themselves and how might you tie into those themes?
Thanks for posting a great question -- and have fun designing your community!
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelsValawebbg Jan 17, 2012 9:42 AM (in response to grantc)1 person found this helpful
We are working on customizing Jive's default ones. We are keen - in the names we use - to recognize the level / amount of participation / contribution while avoiding any suggestion of quality.
FYI: I came across a study of using status levels. They came to this conclusion: "Our results will demonstrate that the incentive mechanism had a long-term effect on contribution levels and generated a second boost in contribution levels when released to a new set of users."
The system the studied was "Beehive" and their levels were as follows:
New bee
Worker bee
Busy bee
Super bee
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelsridingo Jan 24, 2012 6:11 PM (in response to Valawebbg)
Ha! Nicely supports my "do you "beelieve" in community post over on the internal community manager site. I would make the top level similar to nature's version - the queen bee.
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelslaurenklein Feb 25, 2013 10:11 AM (in response to ridingo)
Thank you everyone for your contributions on this topic.
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelsakoplen Nov 18, 2015 10:01 AM (in response to grantc)
Hi there,
We have the standard titles for our status levels, but recently, we have run into the issue of users exceeding the "Master level". Therefore, we want to implement another level title beyond Master, but I am drawing a blank on what that title would be. Any ideas? Any suggestions help!
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelskim.nelson Nov 18, 2015 2:23 PM (in response to akoplen)1 person found this helpful
Here is what we are currently using
0 Novice 0 Points
1 Beginner 100 Points
2 Apprentice 300 Points
3 Intermediate 600 Points
4 Craftsman 1000 Points
5 Professional 1900 Points
6 Advanced 3600 Points
7 Expert 6600 Points
8 Master 10000 Points
9 Guru 18000 Points
10 Jedi 30000 Points
11 Sensei 45000 Points
12 Spock 60000 Points
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelsakoplen Nov 18, 2015 2:26 PM (in response to kim.nelson)
That's great!! Thank you for sharing Kim Nelson
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelsLibby Taylor Nov 18, 2015 4:56 PM (in response to grantc)
We are relaunching the status levels here in the JC led by the efforts of Ryan Ruark. He might be willing to give you the sneak peek of our new level names... What do you say, Ryan?
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelsryan.ruark Nov 18, 2015 5:03 PM (in response to Libby Taylor)2 people found this helpful
We wanted the Jive Community to be the most *community* community that it could be, meaning, we want our emphasis and our focus and our identity to represent what it means to be part of a place where people come together for the common good, and achieve more that the sum of their parts.
With that being said, the upcoming status levels you'll see on the Jive Community will look like this:
- Sightseer
- Tourist
- Newcomer
- Expat
- Denizen
- Pioneer
- Constituent
- Counselor
- Citizen
- Sovereign
- Dynasty
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelsakoplen Nov 19, 2015 8:11 AM (in response to ryan.ruark)
Thanks for sharing, Ryan!
Re: Inspiring titles for status levelsFrank Field Jan 3, 2017 4:00 PM (in response to grantc)2 people found this helpful
We have a tendency to re-start our gamification console every year with new titles for each level. I stumbled across this thread because I just update ours to the following:
1. Groupie
2. Roadie
3. Tech
4. Engineer
5. Tour Manager
6. Stage Manager
7. Front of House
8. Bodyguard
9. Bandmate
10. Rock star
I replaced the generic numbers that I think are pre-installed in the console with some more "fun" options, like this:
Front of House:
You get the idea... Will it "inspire people to contribute more to reach the next level?" Who knows? But it seems more fun than 1, 2, 3, 4...
Hope that's helpful...


text:
WASHINGTON — Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) is set to introduce a resolution in Congress this week calling on the Obama administration and state attorneys general to ensure that any deal reached with the nation's biggest banks on foreclosure abuses includes full investigations into what happened, awards proper compensation to victims and provides no immunity for potential wrongdoing.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the state AGs have been working with the nation's five largest mortgage firms — Ally Financial, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — to settle disputes over potentially illegal foreclosure practices, such as the so-called robo-signing of foreclosure documents.
Baldwin's resolution states that any settlement should follow three guidelines: […]
Letter she sent to Eric Holder
[ipaper docId=71461809 access_key=key-1zveog1fwt3vzgl7kan5 height=600 width=600 /]
© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.


text:
Oscar Pistorius's uncle has said that the athlete is involved in 'self-harming behaviour' following reports of a nightclub brawl.
Leo Pistorius said that claims he was involved in an altercation with Jared Mortimer were 'outrageous'.
Mortimer claimed that Pistorius poked him in the chest at VIP Room in Johannesburg so he pushed him backwards onto a chair.
Leo Pistorius said: "Whilst Oscar venturing out into a public space with his cousin, in the current climate and whilst his court case is still underway, was unwise, those of us closest to him have been witness to his escalating sense of loneliness and alienation.
"This, we believe, is underlying some of his self-harming behaviour."
Pistorius denies being aggressive towards Mortimer on Saturday night, days after his defence team finished its evidence over the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp.
Leo Pistorius added: "We do however believe that Oscar is grappling with an extreme level of emotional pain that is manifesting itself in some of his recent unwise actions and choices."
According to reports in South Africa, Jahed Mortimer, was the man involved in the clash with Pistorius.
He allegedly claims Pistorius was drunk and very aggressive.
He admits he pushed the star over after he was poked in the chest.
Mortimer is said to be friends with former soccer player Mark Batchelor, who has a long-term feud with Pistorius.
It was claimed he became cross with the star after he insulted President Zuma. Moritmer's best friend is Zuma's son Duduzane.
According to celebrity news site Juice, Jared allegedly entered the vip area of the club as he recognised one of his friends, who then introduced him to Oscar.


text:
Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
"It's National Security"…Government Transparency Hits Record Low in 2012 Under Obama
Surprise, surprise... the 'most transparent administration ever' is, well, the least transparent. Not that any of you are shocked by this revelation, but a new report by the Associated Press demonstrates just how secret our government and intelligence agencies have become. Not only did they claim "national security" over and over like a bunch of drunk parrots, they also claimed the need to protect "internal deliberations." Specifically, the number of times the government withheld or censored reports in 2012 was 479,000 times, up 22% from 2011. The CIA denied 60% of requests, up from 49% in 2011. From the Associated Press:
The AP examined more than 5,600 data elements measuring the administration's performance on government transparency since Obama's election.
When the government withheld or censored records, it cited exceptions built into the law to avoid turning over materials more than 479,000 times, a roughly 22 percent increase over the previous year.
In a year of intense public interest over deadly U.S. drones, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, terror threats and more, the government cited national security to withhold information at least 5,223 times — a jump over 4,243 such cases in 2011 and 3,805 cases in Obama's first year in office. The secretive CIA last year became even more secretive: Nearly 60 percent of 3,586 requests for files were withheld or censored for that reason last year, compared with 49 percent a year earlier.
U.S. courts are loath to overrule the administration whenever it cites national security. A federal judge, Colleen McMahon of New York, in January ruled against The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union to see records about the government's legal justification for drone attacks and other methods it has used to kill terrorism suspects overseas, including American citizens. She cited an "Alice in Wonderland" predicament in which she was expected to determine what information should be revealed but unable to challenge the government's secrecy claim. Part of her ruling was sealed and made available only to the government's lawyers.
Think about how scary that is. Judges just accept government claims and then the public isn't allowed to see the relevant parts of her ruling.
Let's now finish with this statement from Alexander Abdo, an ACLU staff attorney for its national security project:
"In some ways, the Obama administration is actually even more aggressive on secrecy than the Bush administration."
Full article here.


text:
Khloe Kardashian isn't sure she's ready to start watching "The People v. O.J. Simpson" just yet.
Even though the series features her famous family and is one of the biggest trending shows of the moment, she says she has her "reservations" about it – most of which surround the emotions involved with losing her father, Robert Kardashian, and having to watch her "uncle" O.J. Simpson on trial for murder.
"I have it on DVD. I just haven't seen it yet," Kardashian explained during this week's episode of of her FYI series "Kocktails with Khloe." "I've seen all of the documentaries or the rehashing of the footage of the O.J. trial and all this stuff, and just seeing like my dad and everything again, I relive emotions. Like, 'Oh my god, I forgot the sound of my dad's voice.'"
U.S. & World
She continued, "I understand why it came back. I just feel bad and I think I'm a little more sensitive to it, cause he was my Uncle O.J., like that's always what I called him. So just hearing things, or I might remember things differently.
"I definitely want to watch it," she noted. "I was also just afraid of how they would portray my dad. I hear David Schwimmer did a phenomenal job, and they play him really true to form, so I'm grateful for that."
However, she also said she has a soft spot in her heart for O.J. and Nicole Brown's children and can't imagine what it would be like to have to relive the heart-wrenching experience again.
"I'm not their child. I more felt bad for the kids – Sydney and Justin," she said. "You'll never get over your mom being murdered, and now they have to get stalked by the paparazzi again?"
Meanwhile, Kardashian doesn't have to worry so much about her or her siblings getting a whole lot of air time in the series. Executive producer Ryan Murphy explained during a panel for the show last month, "In the 10 episodes, there are over 400 scenes, and of them, only four or five involve the Kardashian children."
The other executive producer Brad Simpson continued, "We thought it would be valuable just for a little sprinkling, and they are in probably no more than 5 minutes in 10 hours. It's the beginning of the 24 hour news cycle. The beginning of reality TV, and they are emblematic of this period."
The fourth episode of "American Crime Story: The People v O.J. Simpson" will premiere Tuesday at 10 p.m. on FX.
PHOTOS: "The People v. O.J. Simpson's" Incredible Transformations


text:
Sodexo Wellness: Pioneering Corporate Wellness in China
The stress of modern living, rising healthcare costs, and the growing trend towards more corporate responsibility are three factors that explain the development in wellness programs around the world. In addition, in China, the on-going talent war and the recent wage inflation are making corporate wellness programs look increasingly attractive to Chinese employers eager to retain and satisfy staff.
Pioneering the concept of corporate wellness in the country, Sodexo has developed a wellness offer that includes consulting, designing, marketing and managing programs and services, all of which are aligned with Sodexo's core values as established in the Better Tomorrow Plan. Sodexo established the China wellness business unit in June 2010, although the story really begins in 2008 with Sodexo's Wellness program for Nokia, the first of its kind.
Raising employee satisfaction at Nokia
In December 2007, when Nokia opened its new headquarters in Beijing's BDA district, there were a few gyms in existence at other companies. But nothing like the holistic, fully-integrated wellness program that Sodexo designed specially for Nokia. "Wellness" aims to empower Nokia employees to adopt a healthy lifestyle through innovative programming, services and facilities. The holistic approach is as effective as it is innovative: after the launch of "Wellness", overall Nokia staff satisfaction grew from 84 to 98!
Welcome to Nokia Beijing
The Hub: NOKIA's wellness center offers massage, Chinese holistic therapies, beauty and hair treatments and meditation/jet lag rooms for short rest breaks. Employee favorites at the Hub are easily the Massage and Chinese therapy services (60), followed by the Meditation Lounge (28) and Salon services (12).
The Gym: A state-of-the-art fitness center which offers complimentary physical assessments and basic fitness programs. For more specialized fitness needs, professional coaches are available for personal training sessions.
The gym boasts equipment like treadmills, cross-trainers and strength machines, plus a group exercise program that includes yoga, dance, kickboxing and Pilates - even hot yoga is available.
Two years after opening, 78 of employees have used the gym and its services.
And the wellness team is so convinced of the benefits of regular exercise, that if employees forget their gear, the company will happily equip them.
Floor Recreation: On most floors, there are creative ways to take a break and add some activity into the work day. Games like billiards and table tennis encourage employees to brainstorm differently, or just step away from their computers now and then. If they need to stay connected, the innovative "Walkstation" - a desk treadmill, allows you to walk while you work – enables the workers, and the company, to maintain healthy practices.
Wellness activity program: This program is a diverse mix of interesting and entertaining workshops, seminars and events that educate, excite and engage NOKIA employees to adopt healthy work and lifestyle practices. One example is "Wellness Mommy", a series of baby care and pre and post-natal care programs that offer support to working mothers.
Lifestyle coaching: a first in China, and created especially for NOKIA, Lifestyle coaches encourage NOKIA employees to embrace healthy work and lifestyle practices. It starts with a simple questionnaire and physical assessment followed by recommendations to improve quality of life both in and outside of the workplace.


text:
Yes I'm shocked! I just read about it on another board, so I looked it up on BBC.
I really thought he had been planning more books! And yes, I knew about his plans to "go gently," but I don't know if this was that or nature taking its course. 66, younger than me. Sheesh.


text:
Below is the preliminary schedule for Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco. We'll be confirming more sessions and adding them to this schedule in the coming weeks.
Create your own Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco schedule using the personal scheduler function. Mark the workshops, sessions, keynotes, and events you want to attend by clicking on the calendar icon next to each listing. Then click on "personal schedule" below and get your own customized schedule generated.
Ally Parker
Kaitlin Pike
(415) 947-6306
View a complete list of Web 2.0 Expo contacts.


text:
Candy now closed, please pop back on Sunday for the next draw
The lovely ladies at Lili of the Valley have asked me to run a weekly candy here. So every Sunday we will be giving away some stamps. This week we have two little Christmas cuties up for grabs.
So don't forget to check back each Sunday!
Entry is open until Wednesday 28th July. All we ask is that you put our Ideas to Inspire Blog Banner on your blog in your side bar with a link back to us - then leave your details with Mr Linky and a winner will be chosen at random next on Wednesday 28th July.
Good luck
Candy now closed, please pop back on Sunday for the next draw


text:
|Country Of origin:
|United States of America
Floyd Tillman is probably best known for writing "It Makes No Difference Now," a country classic that he sold to Jimmie Davis for $300 in 1938, only to watch it become a hit for Davis, Cliff Bruner, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, and others. That song was one of the first to tap the bitter acceptance of romantic dissatisfaction that was to set the tone for so many later country songs. He was a major performer in his own right and one of the creators of honky tonk country music, repeatedly cited as an influence by Willie Nelson and other Texas performers.
Tillman was born in Ryan, OK, but raised in Post, TX, in a sharecropper family. He began playing guitar and mandolin, performing as a backing musician for local fiddlers while he was still a child. In 1933, at age 19, Tillman joined Adolph and Emil Hofner's house band at Gus' Palm Garden in San Antonio. Two years later, he became the leader of the Blue Ridge Playboys, a Houston band that spawned several of the most innovative country musicians of the pre-World War II era. In 1936, he began singing and playing electric guitar, mandolin, and banjo with the Mack Clark Orchestra, a Houston pop ensemble. Through these varied experiences, Tillman absorbed a whole range of 1930s music and got a good taste of the rhythmic freedom of jazz. He also began writing songs and taking lead vocals occasionally; one of his early compositional efforts, co-written with Blue Ridge Playboy Leon Selph, was "It Makes No Difference Now." Late in life, he succeeded in regaining rights to the song.
With jukeboxes spreading across the industrializing Southwest and the market for recordings rebounding as the Depression waned, Tillman began a solo recording career of his own on the Decca label in the late '30s. Joining the Army during World War II, he remained in Texas and continued to compose and perform. It wasn't long before his trademark delivery, sometimes described as a cross between Ernest Tubb and Frank Sinatra, began to emerge; he combined the low-volume vocal inflections of the crooner with tight country voice production. He had his first number one hit in 1944 with "They Took the Stars Out of Heaven," and his songwriting, inspired by wartime themes of separation, continued to develop along with his vocal style. He notched two Top Five hits, "G.I. Blues" and "Each Night at Nine," that lamented the soldier's distance from loved ones even as they began to forge postwar country music's language of loneliness. Reportedly these songs were often aired by Japanese propaganda broadcaster Iva Toguri, known as Tokyo Rose, in an attempt to encourage American soldiers to desert.
Tillman continued to perform around Houston after the war, and in the late '40s he had two more major hits with songs he himself he had composed: 1947's "I Love You So Much It Hurts" showcased Tillman's individualistic country-jazz vocals to the fullest, and 1949's "Slippin' Around," one of the first country songs to take cheating as its theme, was covered by Jimmy Wakely and Margaret Whiting and became as well known among pop fans as in the world of country. Tillman continued to find inspiration in current events with such songs as the much-covered "This Cold War With You." He enjoyed solo success as late as 1960 with "It Just Tears Me Up," and he continued to write songs and to appear around Texas occasionally. Tillman was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1984. Tillman passed away August 22, 2003 after a protracted struggle with leukemia. He was 88. ~ James Manheim~ Rovi


text:
(Photo credit: Travis Meinolf)
The exhibition "Open Source Embroidery" opens tonight at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco and it will be on view until January 24, 2010. The show is part of an ongoing project, initiated by Ele Carpenter in 2005, which examines how both embroidery and code can be used as tools in participatory, open source production and distribution models. "Open Source Embroidery" brings together artists, crafters, and programmers to explore this topic in the form of workshops and exhibitions. I spoke to curator Ele Carpenter further about the evolution and multiple realizations of the Open Source Embroidery project. - Ceci Moss
How did your larger research into socially engaged art and new media art evolve into Open Source Embroidery?
Socially engaged art and new media art practices share the language and concepts of social networks, participation and collaboration but they also have distinct histories and operate within very different social spheres. In the world of media arts people have been excited about the potential of the internet to be used to connect communities of interest for a long time. But new media didn't invent participation; people who work with social networks on the ground already knew how much time and genuine involvement is needed to facilitate meaningful interaction. New media seems to have pulled 'participation' into the culture of 'cool' technology. But the most radical impact is the politicized culture of digital media testing the legal and ethical frameworks of production and distribution.
I was looking for a way to make tangible some of these ideas: to make visible older forms of collaborative production such as patchwork, and newer collaborative projects such as open source software. I wanted to ...