Heads up: Instagram is weathering a bit of a spam attack right now, and as you may have noticed, it's drowning in fruit. This rather large wave of juicy spam seems to be pushing some sort of "miracle fruit diet" and it could mess up your account if you fall for it.
     |
steelers scarlett johansson peter frampton Sandy Hook Elementary School Colors Victoria Soto nbc sports morgan freeman
While we normally review high performance cars in the Ford family, and their aftermarket variants, this review focusses on a more practical Ford. Not all of us can have a Mustang for daily transportation, weather and the need to haul more things and people often are the deciding factors in this. Recently editor Creason?s wife was in need of a larger ride to better accommodate their growing family. While they enjoyed their Focus hatchback, it was time to upgrade to a bigger, family sedan.
The recently redesigned 2013 Ford Fusion was chosen as our new family ride.We selected the SE model with the 1.6 liter 178 hp EcoBoost four-cylinder engine, and automatic transmission from Byerly Ford in Louisville, KY. The car also has the popular My Ford Touch and Sync systems.
The mid-size segment is highly competitive and one where Ford once dominated with the Taurus. That car has since made the transition to ?Full size? class, and the Fusion has been the Blue Oval?s mid-size car for right at a decade now.
On The Road
There?s no better way (in our minds) to test out a new car than to hit the road. The family loaded up and made an over 900 mile journey with infant in the back seat and mom and dad up front. We found the interior cabin of the Fusion ideal for this kind of driving. The car provided ample room for us and all of the things we took along.
A summer road trip to the beach seemed the perfect way to test the new 2013 Fusion for comfort, fuel economy, and practicality.
The front seats are comfortable, offering the right amount of firmness. We traveled through two southern states including Georgia and Florida and found the AC system was also quite capable of managing the 90-plus-degree summer heat. returning the car to comfortable temperatures following each stop.
Engine
We averaged just over 30 MPG round-trip, mostly highway miles for just over 2,000 miles of driving.
The EcoBoost 1.6 averaged just over 30 MPG for the entire trip, not too bad for a car that started out with just 400 miles on the odometer when we began the journey. The small four-cylinder doesn?t have tons of grunt, but we were never worried merging on the interstate, and had plenty of power to pass, you can feel the engine?s torque bolstered by the turbo at those times when it?s needed.
Since this car is destined to commute over 70 miles round trip daily, the 1.6 was the ideal engine as it offers the best fuel economy aside from the Hybrid models. We imagine that with a little more ?break in? this engine will probably average slightly better fuel economy.
We?d like to see about 20 more horsepower in this engine, and feel that would make it even better suited for a car this size. Still though it?s economy is well suited to our needs.
Handling
The SE is not designed to lap the tracks, again this car is put together with commuting and daily driving tasks in mind. The Michelin tires offered excellent road comfort, and the suspension was one of the most accommodating we?ve driven. The ride is not so light that you feel as though you?d be rocked to sleep while driving. However it?s not harsh either, soaking up seams, and bumps in the road, all prevalent as the summer road construction season is well under way.
We also noticed the car had excellent stopping ability. Wth the summer driving season comes plenty of driver?s who feel that it?s a race to get to their destination, thus quick braking, and sudden lane changes were both part of our trip. We?re pleased to say the Fusion handled both well, never leaving us to feel out of control, or having any sense that the car was anything other than confidently in our control.
Even with a rear-facing child seat installed front passenger leg room was still plentiful.
Technology
The My Ford Touch and Sync systems worked well in our car. While the voice commands sometimes struggled with our southern accents, for the most part with some patience we could get the system to do what we wanted. We also found the system easy to use, we?ve seen reviews bashing this system through the years, but really it?s no more difficult to use than the latest smart phone or tablet to hit the market.
We connected phones via Bluetooth, and enjoyed playing audio that way as well. Climate controls were easily set. The Navigation system did an excellent job, and we also enjoyed the SIRIUS traffic link function which warned of accidents and delays ahead.
If we had one gripe on the navigation system, we thought it should feature an easy reroute or alternate route function. We found construction delays weren?t always noted, which is to be expected. It would be nice to have a button in the Navigation menu that says reroute, and allows users to choose to bypass an area easily.
The backup camera on the car is excellent as well, it offers a wide view, and we found it most helpful in tight tourist destination parking lots.
The Final Opinion
The only other piece of advice we?d have for those looking at the 2013 Fusion is to have the windows tinted. We noticed from day one the amount of glass in this car. It?s great for visibility, but with a small child, shielding them from constant direct sunlight is a must. We had the windows tinted less than a week after we bought our car.
For those who need a family hauler, but don?t want to step up to the bigger Taurus, the 2013 Fusion offers the right combination of style, technology, economy, and comfort for everyone from Gen X or Y?ers who are starting families, to baby boomers looking for a solid, stylish, and affordable mid-size car.
trisomy 18 ozzie guillen ozzie guillen buster posey eric holder eric holder carole king
Lemurs that come from big tribes and live in large groups exhibit more "social smarts" than those that live with only a few companions, finds a new study that suggests the size of a primate's social network could influence its social intelligence.
Researchers designed a series of experiments to test lemurs' social cognition. Essentially, the scientists were curious how lemurs process a situation ? specifically, how they decide whether or not a human can see them ? and then how they use that information in manipulative ways ? in this case, to steal a piece of food if they think they are not being watched, said lead study author Evan MacLean, a senior researcher in the department of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University in Durham, N.C.
"There's an idea that animals that live in big groups develop important psychological abilities, because they have to figure out how to get their way in an environment where they can't always get their way," MacLean told LiveScience. [Images: Duke University's Lemur Center]
The researchers first taught the lemurs that humans are competitors by introducing them to food that human subjects eventually took away.
Then, in one of the tests, a human subject sat facing a plate of food as a lemur entered the room, while another human sat with his back turned. In another scenario, two human testers sat either facing toward or away from the food, with only their profiles visible to a lemur as it entered the room. In the third test, the human testers faced the food and the lemur, while either wearing a blindfold over their eyes, or a black band over their mouths.
The researchers tested 60 lemurs from six different species at the Duke Lemur Center, and found that species that live in larger groups of 15 to 20 individuals, such as the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), were more responsive to social cues, meaning they were better at judging when humans could not see them, and therefore when they could successfully steal food.
"Lemurs who live in big social groups in nature were much better at using those cues to figure out what somebody could or couldn't see," MacLean said.
Lemurs that typically live in small groups with only two to three companions, such as the mongoose lemur (Eulemur mongoz), were less perceptive in their social abilities, he added. Lemurs from all species, however, had trouble in the third scenario, when humans had their eyes or mouths covered. For instance, lemurs did not readily understand that a person facing food with his eyes covered could not actually see.
"Some species of monkeys have been shown to understand those subtle conditions, but it was something that the lemurs didn't seem to get," MacLean said.
The findings appear to draw a link between social group size and cognition, but MacLean and his colleagues want to investigate the specific ways that being socially savvy improves intelligence, and an animal's ability to make social judgments.
"One of the main things that's interesting for us is to see if social groups set the context for where we really need to use intelligence," MacLean said. "If the social environment leads to evolutionary changes in intelligence, does it make you smarter across the board, or does it make you smarter in very specific ways?"
The findings of the study were published June 27 in the journal PLOS ONE.
Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/social-lemurs-more-street-smarts-study-finds-125554914.html
iOS 7 beta 2 scottie pippen dexter dexter supreme court ellen page Cricinfo
Ten-year-old Easton Martin, of Mesa, Ariz., stops to cool off in a misting fan while walking along The Strip with his family, Friday, June 28, 2013 in Las Vegas. A blazing heat wave expected to send the mercury soaring to nearly 120 degrees in Phoenix and Las Vegas settled over the West on Friday, threatening to ground airliners and raising fears that people and pets will get burned on the scalding pavement. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Ten-year-old Easton Martin, of Mesa, Ariz., stops to cool off in a misting fan while walking along The Strip with his family, Friday, June 28, 2013 in Las Vegas. A blazing heat wave expected to send the mercury soaring to nearly 120 degrees in Phoenix and Las Vegas settled over the West on Friday, threatening to ground airliners and raising fears that people and pets will get burned on the scalding pavement. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Elvis impersonator Cristian Morales wipes sweat from his brow while standing out on The Strip posing for photos with tourists, Thursday, June 27, 2013 in Las Vegas. Morales preferred to stand out in the 112 degree heat of the day instead of working the cooler evening hours saying "We'd much rather fight with the sun than fight with the drunk people." A high pressure system parking over the West is expected to bring temperatures this weekend and into next week that are extreme even for a region used to baking during the summer. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Eric Varone, right, takes a picture as Floriane Golay, of Switzerland watches, in Death Vally National Park Friday, June 28, 2013 in Badwater, Calif. Excessive heat warnings will continue for much of the Desert Southwest as building high pressure triggers major warming in eastern California, Nevada, and Arizona. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Graphic shows forecast heat wave temperatures for June 29 and compares to previous record highs.;
Maria Wieser, of Italy, takes a drink of water while sightseeing in Death Vally National Park, Friday, June 28, 2013 in Badwater, Calif. Excessive heat warnings will continue for much of the Desert Southwest as building high pressure triggers major warming in eastern California, Nevada, and Arizona. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
PHOENIX (AP) ? A blazing heat wave expected to send the mercury soaring to nearly 120 degrees in Phoenix and Las Vegas over the weekend settled across the West on Friday, threatening to ground airliners and raising fears that pets will get burned on the scalding pavement.
The heat was so punishing that rangers took up positions at trailheads at Lake Mead in Nevada to persuade people not to hike. Zookeepers in Phoenix hosed down the elephants and fed tigers frozen fish snacks. And tourists at California's Death Valley took photos of the harsh landscape and a thermometer that read 121.
The mercury there was expected to reach nearly 130 through the weekend ? just short of the 134-degree reading from a century ago that stands as the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.
"You have to take a picture of something like this. Otherwise no one will believe you," said Laura McAlpine, visiting Death Valley from Scotland on Friday.
The heat is not expected to break until Monday or Tuesday.
The scorching weather presented problems for airlines because high temperatures can make it more difficult for planes to take off. Hot air reduces lift and also can diminish engine performance. Planes taking off in the heat may need longer runways or may have to shed weight by carrying less fuel or cargo.
Smaller jets and propeller planes are more likely to be affected than bigger airliners that are better equipped for extreme temperatures.
However, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport officials reported no such heat-related problems with any flights by Friday evening.
The National Weather Service said Phoenix reached 116 on Friday, two degrees short of the expected high, in part because of a light layer of smoke from wildfires in neighboring New Mexico that shielded the blazing sun. Las Vegas still was expecting near record highs over the weekend approaching 116 degrees while Phoenix was forecast to hit nearly 120. The record in Phoenix is 122.
Temperatures are also expected to soar across Utah and into Wyoming and Idaho, with triple-digit heat forecast for the Boise area. Cities in Washington state that are better known for cool, rainy weather should break the 90s next week.
"This is the hottest time of the year, but the temperatures that we'll be looking at for Friday through Sunday, they'll be toward the top," said National Weather Service meteorologist Mark O'Malley. "It's going to be baking hot across much of the entire West."
The heat is the result of a high-pressure system brought on by a shift in the jet stream, the high-altitude air current that dictates weather patterns. The jet stream has been more erratic in the past few years.
Health officials warned people to be extremely careful when venturing outdoors. The risks include not only dehydration and heat stroke but burns from the concrete and asphalt. Dogs can suffer burns and blisters on their paws by walking on scorching pavement.
"You will see people who go out walking with their dog at noon or in the middle of the day and don't bring enough water and it gets tragic pretty quickly," said Bretta Nelson, spokeswoman for the Arizona Humane Society. "You just don't want to find out the hard way."
Cooling stations were set up to shelter the homeless as well as elderly people who can't afford to run their air conditioners. In Phoenix, Joe Arpaio, the famously hard-nosed sheriff who runs a tent jail, planned to distribute ice cream and cold towels to inmates this weekend.
Officials said personnel were added to the Border Patrol search-and-rescue unit because of the danger to people trying to slip across the Mexican border. At least seven people have been found dead in the last week in Arizona after falling victim to the brutal desert heat.
In June 1990, when Phoenix hit 122 degrees, airlines were forced to cease flights for several hours because of a lack of data from the manufacturers on how the aircraft would operate in such extreme heat.
US Airways spokesman Todd Lehmacher said the airline now knows that its Boeings can fly at up to 126 degrees, and its Airbus fleet can operate at up to 127.
While the heat in Las Vegas is expected to peak on Sunday, it's unlikely to sideline the first round of the four-week Bikini Invitational tournament.
"I feel sorry for those poor girls having to strut themselves in 115 degrees, but there's $100,000 up for grabs," said Hard Rock casino spokeswoman Abigail Miller. "I think the girls are willing to make the sacrifice."
___
Carlson contributed in Death Valley, Calif. Also contributing were Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, Julie Jacobson and Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas, Michelle Price in Salt Lake City, Cristina Silva and Bob Christie in Phoenix and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M.
Associated PressZig Ziglar alabama football sean taylor Nexus 4 Girl Meets World Jason Babin Nolan Daniels
FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013,file photo, Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research in Motion, introduces the BlackBerry Z10, in New York. Research in Motion Ltd. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens on Friday, June 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013,file photo, Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research in Motion, introduces the BlackBerry Z10, in New York. Research in Motion Ltd. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens on Friday, June 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
TORONTO (AP) ? Shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion plunged nearly 30 percent Friday after the company posted a loss and warned of future losses despite releasing its make-or-break new smartphones this year.
RIM also announced that it will stop developing new versions of its slow-selling tablet computer called the Playbook.
Analysts were looking for insight into how phones running RIM's new Blackberry 10 operating system are selling. It wasn't good.
RIM said it sold 6.8 million phones overall versus 7.8 million last year. That includes older models. In wasn't until well into a conference call with analysts that RIM announced that 2.7 million of the devices sold in the quarter were Blackberry 10 models.
RIM's Blackberry 10 operating system is critical to the company's comeback. New phones running the BlackBerry 10 software began selling around the world this year. The BlackBerry Z10, a touchscreen model and the Q10, which sports a keyboard, have received positive reviews, but there was a delay in getting them to market in the U.S.
The first quarter, however, included a substantial period of sales of the Z10 phone in the U.S. It didn't include sales numbers for the Q10 in the U.S. The Q10 just went on sale in the U.S. earlier this month.
Sales results and RIM's projections, however, signal that the new BlackBerry 10 phones are not selling well. The company said it anticipates it will generate an operating loss in the second quarter, too.
Mike Walkley, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity, said it's clear the new operating system has not turned the company around.
"With Z10, Q10, and Q5 all shipping in the August quarter and BlackBerry still guiding to a loss we believe that is strong evidence BB10 has not turned around BlackBerry in an extremely competitive smartphone market," Walkley said.
Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said on a conference call with analysts that the "transition takes time" and noted things are better compared to last year when "we were told the company was finished."
Shares of Research in Motion Ltd. dropped $4.02, or 28 percent, to close at $10.46 Friday.
The BlackBerry, introduced in 1999, was once the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people. But it lost its cachet not long after Apple released the first iPhone in 2007. Apple's device reset expectations for what a smartphone can do. RIM promised to catch up while developing new a software system called BlackBerry 10, which uses technology it got through its 2010 purchase of QNX Software Systems. But the company took more than two years to unveil new phones that were redesigned for the multimedia, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now demand. During that time, RIM cut more than 5,000 jobs and saw shareholder wealth of more than $70 billion vanish.
The Canadian company said it lost $84 million, or 16 cents a share, in the three months ended June 1 on revenue of $3.1 billion. It lost $518 million, or 99 cents per share, on revenue of $2.8 billion a year ago.
Analysts expected RIM to earn 5 cents a share on revenue of $3.37 billion.
The number of BlackBerry users in the world also fell by four million to 72 million. RIM also said it anticipates it will generate an operating loss in the second quarter. Heins noted the highly competitive smartphone market makes it difficult to estimate revenue and levels of profitability.
Heins also announced on the call that he has halted further development of RIM's failed tablet offering, the Playbook. The Playbook has not sold well.
"Our teams have spent a great deal of time and energy looking at solutions that could move the BlackBerry 10 experience to Playbook, but unfortunately I am not satisfied with the level of performance and user experience and I made the difficult decision to stop these efforts and focus on our core hardware portfolio," Heins said.
Heins said they'll continue to support the PlayBook on the existing software platforms and configurations. Asked if RIM will continue to make the Playbook, a RIM spokeswoman said the company is evaluating its hardware strategy.
Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners, said said it's tough for RIM because it's hard to make money on handsets now.
"There are a lot of people that haven't been able to make it happen. For all the talk about Apple and Samsung, there are companies like Nokia and HTC," Gillis said.
Gillis said things look bleaker for the company and it's going to continue to be a struggle.
Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek said the high end global smartphone market is saturated and brutally competitive.
"Everybody is coming to this reality. You talk to HTC, Samsung and even Apple, the high end is saturated. That's a fact," Misek said. "Anybody in the high end who wants a smartphone in the world has one, so you have to knock somebody away from another platform. That is a brutal, brutal market."
RIM has unveiled a lower-cost BlackBerry aimed at consumers in emerging markets, but hasn't said if the device will be available in North America.
Misek was expecting the company to sell 4 million BlackBerry 10 phones. He said the sale of 2.7 million new BlackBerry 10 phones was the most disappointing news Friday.
Associated PressJason Babin Nolan Daniels angus t. jones monday night football monday night football SEC Championship Game 2012 kansas city chiefs
Carlos Ortiz is shown during a hearing in court in Bristol, Conn., Friday, June 28, 2013. New Britain State's attorney says investigators arrested the 27-year-old Ortiz in Bristol on Wednesday in connection with the murder case against former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez. A judge ordered Ortiz turned over to Massachusetts authorities during the hearing. (AP Photo/The Bristol Press, Mike Orazzi, Pool)
Carlos Ortiz is shown during a hearing in court in Bristol, Conn., Friday, June 28, 2013. New Britain State's attorney says investigators arrested the 27-year-old Ortiz in Bristol on Wednesday in connection with the murder case against former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez. A judge ordered Ortiz turned over to Massachusetts authorities during the hearing. (AP Photo/The Bristol Press, Mike Orazzi, Pool)
This undated photo provided by the Bristol County, Mass. District Attorney's Office shows Ernest Wallace. Police say Wallace is wanted for accessory after the fact of the murder of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd last week in North Attleborough, Mass., near the home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez. (AP Photo/Bristol County District Attorney's Office)
Former New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez stands during a bail hearing in Fall River Superior Court Thursday, June 27, 2013 in Fall River, Mass. Hernandez, charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player, was denied bail. (AP Photo/Boston Herald, Ted Fitzgerald, Pool)
Shayanna Jenkins, middle, fiancee of former New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez, is escorted by attorney Janice Bassil, left, and an unidentified attorney after a bail hearing in Fall River Superior Court Thursday, June 27, 2013 in Fall River, Mass. Hernandez, charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player, was denied bail. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) ? A Connecticut man arrested in connection with the murder case against former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to a Massachusetts firearms charge.
Twenty-seven-year-old Carlos Ortiz appeared Friday in North Attleborough court. He has been ordered held without bail until a July 9 hearing.
Before the arraignment, Ortiz's attorney, John Connors, said he spoke to his client for the first time Friday when he was returned from Connecticut. Ortiz was arrested Wednesday.
Connors declined to comment when asked whether Ortiz was cooperating with authorities and what he knows about the killing of Boston semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd.
Connors said he doesn't know the details of his client's relationship with Hernandez except that both are from Bristol, Conn.
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in Lloyd's slaying.
Associated PressBCS Bowls palestine Zig Ziglar alabama football sean taylor Nexus 4 Girl Meets World
We spoke to her about the benefits of freelancing, the importance of having something at stake in your writing, and how reader correspondence made her adjust her views on former prime minister Julia Gillard.
What was the first piece of writing you had published?
The first few articles I had published were in the Melbourne University magazine Farrago. I wrote some profiles and arts reviews and also a personal column that was published anonymously because I was embarrassed about the subject matter. An editor picked that one up and published it in a high school textbook ? the first time I was paid for my writing. Priceless encouragement. (And no I won?t tell you what it was about.)
What?s the best part of your job?
Variety. I have a low boredom threshold and being a freelancer in a range of areas (writing, teaching, broadcasting, singing, editing, event hosting, etc.) means that if I get tired of one thing, there?s always something else I can do until I feel refreshed.
What?s the worst part of your job?
Insecurity of income ? although I have got better at tolerating that uncertainty over the years. It?s worth it at the moment for the freedom.
What?s been the most significant moment in your writing career so far?
Being contacted by an editor who said she might be interested in the book I?m currently writing (the first one I actually believe I?ll finish). It?s been a painful process and it was good to be offered hope that all that work might see the light of day.
What?s the best (or worst) advice you?ve received about writing?
American essayist Ander Monson has some insightful things to say about writing. In his essay ?Voir Dire? he wrote, ?How often is something actually at stake in essays, in memoirs, in most of the non fiction I read?? How often is there actual risk involved??? Whenever I feel anxious about being too self-revealing in my writing I remind myself of those questions.
What?s the most surprising thing you?ve ever heard or read about yourself or your work?
I once received some very negative emails in response to a critical column I wrote about the former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. I was shocked but those correspondents were right. I?ve now written a piece about how my thinking changed after receiving those emails. Writing is so ridiculously self-reflexive sometimes, isn?t it?
If you weren?t writing, what do you think you?d be doing instead?
More music. More more more more more music. When I?m not rehearsing or performing music I feel like a limb is missing.
There?s much debate on whether creative writing can be taught ? what?s your view?
As a long-time teacher of creative writing I am entirely biased. You can definitely have an influence on the quality of someone?s writing by encouraging them to develop new skills and to be more self-critical with their own writing. The RMIT writing courses (where I teach) have helped to produce some breathtakingly good published writers.
What?s your advice for someone wanting to be a writer?
Take risks with your writing. Show your writing to others and take their criticisms seriously. Write every day.
Do you buy your books online, in a physical bookshop, or both?
Both. I am doing a PhD and I buy most of my academic texts online (still hard copies) but I buy my novels in independent bookshops like Readings. I don?t yet own an e-reader (always a late adopter).
If you could go out to dinner with any fictional character, who would it be and why? And what would you talk about?
Can I pass on this one? I?m happy for imaginary people to stay within the pages of a book. I?d prefer to have dinner with some flesh and blood writers. New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones, maybe. He seems like a compassionate bloke. We could talk about the fact that he has the same name as my maternal grandfather.
What?s the book that?s had the most significant impact on your life or work ? and why?
I am a passionate devotee of Margaret Atwood?s writing, both fiction and non fiction. I envy the deft way she mixes humour and political critique with suspenseful narratives. I find it hard to imagine the literary landscape of the 20th century without her books. As the weather gets weirder and weirder (with climate change) I think often about her book Oryx and Crake. If only we could clone and transplant her imagination into the minds of the world?s political leaders.
Sian Prior is a writer, broadcaster, musician and creative writing teacher. Her essays have been published by Fairfax and in Meanjin, and she is currently working on her first non-fiction book. Sian blogs and does performing arts reviews at sianprior.com.
Back to Dailies ?
Source: http://wheelercentre.com/dailies/post/70dd7326d5d6/
joe arpaio cat in the hat green eggs and ham wiz khalifa and amber rose oh the places you ll go blunt amendment justin bieber birthday
Console manufacturer Sony is convinced that home hardware can still innovate in the games business, rather than follow the lead of the disruptive technology and business models pioneered by mobile and free-to-play games companies.
"After you see sequels to the same three games people feel like they've seen everything before. That's natural, but that's nothing like the end of the consoles"
The console market has suffered decline particularly during the past three years, with a thinning out of big-box publishers like THQ and Midway, and the closure of successful development studios responsible for some of the best-loved franchises in the business.
Many commentators see this, along with plummeting retail sales, as the beginning of the end of the console business, as more developers move to mobile, PCs and tablets, shunning high game prices for free-to-play services, value for money bundles and app stores that offer distribution opportunities to millions of consumers.
But Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony's Worldwide development studios, has told GamesIndustry International that home consoles can still innovate in development and business, stating: "if we didn't believe in that we wouldn't be in this business."
"It's not the decline of consoles, it's the decline of a generation," he said. "This generation has been the longest on the PS3 and the Xbox, it's the seventh year. In older times we would have launched a new system already. Really, developers hit the limits after a couple of games on the same system, typically.
"There are a few developers like Naughty Dog or Quantic Dream who are doing more, but that's kind of the exception. After you see the sequels to the same three games people feel like they've seen everything before. That's natural, but that's nothing like the end of the consoles."
While this generation has been much longer than previous, Sony is planning a 10-year lifecycle for the PlayStation 4, but it's not concerned such a long time on the market will lead to console fatigue.
"If players are excited that means we are doing something right," said Yoshida, referring to the companies triumphant showing at E3 earlier this month.
"It's very simple. When you look at the PlayStation 3, it is way, way better than the PS3 that came out in 2007. Because we're constantly improving and adding content and updates, through firmware or PSN updates. It's the same with PS Vita with new applications added. It's a constant evolution of the system even though the hardware remains exactly the same.
"It will be the same with the PlayStation 4," offered Yoshida. "We are launching this holiday but we already have plans on the roadmap for additional features and improvements on the services side which will constantly evolve with time.
"The key to this on PS4 is we have a huge 8GB of memory. That's way more than game developers need initially. At the mid-point of the PlayStation 3 lifecycle we really hit the limit of what we can add in terms of system features. The reason we couldn't add cross-game voice chat that players wanted was we were out of memory. Because we have 8GB of RAM we can secure enough room for whatever great features developers can come up with."
"If you're a PS3 or a PS Vita user you can still enjoy cloud services. We're developing along that schedule, not necessarily trying to tie in with the PlayStation 4 schedule"
If new services and updates are key to keeping the PlayStation 4 relevant for the coming decade, then the cloud gaming services that Sony is putting in place will be central to the console's evolution.
However, cloud gaming services won't be available at launch of the PlayStation 4 this Christmas, with Yoshida explaining that the technology developed by the Gaikai team is being integrated across the whole PlayStation ecosystem, not just the PS4.
"Cloud gaming services are launching next year in the US so PlayStation 4 and Vita users will be able to play PlayStation 3 catalogue games even though there's no native compatibility on the system itself. That's just one example of how we can improve the system.
"The PlayStation 4 is just one of the target devices. It's all about the cloud server. Our team in Gaikai and Sony Japan are working hard to provide the online game services but it doesn't require the PS4 to enjoy those services. If you're a PS3 or a PS Vita user you can still enjoy the cloud services. So we're developing along that schedule, not necessarily trying to tie in with the PlayStation 4 schedule."
awkward awkward Girls Love Beyonce gun control Patton Oswalt Outside Lands washington post
June 26, 2013 ? Should women take calcium and vitamin D supplements after menopause for bone health? Recommendations conflict, and opinions are strong. But now, an analysis from the major Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trial throws weight on the supplement side -- at least for women taking hormones after menopause. The analysis was published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society.
Among the nearly 30,000 postmenopausal women in the hormone trial, some 8,000 took supplemental calcium (1,000 mg/day) and vitamin D (400 mg/day), and some 8,000 took look-alike placebos. These women came from all the hormone groups in the study -- those who took estrogen plus a progestogen (required for women with a uterus), those who took estrogen alone, and those who took the hormone look-alike placebos. The researchers looked at how the rates of hip fracture differed among women who took hormones and supplements, those who took hormones alone, and those who took neither.
The supplements and hormones had a synergistic effect. Women using both therapies had much greater protection against hip fractures than with either therapy alone. Taking supplements alone wasn't significantly better than taking no supplements and no hormones. The benefit of hormone therapy was strong in women who had a total calcium intake (supplements plus diet) greater than 1,200 mg/day. Similarly, the benefit was strong in women who had higher intakes of vitamin D, but the individual effect of each one could not be determined because the two supplements were given together.
The effects translated into 11 hip fractures per 10,000 women per year among the women who took both hormones and supplements compared with 18 per 10,000 women per year among those who took hormones only, 25 per 10,000 women per year among those who took supplements alone, and 22 among those who got neither therapy.
These results suggest, said the authors, that women taking postmenopausal hormone therapy should also take supplemental calcium and vitamin D. Although they couldn't specify how much, they noted that the benefits seem to increase with increasing total intake of calcium and vitamin D. The dose will depend on keeping side effects, such as constipation from too much calcium, to a minimum, they said.
That differs from the recommendation of the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), made earlier this year. USPSTF stated there was no basis for recommending calcium and vitamin D supplements to prevent fractures. But now, with a study this large, there may well be.
The study will be published in the February 2014 print edition of Menopause.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/wr6GzUBIb4U/130626113516.htm
By Sophia Rosenbaum, NBC News
A Tennessee man has been charged after allegedly claiming that he had former GOP nominee Mitt Romney?s income tax returns during the 2012 presidential campaign, according to court documents.
Michael Mancil Brown, 34, was charged with six counts of wire fraud and six counts of extortion, according to a federal grand jury indictment filed in the U.S. District Court in Nashville on Wednesday.
Brown allegedly sent an anonymous letter to the offices of accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Franklin, Tenn., at the height of last year?s presidential race, according to the indictment. The letter demanded $1 million in the form of the digital currency Bitcoin in exchange for the supposed tax returns.
The letter, which was delivered at about the same time as the Republican and Democratic national conventions were held, also said that parties could get the alleged tax forms released in exchange for $1 million in Bitcoins.
Brown claimed he got a copy of the tax documents after accessing PwC?s internal systems. Those claims were false, the indictment found.
Related:
?
?
?
?
bob costas bowl projections Jovan Belcher Charlie Batch Miguel Calero Bret Bielema sons of anarchy
These programs are to encourage and give hope to?people that have just been?diagnosed, fighting and also surviving?all kinds of cancer. Debbie's radiation starts in July. More photos after the cut...
If you have never heard of Debbie, then read about her HERE, HERE and HERESource: http://lindaikeji.blogspot.com/2013/06/new-photos-of-breast-cancer-patient.html
Chris Kyle Russian meteor Meteor Hits Russia Dorner Manifesto Valentines Day Quotes nerlens noel Mark Balelo
June 25, 2013 ? In the light of Novel Corona Virus, concerns over H7N9 Influenza in S.E. Asia, and more familiar infections such as measles and seasonal influenza, it is as important as ever to be able to predict and understand how infections transmit through the UK population.
Researchers at the University of Warwick and University of Liverpool have mapped the daily contact networks of thousands of individuals to shed light on which groups may be at highest risk of contracting and spreading respiratory diseases.
These scientists used an anonymous web and postal survey of 5,027 UK residents to collect information on the types of social contact likely to lead to the transmission of respiratory infections.
The study, Social encounter networks: characterising Great Britain, was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B
The survey is believed to be the largest national study of its kind to date and allowed the scientists, for the first time, to quantify social contact patterns and how these varied with age and job.
Although it is common sense that some jobs may be associated with more social contacts, there is huge value in possessing hard data on the number and duration of social contacts as it allows the complex interactions of the UK population to be analysed mathematically in the event of an outbreak.
According to the study, children were top of the table for social contacts, making them most at-risk for catching and transmitting infection.
A social contact is defined as a face-to-face conversation within two metres or skin-on-skin physical touch with another person.
Among adults, those working in schools, in the health sector and in client-facing service jobs such as shop workers or commercial roles had among the highest number of social contacts.
Students, unemployed people and retired people had among the lowest levels of social contacts.
According to the data collected, during a working day a teacher sees on average 62.1 different people, whereas a retired person only sees around 19.3.
The length of time a person spends with a contact is an important risk factor in transmitting infection, so the results were converted into total contact hours, the sum of the durations of all contacts in one given day.
Most people have an average of around 26 social contact hours a day but a small number have up to 50 contact hours a day since people can spend time with more than one individual simultaneously.
For example, children have an average of more than 47 contact hours, a health sector worker has on average just less than 33 contact hours a day, a teacher has 32 contact hours whereas retired people have slightly more than 19 contact hours.
The researchers also found that sociability tends to decline as people get older, with school-age children having the most social contact hours and people of retirement age having the fewest.
However there is a noticeable rebound in social contact hours in people aged between 35 and 45, which the researchers suggest may be down to ?school-gate? contacts among parents with school-age children.
Dr Leon Danon from the Mathematics Institute at the University of Warwick said: ?People working as teachers or health professionals are no doubt already aware that they have higher risks of picking up bugs like colds and flu.
??But before this study there was very little data mapping out the contact patterns humans have in their daily life.
?By quantifying those social interactions, we can better predict the risks of contracting and spreading infections and ultimately better target epidemic control measures in the case of pandemic flu for example.?
?Professor Jeremy Dale, Professor of Primary Care at Warwick Medical School, commented:
?This study provides light on why some groups may be at greater risk of being exposed to respiratory and other infections that are linked to close social contact.
?It should not however cause people in these groups undue concern.
?There are many sensible measures people can take to cut down on the risk of catching or passing on these kinds of infections. These include regularly washing your hands with soap and water, keeping surfaces clean and using tissues when you cough or sneeze.?
Transport workers, such as taxi and bus drivers, also featured very high on the league tables but researchers were cautious about reading into this because of the small number of respondents in this group.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/IgJn42Rko6w/130625192549.htm
ferris state hockey mary poppins john derbyshire kinkade thomas kinkade paintings navy jet crash virginia beach isiah thomas
Zeebox is clearly busy these days. It just added automatic show syncing and recommendations to its second screen app a few days ago, and it's back with a new developer portal that opens the Zeebox APIs to everyone, not just partners. Those building mobile and web apps can now integrate Zeebox's guides, social networking and tagging into their projects, as well as create synchronized widgets for Zeebox's own release. If you're inclined to build on the company's TV experience, it's free to try the programming tools you'll find at the source link.
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD
Source: Zeebox
gavin degraw gavin degraw alec time 100 bob beckel anna paquin warren buffett
Will ending affirmative action advance a meritocratic ideal? Photo by Kathryn Scott Osler/Getty Images
I agree with you, Eric. In reality, diversity is one of many reasons why universities care about admitting sizeable numbers of African-American and Hispanic students. I also think Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is right that the court should never have told schools they have to be blind to the discrimination of the past?to the legacy of racism. That?s a wrong turn in the court?s approach to affirmative action. It?s also where I part company with Justice Clarence Thomas, who insisted yesterday, as he has before, that letting public universities give minorities a boost in admissions is the same as letting them bar black students from attending at all before the 1950s. Thomas? understanding of what equal protection under the law means is just so ahistorical.
I?m suspicious, though, of the idea that ending affirmative action will advance a meritocratic ideal. Meritocracy defined how? By heavily weighting SAT scores, as most colleges and universities now do? By giving the biggest admission boost to legacy kids and athletes, also common, and never the subject of a Supreme Court challenge? I don?t think there?s anyway to get to pure meritocracy. But we could have admissions that are much more fair than what we?ve got now. By which I mean admissions that take racism into account, but give more weight to the disadvantage of being poor.
In the last couple of months, I?ve done a lot of reading and reporting about how colleges actually do admissions. I started with the premise that racial diversity in college and graduate school is a good thing?and so is income-based diversity. Yet schools are offering some of the first kind and precious little of the second kind. Richard Kahlenberg has the evidence. And you can see the increasing discomfort this is causing, among white liberals as well as conservatives like the ones on the Supreme Court, in recent articles by Bill Keller and David Leonhardt of the New York Times. (Actually Leonhardt has a long track record on affirmative action.)
But there is a strong response to this critique: namely that American society is still racist! Here is NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill making that case strongly, as does Lee C. Bollinger, current president of Columbia University and former president of the University of Michigan, where he was a named defendant in the Supreme Court?s 2003 case. We?re not done with race-based affirmative action because we shouldn?t be done, they are saying. Ten years ago, Justice Sandra Day O?Connor famously gave these race-conscious admissions policies 25 more years. She was right, and the Supreme Court was right to let the clock continue to run with its nondecision decision today.
Now forget the law for a second. Let?s talk about how college admissions work on the ground. At many selective schools, what happens is not meritocratic; it?s also not pretty. Kids get a leg up based on who their parents are or how much money they have?celebrity status and gobs of wealth are tickets. And kids who are black or Hispanic and also affluent, also get a boost. Their parents, like white upper-middle-class parents, can afford to give their kids SAT tutors and enriching summers abroad. This is the kind of affirmative-action admissions that infuriated the conservative justices at oral argument. ?What if they?re in the top 1 percent,? Justice Samuel Alito said of wealthy black and Hispanic kids who could potentially benefit from UT Austin?s affirmative-action plan. ?Do they deserve a leg up over a white applicant who is absolutely average?? (Income wise, he means.)
Meanwhile, high performing, low-income students, both white and minority, are still neither applying to selective colleges nor attending in the numbers they should. This has been clear for years, thanks to the work of people like former Princeton University President William G. Bowen, but this spring new research by economist Caroline Hoxby and public-policy professor Christopher Avery spotlighted the problem. Hoxby and Avery found that ?only 34 percent of high-achieving high school seniors in the bottom fourth of income distribution attended any one of the country?s 238 most selective colleges,? as Leonhardt has written. Meanwhile, ?among top students in the highest income quartile, that figure was 78 percent.? It turns out that if you are a poor kid from New York City or another big urban area, you?re probably in the pipeline. But if live in a small city or town, or out in the country, you?re probably not. And the difference is information and your sense of the possible?what you know about, what you learn from the experiences of people around you. Hoxby followed up with an experiment in which she showed that just sending high school seniors 75 pages of information about selective schools could boost their admission rates from about 30 percent to 54 percent.
Hoxy and Avery?s work, like the research that went before, gives the lie to the claim many colleges have traditionally made: They are doing the best they can to admit poor students, and there just aren?t enough of them to go around. This is simply not true. Most schools are not doing what they should to making sure these students find out about them, much less them get in, or, even more important, give them the support they need to succeed once they?re on campus. Why not? Because it?s thankless and expensive. Many of us, of all races and ethnicities, are primed to look for and value a rainbow of color in a school brochure. But how do we see the poor kids? How many parents visit a campus and ask how many low-incomes students are enrolled?
If they did ask, they?d see disappointing numbers at a lot of schools. The U.S. News and World Report rankings of colleges?which remain frustratingly, ridiculously important?give zero points for economic diversity. Meanwhile, it costs money, in the form of financial aid and also in the form of fewer slots going to students who can pay the full sticker price. Plenty of schools have given lip service to boosting their low-income student numbers for the past decade. But most haven?t really succeeded. It?s especially challenging for schools that lack huge endowments. Vassar President Catharine Hill?who has written about this problem and whose school does better by poor kids than most?told me she was part of a group of university officials who crunched the numbers a few years ago. ?In response to all the attention to economic diversity in the mid-2000s, we looked at schools in 2008 compared to 2001,? she said. ?We found that very wealthy schools pushed up their share? of low-income students ?but other schools didn?t. They felt they couldn?t afford more.? When I called around to admissions offices around the country, the officials I talked to confirmed this. One reason race-based affirmative action has lasted is that it?s a relatively cheap kind of diversity, dollar for dollar.
Hill says she has asked U.S. News to include socioeconomic diversity in its rankings formula, but that?s never gone anywhere. ?Think about the incentives,? she said. ?Every dollar you use for financial aid could have been used otherwise to improve your ranking. Spending on every other thing ups your score.? The U.S. News rankings reflect, in some sense, how many of us view the relative quality or value of a college. Until we demand more socioeconomic diversity from colleges and universities?and reward them for it?they?re not going to deliver it. There will be a few exceptions, but that will remain the rule.
In fact, a new report by Stephen Burd at the New America Foundation shows that schools are simultaneously charging more and diverting more scholarship money from need-based to merit-based aid. ?It?s about getting more full-pay students, or close to that, to ease the financial burden,? he said. He thinks the federal government should start using the Pell Grant program to change the incentives. ?I?d give a Pell bonus to schools with a high percentage of students who receive Pell Grants??low-income students??with the explicit expectation that they?d bring down the net price for college, and also meet a high standard for graduation rates.?*
Monday?s Supreme Court decision probably won?t change that. Private universities, and most public ones, too, will keep doing what they?re doing. But a parallel universe is taking shape in the 10 states that have banned affirmative action. And in these states, the gist is that affirmative action is now about class rather than race, yet for the most part, sizeable numbers of black and Hispanic students are still being admitted. So are poor white kids. It?s not a simple or clear picture. At a few of the top schools affected?Berkeley, UCLA, and the University of Michigan?the rates of minority enrollment are lower than they used to be. But overall, the numbers look better than I expected when I started researching this. And in three states, some schools have gotten rid of legacy admissions. They?re still doing fine. Justice Ginsburg was critical of admissions policies that encourage racial diversity even though they?re ostensibly race-neutral. But these programs could be the future. And maybe, in the end, they?re a tool for greater fairness than what we have now.
Update, Jan. 25, 2013, 8:52 a.m.: The paragraph describing Stephen Burd's report has been added after the article was published. (Return.)
lamar d antoni fashion star andrew bird lizzie borden lizzie borden iona
Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables, Microsoft
Via: WMPoweruser
Source: Mike Hole, Agent Watches
Of Monsters and Men boxing news mint julep silk Star Wars Cinco De Mayo History lindsay lohan
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Senate passage of historic immigration legislation offering citizenship to millions looks near-certain after the bill cleared a key hurdle with votes to spare.
A final vote in the Senate on Thursday or Friday would send the issue to the House, where conservative Republicans in the majority oppose citizenship for anyone living in the country illegally.
Some GOP lawmakers have appealed to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, not to permit any immigration legislation to come to a vote for fear that whatever its contents, it would open the door to an unpalatable compromise with the Senate. At the same time, the House Judiciary Committee is in the midst of approving a handful of measures related to immigration, action that ordinarily is a prelude to votes in the full House.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Tuesday that the Senate's advancement of stronger border security measures makes it "even more likely" that immigration reform will pass the House and become law. He said that the House won't take up the Senate bill but will do its own legislation, and added, "the majority of Republicans support the border security" as the keystone of immigration reform. He spoke on CBS' "This Morning."
"Now is the time to do it," President Barack Obama said Monday at the White House before meeting with nine business executives who support a change in immigration laws. "I hope that we can get the strongest possible vote out of the Senate so that we can then move to the House and get this done before the summer break" beginning in early August.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday she thinks it's important for the House to have its own bill and said, "Let's be optimistic about it."
Pelosi told CNN she thinks it has an excellent chance of passing there because GOP lawmakers are the party's poor showing with Hispanic voters in last year's presidential election "sends an eloquent message" to them.
Obama's prodding came several hours before the Senate voted 67-27 to advance the measure over a procedural hurdle. The tally was seven more than the 60 needed, with 15 Republicans joining Democrats in voting yes.
"I think we're building momentum," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who worked with Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., on a $38 billion package of security improvements that helped bring Republicans on board by doubling the number of border patrol agents and calling for hundreds of miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico. Those changes brought border security spending in the bill to $46 billion.
"The bill has been improved dramatically tonight by this vote, there's no question," Corker said. "My sense is we're going to pass an immigration bill out of the United States Senate which will be no doubt historic and I think something that's very, very important to this nation."
Last-minute frustration was evident among opponents. In an unusual slap at members of his own party as well as Democrats, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said it appeared that lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle "very much want a fig leaf" on border security to justify a vote for immigration.
Senate officials said some changes were still possible to the bill before it leaves the Senate ? alterations that would swell the number of votes in favor.
At the same time, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who voted to advance the measure during the day, said he may yet end up opposing it unless he wins changes he is seeking.
Senate Democrats were unified on the vote.
Republicans were anything but on a bill that some party leaders say offers the GOP a chance to show a more welcoming face to Hispanic voters, but which tea party-aligned lawmakers assail as amnesty for those who have violated the law.
At its core, the Senate bill would create a 13-year pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.
The measure also would create a new program for temporary farm laborers to come into the country, and another for lower-skilled workers to emigrate permanently. At the same time, it calls for an expansion of an existing visa program for highly-skilled workers, a gesture to high-tech companies that rely heavily on foreigners.
In addition to border security, the measure phases in a mandatory program for employers to verify the legal status of potential workers, and calls for a separate program to track the comings and goings of foreigners at the nation's seaports and airports.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-passage-immigration-bill-track-072445504.html
Google Nose success Cookies april fools day april fools day April Fools Jokes Julie Roberts
Poring over 13 years worth of X-ray telescope data, scientists have discovered 26 black holes in a neighboring galaxy.
This undated image provided by the University of Utah shows the Andromeda galaxy, made by the Hubble Space Telescope.
University of Utah/AP
EnlargeThere?s a party in another galaxy, and none of us were invited.?
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
Scientists have discovered a ?bonanza" of black holes in the Andromeda Galaxy, one of the galaxies nearest to our own, some 2.5 million light years away.
As their name suggests, black holes are tough to find. These latest 26 black holes were found using more than 13 years of data from NASA?s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Scientists say they expect to find more in the galaxy, where nine had already been identified using previous research, bringing the total discovered there to 35.
"While we are excited to find so many black holes in Andromeda, we think it's just the tip of the iceberg," said Robin Barnard, of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the lead author of the paper that will be published later this month in The Astrophysical Journal, in a press release.
The Andromeda?s new black holes belong to the stellar mass category, which form when stars with masses about five to 10 times that of our sun collapse under the force of their own gravity. The result is an object of such small size, compressed into such a small volume, that its gravitational force is inescapable ? even to light itself.
Astronomers can then detect these otherwise invisible objects when material is tugged from a companion star and heated up to produce radiation ? visible with X-rays ? before it disappears into the black hole.?
The ?bonanza? of black holes aren?t exactly ?near Earth,? as a Fox News headline puts it. That would be worrying. They aren't even in our galaxy, and the galaxy where those black holes are housed won?t be near to us for several billion years, when the Andromeda and Milky Way are expected to collide, bringing the party to us.
chris christie sofia vergara American Horror Story Patti Page anonymous texas chainsaw massacre nfl playoffs
