From: Rock, Paper, Shotgun - 7:00am - August 30, 2012
According to Garry?s Mod creator Garry Newman: ?There?s so much stuff going on in GMod that it?s hard to pull out individual addons. I think the real great thing about GMod is that all these addons exist. It has a rich user contribution community. It keeps itself entertained.? It really is impossible to cover everything [...]
NEW YORK (Reuters) - France plans to channel aid to rebel-held parts of Syria so that these "liberated zones" can administer themselves and staunch an outflow of refugees, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.
He said France and Turkey had identified areas in the north and south that had escaped President Bashar al-Assad's control, creating a chance for local communities to govern themselves without feeling they had to flee to neighboring countries.
"Maybe in these liberated zones Syrians who want to flee the regime will find refuge which in turn makes it less necessary to cross the border whether in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan or Iraq," Fabius said after a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York on Thursday.
However, civilians in rebel-held parts of Syria have suffered frequent deadly air strikes from Assad's forces.
It was not clear how Fabius's promise to allocate much of its future 5 million euros ($6.25 million) aid for Syria to these areas would protect civilians and deter them from fleeing.
"What we can see is that the opposition has taken strong positions in liberated zones in the north and south," Fabius said. "Those resisting who have taken control of certain zones and municipalities need to administer these areas."
Credible protection for "liberated" areas would require no-fly zones patrolled by foreign aircraft, but there is no chance of securing a U.N. Security Council mandate for such action, given opposition from veto-wielding members Russia and China.
Western powers have also said they will not supply weapons to lightly-armed Syrian rebels, who have few answers to attacks by Assad's combat planes and helicopter gunships.
After the council meeting to discuss the humanitarian crisis ravaging Syria after 17 months of conflict, Western powers said military action to secure safe zones was still an option.
But they have shown little appetite for sending warplanes to Syria to protect safe havens or mount the kind of NATO bombing that helped Libyan rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi last year.
Up to 300,000 Syrians have fled the country, while many more are displaced inside, humanitarian agencies say.
Turkey, which has called for buffer zones to be created, now hosts more than 80,000 Syrian refugees and the U.N. refugee agency says the eventual figure could reach 200,000.
The United Nations questioned the idea of buffer zones. "Bitter experience has shown that it is rarely possible to provide effective protection and security in such areas," said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Ant?nio Guterres.
Fabius said more help must be given to rebel-held areas.
"We need to help them financially, administratively, sanitarily and in terms of equipment. We are helping them directly as is Turkey," the foreign minister said.
Paris and Ankara were working to identify individuals in these zones who could be part of a future Syrian authority.
"In the Syria of the future, these people will play an important role because they have emerged out of the conflict and they have the trust of the population," Fabius said.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said earlier this week that the United States had started programmes for administrators in territories outside Assad's control.
"We have been working with them on issues of civil administration, human rights training, the kinds of things that they might need from the international community as they begin to rebuild their towns," she said.
Nuland said the training involved programmes outside Syria for those able to leave the country and "pretty extensive contacts" with those unable to leave.
"They are asking for help in how to budget, they are asking for help in how to keep utilities running, how to ensure that the institutions of the state that provide services to the population come back up and running," she said.
The United Nations says nearly 20,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against Assad began in March, 2011. Syrian opposition groups put the death toll far higher.
(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
As the baby boomers move inexorably closer to retirement, many have lamented the plight of the generation, which appears to have dramatically undersaved and therefore is ill prepared for retirement. Yet the reality is that given how spending fluctuates through the working years - especially when raising a family - it may be entirely normal for couples to save less during the bulk of their working years, and instead save substantially in just the final years before retirement when the cost of raising children winds down. In turn, savings in the early years can actually be less effective than reinvesting into the individual's "human capital" and increasing lifetime earnings.? And in such an environment, the real issue is not effectively saving in the early years, but instead is to proactively manage spending to ensure it does not ramp up too rapidly in the later years. Combined together, this suggests that the reality may be that back-loading retirement savings into the final years before retirement doesn't mean baby boomers are "behind" but instead that they have been following a remarkably normal and even "optimal" path!
The inspiration for this week's blog post is a continuation of last week's discussion about how just saving a percentage of income each year may be ineffective advice, because in reality with a real increase in income and a stable spending level, the savings rate should rise significantly in later years. Yet retirement saving shouldn't rise in later years just because income increases faster than spending; couples who raise families may also find that retirement savings is constrained in early years due to the impact of paying for children and saving for college. As a result, the reality is that for clients with rising incomes and raising families, it may be entirely normal for the bulk of retirement savings to occur in a relatively limited number of years right before retirement - which in point of fact, is the exact plight of most baby boomers today!
Traditional Planning For Saving And Spending
In the traditional accumulation planning approach, clients and planners focus on income, and then allocate the income to various categories, including saving and spending. The challenge, however, is that as personal circumstances change over time - e.g., as children are born, age, and leave the house, income goes through fluctuations, needs change, etc. - trying to maintain a stable saving pattern in the face of fluctuating needs leads to volatile spending patterns.
For instance, if the couple earns $100,000/year and seeks to save 20% (or $20,000) of income, and owes another 20% for taxes, the couple only has $60,000/year (or $5,000/month) remaining for personal consumption. If a child is born that requires additional ongoing expenses, not to mention additional college savings, the family is forced to reduce their $60,000/year spending to adjust, constraining their lifestyle.
Spending And Saving - Ideal Versus Reality?
Of course, in reality the adjustment where the family curtails its other spending to accommodate new children or household expenses while maintaining savings rarely happens. Instead, expenses ramp up with the addition of a child to the family, and in turn the family's total spending rises, carving away a portion of the amounts previously being saved.
The end result - expenses rise, savings decline, and the family struggles to find enough money at the end of the month to support their savings goals. Then at some point in the future, when the children eventually leave the home (and/or finally graduate from college), family expenses decline as the couple reverts to their prior 2-person household, allowing for greater room for savings. If income has grown by a real rate of return above inflation, savings in the later years may ramp up even further.
In other words, the ideal where clients save steadily every year simply may not be realistic planning.?
Smooth Savings Versus A Focus On Consumption
What the above example illustrates is that while financial planning often advocates a smooth and steady savings path - and let spending adjust as it must - in reality most people have uneven spending and let the savings adjust as it must.
However, this doesn't necessarily have to be problematic. After all, if the reality is that spending is uneven as people raise families, and furthermore that it's more productive to invest in one's career in the early years to reap the real income increases down the road, then in fact most people should end out consuming the majority of their income for the first half of their working years... until they finally reach that combination of peak earnings years and the decline in spending that accompanies children leaving the house, allowing for a transition to significant saving in the home stretch to retirement.
Notably, then, the key to making the consumption-centric approach work is to keep spending at reasonable levels throughout the time horizon - especially when other family/children/education expenses decline in the later years. If "temporarily" higher spending on family, children, and education is replaced by savings, it becomes remarkably easy to catch up; if the spending simply shifts to other spending, though, the savings rate never rises enough and the couple ends out behind on retirement.
Financial Planning Implications
If we assume that in fact an uneven lifetime spending pattern is the normal reality for most people - which makes a level spending approach impractical or outright impossible - then many traditional financial planning implications shift.
For instance, the reality may be that baby boomers that have little saved for retirement are in fact not behind, but merely right on track, positioned to capitalize on their empty nests and peak earnings years to save substantial sums of money to close the retirement savings gap.
In turn, this implies that the focal point for advice through most of the working years should not be on saving and investing at all, but instead on further growing future earnings (which may actually involve not saving in retirement accounts but instead investing in human capital), and on maintaining a steady lifestyle so that excess income can be allocated to savings as received. In this framework, the reality is that baby boomers that are behind may not be in trouble because they failed to save in their early years, but instead simply because they allowed their spending to ramp up too much in the later years.
But the bottom line is that the traditional approach - advocating a steady savings rate every year from the beginning of the working years to the end - may be both unrealistic given the unsteady nature of consumption throughout life, unnecessary for those whose income grows in excess of inflation over time, and suboptimal for those who could more effectively reinvest early savings into growing their human capital instead of their financial capital.
So what do you think? Have we been too focused on saving in the early working years? Is the reality that baby boomers have simply been following the normal progression, where savings is loaded into the later years when family expenses decline and earnings peak? Does the focus need to shift from steady savings to a steadier path of spending?
NEW YORK (AP) ? The NFL will open the regular season next week with replacement officials and said it was prepared to use them "as much ... as necessary" afterward.
Replacements will be on the field beginning Wednesday night when the Dallas Cowboys visit the New York Giants in the season opener, league executive Ray Anderson told the 32 teams in a memo. Negotiations are at a standstill between the NFL and the officials' union.
The NFL Referees Association was locked out in early June and talks on a new collective bargaining agreement have gone nowhere. Replacements have been used throughout the preseason, with mixed results.
In 2001, the NFL used replacements for the first week of the regular season before a contract was finalized. The speed of the game and the amount of time starters are on the field increase exponentially for real games, making the replacements' task more challenging.
Anderson, the NFL's executive vice president of football operations, told the clubs in a memo Wednesday that the replacements will work "as much of the regular season as necessary," adding that training with each crew will continue.
The NFL noted it has expanded the use of instant replay as an officiating tool this year to include all scoring plays and turnovers. Officiating supervisors will be on hand to assist the crews on game administration issues.
"We are not surprised, based on Ray Anderson's statements ... that the NFL was not going to reach out to us," NFLRA spokesman Michael Arnold said. "However, this is consistent with the NFL's negotiating strategy which has been 'take it or leave it and lock them out.' It now appears the NFL is willing to forego any attempt to reach a deal in the last seven days before opening night."
The NFL Players Association, which went through a 4 ?- month lockout last year before settling on a new contract, expressed disappointment about the decision to use replacements.
Colts safety Antoine Bethea said there is a feeling of solidarity with the officials.
"They've got to do what they've got to do, and we were in a similar situation a little while ago," Bethea said. "So you can't fault those guys for doing what they have to do."
Anderson said the sides remain considerably apart on economic issues, including salary and retirement benefits. He also told the teams there is a substantial difference on operational issues.
"One of our key goals in this negotiation is to enhance our ability to recruit, train, and replace officials who are not performing adequately," Anderson said. "We believe that officials should be evaluated and performance issues addressed in the same way as players, coaches, club management and league staff. We have proposed several steps to accomplish this, including having a number of full-time officials and expanding the overall number of officials."
The NFL is offering to add three full officiating crews, increasing the total number of officials to 140. The NFLRA insists the compensation being offered with such an increase would reduce the officials' pay.
The league is proposing having seven officials ? one per position of referee, umpire, line judge, side judge, back judge, field judge, head linesman ? who would train, scout, handle communications, safety issues and rules interpretations year-round. Now, all NFL game officials are part-time employees, with outside jobs ranging from lawyers to teachers to business owners.
In response, the NFLRA has said it is not opposed to full-time officials "if they are fairly compensated."
The union also disputes the value of the league's current salary offer, which it says would not be the 5 percent to 11 percent increase the NFL claims.
And the union questions the league's adherence to player safety initiatives by using replacement officials, none of whom has recently worked Division I college games. Many of the officials who were replacements in 2001 came from the Division I level.
"The league has placed a lot of emphasis on player health and safety in the last few years and we do feel we are an integral part of that," Arnold said. "We think it is unfortunate and we really don't understand why the league is willing to risk playing safety and the integrity of the game by utilizing amateur officials."
Anderson told the teams that the replacements have "undergone extensive training and evaluation, and have shown steady improvement during the preseason."
Arnold disagreed.
"The referees want to get back on the field," Arnold said. "Our members have been engaged in extensive preparations and are ready to go."
___
AP Sports Writer Michael Marot in Indianapolis contributed to this story.
Aspirin may help men with prostate cancer live longer, study suggestsPublic release date: 29-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Alex Lyda alex.lyda@utsouthwestern.edu 214-648-3404 UT Southwestern Medical Center
DALLAS Aug. 28, 2012 Men who have been treated for prostate cancer, either with surgery or radiation, could benefit from taking aspirin regularly, says a new study that includes a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Taking aspirin is associated with a lower risk of death from prostate cancer, especially in men with high risk disease, according to a multicenter study published in today's issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Dr. Kevin Choe, assistant professor of radiation oncology at UT Southwestern, is first author of the paper.
Preclinical studies have shown that aspirin and other anticoagulation medications may inhibit cancer growth and metastasis, but clinical data have been limited previously. The study looked at almost 6,000 men in the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor (CaPSURE) database who had prostate cancer treated with surgery or radiotherapy.
About 2,200 of the men involved 37 percent were receiving anticoagulants (warfarin, clopidogrel, enoxaparin, and/or aspirin). The risk of death from prostate cancer was compared between those taking anticoagulants and those who were not.
The findings demonstrated that 10-year mortality from prostate cancer was significantly lower in the group taking anticoagulants, compared to the non-anticoagulant group 3 percent versus 8 percent, respectively. The risks of cancer recurrence and bone metastasis also were significantly lower. Further analysis suggested that this benefit was primarily derived from taking aspirin, as opposed to other types of anticoagulants.
The suggestion that aspirin, a frequently prescribed and relatively well-tolerated medication, may improve outcomes in prostate cancer is of particular interest, Dr. Choe said, since prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer among men and the second-leading cancer killer in the U.S.
"The results from this study suggest that aspirin prevents the growth of tumor cells in prostate cancer, especially in high-risk prostate cancer, for which we do not have a very good treatment currently," Dr. Choe said. "But we need to better understand the optimal use of aspirin before routinely recommending it to all prostate cancer patients."
###
Other scientists involved with the study include Janet Cowan, Drs. June Chan, and Peter Carroll of the University of California, San Francisco; Dr. Anthony D'Amico of Harvard University; and senior author Dr. Stanley Liauw of the University of Chicago.
To learn more about clinical services in radiation oncology at UT Southwestern, including highly individualized treatments for cancer at the region's only National Cancer Institute-designated center, visit http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/radiationoncology or http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/cancercenter.
This news release is available on our World Wide Web home page at
www.utsouthwestern.edu/home/news/index.html
To automatically receive news releases from UT Southwestern via email, subscribe at www.utsouthwestern.edu/receivenews
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Aspirin may help men with prostate cancer live longer, study suggestsPublic release date: 29-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Alex Lyda alex.lyda@utsouthwestern.edu 214-648-3404 UT Southwestern Medical Center
DALLAS Aug. 28, 2012 Men who have been treated for prostate cancer, either with surgery or radiation, could benefit from taking aspirin regularly, says a new study that includes a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Taking aspirin is associated with a lower risk of death from prostate cancer, especially in men with high risk disease, according to a multicenter study published in today's issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Dr. Kevin Choe, assistant professor of radiation oncology at UT Southwestern, is first author of the paper.
Preclinical studies have shown that aspirin and other anticoagulation medications may inhibit cancer growth and metastasis, but clinical data have been limited previously. The study looked at almost 6,000 men in the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor (CaPSURE) database who had prostate cancer treated with surgery or radiotherapy.
About 2,200 of the men involved 37 percent were receiving anticoagulants (warfarin, clopidogrel, enoxaparin, and/or aspirin). The risk of death from prostate cancer was compared between those taking anticoagulants and those who were not.
The findings demonstrated that 10-year mortality from prostate cancer was significantly lower in the group taking anticoagulants, compared to the non-anticoagulant group 3 percent versus 8 percent, respectively. The risks of cancer recurrence and bone metastasis also were significantly lower. Further analysis suggested that this benefit was primarily derived from taking aspirin, as opposed to other types of anticoagulants.
The suggestion that aspirin, a frequently prescribed and relatively well-tolerated medication, may improve outcomes in prostate cancer is of particular interest, Dr. Choe said, since prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer among men and the second-leading cancer killer in the U.S.
"The results from this study suggest that aspirin prevents the growth of tumor cells in prostate cancer, especially in high-risk prostate cancer, for which we do not have a very good treatment currently," Dr. Choe said. "But we need to better understand the optimal use of aspirin before routinely recommending it to all prostate cancer patients."
###
Other scientists involved with the study include Janet Cowan, Drs. June Chan, and Peter Carroll of the University of California, San Francisco; Dr. Anthony D'Amico of Harvard University; and senior author Dr. Stanley Liauw of the University of Chicago.
To learn more about clinical services in radiation oncology at UT Southwestern, including highly individualized treatments for cancer at the region's only National Cancer Institute-designated center, visit http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/radiationoncology or http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/cancercenter.
This news release is available on our World Wide Web home page at
www.utsouthwestern.edu/home/news/index.html
To automatically receive news releases from UT Southwestern via email, subscribe at www.utsouthwestern.edu/receivenews
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
While ?the cloud? may be the tech buzzword of the year, many Americans
remain foggy about what the cloud really is and how it works. A new
national survey
by Wakefield Research, commissioned by Citrix, showed that most
respondents believe the cloud is related to weather, while some referred
to pillows, drugs and toilet paper. Those in the know claim working from
home in their ?birthday suit? is the cloud?s greatest advantage. The
good news is that even those that don?t know exactly what the cloud is
recognize its economic benefits and think the cloud is a catalyst for
small business growth.
The survey of more than 1,000 American adults was conducted in August
2012 by Wakefield Research and shows that while the cloud is widely
used, it is still misunderstood. For example, 51 percent of respondents,
including a majority of Millennials, believe stormy weather can
interfere with cloud computing. Nearly one third see the cloud as a
thing of the future, yet 97 percent are actually using cloud services
today via online shopping, banking, social networking and file sharing.
Despite this confusion, three in five (59 percent) believe the
?workplace of the future? will exist entirely in the cloud, which
indicates people feel it?s time to figure out the cloud or risk being
left behind in their professional lives.
These survey responses show there is a significant disconnect between
what Americans know, what they pretend to know, and what they actually
do when it comes to cloud computing. Among the key findings:
People feign knowledge about the cloud: One in five Americans (22
percent) admit that they?ve pretended to know what the cloud is or how
it works. Some of the false claims take place during work hours, with
one third of these respondents faking an understanding of the cloud in
the office and another 14 percent doing so during a job interview.
Interestingly, an additional 17 percent have pretended to know what the
cloud was during a first date. Younger Americans are most likely to
pretend to know what the cloud is and how it works (36 percent ages
18-29, 18% ages 30 and older), as are Americans in the West (28 percent
West, 22 percent U.S.)
You?re not alone: While many admit they don?t understand the
cloud, 56 percent of respondents say they think other people refer to
cloud computing in conversation when they really don?t know what they
are talking about.
What is it, anyway?: When asked what ?the cloud? is, a majority
responded it?s either an actual cloud (specifically a ?fluffy white
thing?), the sky or something related to the weather (29 percent). Only
16 percent said they think of a computer network to store, access and
share data from Internet-connected devices. Some of the other verbatim
responses include:
Toilet paper, pillow, smoke, outerspace, cyberspace, mysterious
network, unreliable, security, sadness, relaxed, overused, oh goody a
hacker?s dream, storage, movies, money, memory, back-up, joy,
innovation, drugs, heaven and a place to meet.
Many use it, few understand it: A majority of Americans (54
percent) claim to never use cloud computing. However, 95 percent of this
group actually does use the cloud. Specifically, 65 percent bank online,
63 percent shop online, 58 percent use social networking sites such as
Facebook or Twitter, 45 percent have played online games, 29 percent
store photos online, 22 percent store music or videos online, and 19
percent use online file-sharing. All of these services are cloud based.
Even when people don?t think they?re using the cloud, they really are.
Can the cloud save the economy?: Even though many Americans don?t
know exactly what the cloud does, they see its silver lining. Most
Americans (68 percent) recognize the economic benefits after learning
more about the cloud. The most recognized benefits are that the cloud
helps consumers by lowering costs (35 percent), spurs small business
growth (32 percent) and boosts customer engagement for businesses (35
percent). Millennials are most likely to believe that the cloud
generates jobs (26 percent Millennials, 19 percent Boomers).
Softer advantages, like working from home in the buff: People
offered additional, unexpected benefits of the cloud, including the
ability to access work information from home in their ?birthday suit?
(40 percent); tanning on the beach and accessing computer files at the
same time (33 percent); keeping embarrassing videos off of their
personal hard drive (25 percent); and sharing information with people
they?d rather not interact with in person (35 percent).
Concerns include cost, security, privacy: Despite these
advantages, Americans still have reasons why they limit their use of
cloud computing or avoid it entirely. Among those who hardly ever or
never use the cloud, the top three deterrents are cost (34 percent),
security concerns (32 percent) and privacy concerns (31 percent).
?This survey clearly shows that the cloud phenomenon is taking root in
our mainstream culture, yet there is still a wide gap between the
perceptions and realities of cloud computing,? said Kim DeCarlis, vice
president of corporate marketing at Citrix. ?While significant market
changes like this take time, the transition from the PC era to the cloud
era is happening at a remarkable pace. The most important takeaway from
this survey is that the cloud is viewed favorably by the majority of
Americans, and when people learn more about the cloud they understand it
can vastly improve the balance between their work and personal lives.?
Methodological Notes:
The Citrix Cloud Survey was conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com)
among 1,006 nationally representative American adults ages 18 and older,
between Aug. 2-7, 2012, using an email invitation and an online survey.
Quotas have been set to ensure reliable and accurate representation of
the U.S. adult population 18 and older.
Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude
of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of
interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results. For
the interviews conducted in this particular study, the chances are 95 in
100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 3.1
percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews
had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the
sample.
Complete survey results and graphics are available.
Nearly one-third of connected TV users already watch online video through those devices, and daily usage rates have grown 10x in a very short period of time. But it's not as easy as just flipping on the TV and switching channels: Instead, connected TV viewers are usually forced to try to navigate a series of apps and channel menus to hunt for something to watch. To solve this, video discovery startup Redux has been making a big bet on connected TV over the past year or so, creating apps and user interfaces that are designed to make streaming video as seamless as watching regular broadcast or cable TV. Last year, Redux launched an app for Google TV, which made streaming video more of a TV-like viewing experience on devices with that OS. The app has been pretty popular so far, ranking as one of the top-downloaded apps on the Google TV marketplace. But customers still had to download it. Since then, it's been working to partner with some big-time consumer electronics manufacturers like Samsung, Sony, and LG, and as a result, it will have its apps and technology preloaded into a ton of their smart TVs.
Ragu's recent ad following a young boy as he walks in on his parents in the bedroom, has stirred debate over how children are featured in ads. While children in ads tend to illicit feelings of kindness and tenderness, they can also make viewers feel a little, well, awkward.
And, this got us thinking: how else have advertisers used children in awkward situations to sell products?
There has to be a reason these borderline creepy ads are effective. For one thing, according to Psychology Today, effective advertising occurs when you ?take a product and to put it next to lots of other things that we already feel positively about.? For most people, seeing a picture of a child, no matter what the context, incites such positive feelings.
To demonstrate just how well this works, we put together a slideshow of 12 of the most awkward television and print ads featuring children. The list focuses on ads intended to sell products or services, and does not include public service announcements.
The Republican National Convention starts this week and one of the big topics we will hear about, likely in a mocking sense, is the stimulus. And whatever you think you know about the stimulus, think again. A new book, 'The New New Deal: The Story of Change in the Obama Era' from Time Magazine's Michael Grunwald, challenges to take a closer look.
Grunwald's started digging into the stimulus whilst he was reporting on energy for Time.
"I heard that there was $90 billion in this thing for clean energy, and we had been spending maybe a few billion dollars a year," said Grunwald.?"Wind, energy efficiency, the smart grid, cleaner coals, electric vehicles, advanced bio fuels, the factories to make all of that green stuff in the United States -- I mean this was a complete game changer for the renewable energy industry. So I said, 'That's weird,' and I knew this thing was $800 billion, so what else is in it?"
The bottom line and the theme of Grunwald's book is that this wasn't just?$787 billion dollars of stimulus to get the economy going through tax cuts and investments and infrastructure -- President Barack Obama was trying to reinvent the economy with this stimulus.
A lot of Obama's campaign agenda was in the Recovery Act, says Grunwald. "And really, the story of how the Recovery Act came to be is kind of a microcosm for the Obama era."
But what about Solyndra? And in the end, did the stimulus work? And why were Republicans opposed to the stimulus before it was even on the table? Check out this week's Political Punch for some answers.
Amazon isn't one to provide a lot of specific numbers on the products and services it offers, but it has confirmed today that its $79 a year Prime service recently crossed a fairly significant milestone. The company says that more items are now shipped with Prime's two-day shipping than with its standard Free Super Saver Shipping -- which is, presumably, quite a lot. Of course, Prime has grown to become considerably more than just a premium shipping option since it launched in 2005, and Amazon has also taken the opportunity to divulge a few other details on the service. On Prime Instant Video, it says that it now offers 22,000 titles for streaming, a growth of 70 percent this year -- it also notes, somewhat interestingly, that 96.4 percent of the Prime video catalog is viewed in any given week. As for the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, it now counts 180,000 titles, the most borrowed of which is The Hunger Games.
Not too long ago, Dropbox was the victim of a security breach, and as a result, they said they'd cook up a 2-step verification system for the service. Now it's here, and you should go turn if on if you keep anything of value in your Dropbox, or even if you don't. More »
WHY is it that our stepchildren can tell us that they HATE us and we can't say anything back? I mean, I get it, they are children and we are adults, but... they also know what they are doing, especially SD10 and they do it intentionally.
SD10 got mad because I told her she had to eat some vegetables with dinner and didn't like my choice- really is three pieces of raw broccoli and ranch that bad?? And after a sleepover last night and a girl scout trip to Elitches (amusement park) today, she came home with a not so good attitude, I told her had to go to bed 30 minutes early because of it. If she goes to bed earlier the less I have to deal with her. After about 30 minutes of pouting in her room she came out and told me my punishments were unfair. UM as if a punishment was fair in any circumstance... isn't that the point of a punishment??? And making her go to bed early is like the least unfair thing.
Then she gets into the "i wish dad was here" speal... As if I don't hear that one everytime I do something she doesn't like. Hell, I wish her was too because then I would be spending my Saturday night with my husband instead of the little shit head called SD10. I told her she could spend the rest of the night in her room. Then she walks off in a huff, mumbling something about hate underneath her breath.
This is a fairly frequent occurrence and for once, FOR ONCE, I just wish I could tell her how I really felt.
At least 36 people died in a fiery collision between a methanol tanker and a double-decker sleeper bus on a motorway in northern China on Sunday, officials and state media said.
Both vehicles caught fire and only three of the 39 people onboard the bus survived the crash, which occurred around 2:00 am, Xinhua news agency reported.
A total of 36 bodies were pulled from the debris and three people were taken to hospital.
Details of the crash -- which happened 200 metres (yards) from a motorway service station at Yanan city in Shaanxi province -- were still unclear.
Yue Jiuxiang, a local traffic police official in charge of the rescue operation, said most of the passengers were asleep at the time of the crash.
"Soon after the collision, the bus was engulfed by flames," he told state-broadcaster China Central Television.
"The front part of the bus was seriously damaged. Also most of the passengers were sleeping. This is why so many people died."
Yue said the bus was en route from Baotou in Inner Mongolia to the Shaanxi provincial capital Xian when the collision occurred.
Police were investigating the cause of the accident which happened on the Baotou-Maoming Expressway, which spans the length of China from the northern city of Baotou to the southern province of Guangdong.
An official at Yanan city government information department surnamed Liu told AFP: "The confirmed death toll is now 36. I don't have any further details."
China's roads are highly dangerous, with traffic laws and safety widely flouted, and truck drivers typically overworked.
Last year more than 62,000 people died in traffic accidents, state media said, citing police figures.
Vehicles carrying explosive materials -- which must first get permission from the police before travelling on the roads in China -- are involved in many accidents.
At least 20 people were killed in June near the southern city of Guangzhou when two trucks collided and sent petrol into a timber mill below the road, causing a massive blaze.
Buses are also commonly involved in road accidents as operators often seek to cram as many people as they can into their vehicles to maximise profits and drivers hurtle down highways.
Twenty-three people were killed and three injured in April when a bus and truck collided in the eastern province of Anhui.
Another collision between a tour bus and a truck the same month left 13 dead and 21 injured.
The Giants and 49ers are both on Fox, the Giants are also on ESPN, Petaluma Little League faces the team that beat them for a shot at the championship, and the America?s Cup World Series continues from the bay.
Here's the weekend schedule:
MLB A?s @ Rays, Saturday at 10:10 a.m.: CSN California Braves @ Giants, Saturday at 1 p.m.: KTVU 2 Braves @ Giants, Sunday at 5 p.m.: ESPN, ESPN3
Little League World Series Petaluma vs. Goodlettsville, TN at Williamsport, PA, Saturday at 12:30 p.m.: KGO 7 Winner plays Sunday at noon on KGO 7, loser at 8 a.m. on ESPN, ESPN3
Yachting America's Cup World Series @ SF Bay, Saturday at 2 p.m.: CSN California America's Cup World Series @ SF Bay, Sunday at 11:30 a.m.: KNTV 11
NFL Preseason *Lions @ Raiders, Saturday at 7 p.m.: KICU 36 49ers @ Broncos, Sunday at 1 p.m.: KTVU 2 *delayed from 4 p.m.
MLS Colorado Rapids @ San Jose Earthquakes, Saturday at 7:30 p.m.: CSN California
Follow Dave on Twitter and like him on Facebook, or click ?Subscribe to get instant updates? above and get Bay Area Media Examiner posts sent to your email inbox.
Internet has made a lot of things easier like sharing information across the globe, banking, shopping, networking, promoting business ideas etc. But there are potential hazards which many users are not aware of and the internet at times can be a treacherous ground to tread on. It is thus best to follow the best practices with regards to sharing sensitive information online and browsing safely.
?Important online security tips-
?
????????? Avoid setting the same the password for your all your email accounts and other social networking sites. Preferably change the passwords at regular intervals of time.
????????? Nowadays most sites let you adjust your settings in a way that a notification is sent to your mobile if any unauthorized person tries to access your account.
????????? Ensure that email services you are relying on are secure socket layer protected. Anti-virus and firewalls provide another layer of protection.
????????? For casual net surfers, an anti-virus would serve the purpose but for corporate users dealing with confidential information, privacy can be maintained by accessing through multiple IP addresses or VPN.
????????? Regularly update your operating system and software in order to stay protected.
????????? Being social is definitely great but choose your friends on social platforms with care. Do not accept friend requests from people you do not know as this might be a potential technique to hack into your network.
Undetectable malware might exist in your system so secure your potential database by installing spyware and adware?scanner.
Personal financial information should not be shared with emails acting suspiciously. Try to only visit EV SSL certified websites. In order to verify such certification, check if the business uses website addresses secured by VeriSign.
Prevent from being target of pharming which is the latest technique of online id theft. This malicious program gets fraudulently planted in your system and extracts important data.
Download email attachments only if you are expecting one. Do not be tempted with false messages talking about prize money and the like and avoid clicking on links associated with the same.
Downloading videos should be done with caution as mostly this action can bring along viruses into your system.
Before connecting through a Wi-fi network, make sure that it is from a legitimate service.
Choose to use a credit card over a debit card for online transactions.?
Rely on your common sense and follow internet security guidelines to protect yourself and your computer from hacking attempts and other forms of cyber crime.
The 2012 Olympia is right around the corner and if you?re not able to attend in person, don?t fret. Thanks to Bodybuilding.com there will once again be a live webcast of the event. IFBB Pros Carla Sanchez and Dina Al-Sabah will call the women?s events on the webcast.
Boise, ID ? August 24, 2012 ? Bodybuilding.com, the Internet?s most-visited bodybuilding and fitness site and largest online retailer of nutritional supplements, will once again offer a free worldwide webcast of Joe Weider?s 2012 Olympia Weekend, presented by MuscleTech.
With one of the best lineups of athletes in the contest?s 46-year history and more than $1 million in prize money, the 2012 Olympia is a must-see event. Thanks to the live webcast, everyone can tune in!
Bodybuilding.com will webcast live September 28-29, 2012, from the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada beginning at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Time (9:30 ET) both Friday and Saturday nights.
The webcast kicks off Friday with an insightful pre-show discussion from industry expert Dr. Layne Norton and veteran bodybuilding commentator Larry Pepe. Training experts Neil Hill and Kris Gethin will also make cameo appearances to provide additional insight and commentary.
The competition begins with the beautiful ladies, featuring: Fitness Olympia, Ms. Olympia, and Bikini Olympia finals, followed by the Mr. Olympia Open Judging round.
Co-hosts Carla Sanchez (professional IFBB Fitness competitor and coach) and Dina Al-Sabah (professional IFBB Figure & Bikini Competitor and fitness model) will announce the women?s competitions.
The winners of the 2012 Bodybuilding.com Supplement Awards (24 different awards, including Brand of the Year, Supplement of the Year, etc.) will be announced during the webcasts. The Bodybuilding.com Supplement Awards have set the standard for recognition of the best products and brands in the fitness and supplement industry for the past eight years.
On Saturday, September 29th, the webcast coverage will culminate with bodybuilding?s biggest annual show: The Mr. Olympia Finals. Reigning champion Phil Heath will battle to defend his title against fierce challengers, including the formidable Kai Greene and the reigning Arnold Classic Champion, Branch Warren.
The Saturday coverage will also include the beautifully sculpted women of the Figure Olympia and the men?s 212 Showdown (men?s bodybuilding lighter weight division).
Stay tuned for details and more 2012 Olympia Weekend coverage available soon at Bodybuilding.com!
Bodybuilding.com offers more than 13,000+ health & fitness supplements and accessories to help more than 10 million people every month achieve their health, fitness and appearance goals, as well as more than 35,000 pages of FREE information, including more than 20,000 articles and videos, expert online trainers, and new content added daily!
Size matters, and in this case, the goal is tiny. The new Diana Baby 110, a descendant from a line of already small cameras, is the tiniest yet. It'll fit just nicely in the palm of your hands. Also it takes pictures. More »
Affiliate marketing is a great way and preferred by most online entrepreneurs to start making money online. The main reason is affiliate marketing is easy to get started and it can be started with the minimum cost. Many affiliate marketers get an easy start and try to make sufficient income from affiliate marketing to replace their day job, but unfortunately many end up failed in their affiliate marketing business. The fact is, you can start easily your online business with affiliate marketing, but it may not as easy as you think to success in affiliate marketing. Then, what it takes to be a successful affiliate marketer?
Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing between you as affiliate marketer and the product?s owner / merchant. The merchant will pay you commission upon successfully generate referring clicks, leads or most often sales to the merchant. Being an affiliate marketer, you have the advantages of making money in a business where you don?t need to have upfront costs of creating your own products, and you don?t have to worry about e-commerce, product delivery, or even customer support because the merchant will takes care of it.
To be a success affiliate marketer is not an easy task. You need two important factors to success as an affiliate marketer: Traffic & Conversion. As an affiliate marketer, you need to generate enough traffic to your website and must be able to convert those traffics to sales so that you can earn your commissions. You have to learn the effective marketing techniques to market your affiliate products or services. Although there are many internet marketers succeed in their affiliate marketing business without the need to have their own website, it is advisable to have your own website that contains the affiliate products you are promoting. The benefits of having your own website are:
You can promote and pre-sell multiple affiliate products so that you can maximum the traffic generated. You can build your own customer or prospect list so that you can up sell them your future products; you re-use the traffic generated. You can work out to optimize your website so that your pages are search engines? friendly and get more free traffic from search engines for your targeted keywords.
Having your website is not enough. You should know how to market your site effectively so that you will get thousands of visitors coming to your site which will transforms into more sales for you to earn more commission from your affiliate products. You should avoid the same mistakes some affiliate marketers make everyday, they are only building a short term business where they just make a small sale. Make sure you understand that you should be building a long-term affiliate business to continue generate passive future incomes.
Affiliate marketing is not just placing the affiliate links at your website and you will make a good profit from it. Although it might be true for some cases, but the most successful affiliate marketers are putting their efforts and making use of strong marketing campaigns to drive more traffic and making more conversion to make more money online. Your marketing campaigns should be creative and able to draw attention and have powerful influences to drive your visitors to your website. Then, your website contents are the important factor to the success of conversion. Hence, you need to develop good content-based website and weave your affiliate links into all your contents. You have to provide your prospects with good, quality content to keep them coming back to your site.
Summary
Being an affiliate marketer is easy but being a successful affiliate marketer that generates a good income is not easy. It takes time, efforts and effective marketing with good contents to drive traffic and make conversion generate a good income from affiliate marketing.
Scott Bamboo is the author for http://www.onlinebusinessrevenue.info. No body are borned to be successful as internet or affiliate marketer, you need the right tools and useful resources to help you to success. Find the required information & FREE resources on home-based business, affiliate marketing, internet marketing, ebay & dropshipping from this site.
As an organization owner, you are aware that one can find already many changes to the world of accounting together with other related tasks and even with business administration and management have also their share of drastic changes. Quite often, it is hard to keep up with these many changes worldwide of business and accounting. But, there is one thing that will remain unchanged as well as being the importance of accounting payroll anytime achieving business success.
If you refuse to be among the many crowds, processing of payroll Idaho has may become risky. You know for a fact that as a business owner we will see errors in the reports, which can pose as the general threat to the thriving to your company. How much money and time is it possible afford to waste by refusing to embrace technology and modern techniques of payroll processing?
Services rendered by outsourcing companies comprise processing of payroll Idaho has all this can greatly benefit your company during its entirety. You will be able to focus on more important business aspects as well as allow your employees to generally be more productive and efficient.
ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2012) ? Northwestern University scientists have connected 250 years of organic chemical knowledge into one giant computer network -- a chemical Google on steroids. This "immortal chemist" will never retire and take away its knowledge but instead will continue to learn, grow and share.
A decade in the making, the software optimizes syntheses of drug molecules and other important compounds, combines long (and expensive) syntheses of compounds into shorter and more economical routes and identifies suspicious chemical recipes that could lead to chemical weapons.
"I realized that if we could link all the known chemical compounds and reactions between them into one giant network, we could create not only a new repository of chemical methods but an entirely new knowledge platform where each chemical reaction ever performed and each compound ever made would give rise to a collective 'chemical brain,'" said Bartosz A. Grzybowski, who led the work. "The brain then could be searched and analyzed with algorithms akin to those used in Google or telecom networks."
Called Chematica, the network comprises some seven million chemicals connected by a similar number of reactions. A family of algorithms that searches and analyzes the network allows the chemist at his or her computer to easily tap into this vast compendium of chemical knowledge. And the system learns from experience, as more data and algorithms are added to its knowledge base.
Details and demonstrations of the system are published in three back-to-back papers in the Aug. 6 issue of the journal Angewandte Chemie.
Grzybowski is the senior author of all three papers. He is the Kenneth Burgess Professor of Physical Chemistry and Chemical Systems Engineering in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.
In the Angewandte paper titled "Parallel Optimization of Synthetic Pathways Within the Network of Organic Chemistry," the researchers have demonstrated algorithms that find optimal syntheses leading to drug molecules and other industrially important chemicals.
"The way we coded our algorithms allows us to search within a fraction of a second billions of chemical syntheses leading to a desired molecule," Grzybowski said. "This is very important since within even a few synthetic steps from a desired target the number of possible syntheses is astronomical and clearly beyond the search capabilities of any human chemist."
Chematica can test and evaluate every possible synthesis that exists, not only the few a particular chemist might have an interest in. In this way, the algorithms find truly optimal ways of making desired chemicals.
The software already has been used in industrial settings, Grzybowski said, to design more economical syntheses of companies' products. Synthesis can be optimized with various constraints, such as avoiding reactions involving environmentally dangerous compounds. Using the Chematica software, such green chemistry optimizations are just one click away.
Another important area of application is the shortening of synthetic pathways into the so-called "one-pot" reactions. One of the holy grails of organic chemistry has been to design methods in which all the starting materials could be combined at the very beginning and then the process would proceed in one pot -- much like cooking a stew -- all the way to the final product.
The Northwestern researchers detail how this can be done in the Angewandte paper titled "Rewiring Chemistry: Algorithmic Discovery and Experimental Validation of One-Pot Reactions in the Network of Organic Chemistry."
The chemists have taught their network some 86,000 chemical rules that check -- again, in a fraction of a second -- whether a sequence of individual reactions can be combined into a one-pot procedure. Thirty predictions of one-pot syntheses were tested and fully validated. Each synthesis proceeded as predicted and had excellent yields.
In one striking example, Grzybowski and his team synthesized an anti-asthma drug using the one-pot method. The drug typically would take four consecutive synthesis and purification steps.
"Our algorithms told us this sequence could be combined into just one step, and we were naturally curious to check it out in a flask," Grzybowski said. "We performed the one-pot reaction and obtained the drug in excellent yield and at a fraction of the cost the individual steps otherwise would have accrued."
The third area of application is the use of the Chematica network approach for predicting and monitoring syntheses leading to chemical weapons. This is reported in the Angewandte paper titled "Chemical Network Algorithms for the Risk Assessment and Management of Chemical Threats."
"Since we now have this unique ability to scrutinize all possible synthetic strategies, we also can identify the ones that a potential terrorist might use to make a nerve gas, an explosive or another toxic agent," Grzybowski said.
Algorithms known from game theory first are applied to identify the strategies that are hardest to detect by the federal government -- the use of substances, for example, such as kitchen salt, clarifiers, grain alcohol and a fertilizer, all freely available from a local convenience store. Characteristic combinations of seemingly innocuous chemicals, such as this example, are red flags.
This strategy is very different from the government's current approach of monitoring and regulating individual substances, Grzybowski said. Chematica can be used to monitor patterns of chemicals that together become suspicious, instead of monitoring individual compounds. Grzybowski is working with the federal government to implement the software.
Chematica now is being commercialized. "We chose this name," Grzybowski said, "because networks will do to chemistry what Mathematica did to scientific computing. Our approach will accelerate synthetic design and discovery and will optimize synthetic practice at large."
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Northwestern University. The original article was written by Megan Fellman.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal References:
Miko?aj Kowalik, Chris M. Gothard, Aaron M. Drews, Nosheen A. Gothard, Alex Weckiewicz, Patrick E. Fuller, Bartosz A. Grzybowski, Kyle J. M. Bishop. Parallel Optimization of Synthetic Pathways within the Network of Organic Chemistry. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2012; 51 (32): 7928 DOI: 10.1002/anie.201202209
Chris M. Gothard, Siowling Soh, Nosheen A. Gothard, Bartlomiej Kowalczyk, Yanhu Wei, Bilge Baytekin, Bartosz A. Grzybowski. Rewiring Chemistry: Algorithmic Discovery and Experimental Validation of One-Pot Reactions in the Network of Organic Chemistry. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2012; 51 (32): 7922 DOI: 10.1002/anie.201202155
Patrick E. Fuller, Chris M. Gothard, Nosheen A. Gothard, Alex Weckiewicz, Bartosz A. Grzybowski. Chemical Network Algorithms for the Risk Assessment and Management of Chemical Threats. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2012; 51 (32): 7933 DOI: 10.1002/anie.201202210
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Written by: Mike Brown (Windows Server Technologies at Firebrand Training)
Whenever I teach MCITP: Server Administrator or MCITP: Enterprise Administrator there is always one subject that I can guarantee the majority of delegates won?t have worked with directly. The subject is certificate services; for whatever reason this is an area people are aware of but one that they don?t seem to spend time learning or working with.
The thing is the more you work with Microsoft products like Exchange Server, Lync Server or the System Centre suite the more you need to understand certificate services.?
The first thing to understand is what digital certificates give us, and that can be summed up in one word: trust. In all aspects of computing we need to be able to trust the entity we are communicating with. If it can be trusted then we can enable other services like authentication, we can provide data integrity or encrypt a connection. But if we don?t trust the end point we are speaking to then we can?t guarantee any of the other services.
Most of us come in to contact with Digital certificates when we access a secure web site. If you want to bank online or if you want to buy CDs from amazon you have to provide personal details, and you will only do that if the connection is encrypted and you are sure that you are speaking to the web site you think you are. This process starts with the website sending a copy of their digital certificate to your browser. Your browser then checks three things;
Is the certificate in date?
Does the name on the certificate match the name of the server or website you are connected to?
Has the certificate been issued from a trusted source?
It is the 3rd check that is the most important. We have to be sure that the entity who issued the certificate can be trusted, as if it can?t, anything protected by the certificates from that entity can?t be trusted.?
How do we know who to trust? Well every PC has a list of trusted root certificate authorities.
You can see this list if you open up an MMC and add the certificates snapin:
Here you can see the trusted root certificates for a PC. If a certificate authority is trusted by being on this list it means that any certificate issued by them is also trusted and you can trust the information it provides, like the validity dates and name of the computer/services it is protecting.
How do certificates get in to the trusted store?
There is a group of online trusted certificate authorities that all PC?s trust. These companies have a proven track record that means that when we see a certificate provided by them to an organisation we can trust they have performed all reasonable checks to make sure the company is reputable and owns the domain name it is requesting a certificate for. So when we see a certificate that was assigned from Verisign or GoDaddy etc. our computer immediately trusts that if the name and dates match then it is safe to bring up an secure link and start sending data.
Another way certificates get into the trusted store is manually, by you making the choice to trust an authority that otherwise wouldn?t be trusted. This would be the case when we install a Microsoft Certificate authority to secure internal resources.?
So far we have talked about websites and trusting them so we can secure a link, but if this was all certificates were used for then I would understand why so many IT professionals stay away from them, thinking that if they don?t manage websites then they don?t need to worry about certificates. This is where we need to understand a little bit more about our internal services and how certificates help to secure them.
Think about any two servers that need to swap information with each other, imagine that the data needs to be secured between the two servers. Well in order to do this we first need to trust the server we are speaking to is the correct one. So whether it is two exchange servers or two Lync servers or two routers about to bring up a site to site VPN, a certificate is need to prove each end is who he says it is before we can secure the connection.
In a later article we will discuss examples of how Microsoft services use digital certificates and we look at how to install a Microsoft certificate server and how we use it to issue digital certificates.
Author Bio: Mike Brown is the Lead Instructor for Windows Server Technologies at Firebrand Training, and is currently putting together courseware for Microsoft?s upcoming release of Windows Server 2012.
For more great traininig resource and to get your certification at twice the speed please visit?Firebrand Training.
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Public release date: 29-Aug-2012
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Nearly one-third of connected TV users already watch online video through those devices, and daily usage rates have grown 10x in a very short period of time. But it's not as easy as just flipping on the TV and switching channels: Instead, connected TV viewers are usually forced to try to navigate a series of apps and channel menus to hunt for something to watch. To solve this, video discovery startup Redux has been making a big bet on connected TV over the past year or so, creating apps and user interfaces that are designed to make streaming video as seamless as watching regular broadcast or cable TV. Last year, Redux launched an app for Google TV, which made streaming video more of a TV-like viewing experience on devices with that OS. The app has been pretty popular so far, ranking as one of the top-downloaded apps on the Google TV marketplace. But customers still had to download it. Since then, it's been working to partner with some big-time consumer electronics manufacturers like Samsung, Sony, and LG, and as a result, it will have its apps and technology preloaded into a ton of their smart TVs.
