Liberty Newspost Feb-26-10

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Bush, Cheney meet for first time since leaving office David Alexander (Front Row Washington)

“Could be worse,” Cheney said.

The meeting came on the eve of a gathering of Bush Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:31:43 PM administration alumni in Former President George W. W a s h i n g t o n .

Bush and his former vice Both men had been scheduled to president, Dick Cheney, got attend the session, but Cheney, together Thursday for the first 69, had to withdraw because of time since they left office in the heart attack, his fifth since January 2009. age 37 and his first since shortly The meeting took place at before becoming vice president Cheney’s house in McLean, in 2001.

Virginia, just three days after the Bush called Cheney at the former vice president suffered a hospital to wish him well and mild heart attack and was when it became clear the former hospitalized overnight. An ABC vice president would not be able News camera captured the to make the alumni reunion, they moment. arranged to meet separately.

“Mr. President, welcome,” Bush has remained largely out Cheney said as Bush stepped of the public eye since leaving from the back of a sport utility office. vehicle.

But Cheney has been a public “Looking good,” Bush said. and vocal apologist for the “Holding up alright,” Cheney administration, especially in its replied. conduct of the war against al “Looking good,” the former Qaeda, the handling of prisoners president said again as the two taken during the conflict and the shook hands warmly. decision to go to war in Iraq.

He has been aggressive about challenging President Barack Obama, telling conservative Republicans last week in Washington that the Democratic leader would be a “one-term president.”

The relationship between Bush

an investigation to determine who told the news media that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA operative.

Plame’s identity leaked as the Bush administration tried to discredit her husband, former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, who accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

Libby never served his prison sentence because Bush commuted it, but the president reportedly resisted Cheney’s pressure during the closing months of the administration to issue a full pardon.

For more Reuters political and Cheney reportedly soured news, click here. toward the end of their eight Photo credit: Reuters/Larry years in office after the president Downing (Cheney listens as decided not to issue a full pardon Bush discusses the transition to a to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, new administration following Cheney’s former chief of staff. the November 2008 election) Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice during

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Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools:

Presented By: (National Geographic News) Submitted at 2/25/2010 11:57:18 AM

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Republicans declare Healthcare Summit victory David Morgan (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:27:32 AM

A day after President Barack Obama’s nationally televised healthcare summit, Republicans are out declaring victory.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn said the summit was good for the American public. Good, that is, for the public to hear the Republican argument and see Obama lose his usual cool, particularly during the highly publicized exchange with his former presidential election adversary, Sen. John McCain.

“It was good for the American people see him kind of become a bit agitated,” the Tennessee Republican told MSNBC. “There were a couple of times that maybe he did get a little bit frustrated, and that’s good for the American people to see.”

The public also got to see how Democrats dominated two-thirds of the air time. And that bit of drama when Obama told McCain that the 2008 election was over? ”Really inappropriate,” Blackburn said.

Not that McCain himself

minded. He’d welcome another summit.

“It was good to have that conversation. I think it was good for the American people, people all over the world that watched,” the Arizona Republican told ABC’s Good Morning America.“I think it helps the American people make a judgment. I’d be glad to go over again.”

Pundits give Obama high marks for holding the rare bipartisan face-to-face encounter and say the president showed himself

fully in command of the facts and details. But the summit showed no sign of budging either Republicans or Democrats toward a deal on healthcare reform.

McCain and Blackburn both warned Democrats not to do what they now seem likely to do — move forward with a reconciliation bill that could pass the House and Senate without Republican input. Because such a measure would reconcile two bills already passed by both chambers, it would require

only a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate instead of the 60 votes that new legislation would need to avoid a Republican filibuster.

“To go to the 51 votes instead of this traditional 60 in the United States Senate will have cataclysmic effects,” McCain said.

He didn’t specify. Blackburn held out hope that Republicans could stop any move toward reconciliation. But she said the issue would become a banner s l o g a n f o r t h e 2010 congressional elections if Democrats succeed.

“If they move forward on reconciliation on this one, the American people are going to say, well, 2010 is all about repeal the bill. We’re still in the mode of kill the bill and I think that we will,” she said.

For more Reuters political coverage, click here Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama at healthcare summit)

How Many Car Crashes Can You Count on Google Street View?

Tyler Gray (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/26/2010 8:55:06 AM

This guy found 14, by our count (and two fires). While much has been debated about the desensitizing effect of YouTube videos (and privacy-invading nature of Google Street View-especially in the Europen Union, where Google was just admonished to warn people before sending out its roving cameras), we're all for people satisfying their rubbernecking cravings via the Web, rather than on the actual road.

[Via Google Maps Mania]

Inmate Leaves Prison by Impersonating Cellmate (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:24:42 AM

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BALTIMORE Raymond Taylor, the inmate mistakenly released from the Maryland

Correctional Adjustment Center Thursday, has been recaptured by a law enforcement task force in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Taylor, who was serving three

life terms, had walked out of a Five Filters featured article: B a l t i m o r e p r i s o n a f t e r Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: impersonating his cell mate. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, T h e A s s o c i a t e d P r e s s Term Extraction. contributed to this report.

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Senator Coburn cites Thomson Reuters at healthcare summit Donna Smith (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 2/25/2010 12:39:11 PM

Republican Senator Tom Coburn is obviously a big fan of Thomson Reuters. He cited Thomson Reuters reports throughout his presentation at the White House healthcare summit.

Coburn, an Oklahoma physician who opposes the sweeping Democratic healthcare overhaul, said lawmakers should focus first on reducing hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful spending in the U.S. healthcare system. He cited recent studies

by Thomson Reuters showing wasteful spending and how patients are postponing medical care due to cost.

They can be found here, here

and here.

Coburn often cited these reports during Senate debate on healthcare reform. He wants to bring down costs by tackling waste, fraud and abuse, and limiting medical malpractice lawsuits. And like most doctors,

he wants us to live healthy lifestyles and avoid junk food.

He also wants to change some popular government programs that he said are contributing to unhealthy eating habits.

“We actually create more diabetes through the food stamp program and the school lunch program than probably any other thing,” Coburn said.

Click here for more political news from Reuters.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed (U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius does an arm-bump greeting to avoid catching U.S. Senator Tom Coburn’s cold at U.S. healthcare summit, February 25, 2010.)

Glow in the dark toilet paper review (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:54:34 AM

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Published: 2:54PM GMT 26

Feb 2010 Harry Wallop and Claudine Beaumont investigate the virtues of glow in the dark loo roll.

The bizarre invention looks like a standard loo roll during the day, but gives off a florescent glow when the lights are turned off.

The rolls were invented by

Daniel Blackman, who works in product development for Thumbs Up, a gift company.

The loo roll contains phosphors, which sustains a glow after exposure to energized particles such as light.

The invention comes hot on the heels of Waitrose's cashmere loo roll, which claimed to offer

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Space Pictures: New Geysers Seen on Saturn Moon (National Geographic News) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:44:46 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Parent and "Child" Image courtesy NASA/JPL/SSI With Saturn shining bright white in the background, the smooth, lighted edge of the moon Enceladus is interrupted by geysers spewing from the south pole in a newly released visible-light picture from NASA's Cassini orbiter.

The picture is among several new shots of Enceladus snapped during a flyby in November 2009. During the visit, Cassini spotted a never-before-seen population of plumes,

confirming researchers' predictions that Enceladus's jets of watery particles vary in number and intensity over time.

(Related:"'Geyser' Moon Sprinkles Salt on Saturn's Rings.")

"With each Cassini flyby, we learn more about [Enceladus's] extreme activity and what makes this strange moon tick," Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

Published February 25, 2010 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Thursday Night Music: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

the bottom line in comfort and went on sale earlier this (Little Green Footballs) month.

Five Filters featured article: Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:10:41 PM Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers rocking hard on “You Wreck Term Extraction.

Me,” from the under-appreciated album Wildflowers. (The iTunes Store has it too.)[Video]

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The Science of Hollywood Films: It's All in the Chaos Theory (National Geographic News)

highly, there may be a mathematics underlying filmmaking -- if not a formula Message from fivefilters.org: If for aesthetics, at least something you can, please donate to the full that determines how much -text RSS service so we can attention people pay to films. continue developing it.

And Cutting has found it in Now we know why we fall something called the 1/f pattern. asleep at the movies. It's the The 1/f fluctuation is a concept math. from chaos theory, a rhythm that A cognitive psychologist from appears throughout nature -- in Cornell University studied over m u s i c , e c o n o m i c s a n d 150 films from the past 70 elsewhere. The ratio is a years, shot by shot, to find out constant in the universe, and it just what makes one a snoozer p r e t t y w e l l d e s c r i b e s o u r and another an edge-of-the seat attention patterns. To apply it to thriller. films, Cutting compared shot And the answer, says James lengths throughout the duration Cutting, is neither Brad Pitt nor of a film against the average shot Halle Berry. length within the film -- in other It's chaos theory. words, the pace.

"Sometimes I'll be watching a Working with students Jordan film, get halfway through it, and DeLong and Christine Nothlefer, ask myself, 'Why am I watching he found that modern films -this?' But I'm riveted to the those made after 1980 -- were screen, I can't tear my eyes much more likely than earlier away. It's because it's giving you films to approach the universal the movie at a certain pace, and 1/f ratio, and therefore grab our you find it very engaging." attention. That is, the sequences Cutting studies film, art, and of shots selected by director, culture, not to mention the cinematographer, and film editor perception of motion and depth have gradually merged over the and the functional analyses of years with the natural pattern of perceptual stimuli. He used the human attention. tools of modern perception "The pattern of shots in movies research to deconstruct the is getting closer and closer to pacing of 70 years of film. what we generate endogenously He speculated that, like the -- you know, in our heads," g o l d e n r a t i o R e n a i s s a n c e Cutting explained. painters and architects praised so In a study published in Submitted at 2/25/2010 12:18:07 PM

Psychological Science, Cutting, DeLong, and Nothlefer found individual films from every genre that have almost perfect 1/f rhythms. The Perfect Storm, released in 2000, is one of them, as is Rebel Without a Cause, though it was made in 1955. So, too, is The 39 Steps, Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece from way back in 1935.

But modern films' proximity to this ratio doesn't mean you're going to like them more.

"Given our results, one might assume that viewers like better those films with a shot structure closer to a 1/f pattern," the article notes. But that's not the case: There's exactly zero connection between 1/f and film rating on the popular Web site IMDb. Besides, the study has nothing to do with taste, says Cutting, who personally favors film noir from the '50s. "In doing this project, I fell in love again with film noir. And what's interesting about them is that their shots are completely random in length.

They're as far from 1/f as you can get."

It's no secret that the average shot length in films has declined uniformly from 1960 to the present -- from between eight to ten seconds in the '60s to three to four seconds in 2005. Cutting measured Quantum of Solace at

just 1.7 seconds, indicative of the quick pace of many contemporary films.

Modern films are closer to the 1/f pattern, but that isn't because of the faster pace of modern films, Cutting explained.

"Every film has an average shot length," he explained. "But the pattern of variation in shot length is independent of the mean." In other words, the variability -- which 1/f is measuring -- can be the same across films regardless of the film's average shot length.

Cutting believes the study may evidence what films of the future will look like, as well.

"Film editors and directors have incrementally increased their control over the visual momentum of their narratives, making the relations among shot lengths more coherent over a 70-year span," he writes. "We suggest that over the next 50 years or so, and with action films likely leading the way, Hollywood film will evolve toward a shot structure that more generally matches the 1/f patterns found elsewhere in physics, biology, culture, and the mind."

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Former Lehman CFO Leaves Credit Suisse Zac Bissonnette (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: Rumors, Management, Financial Crisis For a long time, Erin Callan was considered one of the most powerful women on Wall Street.

Somehow, a controversial stint as CFO of Lehman Bros. shortly before its collapse hasn't helped that status. After being pushed out of Lehman, she joined Credit Suisse, but in February of 2009, five months after joining, she went on a leave of absence for unspecifiied personal reasons.

Continue reading Former Lehman CFO Leaves Credit Suisse Former Lehman CFO Leaves Credit Suisse originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Prime Minister expresses 'concern' as Portsmouth goes into administration (Top stories from Times Online)

and communities of football clubs like Portsmouth shouldn’t suffer because of the inability of Submitted at 2/26/2010 5:07:20 AM clubs to manage their finances Message from fivefilters.org: If properly. This is a great club and you can, please donate to the full we hope they will be able to -text RSS service so we can return to their former glories. continue developing it.

“Clubs like Portsmouth have a Gordon Brown expressed his tremendous local following. It’s concern today for the suffering a great club with lots of people inflicted by football clubs who who enjoy watching them. If fail to manage their finances as they are no longer able to play Portsmouth because the first football, it is a sad loss for the Premier League club to go into local community.” administration.

No 10's expression of support The South Coast club went into will come as scant consolation voluntary administration before for tens of thousands of the High Court hears a winding- Portsmouth fans where were up petition from Her Majesty's coming to terms today with the Revenues and Customs at the p r o s p e c t o f l i f e i n t h e High Court. The move will stop Championship - and could yet the club being liquidated, but see the club's 112-year history means an automatic nine-point ended. penalty that all but guarantees its On a dismal day for football relegation. finances, hours after the fall of As the administrators - who Portsmouth was confirmed have to organise Portsmouth's Chester City was expelled from sale - got down to work, the the Football Conference.

P r i m e M i n i s t e r ' s o f f i c i a l Earlier this month Chester were spokesman described it as "a sad suspended from the Conference day for a great club". after failing to fulfil their He added: “It is a matter for fixtures against Forest Green and individual clubs and the HMRC, Wrexham and had been asked to but this issue of sensible rules prove that such a situation would and governance has been raised not arise again. Today's move

by Andy Burnham, when he was came after a meeting of the (Secretary of State) at the league's member clubs.

Department for Culture, Media AFC Bournemouth also and Sport. announced they also face a “We remain concerned that fans winding-up order for an unpaid

tax bill. The League Two club must find £314,000 owed to HRMC before the March 31 deadline.

Joyce Tynan, 76, a Portsmouth fan since 1946, said: “It’s heartbreaking. It’s a good club with good staff and now I hope they carry on. If they carry on, then I will.”

Speaking outside the club’s Fratton Park ground, Mrs Tynan blamed the former owner Sasha Gaydamak, the former manager Harry Redknapp and the chief executive, Peter Storrie, for plunging the club into financial chaos.

“Between them they should have seen this coming. They should have realised there was no money and not paid the players so much. The players should get a couple of hundred a week - I only get £51.”

The voluntary administration was confirmed after Balram Chainrai, Portsmouth's fourth and latest owner this season, failed to find a buyer.

"At 10.20am today Portsmouth Football Club was placed into administration following the filing of a notice of appointment at the High Court," a club statement read.

The move will, however, prevent Portsmouth from going into liquidation as they faced a winding-up petition in the High

Court on Monday. That had been served by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs for unpaid VAT, PAYE and national insurance of around £12 million. The hearing would almost certainly have ordered the club to be liquidated.

Andrew Andronkiou, the administrator, is expected to issue a statement this afternoon, outlining how the club will be restructured and made attractive for a potential buyer.

It is understood that a list of staff who will lose their jobs has already been drawn up. Gary Double, Portsmouth's head of media operations, left the club last night after discovering his name was on the list.

Mr Chainrai will pay the costs of the administration process, believed to be about £3 million, and will continue to finance the club until a buyer is found.

Although Portsmouth owe £12 million in player transactions, they are due to receive £37 million from the Premier League from “parachute” payments, plus outstanding television revenue over the next two years in the event of their relegation.

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Hipstamatic iPhone App to Spawn a Million Terry Richardsons Addy Dugdale (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:48:22 AM

Keen iPhone snappers amongst you who hanker after analog pics might be interested in this cute little $1.99 app. The basic Hipstamatic package includes three lenses and a trio of films, all with a standard flash, and enables you to shoot Virgin Suicides-inspired shots and then upload your now beautifully retro pictures straight onto Facebook.

You can buy additional Hipstapaks--the Williamsburg, Portland, and Shubuya--for 99¢ each. The only downside is that you can't use the existing iPhone camera and then use the Hipstamatic to alter your pics.

[Via SwissMiss]

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Censored Binyam Mohamed torture ruling released by court (Top stories from Times Online) Submitted at 2/26/2010 2:00:08 AM

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The Court of Appeal today dealt another judicial blow to the establishment when it ruled that a controversial paragraph criticising the British Security Service should be reinstated in an earlier landmark judgment concerning the treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.

But, in a rather inelegant judicial fudge, the country's three top judges decided to revise the offending paragraph so that its criticisms of MI5 are more narrowly focused. They also decided to publish the original draft text - meaning that today's ruling contained no fewer than three versions of the same paragraph.

The case involved the former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed and a bid by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, to prevent two High Court judges revealing US intelligence information relating to Mr Mohamed’s ill treatment at the hands of the CIA

The draft version of the judgment included a paragraph from one of the country's most senior judges criticising MI5.

When the ruling was published on February 10, however, the paragraph had been removed, leading to accusations that Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, had been forced to water down his advice.

Today Lord Neuberger and two other top judges agreed the robust criticism - contained in the original paragraph 168 of the ruling - should now be published "in the interests of open justice". But the judges stressed the original paragraph was "no longer of further relevance", and a final, more narrowly focused version of the paragraph was announced in court.

The two paragraphs - as originally drafted and now revised - are similar in structure but subtly reworked so that the criticism of MI5 is more specifically related to the Binyam Mohamed case.

Both versions start by noting that MI5 made clear in March 2005 that it operated a "culture that respected human rights" and that coercive interrogation techniques were "alien" to its "ethics, methodology and

training".

The draft paragraph continued: "Yet that does not seem to be true..." The rewritten version says: "Yet, in this case, that does not seem to have been true..."

The draft paragraph had gone on to question whether any statement given by the Security Service on an issue concerning the treatment of terror detainees could be relied on. The final version restricts that to specific MI5 statements on Mr Mohamed's case.

The original ruling led to the release of a seven-paragraph summary of 42 classified CIA documents that were handed to MI5. They show that MI5 was aware that Mr Mohamed was being continuously deprived of sleep, threatened with rendition and being subjected to "significant mental stress and suffering" while being detained by the CIA. After seeing a draft version of the Master of the Rolls's judgment - particularly paragraph 168 - government lawyers took the view that he had unjustifiably gone further in his criticism than the other two judges.

Jonathan Sumption, QC, wrote to the court on the Government’s behalf warning that Lord

Neuberger would be seen as saying the Security Service did not respect human rights and had failed to renounce participating in "coercive interrogation" techniques.

Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, explained to a packed court this morning the reasons for now giving the go-ahead for the publication of the original paragraph. He said that if it were not made publicly available, any comparison between that version and the final version published today "will continue to be informed by deductions and inferences based on Mr Sumption’s letter".

He said: "For this reason it would be better by far that the original draft should be disclosed and available for comment in the precise form in which it was written. In this way it will speak for itself without the forensic gloss put on it by Mr Sumption in his letter."

Lord Judge said that in this situation "the interests of open justice must prevail".

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Avoid these 10 conflict resolution mistakes (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/25/2010 11:05:04 PM

Just because conflict resolution is good doesn’t mean that there aren’t lurking pitfalls. Check out About.com’s 10 conflict resolutions mistakes. For instance: Forgetting to Listen: Some people interrupt, roll their eyes, and rehearse what they’re going to say next instead of truly listening and attempting to understand their partner. This keeps you from seeing their point of view, and keeps your partner from wanting to see yours! Don’t underestimate the importance of really listening and empathizing with the other person!

Read the full article at About.com.

More on conflict resolution.

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Luxembourg-sized iceberg threatens weather chaos after split (Top stories from Times Online)

like a loose tooth," said Benoit Legresy, a French glaciologist whose team, in collaboration Submitted at 2/26/2010 4:40:55 AM with Australian scientists, has Message from fivefilters.org: If been monitoring the Mertz you can, please donate to the full Glacier via satellite images and -text RSS service so we can on the ground for a decade. continue developing it.

After remaining jammed against A n i c e b e r g t h e s i z e o f the Antarctic continent for more Luxembourg has split off from than 20 years, B9B began to the Antarctic continent and drift last year, approaching the could disrupt global ocean Mertz tongue like a slowpatterns and weather systems for motion battering ram. decades, according to scientists. "It gave it a pretty big nudge," The 985 square-mile (2,550 s a i d D r N e a l Y o u n g , a square-kilometre) block of ice glaciologist at the Antarctic was knocked off the Mertz C l i m a t e a n d E c o s y s t e m s Glacier Tongue, a spit of Research Centre in Tasmania. floating ice protruding from East The new combined iceberg is 48 Antarctica on February 12 or miles (78 km) long and about 24 13. It was dislodged by an older miles wide and holds the iceberg, known as B9B, which equivalent of a fifth of the broke off in 1987. world's annual total water usage, Although the impact will not be according to Dr Young. felt for decades, the iceberg Since the collision, the iceberg could block the production of and the newly mobile B9B, cold, salty water, known as which is about the same size, ‘bottom water’, which could have moved into an area called a eventually lead to less temperate polynya. winters in the North Atlantic.

Distributed across the Southern The event could also have a Ocean, polynyas are zones that negative impact on Antarctica’s produce dense water, super cold biodiversity, including a large and rich in salt, that sinks to the colony of Emperor penguins, bottom of the sea and drives the based nearby. conveyor-belt like circulation "The ice tongue was almost around the globe. broken already. It was hanging If the icebergs move east and

run aground, or drift north into warmer seas, they will have no impact on the global convection system.

But if they stay in the area -which scientists say is likely -they could partly block the production of the dense water, essentially putting a lid on the polynya’s action.

The Mertz Glacier Polynya accounts for about 20 percent of the bottom water in the world, and so over the course of decades – the timescale on which the currents circulate – the impact could be significant.

A slowing down of the production of bottom water would also mean less oxygen would be supplied into the deep currents that feed the oceans.

"There may be regions of the world's oceans that lose oxygen, and then of course most of the life there will die," said Mario Hoppema, chemical oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany.

However, Dr Michael Meredith, a polar oceans specialist at the British Antarctic Survey, said that any measurable change in oxygenation levels was likely to be restricted to Antarctica, with a knock-on effect on the local

ecosystem.

The carving off of ice shelves and collapse of glaciers are part of Antarctica’s natural cycle, although man-made climate change could potentially accelerate these processes.

"Obviously when there is warmer water, these ice tongues will become more fragile," said Dr Legresy, who works at the Laboratory for Geophysics and Oceanographic Space Research in Toulouse.

The Mertz Glacier Tongue, has been under close scientific scrutiny for the past decade and is fitted with GPS beacons and other measurement instruments, meaning that scientists will have a detailed record of its recent activity.

"We are using the ice tongue as a laboratory to study the processes that might be impacted by climate change, including ocean temperature and sea level change,” said Dr Legresy.

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How to add Google Analytics to your Facebook fan page (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:30:47 PM

So you’ve integrated the world's leading analytical data and tracking system into your website and blog, but did you know you can add Google Analytics to your Facebook fan page too? Yep, the kind folks at WebDigi have discovered a fairly simple way of setting it up—allowing you access to all the great functions and features Google Analytics offers—including visitor statistics, traffic sources, visitor country, keyword searches—you get the idea).

Learn how to set it all up at Web Digi.

Total Google and Facebook coverage.

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Absolute Radio 'will bid' to buy 6 Music from BBC (Top stories from Times Online)

two of its radio stations - digital stations 6 Music and Asian Network - as well as shut half Submitted at 2/26/2010 5:21:31 AM its website and cut spending Message from fivefilters.org: If heavily on imported American you can, please donate to the full programmes in an overhaul of -text RSS service so we can services. It will introduce a cap continue developing it. on spending on broadcast rights Absolute Radio, the station for sports events of 8.5 per cent formerly known as Virgin of the licence fee, or about £300 Radio, could bid to buy 6 Music million. from the BBC to save it from Commercial radio companies c l o s u r e , t h e h e a d o f t h e have long complained that they commercial station said today. cannot match the lavish budgets 6 Music presenters and legions awarded to BBC radio stations. 6 of fans leapt to the defence of Music has a budget of more the alternative music station this than £6 million a year and morning, after The Times around 700,000 weekly listeners. revealed this morning that it is to Absolute has more than double be closed as part of a wide- the amount of listeners, but its ranging strategic review of the budget is understood be less BBC’s activities. than half of its BBC rival. Mr Clive Dickens, the chief Dickens said: "The passion that operating officer of Absolute, we’re seeing from listeners told The Times that he would shows there’s nothing wrong approach the BBC with a view with the station, it’s just been to buying the station. overfunded.

He said: "We would buy 6 "It would stand a better chance Music from the BBC, both the of succeeding if it was run brand and the network, and commercially. It could be a we’d run it more efficiently than complementary service that they’ve been doing." could be run alongside our own The wide ranging strategic stations. It wouldn’t generate a review to be announced next lot of cash but it would serve a month, will see the BBC close lot of fans who don’t want to be

disenfranchised."

It is not known how much 6 Music would be worth, but industry experts estimated it could fetch £2-3 million should the BBC be interested in selling the station.

In other changes, The corporation’s web pages are to be halved, backed by a 25 per cent cut in staff numbers. Its £112 million budget will also be cut by 25 per cent. It is also pledging to include more links to newspaper articles to drive traffic to the websites of rival publishers.

Mark Thompson, the DirectorGeneral, will admit that the corporation, which is funded by the £3.6 billion annual licence fee, has become too large and must shrink to give its commercial rivals room to operate. He will also pledge to close BBC Switch and Blast!, leaving the lucrative teenage market to ITV and Channel 4.

But BBC Three, which is aimed at 16 to 35-year-olds will not be touched.

The review was drawn up by the corporation’s director of policy and strategy, John Tate, a former head of the Conservative

policy unit, who co-wrote the party’s 2005 manifesto with David Cameron. It will be seen as an attempt to show a potential Tory government that the BBC understands the effect the deep advertising recession has had on commercial rivals and that it does not need outside intervention to get its house in order.

About 60,000 fans of 6 Music have joined a Facebook campaign to save the station, and Twitter was deluged with messages of support.

Lauren Laverne, a presenter for 6 Music, wrote on Twitter today: "Looks like I’m joining that facebook group then. Boo, boo and thrice boo. That is all. Sad." Shaun Keaveny, 6 Music’s breakfast show host, said on air: "First of all, massive thanks to everyone who has shown their support, it’s literally choking us up. We hope it isn’t true, of course."

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Firefox extension simplifies e-mailing on Facebook Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com)

Working too hard when trying to grab a friend's e-mail address from Facebook? Check out this

extension, which turns your friend's e-mail addresses into links that will open up in your

favorite e-mail client.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

Google by the numbers [infographic] (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:31:06 AM

Considering Google will one day rule the world, making us all peons in the Goog Empire, we should probably understand the facts and figures that make the mighty internet giant so powerful. Pingdom has put together an interesting infographic that includes plenty of data tidbits perfect for breaking out at your next internet-themed geek gathering.

Full infographic at Plingdom.

Oodles of Google news.

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Ancient Horned Crocodile Found—Ate Early Humans?

Heavy Snow and Wind Blast Weary Northeast

(National Geographic News)

(FOXNews.com)

Submitted at 2/25/2010 11:57:18 AM

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In a primeval version of the horror flick Lake Placid, a 19foot-long (5.8-meter-long) horned crocodile may have leaped from the water to snack on early humans, a new fossil find suggests.

The newly described, 1.84million-year-old species has been dubbed Crocodylus anthropophagus, which means "eater of humans" in Latin.

The croc's fossils were discovered in 2007 in Tanzania's fossil-rich Olduvai Gorge, a site that was also home to early humans—or hominids—such as the tiny species Homo habilis and Australopithecus boisei.

(Related:"Kenyan Fossils May Add New Branch to Human Family Tree.")

Crocodile bite marks had previously been found on hominid bones from the gorge.

Based on the latest find, scientists suspect that the crocodile not only ate our ancestors, but that it was their biggest predator at the time.

The research adds another dimension to understanding how early humans lived in ancient Africa, said study leader Christopher Brochu, a paleontologist at the University of Iowa.

"When people think about [the animals that lived with] early humans, they think about lions and gazelles—the mammals.

They don't usually think about the reptiles," he said.

"But our ancestors had to deal with big crocodiles—that's a major part of the landscape."

New Croc Created Dangerous Territory The new crocodile's fearsome triangular horns are not that unusual, Brochu said. Modern

Cuban and Siamese crocodile species also have the bony protrusions above their ears.

(See crocodile and alligator pictures.)

The horns serve to exaggerate male crocodiles' perceived sizes during territorial displays, according to Kent Vliet, an expert in crocodile behavior at the University of Florida in Gainesville who was not involved in the new study.

During their displays, horned crocodiles tip their heads forward in the water. "The ultimate effect [is] that the head and the horns and neck form a pyramidal shape, with the horns being the pinnacle," Vliet said.

As with some species of deer, the bigger the croc, the bigger the horns—making the heftiest males the most intimidating.

It's likely that the new predator's horns served the same territorial purpose, Vliet added. (See pictures of five ancient "oddball" crocs.)

The newfound species also probably looked and acted much like the modern-day Nile crocodile, which ambushes anything unwary enough to approach the water's edge.

That means early humans would have had to tread carefully while collecting water from lakes and rivers, as many Africans do today, said study author Brochu, whose research appears this week in the journal PLoS ONE. But even though people should remain wary of crocodiles, the tables have turned in modern times, Brochu pointed out.

Whether we're killing them outright or destroying their habitats, he said, "the biggest threat to crocodiles today is humans."

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Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:36:08 PM

SXSW has enjoyed a great track record thus far of heralding the next big thing. As TechCrunch’s MG Siegler notes, three years

ago it was Twitter, then it was, well, Twitter again, and then last year it was Foursquare. Sigler takes a look at a variety of promising big breakthroughs to be seen at this year’s conference. reign supreme.

Read the full story at His big prediction: Location will

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This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.© 2010 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. All market data delayed 20 minutes.

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Taxes 2009: TurboTax vs. H&R Block vs. TaxAct Jessica Dolcourt (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/25/2010 2:08:00 PM

What will be big at SXSW 2010? TechCrunch predicts location (Holy Kaw!)

Submitted at 2/26/2010 5:13:53 AM

TechCrunch.

Everyone on SXSW in one place.

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We did our taxes a whopping 6 times when researching the pros and cons of tax prep apps like TurboTax and TaxAct. Here's what we found.

Originally posted at The Download Blog

10

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World condemns Gaddafi's called for Fourth Quarter GDP 'jihad' against Switzerland Revised Higher (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

the Koran," he said.

"The masses of Muslims must go to all airports in the Islamic world and prevent any Swiss plane landing, to all harbours Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:17:18 AM Message from fivefilters.org: If and prevent any Swiss ships you can, please donate to the full docking, inspect all shops and -text RSS service so we can markets to stop any Swiss goods continue developing it. being sold."

By Richard Spencer, Middle Col Gaddafi's typically East Correspondent eccentric row with Switzerland, Published: 3:17PM GMT 26 which began when one of his Feb 2010 sons was arrested along with his Col Gaddafi took a long- wife because of allegations of running and personal feud with abuse by two members of his the historically neutral European domestic staff, has come as a country to new heights with a blow to western powers. speech in which he attacked the They thought that they had b a n o n n e w m i n a r e t s o n managed to tame the Libyan mosques approved by a Swiss leader after he voluntarily gave referendum last year. up a basic nuclear weapons "Those who destroy God's programme in 2003 and agreed a mosques deserve to be attacked compensation deal over the through jihad, and if Switzerland Lockerbie bombing. was on our borders, we would Yesterday, both the European fight it," he said. "Jihad against Union and the United Nations Switzerland, against Zionism, hit out at his speech. against foreign aggression is not "If these reports are correct, they terrorism." come at an unfortunate He called for a boycott of moment," a spokesman for Switzerland by the Islamic Baroness Ashton, the EU's world. "Any Muslim in any part foreign policy representative, of the world who works with said.

Switzerland is an apostate, is She said the EU was trying to against Mohammad, God and negotiate a settlement of the

disagreements between Libya and Switzerland, even though it is not an EU member.

Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the director-general of the United Nations, said: "I believe that such declarations on the part of the head of state are inadmissible in international relations." Mr Ordzhonikidze is based at the UN's European headquarters in Geneva.

The Swiss released Hannibal Gaddafi shortly after his original arrest in 2008 at a Geneva hotel and apologised. But this was not enough to prevent a furious response by Libya.

Two Swiss businessmen were arrested and accused of visa violations, oil supplies were cut and billions of dollars removed from Swiss bank accounts.

The release of one of the businessmen earlier this month had led the Swiss to believe that the crisis was over.

Switzerland itself made no immediate comment on the speech.

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The Bloody Truth: How to Interpret Blood Spatters Katie Baker (Wired Top Stories)

Veteran detective Rod Englert has written a book about what evidence tells us when it drips

down the wall.

Mark Fightmaster (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:30:00 AM

Filed under: Before the Bell, Economic Data The Commerce Department gave us a nice little surprise this morning, revising up its fourth-quarter estimate of the Gross Domestic Product.

Economic activity grew by 5.9% during the fourth quarter, which was the fastest rate since the third quarter of 2003. Last month, the Commerce Department estimated that the GDP rose by an annual 5.7% during the fourth quarter.

Here is the thing, this figure was in line with expectations of economists, so all of the glad handing may be a bit premature.

Inventory liquidation slowed more than experts expected, which contributed the most

percentage points to the GDP since the fourth quarter of 1987.

Business spending increased 6.9%, which was far better than the earlier estimate of 2.9%. It added 0.62 percentage point to the GDP. Continue reading Fourth Quarter GDP Revised Higher Fourth Quarter GDP Revised Higher originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stroke study finds neck stents safe, effective (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:04:42 AM

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Brenda buzzed up: Huge Eastern storm darkens homes,

disrupts travel (AP) 21 seconds ago 2010-0226T07:29:47-08:00 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Italian billionaire surrenders to police Before the Bell: Futures Mixed Ahead of Data, After AIG (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:02:05 AM

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By Nick Squires in Rome Published: 3:02PM GMT 26 Feb 2010 Silvio Scaglia, the founder of the internet services provider Fastweb, was led away by police when his private jet touched down at Rome's Ciampino airport after flying in from the Caribbean.

One of Italy's richest businessmen, he is among 56 people who are under investigation for the alleged laundering of more than two billion euros (£1.8 billion) through the fake invoicing of non-existent telephone and internet services between 2003 and 2006.

Italians are wearily familiar with companies being caught up in corruption allegations but the scope of this scandal, and the fact that it reportedly involves the Calabrian mafia, has shocked many in the business world.

It has also ensnared at least one politician – an arrest warrant has been issued for Nicola di Girolamo, a senator in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition.

Mr Scaglia, 51, founded Fastweb in 1999 but sold it to the telecommunications giant Swisscom in 2007.

He has denied any wrongdoing and is due to be questioned by investigators today.

He said he was "totally confident" about the legitimacy of his conduct.

Fastweb is alleged to have evaded nearly 40 million euros (£35 million) in VAT but has claimed that it was the victim of fraudulent behaviour carried out by "third parties".

Police said they had seized a "treasure trove" of thousands of paintings and sculptures which had been bought with the proceeds from the alleged racket.

Sparkle, a subsidiary of Telecom Italia, is also being investigated for its alleged role in the scandal.

The arrests prompted Telecom Italia to announce on Thursday that it was postponing the release of its 2009 financial results in order to accurately evaluate Sparkle's earnings.

It is not just corporations under the spotlight. Italy's tax agency and fraud squad announced that they are investigating more than 2,000 Italians suspecting of trying to evade two billion euros in tax by hiding their savings in foreign tax havens.

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Melly Alazraki (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/26/2010 8:30:00 AM

Filed under: Before the Bell, International Markets, Market Matters, Amer Intl Group (AIG), Economic Data, Housing U.S. stock futures were mixed Friday ahead of the second GDP estimate and more housing data, and after American International Group reported a multi-billiondollar loss. Remaining in focus are sovereign debt problems across European nations.

At 8:30 a.m., the second GDP estimates for the fourth quarter of last year is due. Economists expect the economy grew at a fast 5.7% pace, according to Briefing.com. While manufacturing has likely accounted roughly two-thirds of the growth, the reason isn't

strong consumer demand, but low stockpiles that needed replenishing.

Continue reading Before the Bell: Futures Mixed Ahead of Data, After AIG Before the Bell: Futures Mixed Ahead of Data, After AIG originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Revlon Reports Earnings Growth, but Misses Estimates Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks)

strategy. But the rise in its shares over the last year has put the business on many trading radars.

Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:00:00 AM Looking at the fourth quarter Filed under: Earnings Reports, report, I myself have to wonder Revlon (REV), Avon Products if the story is now worth more (AVP) investigation.

R e v l o n ( R E V ) i s n o t a Sales decreased just under 2% company I typically think of o n c e c u r r e n c y e f f e c t s a r e whole increased 9% to 24 cents when planning an investment stripped out. Net income as a per share. Profit from continuing

operations did a little better, jumping over 13% to 25 cents per share. This wasn't enough to satisfy the analysts. They were projecting 35 cents per share.

Continue reading Revlon Reports Earnings Growth, but Misses Estimates Revlon Reports Earnings Growth, but Misses Estimates

originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Russian prosecutor accuses Britain of Not guilty pleas in US harbouring fugitives bomb plot (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

called Londongrad."

"It is not petty thieves who hide out there but figures with significant funds. It seems that London, as a major financial Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:56:35 AM Message from fivefilters.org: If centre, is turning into a giant you can, please donate to the full launderette for laundering -text RSS service so we can criminally-sourced funds." continue developing it.

Mr Zvygintsev went on to

By Andrew Osborn in Moscow accuse Britain of flouting the Published: 2:56PM GMT 26 United Nations Convention Feb 2010 Relating to the Status of Recalling that one of London's Refugees, saying the UK often nicknames is "Londongrad" due granted asylum status to fugitive to its large number of Russian Russian nationals on fabricated residents, Alexander Zvygintsev, grounds and then refused to Russia's deputy prosecutor extradite them "for political general, claimed that the UK and reasons".

Israel harbour more Russian He complained that wealthy c r i m i n a l s t h a n a n y o t h e r Russian fugitives were skilled at countries. Over 66,000 Russian taking advantage of liberal laws nationals are currently on the run such as those in the UK to win abroad, he added. asylum on bogus political "The greatest number of such grounds in order "to protect fugitives is hiding out in Israel themselves from being handed and Britain," he told state over to face Russian justice. newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta. "A huge number of specifically "It is no coincidence that the these kinds of 'jailbirds' have capital of the latter is often sought sanctuary in Britain," he

lamented.

Although he did not name him, billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky was likely to have been in his thoughts. British courts have long refused to extradite Mr Berezovsky who has been convicted in Russia (in absentia) for massive embezzlement. Mr Berezovsky, who has political asylum in the UK and is a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, has successfully argued that the charges are trumped up and said he could not get real justice in Russia.

Other prominent London-based Russian fugitives include Chechen separatist Akhmed Zakayev and businessman Yevgeny Chichvarkin, the founder of Russia's largest phone retailer.

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Submitted at 2/26/2010 5:58:36 AM

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Submitted at 2/25/2010 11:35:05 AM

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Two men have pleaded not guilty in a New York court to taking part in an alleged plot to set off home-made bombs on the city's subway system.

The men, Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, were classmates of Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi, who pleaded guilty three days ago.

Mr Zazi had said that he and the others had been recruited by alQaeda during a trip to Pakistan in 2008.

US officials called the plot one of the most serious threats since 9/11.

Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, both 25, are US citizens from Queens in New York who reportedly attended high school with Mr Zazi.

They are accused of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, and providing material continue developing it.

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21 seconds ago 2010-0226T07:29:47-08:00

3 found dead after fire at duplex in Milwaukee (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

(BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Plea deal US prosecutors said the men were planning an attack on city subway lines last September under the direction of al-Qaeda that would have been similar to the 2005 attacks on public transit in London that killed more than 50 people.

"The facts alleged in this indictment shed further light on the scope of this attempted attack," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. "This attack would have been deadly."

In a separate development, two news organisations have asked a judge to make public a sealed plea agreement between prosecutors and Najibullah Zazi, arguing that the documents may show whether pressure was applied to Mr Zazi, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan reports from New York.

It has been reported that Mr Zazi co-operated with investigators to prevent charges being brought against his relatives, our correspondent adds.

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Facebook Patents News Feed, Social Net Confusion Ensues Kit Eaton (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/26/2010 8:38:51 AM

You know that stream of friendship dates, comments, photos, and whatnot that constitutes your Facebook"news" feed?

Facebook's apparently been granted a patent on the idea. But isn't it something that's been done before?

The patent application dates back to 2006, just before Facebook revealed its news feed/service, and it's simply a patent on the the notion of "displaying a news feed in a social network environment."

The introductory text, credited to Mark Zuckerberg runs thus: A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and

dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.

Turning that back into nonPatentese English reveals that Facebook's patent covers a dynamic updating list of various activities that a user's friends are doing on Facebook, including hyperlinks to those activities.

The list is ranked with an algorithm, and is subject to user controls and preset limitations.

In other words, it's the part of your news feed that includes data like "Bert has just befriended Ernie" or "Sarah has just uploaded a photo."

This text has immediately sparked a firey online debate

because the idea of a news feed of friend's activities in a social network isn't Facebook's--other examples have definitely existed before. Yet the patent's real gem is that dynamic algorithm, so there's a question around whether Facebook genuinely invented this way of filtering a news feed. The matter is further complicated by the fact that Facebook has re-jigged and reinvented how its own news feed system works several times since 2006.

But the really thorny issue is whether or not the user "activities" mentioned in the patent text includes status

updates. Because these small life -casting bursts of text are the lifeblood of a thousand other social network-alike systems of all sorts, spread around the Net and around the globe. Would it apply to Twitter? After all, the simplest of Tweets doesn't contain an interactive link, and the feed just rolls linearly in time. But what about Tweets with hyperlinks in? Is Google's new Buzz, with its news feed full of data-rich links and content, all dosed with a hefty chunk of Google's algorithmic skills, the service most at threat from the patent? And, more scarily, will Facebook be

pursuing these competitors for license fees? Would you, as a netizen, feel comfortable with the idea the Facebook (with its history of carefree disregard for user privacy) "owning" the IP on status updates?

With the web of complex questions this patent raises it is clear that the only true winners (in any case where Facebook tries to enforce the patent) will be the lawyers.

[Via AllFacebook, ReadWriteWeb]

14

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Study: Smartphones Highly Vulnerable to Hacks Courtney Rubin (Inc.com) Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:53:00 AM

Warning: Your smartphone may be even smarter than you think.

The device may be revealing where you are, where you're headed – and recording every word spoken at your meetings.

A team of researchers at Rutgers University this week revealed that smartphones such as the Blackberry or iPhone potentially are vulnerable to hijacking by software viruses that can turn them into eavesdropping or tracking devices – or allow remote control activation of batterydraining applications.

For the study, the team infected a phone with a type of malware called "rootkit," which attack a computer's operating system.

The program allowed them to send standard text-message commands to the phone, activating functions such as calling another phone to listen in on meetings.

Currently, rootkits only can be detected by a specialized tool

Facebook to developers: Get ready for Credits Caroline McCarthy (Webware.com)

known as a virtual machine monitor, which requires more processing and battery power than the phones currently can support.

Rootkits themselves are nothing new – they've been around infiltrating various kinds of computers for at least 20 years.

But today's smartphones are really just mobile computers, some of which run on the same kinds of operating systems as desktops and laptops – and so they are vulnerable to attack.

"The point of this work is not to demonstrate a new kind of rootkit but to show the greater damage they can cause on smart phones," said Liviu Iftode, a Rutgers computer science professor who worked on the study. (To watch a video about the research, click here.)

Just how vulnerable the phones are is hotly debated – especially because the study authors found

no security flaws in any current phone operating systems; they only showed what sort of damage malicious code could do if one wormed its way onto your phone. Some analysts say features such as Bluetooth receivers and text messages make it easy to deliver rootkits to phones. A 2006 University of Toronto study found that wireless worms were easy to spread once a vulnerability is found. "An attacker can bring an infected device into a typical urban mall and discover many potential victims," the researchers wrote.

Others say that the lack of a dominant mobile platform – especially in the U.S. – means the risk of attack isn't immediate. And Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos, blogged that malware is tough to sneak onto a phone – digital thieves

would either need physical access, a security vulnerability, or a way to trick you into installing it.

Despite last year's iPhone worm designed to steal information from users of online banking services – and a 2009 security firm study revealing that less than a quarter of smart phone users bother with security software – Cluley said he's not losing sleep over the threat of mobile menace.

"If I was [sic] responsible for securing my company's mobile phones I would be much more worried about the real security threat of staff losing their phones in taxis or on the train, rather than the theoretical risk of surveillance rootkits," he wrote.

Said Iftode in a statement: "What we're doing today is raising a warning flag. The next step is to work on defenses."

Submitted at 2/25/2010 5:26:00 PM

With the full launch of Facebook's virtual currency growing closer, the company has spelled out some of the terms that were heretofore only rumored.

Originally posted at The Social

Scott Brown on Managing Your Digital Remains Scott Brown (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:00:00 PM

Death is inevitable. But, as Scott Brown points out, with companies like Legacy Locker and Deathswitch.com, your digital self can live forever!

Tech makes Olympic-size jump in Vancouver (CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:00:00 AM

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"Feisty" Steve Jobs Ponders a $40B Shopping Spree at Apple Shareholder Meeting Addy Dugdale (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/26/2010 8:35:32 AM

Described as "feisty," Steve Jobs was on form yesterday at Apple's shareholder meeting--his first back since the recent health issues that forced him to step down temporarily as CEO. One, Infinite Loop, on the Apple Campus, was the venue, and the event kicked-off at 10 a.m. sharp. And the most interesting part of the show was trying to work out just what Apple is going to do with its gigantic cash reserves.

Amongst all the fabulous news-the company's $40 billion war chest, the expansion into China at an incredible warp-speed rate, there was one rather dispiriting piece of news: The shareholders voted against proposals to measure its impact on the

environment--something board member Al Gore won't be too happy about. (The former VPOTUS, will, however, have been chuffed when co-lead director of the Apple Board, Andrea Jung, following a shareholder's proposal for more female directors, suggested Al's wife Tipper. Although, as the

force behind the PMRC, she might have something to say about the company's recent shenanigans in the row over explicit apps.)

Jobs revealed that there are plans afoot to open 25 Apple Stores in China. Despite poor iPhone sales over there, where the cellphone market is

absolutely vast, Apple does not have the same problems that a certain company we could mention has, as it doesn't clash with Chinese regulations. The company's Q1 conference call back in January showed that sales were up 40 per cent in most of Europe, 70% in Australia, and 100% in China.

Let's go back to the $40 billion in cash. (Wouldn't it be great if it was all held in used notes, taped up in battered suitcases under Steve's bed?) Rather than dole some of it out in the form of dividends to investors, Jobs advocated that they use it for "big, bold" risks. This is great medium-term strategy, but in the long term, Apple needs to translate it into something really worth talking about. As well as the dinky new products they've probably got up the sleeves of their black turtlenecks, my money's on turning iTunes into an iMedia store, and developing iWork and iLife into the Cloud.

[Via Apple Insider and Fortune Brainstorm Tech] [Image Via Apple]

Can IT guy deliver bobsled gold?

(CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:00:00 AM

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia--It's been 62 years since the United States claimed a gold medal in bobsled.

And this year, our best hope is piloted a computer geek who trains by playing video games.

So our chances are pretty good.

That's because, in addition to being a Microsoft Certified Professional and admitted PC nerd, Stephen Holcomb is also the reigning world champion in the four-man bobsled.

Plus, he's got this crazy "Holcy

dance" that one just has to see to believe.

Holcomb hopes to dance his way on to the medal podium by the time competition wraps up on Saturday. The first two runs are scheduled for Friday afternoon, with the final two slated for Saturday.

Standing in Holcomb's way is one of the most decorated

bobsledders of all time German Andre Lange. Lange, who won the two-man event earlier this week, is looking to become the first bobsled pilot to twice accomplish the feat of winning the two-man and four-man races at the same Olympics.

Holcomb told reporters on Wednesday that he likes competing against Lange.

"I like racing against him," Holcomb told reporters. "It's a good rivalry. Competition breeds excellence."

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US health summit ends in deadlock (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

required to thwart Republican obstruction tactics.

Partisan battle Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:18:51 PM The contentious debate was Message from fivefilters.org: If plagued by partisanship: even you can, please donate to the full the shape of the table for the -text RSS service so we can debate at Blair House, opposite continue developing it. the White House, was the Please turn on JavaScript. subject of dispute.

Media requires JavaScript to President Obama, Viceplay.

President Joe Biden and other President Obama talks about his leading Democrats sparred with family's healthcare senior Republicans, including A day-long televised healthcare Mr McConnell and Arizona summit in Washington hosted by Senator John McCain.

President Barack Obama has Mr Obama opened the debate ended without a deal to break the by emphasising that everyone deadlock between parties. present understood the Mr Obama outlined his reform importance of the healthcare plan but Republicans said it was issue, adding that there were not acceptable and called for a significant points of potential fresh start. agreement between the two continue its campaign for lower premiums. result.

The president and his allies healthcare reform.

Republicans say that the The two sides clashed, mostly parties on healthcare reform. want to expand health coverage "Those people who are struck country cannot afford President politely but sometimes angrily, "We all know this is urgent and to include millions of uninsured will illness or pre-existing Obama's plans and they want over a host of technical and unfortunately, despite all the Americans. negotiations that have taken [health] conditions... want us to him to start again from scratch. philosophical differences.

Republican Senate minority act, they want results," she said. The stage is now set for a The White House has signalled p l a c e , i t b e c a m e a v e r y leader Mitch McConnell said he "We need to have the courage to s h o w d o w n i n w h i c h t h e it may end up driving through a ideological battle; it became a w a s " d i s c o u r a g e d b y t h e get this job done, and we will. I D e m o c r a t s m a y u s e a bill using a procedure called very partisan battle where o u t c o m e " o f t h e s u m m i t . think today took us a step closer controversial parliamentary budget reconciliation, which politics ended up trumping He said it was "pretty clear" that to improve healthcare, to lower procedure to force their plans only needs a simple majority of common sense," he said.

Democrats and Mr Obama costs and to make it much more through, says the BBC's Paul 51 votes in the Senate.

He added that he wanted to wanted to revive the healthcare a c c e s s i b l e t o m a n y m o r e Adams in Washington.

Mr Obama said Americans avoid the televised session bill passed by the Senate last A m e r i c a n s . " The meeting - which began at w a n t e d a f i n a l v o t e o n becoming merely political December but now stalled in The president had urged 40 1000 (1500 GMT) - debated healthcare. "I think that most theatre, hoping that those Congress.

Republicans and Democrats to controlling costs, insurance Americans think a majority vote involved would work together to "I do not believe there will be avoid political theatre and focus reforms, deficit reduction and makes sense," he said. try to solve the problem. any Republican support for this on areas where they agreed. expanding coverage.

Analysts say that was a hint he "If we keep an open mind and 2,700 page bill," Mr McConnell He wants them to back the latest A long and often riveting day may drive the reform bill are not trying to score political said. points then we may be able to version of his $950bn (ÂŁ621bn) did little to break the deadlock, through Congress.

'Step closer' p l a n t o c o v e r u n i n s u r e d reports our correspondent, and The reform plan is currently make some progress," he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Americans, cut abuses by the h e a l t h c a r e r e f o r m , w h i c h blocked as the Democrats no HEALTH page 20 said the Democratic Party would health insurance industry and everyone wants, is no closer as a longer have the 60-seat majority

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17

'Accidental' Death of Prof's Brother a Copy-Cat Killing?

(FOXNews.com)

the state of mind of Amy Bishop at the time."

Keating declined to be specific Message from fivefilters.org: If about the incident in the paper. you can, please donate to the full B o s t o n n e w s p a p e r s w e r e -text RSS service so we can reporting the incident was about continue developing it. the November 1986 killing of CANTON, Mass. Investigators the parents of actor Patrick h a v e d i s c o v e r e d t h a t a Duffy, who starred in the TV newspaper on triple murder series "Dallas." They were slain suspect Amy Bishop's bedroom with a shotgun during a robbery floor when she killed her brother attempt at a Montana bar they m o r e t h a n 2 0 y e a r s a g o owned. The two teen suspects described an incident strikingly then stole a truck at gunpoint similar to what she did that day, from a car dealership. They were raising questions about her claim arrested after a high speed chase. it was an accident.

On Thursday, Keating ordered Norfolk District Attorney an inquest into the shooting of W i l l i a m K e a t i n g s a i d Bishop's brother, Seth Bishop, investigators found the date of saying there are new questions the newspaper after enlarging a a b o u t w h e t h e r i t w a s t h e police photo of the scene. He accident investigators concluded said the newspaper contained an at the time. article about a shotgun killing in The handling of the case has which the suspect stole a been under scrutiny since Amy getaway car from a dealership. Bishop was accused of killing Bishop, now accused of killing three faculty colleagues and three colleagues at an Alabama wounding three others in a university this month, said she s h o o t i n g F e b . 1 2 a t t h e accidentally killed her teenage U n i v e r s i t y o f A l a b a m a brother with a shotgun at their H u n t s v i l l e . s u b u r b a n B o s t o n h o m e i n Keating said the inquest would December 1986. She then went allow a judge to subpoena to a car dealership body shop Bishop's parents, who refused to and tried to commandeer a car at talk with state troopers who gunpoint, police said. went to their home last week, "We were struck by how parallel saying they had retained an t h e c i r c u m s t a n c e s w e r e , " attorney.

Keating said. "That could go to "Had they cooperated and we Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:43:51 AM

thought their answers were forthright and truthful," Keating said, "this might not have been necessary."

Bishop's mother was the only other witness to the killing. An attorney for the Bishops, Bryan Stevens, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.

Judge Mark Coven, presiding judge in Quincy District Court, will conduct the closed-door inquest and report his findings to Keating, who would then decide whether to pursue an indictment.

The only possible charge that could be filed is murder because the statute of limitations on all other counts, including manslaughter, has expired.

The fact that the only other eyewitness says the shooting was an accident is "a huge burden to overcome," Keating said.

Police reports released by Keating last week said Amy Bishop told police she accidentally fired the shotgun in her bedroom, then went downstairs to ask her brother for help unloading the gun, which her father bought after a breakin.

She said after the gun accidentally went off again, hitting her brother, she fled, believing she dropped it, the

Feb. 26, 1870: New York City Blows Subway Opportunity Keith Barry (Wired Top Stories)

A pneumatic subway opens in Lower Manhattan. And you

thought your transit service sucks?

reports said. She was arrested with the shotgun at gunpoint.

She said she did not remember anything from when she fired the gun the second time until she was at a police station later.

Bishop was released after her mother went to the police station, and police didn't question Bishop or her family for 11 days, among the serious errors Keating said were committed in the 1986 investigation.

Keating said his investigation indicates Bishop was calm and cooperative after she was arrested, contrary to police assertions at the time that she was too hysterical to be questioned.

"The more information we got, the more we looked at reports, the more questions we had," Keating said.

The inquest won't focus on how the investigation was handled, but some of what the judge finds could be used by state police, who are reviewing the original investigation, Keating said.

Seth Bishop's death is among several incidents involving Amy Bishop, a Harvard Universityeducated neurobiologist, that are being re-examined, including when she and her husband were questioned but never charged in the 1993 attempted mail

bombing of a medical researcher who gave her a bad job review.

The U.S. attorney in Boston is reviewing its actions in that case.

Bishop also was charged with assault and disorderly conduct after a fight over a child booster seat in a restaurant in 2002. The charges were dismissed after six months' probation.

Bishop 45, is charged with capital murder and attempted murder in the Alabama shooting.

Colleagues say she had complained for months about being denied the job protections of tenure.

In Bishop's only public comments since the Alabama shootings, she said they "didn't happen."

A police spokesman in Huntsville, Ala., said it was unclear whether information gathered in a Massachusetts inquest could be used in the capital murder case against Bishop in Alabama.

"It's too bad they didn't do a good investigation up there the first time," Sgt. Mark Roberts said. "If they had in 1986, we might not be where we are today in 2010."

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New England bears brunt of massive winter storm (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:58:03 AM

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HAMPTON, N.H. – An unceasing winter storm unleashed multiple dangers across the Northeast on Friday, blasting the coast with hurricane -force winds that fanned a New Hampshire hotel fire, flooding parts of Maine, dropping 2 feet of snow on parts of New York, and cutting power to at least 700,000 homes and businesses.

Power failures were so bad in New Hampshire that even the state Emergency Operations Center was operating on a generator.

The highest wind reported was 91 mph in Portsmouth, N.H. — well above hurricane force of 74 mph. Gusts hit 60 mph or more from New York's Long Island to Massachusetts.

In the coastal town of Hampton, the unoccupied Surf Hotel caught fire, and the howling winds quickly spread the blaze to the rest of the block. Five wood-frame buildings, including an arcade and a restaurant, burned. The cause was unknown.

To the north in Maine, waves

crashing ashore at high tide Friday morning turned beachfront streets into rivers in Saco, where storms have claimed several homes over the years.

"Felt like the walls were coming in on the house, and the windows were rattling, and the trees were cracking. It was pretty impressive," said Mark Breton, who rode out the storm in his house a few blocks from the beach.

Public Service of New Hampshire, the state's largest utility, reported that power was cut to at least 237,000 homes and businesses in the state of 1.3 million and said it would take days before everyone's lights flickered back on.

There were more than 220,000 customers without power in New York, mostly in the Hudson Valley north of New York City. There were 130,000 in Maine, 85,000 in Massachusetts, 25,000 in Vermont, and 11,000 in New Jersey.

The weather also snarled traffic.

A tractor-trailer jackknifed and 16 commercial vehicles piled up on a mile of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, forcing closure of a 60 -mile stretch in the hills of central Pennsylvania. Two injuries were reported.

Heavy snow also closed 30 miles of Interstate 84 in New York state, and state Police Sgt. Stephen Meehan called travel conditions throughout the midHudson Valley "an absolute disaster." Tuxedo, N.Y., reported 26 inches of snow, with more coming down.

In New York City, 17 inches of snow had fallen before dawn and more was expected. A man was killed by a falling snow-laden tree branch in Central Park, one of at least three deaths being blamed on the storm.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who had said Thursday that the nation's largest public school district would stay open, changed his mind. It's the second snow day of the month there, but only the fourth in six years.

Eric Warner of Brooklyn had to brave it. He drove a truckload of milk, eggs and cheese from Teaneck, N.J., into Manhattan.

The roads were terrible, he said, and even carrying the crates was hard.

"When the snow hits you, it feels like little needles," he said.

The weather forced school closings as far west as Cleveland. In Philadelphia, it could be nearly impossible to get in the state-required 180 days of school before June 15 because of a string of snow days.

Most flights were canceled for the day at the three New Yorkarea airports, and only one runway was open at Philadelphia International Airport, where delays were heavy.

New Jersey Transit canceled all buses in the northern half of the state, including those that take workers to New York.

Government offices in New Jersey were opening two hours late.

One day after parts of northeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Maine dealt with upward of 20 inches of snow and areas of northern New England weathered heavy rains that pushed some rivers toward flood levels, more of the same was forecast throughout Friday.

Much of the region, particularly Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, only recently finished cleaning up from a pair of storms a few weeks ago.

Even before snow began falling Thursday, Philadelphia and Atlantic City had experienced their snowiest winters on record.

This time, those areas had only light snow by Friday morning, but more was expected to fall through the day.

Across upstate New York and New England, it had been an unusually forgiving winter until

this week.

For parts of the region, including western Vermont, snow remains in the forecast through Monday.

In Newark, N.J., Rosa Cabrera waited 20 minutes for a bus that never came, then took off on foot to her job at a factory.

Cabrera said her usual 10-minute bus ride was at least a half-hour walk, on a clear day.

"We thought we were used to the winters here," the Ecuador native said in Spanish, "but this is just too much." ___ Mulvihill reported from Philadelphia. Also contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Chris Carola in Albany, N.Y.; Clarke Canfield in Saco; Shawn Marsh in Trenton, N.J.; Samantha Henry in Newark, N.J.; Randy Pennell in Philadelphia; Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vt.; Michael Rubinkam in Allentown, Pa.; and Kiley Armstrong and Ula Ilnytzky in New York City.

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Police: Mistakenly released inmate caught in W.Va. (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

was convicted in 2005 of three counts of attempted murder.

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BALTIMORE(AP) — BALTIMORE – Authorities say Authorities in Maryland were an inmate serving three life searching Friday for an inmate terms who conned his way out serving three life terms who of a Baltimore prison has been walked out of a Baltimore prison captured in West Virginia. after impersonating his cell Baltimore police spokesman mate.

Anthony Guglielmi (goo-lee- Law enforcement agencies are EHL'-mee) says 26-year-old leading the hunt for Raymond Raymond Taylor was taken into Taylor, 26, of New York, custody at the home of a friend a c c o r d i n g t o D i v i s i o n o f in Martinsburg. Corrections Correction spokesman Mark officials also confirm that Taylor Vernarelli. Taylor, who was has been captured and is in the serving three life sentences for custody of West Virginia state a t t e m p t e d m u r d e r , w a s police. mistakenly released from the Taylor was mistakenly released M a r y l a n d C o r r e c t i o n a l Thursday afternoon from the Adjustment Center on Thursday M a r y l a n d C o r r e c t i o n a l afternoon.

Adjustment Center. Authorities Maryland Commissioner of say he posed as a cellmate who Correction J. Michael Stouffer was scheduled to be released. said the investigation into how They say he provided the other Taylor was mistakenly released inmate's ID number to three is in its preliminary stages. But different prison workers. he said that at 11 a.m., Taylor Taylor is from New York and was placed in a cell with an Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:19:53 AM

inmate who was scheduled to be released.

"That is not how our process goes. That was a mistake," Stouffer said.

Prison officials said Taylor was convicted of 3 counts of attempted murder in 2005, but declined to release further details of the case.

The prison is a former "Supermax" facility that's now used to house inmates who are awaiting court appearances or moving from one prison to another. It houses 540 inmates; 214 are federal prisoners.

Stouffer said that on Thursday morning, a transportation detail arrived at MCAC from western Maryland with Taylor, who was due in court on a matter not related to his convictions. He was placed in the cell with the other inmate.

At 1:45 p.m., Stouffer said, a line officer called the name of the other inmate. Taylor went to the front of the cell, Stouffer said, and handed the officer the other inmate's ID card.

"He presented himself as the

other inmate," Stouffer said. "He was asked for the ID number, and he (said) it."

Twice more, Taylor was asked to identify himself by different prison workers, Stouffer said.

Each time, Taylor recited the other inmate's ID number.

Taylor was released.

Stouffer said the mistake was discovered about 3:45 p.m. when the other inmate began kicking on the cell door, demanding to be released.

"We will help to do whatever we can to get this guy back in custody," Stouffer said. Taylor is a black male, six feet, one inch tall and weighing 175 pounds.

He has brown eyes and black hair. ___ Associated Press Writer Ben Nuckols contributed to this story.

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Video: A Warming World - Piecing Together The Temperature Puzzle (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:58:10 PM

Here’s a video from NASA’s

Goddard Institute for Space Studies with stunning satellite imagery, illustrating the basic principles of global warming. If

you already know the basics, pretty pictures. The 720p HD y o u w o n ’ t g e t a n y n e w version is beautiful.[Video] information from this — but it’s (Hat tip: Thanos.) worth watching anyway for the

19

Facebook eats up patents for the 'feed' Caroline McCarthy (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:46:00 PM

Some prominent figures in the social-media world are already concerned that Facebook now may have the rights to a concept that should belong to the Web at large.

Originally posted at The Social

Live Video: Health Care Summit (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/25/2010 11:01:32 AM

Here’s a live White House video stream from the festivities in Blair House, as Democrats and Republicans wrangle over health care reform legislation in a veritable blizzard of talking points.

White House Video

20

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HEALTH continued from page 16

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander responded by saying that in order for Mr Obama to succeed on healthcare, he should scrap the health care bill that Senate Democrats passed in December, and start afresh with a clean sheet of paper.

"If we can start over, we can write a healthcare bill," he said.

"It means working together... reducing healthcare costs... and going step-by-step to regain the trust of the American people."

Republican Senator Jon Kyl went on to argue that Democratic efforts to overhaul the current system would give Washington too much control over healthcare.

"There are some fundamental differences between us here that we cannot paper over," said Mr Kyl. "We do not agree about the fundamental question about who should be mostly in charge.

Cost of reforms?

The BBC's Mark Mardell in Washington says that while the president chaired the meeting firmly, trying to drag the

Republicans into a concrete debate on detailed issues, there was almost no chance of the Republicans agreeing to anything that was on the table.

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John McCain accuses President Obama of "unsavoury dealmaking" The House of Representatives and the Senate passed separate healthcare bills at the end of last year.

But efforts to merge them and sign a bill into law collapsed last month when Republicans won a special election in Massachusetts.

The victory deprived Democrats of their crucial filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority.

Republicans used Thursday's talks to highlight the cost of the Democrats' reforms, while outlining their own more scaledback approach.

Democrats are expected to seek to portray the Republicans' plans as inadequate.

What Is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory Erin Biba (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:41:00 AM

Time is a slippery concept, and scientists have not figured out how to explain it satisfactorily.

But physicist Sean Carroll is on

the hunt for a theory of time, and he thinks he'll find it in the multiverse. Carroll talks about his ideas in this Q&A with Wired.com.

'Photo op' The president has invested much political capital in his plans to make nearly all Americans take out health insurance and to stop abuses by insurance firms.

But the issue has become a rallying standard for conservatives, who say Mr Obama is bent on introducing European-style big government.

It has also worried a recessionmauled American public, which is not clear about how much reforms would cost them.

The US is the world's richest nation and the only industrialised democracy that does not provide healthcare coverage to all its citizens.

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isoHunt Tries To Setup A Site That Doesn't Induce Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

every file sharing system/search engine that's gone to court in the US has failed that test miserably One result of the Supreme by regularly pitching its product Court's ruling in the Grokster for the purpose of infringing on case, five years ago, was copyright law. In a recent formalization of the concept of ruling, concerning the torrent "inducement" of copyright search engine IsoHunt, we noted infringement as being against the that the judge found inducement law itself -- despite the lack of in a variety of places in how the any such concept in the statute, site was operated and (more and a failure (despite repeated importantly) in comments made attempts) by Congress to put an by the site's owner, Gary Fung. inducement standard directly Now, in response, Fung appears into the law (suggesting, pretty to be interested in trying to see if clearly, that Congress did not he can thread that needle and i n t e n d f o r t h e i r t o b e a n setup a site that still has the i n d u c e m e n t s t a n d a r d i n search engine, but avoids any of copyright law). Now, the the things that were flagged for entertainment industry has inducing infringement. The key stretched the Grokster ruling for one is the question of whether or years, pretending that the not the company/site/owner Supreme Court actually said promotes the infringing nature of simply that any file sharing its site -- which is one par of the program/site was violating t h r e e - p r o n g e d t e s t f o r copyright law. But that's not inducement. Fung has proposed true at all. What's unclear, to the court that if he sets up however, is what constitutes such a site, which he calls inducement and what doesn't. isoHunt Lite, there shouldn't be Given various court rulings on an injunction shutting down the the subject, it seems like you site. could set up a perfectly legal file It's an interesting legal question, trading system/search engine but somehow I doubt the judge that doesn't run afoul of the law is likely to agree. by making sure that it wasn't Permalink| Comments| Email designed to induce infringement This Story at all.

Unfortunately, pretty much Submitted at 2/26/2010 5:04:36 AM

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21

SeaWorld killer whale 'can stay' (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:03:40 PM

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Dawn Brancheau's sister Diane Gross said SeaWorld ''was her dream'' The killer whale that attacked and drowned its trainer will remain at the Florida marine park where the incident happened, officials said.

SeaWorld said its staff would continue to interact with the whale, named Tilikum, despite calls to release or destroy it.

Trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40, died after the orca grabbed her from a poolside platform and dragged her underwater.

The Orlando park added that it would be reviewing its safety procedures.

It said that in the meantime it was suspending all orca shows.

"We're going to make any changes we have to, to make sure this doesn't happen again," said Chuck Tompkins, chief of animal training at SeaWorld parks.

He said Tilikum would not

Drudge Report Links to John Birch Society (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:30:44 PM

Currently one of the top stories at Drudge Report: an anti-John McCain, anti-FDA article at the John Birch Society website.

Here’s Google’s cache of the JBS article.

survive in the wild because it has been captive for so long.

He added that destroying the whale was not an option because it was an important part of the breeding program at SeaWorld and a companion to seven other whales there.

Horrified onlookers Tilikum - who weighs five tonnes - was also reportedly involved in the death of a female trainer in Canada in 1991.

Other orcas were also said to have attacked trainers at SeaWorld parks in 2006 and 2004.

The attack happened on Wednesday in front of horrified onlookers at the end of a show.

Witness Sue Nichols, 67, said Ms Brancheau was petting the whale and talking to him.

"Then all of a sudden he just reached up. He got her in the water, and he took her underwater, and he had her under for quite a while," she said.

"He came up out of the water, and he had her in his mouth."

She said an alarm sounded and park employees scattered around the pool with a net as audience

members were rushed away.

On Thursday, Ms Brancheau's sister, Diane Gross, said her family was in shock.

She said her sister had loved the whales as though they were her children.

"She loved all of them," Ms Gross said, according to the Associated Press.

"They all had personalities, good days and bad days."

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Jimmy Kimmel Wages Bet on 'Bachelor' Winner (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/26/2010 3:40:00 AM

Jimmy Kimmel is feeling lucky that he knows which lucky lady has won over the heart of "The Bachelor"'s Jake Pavelka. He tells Ellen DeGeneres whether it is Vienna or Tenley that will be headed down the aisle.

With Vienna's photograph behind them, Jimmy said, "If he thinks that's a good decision, I don't want him flying my plane.

That's not Sully Sullenbergertype decision making."

That must mean he is on Team Tenley, but he threw in, "I think Ali's the pick."

22

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Wanted Man Walks Into Fla. Jail to Bail Out Girlfriend (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:54:20 AM

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A man wanted by police walked into the Orange County, Fla., Jail on Thursday, not to turn himself in, but to bail someone else out. That resulted in some serious commotion on John Y o u n g P a r k w a y , MyFoxOrlando.com reported.

"Everybody was pretty much going crazy! You see a lot of cops around this location. I'm like something is going on," Juan Amayo, who manages the gas station and convenience store across the street. That was around 10:30 a.m. ET. The front parking lot of his store was surrounded by several police cars with flashing lights.

Then an officer ran in Amayo's store. "They asked me if someone ran inside the store,"

said Amayo.

Orange County Sheriff's deputies and Orlando Police officers were looking for 24-year -old Demorris Hogg.

Investigators say Hogg had gone to the Orange County Jail to bail his girlfriend out, 19-year-old Cheyanne Sadler.

After Hogg posted the bond, deputies said he was sitting in the lobby and he was recognized as a wanted man. Hogg is wanted in Volusia county on outstanding warrants, and he is the Daytona Beach Police Department's "most wanted man" of the week.

When deputies confronted Hogg, they said he ran right out the front door of the jail lobby and across six lanes of traffic on John Young Parkway just south of Interstate 4, right towards Amayo's store.

"They even shut a corner of the road down," said Amayo.

According to the arrest report, when officers got a hold of

Hogg, they said he tried to charge one of them, then kickedout the windows in a patrol car.

The officer noted in the report that he had to pepper spray Hogg.

Within an hour of Hogg's arrest, his girlfriend bonded out of jail.

We caught up with the girlfriend, Cheyenne Saddler, as she was leaving the jail. When asked how she felt about her boyfriend's arrest, she replied, "I ain't got time to tell you the real story and what those [expletives] did in Volusia county."

Hogg is charged with resisting arrest. He's facing drug and aggravated assault charges in Volusia County.

Click here for more from MyFoxOrlando.com.

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iTunes sells 10 Billionth Song [Isales] Ravi Somaiya (Gawker)

revolutionary, but heading towards ubiquity? The 10 billionth purchase came when It came, it saw, it killed the CD. "71-year-old Louie Sulcer of P r o o f i t ' s n o l o n g e r Woodstock, Ga., bought "Guess Submitted at 2/26/2010 8:40:29 AM

Things Happen That Way" by Johnny Cash." [ ABC]

Chinese scientists recalibrate Google's evil scale (CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/26/2010 5:38:56 AM

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Evidently, Baidu isn't nearly as effective an academic research tool as Google, because the latter's threatened withdrawal from China has got the country's scientists pretty worried.

A survey of 784 Chinese scientists by the journal Nature(PDF), found that many feel the search engine is indispensable to their work, particularly if it requires English -language searches for material outside China.

Of those surveyed, 80 percent said they regularly use Google to find academic papers and nearly 60 percent said they use it to keep abreast of new research.

Why Google and not Baidu, which is used as a primary search engine by only 17 percent of respondents? Because Google casts a wider net, indexing information that its Chinese rival does not.

"Research without Google would be like life without electricity," ecologist Xiong Zhenqin told Nature.

An interesting perspective on Google's China debacle, eh?

Certainly, it lends credence to the company's claims back in 2006 that offering a censored version of services in the country was better--and more importantly--"less evil" than not offering them at all. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt said at the time, "We concluded that although we weren't wild about the restrictions, it was even worse to not try to serve those users at all. We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil."

But the question of to serve/not to serve is more binary in these days of highly sophisticated and targeted attacks on the corporate infrastructures of American companies. And that's too bad, particularly for Chinese scholars whose work may end up as collateral damage in Google's battle with China.

Story Copyright (c) 2010 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.

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Brazil baby dies 'as doctors row' (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

been sacked, the Agencia Estado news agency reported, and an investigation is being carried out Submitted at 2/25/2010 5:54:27 PM by police and medical Message from fivefilters.org: If a u t h o r i t i e s . you can, please donate to the full The pregnant woman, Gislaine -text RSS service so we can de Matos Rodrigues, was said to continue developing it. have asked the doctor who had A baby girl died following an been responsible for her prealleged fight between doctors in natal care to look after her a Brazilian hospital delivery during the birth. room, reports say, prompting an But just after medication was investigation. given to induce the birth, another The doctors were removed by doctor arrived and was reported security staff after clashing over to have insisted that as he was who should be responsible for on duty he should be responsible the delivery in the city of for the procedure.

Ivinhema, local media reported. 'Screaming' Another doctor was eventually Reports say the two men at first able to help the 32-year-old started to argue, and then to woman but her baby was born fight. dead, the reports said.

"It was a big fight. They ended An official said it was not clear up rolling around on the floor if the fight played a role in the and my wife was screaming for death. them to stop," said the woman's The incident took place in h u s b a n d , G i l b e r t o M e l o Ivinhema in Mato Grosso do Sul Cabreira, quoted by the Folha de state.

Sao Paulo newspaper.

The two doctors have since He said security staff had to be

called to remove the doctors.

One of the doctors confirmed to Globo TV that there was a fight in the delivery room, but blamed his colleague.

"I didn't get in a fight with him, he got into a fight with me," said Dr Sinomar Ricardo.

The station said it was unable to interview the second doctor.

According to Brazilian media, another member of staff was eventually able to help in an emergency caesarean section 90 minutes later, but the baby girl was born dead.

A death certificate is said to attribute the cause to a lack of oxygen, but a full post-mortem examination has yet to be completed.

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Rumor: Steam coming to the Mac? Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

portion of them over to the Mac would be terrific. CrossOver Games has been working with Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:00:00 AM Steam in the past, and they Filed under: Gaming, Software already have most of Steam's Telltale Games recently held a biggest games up and running on Mac revolution, and that was a the Mac platform through nice piece of news for Mac e m u l a t i o n . I f t h e r e ' s a gamers, but this would be a partnership between the two "game-changer": Valve may be companies, or if Steam is considering bringing their Steam planning to take advantage of platform over to the Mac. They the demand for their games released the beta version of the running on OS X, that would be new UI for their digital game great. delivery system, and a few users We'll keep our eyes open. Ever found some "OSX" icons hidden since Apple switched over to in the game files.

Intel, there's been more potential Unfortunately, that makes this than ever for Mac gaming, and just a rumor (it's certainly Steam on the platform would be possible the icons were simply amazing.

Ariel Helwani (FanHouse features Canada vs. Slovakia.

Main) FanHouse's Ariel Helwani, included in some stray bit of TUAW Rumor: Steam coming Kevin Blackistone and Jay code, as they appear to be simple to the Mac? originally appeared Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:30:00 PM Mariotti preview the semifinals window controls, not actual on The Unofficial Apple Weblog Filed under: USA, FanHouse and look at what each team game code), but if there's (TUAW) on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 Exclusive, Ice Hockey, Olympic needs to do to advance to anything to this at all, it would 09:00:00 EST. Please see our Video, Canada, Finland, Sunday's gold medal game. be huge for us Mac gamers: terms for use of feeds.

Slovakia VANCOUVER, British action kicks off Friday afternoon Check out the video below. Steam comprises a gigantic Read| Permalink| Email this| library of present and classic PC Comments Columbia -- The final four in when Finland meets the USA. games, and bringing even a men's hockey is set, and the The second half of the bracket

Men's Hockey Semifinals Preview

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Mac 101: Navigating OS X with your keyboard Michael Jones (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

the other keys that are available depend on the keyboard you have and what kind of computer Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:00:00 AM it is plugged in to. But just like Filed under: OS, Leopard, Mac the shift key, you use them by 101, Snow Leopard Let's face it: holding down the modifier key, unless you're just casually pressing another key, then surfing the Internet or playing a letting go of both keys. game, chances are pretty good On a Mac, the most commonly that your hands are on the u s e d m o d i f i e r k e y i s t h e keyboard most of the time when Command key, which is just to you're at the computer. Sure, the the left of the space bar, and can mouse is only a few inches be identified by a clover-like away, but wouldn't it just be icon on the key. The most easier if you didn't have to keep commonly used shortcuts in OS going back and forth from the X make use of the Command mouse to the keyboard? key. For example, in most Enter the world of keyboard applications, pressing Command shortcuts. A keyboard shortcut is -S will save the document you exactly what the name implies: a have open, while Command-O way of using the keys on your will show the open dialog so you keyboard to quickly perform can open another document. tasks that typically would Less common tasks make use of require multiple steps using a the other modifier keys, such as mouse. Before we dive in to the the Option and Control keys, magic keystrokes, let's take a and some even use more than quick look at how shortcuts one at a time (such as Command work on the Mac. -Shift-S to show the Save As Most keyboards have a number dialog instead of just saving the of special keys in the bottom document). corners that look and work If you're switching from using a differently from the other keys. PC, and you're familiar with These keys are called 'modifier keyboard shortcuts in Windows, keys', because they change (or you will find that many of the modify) the behavior of any common shortcuts are similar, keys that are pressed while the but it might take some time to modifier key is held down. A train your muscle memory to good example of this is the shift find the Command key as it is in key, which causes letters to roughly the same spot as the Alt appear in uppercase as they are key on most PC keyboards. typed. Although the shift key is One last thing that's important commonly found on everything to know about keystrokes is from typewriters to telephones, exactly where they will work, or

without having to guess what the keystroke might be:

their 'scope'. There are a handful of shortcuts built in to OS X that have a global scope, meaning they will work pretty much anywhere, at any time, from any application. Here are some of my favorites: Global OS X Keyboard Shortcuts • Command+Tab- This is handy for switching between applications. Hold down Command and press the Tab key repeatedly to cycle through all of the running applications. You can also use the ` key (while still holding down the Command key) to go through the list of applications in reverse.

• Command+Space Bar- This will pop open the Spotlight search box so you can do a quick search. This can also double as a quick way to open applications without a mouse -- just type in an application, and hit enter when it shows up in the

Spotlight search results.

• Command+H- Hide the current application. I use this to get rid of my e-mail window when I'm finished with it. You can get back to it by using Command+Tab as mentioned above, or clicking the icon in the dock.

• Command+Option+H- Hide all other applications (but the current one). This is really useful if you have a lot of windows open and want to focus on just one of them, or if you just want to reduce screen clutter.

• F8 through F12- These keys toggle Spaces, Expose`, and Dashboard. On newer Macs, you might need to hold down the fn key as well.

• Command+X, Command+C, & Command-V- Cut, copy and paste. I know, they aren't easy to remember by the letters, but somewhere along the line that became the standard.

• Command-N- Open a new file, or sometimes a new window, depending on the application.

• Command-O- Show the open file dialog • Command-S- Save the current document • Command-W- Close the current window or tab • Command-Q- Quit the current application

These are just the tip of the iceberg -- there are dozens of shortcuts covering everything from inverting your screen colors for high-contrast visibility to shutting down your Mac after a long day's work. If you're a power user who wants to do more with your keyboard, stay tuned -- we'll be covering more advanced keystrokes in the near future.

TUAW Mac 101: Navigating OS X with your keyboard originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 Common Application Shortcuts 10:00:00 EST. Please see our Besides the global shortcuts, terms for use of feeds. there are several shortcuts that Read| Permalink| Email this| are standard across most applications, allowing you to MAC page 25 quickly perform common tasks

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New patent hints at iPhone camera gesture control Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 2/26/2010 8:30:00 AM

Filed under: iPhone An interesting patent application came to light via PatentlyApple yesterday. The patent, titled "Camera as Input Interface," was filed by Apple in August 2008 and details a means of controlling an iPhone by swiping a finger across the device's camera lens. The patent proposes using the iPhone's camera, which is typically idle when the user is on a call, to control voicemail options such as rewind, fast forward, and pause while the iPhone is at the user's ear: "In one embodiment, to access his voice mailbox, a user may tap the phone to cause playback of a message to pause, tap the phone again to resume playback, swipe his finger over the camera lens in one direction to fast forward playback, and swipe his finger over the camera lens in another direction to rewind playback. These actions allow the user to control functions of voicemail review without removing the device from over

MAC continued from page 24

Comments

his ear."

The patent also describes using the iPhone's accelerometer to detect tapping input to supplement the finger swipes: "In another embodiment, functions for controlling call features utilize similar user actions or motions. Features such as merging multiple calls, putting a call on hold, and switching between or among multiple simultaneous calls may

be controlled by single or double (or any number of) taps of the device, as detected by an accelerometer of the device.

These taps may be preprogrammed by a manufacturer, or selected and programmed by a user."

The patent application goes on to describe how the camera swipe could be used when the phone is away from the ear. It details how the camera swipe

feature could be used to navigate web pages or applications while the user is looking at the iPhone's screen. Using the camera swipe method in this way would allow the user to view the full screen of the iPhone without his fingers obstructing the view.

This latest patent application shares similarities to a midJanuary rumor by Bloomberg that Apple was working on an

iPhone with a touch-sensitive backside casing similar to the Mighty Mouse. While it's not clear how much adding a touchsensitive casing to the iPhone would cost, it might be costprohibitive if Apple wants to keep the iPhone margins high and purchase price low. This latest application could present a nice middle ground using the iPhone's existing hardware to mimic the functionality of a touch-sensitive backing.

Interestingly enough, this kind of functionality was one of the top ten hardware "wants" TUAW readers hoped to see in the next iPhone, albeit through a touch-sensitive casing instead of the camera. [via AppleInsider] TUAW New patent hints at iPhone camera gesture control originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LeBron's 36 points lead Cavs surge past Celtics Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 2/26/2010 4:32:53 AM

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Top Performers Cleveland: L. James 36 Pts, 7

Reb, 9 Ast PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Boston: R. Rondo 19 Pts, 4 Term Extraction.

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Will Hulu Freak Out Over Cablevision's Cool New Personalized Internet Channel?

Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:32:00 AM

New York-based Cablevision has been one of the more innovative cable providers out there over the years. It's been mostly ahead of the competition in broadband speeds, and pioneered some interesting bundled offerings well before many other providers. It also fought and won its case to offer a remote DVR where other providers caved. That's not to say Cablevision doesn't have its own issues (and it certainly appears to have no clue how to run a newspaper). But, on the whole, when it comes to the actual technology side, you have to give Cablevision credit for really trying out new things and giving customers increased value.

Palm webOS 1.4 Update Comes Today, Brings Video Capture, Flash 10 Support Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

Submitted at 2/26/2010 1:05:45 AM

The folks at Engadget have managed to dig up a full changelog of the upcoming Palm Pre and Pixi webOS update, One of its latest offerings is a remember that Hulu has been version 1.4, and it’s definitely an pretty smart idea -- letting p r e s s u r e d b y i t s c o n t e n t interesting one. s u b s c r i b e r s m o v e i n t e r n e t partners/owners to keep its Besides bringing a couple of content to their TVs remotely. c o n t e n t ( m o s t o f w h i c h bug fixes, it’s also quite loaded Now, lots of tech savvy folks originated on TV) off of TVs. with new feature, some of which have set up systems to do this There's simply no good reason long-awaited, such as video themselves, but this actually for this, but it looks like capturing and editing, sending sounds like it makes it quite easy Cablevision is now enabling that videos over MMS, and Adobe for users to do without having to functionality as well -- even as Flash 10 support for the Pre. setup any hardware or run any Hulu has worked to block TV Here’s the list of major features wires or anything, as it's all done access from a variety of different Pre and Pixi owners will see over the internet. You send devices and services. Seeing as today: w h a t e v e r y o u w a n t t o a NBC appears to be the major * Phonebook Transfer (import & Cablevision service, and then voice behind many of Hulu's export) you can just turn on your TV to blocks, and NBC is in the * Adds Video Capture capability a specific channel, and you'll process of being acquired by & edit have access to the content. If it Comcast (assuming regulatory * Calendar Enhancements works, it sounds pretty cool. approval), that could make for * Messaging Enhancements But... are there problems an interesting battle between * Improved Performance (Phone looming? Apparently, you'll be Comcast and Cablevision down & CAL) able to send internet video as the road... * Email Enhancements one of the types of content, and Permalink| Comments| Email * Notification Enhancements Broadband Reports found out This Story * Adds Adobe Flash 10.0 (Pre that this includes content from sites like Hulu. Now, you may

Only) Also, here are the most important fixes from the update: * Time Zone bug fixed * Network time sync bug fixed to reflect accurate Network time * Bluetooth car-kit transition to device corrected * No EV icon bug fixed (random) * Random browser formatting bugs fixed * Fixed bug that incorrectly displayed Sprint when actually was Digital Roaming * Missing Contact issue specifically with swap down to 1.2.9.1 or less Reviews: Bluetooth Tags: palm, Pixi, pre, webOS

Kentucky avenges only loss, dumps S. Carolina Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 2/25/2010 11:54:27 PM

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Top Performers South Carolina: D. Downey 26 Pts, 4 Reb, 5 Ast, 2 Stl Kentucky: P. Patterson 23 Pts, 8

Reb, 2 Stl, 4 Blk Term Extraction.

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Because Without Patents, Music Streaming No One Would Ever Come Service MOG Raises Up With News Feeds $9.5 Million Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

Submitted at 2/26/2010 3:03:00 AM

A bunch of folks are talking about a patent that was recently granted to Facebook ( 7,669,123) that covers creating an automatically generated news feed based on things that you do.

While not quite as broad as some of the original reports claimed, it's still fairly broad, and highlights pretty clearly how ridiculous the patent system is.

The purpose of the patent system should be to create incentives to come up with something that is both new and non-obvious, which would not be created without that incentive. And, then, of course, the idea is to share that information with the world, via

the patent. But here we have a case where this is an obvious next step advance. Such automatically generated news feeds are found in all sorts of systems and social networks these days. But now we have a case where one company may have the right to prevent others from doing what it makes perfect sense for them to do.

That's not what the patent system was designed to do at all.

A patent like this should never have been approved at all, as it serves no useful purpose in "promoting the progress" and seems to go against everything that the patent system is supposed to do.

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Ben Parr (Mashable!)

United Airlines discovers how to gain revenue using Twitter and male enhancement pills

Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:20:06 PM

MOG, an on-demand music streaming service with backing from both Universal Music Group and Sony Music, has raised $9.5 million in a new round of funding.

MOG, which has already raised over $10 million in angel and Series A rounds, launched in December with the goal of muscling into the subscription music business, with its value proposition being its $5 per month price and 256kbps streams.

Competitors include Napster, Rhapsody, and Spotify (though Spotify has yet to launch in the US).

According to MOG, the new funding will be used to push European expansion, develop

Matt Burns (CrunchGear) moble apps, and build partnerships. The company plans to expand into the UK by the end of June, with other nations to follow. MOG is also upping its free trial from one hour to three days in order to give people a better chance to experience their product.

The funding round was led by Menlo Ventures, a previous investor in the company, and joined by Balderton Capital.

Reviews: Rhapsody, Spotify Tags: MOG, music, online music, rhapsody, spotify

Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:00:35 AM

Hey, times are tough and if United Airlines has to advertise sex pills on Twitter to keep costs down, I’m all for it. Maybe the company needed the extra revenue and used Twitter instead of installing quarter meters on its plane’s bathrooms. Or the account was hacked. Either way, it makes for a fun, Friday morning post. [ NYC Aviation via Consumerist]

No, You Don't Have To File Patent Lawsuits Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 2/26/2010 12:43:53 AM

A bunch of folks have been sending in the news of Xerox's patent lawsuit against Google and Yahoo over search technology, and I'd debated posting it at all. It's the same old

story. A company widely considered a has-been goes searching through its patents, on technology it did nothing at all with, and sues other companies who had the same idea and actually went forward and implemented it successfully.

Yet another case of "those who

can't innovate, litigate."

But what caught my attention was Xerox's given reason for pursuing the lawsuit:"We believe we have no option but to file suit to properly protect our intellectual property." Sorry, but that's no reason to file a lawsuit.

It's a common cliche in patent

lawsuits, but it's totally bogus.

Of course you have other options. There is no rule that you have to file a lawsuit to "protect" the patent. There is no "protecting" that needs to be done. This is just a blatant attempt to squeeze money out of companies who actually

implemented a product where Xerox failed. That's not protecting, it's shaking down.

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Parallels goes bareYet another Mac OS X 10.6.3 seed metal on Apple's Xserve released to developers (CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/26/2010 4:45:04 AM

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Parallels has introduced a baremetal virtualization product for Apple's Xserve that allows Windows and Linux virtual machines to run side-by-side with the Mac OS X operating system.

Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition, unveiled Wednesday at the Parallels Summit 2010 in Miami, is aimed at companies wishing to standardize on Mac hardware and at cloud services providers

that want to add Mac OS X capabilities, the company said.

The company's original virtualization product for Xserve allowed instances of Mac OS X, Linux, or Windows to run as virtual machines on top of an OS X host. With the new product, those virtual machines can all run directly on the Xserve's hardware, with a hypervisor present to co-ordinate the different guests.

Read more of " Parallels goes bare-metal on Apple's Xserve" at ZDNet UK. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Chris Rawson (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 2/26/2010 8:00:00 AM

Filed under: Software Update, Developer, Snow Leopard Mac OS X 10.6.3 Build 10D561 has been released to developers less than a week after the previous build. Not a great deal has changed since the last build -iPhoneinCanada has the specific details on this latest build, which include refinements to OpenGL and 64-bit logic. Since this sixth 10.6.3 build follows so quickly after the last one, it's a good indication that an official release of 10.6.3 is imminent.

10.6.2 arrived on November 9, 2009, and, like the forthcoming 10.6.3, was primarily a bug fix update for Snow Leopard. 10.6.3

should be out any day now in Software Update complete with those always-informative release notes, including my favorite: "increases reliability and improves compatibility and security."

[Via MacRumors] TUAW Yet another Mac OS X

10.6.3 seed released to developers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BBC, Guardian Staffers Fall Prey to Twitter Phishing Attack Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

Submitted at 2/26/2010 3:58:42 AM

A couple of days ago we wrote about a new Twitter phishing attack, which spreads via messages such as “This you????”, followed by a link to a fake Twitter login page.

Need proof that the attack is very serious? You need not look very hard, as BBC

correspondent Nick Higham and Guardian’s head of audio Matt Wells (along with thousands of other users) have sent spam messages which means their accounts were compromised.

Although the phishing attack was widely reported on, and Twitter itself alerted to it on their official blog, many users are still falling prey to the attack.

The rule of thumb, as always is:

have been compromised, you should change your Twitter password immediately. *Update: we’ve just received news that Ed Miliband MP, British Secretary for Energy and First Glimpse of Nokia’s Climate Change, has also had his Symbian 4 Operating do not follow suspicious links, Twitter account hacked.

System [VIDEO] and never enter your Twitter Tags: phishing, twitter credentials if you’re not Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) absolutely sure it’s safe. If you B e s i dateFIRST s2/26/2010 b e ipage n 6:52:49 g 29 t h eAM m o s t Submitted think your Twitter account may

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awkwardly named mobile operating system ever, Symbian^4 (that’s the official name) is also a very important step for Nokia, who (although Symbian still dominates the worldwide smartphone market) has been struggling to make Symbian competitive with touch -friendly Android and iPhone OS. Now, Fierce Wireless has managed to briefly try out the upcoming iteration of Symbian, as well as a couple of videos and yes, it really does look like Android and iPhone OS UI. Two short videos (embedded below) show some Android-style

widgets, sliding screens, a scrolling photo app – in a nutshell, it’s nothing that’ll make your heart skip a beat. But in terms of Symbian catching up with its younger competitors, it seems good enough.

Bear in mind that Symbian 4 is expected to be released in the second half of 2010, with actual devices shipping in 2011, so we can probably expect many changes before the final version comes out.

Tags: Nokia, Symbian, video

(ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/26/2010 4:22:00 AM

Ellen DeGeneres is new on the job at "American Idol," but that does not intimidate her. After only one week of being a part of the judging panel on live television, her new co-workers are already tickling her funny bone.

The CoverGirl spokeswoman jabbed, "I always knew that

Senate Inaction Jeopardizes Unemployment Benefits (Newsmax - Politics)

funding for highway projects and spare doctors from a 21 percent cut in Medicare Message from fivefilters.org: If payments. It would extend a you can, please donate to the full small business loan program, the -text RSS service so we can N a t i o n a l F l o o d I n s u r a n c e continue developing it.

Program and the copyright The Senate failed late Thursday l i c e n s e u s e d b y s a t e l l i t e to extend programs for laid-off t e l e v i s i o n p r o v i d e r s . workers, jeopardizing The Senate adjourned just u n e m p l o y m e n t b e n e f i t s before midnight with no further scheduled to expire over the votes scheduled until Tuesday. weekend.

To avoid an interruption in The benefits are part of a larger benefits, senators would have to p a c k a g e o f g o v e r n m e n t act quickly when they return, a p r o g r a m s , f r o m h i g h w a y task made difficult by Senate funding to loans for small rules that let a single senator businesses, set to expire Sunday slow the process. Bunning because senators couldn't agree vowed to fight the extensions as on how to pay for an extension. long as they add to the deficit, The House passed a bill though he acknowledged they T h u r s d a y e x t e n d i n g t h e will probably eventually pass. programs for a month while The dispute leaves the programs lawmakers consider how to in limbo as the Senate struggles Ryan[ Seacrest] worked hard but address the issues long-term. to overcome partisan bickering I h a d n o i d e a d u r i n g t h e Senate Democrats repeatedly over a budget deficit projected to commercial breaks he works tried to follow suit Thursday hit a record $1.56 trillion this another job selling Mary Kay night but they couldn't overcome year. Democrats are eager to the objections of a single address unemployment, with the cosmetics.”

She also didn’t let Simon lawmaker, Republican Sen. Jim jobless rate just under 10 percent Cowell off the hook. "Yesterday, Bunning of Kentucky, that the and congressional elections Simon had so many buttons $10 billion bill would add to the looming in November. Some Republicans, however, are not open on his shirt he almost had a budget deficit.

T h e b i l l w o u l d e x t e n d eager to accommodate. wardrobe malfunction," the hit unemployment payments to laidAbout 1.1 million people will talk show host jeered. off workers and provide them lose unemployment benefits in with subsidies to help pay health March if the payments are not premiums through the COBRA extended, according to an p r o g r a m . I t w o u l d e x t e n d estimate from the National

Ellen DeGeneres Pokes Fun at Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest

29

Submitted at 2/26/2010 12:17:24 AM

Employment Law Project, a group that advocates on behalf of low-wage workers.

Bunning said his only objection to the bill is its impact on the deficit. He proposed paying for the extensions with unspent money from the massive economic recovery package enacted a year ago, but Democrats objected.

"I believe we should pay for it," Bunning said. "I'm trying to make a point to the people of the United States of America."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the nation's economic problems justify borrowing to pay for the programs. He noted that Congress, with Republican support, has extended the benefits in the past without offsetting the costs.

"We are in a serious recession, millions of Americans are out of work," Durbin said. "It is simply unfair for one senator to attempt to hold the Senate hostage on this issue." © Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Iran Contrarians Michael Crowley (The New Republic - All Feed)

and that the opposition Green Movement is a flash in the pan.

“There is no revolution afoot in Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:00:00 PM Iran, and the social base of this Message from fivefilters.org: If movement is not growing; it is, you can, please donate to the full i n f a c t , s h r i n k i n g , ” F l y n t -text RSS service so we can r e c e n t l y s a i d o n P B S ’ s continue developing it.

“NewsHour.” He has made his Say what you want about case everywhere from msnbc Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but “he to NPR to The New York Times knows how to work a room.” So op-ed page, where he and his claims Flynt Leverett, the wife have made three shared contrarian Iran analyst who, with appearances since late May. his wife Hillary Mann Leverett, To the Leveretts, paid a visit to the Iranian Ahmadinejad’s Bill Clinton-like president in New York City last personal touch underscores their fall. During the sit-down at argument that, far from a thug Manhattan’s InterContinental repressing his people, he is, in Barclay hotel with a group of fact, a charming leader with invited academics, foreign broad Iranian support--and one policy professionals, and other whose true nature the United I r a n o p h i l e s , t h e L e v e r e t t s States fails to understand. And, marveled at Ahmadinejad’s in any case, they say, moral attention to detail as the Iranian indignation over his regime’s took copious notes and strove to character distracts us from clear pronounce their unfamiliar s t r a t e g i c t h i n k i n g . B o t h names correctly. “He addresses economic sanctions and the every person by name. He made Green Movement will fail to a serious effort to address contain Ahmadinejad’s nuclear everyone’s issue,” Flynt says. “It ambitions. America’s only was really striking, the retail choice is to engage Iran, nuclear politics aspect.” bomb or no. For that, they have As former Bush White House earned the enmity of former officials, the Leveretts might friends and colleagues--and even seem unlikely company for the drawn death threats. “We are d i m i n u t i v e t y r a n t . B u t portrayed as un-American, Ahmadinejad has reason to s t o o g e s o f t h e r e g i m e , ” admire the married Middle East c o m p l a i n s H i l l a r y . analysts. They are, after all, the But it’s not the Leveretts’ ultramost prominent voices in the realist policy views that are so U.S. media arguing that he was discomfiting. It is the sense that legitimately reelected last June, they cross a line into making

apologies for the loathsome Ahmadinejad. And that makes for one of Washington’s most intriguing mysteries: How did two ex-Bush aides become the Iranian regime’s biggest intellectual defenders?

In the fall of 2001, Hillary Mann saw Flynt deliver a speech on the Arab-Israeli peace process and fell for him. Flynt was then a CIA officer with a Princeton Ph.D., on assignment to the State Department’s policy planning staff. Hillary, nearly ten years his junior at 33, was a Brandeis and Harvard law graduate working at the United Nations. When Flynt asked Hillary to lunch, he told the Times’ “Vows” column, “there was no plausible deniability” it was a date. By the time the two married in February 2003, they were both working on Bush’s National Security Council (he as director for the Middle East, she as director for Iran and Afghanistan), planning their wedding during breaks from planning the Iraq war. “I find it a bit hard to think of the Bush White House as the Love Boat,” cracked their best man, Richard Haass, then a senior State Department official, in his toast.

The Bush White House may have brought them together, but the couple soon turned against it.

Flynt says he left his job the month after his wedding out of disillusionment with Bush’s

hawkish Middle East policies.

Hillary departed soon after, spending several months at the State Department before leaving government. (One former White House official says that Flynt didn’t quit but was fired for bureaucratic incompetence, including an office so unkempt that Condoleezza Rice herself was appalled. While admitting that he keeps “a messy desk,” Flynt denies this account.) Flynt went on to advise John Kerry’s presidential campaign and worked a stint at the Brookings Institution. In 2006, Hillary formed the consulting firm Stratega, which advises corporate clients on Middle Eastern politics.

By then, the Leveretts had begun publicly bashing Bush’s Iran policy--specifically his rejection of a May 2003 memo from a mid-level Iranian diplomat offering comprehensive talks with the United States that would include Iran’s nuclear program.

Cheneyite hawks certainly had no interest in such a deal, but even former Secretary of State Colin Powell has cast doubt on whether the offer represented the regime’s true thinking. Still, the media thrilled to the idea that a bellicose Bush had rejected talks. When the Leveretts sought to publish a New York Times op -ed on the subject in December 2006, the White House insisted

on censoring it, and the Times theatrically published the heavily redacted version anyway. An Esquire profile soon cast the Leveretts as heroic dissidents standing athwart another blind march to war. The couple’s new cachet drew influential Washingtonians to salon dinners they began holding at their home in suburban McLean, Virginia.

The Leveretts voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but, despite his efforts to broker a dialogue with Tehran, they found his attempts lacking and soon turned on him as well. By last spring, they were warning that Obama had already “lost” Iran, complaining that he had not halted Bush-era covert programs against Iran’s nuclear program. They also complained that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and White House Iran point man Dennis Ross were too hawkish. “The administration’s approach to Iran degenerates into an only slightly prettified version of George W. Bush’s approach,” they wrote in a May 24 piece for the Times, one that noticeably echoed Tehran’s position. And then came the June 12 Iranian election.

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Summited Out Jonathan Cohn (The New Republic - All Feed)

pursue these goals but also over whether they are even worth pursuing.

Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:24:04 PM Making sure everybody has Message from fivefilters.org: If insurance is primarily a matter you can, please donate to the full of providing access to policies, -text RSS service so we can regardless of medical status, and continue developing it. then guaranteeing that people Who won? It's the exact same can pay for them, no matter what question people asked in 2008, t h e i r i n c o m e . T h e f o r m e r after each of the presidential requires re-engineering the debates. I didn't like it then and I insurance market--in particular, d o n ' t l i k e i t n o w . W h a t ' s organizing the non-group market "winning"--scoring more debate i n t o i n s u r a n c e e x c h a n g e s , points, making fewer gaffes, or through which insurers will sell s i m p l y a p p e a l i n g t o m o r e regular policies at regular prices voters? And aren't all those even to people with pre-existing judgments pretty subjective conditions. The latter requires anyway? providing subsidies, based on But if Thursday's event didn't people's incomes, which in turn p r o d u c e a w i n n e r , i t w a s requires raising some money. clarifying.

The Republicans made clear on Health care reform, as I've said Thursday they rejected both many times now, is really about i d e a s . R e - e n g i n e e r i n g t h e a c h i e v i n g t h r e e b a s i c insurance market requires too goals: Making sure everybody much government, they said, and has insurance, making sure providing subsidies requires too coverage is good, and making much money. The best they sure that, over time, medical could offer were "high-risk care will cost less. Thursday's pools," which would provide discussion revealed the stark thinner coverage--at higher differences between the two prices--to people who couldn't parties--not just over how to get insurance on their own. This

means expanding coverage to only 3 million people, rather than 30 million, but the Republicans hardly seem to care.

When Obama asked Wyoming Senator John Barrasso to speak to the problems of the uninsured, Barrasso responded by saying he wanted to talk about ... the already insured.

Not that Democrats mind talking about the already insured. Reform's second goal-making sure everybody's coverage is good--is primarily for the benefit of people who have insurance today. Many of these people have coverage that won't meet their needs, although they may not know it yet. Only when they get sick will they discover that their plans have loopholes, allow for exorbitant out-of-pocket costs, and leave them with little recourse if there are disputes over what's covered.

The Democrats propose to fix this by establishing a minimum set of benefits that all plans must cover, limiting the amount of out -of-pocket expenses insurers can pass along, and creating appeals mechanisms for consumers upset

about denials.

This approach, too, is one the Republicans rejected on Thursday. Over and over again, Republican representatives and senators said the problem wasn't insufficient regulation. It was too much regulation. They called for allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines--and allowing small businesses to form associations that would be exempt from existing state regulations. The effect of such changes, as the Congressional Budget Office has noted, would be to erode benefits--to weaken, not strengthen, the protection from medical expenses insurance now provides. Senator Tom Coburn praised this transformation, suggesting the great exposure would turn people into smarter consumers.

Well, it might do that. Or it might simply mean people with medical problems face even more onerous financial burdens.

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'Burn Notice' 'Good Intentions' Recap Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 2/26/2010 3:21:00 AM

(S03E15) Every now and then, it's fun to watch what happens when Michael or Sam or Fiona don't have the upper hand in a situation. This penultimate episode of the season was one of those with lots of flying by the seat of their pants and taking a walk on the wild side ... whether they wanted to or not.

Continue reading'Burn Notice' 'Good Intentions' Recap Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Burn Notice Permalink| Email this| | Comments

PK Lounge Surf Chair Captures Constant Motion [Decor] Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:00:00 AM

Cristian Wicha designs both furniture and surfboards. And

looking at his PK Lounge, that's pretty obvious.

I wasn't going to get too literal with an interpretation, but I just can't help myself— it's as if the

base of the chair is the wave and

the top of the chair a board!

I was just playing some And while I'm no surfer, I'd videogames while drinking beer. love to sit on the thing—just to [ Cristian Wicha via mocoloco] feel like I was shredding through the living room when, in reality,

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Buzzword: What makes TV "3D-ready"?

James Willcox (Consumer Reports)

greater bandwidth is needed because the new 3D Blu-ray specification calls for players to Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:04:30 AM present full 1080p resolution Buzzword: What makes TV images to each eye, basically "3D-ready"? doubling the amount of material.

We’re starting to see several HDMI 1.4 also provides the retail websites and a few in-store input/output protocols that let displays promoting new“3D- 3 D d i s p l a y s a n d s o u r c e ready" TVs. If you’re anything components, such as Blu-ray l i k e u s , y o u ’ v e p r o b a b l y players, communicate with each wondering what exactly makes a other. Some 3D-ready TVs TV 3D-ready, and how these already on the market will be s e t s a r e d i f f e r e n t f r o m able to handle 3D content via an conventional HDTVs. HDMI 1.3 input, but they'll only A d d i n g t o t h e p o s s i b l e be able to display it at half confusion is the fact that there's resolution. (We’ll be doing a not yet a standardized definition separate blog on 3D resolution of what constitutes a 3D-ready shortly.)

TV, or uniform terminology or • 3D detection circuitry. All 3Dnomenclature to describe them. enabled TVs have to be able to In our recent conversations with detect a “flag” in the video executives from Panasonic and bitstream that identifies it as 3D Samsung, it became obvious that content. This circuitry then shifts there are basic features that all the TV into its “3D mode” so the 3D TVs will have. Here are two different perspectives some of the common features r e q u i r e d f o r 3 D c a n b e you can expect to see on a 3D displayed. In addition, most 3DTV: ready TVs will automatically • HDMI 1.4. All 3D TVs will a d j u s t the TV’s have HDMI 1.4 inputs, the latest settings—boosting brightness, version of the interface that was for example, to compensate for designed, in part, to handle the the dimming that occurs when greater bandwidth and protocol you use 3D shutter glasses—for controls required for 3D. The optimal performance with 3D

content.

• An infrared (IR) emitter.

Most, but not all, TVs will likely come with an IR emitter built into the set's bezel. This emitter, or transmitter, is what communicates with the 3D shutter glasses to properly sync the glasses to the TV display, so that each eye receives its proper image but not the other. Some companies may not build the emitter into the TV, but provide it as an add-on device, or as an option packaged with the 3D glasses.

• More powerful processors, more memory. Most 3D-ready TVs will have more powerful microprocessors and built-in memory than standard sets, since they’re displaying twice as many video frames. In addition, sets that can convert 2D content to 3D on the fly--such as those announced by Samsung and Toshiba—will need even faster processors to handle the conversion algorithms that generate the effect.

• New remote controls: We expect that most new 3D-ready TVs will come with remote controls with dedicated buttons that will allow you to choose

between 2D or 3D settings.

Also, we imagine that there will be 3D presets added to the TV’s menu options, along with the ability to tweak key picture attributes when the TV is in the 3D mode.

off more easily and quickly than a standard CCFL backlight.

Although plasma TV’s fast refresh rates mean they aren’t typically bothered by ghosting, plasma manufacturers have developed new phosphors and switching circuitry that can Because LCD and plasma TVs release the image even faster. p r o d u c e i m a g e s i n a And Panasonic tells us that it's f u n d a m e n t a l l y d i f f e r e n t adjusted the plasma gas mixture manner—plasma is an emissive slightly to improve performance technology that generates light, and power efficiency while whereas LCD is a transmissive maintaining image brightness. technology that requires a As I mentioned in an earlier 3D backlight—there will also be post, we're working to get some some features unique to each of these 3D TVs in our labs for type of display. For example, 3D testing, so check back soon for -ready LCD TVs will have our First Look on one of these 240Hz panels, as well as LED sets. And let us know whether backlights. In 3D mode, a 240Hz you're considering a 3D TV panel provides two alternating purchase this year, or whether images at 120 frames per second you're going to wait it out a bit to each eye. In much the same longer. way a faster frame rate can --James K. Willcox Subscribe minimize motion blur, this now! technology can help reduce S u b s c r i b e t o crosstalk, or ghosting, that can ConsumerReports.org for expert occur in sets with lower frame Ratings, buying advice and rates by reducing the duration reliability on hundreds of that each individual image products. Update your feed r e m a i n s o n s c r e e n . L E D preferences backlights can provide better brightness uniformity across the panel, and can be flashed on and

"I've Taken to Calling Everyone Jeeves These Days." [Open Caption] Richard Lawson (Gawker)

[ That's little Annie Hathaway all grown up and a movie star

now, in London for "Alice in Wonderland"; image via INF]

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How you’d shop for insurance after health-care reform rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:04:00 AM

How you’d shop for insurance after health-care reform If health reform passes it will be much, much easier for individuals and small businesses to shop for health insurance.

Under the system we have now, if you want health insurance, you have to figure out who offers insurance in your area, get quotes for the various plans they’d offer, and then try to puzzle out what those plans would cover and what they wouldn’t. It would help to have a law degree or work as an actuary in the insurance field, because many plans are written to make you think you’re getting more coverage than you are. If you have a preexisting condition, you could be denied or charged more.

After health-care reform, you’d be able to shop in the heath care exchange, a sort of one-stop shop where you can compare plans. All the plans in this store would have to meet minimum requirements for coverage, so you won’t have to worry about getting stuck with a plan with loopholes and coverage exceptions that don’t actually cover you when you get sick.

You couldn’t be charged more

due to your gender or health status. You wouldn’t have to worry about your coverage being denied or restricted because of a pre-existing condition. What might the exchange look like? It would probably look something like the Massachusetts insurance exchange, Health Connector.

(You can browse it, but you’ll need to use a Massachusetts ZIP code to compare plans – I used a Boston code: 02210.)

Once you start shopping, it tells you how to qualify and apply for subsidies see right. (I’ve used a fictional couple in their mid-tolate thirties, with a child.)

The family I invented would not qualify for subsidies, so they would have the choice of buying from multiple levels of coverage, similar to the Congressional plans.

Bronze plans have lower premiums, and higher out-ofpocket costs; whereas gold plans have higher premiums and lower out of pocket costs. For illustrative purposes, I’ll choose the mid-range silver plan for my fictional family: When I choose the silver plan in Massachusetts, the plans are again divided into three categories. “Silver low” has the highest annual deductibles in the category, “silver high” has no deductible, and higher

employees (including members of Congress) shop for their insurance. Follow the link and click on your state and you’ll see a list of plans that federal employees can choose from, along with detailed brochures, recent rates and policy changes.

The proposed national health reforms go a little further than the rules set up for Massachusetts. For one thing, plans will be required to show premiums; and “silver middle” is you an illustration of what out-of in between the two. Pretty -pocket costs you would face intuitive. Due to state rules, none u n d e r c o m m o n m e d i c a l of the plans make doctor visits scenarios before you buy. This subject to the deductible – the will help consumers evaluate the Congressional plans will require total cost of their insurance all preventive services be fully purchase: premium plus their c o v e r e d . H a v i n g t h i s share of medical spending. commonality makes it easier to Insurers will also have to compare plans because there are provide enrollee satisfaction fewer differences to keep track ratings, so you can see how of. other consumers liked their I can choose a plan from each plans. category and compare what —Kevin McCarthy, associate they’ll cost me side by side: editor I can also see what my co-pays For more, see our consumer would be for various services guide to health care reform. and specialists, and what kind of Subscribe now! vision, drug, emergency, and S u b s c r i b e t o many other aspects of coverage I ConsumerReports.org for expert get. And if I want to find out Ratings, buying advice and more, I can download the plan reliability on hundreds of details. Another example of how products. Update your feed you’d shop for health insurance preferences after health reform is the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, where federal

33

“We are working on an API:” This Is Why Embargoes Suck John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:31:09 AM

Warning: The little animals curse a little.

This cute little video is literally what we go through on a daily basis with PR people. It basically recounts our daily conversations with strangers that go something like this: PR Person: “We have big news!

But you guys don’t sign embargoes.”

Me: “Fine, we’ll sign an embargo.”

PR Person: “Sign this in duplicate and fax a copy to Nepal then Fedex a copy to our CEO.” Me: “Done. What is it.”

PR Person: “It’s a new sandwich. With bacon!”

Steve O’Hear created this Howl -esque video showing the Catch22 of embargoes and how PR companies basically use embargoes to put up a velvet rope in front of a mound of manure. It is so true to life I have goose bumps. If you wonder why we get so worked up all the time about this topic, it’s because of exchanges like these. via BB

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Consumer Reports/ Entertainment/

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For better e-security, have at least 3 passwords

Q&A: Artificial sugar and stomach pain?

Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports)

rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports)

access other websites, and that 47 percent use both their online banking user ID and password to Submitted at 2/26/2010 3:59:59 AM login elsewhere on the Internet.

For better e-security, have at Trusteer’s security experts least 3 passwords As we’ve recommend that you keep at reported previously, organized least three sets of log-in crime has increasingly credentials: succeeded in hacking into • The first set to be used only customer records at banks and with financial websites• A other financial service providers. second set to be used with nonWhile there’s not much you can networks or webmail services. financial websites that hold do to guard against criminals Thieves can more easily hack information about your identity, cracking the bank’s own online into non-financial websites, such as social networking sites. security system, there is one w h e r e t h e y s t e a l l o g - i n • A third set to be used on crucial move you can make to credentials, which they then can websites that don’t main any ensure that you’re not making use to break into your financial confidential information about the mistake of handing thieves accounts. you—Andrea Rock Subscribe the key to your bank account Given the consolidation that’s now! yourself. Namely, have multiple occurred in the banking industry, S u b s c r i b e t o passwords. it’s not such a daunting task for ConsumerReports.org for expert A recent survey by the online crooks to test out those log-in Ratings, buying advice and s e c u r i t y f i r m T r u s t e e r credentials on several online reliability on hundreds of surprisingly revealed that the banking sites in hopes that products. Update your feed majority of online banking they’ll work on at least one of preferences c u s t o m e r s u s e t h e s a m e them. password for their financial The survey found that 73 accounts as they do for other less percent of bank customers use secure websites, including social their online account password to

Submitted at 2/26/2010 3:29:59 AM

Q&A: Artificial sugar and stomach pain?

After eating sugar-free jelly beans, my husband developed severe stomach cramps. Is there anything in sugar-free foods that could cause that problem? — W.W., New City, N.Y. Yes. Such foods are often sweetened with substances called sugar alcohols, which can cause stomach cramps and diarrhea. Those sweeteners appear on labels with such names as erythritol, lactitol, maltitol, mannitol, sorbitol, and xylitol.

If you’re sensitive to sugar alcohols, as little as 10 to 15 grams––the typical amount in one to two servings of

sweetened food—can trigger gastrointestinal distress.

Take a look at our review of Truvia— a calorie-free, plantbased sweetener, read about how to cut down on gastrointestinal discomfort, and find out if you're at risk for irritable bowel syndrome. Subscribe now!

S u b s c r i b e t o ConsumerReports.org for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. Update your feed preferences

Joannie Rochette Beats Emotions to Make Podium (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/26/2010 3:47:00 AM

It was a moment Joannie Rochette will have bronzed to last for eternity. The crowd was brought to their feet at the

Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver as Rochette blew a kiss to her dad and looked toward the sky in remembrance of her mom.

Bronze was a good as gold for the Canadian figure skater.

Battling through a rollercoaster of emotions after losing her mom unexpectedly to a heart attack just a few days ago, the 24 -year-old skater won over the compassionate hearts of the world.

She took advantage of the support on her home turf and glided through a nearly flawless long program. Afterwards, she told the Associated Press, "I had to be out there as Joannie the athlete and not the person. It's

not easy at some points. There's always some moments when emotions take over. But I really tried to be strong to make my mother proud and my father, who was in the stands."

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35

Never Mind the Valley: Here's Chicago Chris Cameron (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:30:00 PM

Holding down the proverbial fort for the mid-west, Chicago, the Windy City, is the third largest city in the U.S. and the most populous city that doesn't sit on an ocean coast. The city, which does, however, rest on the shore of Lake Michigan, is home to a unique culture of nearly 3 million people and countless numbers of Fortune 500 companies condensed into its 234 square miles of city. Though the city is often passed over for Silicon Valley and New York in terms of startup cultures, Chicago has a expanding repertoire of companies, entrepreneurs, investors and organizations helping put the city on the startup map.

Sponsor RWW's Never Mind the Valley series: The site Freshwater Venture has begun to profile Chicago companies and people involved in the city's startup scene, and thus far has created an extensive list. Among some of the most popular startups to come from Chicago include Basecamp developers 37Signals, travel booking site Orbitz, FeedBurner, Apartments.com, and more recently, the hyperlocal news site EveryBlock.

Chicago startups suffer from the same difficulty that other cities without a rich startup culture do: a lack of venture capital.

EveryBlock was funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation, Orbitz was funded by airlines looking to compete with Expedia, and 37Signals was originally funded by the founders themselves. Before being acquired by Google, FeedBurner raised funding from multiple venture capital firms, but only one of their funders, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Portage (which is actually just one of over a dozen arms of DFJ) was from the Chicago area.

Chicago does, however, have its own native venture capital firms, such as Origin Ventures, OCA Ventures and Illinois Ventures, but a majority of Chicago-based VC firm investments are aimed at companies in other cities. The growing problem in Chicago over the last several years has not been dissimilar to other fledgling startup communities; the talent and the ideas are there, but entrepreneurs are drawn to places like Silicon Valley, New York or Boulder where funding is more readily available for startups.

"Chicago is a great town, but there isn't really a startup culture here. The majority of people that have done well have left

Chicago and found more success elsewhere," said Brenden Mulligan of ArtistData in an article on the Northwestern University blog Medill Reports.

"We've lost some great entrepreneurs to other cities."

But things are not entirely dire for Chicago; new incubators, venture firms and second and third generation entrepreneurs are helping the city grow its startup culture. It also doesn't hurt that Chicago, the third largest city in the U.S., has not only a massive community of customers to provide services to, but also a thriving technology economy. Increased investments in high-tech and medical companies has pushed Chicago into the forefront of cities creating technology jobs.

Sam Yagan, CEO and founder of online dating site OkCupid, SparkNotes and eDonkey is the executive director of Excelerate, a new startup incubator taking

root in Chicago. Early-stage companies can apply for the premier thirteen-week "bootcamp" experience this summer where they will receive as much as $20,000 in funding along with mentoring from a laundry list of over 40 participating entrepreneurs.

Among these mentors is David Cohen of TechStars, Harper Reed of Threadless, Seth Stemberg of Meebo, and Kevin Willer, head of Google's Chicago offices.

Excelerate's VP Kelli Rhee is also the VP at Sandbox Industries, an incubator and venture fund that has been active in Chicago since 2003.

Sandbox's venture fund provides anywhere from $50,000 to $2 million in early-stage seed funding, and manages the BlueCross BlueShield Venture Fund which invests up to $10 million in health care tech startups.

Matt McCall, managing director at DFJ Portage, was recently interviewed by Fast Company for their piece Why You Should Start a Company in... Chicago, and gave his reasons why the city is a good place for startups.

Among his reasons were the massive population of customers the large city provides, the government money provided for research at the Universities, and

the connectivity of the mid-west alumni that have become successful in other locations.

Finally he says that the "family trees" created by the various generations of entrepreneurs are helping build the city's startup culture.

"You've got entrepreneurs that are fourth generation entrepreneurs. As a result, they played at the big leagues," said McCall. "They've got a mafia of people that they can pull in to the companies... And as a result, when you start a company, you've got kind of these built-in talent pools that you can reach into that you didn't have say in 2000."

With the help of incubators, organizations and events like Excelerate, Sandbox Industries, Chicago Tech Scene, TechBuzz Chicago, Startup Weekend Chicago, TechNexus and TECH cocktail, the Windy City is on the rise as the startup playing field levels out. No city will ever match the atmosphere found in Silicon Valley, but Chicago's unique ecosystem of their own has and will continue to produce noteworthy startups.

Photos by Flickr users David Paul Ohmer, Christopher & Amy Cate, and Mike. Discuss

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SnapGroups: New Startup Coming From Creator of Yahoo! Groups & Bloglines Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:14:29 PM

Mark Fletcher, the man who built one of the first easy email group services online and sold it to Yahoo! for $400 million, then built former market-leading RSS reader Bloglines and sold it to Ask.com, plans to launch a new service next week called SnapGroups(currently password protected).

Fletcher planned on unveiling the company tonight at Dave McClure's Palo Alto event Lean Startups but had technical problems hours before going on stage that delayed the launch of the site. None the less, he offered some details about what we can expect next week.

Sponsor Fletcher promised that SnapGroups will include rainbows and unicorns specifically, but thematically will be focused on real-time group communication. Given the company's name, we

presume SnapGroups will facilitate quick and easy group creation. "Groups are incredibly powerful," Fletcher said tonight, "the best thing about the internet is group communication. But over the last 10 to 12 years groups have stagnated. Yahoo hasn't done anything with Yahoo Groups."

Fletcher said he used outsourced development and design services extensively in creating SnapGroups. He built the site for a mere $6k, a tiny fraction of what it took to build his previous products. There will be Twitter integration at launch and Facebook integration later. "We will tap into poweruser groups at first," Fletcher explained, "and have larger moderator groups to help shape the service going forward." How I Found This Story... A Tweet from Mark Fletcher flew past me this afternoon reading: "git tag -a v1.0 -m 'Launch tag'" To be honest, I don't know what exactly that means, but I had a theory. I sent him a DM

remarkable track record.

OneList, the company that became Yahoo! Groups, was a defining technology for an era where hundreds of millions of people came online and found distributed communities for the first time. Bloglines was an equally powerful if far less popular technology. The market -leading RSS reader until the (thankfully he was following rise of Google Reader, Bloglines me) to ask if he was launching was the tool of choice for something. He said he was but millions of people harnessing the was still deciding when. A few power of user-driven syndication hours later a Tweet from Dave for the first time. RSS is a world McClure, who I watch very - c h a n g i n g t e c h n o l o g y a n d c l o s e l y , r e a d : " L I V E : Fletcher built the first popular http://Startup2Startup.com Mark interface for it.

Fletcher #LeanStartup 2.0 Here at ReadWriteWeb we (@wingedpig) webcast NOW: agree that groups are where it's http://bit.ly/bWA2Fx #s2s" I at, see our write-up titled clicked on that link, found a Groups: The Secret Weapon of U S t r e a m l i v e v i d e o f r o m the Social Web. We're very tonight's event and wrote it up as excited to see how Fletcher the conversation went on. I p r o d u c t i z e s t h e a b i l i t y t o completed the write-up and communicate with groups of posted about 60 seconds before people. Watch this space next Fletcher left the stage. It was week. Discuss fun. Fletcher is a humble, softspoken innovator with a

Miu Miu Platform Sandals ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/25/2010 1:51:00 PM

Pippa Lord, Photo Director, in Miu Miu platform sandals "I call these my chic trany shoes."

Photo: Kelly Stuart Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

The D&G Fall 2010 Collection Inspires Ski-Bunny Fantasies ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/25/2010 2:50:34 PM

I’m not a sporty person by nature, but the D&G fall

collection(shown today in Milan) makes me want to throw on a cable-knit bustier and ski down a mountain. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s 61

looks would make even the

chicest snow bunny jealous—think glittery goggles, knit catsuits, leather bloomers, and reindeer-print rompers.

—Violet Moon Gayn or

Sexy snow bunnies at D&G Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

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The 3 Surprising Investment Sources YouTube Redesign Behind Your VC Keeps You Watching Dana Oshiro (ReadWriteWeb)

gift designated for endowment, that gift is often reinvested to raise additional funds and then While so much of the startup used for school activities. scene is funded by investment Wikipedia has a fantastic list of capital, it's tough to know U.S. universities ranked by exactly where all of that money endowment with Harvard, Yale, comes from. In chasing the Stanford, Princeton and MIT at power behind the investment the top. throne it's easy to believe that 3. Pension Funds: Those family everything conspires by the hand members that work in of the Illuminati and leave it at government agencies or major that. As of today, Volition groups constitute the majority of corporations and encourage you Capital's Larry Cheng spells it i n v e s t m e n t c a p i t a l i n t h e to pursue a career path with a out for us in perfect clarity. You c o u n t r y : pension and benefits might may be indirectly pitching for 1. Wealthy Families: This actually be enabling your startup your own money. funder behind the funders is not dream. Explains Cheng, "A Sponsor surprising. Cheng explains that portion of these funds are often In a blog post entitled,"The s i n g l e f a m i l y t r u s t s a n d allocated to the private equity Money Behind the Money", foundations are the original a s s e t c l a s s . M a j o r s t a t e s Cheng explains that private investors in a number of firms investing in this asset class equity investments generally including J.D. Rockefeller's include New York, New Jersey, come from a select few sources. contributions to Venrock. In California and Oregon. Major While he offers a "Funds of other words, your startup money corporations like AT&T and Funds" category that invests on moves from the affluent, to VCs General Motors have also been behalf of the below groups, and finally to you. active investors." because this category is an 2. University Endowments: Photo Courtesy of Photos8.com intermediary and is not a true Alumni gifts play a huge roll in Discuss source of capital, it's safe to the investment landscape. When assume that the below three universities receive an alumni Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:00:00 PM

Mike Melanson (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:08:24 AM

YouTube is continuing with what it's calling "one of the biggest redesigns in YouTube history" and today it wants to point out some of its new, shiny features. The streaming video site first offered its users a sneak peek last month and it says it's been listening to feedback and it now has three new features it wants to show off.

Sponsor First, YouTube has introduced a new playlist design, which shows all of your queued videos above the video your watching, with decently sized thumbnails to preview the content. It also has an AutoPlay feature that it says it will set to on when it has "a robust set of videos for you to watch next".

Next, our favorite new feature is the queuing from search capability, which allows you to add videos to your queue when you search from the video page.

We know that when we go on a bender of Kids In The Hall clips, we don't want to wait too long

between our head crushing and our " girl drink drunk". You can even search without stopping the video your watching and if you don't know what to watch next, YouTube may just queue up some classics for you automatically.

Last comes an addition to a section of YouTube not exactly known for its intelligence- the comments. The comments section will now list both text and video, so that video updates become a bigger and more integrated part of the discussion.

This seems like a natural and necessary progression, but if the videos are anything like the text, we can only imagine where this will end up.

For now, the new features are opt-in only and if you don't like what you find, you can just as easily opt out, although we'd suggest giving it a shot. Discuss

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Make Meetings More Productive by Arguing [Meetings] Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:30:00 AM

It's no secret that most people hate meetings and with good reason. Meetings are often terribly ineffective and a huge waste of everyone's time.

Reclaim a meeting with a good argument.

Over at the productivity and business blog Productivity501 they've put together a list of tips to make meetings more efficient.

Our favorite? Argumentation is central to a good meeting. They elaborate: Use meetings to argue: This sounds bad, but really, this is what meetings are effective for.

Meetings let you get people together and work through differences in person. You can pit various ideas against each other and come up with the best solutions. If you don't have any arguing going on in your meetings, then you are probably having meetings for the wrong reasons.

You have to learn to argue fair.

You are discussing ideas, not

DTS Surround Sound to be found in “virtually all” upcoming Samsung TVs Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:30:06 AM

personally attacking people. It may take a bit to get a team to open up to the point where they can passionately express their views, but that is what you need for meetings to really become productive.

One common problem is having someone at a meeting that is so important that no one will disagree with him/her. If no one is going to disagree, you might as well just let that person make all the decisions. I had a graphic

Chances are that the next Samsung TV you’ll buy, if you buy a Samsung TV that is, will have DTS Surround Sound. The TV maker just signed an designer working for me once essentially just a report that you agreement with DTS that will who would never disagree with could read at your leisure. p l a c e t h e m a g i c a l s o u n d me when we were having Wouldn't you rather skim over decoders in “”virtually all meetings. I finally asked her an email with meeting notes in it Samsung digital televisions about this. She said she didn't a n d s k i p t h e P o w e r p o i n t worldwide.” This is good. want to argue with her boss. I presentation all together? Check Of course the audio won’t explained that I was paying her out the full list at the link below sound all that spectacular if to disagree with me! If I didn't for more great meeting-saving owners settle for the quarterwant her opinion, I wouldn't t i p s . 9 T i p s f o r E f f i c i e n t sized speakers built-into most have hired her in the first place. M e e t i n g s [ P r o d u c i t y 5 0 1 ] Samsung TVs. The decoders If you're not hashing out ideas, will be best utilized if a proper arguing your position for some surround sound system is new change, product, project, or connected through the TV’s procedure the meeting is digital audio out. Sure, many people likely connect their audio system up through a cable box, but there are also a good amount could appear in ELLE.com's that use the built-in digital tuner and this addition is for them.

Street Chic Daily.

Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan! mail us your photo and you

Street Chic: London Fashion Week ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/26/2010 4:00:00 AM

A sequined top (on Olivia Palermo) adds sparkle to a two-

tone coat and skirt.

Photo: Josie Gealer Click here for our complete fall 2010 Fashion Week coverage Think you are Street Chic? E-

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Get a Credit Card Through Credit Unions and Small Banks to Save [Credit Cards]

Bokeh Mask

Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it.• About Flickr Flickr is a revolution in photo storage, sharing and organization, making photo management an easy, natural and collaborative process. Get comments, notes, and tags on your photos, post to any blog, share and more!

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Submitted at 2/26/2010 5:30:00 AM

Earlier this week the credit industry was changed by new consumer protection laws.

They're hardly taking the cut in profiteering laying down however and it's up to consumers to protect themselves from new money-grabbing tactics.

Photo by rahego.

Now that it's harder to arbitrarily and retroactively jack up your APR—a huge source of profit for credit card companies—they're looking to for ways to make keep profits high. The hardest hit in the profit department are the companies that derive their primary or exclusive income from credit

and are thus the most likely to try sneaky tactics to recoup losses like introducing new fees or upping the cost of balance transfers. At Money they report: Smaller issuers like credit unions and regional banks tend to have better policies, adds

Curtis Arnold of CardRatings.com. That's because such institutions typically don't view credit cards as primary profit centers, he says.

If you're not stuck under a huge balance at a credit company with

less than stellar tactics, it's definitely time to review your current agreement—you likely got a new agreement in the mail within the last month thanks to the new regulations—and see if it's time to switch to a smaller institution. Check out the full article at the link below for some of the best low-fee and no-fee cards on the market and the smaller credit unions and lending companies you can get them from.

Have a credit card tip or trick of your own to share? Let's hear about it in the comments. Spring Yourself From Credit Card Traps[Money via FiveCentNickel]

Zack Sheppard (Flickr Blog) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:54:24 AM

Install Boxee Beta on Apple TV the Easy Way [Updates] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:00:00 AM

The shiny new Boxee Beta didn't launch with Apple TV support, but there was a geeky hack to load it up. Now it's much, much easier to install, or upgrade, the Beta onto Apple's would-be HD media center.

If you'd already loaded an Apple TV with the Boxee alpha, you should simply be able to head to your "Launcher" menu, head to Downloads and upgrade the Launcher itself, and then upgrade Boxee to get the Beta up and running. If you're installing the Beta fresh, you can you're already hip to the how-to follow these instructions or, if of this sort of thing, just grab the

updated ATVUSB-Creator, unplug your Apple TV, stick in the upgraded USB drive, and then power back on.

We haven't tried out the Beta on our Apple TV rig yet. Apple's somewhat under-powered media device will never provide exactly impressive HD video performance, at least compared

to other modern media centers, but some forum posters report a more efficient operation with the Beta. If nothing else, it's a much nicer interface. Get a bite of this – Boxee Beta on AppleTV[Boxee Blog]

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Increase Kitchen Efficiency by Learning Basic Knife Handling Skills [Kitchen] Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:00:00 AM

A solid kitchen knife paired with some knife-handling know how goes a long way towards making cooking a more enjoyable experience. Check out this video and accompanying guide to get the basics down.

Over at the culinary blog The Kitchn they've shared a great video for getting the basics of kitchen knife handling down. If you're already comfortable handling a kitchen knife the video might seem on the slow side, but keep in mind it's a

demonstration. As your skill level increases you can increase the speed of your slicing and dicing to show that onion who's the boss—Tony Danza?—in record time.

One thing we'd add onto the video, early on when she's explaining why you don't rest your finger on the spine of the blade she explains that although it feels like it gives you more

control it doesn't and it's not an effective way to hold the knife.

While that's true, one of the best reasons to never put your finger onto the spine of the blade is that sooner or later your finger will slip. You never want your finger tips in the path of a slicing knife.

If you're at work and can't watch the video, check out the full article at the link below. The video accompanies a written guide that covers everything seen above. Have a kitchen tip to share? Let's hear about it in the comments. How-To: Learn Basic Knife Skills[The Kitchn]

An interview with famed comic artists Drew and Natalie Dee Scott Merrill (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:30:41 AM

Idling in the CrunchGear chatroom the other day, John says to me, that’s John Biggs, he says, “Why don’t you interview INTERVIEW page 41

Why Most Current Android Phones Will Never Get Flash 10.1 [Android] John Herrman (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:24:58 AM

Flash is coming to Android phones, and for this, some of you are grateful. So when is it due? For some new handsets, the " first half of this year." But the rest? Probably never.

There are two factors that'll determine whether or not your phone is ready and able to run Flash, whenever it becomes available. First, you'll have to worry about software: As far as we know, Adobe is only planning on supporting Android

2.0 and up, meaning that unless you've got a Droid or Nexus One, you're shit out of luck—unless, of course, your phone gets treated to an upgrade.

But even then! Optimized as it may be, at least some older hardware could have issues running Flash smoothly.

Answering a question about a specific phone, Antonio Flores, a man posting on Adobe's support f o r u m s w h o everyone—including a community manager there—seems roundly convinced is a legitimate Adobe employee,

says: No, the HTC Hero will not be supported b/c it does not have the correct Android OS version and its chipset is not powerful enough. We require a device with an ARM v7 (Cortex) processor. Examples include the Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets and TI OMAP3 series.

That Cortex qualifier could be a killer, too. Even if your G1 was treated to an official Android 2.1 update, there's a good chance it just doesn't have the horsepower.

For the time being, this could—again!—be a Droid-and-

Nexus-only affair. ( Update: To be clear, what we're talking about here is Adobe's full mobile version of Flash 10.1, not HTC's version of Flash Lite.)

Speaking of updates, there's actually a third factor that could screw your phone out of new Flash: The upgrade path. The Palm Pre's webOS 1.4 update helps prep the platform for Flash, but leaves it up to users to download the plugin as an app.

On Android, the distribution system looks like it'll be even more dependent on automatic, over-the-air delivery, so if

Adobe tells your carrier and handset manufacturer that your handset isn't up to the task, that too could keep you from experiencing the rich and wonderful scope of Ads That Move On The Internet, on your smartphone.

For first and second generation phones, in other words, Flash 10.1 probably isn't coming to Android at all. Sorry? [ Adobe via Andronica via PhoneArena]

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that guy from Toothpaste for Dinner?” I says to John “Why?” and John says “He seems like a nice guy.” Who am I to argue with John? Plus, the guy from Toothpaste for Dinner lives in Columbus, which is where I live, so I sent the guy an email. We had a little back and forth, and he introduced me to his wife, Natalie Dee, so I interviewed her, too. They are, in fact, nice people, and I really enjoyed interviewing them. I hope you enjoy reading my interview.

ME: Drew, you appear to be a man of many talents: you have a witty comic, you make music and music videos, you Tweet, make and sell merchandise…

What was the impetus? Where did it all start?

DREW: I’ve been writing for fun as far back as I can remember. I set up my first website in 1996 while in high school, and in college, 1998 or so, I started putting short stories online. Later, I started posting little drawings, and eventually it all came together into Toothpaste For Dinner in 2002.

Natalie set her website up in 2002 as well, and we’ve been able to slowly build traffic ever since then. We’re hooked up with the biggest screenprinter in Ohio right now, but when we first started selling t-shirts, we had them hand-made by this basement guy out on the east coast. One time he printed a half -case of black shirts on navy blue because it was so dark in

the basement he couldn’t tell they were navy blue. Needless to say, making t-shirts, or merchandise in general, is as much of a trial-and-error process as making an entertainment website.

ME: Is Toothpaste for dinner all you, or does Natalie help?

What’s the dividing line on your collaborations?

DREW: Toothpaste For dinner is all me, and Natalie Dee is all Natalie. We’ve both made comics for marriedtothesea.com.

I don’t think there’s anything where we’re both sitting in front of the same computer like kids doing a group project, but we do bounce ideas off each other.

NATALIE: Drew’s projects are 100% his projects. My projects are 100% mine. It’s not so much an “intentional bifurcation” as it is two separate people with their own shit going on. Drew had comics online similar to the Toothpaste ones online before we even met, and likewise, I had been drawing comics and making zines for years before I had any kind of website. Our respective artistic projects were something we had in common before we started dating, not something we just decided together that we would do. I think that the Married to the Sea comics I made created a grey area for people, and that one project we both had creative input in confused people over who did what.

There is no possessiveness over

turf or whatever, because I have no interest in making Drew’s comics, and I don’t think he has any interest in doing mine.

There is an exchange of ideas that happens — if I come up with an idea that I think is funny, but it doesn’t really fit the tone of my site, I will offer it to Drew, and vice versa. We help each other with non-comic related work, like Drew doing the programming on my site, but when it comes to making comics or videos or whatever, it’s one person’s creative idea, and one person working on it.

ME: So … is this a full-time gig for the both of you, or do you have day jobs?

NATALIE: This is our main gig. Drew has been doing his sites full-time since 2003, and I have been doing mine since 2005.

ME: Do you have a selfimposed schedule, or do you just post stuff when you feel like it?

If you have a queue of work that is scheduled for publication, how long is it?

NATALIE: All of the sites update every day except Superpoop, which updates Monday through Friday. We keep a pretty decent backlog of comics waiting to go up, usually 4-6 weeks worth. Sometimes we have more, though, like when we had a kid last year. I knew I was going to be out of sorts for a bit, so I built up an extra backlog so I was able to take a nice hunk of time off, but

my site still updated. It ended up working out for the best, because I got sick a month or two before my due date and was hospitalized for awhile, then the kid was born prematurely.

Through all that, I didn’t miss a single update.

The tone of our sites might be irreverent, but we take our work deadly seriously because we are professionals. If people like my stuff enough that I get to do this full-time for a living, then I would be a dumbass to not take it seriously. My comic updates every day, because that is the expectation. I don’t like to involve readers in my personal life, so I don’t let my personal life interrupt the schedule of my site. I wouldn’t be able to not show up a few times a week at a regular job and still expect to get paid, and I don’t do the same on my site.

ME: Do you each act as muse for the other, or are your works mostly self-inspired?

NATALIE: I think drew and I both go about making comics in different ways, and most of the inspiration we draw from each other is just when one of us comes up with something that would work a lot better on the other’s site, or would better match the tone of the other’s site. When I think of an idea for a comic that is political or that I think Drew’s readers would appreciate more, i suggest he take the idea. Likewise, if he comes up with an idea that

would be more illustrationbased, or that my readers would appreciate more, then he offers it to me. If drew started inspiring my comics, i would be worried because my comics are usually inspired by pretty dark thoughts or ideas, and that wouldn’t bode well for our marriage.

DREW: I ask Natalie about a lot of the Tweets I write, because you can’t really delete them, and if something occurs to you, it’s really easy to just type it into Twitter and hit the button.

There’s basically nothing that grosses me out so I like to make sure that 13,000 people aren’t going to simultaneously puke when their phone beeps and they look down and it’s something sick.

ME: Is that the only kind of self -censoring you do? Do you generally keep your audience in mind when you Tweet, or do you mostly just Tweet for your own amusement, and the fact that others enjoy it is a convenient byproduct?

DREW: Well, the point of what we do is to communicate with people, so if I think of something that’s too terrible to write or draw, I won’t make a comic of it either. It’s just that Twitter is so immediate that if you type it in as soon as you get the idea, you can hit “submit” before you realize that it’s maybe kind of gross or insensitive. It’s also pretty easy INTERVIEW page 42

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to post lame jokes on Twitter, as anyone who has used Twitter for any length of time can verify.

It’s easier to throw out comics that don’t work because we make them weeks ahead of time, and go through the pile every month to pick out which ones to post, and that’s a good way to reconsider the ones that are too gross, or just not funny.

ME: You don’t (appear to) allow comments on your comics or your blog. How do you engage with your audience?

How do you know you’re on the right track, or do you not care?

See, I had this whole line of questions about how you stay witty and up-beat in light of John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. It’s something we deal with all the time at CrunchGear: we post something reasonably interesting or informative, and the comments can get overrun by fuckwads. If you’re not allowing comments, you neatly sidestep that problem.

What other hidden benefits are there from not permitting comments? Are there any drawbacks?

DREW: I totally appreciate feedback. We publish our email addresses, and people can Twitter at us or post on our Facebook fan pages. Having people leave comments directly on the sites just seems counterproductive. Anyone who wants to write about our work is welcome to embed our comics into their blog and talk about

them, or link to them from Twitter/Facebook and post their opinion, etc. But nobody’s going to put one of my comics on their own blog and write “First” underneath it.

The idea behind comments is that you learn what your readers think of your work. A more effective way for us to measure this is to see what people are linking to on Twitter, which images get passed around blogs, what shows up on Digg/Reddit, and so on. I have no doubt that a lot of our readers are funny and write well, but like you mentioned, these people get chased out when the signal-tonoise ratio drops.

NATALIE: There’s never a space under paintings in a gallery where someone writes their opinion. When you get to the end of a book, you don’t have to see what everyone else thought of it.

ME: As communication and networking gets easier and easier online (Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc), I think your point makes a lot of sense: you don’t need to provide the mechanism for interaction with people who like your work. They can find one another easy enough now.

But that wasn’t always the case.

Twitter and Facebook are relatively new phenomena, and it’s only in the last couple years that setting up a blog became sufficiently easy for laypeople.

To extend on your gallery metaphor, people at the gallery

could discuss a piece together, and potentially engage the creator of the work at the gallery. Has the nature of your fanbase changed at all in the last couple years? Did (or do) you want to encourage your fans to interact with one another as much they might interact with yourself?

NATALIE: I think my fanbase has remained pretty consistant, obviously there has been immense growth in the number of readers, but the demographics of my readers has remained essentially the same. I would want to encourage my readers to engage each other MORE than they try in interact with me. I think they would get more out of interacting with each other, they could discuss what they like and don’t and bond with each other or whatever people do in fan groups. Frankly, I prefer to keep my interactions with readers to a minimum, because I think that when writers or artists get too involved in what their fans think about what they’ve done or what they think they should do, it spoils the project. It becomes less about the artist expressing themselves, and more about them trying to do backbends to make all their readers happy and make art that is dictated by the reader. I think an artist should be able to trust their own instincts and realize that sticking to their original vision will work better at attracting more fans. I mean, that’s how you got your

original fans to begin with, and if your fans were so great at making comics, they would be doing just that instead of trying to be the ghost writer for yours.

I don’t know ANYTHING about the people who write to me to tell me what they want me to do, so i can’t put too much credence in what they a demanding I do, and usually their ideas make me cringe.

ME: Looking at several other creative properties online, some very much strive to cultivate a community around the works. I guess the fundamental question I’m asking is: do you create for your own satisfaction, or do you create because you want others to enjoy it?

NATALIE: I create what i want to create, and there is no other option for me. I don’t do spec work unless someone is paying me directly for it. By staying true to what i want from my comics, my original idea is not diluted by what other people (who, incidentally, don’t have the insight into what *i* am working towards) want my comic to be. My comic is what it is, and it attracts people who are happy with it the way it is. If they want to read a comic by someone who will jump through hoops making comics about injokes they have with their comic buds, and put up polls and ask their readers if it is OK every time they need to take a shit, then they can pick from about a million other webcomics. That

is not what is happening on my site, and i think my readers understand that and appreciate my comics as something that isn’t created by committee.

DREW: Nataliedee.com is, the last time I checked, the 5th-most -popular online comic. (Our other comics are less popular, Toothpaste For Dinner is somewhere in the top-20 and the others below that.) We’re not driving traffic in by hosting forums on the site, so that’s a pretty good clip, and I think it underscores Natalie’s point that our work stands on its own.

ME: If you weren’t creating for the web, do you think you’d still be doing this? That is, when the zombie apocalypse comes and the Interent goes away, will you still be creating stuff? How will you distribute it?

NATALIE: We were both creating art and comics and writing before anyone had the internet, so i think it is safe to assume that if there were no internet we would still do artistic projects, only distribute them in the same ways we did prior to having access to the web. If there was an apocalypse, i hope i would be among the dead, because watching the destruction on civilization and humanity, and then having to either wait to die alone or rebuild civilization myself would be a bummer, and i probably wouldn’t make comics as i would have no INTERVIEW page 43

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audience.

ME: Natalie: you said that if you couldn’t use the Internet, you’d still create. Do you think it would still be economically feasible for you to do so as a full -time gig, or would the costs of physical production and distribution change things?

NATALIE: I would still make stuff, but if the internet wasn’t around, I would probably work doing graphics work for a company rather than making my art as my main gig. I don’t necessarily think that everyone who makes art is 100% entitled to making a living making art that is completely self-serving like mine is. I don’t think that i am entitled to it, which is why I take it seriously and work as hard as I can, so I can take advantage of an opportunity that most people don’t have. I like creating stuff, and it is not necessary that I be the one who dictates what I make, I was perfectly happy doing design for other people, when I worked for graphics places and print shops prior to all this.

I think that businesses such as mine and Drew’s are a unique beast that exists on the internet alone. The comics are what we do, but we give those to our readers for free. We would never be able to have the reach, or be able to give our work to anyone who was interested in viewing it if the situation was different. By working on the internet, we can cast the net

wide in terms of the people we bring in, because of the medium as well as us offering entertainment for free. We bring in so many people, and then a small percentage purchase merchandise, which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture and distribute in comparison to distributing daily content for free by traditional means. Perhaps I wasn’t totally clear when you asked before if I still would make stuff if there wasn’t an internet– of course I would, that’s what I do, but I don’t get my satisfaction from people looking at what I’ve made, I get my satisfaction from making what I want. So, yes, I would make stuff, but it is hard to say if anyone would see what I made, because when you are forced to distribute through traditional means you have to make a lot of concessions so none of your channels of distribution are interrupted due to conflicts of interest. I am more interested in making what I want, and potentially having nobody see it, than I am in capitulating for some publishing house or syndicate and making a name for myself making something that is cack.

ME: The Internet makes all markets local, in many senses.

Specifically, it allows people to self-select what content they consume, which is great for unique content like yours. If you had to distribute without the Internet, how might that affect

your audience? I’m thinking of other unique content, like xkcd.com, for example: the audience that appreciates that kind of humor is way too specific to allow xkcd to get distribution in most print publications (or at least newspapers). But the Internet makes it trivially easy for xkcd to reach people who appreciate it. I imagine the Internet has the same advantages for you. Would you change your work at all, or would you be willing to live with a smaller audience if the Internet went away tomorrow?

NATALIE: I think our sites are anything BUT local, and I believe the main benefit of the internet is that you can go from zero to global immediately. We get traffic from every country with internet access, and have shipped merchandise to every country with mail delivery. On the internet, you have a chance to showcase your work to absolutely everyone, all at once.

In more traditional distribution models, you have to work from a local level, to a regional level, to a national level, and beyond.

Every level is punctuated by some distribution point that doesn’t particularly care about what you are doing. On the internet, you can offer your unadulterated vision to everybody everywhere, without the input of people who are only concerned about numbers and cutting you out of your hardearned profits. So, where

someone using traditional means can reach 30 million people, they might only be making 1/4 of what i make with only a million readers, because everybody has their fingers stuck in traditional media’s pie. I am the only one who makes any money off my work, aside from the people we employ to manufacture goods and fulfill orders. I am not paying anyone 90% of my money to tell me I can’t do what I want.

The reason for my comics has never been to cater to a specific audience. I make comics every day with hundreds of thousands of readers and I made my comics every day when I had a thousand readers. I don’t pander to my audience, because it makes me hate my job, and I think it insults the intelligence of my readers, so, no, I wouldn’t change my comic to attract readers or have a larger audience. If i was unable to publish online, I would probably not pursue traditional publishing. All this talk of internet vs. other print options always sounds like an inferiority complex on the part of internet folks. Traditional media is shaking in its boots thinking about what we can do online that they could never compete with.

The internet has dealt damaging blows to newspapers, book publishers, news outlets, retail establishments, and has changed the way we do almost everything.

I think that talking about the

internet disappearing is about as fanciful as talking about what would happen if there were no radios, if not more so since the internet has changed things more than the radio or any other tech development ever has. We’re not going back. If some hellpony galloped to Server Beach and laid waste to the entire internet, then oh well, I guess. I would still make art, but I would probably not make it as widely available because I hate dealing with people, and talking to them.

ME: What one thing do you wish people could better understand about your work or your process? For example, I’d like CrunchGear readers to know that I don’t always get to pick the stories about which I write.

Most of them are assigned to me. Most readers don’t understand our process, so they feel no compunction against calling me an idiot or a poor journalist when I’m writing about something I’ve only just learned about. Of course, I’m sure some of them would continue to insult me even if they did know this. :( What are the frustrating aspects of your work?

NATALIE: I wish people more people would notice how much work i actually put into my comics. The overall style is childlike, but a lot of the comics are very detailed and take me a long time. I recently drew a INTERVIEW page 44

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nesting doll that took 2 or 3 days of sketching and planning and drawing. A lot of time, when people talk about my stuff, they are like OH SHE IS SO RANDOM WITH HER MS PAINT DRAWINGS, but nothing on my site is random, nothing is made on MS paint, and a lot of it took a lot of work.

It is kind of insulting to work as hard as we do, then have people imply that it is just word salad because they don’t get what’s going on. It can be appreciated on the superficial layer, but also has more to it. If you think about what i present, you will see that most of my site is not about hotdogs or whatever, and is really just me holding a mirror up to society, and showing how disappointing it really is. That’s where my comics come from a lot of the time, and i think people’s expectations of what a comic is supposed to be stops them from reading more into what i’m doing.

Aside from that, i just wish people would be able to appreciate my work, and drew’s work on it’s own merit, instead of having to frame everything in our personal relationship. When drew has a new album, i don’t

think people should want to interview me, because i had nothing to do with it. Likewise, i don’t think drew has any more insight into my thought processes as any of my other readers, because i make my comics and write alone, without his input. I realize it is a point of interest for people, but the way our sites are linked up, and our stores are linked up, is just a convenience thing since we file taxes together, not a suggestion that none of the sites stand alone on their own strengths.

DREW: Neither of us are programmers in any capacity. I can poke my way around a PHP file, but that’s about it. We have a part-time developer who codes new features for the site and fixes things when they break, but we don’t have the budget or time to jump into every new format of delivering comics. I appreciate the sentiment, which at its heart is just people wanting to look at our comics (albeit in a very specific way) but it’s impossible for us to code new platform-specific applications every few months. Thankfully, almost every new computer or phone coming out now has a web browser, which means that

if people can read any other website, they can continue to read ours.

ME: What do you do to relax?

DREW: I like to cook, hang out with my daughter, make music… pretty regular stuff. I do not relax by doing yardwork.

My neighborhood is all about yardwork. I’m allergic to everything so yardwork is always me out in the yard, covered in poison-oak welts, wearing a dust-mask and trying to breathe. There’s actually a picture of this exact thing somewhere. I won’t include it out of self-respect.

NATALIE: Hahaha i work. I spend most of my time taking care of the kid, so my comicmaking time is the most pure, uninterrupted chill-out time i get.

ME: What are your favorite online diversions? What websites do you frequent?

NATALIE: I just read jezebel, and talk to my friends on facebook. I am not really the cutting-edge of web-surfing.

DREW: I mostly just read the news and flip thru image aggregators / synthesizer websites. Nothing too unusual.

Once you get through the actual

news it’s a long slog through Top Ten Ways Ninjas Are Better Than Pirates.

ME: Who is cooler, Macguyver or Thomas Magnum?

NATALIE: Francis Bacon DREW: Hopeton Brown ME: Are you each a Mac or a PC? NATALIE: Straight Macs. I never even had a computer of my own until 2002 or 2003, and that one and every one since has been a Mac, and the only computers I used in school and doing graphics/design work were Macs. I am not computery and can’t program or anything, and PCs are just terrible. I get on one and I feel like an 80 year old woman, or like I am trying to find a place to enter type on the menu at McDonalds or something.

DREW: My dad brought home an Apple II and showed me BASIC and LOGO in 1983, and I started calling BBSes in 1989.

It’s been Apples & Macs from then to now. At some point they changed the apple key to a command key.

'Survivor: Heroes vs.

Villains' - 'That Girl Is Like a Virus' Recap Jackie Schnoop (TV Squad) Submitted at 2/26/2010 12:40:00 AM

(S20E03) How's that for a look of determination on Colby? Last week we saw the'Survivor' heroes down two challenges. We also have seen some non-heroic behavior in their camp while Boston Rob has been quite heroic in the villains' camp. This season, although it's definitely grabbing my attention, has gone beyond the realm of heroes and villains. It's more like a bunch of power-players, wheeler dealers, schemers, lunatics, and a few decent folks gone a tad off their rockers thrown into the mix. It's All-Stars on energy drinks. It's brutal. But it's entertaining.

That's all I need.

Continue reading'Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains' - 'That Girl Is Like a Virus' Recap Filed under: OpEd, Survivor, Episode Reviews Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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NY Vice-Principal Brags About School's Laptop Spying to PBS [Privacy]

'The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love' Finale Sneak Peek

Brian Barrett (Gizmodo)

(ETonline - Breaking News)

segment, in which he accesses the webcams of various unknowing middle schoolers, A p p a r e n t l y u s i n g l a p t o p starts at 4:36. webcams to spy on students isn't Not only is this clearly a an isolated problem. An assistant privacy violation on the face of principle in the Bronx recently it, Ackerman's attitude gives me not only bragged about doing the willies: j u s t t h a t t o P B S — h e "A lot of kids are just on it to demonstrated it live. Head's up: check their hair, check their this gets real creepy. make-up: the girls... They don't D a n A c k e r m a n i s a n even realize that we are administrator at Intermediate watching. I always like to mess School 339, in the Bronx, and he with them and take a picture." appeared in a Frontline segment Also weird: that no one at two weeks ago to demonstrate Frontline thought to raise this as how they monitor their students' an issue. c o m p u t e r u s a g e . T h e But I guess the bigger lesson uncomfortable part of the here, kids, is that all those Submitted at 2/26/2010 8:57:07 AM

paranoid fantasies you like to indulge in are actually true. Big Brother is watching, and he's got an unkempt goatee.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, this situation isn't identical to the previous webcam spying incident in Philadelphia(these laptops are used only in the school, and the webcam is accessed when the students have an application like Photo Booth open). That doesn't make it right! It's still a privacy violation no matter where it takes place, and Ackerman's attitude and comments are still disturbing at best. [ PBS via BoingBoing]

Submitted at 2/26/2010 3:36:00 AM

Monday night is crunch time for Jake Pavelka, who will have to make one of the toughest decisions of his life and propose to either Vienna Girardi or Tenley Molzahn when "The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love" finale airs.

"I have never been in a situation where I don't have clarity on one side or the other," Jake says. "I just want to make sure I can live with the decision I make today. I am trying to let my heart lead,

45

but it is leading me to both women."

Jake's family arrives in St. Lucia to meet the final two women and offer their advice. It is advice Jake will take to heart as he makes it clear he cannot chose a woman who does not get along with his family. Tenley wins the family over, even when she is brutally honest and tells Jake's mother about her divorce.

Vienna's path is not as clear.

Jake's mom picks up on some warning signs and shares them with her son.

Details On RIM’s New BlackBerry Slider? [Rumor] Boy Genius Report (Gizmodo)

While most people assume a device with slideout keyboard would end up being something Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:30:00 AM like HTC's devices, we've been This isn't confirmed, but with told this particular handset is RIM rumored to be exploring more like the Palm Pre in terms sliding-QWERTY devices for a of layout. pretty long time, one of our • The phone will run BlackBerry BlackBerry connects dropped OS 6.0 some info on us and we wanted • The rumored device will 100% it to share it. Here's what we support Wi-Fi 802.11n know: • The resolution unfortunately • It's a portrait-oriented slider. has not improved, it is still

360×480.

• No word on if this will have a

touch screen, but we'd assume so, and our source alluded to this possibly being what the rumored BlackBerry Magnum/Dakota evolved into. Not saying there won't be a Bold-like device with touchscreen, optical trackpad, and physical keyboard, but this might be released first.

• If it does have a touch screen, this could in fact be the mythical BlackBerry Storm slider picture a Storm 9520 with a slide

up Bold-esque keyboard.

• The phone will not be a Verizon exclusive - it's supposed to be a GSM/HSPA device.

That's all we've got for now, folks. What are you thinking?

Does this remotely interest you, or could you care less about the hardware at this point and just hope that RIM can make some pretty big strides as far as their OS is concerned?

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Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Robotic Surgical Simulator lets doctors sharpen their skills by operating on polygons Tim Stevens (Engadget)

unveils with innate skill, this RoSS allows doctors to slice and dice virtual patients without These days you wouldn't jump worrying about any messy behind the controls of a real cleanups -- or messy lawsuits. plane without logging a few We're guessing it'll be awhile hours on the simulator, and so before consumer versions hit the we're glad to hear that doctors market, but just in case we've no longer have to grab the gone ahead and put our precontrols of a da Vinci surgical orders in for the prostate robot without performing some expansion to Microsoft Cutting virtual surgeries first. The Sim 2014[TM].

Center for Robotic Surgery at Robotic Surgical Simulator lets Roswell Park Cancer Institute doctors sharpen their skills by and the University of Buffalo operating on polygons originally School of Engineering have appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 collaborated to create RoSS, the Feb 2010 09:43:00 EST. Please Robotic Surgical Simulator. see our terms for use of feeds.

Unlike our Ross, who works odd Permalink PhysOrg| Buffalo.edu| hours and covers fuel cell Email this| Comments Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:43:00 AM

Shuttle's XS35 nettop is 3.3cm thin, too nice to hide behind your HDTV Tim Stevens (Engadget)

found room for five USB ports, VGA and discrete audio outputs, an Ethernet jack, and a card Nettops keep getting better, and reader. It's passively cooled, so thinner too if Shuttle's latest is the only noise you'll hear will be anything to go by. It's the XS35, the spinning platters of its 2.5a 3.3cm thin affair packing a a inch hard disk or the spinning of dual-core Intel Atom D510 at an optical disc, which yes 1.6GHz and Ion 2 graphics with somehow fits in there too H D M I o u t p u t f o r e a s y (making it perfect for watching connectivity to your high y o u r T h u n d e r b i r d s D V D definition display of choice. collection). No price yet but it'll Somehow the company has also be on display at CeBIT in just a Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:28:00 AM

few days and shipping sometime in the second quarter of this year.

Gallery: Shuttle XS35 nettop Shuttle's XS35 nettop is 3.3cm thin, too nice to hide behind your HDTV originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink SlashGear| Shuttle| Email this| Comments

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Tesla launches Roadster lease program for Dell's Broadcom Crystal wannabe eco-ballers Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:04:00 AM

Ain't got a hundred large to dump on a new Tesla Roadster?

Fret not, as the outfit famous for producing the world's first commercially viable electric supercar now has another option for you to ponder: leasing. For those unfamiliar, it's somewhere in between buying one outright and swiping one while the salesperson's not looking, and it'll require just over $12,000 up front along with 36 payments of $1,658 in order to temporarily own the car of your dreams. Of course, that's just a model

scenario based on a Roadster with an $111,005 MSRP, though the somewhat snazzier Roadster Sport is also included in the deal. Come to think of it -- if you get in on a lease now, there's a good chance that the Volt you pre-ordered will finally be in stock by the time you bid your Tesla a fond farewell. Right, Ed? Tesla launches Roadster lease program for wannabe eco-ballers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Autoblog| Email this| Comments

47

Papers: Paterson Won't Seek Reelection [Breaking] Pareene (Gawker) Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:22:45 AM

Sources close to Governor David Paterson say he will not seek reelection, according to the New York Post and the Daily News.. He will give a press conference between 11:30 and 12:30, but he will not resign.

Back when the New York Tim Stevens (Engadget) machine is shipping and, at $409 Times stories that suggested an with a six-cell battery and a abuse of power were just Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:22:00 AM 250GB hard drive, it won't break delightful rumors of stories of Dell's refresh of the Mini 10 the bank either. Just steer clear drug-fueled orgies, Paterson didn't exactly knock our socks o f Q u i c k t i m e f o r m o v i e gave a press conference that was off when we got a chance to playback and get the most recent ostensibly about the state's spend some quality time with it Flash beta on there pronto, yeah? response to that day's massive last month, but it did prove to be Dell's Broadcom Crystal HD snowfall. He eventually said the a solid performer and did as Mini 10 now shipping to beta only way he was leaving office advertised, playing back 1080p Flashers worldwide originally without losing an election was content with aplomb -- so long appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 "in a box." as you did it within a player that Feb 2010 09:22:00 EST. Please According to sources we just could make the most of a see our terms for use of feeds. m a d e u p , t h e a c c i d e n t a l B r o a d c o m ' s C r y s t a l H D Permalink| Direct2Dell| Email governor made this touch choice once he realized that he'd finally accelerator. Now you have a this| Comments lost the support of Gawker. chance to try it out for yourself, with Dell announcing the

HD Mini 10 now shipping to beta Flashers worldwide

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Apple/

E-reader News Edition

Quicken Essentials for Mac Weldon Dodd (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:15:22 AM

I spent the last week or so playing with a copy of the new Quicken Essentials for Mac from Intuit and I can make this review really short for you. If you’re a die-hard Quicken user, you will hate (I mean really loathe and despise) the new Quicken Essentials product. If you are new to Personal Finance Management (PFM) software, then you will probably really like Quicken Essentials but still feel a little confused about why you have to pay$60$69 for it.

Quicken Pops a Mint Quicken 2007 for Mac was released in August of 2006.

Since that time, Intuit has struggled to define its Mac strategy and loyal users have felt left behind. Intuit tried an online product that worked with the Mac, but were bewildered when a little startup, created as an antiQuicken, amassed more subscribers. Last September, Intuit took another look at that startup and acquired Mint.com and placed Mint’s founder, Aaron Patzer at the head of the personal finance group at Intuit.

That move appeared to show that Intuit was floundering and was looking for outside help to fix its core PFM business.

Understandably, the new Quicken Essentials shows a strong Mint influence. The Essence of Quicken

To start on the new version, Intuit threw away the code for previous releases and started over to create a Mac native version with a modern look and feel. One of the design goals was to create a financial app that would feel at home as part of the iWork suite and it mostly succeeded. The new version looks great and shows a lot of attention to simplifying the user experience in areas like adding new accounts. People that are new to Quicken will love how easy it is to get started.

The new version had four key features: to see all your accounts one place, to see where your money is going, to stay on top of bills, and to track goals for saving money.

Accounts in One Place Quicken Essentials will download transactions from about 12,000 banks out of the box (around the same number that Mint.com currently supports) and up to 16,000 financial institutions will be supported in the next few months. This is over 3x the number of FI’s that Quicken for Windows supports. This is a tremendous improvement.

Where is My Money Going?

Quicken Essentials provides a nice looking home page with pie charts to quickly show where you stand. Instead of being buried in reports, this information comes front and center. QEM also supports

feature. Because major banks offer free online bill pay to their customers, this feature was axed as “non-essential.”

No Turbo Tax Link There is no quick link to export tax prep reports direct to Turbo Tax. Many users would simply run the reports to look at spending by category and then type those numbers in Turbo Tax so, again, Intuit decided that this feature was also “nonessential.”

No Investment Tax Lot Accounting QEM will track the current budgets for tracking spending v a l u e o f y o u r i n v e s t m e n t accounts, but it does not provide by category. any reports on the history of Plan for Bills Quicken Essentials will analyze your transactions. Fortunately, your previous spending and all the transaction data is detect recurring bills to help you preserved in the underlying data anticipate upcoming expenses. and will be available to future Of course, you can enter bills v e r s i o n s t h a t o f f e r m o r e comprehensive investment manually as well. reporting.

Set Goals for Saving Money You can set goals and track The Future your progress towards that goal. Banking Services The reboot of Quicken for Mac QEM is one of the first places comes at a price in features w h e r e y o u w i l l s e e t h e however. While Intuit was fairly integration between Intuit and certain that they would cover 80 Mint. All of the back-end will percent of the users from eventually be the same across previous versions, there are Mint, Quicken for Windows and going to be a lot of pretty upset Quicken for Mac. Quicken for users from the other 20 percent. Mac will be the first product to get the big connection and then What’s Missing? the rest will be ported over.

No Bill Pay There is no Bill Pay feature in Parity with Windows this release. Intuit found that less The whispered goal at Intuit is than 10 percent of existing to bring parity to the Mac and customers were using that W i n d o w s v e r s i o n s . T h i s

includes file format compatibility between different platforms. There is a clear acknowledgment that customers just want to get access to their financial information on whatever platform is available or convenient and Intuit is interested in being there.

Whither Quicken 2007 for Mac? Quicken 2007 is still being fully supported. Intuit made it clear that it will provide support for a three-version window to include 2006, 2007 and Quicken Essentials. iPad No official statement here, but Intuit did discuss that the iPad is an “at your fingertips” device and financial data is a nice thing to have “at your fingertips.”

TheAppleBlog Recommends I mentioned at the start that Quicken Essentials for Mac is similar in many ways to Mint.

The product is streamlined, simple, visually appealing, and easy to jump into. They are so similar, that it is hard to understand why you should pay $59 for Quicken Essentials when you can use Mint.com for free.

That decision comes down to…

• planning future transactions to manage cash flow • importing historical data • offline access If you need any of those QUICKEN page 51

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More on Apple’s Billions: This Time, It’s iTunes Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog)

available for sale. Almost seven years later, the iTunes Store boasts more than 12 million Billions and billions. It’s a songs, 55,000 TV episodes and theme that has accompanied me 8,500 movies. In April 2008, it all week. In fact, I imagine I ranked as the number one (legal) know a little how Carl Sagan online music seller in the United must have felt. After writing States. about Apple’s billions just a few 10 billion songs in seven years days ago, here I am again — but is really something — in fact, this time it’s not data centers and my calculator tells me it’s a custom silicon — it’s music. touch more than one song We reported here back in early downloaded every second of February that Apple was running every minute, day and night, its 10 Billion Song Countdown since the store was launched.

Contest. Yesterday afternoon, as People with better math skills Steve Jobs was (probably not) than me can (and most certainly blowing out the fifty five w i l l ) t a k e g r e a t p l e a s u r e candles on his birthday cake, the correcting me in the comments o d o m e t e r s t o p p e d w h e n , below. The point is, my clumsy according to The Loop, Louie calculations notwithstanding, the Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia, iTunes Store is big business. In downloaded Guess Things fact, it must be a big, fat, cash Happen That Way by Johnny cow for Apple, right? True Cash.

Purpose The download likely earned Well, as it happens, no, it’s not Johnny Cash the usual pittance a big, fat, cash cow. It’s more i n r o y a l t i e s , w h i l e S u l c e r like a well-fed, contented heifer. became the lucky recipient of a It certainly makes a good deal of $10,000 iTunes Gift Card from money; according to one analyst Apple. it generated revenue of $520 Naturally, I’m insanely jealous. million in the last quarter alone.

Milestone However, Apple’s CFO Peter Apple is understandably keen to Oppenheimer told analysts celebrate the milestone. The during an earnings call last iTunes Store first opened for month that the store wasn’t “a business in April 2003 with a real money maker.” Our own l i t t l e o v e r 2 0 0 , 0 0 0 i t e m s Darrell Etherington wrote here Submitted at 2/25/2010 2:33:22 PM

claims profit isn’t the purpose for the iTunes Store.

Oppenheimer said during his earnings call: Regarding the App Store and the iTunes stores, we are running those a bit over break even and that hasn’t changed. We are very excited to be providing our developers with a fabulous opportunity and we think that is helping us a lot with the iPhone about declining music sales and the iPod touch platform. which have undoubtedly had an As far as Apple is concerned, affect on Apple’s earnings the iTunes Store exists as a recently. And as far back as May m e c h a n i s m f o r s e l l i n g i t s last year I wrote about the hardware. iPods enjoy seamless problem of variable pricing in integration with iTunes. As a the iTunes Store. Only a few relatively inexpensive software weeks ago Warner Music Group publishing and delivery platform announced the news (already for iPhones and iPod touches, completely obvious to everyone third-party app developers e x c e p t m u s i c i n d u s t r y (almost) couldn’t ask for more. executives) that iTunes music Defense Tactic sales had slowed since higher The whole “a bit over break p r i c e s w e r e i n t r o d u c e d . even” business is probably (Honestly, when will the old- preferable over a service that is school music industry just shut wildly profitable. Think about it; up and admit defeat?)

Apple’s super-success with the So the iTunes Store might be iPod, the iPhone & iPod touch pushing huge numbers in digital and, presumably, with the downloads (10 billion songs, upcoming iPad, translates into three billion apps and counting) an awful lot of people around the but the revenue it generates is world using iTunes (and the decidedly small-frys. So why iTunes Store) all the time, every run it? single day. My own clunky math Well, it’s not a loss-maker by above tells me this already any means, and besides, Apple happens, but we’re talking about

this intense activity steadily increasing as the iPhone continues to dominate and the iPad begins to make waves.

As Apple’s hardware sales soar, and as more and more of its hardware ships with, or depends upon, iTunes software and services in some shape or form, the bitter cries of “anticompetitive” and “monopoly” from major competitors will grow louder.

That the iTunes Store is not a means to print its own money gives Apple the ability to play its “But It’s Not Very Profitable For Us” card when the threat of antitrust inquiries looms (and oh boy will it loom). It might not be strong enough a defense to save it from unsavory intervention by the law courts (particularly those in Europe, which can’t help but interfere with successful businesses) but it certainly can’t do it any harm.

It’s ironic, really; when the iTunes Store launched it was lambasted by critics certain it had no chance at success. Of course, those criticisms have since proved unfounded, yet today it seems Apple is in an awkward place, and paying a price for its success.

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iPad SDK Mining a Big Tease, But Let’s Stay Level-headed Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog)

SMS and even Handwriting input; We’re told that there are hooks A f t e r t h e r u m o r - f e s t to accept and decline a video surrounding Apple’s mystery conference, flip a video feed device was stanched the moment (which suggests a front-facing Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, a camera) and — most importantly new trend has emerged; SDK — run the video call in either Mining. This is the art of full screen mode or in just a digging through the iPad’s portion of the screen. That operating system to uncover means you’ll be able to chat and clues about hitherto-undisclosed do other things at the same time, functionality. which could mean there’s at Since the iPad and iPhone least some type of multitasking SDKs are so very close in core going on here. functionality, SDK Miners have Engadget’s Nilay Patel adds in been trying to unearth something an update; (anything!) we didn’t already …there’s a spell checker with know about the iPad. I suspect multiple dictionaries and usermost people simply glance over added entries (huzzah!), much these reports, shrug, and move richer text support for apps, the on without comment. After all, ability to selectively draw to we’re a bit tired of tablet rumors external displays (using the by now, right? But looking at VGA or component adapters, some of the comments in the we’d imagine), location-aware articles (linked below), there are ads in Maps and possibly other some people who take it all very programs that use the Maps API, seriously indeed. And that’s file upload ability in Safari, a probably a mistake, as I’ll modifiable cut / copy / paste explain shortly. menu, and, most interestingly, Before I do, here’s a quick p r o t o t y p e s u p p o r t f o r a rundown of what we think we “handwriting keyboard.” Maybe know so far from the SDK we’ll see some stylus action on Mining that has happened in the this thing after all. last five weeks. January 29 In all, Patel lists no fewer than Engadget confirmed that the OS 18 new discoveries, though SDK contained support for many of them are pretty dry and Video Calling, File Downloads, technical.

Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:49:32 AM

Mining reports with this graphic of the icons used in the video chat functionality; Image by MacRumors Kim writes; It seems Apple built in API support to test to see if your iPad had a Front Facing Camera, Zoom and a Camera Flash. The front facing camera would, of course, be used for video chat, while Zoom and Camera Flash are often requested features for the iPhone’s camera.

Given the size of these buttons, After that, things fell quiet for a they were intended for use on while, until just this week. the the iPad’s screen rather than February 20 the iPhone. We’re not sure why 9to5Mac reported discovering a these features were dropped… set of icons in the 3.2 SDK it And finally, just today, MacNN believes are “pretty definitive brings us news of (wait for it) evidence” for video calling advanced wallpaper options. functionality in a future iPhone Image by MacNN or iPad device.

Well. Be still my beating heart.

Image by 9to5Mac From MacNN; It also found strings of code that In the current iPad simulator, refer to iChat, too, but didn’t users can now set separate lockspeculate further. It did say; and homescreen wallpapers, While it is possible that Apple reflecting the iPad’s ability to brought code over from its Mac keep wallpaper active while telephony products, it is unlikely navigating icons. In case the that they also built icons and d i f f e r e n c e d o e s n ’ t m a t t e r , compressed them into the iPad another button applies the same SDK for such a product if it wallpaper to both screens. The weren’t being built for future Disappointment of SDK Mining release. February 23 While it’s fun to poke-around in MacRumor’s Arnold Kim the code (in the absence of an added to the fresh wave of SDK actual iPad to play with, it’s the

next best thing!), SDK Mining often leads to disappointment.

An operating system — even a ‘small’ OS like the one found on the iPhone or iPad — is hugely complex. It’s the end-product of years of development. In that time, as hardware and software prototypes came-and-went, functionality was added and removed, supported and dropped, many times over. This is common to any OS development process.

We need to be careful when reading breathless reports of “hidden” functionality in the iPad (or iPhone) SDKs. In the reports above, the code references camera features, proving that, at some point, Apple’s developers seriously explored that functionality. That doesn’t mean a camera is guaranteed to appear on the iPad. (For instance, just because I once learned how to ride a bike, it doesn’t guarantee I’ll become an avid cyclist.)

So let’s enjoy the speculation — but not get too worked-up over what it might mean. After all, it might never happen.

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E-reader News Edition

How-To: Support Everyone’s OS with VirtualBox Andrew Flocchini (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:30:43 AM

Using a Mac is a treat for many, and after years of living on Window machines, I appreciate the little things OS X provides.

There’s no point preaching to the choir here about how OS X is better…most of us already feel that way. But what I’ve realized while working in IT, is that I have to be adaptable since not everybody can run OS X. Perhaps they are scared of the change or have an application that doesn’t have an Mac counterpart. Whatever the reason, not everyone will jump on the bandwagon. This is especially true in a more corporate environment.

So as an IT support technician, I have to be flexible. As much as I hate spending hours removing spyware from users machines using tools like AdAware, HijackThis & Malwarebytes; this is my trade and I need to be proficient in every aspect of it.

This is why I need to live in both the Apple and Microsoft world at once. There are many options out there such as VMWare Fusion or Parallels, but Oracle’s VirtualBox offering is different in that it’s free.

Free is always good, especially if you only need to access Windows once in a while.

VirtualBox can run all flavors of Windows, Linux, Solaris, OS/2 & BSD. If you need to support some random piece of software that only runs in Windows 3.1, VirtualBox will do it.

For my example below, I will run through installing Windows 7 in VirtualBox. • Download VirtualBox from Oracle’s site.

• Run throughout the Install.

• Launch VirtualBox for the first time and it will ask if you want to register. It is not required.

• Once the Virtual Machine list comes up, we need to make a new VM. • This will start the New Virtual Machine wizard. Enter your machine’s name and select the OS you will be installing.

• Set the amount of RAM you want to be available to your VM. I chose 1GB since this will be Windows 7 and I have 4GB to spare.

• We also have to create a new Virtual Hard Disk for the install to run off of.

• Choose whether it’ll be a dynamic or static disk. Dynamic is the default since it saves space until it’s needed.

Install Guest Additions…

• The install will finish and then let the VM reboot at the end.

You no longer need to type Control + Command to switch mouse controls. You can also resize the VM window and the desktop resolution will adapt.

Having VM’s available to you in the support environment is a godsend. I still use Snow Leopard on my iMac, but I have the ability to launch a VM with • Choose your size, save whatever OS the troubled colocation and your new virtual worker is using. People seem to disk is done. think you must know everything • Now we can launch our VM about Microsoft Office since and start our OS install. you’re IT. I am constantly • The First Run Wizard will reminding people, this is not the start and we need to insert our case. But I can launch Outlook Windows 7 media so it can be on my end and walk them installed. through the process.

• The Windows 7 setup process If there is a Windows app that begins. To switch your mouse your job requires you to run then out of the VM and back to OS it’s time to use Seamless Mode.

X, hit Control + Command.

This allows you to have a • The Virtual Hard Disk we Windows Start Bar on the created earlier is available for bottom of your screen and Windows to install to.

Window applications will float • Go grab a bite to eat or a few on top of OS X. drinks while you let Windows We also have used VMware install. When it’s done, all Fusion in the past. But so far, should be well.

VirtualBox does everything • Now we need to install the Fusion does in our environment.

VirtualBox Guest Additions. If you haven’t dabbled in VMs C l i c k o n D e v i c e s i n t h e before, give VirtualBox a try.

VirtualBox menu bar and select

51

QUICKEN continued from page 48

features, Quicken Essentials would be a good choice except for the price. For such a limited product (albeit a much cleaner and better designed product) I really think Intuit should have come out with $29 introductory pricing, $19 if you own any other Quicken product.

If you are a hard-core Quicken user and you like to reconcile your bank statements with your own records and you religiously enter all your receipts, you will be disappointed in this product.

You might really like the next version that includes tax lot accounting and bill pay, but then hold on to your$60$69 for a year (yes, I am an optimist and will hope against hope to see another version in a year). For the time being, hold on to Quicken 2007, or even Quicken 2010 for Windows, and see what happens.

52

Tech Blog/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

Big change in the tech world (Scripting News) Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:24:22 PM

The moral of the story of the Facebook patent and all the recent news from Apple and Google: Tech companies are no better or worse than big companies in other industries.

They are all about keeping the stock price high, growing at the expense of their competitors, and the role of users is the same as customers in other industries, you're a source of revenue.

Something wonderful happened when the Internet broke through a similar logjam in the early 90s.

But that's now a distant memory.

A new generation has come of age. The students I work with at NYU were small children when the Web grew out of the ruins of the PC business. They don't have any memory of what it was like before.

Further, the tech companies of today are much larger and more influential than the leading tech companies of the early 90s.

Today the music industry's content flows through Apple's servers. Apple is poised to play a large role in the distribution of

all other forms of media. Google is huge, as is Amazon and Facebook. And the people running these companies are far more experienced and/or competent than those who were running the industry the last time there was a user takeover.

My thinking has changed recently, as Google's moves with Buzz have surfaced, and Apple's moves to control sexual imagery in the the app store, as they embark on an ugly and dishonest campaign against Flash. Patents are nothing new. Last year, Google patented some very basic technology we created in the first wave of RSS apps. Another company was granted a patent on podcasting. It goes on all the time. What is different is that tech companies are taking a more active interest in the content that flows over their networks, and are doing less to protect their users. Sometimes they're the ones attacking users.

Just like other industries.

Think about how you're treated by airlines. By insurance companies. If you have to go to a hospital. That's the kind of relationship you have with

Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc. Sooner or later there will be a massive oil spill or a massive network-wide security breach. Expect these companies to be every bit as bad as the ones in other industries. Probably worse because they've come so far without much oversight or scrutiny. Recently Google was given permission to trade energy. Who are these companies? We have no idea.

If you want to know what you can do, great -- there are things you can do. Buy your own services and put your content in places where you are treated like a customer with rights that are respected. That's still possible.

In many industries it's no longer possible, but you can get that kind of service on the Internet

now, but you have to pay for it.

If you're in the media industry, stop partnering with the tech industry, and hire away some of their best people and give them power to run your business. This is how your boat will stay afloat.

Pretending these companies are your friends is ridiculous. They don't care about you. Look at how well they're doing monetizing your content. This is probably what you need to learn to do, and there's no time to learn. Hire their people away and get ready to compete.

And when you have a choice between using the product of a small company or a large one, give the small one a chance.

This helps protect choice and diversity. And if someone creates something new, and they are not working for a big company, celebrate that, make them famous, make sure everyone knows. The myth is that the only new stuff comes from big companies. That's never been true. The only way to change that is to make sure people hear about the new stuff that comes from individuals.

Bourses regain poise as Wall Street's rebound calms nerves (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:14:57 AM

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14:15 GMT. Bourses regained their composure at the end of a volatile week as positive economic data out of Japan and a rebound overnight on Wall Street calmed nerves.

The foreign exchange markets, seen by many as a key gauge, if not the driver, of recent risk appetite, were more settled. The euro was firmer following the previous session’s sharp vacillations as traders pared back short positions lest they be caught out by any weekend developments in the Greek debt crisis.

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US fourth quarter GDP revised upwards (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:20:28 AM

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-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

US economic output grew at a faster rate than previously thought at the end of last year as a resurgence in business

investment fuelled the economy’s strongest quarter since 2003.

The US economy grew at an adjusted annual rate of 5.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of last

year, commerce department figures showed on Friday. That was better than economists expected and was an improvement from last month’s preliminary reading of 5.7 per

cent.

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Tech Blog/ TV/ Entertainment/

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Dropbox, AFP and the Olympics (Scripting News)

night, wondering if there was a way to allow everyone to have access to one of my folders so I One of my favorite phrases in could flow pictures from the tech, after "really simple" is "just Olympics, for the next few days, works." Here's a story of some out through the web. I poked stuff that took about five around the site and found they minutes to hook together, and of planned for this. c o u r s e a s y o u m u s t h a v e So here's a folder that's updated g u e s s e d , i t " j u s t w o r k s . " as pictures are available, with If you recall, we have an photos from the Olympics. experimental feed of photos http://r2.ly/z2fk from Agence France-Presse. It's got a long url, so I shortened They are available through the it (hint to Dropbox, it might be River2 aggregator, which in nice if these had shorter URLs). addition to being a news reader You may see some pics with is also a podcatcher and a photo- question marks, that's because catcher. It's all really simple, I my machine is still synching up just use RSS and enclosures as with Dropbox. Refresh the page, we do for podcasting, and it all it should clear. "just works."

PS: I really hope Google doesn't Another thing that "just works" buy Dropbox, but I fear they is Dropbox. It's such a great will. :-( product. I keep thinking of new uses for it. I had a thought last Submitted at 2/25/2010 2:36:27 PM

53

"Test Deals" Squeeze More Money Out of TV Actors Danny Gallagher (TV Squad) Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:00:00 AM

Life is hard enough if you're a struggling actor. You have to scrape change out of other people's couch cushions for rent money. You live in an apartment that isn't fit for bacteria. Your parents pray for the day you wake up and realize you can have a much more fulfilling life as a sewer technician or a cat manicurist.

Now the networks are squeezing every buck that they can out of TV actors by a new process called"test deals."

Basically, the networks are getting their actors to agree to residual payments and checks before they even audition for a pilot or a new series. So now

Which Actor Is Having an Affair with a Lesbian Couple [Blind Items] they have no leverage to negotiate a fair price. This is a great idea ... if the people getting paid were Goldman-Sachs employees. Somebody get Nathan Ford on the line!

Filed under: Industry, RealityFree Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Brian Moylan (Gawker) Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:08:17 AM

Cheating with one lady wasn't enough, so he went for a pair.

These band members are feuding because of husband swapping.

This reality star wants to bed all the Twilight boys. Today's Blind WHICH page 54

Judge Won't Block 'Jersey Shore' DVD Release for Assault Victim Danny Gallagher (TV Squad) Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:00:00 AM

If you are waiting with nervous anticipation for the release of the first season of MTV's'Jersey Shore,' first, please seek immediate help.

Then get your most ab revealing shirt cleaned and pressed and get ready to camp out in front of your neighborhood Best Buy because a judge has denied a request to block the show from being released on DVD. The request came from Stephen

Izzo Jr. who claims he was one of the many innocent people

beaten up on camera by a Shows, TV on DVD member of the 'Jersey Shore' Permalink| Email this| | cast. I don't understand why this C o m m e n t s case is so hard to prove.

Wouldn't it harder for you to prove that the cast of 'Jersey Shore' had not beaten you up?

Filed under: Other Reality

54

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WHICH continued from page 53

Items are sponsored by Big Love.

1."This aging, former B list television actor who used to be on a very hit show, is now a C despite working almost constantly since that hit show went off the air. Or is it? Our actor is in the middle of a divorce to his long term wife.

The reason? Well the affair he has been having for the past year with a lingerie model/actress and her live in lingerie model girlfriend probably had a lot to do with it." [ CDaN] 2."Which long running feud between band members could have something to do with the fact that one of them has slept with the other's husband?" [ Blind Gossip] 3."This reality star has Twilight

fever (and a big ego it seems!)

She has pledged to friends that she plans to bag the actors who played Jacob and Edward so she can give a good comparison who is better in bed. She bragged she already has an ‘in' with Rob, and is just waiting to sink her teeth into Taylor. We hope to hear how this turn out. Not Audrina Patridge." [ BuzzFoto] 4."A strange and sordid rumour has been going around Soho that which wholesome, well-fed and happily married TV star picked up a cute young gay so that he could piss on him in the bathtub.

Careful now, loose lips (and tongues) sink ships!" [ Popbitch]

Mourning Rochette Perseveres to Earn Bronze (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/25/2010 11:35:56 PM

After completing her bronze medal winning Olympic figure skating routine on Thursday, Canada’s Joannie Rochette faced an even more daunting task: discussing the pain of her mothers death in front of bright camera lights and dozens of reporters tape recorders.

AFP/Getty Images Joannie Rochette cries next to goldmedal winner Kim Yu-Na Thursday.

Her mother, Therese Rochette, died Sunday — only a day after arriving in Vancouver to watch her daughter compete in the Olympics.

On Thursday in the mixed zone, where athletes talk to journalists right after they finish performing, the 24-year-old (Financial Times - US Federal Reserve, revealed on Rochette at times had to step away from the scrum to gather homepage) Thursday.

“We are looking into a number her composure. She had started Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:28:04 PM of questions relating to Goldman crying immediately at her Message from fivefilters.org: If Sachs and other companies and performance’s end, and she you can, please donate to the full their derivatives arrangements continued to mix sobs with -text RSS service so we can with Greece,” Mr Bernanke said, smiles from there. continue developing it. apparently referring to Greek Speaking about a triple salchow The US central bank is looking currency transactions structured jump late in her routine, she into Goldman Sachs’s role in by Goldman. a r r a n g i n g c o n t e n t i o u s Five Filters featured article: derivatives trades for Greece, Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: which helped the country to PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, massage its public finances, Ben Term Extraction.

Bernanke, chairman of the

Goldman role in Greek crisis probed

Her mother helped drive those notions home.

In school, Rochette recalled, I’d get a 98 and she’d say, Where did you lose those two points?

Her mother would always come to her practices and stay there and watch, unlike the other said, That last triple sal, boy, Im parents. And boy, sometimes I sure my mom was there lifting wished shed just go so I could me up. Because I had no more have fun with the other kids and legs. eat poutine [a Canadian style of At a formal press conference gravy-covered French fries] at later in the evening, Rochette the rink side, she said. Even spoke at length about her mother though she’s not here any more, and why she wanted to honor I ’ m n o t a f r a i d t o s a y i t : her by talking to the press as Sometimes she was a pain in the m e m b e r s o f t h e C a n a d i a n a–. skating team cheered her on Her mother would criticize her from the sidelines. jumps and spins. But she was An only child, Rochette said her my biggest fan, my best friend, mother wanted her to socialize said Rochette. She was with me with other kids, but swimming every step of the way. lessons turned out to be a bust. I She added: I’m sure if she live in a small town, so the only would have seen my triple lutz other things to do are play tonight, she would have been hockey or ice skate, she said. proud.

She watched Oksana Baiul win Why was she willing to stand in gold at the 1994 Lillehammer the spotlight on such a difficult Games on TV. That story really week? After she broke down a inspired the whole family, she few times, her coach offered to said. Its the first time the skater take her away but she refused. It understood the meaning of feels good for me to talk about competition and achievement. it.

Sports/

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55

South Korea's Kim Yu-na wins gold with record score Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 2/26/2010 4:45:32 AM

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• Email • Print • Comments '); document.write(''); function showShareUI(){ var H = {APIKey:"2_B48MVBl19K9C Qj72UVrAqLh7VSAyZDfMkcl kt8foSSRaAbdWu36H_N3Ky_ ERWhDG", enabledProviders: "facebook,twitter", cid:"ESPN.Story"}; var I = n e w gigya.services.socialize.UserAct ion(); var D="Test "; var A = { } ; I.setUserMessage(""); I.setTitle(decodeURIComponent ("South%20Korea\'s%20Kim%2 0takes%20gold%20with%20rec o r d % 2 0 s c o r e " ) ) ; I.setLinkBack("http://sports.espn .go.com/olympics/winter/2010/fi gureskating/news/story?id=4947 6 9 4 " ) ; if(("#videoInfo").length > 0) { I.setDescription(jQuery(".article p:nth-child(4)").text()); } e l s e { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).text()); } A.userAction = I ; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false;

} } Associated Press VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- All that pressure, all those expectations. Kim Yu-na could feel the weight on her dainty shoulders.

The "Queen" took it all on and delivered royally.

A gold medal.

A world record.

A women's figure skating performance that likely will be remembered as one of the best of all time.

The South Korean soared to the Olympic gold medal Thursday night, scoring 228.56 points and shattering her previous world record by more than 18 points. It is South Korea's first medal at the Winter Olympics in a sport other than speedskating, and it's sure to set off wild celebrations from Seoul to Pyeongchang.

Even Kim seemed to be dazzled by the show she put on, gasping when she saw the monstrous score. Coach Brian Orser gave a Rocky-like victory pump, shaking his clasped fists over each shoulder.

"I still can't believe it," Kim said. "I waited a long time for the Olympics, and it feels like a large weight has been lifted off."

The 19-year-old grinned as she hopped up to the top spot on the podium, tugging at the bottom of her dress. When the gold medal was slipped over her head, she kissed both sides and held it up.

Her lip quivered when the South Korean anthem began, and then

came the tears.

She made a beeline for someone holding the South Korean flag as she set off on her victory lap, and carried it triumphantly as fans serenaded her with cheers and applause.

"Truly I still can't believe that I did what I wanted to do at the Olympics," she said.

Longtime rival Mao Asada of Japan won the silver medal, but it was no contest -- even with Asada landing both her triple axels, one in combination with a double toe loop. Asada was more than 23 points behind Kim, a margin so big Kim could have done nothing but figure 8s for the last half of her program and still finished in front.

In fact, Kim's score was so off the charts, it would have put her ninth in the men's competition -even though they skate 30 seconds longer and do an extra jump.

"It's one of those programs that, when it's done like that, when it's perfection ..." Orser said, his voice trailing off.

Joannie Rochette, skating four days after the sudden death of her mother, won the bronze, giving Canada its first women's medal since Liz Manley's silver in 1988.

"I had to be out there as Joannie the athlete and not the person," she said. "It's not easy at some points. There's always some moments when emotions take over. But I really tried to be

strong to make my mother proud and my father, who was in the stands."

The Americans, meanwhile, are going home without at least one medal for only the second time since 1952. The other time was 1964, three years after a plane crash wiped out the entire U.S. team on its way to the world championships.

But there is hope on the horizon with 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu finishing fourth. U.S. champion Rachael Flatt dropped two spots from the short program and was seventh.

Kim came in bearing almost incomprehensible pressure. Not only was the reigning world champ the biggest favorite since Katarina Witt in 1988 -- she's lost just one competition during the last two seasons -- she carried the weight of an entire nation. Maybe her sport, too.

The most popular athlete in South Korea, she's been dubbed "Queen Yu-na" -- check out the sparkly crowns that twinkle in her ears -- and she needs bodyguards whenever she returns home from her training base in Toronto. Anything she does creates a frenzy, and even a simple practice draws a rinkful of photographers.

Figure skating is also counting on her to bring back the sass and star power that has traditionally made the women the must-see event of the Olympics. Think of some of the greatest Winter

Olympians ever and Dorothy, Peggy and Michelle -- no last names needed for die-hard fans - immediately come to mind. But the sport has lost some serious luster since Michelle Kwan stopped skating.

Kim seemed to shrug off any jitters earlier this week, saying after the short program that it felt like any other competition.

But it was clear Thursday that it meant so much more -- for her and Orser, a two-time Olympic silver medalist who was devastated when he lost to Brian Boitano at the 1988 Calgary Games.

"It's more gratifying," Orser said. "[But] it's definitely her medal. She's a champion."

There were simply no visible flaws in Kim's performance, from her skating to her expressions to that lovely cobalt blue dress. While other skaters slow down as they approach their jumps to steady themselves, she hurtles into them at full speed yet touches down with feathery lightness.

Her connecting steps are like art on ice, and her edges show not even the slightest hint of a harsh scrape. Her spins were centered so perfectly the tracings looked as if they were made with a protractor, and she must be quadruple-jointed to pull off all those positions in her combination spins.

SOUTH page 57

56

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Mark McGwire saddened by brother's betrayal in writing book about steroid use Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:58:08 AM

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gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } Associated Press JUPITER, Fla. -- Mark McGwire said he's saddened his estranged brother wrote a book that chronicles their use of performance-enhancing drugs and reiterated his claim that he only took them to heal from injuries.

McGwire said Thursday he's so upset with his brother, Jay McGwire, that he doesn't believe reconciliation is possible.

"I don't plan on ever seeing him again," said McGwire, the new hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals.

The youngest of the five McGwire brothers and Mark's junior by more than six years, Jay McGwire lived with Mark and was a frequent clubhouse visitor during McGwire's time in Oakland. His book, "Mark and Me: Mark McGwire and the Truth Behind Baseball's WorstKept Secret," is scheduled for publication Monday by TriumphBooks.

Mark McGwire used the word "sad" seven times to describe the book in his 8-minute question and answer session with the media on Thursday.

"You try to be a good person, you try to take care of somebody, be a good brother," said McGwire, trailing off. "It's

sort of sad. It's a sad day for my family. I don't know how a family member could do something like that."

Last month, McGwire admitted taking steroids and human growth hormone during the 1990s, but said he only did so to recover from injuries -- not to improve his performance.

Jay McGwire says recovering from injuries was the primary reason for his brother's decision to use drugs but that Mark McGwire also knew the steroids were helping him gain size and strength.

"He had to do something to try to sell a book," Mark said. "I know the reason why I did it. I know it from the heart and I told you guys that already back in January."

Jay McGwire says in the book that he persuaded his brother to start using steroids regularly in 1994 and set him up with a supplier. He says Mark regularly used an array of drugs through 1996 that included DecaDurabolin, human growth hormone, Dianabol, Winstrol and Primobolan. McGwire later used androstenedione, a steroid precursor that wasn't banned by baseball until 2004, when it became a controlled substance.

"I've already come out and said what I've done and apologized," Mark said. "As far as I'm

concerned there's really nothing new. It's kind of sad as a brother what he's done, but I've moved on from it."

Jay McGwire, a former bodybuilder who turns 40 on May 5, said he was introduced to steroids by friends in 1989, beginning with pills of Anavar.

He says his brother only gave in to using steroids after an injuryfilled 1993 season.

McGwire hit 70 homers for the Cardinals in 1998, shattering Roger Maris' record of 61 set in 1961.

At Phillies' camp on Thursday, Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt commended McGwire for his apology, but he isn't sure if the public fully accepts it.

"He needed to clear the air, sort of pave the way for a smoother year for himself. It's not going to be smooth by any means," said Schmidt, who is serving as a guest instructor with Philadelphia. "He's going to have to talk about it wherever he goes, but I'm happy for him. It was a great start for his new career as hitting coach.

"He stated that his usage of steroids didn't help his power output. He may believe that and it may be true, but I don't think that's what the public wanted to hear. They probably wanted to hear an admission that his numbers were increased and his

position in history was probably elevated to some degree by the use of steroids. Again, I think that's what the public wanted to hear."

The brothers haven't spoken since 2002. They fell out after Jay McGwire's stepson, Eric, tickled Mark and caused Mark to spill coffee on himself. Mark then swatted Eric on the backside. Jay's wife, Francine, then refused to attend Mark's wedding.

St. Louis manager Tony La Russa received an advanced scouting report on the book and didn't expect the release to disrupt the Cardinals' camp.

"Somebody I knew read an advanced copy," La Russa said prior to morning workouts. "He said that [Jay] said some stuff -it wasn't really first-page-to-lastpage damning stuff about Mark."

Neither Mark McGwire nor La Russa plan to read the book.

"What's the point?" La Russa said. "It's stuff that's already been gone over a bunch of times.

I don't know what it's going to change."

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SOUTH continued from page 55

What really makes her transcendent, though, is her performance skills. She breathed life into Gershwin's "Concerto in F," moving across the ice like notes on a score. As the music lifted the first time, she put one hand on the small of her back and gave a flirty little smile that set shutters clicking throughout the building.

When she finished, you could almost see the pressure fall away as Kim bent over and cried. So many stuffed toys and flowers littered the ice the full complement of sweepers had to be deployed -- not once, but twice.

"It's not any time to hold back.

It's not a time to be conservative or cautious. Be Olympic," Orser said. "We've talked about that, coming here. You've got to be Olympic. You've got to be a competitor. Yes, you're beautiful. Yes, the programs are beautiful. Beautiful lines. Great presentation and choreography.

"But you've got to be Olympic and you've got to be fierce. And she was."

It almost wasn't fair that Asada,

skating next, had to try and oneup that.

She couldn't. Not even close.

"Because there was so much noise from the crowd, I was not able to hear her score," Asada said. "But judging from the loud reaction, I knew she must have had a great performance."

Asada, who has swapped titles with Kim since their junior days, is one of the few women who even tries a points-packing triple axel, and she did two on this night. But she melted down later, stumbling on the footwork into her triple toe and forcing her to cut it to a single. She did only four clean triple jumps, two fewer than Kim, and did not do either a triple lutz or a triple toe.

Asada looked stone-faced as she waited for her marks. She didn't even crack a smile when she got her silver medal.

"The triple axel I landed I'm happy with," Asada said, "but I'm not satisfied with the rest of my performance today."

For Rochette, the medal is a culmination of "a lifelong project with my mom." Therese Rochette, 55, had a massive

heart attack just hours after arriving in Vancouver to watch her daughter skate, and Rochette has been the picture of courage this week.

Supported by her father, Normand, and longtime coach Manon Perron, Rochette decided to go ahead and compete. Her performance Thursday wasn't perfect; she two-footed and stepped out of a triple flip, and had shaky landings on a couple of other jumps. But she made up for those errors with an emotional and expressive portrayal of "Samson and Delilah."

When she finished, Rochette blew a kiss skyward.

Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Can Anyone Catch Kim? (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:35:29 PM

One more group of skaters performs before the leading contenders for tonight’s women’s figure-skating crown take to the ice. But if you don’t plan in to tune in before the final group, you won’t be missing much drama: There’s a tremendous gap between the top three women and the rest of the skaters here. AFP/Getty Images Mao Asada during the short program.

Based on their performances in Tuesday’s short program, a 10point gap — more or less — separates South Korea’s Kim Yu -Na, Japan’s Mao Asada and Canada’s Joannie Rochette from No. 4-ranked Miki Ando, also of Japan.

For Kim, the huge gap is standard operating procedure.

She’s known for racking up points with an unbeatable short program, clinching top place, even if she falters in the longer

AIG loses $8.9bn in fourth quarter (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:32:49 AM

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continue developing it.

AIG, the bailed out insurer, said on Friday that it lost $8.9bn in the fourth quarter of last year as charges on its massive debts weighed down its performance.

The loss was an improvement

57

on the net loss of $61.7bn that Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: AIG recorded in the same PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, q u a r t e r o f 2 0 0 8 b u t t h e Term Extraction. company’s shares slumped by nearly 7 per cent to $25.61 in pre -market trading on Friday.

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free-skate program. Indeed, what’s more unusual this time is how closely Asada and Rochette are following behind Kim — even though she scored a personal best in Tuesday’s program. Asada, lagging around 5 points at No. 2, said on Tuesday that the gap between their ranks is generally more like 10 points. The narrower lead is a relief, Asada said.

Neither Kim nor her coach seemed too concerned. The rivalry “will keep everybody on the edge of their seats,” said Brian Orser, the Canadian figure -skating medalist who’s been training Kim in Toronto. “That’s exciting, and it’s exciting for Yu -na, who is a pretty fierce competitor as well.”

58

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Judging the Olympic Parties: Vancouver Art Gallery (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:57:15 PM

Journal reporters sample the Olympic parties and, since this is the Olympics judge them. Out of allegiance to our host, scores are based not just on vibe, but also on the presence of Canadian VIPs and delicacies.( See more in the series here.)

It isn’t exactly “ Night at the Museum” but the Vancouver Art Gallery has been the scene of some of the most well-connected parties during the Olympics. Ian Johnson The museum has been mobbed during the day with people eager for a bit of culture to offset their sport. The current show: sketches of the human body by Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. It features leaves of an unfinished manuscript on human anatomy that lies in The Royal Collection and was personally loaned to the museum by Queen Elizabeth II. During the evening, however, the riff-raff is cleared away and the museum becomes a playground for politicos, journalists and their friends. One

recent night, the Premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, was present to honor Surrey, a fast-growing city of 400,000 next to Vancouver.

The atmosphere was, well, B.C. political, which is to say polite and fun with an undercurrent of hot money. There were the requisite boring speeches by mayors and the premier, but the culturally adventurous could avoid them by going for a stroll through the museum, which is located in the city’s old courthouse.

After the hot air had subsided and it was safe to return, there was plenty of free food with a politically correct B.C. theme: wine from the Okanogan valley, one of Canada’s top grapegrowing regions and salmon, salmon and more salmon, some broiled, other grilled, and much of it spindled, folded and

mutilated into tacos, tapas and skewered on sticks.

Later, the nightly fireworks on Robson Square were on display from a tented-in balcony, with the plebes milling around happily below. Politicians and journalists mingled and enjoyed the good times brought on by the games.

Guests got some okay take-mehomes too — cut-glass versions of the Vancouver Olympics’ rockman symbol, the Inukshuk.

The only problem was the city’s name was emblazoned on the base, making it hard to resell the swank swag on eBay. Party: Vancouver Art Gallery Vibe: Art, wine, food and fireworks – the whole politically correct package. 8 points.

VIPs: Canadian politicos, including the Premier of British Columbia. 5 points.

Salmon: A plethora of varieties.

9 points.

Maple: None. Zero points.

Canadian delicacies: Wine from the Okanogan valley. 1 point.

Total: 23 points

Age determines PSP Go buyers' free game option: LBP or Assassin's Creed Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)

Similarly, minors will be automatically booked for a trip to LittleBigPlanet. We'd say that The "choice" between a free consumers should cry foul for digital copy of LittleBigPlanet or being robbed of a true choice, Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines but new owners of the UMDthat new PSP Go owners will less PSP should probably get receive as part of an ongoing used to that feeling anyway. promotion is based on their ages. [ T h a n k s t o T a l t o n W a n d That's the key detail Joystiq e v e r y o n e e l s e ! ] confirmed after following up Continue reading Age with Sony, which said, "The determines PSP Go buyers' free game sent to consumers is game option: LBP or Assassin's determined by age, once the user Creed c r e a t e s / l o g s i n t o t h e i r Age determines PSP Go buyers' PlayStation Network account." free game option: LBP or (Check out Sony's full statement Assassin's Creed originally after the break.) appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 26 This means that if your PSN Feb 2010 10:01:00 EST. Please account indicates you as age 17 see our terms for use of feeds. or older, you'll receive Permalink| Email this| Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines-- C o m m e n t s whether you like it or not.

Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:01:00 AM

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Mukmuk for Mascot (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:36:49 PM

By Ian Johnson and Phred Dvorak Are the Vancouver Olympics anti-marmot?

That’s the question being posed by a group of slightly tongue-incheek activists who are asking why one of the games’ most popular figures, Mukmuk the marmot, isn’t a mascot but a “sidekick.” A group of protesters want him to be given equal mascot status and have been taking to the streets of Vancouver to express their outrage. The protest earlier this week went viral on Twitter, becoming a trending topic in Canada for six hours.

“It’s another Olympics whitewash and we’re not going to sit around and let it take place,” said protest organizer Shantel Shave. “He should be a mascot, not a sidekick.” Jeff Masigan The Vancouver Olympics already have three mascots, a sasquatch called Quatchi, a young “sea bear” called Miga (a killer whale who can turn herself

into a rare white bear, as per an aboriginal myth) and Sumi the thunderbird, the legendary bird meant to represent the soaring spirit of the paralympic athletes.

And then there’s Mukmuk. As far as back stories go, Mukmuk’s is pretty minimal.

He’s an endangered Vancouver Island marmot, but doesn’t seem to have much of a role except as a fan to the mascots, which some people found redundant— after all, isn’t a mascot a sort of fan or sidekick to a team? While the three mascots go off to games, play sports and feature in most signage around town, Mukmuk only pops up occasionally.

But Mukmuk has two things going for him. One: He’s cute, with an orange and turquoise tuque and a permanent grin that seems to be chemically induced.

Merchandisers say he outsells all the other mascots except for

Quatchi, the shy sasquatch, who sports an adorable hunchback.

To the protesters, the key is also that Mukmuk is a real animal — and an endangered one at that.

Rally organizers want to help the Marmot Recovery Foundation, which is trying to breed the marmots (only 25 were left in the wild by 2001) in captivity.

Officials from Vanoc, the committee that organized the Vancouver games, said this is one protest they don’t have a problem with. Mukmuk’s creators are also marmot fans and wanted to highlight their plight. But Ali Gardiner, who heads Vanoc’s creative services, said this doesn’t mean that Mukmuk will join the other three as full-fledged mascots.

“Being a Vancover Island marmot, he’s in hibernation in the winter,” she said. “He prefers to rest a bit more than the mascots do.”

Which leads to the next cause: When will hibernating animals ever get full representation at a Winter Olympics?

UK road to be named after Lara Croft thanks to internet Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 2/26/2010 10:29:00 AM

So, remember that story back in December-- about how the town of Derby was holding an internet poll to come up with a name for one of its roads? And Lara Croft was one of the options? Guess what? The buxom relic-gatherer won, and a brand new street connecting Osmaston Road and Burton Road (which we presume are not named after video game characters) will soon be known as Lara Croft Way. Derby Councillor Lucy Care chalked up Croft's 89-percent margin of victory to the fact that the Tomb Raider series was

conceived by the now defunct, Derby-based studio Core Design. We personally think the name won because the poll was on the internet, where video game fans could easily flood the ballot box. Yes, you named a road in a town in the U.K. that you'll probably never visit. We live in very, very strange times, friends. And it's kind of amazing.

UK road to be named after Lara Croft thanks to internet originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rochette and Kim Create Tears, Magic, History Jay Mariotti (FanHouse Main)

intense tragedy, is courageous enough. To perform twice in three nights and do so with only Filed under: Asia, Figure a few mistakes -- well, be still Skating, Canada, Korea my beating heart. With so much VANCOUVER, British quarreling around here in recent Columbia -- The wait was longer days, whether it was Canadians than usual, almost suspiciously booing Americans or Sven so, as the judges took their time Kramer blaming his coach for an deciding if the American infamous speedskating gaffe or teenager had skated well enough Julia Mancuso taking a jealous to thwart The Story The Whole shot at U.S. ski teammate World Wanted. When the scores Lindsey Vonn, it was therapeutic f i n a l l y w e r e a n n o u n c e d Pacific Coliseum and all over to see Rochette melt the most Thursday evening in a hushed t h e p l a n e t , a n d l e a d t h e hardened souls and remind one arena, Mirai Nagasu had fallen silhouette over to the medals and all about the human spirit. just short of the bronze medal. A podium, where she accepted her Yes, cynics, it still can thrive at joyful gasp shot through the prize, looked down at it with the Olympic Games amid 21ststands, and I'll admit this much: tears in her eyes and shook her century madness.

If ever there was a moment to head in disbelief. Up in the "I'm really glad I did this. I ignore any hint of a controversy, stands, her father, Normand, was didn't really feel like skating; my that maybe she'd performed well doing the same, smiling through mind was not really here," enough to finish third and not his own tears and then shaking Rochette said in a riveting news fourth in Olympic figure skating, his head. conference after breaking down Too much of this Winter several times in the media mixed this was it, my friends.

For it meant that Joannie O l y m p i a d h a s b e e n a b o u t zone. "Ten years from now, Rochette, the Canadian whose darkness and death, crashes and when the pain has gone away a mother died of a massive heart consternation, glitches and grief. little bit, I would have wished I'd attack only four days before, had What Rochette did was bring life have skated here if I hadn't. And won the bronze medal. And it and light to the stage and give I know that's what my mom meant she could skate into a Vancouver its most triumphant would have wanted me to do. spotlight on her homeland ice, to memory. To even lace up skates warm and thundering cheers in and compete, in the face of an Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:00:00 PM

RE5 Gold tops Japanese charts; Heavy Rain floods top ten JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 2/26/2010 9:35:00 AM

Even without the PlayStation Motion Controller to back it up, Resident Evil 5 has struck gold for a second time. The PS3 version of Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition( Alternative Edition in Japan) hit the top of the Media Create sales chart in Japan following its February 18 release, selling 143,339 copies.

God Eater continues to gobble up attention, taking the #2 spot with 64,192 units sold (while passing 500k units sold to date).

Another big PS3 game also debuted in the top ten this week: Heavy Rain, which fell in at #6,

selling 26,775 copies. In a way, the Japanese version is the superior release, because the voice acting doesn't seem to have been performed by French people faking Japanese accents.

See the full top ten after the break.

Continue reading RE5 Gold tops Japanese charts; Heavy Rain floods top ten RE5 Gold tops Japanese charts; Heavy Rain floods top ten originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sledders Should Fear Foes, Not Venue Kevin Blackistone (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 2/25/2010 2:15:00 PM

Filed under: USA, Bobsleigh, Switzerland, Injuries WHISTLER, British Columbia -- It was pure comedy when John Kruk feigned heart palpitations in the 1993 All-Star Game after Randy Johnson's first near 100-mph offering to him sailed way over his head.

After all, world-class athletes don't fear for their lives in competition.

Bobsledders at the Whistler Sliding Center in the Vancouver Winter Olympics, however, are the exception.

"You're scared," U.S. bobsled driver John Napier admitted earlier this week at Whistler after finishing 10th in the twoman event.

I've never heard an elite athlete utter such a confession.

Canada's Party For Women's Hockey Is On Despite IOC's Buzz Kill Lisa Olson (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:56:00 PM

"You're going down 90 miles an hour down a sheet of ice," Napier continued. "There is fear.

You know going down that you have the lives of three other guys in your hands."

And this time Napier -- who hails from what is arguably America's first family of bobsledding (his father Bill and mother Betsey piloted sleds) -knows along with every other

bobsled racer at these games that Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed on this slide just before the games commenced.

They can't help but be reminded of the tragedy on the track they're now racing. They must walk by the plywood that backs a new higher wall at the spot Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled, smashed into a beam and

was killed. They sense what precipitated Kumaritashvili's sudden death, like some cold draft of a ghost, every time their sleds rocket into the 13th turn at a speed that sometimes can only be controlled by divine intervention or, if they are nonbelievers, good luck.

Filed under: USA, Ice Hockey, Medals, Canada VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Now this was exactly how the Olympics are meant to be experienced. Forget for a moment the outcome -Canada 2, United States 0 -- or that the Canadian women's hockey team had just stomped an exclamation point on their third straight Olympic gold. It was a convincing, rollicking CANADA'S page 62

UK retailer Game closing many of its stores Justin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:02:00 AM

With all the layoffs and financial hits game publishers and developers have absorbed over the past year, it should come as no surprise that the

retail branch of the industry is hurting too. In a statement to Edge today, UK retailer Game said it would close 12 of its stores, six Gamestations and all 25 of its outlets in the Debenhams chain of department stores.

Though Game qualified it as a small percentage of its 682

stores, it still translates to 247 lost jobs. Here's hoping that those affected will land on their feet.

UK retailer Game closing many of its stores originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:02:00 EST. Please see our

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CANADA'S continued from page 61

win, led by a pair of fearless youngsters who chose a fine time to leave their fingerprints on one of sport's greatest rivalries.

But before Canadian goalie Shannon Szabados, the author of a stunning shutout, could drape the flag with its golden maple leaf around her shoulders and skate joyous circles around the Hockey Place ice, and before the irrepressible Marie-Philip Poulin could begin to grasp the magnitude of her two goals, and before the winners got a little naughty during their rowdy celebration, a ripple began to make its way through the jampacked stands.

They began to cheer loudly, maybe not all 19,000 of them but a good chunk of the crowd, and they clapped and then clapped some more, and the astonishing thing is, they were mostly red-bedecked Canadians standing and applauding each individual American player as a silver medal was fastened around her neck. Good sportsmanship is nothing new at any Olympics, but there was something touching about this moment as it stretched into several long minutes.

Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:00:35 AM

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EU summit on Greece Vague European promises of “solidarity” with Greece may not be enough Feb 11th 2010 | BRUSSELS | From The Economist online “PRETTY catastrophic”. That was the verdict of a depressedlooking diplomat, at the end of a Brussels summit on Thursday

Erin Wasson on Making the Switch from Model to Designer ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

Tales of the Alhambra

Submitted at 2/25/2010 1:51:57 PM

Model-cum-designer Erin Wasson’s fall 2010 RVCA show, which involved “magic” carpet rides and a (pant-less) appearance by Ke$ha, was one of the highlights of our New York Fashion Week. But was Wasson daunted about making the career change? "I have literally just been in this place of zero fear,” she tells Paper magazine in the spring-issue cover story. “I just believe, as totally hippy bullshit as that sounds, anything's possible if you're willing to grab it and make it your own. You look at February 11th that saw European Stevie Nicks. Did she have the Union leaders issue a ringing, most amazing voice in the but alarmingly vague, pledge of world? Fuck—but she got on “determined and co-ordinated stage and she owned every action” to preserve the euro zone molecule inside of herself and f r o m t h e r i s k o f a G r e e k completely captured every molecule around everybody else sovereign default.

The vagueness of the bail-out in the entire room. She was this promise was no mystery. After poster child for, 'I don't give a years of footing the bills for fuck, it's about my soul and my successive Euro-crises, Germany is in a truculent mood. Of the 16 countries that share the single currency, most came to Brussels ready to spell out, in some detail, how they might come to the aid THIS page 65

This week's top stories [26 February 2010] (The Economist: News analysis)

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Cris Stoddard (Flickr Blog) Submitted at 2/25/2010 5:16:33 PM

spirit and my music, and you either dig it or you don't.' And that's kind of my take on all this —minus the vulgar words."

Wasson also tells Paper about why she launched her jewelry line, her future plans, and how she stays in shape (“I smoke cigarettes and talk shit”). Click here for the full story.

—Erin Clements Photo: Courtesy of Paper

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As Abu ‘abd-Allah Muhammad XII, known as Boabdil, surrendered Granada, Spain, to Ferdinand and Isabella, in the same year that they sent Christopher Columbus on his explorations of the New World, Boabdil descended from the Alhambra, overlooked the city and was reproached by his mother, Weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man– The Moor’s Last Sigh Photos from the Swedish National Heritage Board, javi_indy, Kalense Kid, Darrell Godliman, karlo, mau_tweety and Balthus Van Tassel.

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Underwater Home-Owers: Demand Principal Reductions Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture)

borrowers among the most vulnerable to foreclosure, and some industry officials worry Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:45:26 AM that more of them will simply Message from fivefilters.org: If walk away from their mortgages, you can, please donate to the full or “strategically default,” rather -text RSS service so we can than spend a decade or more continue developing it. trying to regain positive equity.

The FDIC is proposing a test Under the FDIC program, program of principle reduction borrowers would be eligible for for negative equity homeowners. a reduction in their mortgage But why is the FDIC required? balances if they kept up their An intriguing private sector payments on the mortgage over solution would be a negotiated a long period. The performance principle reduction between of those borrowers would be borrower and lender — no compared with borrowers given government intervention is more traditional mortgage relief needed. packages, such as those that cut Let’s begin exploring this idea the interest rate on loans.” by looking at a Washington Post It only requires basic math skills article from today ( FDIC to test for all parties to recognize that it p r i n c i p a l r e d u c t i o n f o r is in the banks interest to avoid underwater borrowers): foreclosures. Underwater “The Federal Deposit Insurance borrower with this knowledge Corp. is developing a program to — and the cojones— should let t e s t w h e t h e r c u t t i n g t h e the bank know they understand mortgage balances of distressed simple math: Foreclosures = borrowers who owe significantly 50% bank loss. more than their homes are worth They can then “engage in an is an effective method for saving arm’s length, Wall Street style homeowners from foreclosure. negotiation.” Not precisely a The program would be aimed at threat, but simply laying out a g r o w i n g p o p u l a t i o n o f clearly what the mortgagee’s h o m e o w n e r s w h o a r e options are. underwater on their loans, Imagine if a negative equity estimated at more than 20 home-ower said to their lender: percent of borrowers, or 11 “The fact is you lose ~50% (40m i l l i o n h o m e o w n e r s . 60%) on a foreclosure sale of a Economists consider these 2004-08 vintage mortgage.Since

Morgan Stanley and other who have defaulted and walked away from money losing commercial real estate transactions they could not renegotiate, I am going to do the same: Unless you cut a substantial percentage of the principal (~20-30%) owed, then I will choose to strategically default (walk-away).”

I suggest bypassing the FDIC and going straight to your lender. Where the FDIC could be of assistance would be to prod the lender to consider the alternative to foreclosure.

My guesstimate is that of the 5 million probable future foreclosures, this mod would be applicable to about 20% of them.

Note that a recent report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency implies that banks have figured this out: In Q3 of 2009, 13% of loan mods included a principal reduction, up from 10% in Q2 ‘09.

Of course, if Congress didn’t force FASB tio eliminate markto-market on holdings, the banks wouldn’t be able to, Japanese style, wait the whole mess out over the next decade or two.

There are additional elements involved.

The HAMP approach (which isn’t working very well): “Lenders have been reluctant to cut the principal balance owed

by distressed borrowers, arguing that it would encourage homeowners to become delinquent even if they can afford their mortgage. Instead, the industry has focused on providing mortgage relief by lowering a borrower’s interest rate or extending the terms of a mortgage to 40 years.

We know borrowers do not benefit much from these mods – a 1% lower, 40 year mortgage still makes most of these homes too expensive. It does little for the ability of the underwater borrower to carry the property.

And these HAMPS fall into default at a very high rate — 6080%, depending upon circumstances.

Final point: “In some cases, a portion of the principal balance is put into a second mortgage that does not have to be paid off until the borrower sells the home or refinances.”

That was my 30-20-10 proposal some time ago. That is a good fall back proposal — move 30% of my mortgage into a 10 year, interest free 2nd mortgage.

A straight up principle reduction is the way to go, with a balloon mod an alternative option. > Previously:

Fixing Housing & Finance: 30/20/10 Proposal(September 22nd, 2008) http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/20 08/09/fixing-housing-finance302010-proposal/ Strategic Defaults in Florida(October 28th, 2009) http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/20 09/10/strategic-defaults-inflorida/ Coming Soon: 5 Million More Foreclosures(February 16th, 2010) http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/20 10/02/coming-soon-moreforeclosures/ Source: FDIC to test principal reduction for underwater borrowers Renae Merle Washington Post, February 26, 2010; A20 http://www.washingtonpost.com / w p dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/ AR2010022505817.html Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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America's health reform: A waste of breath?

(The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:14:48 PM

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America's health reform Barack Obama’s bipartisan summit on health policy accomplishes more than meets the eye Feb 26th 2010 | NEW YORK | From The Economist online IT IS tempting to dismiss the bipartisan health-reform summit convened by Barack Obama on Thursday February 25th as a colossal waste of time. After all, the gabfest involving senior Congressional leaders from both parties lasted well over six hours, with no tangible results.

Neither side moved one jot on any issue of substance and not one vote is likely to have changed on either side as a result of the summit.

And yet, the televised gathering was not pointless. For one thing, the sight of America’s leading politicians sitting together amiably for an entire day to discuss a matter as inflammatory as health reform (think “death panels”) was itself heartening.

Surprisingly, given the bitter

partisan wrangling of late, they did so in a manner that was mostly civil and substantive.

Towards the end of the long day, Joe Barton, a House Republican from Texas, even declared that he had never seen “so many members of the House and Senate behave so well for so long before so many television cameras.”

From the Republican point of view, the event accomplished two important things. First, Mr Obama was unable to outwit and outcharm them on camera, as he had done brilliantly during a televised exchange with House Republicans in late January.

Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, their stridently partisan leaders in the Senate and the House, wisely allowed other Republicans —more charismatic and competent, it must be noted—to do most of the talking. That allowed them to say no to Mr Obama’s plans without appearing, as is often the accusation with Republicans, merely the “Party of No”. Mr McConnell even admitted afterwards that “I would not call it a waste of time.”

The event went less well for Mr Obama. After a year of dithering, he unveiled his own

grand plan for reforming health care on the eve of the summit.

This scheme closely resembles a health-reform bill passed by the Senate just before Christmas (the House passed a substantially different version earlier, and the two bills now need to be reconciled into a final health law). The big question before the summit was whether Mr Obama would really be open to modifying his plan to embrace Republican ideas, or whether the event was merely a sham.

In the event, Mr Obama appeared to make some progress on bipartisanship. He listened intently to Republican ideas—except the oft-repeated one to scrap Democratic efforts and just “start over”—and was often seen scribbling notes. At the end of the summit, he reviewed a number of areas where he believed the two parties had similar goals, and he asked the Republicans to think of ways to bridge the divide on them. Among those ripe for cooperation, he declared, were tort reform, inter-state competition in health insurance, the creation of insurance exchanges and tackling fraud in Medicare (a government health scheme for the elderly).

This is not likely to herald the start of a new, incremental and heart-warmingly bipartisan approach to health reform, however. For one thing, Republicans made it clear that they are not willing to do anything to help Mr Obama pass health reform quickly. Mr Obama, for his part, made plain that he was willing to entertain Republican notions only as addons to his existing bill, not as an entirely new approach.

Rumours swirled during the summit that if Mr Obama’s big plan (which aims to extend health insurance to some 30m uninsured punters) fails to pass, he may then put forward a less ambitious scheme covering only half that number. But Kathleen Sebelius, the administration’s health secretary, denied this after the summit. Mr Obama himself rejected the incremental approach. He insisted, with some justification, that “baby steps” will not work because the pieces of the health-reform puzzle are tightly interlinked.

If so, that leaves Mr Obama with only one course of action: to push through some version of his health plan without Republican votes. It will be very difficult with only Democratic

votes, given that moderates and progressives in his own caucus have misgivings. Ramming a sweeping health law through Congress on a highly partisan basis using procedural wheezes, Republicans repeatedly warned, will prove unpopular. Despite those obstacles, though, Mr Obama now seems ready for battle.

That points to the biggest reason to think the summit was not a waste of time: it made clear that Mr Obama, after months of sitting on the sidelines, now has steel in his spine. If Republicans do not come up with a reasonable set of compromise measures over the next few weeks to add to his plan, he says that he intends to forge ahead anyway. The final verdict, he insisted, will come from the voters: “We’ve got to go ahead and make some decisions, and then that’s what elections are for.” Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views.

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THIS continued from page 62

of Greece, without breaching “no bail-out” rules that prevent the EU from assuming the debts of countries in the euro zone.

Leaders had originally been summoned to Brussels for an “informal” summit about ways to make Europe more dynamic.

But they knew the markets would react badly if they met without offering a strong signal of support for Greece, in the eye of a storm since the incoming government of George Papandreou admitted that the country’s budget deficit had been massively understated, and in fact is nearly 13% of GDP. There had been talk of bilateral loans from rich countries, accelerated payments of EU structural funds or special loans guaranteed by the EU. But the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, would not—or could not—endorse anything more than a political declaration that the euro zone is throwing its weight behind Greece. This offer of “solidarity” was made in exchange for Greek pledges to cut its budget deficit by 4% a year, until 2012, by enforcing harsher austerity measures than expected.

Officials briefed on the leaders’

talks said that Mrs Merkel talked of constitutional hurdles that made it hard for Germany to offer Greece bilateral aid. She also expressed scepticism about Mr Papandreou’s deficitreduction plans and led calls for Greece to submit to unprecedented monthly monitoring of its public finances by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund.

There was a strong whiff of politics in the air. German voters have been paying more than their fair share for European construction for years.

Germany’s big fear when it abandoned the deutschmark, just over a decade ago, was that it would end up rescuing more profligate countries in the euro zone. Now those fears are coming true.

Politicians from Mrs Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the probusiness Free Democratic Party (FDP), have expressed scepticism that what Greece needs is more money from the EU, after wasting billions from Brussels on a bloated public sector, corruption and uncompetitive enterprises.

Speaking in parliament in Berlin

on the summit eve, Frank Schaeffler, a deputy FDP finance spokesman, said an alcoholic is not helped “by being given another bottle of schnapps.”

Yet money will almost certainly be found for Greece, if it is needed. German and French banks hold tens of billions of euros in Greek debt, and a default could spread contagion among other vulnerable economies in the euro zone, including much larger countries such as Spain. For the moment, EU leaders appear to be gambling that a political statement of support will be enough to make markets back off.

In a joint press conference with Mrs Merkel, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. said euro-zone countries were offering “solidarity” in exchange for Greek promises of “rigour and transparency”. This would give Greece’s promises vital “credibility”, he said.

Challenged on the lack of detail in the summit declaration, Mr Sarkozy said “speculators should understand” that Europe had agreed a strategy for defending the euro zone, and “we will

come up with tactics as needed.”

That swipe at speculators probably offers a hint about the political tactics that Mrs Merkel and other leaders may employ to sell any Greek bail-out to voters.

Already, politicians including José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, have portrayed market pressure on their countries as part of a broader plot by murky market forces that want to destroy the euro and fight off tougher financial regulation within the EU. Expect to hear more about European political solidarity versus the speculators.

Sceptical commentators in places such as America and Britain have long underestimated the political will within the euro zone to defend the single currency, which was always as much a political as an economic project. Both Mr Sarkozy and Mrs Merkel said at the Brussels summit that the current economic crisis had generated support across the EU for much closer co-ordination of economic policies. Both talked about moving towards an “economic government” for Europe. But those words are empty: they mean one thing to

Germany and other governments wedded to budget discipline and strict independence for the ECB and something very different to more interventionist countries like France.

EU leaders may have underestimated the political risks they are running by taking on direct responsibility for rescuing Greece in exchange for tough austerity measures, with IMF officials playing only a technical role as advisers. The EU has been popular in Greece up to now, where it is often more trusted than the national government. The IMF is used to being hated in countries where its technocrats step in to rescue bankrupt governments. The EU may soon learn what that feels like. Readers' comments Readers have commented on this article (the window for new comments is now closed).

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Italy's legal system: Out of time (The Economist: News analysis)

a lower court of having taken a $600,000 bribe, allegedly supplied by Mr Berlusconi, for Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:08:12 PM holding back evidence at two Message from fivefilters.org: If trials involving the prime you can, please donate to the full minister in the 1990s.

-text RSS service so we can The Court of Cassation made no continue developing it. judgment on Mr Mills’s guilt or Italy's legal system Italy's innocence. But it quashed his statute of limitations saves Silvio four-and-a-half-year prison Berlusconi's former lawyer from sentence on the grounds that the going to prison offence of which he was Feb 26th 2010 | ROME | From convicted had been extinguished The Economist online by the passage of time.

ITALIAN courts may be slow. Exactly when the alleged But no one could claim that they offence took place had been an were arbitrary. Defendants get issue of persistent contention at the right to a trial (sometimes the trial. The Court of Cassation after a pre-trial), and then up to decided it could not have been two appeals: one on the merits of l a t e r t h a n N o v e m b e r the case, and another on points 1999—crucially, three months of law. Often, the result is that a earlier than maintained by the case will be timed out by a prosecution in the lower court. statute of limitations before it Mr Mills did not get off lightly, can run that long course. though. The judges upheld an On Thursday February 25th, earlier decision that he should Italy’s highest appeal court hand over €250,000 ($340,000) decided that that is what had t o t h e I t a l i a n s t a t e a s happened in the politically compensation for bringing its explosive trial of David Mills, a judicial system into disrepute by British lawyer who once advised giving testimony that was less Italy’s prime minister, Silvio than the whole truth.

Berlusconi, on offshore finance. The court’s judgement was Mr Mills had been convicted by typical of the decisions reached

in Italy in cases loaded with political import. Left and right alike were able to claim it as a victory. Mr Berlusconi’s supporters declared that the case against his lawyer, and by implication the prime minister himself, had been overthrown.

In a sense, it was.

But Mr Berlusconi’s opponents stressed that the court had not denied that an offence was committed. And, they argued, since a lower court had decided the prime minister had given Mr Mills the bribe, he was still under a cloud. Mr Berlusconi was originally the British lawyer’s co-defendant. The charges against him were stripped out of the case in 2008 when, shortly after returning to office, he secured the passage of a law that gave immunity from prosecution to certain senior officials, including the prime minister.

After that law was ruled unconstitutional last year, he was put back on trial. His case is due to restart in earnest on February 27th. There is little chance it will be heard before it too is “timed out”. But while Mr

Berlusconi may not be convicted, he will be made to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

That will prove especially significant over the next few weeks because on March 28th and 29th, Italians are to vote for governors and regional governments in 13 of their country’s 20 regions. It will be the first reliable test of public opinion since the prime minister was hit by a string of scandals involving his private life last year.

There is a chance that the repercussions of this week’s judgment will reach Britain too.

Mr Mills is not just any lawyer.

He is the estranged husband of a minister in the Labour government, Tessa Jowell, who is responsible for the cabinet office and the oversight of preparations for the 2012 London Olympics. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views.

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Q4 Real GDP revised higher but nominal left unchanged

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Asia continues to lead the recovery Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture)

’stress testing’ a rise in the Yuan and its impact on manufacturing as the pressure and focus on Submitted at 2/26/2010 5:42:09 AM Peter Boockvar (The Big inventories added 3.9 % pts to them to revalue its currency Picture) GDP, 66% of the gain. Taking Message from fivefilters.org: If continues to grow. While the out this influence, Real Final you can, please donate to the full US$ is lower vs the euro, the Submitted at 2/26/2010 6:15:12 AM Sales were revised down to a -text RSS service so we can pound is down for the 9th of the Message from fivefilters.org: If gain of 1.9% from 2.2%. The continue developing it. last 11 days vs the US$ after Jan you can, please donate to the full offset to the headline upward The driver of the global government spending rose more -text RSS service so we can change was a reduction to e c o n o m i c r e c o v e r y , A s i a , than expected and offset a continue developing it. personal spending from 2% to a revealed some good economic slightly better than forecasted Real Q4 GDP was revised to a gain of 1.7%. A higher than data overnight. Japan and rise in Q4 GDP. US Q4 GDP is better than expected 5.9% from expected trade deficit cut Singapore reported better than not expected to be revised from the initial reading of 5.7%. estimates by .2% pt. Gov’t expected industrial production, its original print of 5.7%.

Nominal GDP however was left Spending was also revised lower Thailand had a 31.4% rise in Jan Chicago PMI, Existing Home unch at 6.3%. Helping the real led by state and local govt’s. Net exports, Australia said bank Sales and UoM confidence will revision was a reduction of .2% -net, the report highlights the lending rose twice expectations be key today. in the price deflator, a big boost huge influence of inventory in Jan and Taiwan had the Five Filters featured article: to spending on equipment and changes and still sluggish strongest leading indicator figure Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: software from an original gain of consumer spending but the data since July. All of their respective PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, 13.3% to a revised 18.2% rise. is old news with Q1 2/3 over s t o c k m a r k e t s r a l l i e d i n Term Extraction.

Inventories were also less of a Five Filters featured article: response. Also of interest, a drag than expected as they fell Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Chinese newspaper said China is $16.9b from the initial reading PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, of $33.5b, adding .5 of a % pt to Term Extraction. the revision. In total for Q4,

Is the World's Most Intelligent Music Composing Software as Creative as Bach?

Jeremy Hsu (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 2/25/2010 2:15:00 PM

If the thought of a Wiimotecontrolled robot drum circle sounded vaguely disturbing, prepare yourself. This month, composer and software developer David Cope is set to unveil the first musical works composed by his latest creation, dubbed "Emily Howell." Emily is a piece of software that many WORLD'S page 68

Chicago PMI confirms mfr’g leading the incipient recovery Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:28:43 AM

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Feb Chicago PMI was a better

than expected 62.6 up from 61.5 in Jan and vs the consensus of 59.7. It is now at the highest level since Apr ‘05 but measures the direction of improvement, not the degree. The components though were mixed. New Orders fell 4.2 pts but still remain above 60 for a 5th straight month at

62.2. Also, inventories fell 6.3 pts to 42.4 but are still the 2nd highest reading since late ‘08.

Employment fell almost 7 pts to 53 but is above the key 50 level for a 2nd straight month for the 1st time since Aug/Sept ‘07.

Backlogs rose 4.2 pts to 58.5 to the highest since Dec ‘07 and is

above 50 for a 3rd month. Prices Paid rose 1.5 pts to 67.7, the most since Sept ‘08. Bottom line, the data confirms that mfr’g remains the source of our incipient recovery. While some key components fell from Jan, they jumped from Dec. The Q4 GDP report revealed how much

inventories were an influence and today’s # shows that it will continue into Q1.

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see as the most advanced artificially intelligent music composer. The program is already stirring fierce debate over its supposed ability to generate creations indistinguishable from those composed by the masters-Mozart, Bach and the gang.

Miller-McCune went in-depth with this strange and fascinating tale of creativity in the age of artificial intelligence.

Cope first turned to artificial intelligence after experiencing a bad case of composer's block that prevented him from finishing an opera commission.

That led to the creation of a program called Emmy, which could effortlessly replicate the style of Bach or other great human composers, cranking out more compositions in one afternoon than any human could produce in one lifetime.

Emmy infuriated critics and music-lovers alike, especially when Cope asked an audience to distinguish between real Bach

and Emmy-composed Bach and few could hear the difference.

But many researchers hailed Emmy, and some even suggested that it had successfully passed some level of the "Turing Test," because people couldn't differentiate its artificial work from that of humans.

Still, even some of Cope's supporters admit that Emmy disturbed them with its implications. Cope designed Emmy to work based on his view that all music -- or any creative venture -- is based on previous works. The idea that human creativity is just a product of recombination has upset some musicians and artists (and humanists), despite the idea having a certain cold logic.

As Cope suggests, even the most revered music composers must have created their works based on the conscious and subconscious mind's interpretations of previous music. He drove home that point

by using Emmy to reverseengineer the works of famous composers, tracing their component elements back to earlier pieces of music.

The daughter program of Emmy, dubbed Emily Howell, takes a more cooperative approach with Cope rather than simply churning out new scores based on recombination algorithms. Cope and Emily Howell engage in a musical conversation involving certain compositions or statements, where Cope will label certain musical statements "yes" or "no." That trains the program to refine its composition approach, and eventually it creates its own, Cope-styled original music.

Critics have remained unconvinced, despite the fact that many still can't differentiate between Emily Howell's work and that of a human. For instance, one music-lover who listened to Emily Howell's work praised it without knowing that it had come from a computer

program. Half a year later, the same person attended one of Cope's lectures at the University of California-Santa Cruz on Emily Howell. After listening to a recording of the very same concert he had attended earlier, he told Cope that it was pretty music but lacked "heart or soul or depth."

Emily Howell has an upcoming album, but you can already here some short samples of its robotic genius (?) in the Miller-McCune story. Did we mention that Cope has also signed a confidential deal with a well-known pop group to write songs for them?

Sound off below and let us know whether you buy into this future of music and art, or whether this AI composer just doesn't wash. [via Miller-McCune]

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New Answer to 80-Year-Old Question Makes Computer Modeling 100,000 Times Faster Jeremy Hsu (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 2/26/2010 7:31:01 AM

Fermi would approve A new formula allows computers to simulate how new materials behave up to 100,000 times faster than previously possible, and could drastically speed up innovation relating to electronic devices and energyefficient cars. Princeton engineers came up with the model based on an 80-year-old quantum physics puzzle.

Llewellyn Hilleth Thomas and Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi first theorized in 1927 that they could calculate the energy of electrons in motion based on how electrons are distributed in a material. Knowing that kinetic energy of electrons in a material helps researchers understand the structure and properties of new materials, as well as how they might respond to physical stress.

But the Thomas-Fermi equation was based on a theoretical gas with electrons distributed evenly, and so it could not work for imperfect real materials.

Pierre Hohenberg and Walter Kohn, another Nobel laureate, managed to prove that the Thomas-Fermi equation could apply to real materials in 1964.

But they only established the groundwork to prove the equation's existence.

Honda's Concept Trike for the Urban Commuter Jeremy Hsu (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 2/25/2010 1:41:56 PM

Researchers have tried calculating each atom's energy from scratch to simulate how a material might behave, but simulations beyond just a few hundred atoms bogged down even the most powerful computers. That put a severe limit on the types of materials that researchers could simulate.

By contrast, the Princeton team stuck it out with the ThomasFermi equation. They eventually came up with a working model that could predict the kinetic energy of electrons in simple metals. A slight modification also allowed the model to also

work for semiconductors, which find use in a wide variety of electronic devices.

The equation scientists were using before was inefficient and consumed huge amounts of computing power, so we were limited to modeling only a few hundred atoms of a perfect material," said Emily Carter, Princeton engineer who led the project.

"Important properties are actually determined by the flaws, but to understand those you need to look at thousands or tens of thousands of atoms so the defects are included. Using

this new equation, we've been able to model up to a million atoms, so we get closer to the real properties of a substance."

These new practical working equations should go a long way toward helping engineers realize the more futuristic concept vehicles, if they can run through many more material possibilities in the virtual realm. The saga also provides a good reminder that simulating atoms can prove just as challenging as modeling a star going supernova. [ Princeton University]

Ride into the future on three wheels Honda's EV-N concept may have the visage of a throwback car from the 1960s, but the car company's new 3R-C looks like nothing less than a futuristic trike. The sleek three-wheeled, single-person vehicle is set to debut at the Geneva Motor Show next week as a zero-emission concept with a lithium-ion battery, Autoblog Green reports.

The 3R-C seems designed to address the single urban commuter, and unsurprisingly comes from Honda's Research and Design facility in Milan, Italy. Its clear canopy lowers over the driver's seat while parked, and is raised during operation to become a windshield for the rider. That's a bit HONDA'S page 70

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Video: The Last Ever Test Firing of the Space Shuttle Rocket Booster

Arizona’s ‘Solar Industry Killer’ Bill Dropped (Updated Feb 25 5PM)

Jeremy Hsu (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)

info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:01:32 PM

Rocket, rocket, burning bright A roar and tongue of burning flame today marked the last test firing of a space shuttle solid rocket motor. Such test firings have taken place 52 times over more than three decades as trial runs for the 123-second burn of an actual space shuttle launch, but this is the end of the engineering ritual, as the space shuttle closes in on its scheduled 2010 retirement.

This last test was meant to ensure the quality of the remaining solid rocket motors that will carry the four remaining space shuttle missions skyward. Each motor forms the

HONDA'S continued from page 69

of a shame, given how perfectly streamlined the vehicle looks with the canopy down.

Stability for the vehicle would come from the electric drivetrain sitting low in the chassis, and there's even a lockable "boot area" in front of the driver to provide storage for luggage.

These concept vehicles won't enter production, but they provide some food for thought concerning the needs of future commuters winding through narrow streets or alleyways. And given global trends, it's safe to say that the cities of the world

will only become more crowded in the near future. If you're not down with a regular bike or a full-blown car, perhaps an affordable single-seat vehicle might not be a bad alternative, unless GM's two-wheeled P.U.M.A. somehow takes off in a way that the Segway didn't. [via Autoblog Green]

core of the twin solid rocket boosters that provide 80 percent of thrust for the first two minutes of a shuttle launch. Each individual rocket booster creates an average thrust of 2.6 million

pounds, so that a pair can lift the 4.5-million-pound shuttle.

The ATK-built motors have launched NASA's space shuttle into orbit 129 times, not counting the Challenger launch disaster where an O-ring on the right solid rocket booster failed.

They are still the largest solid rocket motors ever flown, the first designed for reuse, and the only solid rocket motors rated for human flight. [ NASA]

Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:22:40 PM

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Whether it was the protests of the blogosphere, the twitter storm, actions from the Az4Solar team, testimony from the likes of SunTech and appeals from SolarCity, HB 2701 has been withdrawn by its primary ARIZONA’S page 71

Ethanol and the Looming Blend Wall: The EPA’s Catch-22 info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:03:31 PM

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The first-generation ethanol industry has enjoyed a rare spate of good news lately (see A Comeback for Corn Ethanol?).

Low corn prices have resulted in improved margins. Companies like The Andersons and Green Plains Renewable Energy have announced blowout earnings in recent weeks. The EPA recently

re-affirmed corn ethanol mandates via the Renewable Fuel Standards (see EPA Issues Renewable Fuel Standards) of 12 billion gallons in 2010 from 10.5 billion in 2009.

While there are questions about whether Congress will allow the $0.45/gal blenders credit to lapse at the end of 2010 in a similar way that the $1.01/gal production credit for biodiesel was not extended (see The State of U.S. Biodiesel), for the most part, the corn ethanol industry's short-term prospects look good.

Although only 6.5 million gallons of 2 nd Generation

cellulosic ethanol is expected to be produced in 2010 (see Spotting the Next Wave), this number is expected to ramp up in coming years. Combined with Brazilian imports of 1 billion gallons per year, the U.S. could have 14 billion gallons of ethanol in 2011.

Yay for ethanol!

Not so fast.

14 billion gallons of ethanol would represent approximately 10% of the 140-billion-gallon U.S. gasoline market on a volumetric (not energy) basis.

ETHANOL page 72

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sponsor.

Late this afternoon, according to OnEarth, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's office issued a brief statement saying that House Bill 2701 -- widely condemned by opponents who called it "the death knell of the solar industry" in Arizona -- had been withdrawn by its primary sponsor, Representative Debbie Lesko (R-9).

The full statement reads: "Representative Lesko's wise and thoughtful actions today to withdraw HB 2701 should be lauded. This sends a clear and united message to employers around the world - Arizona remains the premier destination for solar industries."

And SunTech issued this statement: “We applaud Mayor Cavanaugh, Governor Brewer, and the entire Arizona leadership for their swift action this week to keep solar industry jobs in the state and to decrease uncertainty in the solar markets," said Steve Chan, Chief Strategy officer, Suntech. "Our team is eager to return to our efforts to open our Goodyear factory and get Arizona's people working with us to the continue the growth of the U.S. solar market.”

Way to go Arizona.

There is a bill moving through the Arizona legislature that

could pull the rug out from under the Arizona solar industry.

Rather than actually build out renewable energy sources, the Republican-controlled Arizona House Government Committee voted to simply redefine what renewable energy meant. By redefining nuclear power as a renewable energy source, with one stroke of the pen, Arizona could succeed in meeting its renewable energy goal. That's because APS, Arizona's biggest utility, already gets more than 25 percent of its electricity from a nuclear plant, the Palo Verde plant outside of Phoenix.

Nuclear is a meaningful part of the U.S. energy mix and despite its many financial and technological issues, it's going to continue to be part of our energy picture. But to define it as a renewable energy source seems arguable. The actual wording in the bill expanded the term "renewable energy" to mean "renewable and non-carbon producing energy." And that means nuclear qualifies.

So, if the bill makes it to law, the utility is no longer obliged to add any more renewable power.

The bill would make Arizona the only state that includes nuclear power in an RES (though Utah might be considering this, as well). The bill also sets up a new,

challenging regulatory climate for solar firms and utilities.

Rather than being friendly to solar, Arizona would have more government regulation of solar business than any other state.

The Arizona Corporation Commission’s Renewable Energy Standard mandated that utilities must generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources by the year 2025.

Arizona also had generous solar subsidies for consumers and tax credits for manufacturers.

Which is why it was an important market for leading solar installer and financier Solar City. And a very strong contributing factor to locating solar giant SunTech's new PV panel factory in Goodyear, Arizona Solar City, SunTech, Arizonabased Kyocera and even APS, the utility itself, were against passage of the bill. And now SunTech might reconsider locating to another state, according to The Phoenix Sun. Lyndon Rive, the CEO of SolarCity had this to say: "Arizona sent a clear signal to the solar industry by creating its renewable energy standard, and the industry responded. Solar companies expanded here, hired local workers, built local facilities and initiated thousands of clean power projects. HB

2701 would change the rules after the fact. If passed, it would pull the rug out from under the solar industry, eliminate jobs and reverse the flow of investment coming into the state."

Polly Shaw, Suntech America's Director of External Relations wrote to me in an email, "One very important point to us and to many in the industry is Arizona’s commitment to meeting 4.5 percent of its RPS with distributed rooftop generation, and dividing that equally in half between commercial and residential rooftops. That’s important -siting renewable energy close to demand has proven, documented energy and cost savings benefits to utilities and ratepayers. 2701 removes the DG requirement and its benefits to ratepayers."

GTM Research considered Arizona one of the top states for utility scale PV deployment in the U.S. because of their state policy: an RPS with a specific requirement for solar power or distributed generation.

What motivated these lawmakers to try to make this seemingly regressive change?

There was a small monthly fee that paid for the program -- less than $4 per month for residential customers. The sponsor of HB 2701, Republican Representative

Debbie Lesko, objects to the fee. And evidently, conservative ideological opposition to government interference in utility affairs could win the votes.

Now, market forces might have to impel utilities to move towards renewables. Or not.

Shaw of SunTech said, "We found a great reception to the solar industry today at the hearing of the Arizona House Committee on Government.

Legislative members signaled that they heard Suntech's interests and those of developers who are right now creating good jobs in the state. Based on today's discussion, we think the Legislature will ultimately correctly see the value that renewable energy offers to Arizona's economic future."

That is a very diplomatic response to a very backward piece of energy policy.

The bill has to move on to the rules committee, so the battle isn't over yet.

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Considering the paucity of E-85 ethanol pumps and the dearth of Flex Fuel Vehicles compared to the overall mix of cars and trucks running on gasoline, we can assume that the vast majority of ethanol produced in the U.S. for the foreseeable future will be used as a blend.

Which brings us to the concept of the "blend wall."

Under current EPA policy, gasoline engines are only approved in blends up to 10% ethanol.

Higher blends of ethanol can affect engines in a variety of ways. For example, one concern is whether an engine's fuel control system can adequately compensate for the higher oxygen content associated with higher ethanol blends.

In October 2008, NREL's Oak Ridge National Laboratory released a report entitled, "Effects of Intermediate Ethanol Blends on Legacy Vehicles and Small Non-Road Engines." The report examined 13 popular latemodel vehicles under real-world driving conditions and analyzed factors such as: exhaust and catalyst temperatures, engine performance, and observable operational issues. The report used E0, E10, E15, and E20 blends.

Among NREL's findings were:

• Loss in fuel economy in proportion with the energy density of the fuel • Tailpipe emissions remained largely unaffected by the proportion of ethanol in fuel • As ethanol blends increased, temperatures of exhaust components and cylinders also increased. Exhaust temperatures jumped between 5°C and 10°C when blends increased from E10 to E15 • Higher ethanol content corresponded to higher idle speed and unintentional clutch engagement Ethanol lobbyist groups, like Growth Energy (co-chaired by General Wesley Clark), have petitioned the EPA to raise the amount of ethanol sold in most gasoline to 15%.

On December 1 st, 2009, the EPA ruled that "although all of the studies have not been completed, our engineering assessment to date indicates that the robust fuel, engine and emissions control systems on newer vehicles (likely 2001 and newer model years) will likely be able to accommodate higher ethanol blends, such as E15."

The EPA is expected to announce its final rulings midyear.

If the EPA decides that E15 is

safe for newer models but unfit for vehicles manufactured before 2001, there could be a number of logistical problems. For example, consumers might not know off-hand whether their car is older than the 2001 model year and could inadvertently put in the wrong fuel. Additionally, large convenience stores and discount service stations (i.e., Wal-Mart) might have 25 fuel pumps, creating an added difficulty for the store managers forced to monitor their customers and make sure they are using the correct blend.

Which brings us to the issue of liability.

What happens if the EPA makes a decision to dismantle the blend wall, and it turns out that E15 does adversely affect boats, lawnmowers, and other appliances using gasoline?

Who is liable? Ethanol producers? Gas refiners?

Automobile manufacturers? The federal government? The consumer?

Given that most automobile and motor equipment manufacturers have warranties that are valid for E10, these companies would have to extend warranties to cover engines running on blends above 10%.These companies have no self-interest to act on their own accord without carrots

(e.g., government guarantees liabilities) or sticks (e.g., the government requires that as a condition of entering the U.S. market, the engine must be able to accommodate blends above E10).

Although we believe that there is a high likelihood that the EPA will increase the blend wall, we have to ask: if the blend rates were not increased (due to aforementioned technical or logistical problems), what are the alternatives to accommodating the tremendous increase in ethanol supply projected in the coming years?

Proponents of ethanol point out that companies like Ford and GM have pledged that 50% of their gasoline vehicles will have "Flex-Fuel" capability by 2012.

Flex-Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) have been the main growth catalyst in recent years in Brazil, as close to 90% of all passenger vehicles that will be sold in Brazil in 2010 will be FFVs. In fact, the 7 million flex fuel vehicles on the road in the U.S. outnumber the amount in Brazil (6 million).

Although it is relatively inexpensive to convert one's gasoline engine into a FFV ( are located in Minnesota).

Consumers are faced with the chicken-and-egg question of whether to get a FFV: why pay

extra if there are no E85 stations close by? ( c o u r t e s y : http://e85vehicles.com) The EIA estimates that it costs $22,000-$80,000 to replace one gas pump and retrofit it to carry E85. While the "Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Tax Credit" (under the Energy Policy Act of 2005) provides a tax credit equal to 30% of the cost of implementing alternative refueling equipment, project finance for ethanol projects (even on the downstream infrastructure side) is not exactly flowing.

The coming blend wall debacle is a great example of what happens when Congress picks and chooses technologies without thinking holistically about the long-term consequences that can occur when those technologies "win."

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With SmartGridCity in Place, the Focus Shifts to Applications info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

-ups to kick in $5 million each to participate.

What's left are the applications Submitted at 2/26/2010 4:00:11 AM and how to select and pay for Message from fivefilters.org: If them. you can, please donate to the full SmartGridCity "is already -text RSS service so we can operating fully," says Tom continue developing it.

Henley, spokesman for Xcel's T h e f o c u s o f C o l o r a d o ' s Public Service Co. of Colorado SmartGridCity project is shifting subsidiary. "We continue to f r o m i n f r a s t r u c t u r e t o expand the project in other applications. areas."

Colorado regulators have Chief among those is the reiterated that Xcel Energy may company's effort to recruit charge customers to recover $11 customers to test in-home million on the project, which applications. Those include enables grid customers in energy management software Boulder to monitor and control and hardware. t h e i r p o w e r u s a g e t o a n The utility also wants to run a unprecedented degree. But they pilot program to test time-of-use rejected the utility's plea to avoid pricing. The TOU pilot's seeks a new proceeding that could to discover the best combination result in a requirement that Xcel of clock times, kilowatt rates and refund at least some of that rebates to motivate customers to money. shift discretionary power Whether or not ratepayers get a demand, such as for clothes discount on the costly project, drying or EV recharging, to nonboth the utility and Boulder peak hours. officials say that the capital- Boulder's Jonathan Koehn, the intensive installation of its city's sustainability coordinator, communications and allows that while m e a s u r e m e n t h a r d w a r e i s SmartGridCity's infrastructure complete. It cost over $100 heavy-lifting is complete, the million and Xcel tried to get start customer-centric tools that

would justify that expense are not yet in place.

"We want to work with Xcel to develop the customer-side applications," Koehn says.

Also unaddressed are concepts to integrate distributed generation, such as solar PV and other renewables -- and distributed storage, particularly in the form of plugged-in electric vehicles -- into the program.

In rejecting calls to block Xcel from recovering its SmartGridCity investment, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission this month reiterated its December decision allowing cost recovery, subject to subsequent refund. In doing so, the commission said it is seeking to balance "several competing legal and policy objectives," including the "encouragement of new smart grid technologies and energy efficiency."

But the regulators said they also will move forward with a separate proceeding to certificate SmartGridCity as a new powerdistribution investment. That promises a microscopic review

of its assumptions, costs, benefits and technologies.

Next up: How to pay for the apps.

At this point, none of the vested parties has gone public with a proposal for sharing the costs of the applications.

There is plenty of precedent for utility-scale subsidization of such "behind the meter" costs as programmable thermostats, compact fluorescent bulbs and high-efficiency furnaces. But with sunk costs for SmartGridCity already in the thousands of dollars per meter, regulators and ratepayers this year must decide how much more the system can bear before the project crosses from a forward-looking investment to one of never-present value.

Stephen Munro is a D.C.-based analyst and journalist specializing in state and federal utility regulation. Contact him at (202) 744-8553 or stephenmunro.llc@gmail.com.

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French Giant Veolia Creates Program to Team with Start-Ups info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:49:54 PM

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Veolia, the 150-year old French company that specializes is waste and water, wants new blood.

The company has created an accelerator program to recruit start-ups to participate in prototype projects that could go simple. The premise is simple.

Although Veolia conducts its own research, it can't research everything. It needs better access to what's percolating in Silicon Valley and university labs.

Conversely, start-ups need access to pilot projects and credibility with large potential customers.

"What we can provide is the customer base and pilot capabilities," said Phillippe Martin, senior vice president of Veolia Environement, during a presentation at the Cleantech Open.

The program sounds similar to IBM's VC program, but there are a few twists. Like IBM, Veolia will not invest directly into startups in the program. However, IBM mostly engages start-ups to FRENCH page 74

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help it with consulting engagements. Veolia's program will largely be fixed in concrete.

The company may select startups to provide products for desalination pilots that Veolia will run for a few years.

Having Veolia as a big brother will definitely add heft and credibility to start-ups. Most conglomerates and large customers don't want to deal directly with start-ups. Veolia will open doors. More importantly, Veolia's customers are some of the most conservative on the planet. It deals with municipal water agencies, which are typically

more conservative than electric utilities. 75 percent of Veolia's 50 billion Euros in revenue a year come from public agencies.

So far, it is working with NanoH2O, a company that has devised an energy efficient desalination membrane. It started as an academic paper at UCLA in the middle off the decade. The company is currently looking for companies that can help it separate and segment metals in waste streams. Veolia currently only recycles 15 percent of the trash it picks up now. It wants to boost that to 30 percent.

Veolia will also try to not get

bogged down in conglomerate sclerosis. It will tell start-ups within a week if they are interested, evaluate the technology in four weeks, and then determine if it wants to go forward with the start-up in 12 weeks. Ten people work in the accelerator program full time.

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