Liberty Newsprint Dec-15-09 by Liberty Newspost

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14/12/09 - 15/12/09

What will be in Obama’s Christmas stocking? By David Morgan (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 12/14/2009 7:42:22 AM

The last thing Republicans want to see this Christmas is the U.S. Senate giving President Barack Obama a nicely wrapped package of health care reform legislation. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele made that plain today. He hopes the Senate will be a lousy Santa who leaves nothing in Obama’s Christmas stocking. “I hope so. I really do,” he told NBC’s Today show. Steele says that’s because the American public doesn’t want the kind of healthcare legislation that Senate Democratic leaders have been talking about lately. “People are not listening to what folks back at home are saying. I think the latest polls are showing up to 60 percent of the people want this thing either stopped, slowed down or somehow modified,” Steele said. Steele may have been referring

to a recent Fox News poll that showed 57 percent of Americans opposing healthcare legislation now under consideration. That’s the highest level of opposition Fox has found so far. Other polls have painted a more complex picture of American sentiment. The Kaiser Foundation’s health tracking poll for November found that 58 percent of Americans want reform. Thirty-three percent said they want Obama and Congress to tackle reform even though they don’t like what they’re hearing out of Washington.

Some media commentators seem to think the Senate will fail to reach a compromise by Christmas and point to fresh criticism from lawmakers including independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut as evidence that reform is in trouble. But that doesn’t seem to matter much to Obama adviser David Axelrod, who pointed out on ABC’s Good Morning America that Christmas has yet to be cancelled. “I think that they can get it done. I hope that they will get it done. We’re working day and night with them to get it done,” he said. “The president said many times that healthcare would be pronounced dead five times before he signed the bill,” Axelrod added. Photo Credit: Reuters/David Moir (Santas) Click here for more political coverage from Reuters

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Twitter gets a step closer to corporate accounts By Tom Johansmeyer (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/15/2009 9:30:00 AM

Filed under: Internet, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Media World, Technology Twitter-watchers have been expecting the company to make some move toward corporate microblogging capabilities for months now. This is one of the two directions that the social media platform has on its agenda for generating revenue, and it is likely the one with the greater potential. The other, serving ads on Twitter.com, is currently constrained by the fact that nearly 70% of Twitter use occurs away from the company's website. While all talk of corporate accounts is still shrouded in speculation, the obvious plan would be for corporate users to have more robust analytics and other marketing tools for which a

premium would be paid. Among the tools being rolled out ostensibly in advance of this business model is a multi-user account model, in which several "Contributors," as Twitter is calling them, can tweet under the same umbrella. Continue reading Twitter gets a step closer to corporate accounts Twitter gets a step closer to corporate accounts originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Obama gives himself a B+ By Steve Holland (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 12/14/2009 11:22:38 AM

President Barack Obama is giving himself “a good solid B+” from his job performance thus far and is brushing off polls showing his approval rating has dropped below 50 percent. Obama was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in a show that was broadcast on ABC on Sunday and the queen of daytime TV wanted to know how Obama would grade himself. Obama said he deserved a B+, which in the U.S. education system, is very good but not up to an excellent A. He said he reached his conclusion because of the many challenges he had tackled and that if he gets a healthcare bill he can say, his grade would inflate to an A-. “I think that we have inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We stabilized the economy, prevented the possibility of a Great Depression or a significant financial meltdown.”

By Jim Cramer (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/15/2009 8:30:00 AM

“The economy is growing again. We are on our way out of Iraq. I think we’ve got the best possible plan for Afghanistan. We have reset our image around the world. We have achieved an international consensus around the need for Iran and North Korea to disable their nuclear weapons. and I think that we’re going to pass the most significant piece of social legislation since Social Security and that is health insurance for every American,”

he said. (That line about Iran sounded like a little misspeak. As far as we know the U.S. at this point does not think Iran actually has a nuclear weapon, but is trying to develop one.) As for his approval ratings, Obama said “it was inevitable” that they would fall. Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama)

HourTime Episode 7: Watches for the Holidays By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/15/2009 5:30:30 AM

I hope you guys are enjoying

Cramer on BloggingStocks: The good banks don't seem worth the risk

this podcast. We have a blast putting it together and this episode we talk about some great watches for you and yours along

with some real junk. Enjoy! Listen in iTunes Download MP3

Filed under: Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Amer Intl Group (AIG), Wells Fargo (WFC), Cramer on BloggingStocks, Financial Crisis From TheStreet.com Network • Cramer: Monday Was a Good Day for Bulls • Citigroup: Financial Winners and Losers TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says Goldman and JPMorgan are acting terribly amid all the offerings and deals. Why do Goldman Sachs ( GS) ( Cramer's Take) and JPMorgan ( JPM) ( Cramer's Take), the good ones, go down all of the time or act terribly? I think because the equity offerings of the bad ones are just too compelling and the universe of buyers of this merchandise is severely limited. These stocks are limited because they are not worth the headline risk trouble. If they weren't being bashed by the president or taken to the woodshed by Congress or dumped on by Meredith Whitney, the most powerful bank analyst on earth, then maybe they would be worth owning. But the

more successful you are, the worse it looks. Is Goldman Sachs supposed to get into the home mortgage business? Is it supposed to write a check for $10 billion to the government as a thank you for AIG ( AIG) ( Cramer's Take)? Is JPMorgan supposed to start raising its dividend when it would be branded as a fat cat? Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: The good banks don't seem worth the risk Cramer on BloggingStocks: The good banks don't seem worth the risk originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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China's urban art shows off skyscraping ambition By James Westcott (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:06:29 AM

Exhibiting a rotting tofu hut alongside a dragon made of underpants, Shenzhen's third biennale of architecture glories in the dizzying excess of China's urban growth At the top of Shenzhen's Lotus Hill, a statue of Deng Xiaoping is frozen in purposeful mid-stride. From here he gazes down on this southern Chinese boom city, teeming with 14 million inhabitants, separated from Hong Kong only by a river and a border. Follow the path down the hill, through manicured gardens and past young families (the average age in Shenzhen is 30, the age of the city itself), and you reach the megastructure of the Shenzhen Civic Centre. Its overwhelmingly massive, blue undulating canopy evokes classical Chinese architecture, but is rendered in bold, postmodern, friendly style. It shelters Shenzhen's governmental buildings, and a vast complex of indoor and outdoor public spaces. This un-forbidden city is currently playing host to the extremely ambitious, yet awkwardly titled, Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, which attempts to document the pace of change in this unwieldy new metropolis. When Deng declared Shenzhen

China's first liberalised Special Economic Zone in 1980, the city – at that point a mere fishing village of 20,000 – became a sort of economic laboratory for the nation as a whole. Where Shenzhen went, the nation followed: into a fervent embrace of capitalism and urbanisation. One of the city's many entrepreneurs is Barack Obama's half-brother, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, who moved here in 2002 and opened a chain of restaurants called Cabin BBQ (strange, considering he's a vegetarian). Ndesandjo just selfpublished a semiautobiographical novel, From Nairobi to Shenzhen, and last week was named the city's official "image ambassador". Shenzhen's patriarch, however, will always be Deng, whose image dominates billboards, and whose waxwork figure enjoys tea with Margaret Thatcher in a bizarre diorama at the top of the city's tallest skyscraper. The biennale, now in its third edition, is a governmentsponsored attempt to establish one thing Shenzhen lacks: a cultural scene. The theme is city mobilisation, which chief curator Ou Ning – who lived here throughout the 1990s, when growth was so fast that the phrase "Shenzhen speed" was born – says is an experiment to unite citizens "in a time that lacks centralised force, spiritual solidarity and practical organisation". While most

architecture biennales are unappealing cocktails of dodgy architectural art and dense technical presentations, this one has a more popular touch. More than 60 installations by artists and architects occupy an underground hall at the civic centre, the massive public plaza above it, and various spots around the city. Most of them are interactive and easy to understand. You're greeted in the main exhibition space by a Chinese dragon composed of 12,000 American Apparel vest tops and underpants, made in California and specially imported, hanging from the ceiling in undulating, colour-coordinated patterns. The piece, by LA-based art duo Ball Nogues, attempts a temporary reversal of the world's normal movement of goods, which usually flows from Guangdong province – known as the workshop of the world – into the US. Other pieces in the biennale similarly reflect on China and Shenzhen's rampant growth, but without delivering polemics or concrete proposals. This isn't only because of the threat of censorship, but because the role of architecture in a modern city is relatively tiny. Some exhibits merely enrich your thinking about Shenzhen: a video by Danish artist Bjarke Ingels of parkour free runners leaping miraculously around the city's treacherous building sites; a

small hut made out of tofu by artist group Polit-Sheer-Form, which is gradually collapsing, rotting, and stinking out the hall; and seemingly ancient images of a sleepy, smalltown Shenzhen, from the 1960s to the early 80s, by local photographer He Huangyou. One photo shows an almost empty Shennan Avenue in 1980. It's reminiscent of the photographs of Sheikh Zayed road in Dubai circa 1990 – another city that's just 30 years old – except here, instead of desert, the road is bordered by rice paddies and the last vestiges of jungle. The biennale has a provisional feel to it: installations are constantly being rearranged and repaired, and video projections function only sporadically. But the main virtue of the exhibition is that it propels you out into the city with fresh eyes. Liu Xiaoliang's obsessively detailed metal sculptures, Demolition Relocation (2009), model the gradually disappearing "urban villages" of Shenzhen. These haphazard neighbourhoods of densely packed "shakehand" buildings (so close together that residents can reach out of their windows and greet their neighbours) have been constructed in the absence of planning regulations, many of them by former farmers now unable to work. A timeline by the Hong Kong-based architects IDU tells the story of Shenzhen's urban village of Caiwuwei,

which had a population of 27,000 before it was demolished to make way for a new business district in 2005. IDU emphasise that this isn't an eviction sob story; the farmers set up the Caiwuwei Village Company to ensure they profited from the development of their land. Even though Caiwuwei is now mostly gone, Shenzhen still has around 20 other urban villages, which accommodate unregistered migrant workers from all over China (Shenzhen has more than 6 million of them). But what do these villages actually look like? Curious to find out, I asked a biennale volunteer to write down the name of one in Chinese and hopped in a taxi, which eventually dropped me off outside a huge, luxurious mall called Holiday Plaza. I assumed that the taxi driver had misinterpreted the directions, or that this urban village had also recently bitten the dust. But, just a block away, opposite a surreal amusement park called Window of the World – complete with a replica Eiffel Tower bedecked in neon Chinese characters – I discovered the dark, intricate warren of the Baishizhou urban village. It's an outdoor shopping mall, with tiny storefronts and ramshackle stalls selling an unimaginable array of stuff, from knock-off DVDs to vegetables and vitamins. There's no division between indoors and outdoors: CHINA'S page 10

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The great online travel revolution By Bobbie Johnson (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

its feet. In the mid to late 1990s, a number of sites realised that they could offer a clear way to cut through the jumble, Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:47:19 AM underpinned by vast amounts of The noughties heralded the rise i n f o r m a t i o n g o i n g t h r o u g h of self-service travel websites, computerised reservation systems bringing with them a boom in such as Amadeus and Worldspan. cheap flights and last-minute Joining up those dots may seem budget breaks. Bobbie Johnson obvious in retrospect, but it was a looks back revelation at the time. Over the last 10 years the way Second was the ability to buy we travel has been revolutionised low-cost plane tickets online. The by the web. Many of us waved low-cost airline model itself goodbye to high-street travel wasn't new - it had already been agents, newspaper classifieds and pioneered by American operator hours spent staring at endless Southwest in the 1970s and then Teletext pages, and logged on to closer to home by Ryanair in the new hi-tech services. early 1990s. But combined with As the web began taking hold of the deregulation of the European the public's imagination, the burst airline industry, the idea went of sites and services began stellar once the web began to find shifting the way we thought a firm footing with customers. about travelling, making the idea The easy-to-use self-service of grabbing a bag and jetting off w e b s i t e s c u t o u t e v e r y cheaper and easier than ever. In m i d d l e m a n a n d l e t p e o p l e fact, the swell of activity in the explore in a way they hadn't done t r a v e l i n d u s t r y s e e m e d s o before. How many of us spent lucrative that it was one of the hours weighing up the options of cornerstones of the dotcom a two-week break in far-flung boom. destinations in corners of Europe The boom itself may have ended we'd never heard of, let alone ignominiously, with many of the visited? i n d i v i d u a l n a m e s c r a s h i n g In both cases, the benefits were spectacularly, but our approach not only clear to customers, but t o t r a v e l i t s e l f r e m a i n e d they made sense to businesses irrevocably altered. too - whether it was a package Britain's travel revolution circled tour company shifting the last around a pair of innovations that few spaces, an airline making had the web at their heart. sure it got bums on seats, or a First was the ability to search for hotel selling off empty rooms on what you wanted. In the days the cheap. The internet opened before Google, web search was a the door to dynamic pricing limited business that was finding customising prices to individual

consumers or fluctuating demand in the market. "I think it was a combination of exciting new pure play web startups like us and traditional players like easyJet offering unbeatable deals online," says Martha Lane Fox, who started Lastminute.com in 1998 with Brent Hoberman and continued as its managing director until 2003. She says the way the internet increased competition and helped push prices down was pivotal in the travel revolution - when holidaymakers realised that using the web to book a trip directly could prove significantly cheaper, it then became difficult to ignore the idea. "This then forced all the big players online and the pricing advantage to buying online meant customers had to look," she adds. It's easy to think that the pressure to push prices downward was the only impulse that drove the success of travel on the web - but there have been other factors at work. People also discovered that (with access to the right tools) it was often better to do the job of finding a flight and hotel themselves. In an inversion of the mantra that "time is money", travellers discovered a little of their own time could save them cash - as well as other benefits, like greater control, flexibility and convenience. In addition, the social web - that network of personal

recommendations, usercontributed reviews and travel blogs - has created an extra layer of information that has become vital for making decisions in this new world of many choices. A quick Google search, a couple of clicks and a few site comparisons mean that we can now learn more about our destination than ever before. Whole sites have grown up serving niche audiences like parents looking for travel advice, volunteers or even those who'd rather crash on somebody's sofa for the night. That's not to say the internet has entirely taken over the travel business. A recent survey in America suggested that only around 40% of people use the web when they are researching or booking travel destinations - and even then, they rely heavily on things like hotel websites. But even so, for those of us who are switched on, the way we travel is broader, deeper and more interesting than ever - and we've got sites like these to thank. Lastminute Many of the gaggle of British travel websites that launched in the late 1990s are long-forgotten - remember Bob Geldof's Deckchair.com, once valued at ÂŁ20m? Lastminute, though, lingers thanks to the way it coincided with our increasingly impulsive travel habits - arriving in the office on Friday morning with a suitcase before deciding which European city to fly to just

a few hours later. Bought by rival Travelocity in 2005, it was possibly the most important site of its kind to emerge from the UK. Expedia Now the world's leading online travel company, Expedia started life as an experiment from a company not usually given credit for its internet smarts - Microsoft. Spun off in 1999, and purchased by Ticketmaster two years later, it has hoovered up sites like Hotels.com and Hotwire along the way. Above all, it remains the pioneering travel site thanks to its efforts at trawling vast databases of information - flight reservations, hotel bookings and the like - and opening them up so that users can get a deal. EasyJet Ryanair had already taken us towards low-cost flying, but it was the ebullient Stelios HajiIoannou's blazing orange fleet that really hit the spot. Offering up deals on its website, the service took a swipe at big rivals like BA with cheeky slogans like "the web's favourite airline", and made it possible for people who had never considered stepping foot outside Britain to jump on a plane and see the world in a new light. Tripadvisor The rise of the user-generated web put power back in the hands of the people - and none more so than this site, which remains the number one source online for user reviews. Now owned by Expedia, it has its quirks - the GREAT page 10

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Six months on, Iran's opposition thrives | Mohsen Makhmalbaf By Mohsen Makhmalbaf (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

time, during the month of Muharram, on the days of Tasua and Ashura, it will organise a protest against the government with masses of people taking part Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:30:00 AM and coming out onto the streets. Iran's green movement remains Six months ago Obama said it strong. Time is running out for doesn't matter for us who is in Khamenei and Ahmadinejad's power in Iran: we are looking to cruel and illegitimate regime solve the nuclear issue. However, At the time of the election it is later on he had to announce that said that Mojtaba, the son of Mousavi had become the main supreme leader Khamenei, told source of inspiration for the Ahmadinejad that if it engineered Iranian youth in search of a coup d'état, the government democracy, and while receiving would be criticised for one week, his Nobel peace prize he referred but after that would be safe for to the hundreds of thousands of four years. Iranian people who have come At the time he did not imagine out on the streets protesting in that criticism and opposition search of democracy. would continue, even six months One month after the election, after the election. when the level of street protests Two weeks after the coup, had decreased a little, some Mojtaba Khamenei said to the analysts started to say that with r e v o l u t i o n a r y g u a r d s t h a t the indifferent reaction of the supporters of Mousavi were just democratic governments of the cowardly punks and that if you world, the Iranian government take out your batons and tear gas would eventually succeed in they will run to their homes. suppressing the Iranian people Again the reality turned to be and that with clever negotiation different. Despite all the t h e y w o u l d s o l v e t h e i r imprisonments, arrests, torture international problems. Now, six and even rape in political prisons months after the stolen election, – all in the name of God and the not only do the problems of the Islamic Republic – the green Iranian government continue movement still brings out masses inside the country but also the of protesters against the religious i n t e r n a t i o n a l p r e s s u r e f o r dictatorship on the days it agreement on the nuclear issue decides to do so. has intensified up to the point Now, we in the green movement that Obama, who was once promise you that in two weeks prepared for negotiation with

Iran, is getting ready to take a tougher stance. Six months ago even Khamenei did not know that by denying Mousavi to the Iranian people he would be giving such a strong movement, the green movement, to them. Six months ago Khamenei could not have imagined that the green movement would impinge on his own household with his daughter -in-law, Soosan Kharazi, seeking divorce from his son Masoud in support of the green movement and in opposition to him. And Ahmadinejad could not imagine Narges Kalhor, the daughter of his publicity and media consultant, would seek asylum from Germany, giving interviews in support of the green movement night and day. Six months ago Khamenei would not have believed that 8,000 of the 20,000 employees of the ministry of intelligence would support the green movement and that he would have to make them redundant. During the past six months the green movement has become stronger and stronger while the illegitimate government has lost support and become weaker by the day, even to the extent that you can hear opposing voices from inside the military against the government. And for the first time in 30 years, Iranians trample on photographs of the supreme

leader in the streets. During these six months people across the world understood that Iranians do not like Ahmainejad and neither do they want nuclear weapons. People in streets scream the slogan: "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I die for Iran". They scream: "The green national government doesn't want nuclear weapons" and "Peace for the world and democracy for Iran". In one of his recent fatwas, Ayatollah Montazeri, one of the leaders of the green movement, who has been under house arrest for 20 years, publicly condemned nuclear weapons and invited the international community to monitor the nuclear programme in Iran. Today the Iranian people are showing their full support for peace in the world. Now it is Obama's and western governments' turn to pay more attention to the green movement as opposed to the government installed by a coup, which is on the verge of collapse. • Iran • Foreign policy • Nuclear weapons • Middle East Mohsen Makhmalbaf guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

CrunchDeals: Assassin’s Creed II for $40 By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:07:00 AM

Amazon.com has dropped the price of Assassin’s Creed II for Xbox 360 and PS3 down to $39.78, today only. According to the product description: The world of the assassin is one cloaked in shadow and steeped in danger. Ensnared in a web of revenge and conspiracy, the assassin embraces power at its most elemental, acting as the dividing line between life and death. As an assassin confronted by perilous new challenges and difficult choices, what path will you choose? Kind of puts your own life in perspective, huh? Unless you’re a modern day assassin, in which case this game probably won’t interest you all that much. Assassin’s Creed II[Amazon.com]

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Mass arrests in Copenhagen protest By Bibi van der Zee (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

friends and their three-month-old baby, said she heard bangs and explosions. "The police banged on the door, and we were saying Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:20:33 AM 'We've got a baby in here, you T e a r g a s t h r o w n a t can't come in,' and they just demonstrators like 'huge grey s m a s h e d t h e g l a s s i n t h e wave' during raid, as concerns windows, they smashed down the grow of police crackdown door and came in." Almost 200 people were arrested "I'd brought my little sister down late last night after protesters set to Christiania for a drink," said fire to street barricades in a Ludwig van Eekhout, a Dutch central C o p e n h a g e n cameraman working for neighbourhood. Protesters hurled independent media. He saw a fire bombs at riot police who large fire being lit in the north responded with tear gas, officers part of Christiania by young said. activists, and heard bangs and But pressure is growing for crashes, so took his sister to the Danish police to account for their Woodstock bar for safety. While tactics, after four days of he was there the police arrived demonstrations have seen the and began arresting people. controversial"kettle" tactic used "People were sitting outside three times, and more than 1,500 having a beer and the police took a r r e s t s , w i t h 2 0 0 o f f i c i a l them away; they took people c o m p l a i n t s a l r e a d y f i l e d . from inside the bar outside, made The 194 arrests last night took them sit on the ground and cuffed p l a c e a f t e r s e v e r a l their hands behind their back demonstrations during the day then took them away." had been relatively peaceful. The police also fired tear gas Climate Justice Action(CJA), the into the CJA crowd in the network organising an attempt Fredens Eng area. A witness who tomorrow to take over the official asked not to be named described talks at the Bella Centre, were seeing the tear gas coming holding a party in the Fredens towards him "like a huge grey Eng area of Christiania at which wave. It burns your eyes, your author Naomi Klein spoke. skin. You feel as if your throat is At around 11pm Amy Jacobs, closing up. It was really crowded who had left the party with some and people were trying not to

panic, but it's hard, especially if you've never been gassed before." All but 15 of the people arrested have now been released. Those still in custody face a variety of charges including vandalism, assaulting a police officer, and disrupting the police in the course of their work. Meanwhile more than 200 official complaints have been filed with the police about the arrests on Sunday and Saturday. Marc Jorgensen, working with a legal support group for activists, said that the complaints were focussed on the arbitrary nature of the arrests, and on the conditions in which detainees were held. He said there is particular concern about an incident on Sunday night when, in response to a disturbance cause by some of the detainees, the police allegedly used pepper spray on the detainees in the cages. "People were really shocked," said Jorgensen. He added that every cage had reportedly been sprayed, even though many detainees had not been involved in the disturbance. Claus Juul, lawyer with Amnesty International Denmark, said: "Over the last few years the government have handed the

police more and more powers, they've been like kids in a candy shop. These situations are exactly what we have feared as a result." The director of the Danish Institute of Human Rights, Dr. LL.M. Jonas Christoffersen, added: "It is a problem for our democracy if people's right to assemble and express themselves freely in this way come under pressure." A press spokesman for the Danish police said: "We have received some complaints after the weekend and we have been dealing with those. There were complaints about the amount of time that people were sitting on the ground, so we have brought in mats for them to sit on. We have not yet had any official complaints about the use of pepper spray in the detention centre." • Copenhagen climate change conference 2009 • Climate change • Protest • Denmark • Activism Bibi van der Zee guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Kinetic Sculpture's Crab -Walk Powered by Paper, Bamboo and Physics [Art] By Brian Barrett (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:26:52 AM

There was something terrifying about the Lego walking machine, but this little guy seems harmless enough as he scuttles across the table. Maybe because we both know that at any moment, I can easily recycle him. The paper walker is inspired by Theo Jansen's "Strandbeest" series, which comprises several giant wind-powered sculptures. It's given a helping hand in this video, but apparently can also walk without an actuator. But not too far or too fast or in a threatening manner, or it's headed straight for the shredder. [ MAKE via BoingBoing]

Photo Gallery: On Tour — First Wave of the Beijing Rock Invasion (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:00:00 PM

Take a ride along with three influential Beijing rock bands as they tour the United States for the first time.

56 Christmas-Worthy Wallpapers [Image Cache] By Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:00:00 AM

Some participants of this week's Shooting Challenge were kind enough to include their Christmas

lights shots in wallpaper sizes. note, Gizmodo readers take the Get your new festive wallpaper at best photos. [ Flickr] Flickr. On a completely related

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And for Lord Bingham, a €250k reward | Afua Hirsch By Afua Hirsch (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:50:57 AM

There is something counterintuitive about the famously successful judge being the recipient of the Onassis prize Move aside Nobel, there is a new international prize on the scene. It may sound unlikely but in addition to existing incentives for judges to uphold the rule of law and promote human rights– like the fact that doing their job properly requires it – they can now add the prospect of winning €250,000. And who better to give such a prize than the fabulously wealthy Onassis shipping dynasty? And who better to receive it than a hard-up former senior law lord? Jokes about the financial hardship of Lord Bingham aside – the former holder of the UK's most senior judicial position yesterday became the first ever recipient of the Aristotle Onassis international prize in law– like the Nobel, the new Onassis prize is awarded on merit, not on need

(Nobel peace prizewinners are, after all, often sufficiently successful by the time they receive the $1.4m award that it appears relatively painless to observe the convention of donating the whole amount to charity). Bingham's reputation is certainly no joke. "Lord Bingham's elegance and clarity have created an international reputation," said Professor Mads Andenas, awarding Bingham the prize yesterday in Paris, reflecting an admiration for the judge that is widely held. "His decisions about the limits of the exercise and scope of state power have been determinative in setting how far the state can go in protecting citizens from terrorism." Nevertheless, there is something undeniably counter-intuitive about a public benefit prize that rewards someone so clearly already at the top of their game. Bingham already enjoys rock star status among a motley crew ranging from civil liberties campaigners to negligence lawyers and commercial law firms, for judgments that are

widely credited as shaping modern English law. Unlike other prizes which reward influential and not hard-up individuals, like the Mo Ibrahim award which is meant to encourage reluctant African leaders to withdraw from power gracefully when their time is up, judges do not exactly pose a serious threat of dictatorship. Not in England anyway (unless you listen to Paul Dacre's views on the subject). And, as another Onassis prizewinner, Sir John Boardman, pointed out when he received a similarly handsome cash prize yesterday for his contributions to archaeology and Hellenic heritage: "There is something strange about being rewarded for doing what I've always loved." What is interesting though, is to see the pomp and ceremony of the Institut de France, a proudly elitist and deeply patriotic French institution, rolling out the red carpet to celebrate the contributions of a British judge to the rule of law. Under a dome in Paris, in a pit dug out by Napoleon, at the centre of a

school built centuries ago to educate France's juvenile elite, rows of old men in embroidered dinner jackets and gold medals are applauding the mettle of one Englishman against the excesses of the English state. There is no doubt that jurists are likely to be called upon more than ever to put their independence and integrity against the political and convenient interests of states. But fattening the bank balance of senior judges is not quite the way I would do it – think how many brilliant young defenders of the rule of law could be given access to an otherwise prohibitively expensive profession for that quarter of a million euros. • Human rights • Law • House of Lords Afua Hirsch guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Poetry Clock Called '6 Is For Blossom' Is Only For The Most Lyrical Amongst Us [Clocks] By Kat Hannaford (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:00:52 AM

Inspired by the poetry of Herman Hesse, this clock tells the time by lighting up various words. By the time you work out what the time is of course, it's probably moved on another 10 minutes. Measuring 8 x 8 foot, three words are always lit up on the board, symbolizing the hour, minute and second. I've still got no idea how it works exactly, but it's like a big, arty version of a Tokyo Flash watch, isn't it. [ Miss Moun via Moco Loco]

Watch Man Grow Snowflakes for the First Time [Science] By Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/15/2009 5:47:23 AM

In the 1930s, researcher

Ukichiro Nakaya set to be the first human to grow snow. He succeeded using a cloudsimulating chamber and a rabbit's

seen here, captures eureka [ It's Nice That via Neatorama] in[frosty]carnate: It's like the science of Hallmark hair. And his personal footage, without the sacrifice of a unicorn.

World/ Finance/ Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Philippine volcano threatens to erupt By Adam Gabbatt (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:26:58 AM

Government begins evacuation of urban areas near Legazpi as scientists warn Mount Mayon shows increased levels of activity Tens of thousands of people were today being moved from towns and villages around a volcano in the Philippines, after it began spewing lava and ash. Mount Mayon, in the Albay province, is one of the most active volcanos in the Philippines. It began releasing lava earlier this week, with volcanologists warning there could be a major eruption in the next few days. Authorities warned that evacuees were likely to spend Christmas in an evacuation centre, as the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology raised the alert level around Mayon, located around 210 miles south east of Manila, the Philippine capital.

Renato Solidum, the head of the institute, said magma had been rising at the 2,460-metre volcano for the past two weeks and the situation could worsen over coming days. "Now lava is trickling down, but if the ascent of magma is sustained there will be lava flows," he said, adding that lava had flowed half a mile down from the crater. "There is also the possibility of an explosion." The institute said it has raised the alert to level three. Level four means an eruption is imminent, while level five means an eruption is occurring. Nearly 50,000 people live within a five-mile radius of the mountain. The Albay provincial governor, Joey Salceda, who cancelled a trip to the Copenhagen climate summit to oversee emergency arrangements, said nearly 20,000 of those had been evacuated to safety by nightfall on Tuesday. "Whatever the volcano does, our target is zero casualty," he said. Salceda added that he had placed

central Albay province under a "state of imminent disaster," making it easier for him to draw and use emergency funds. Authorities in Albay said evacuees would be would be temporarily housed in school buildings and public gymnasiums, but warned provisions could run short. "We are in the process of evacuating nearly 10,000 families around the 6-8 km danger zone around the volcano," Cedric Daep, head of the public safety office said, adding: "We have enough food for all these people for only a month." Daep said humanitarian and nongovernment groups have pledged to send food, water, medicines and blankets. Mayon is considered to be one of the world's most perfectly formed volcanos because of its near symmetrical cone-shaped profile. There were 30,000 people moved from areas around the volcano in 2006, when it last erupted. About 20 vehicles were being

used to transport residents to schools and other temporary housing, according to an Albay emergency management official, Jukes Nunez. "It's 10 days before Christmas," he said. "Most likely people will be in evacuation centres, and if Mayon's activity won't ease down we will not allow them to return to their homes. It's difficult and sad, especially for children." Mayon's most violent eruption came in 1814, killing more than 1,200 people and burying a town in mud. The Philippines lies along the Pacific "Ring of Fire" – an area where large numbers of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. • Philippines • Natural disasters and extreme weather

Hard Drive Wallet Would Hurt If You SATA On It [Mods] By Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:50:59 AM

Two hard drive platters combined with a rivet gun make for a handy, Swiss-Army-Style wallet. Just use something else to pay for your next dinner and a movie date. [ Holy Scrap Hot Springs via HackedGadgets]

Adam Gabbatt guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Dollar shorts run for cover By Connie Madon (BloggingStocks)

on Dec. 4 was much better than expected. If the economy is stronger, the Federal Reserve will Submitted at 12/15/2009 9:00:00 AM raise interest rates. Both of these Filed under: International factors have sparked a dollar markets, Economic data, Eastern rally. Europe, Federal Reserve The rally was most likely caused When a country's economy gets by short-covering, the Financial stronger, its currency follows. Times reports. When a trader The recent unemployment report "sells short," he or she must

"buy" to cover the position. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange

(CME), where currency contracts are traded, keeps a running tally of the long and short positions in each currency. On Dec. 1, there were 172,367 net short dollar positions. By Dec. 8, this number had dropped to 107,284, The value of this shift in net positions was $9.8 billion dollars. Continue reading Dollar shorts

run for cover Dollar shorts run for cover originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Shell shock! Octopus spotted using coconuts as shelter in first sign of tool use among invertebrates (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

creatures during dives at North Sulawesi and Bali between 1998 and 2008. Their findings were published today in the journal Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:20:30 AM Current Biology. Researchers 'gobsmacked' after "I was gobsmacked," said Finn, a watching species off Indonesia research biologist at the museum collecting and adapting shells for who specialises in cephalopods. use as hiding place "I've seen a lot of octopuses Australian scientists have hiding in shells, but I've never d i s c o v e r e d a n o c t o p u s i n seen one that grabs it up and jogs Indonesia that collects coconut across the sea floor. I was trying shells for shelter, unusually hard not to laugh." sophisticated behaviour that Octopuses often use foreign researchers believe is the first objects as shelter. But the evidence of tool use in an scientists found the veined invertebrate animal. octopus going a step further by The scientists filmed the veined preparing the shells, carrying o c t o p u s , A m p h i o c t o p u s them long distances and marginatus, selecting halved reassembling them as shelter, an coconut shells from the sea floor, example of tool use, which has emptying them, carrying them n e v e r b e e n r e c o r d e d i n under their bodies up to 65ft invertebrates before, Finn said. ( a b o u t 2 0 m e t r e s ) , a n d "What makes it different from a assembling two shells together to hermit crab is this octopus make a spherical hiding spot. collects shells for later use, so Julian Finn and Mark Norman of when it's transporting it, it's not Museum Victoria in Melbourne getting any protection from it," observed the activity in four Finn said. "It's that collecting it

to use it later that is unusual." The researchers think the creatures probably once used shells in the same way. But once humans began cutting coconuts in half and discarding the shells into the ocean, the octopuses discovered an even better kind of shelter, Finn said. The findings are significant, in that they reveal just how capable the creatures are of complex behaviour, said Simon Robson, associate professor of tropical biology at James Cook University in Townsville, northern Queensland, Australia. "Octopuses have always stood out as appearing to be particularly intelligent invertebrates," he said. "They have a fairly well-developed sense of vision and they have a fairly intelligent brain. So I think it shows the behavioural capabilities that these organisms have." There is always debate in the scientific community about how

to define "tool use" in the animal kingdom, Robson said. The Australian researchers defined a tool as an object carried or maintained for future use. Other scientists could define it differently, which means it is difficult to say for certain whether this is the first evidence of such behaviour in invertebrates, Robson said. Still, the findings are interesting, Younicorn iPhone App he said: "It's another example Requires Little where we can think about how similar humans are to the rest of Explanation [IPhone t h e w o r l d . W e a r e j u s t a Apps] continuum of the entire planet." By John Herrman (Gizmodo) • Marine life Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:55:08 AM • Indonesia • Animal behaviour From schlubby blogger to • Zoology majestic unicorn, in three easy • Biology steps. It can work for you too! [ iTunes] guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Get you a CIA Rolex By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:00:45 AM

Did you know: CIA agents wear Rolex watches so they can “trade” their way out of sticky

situations! That’s why an unnamed CIA agent bought this watch in Europe back in 1977 and now it can be yours. When you buy the watch you get the CIA agent’s name and maybe, just maybe, some of that CIA

cool will rub off on you. Or maybe you’ll be mistaken for an agent and taken in for questioning. You can get your own 1977 Rolex from WatchesToBuy for…

wait for it… $2,560. That’s not too bad for an older Rolex Oyster with date, but it’s not great either. Oh well, it’s got a story. via Hodinkee

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CHINA'S

GREAT

continued from page 3

family life spills on to the streets and all business activity, such as shoe mending, sewing, woodcutting, hair-cutting, internet surfing, pool-playing, and most of all, cooking, is done out in the alleyways and in the main square – which also has a hospital in it. Urban villages might be Shenzhen's equivalent of the hundreds-of-years-old hutongs in Beijing. It would be a travesty if they too were demolished to make way for gated apartment complexes and sterile shopping centres. Might Shenzhen's urban planners learn from these unplanned but apparently highly functional neighbourhoods? In November, a 47-year-old woman named Tang Fuzhen in Sichuan province set fire to herself and died rather than be evicted from her home, which stood in the way of developers. Last week, the government resolved to defend

continued from page 4

residents' property rights against such illegal eviction and demolition. So perhaps there is hope for Shenzhen's exceptionally energetic, if dirty and often derided, urban villages. Alternatively, as IDU pointed out at the biennale, the farmers themselves may choose to cash in on their increasingly valuable property. Back at the biennale, late at night, the sound of screeching and creaking cranes echoes wistfully across the plaza. It's merely a sound installation by the architects DnA. But I heard exactly the same noises from building sites everywhere in Shenzhen. And up on the civic centre plinth, overlooking the plaza and the city beyond, Bureau des Mésarchitectures have constructed a pair of swings, called Double Happiness (2009), raised on a 10-foot-tall

platform. It's the biennale's most popular piece, and it sends you lurching out towards the luminous horizon of skyscrapers, as if propelling you into the future. You're made to feel both nauseous and exhilarated. • Architecture • Design • Art • Exhibitions • Festivals • China James Westcott guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

reviewers themselves often seem so cosseted and pernickety that even a holiday to heaven would garner sniffy comments about the mediocre service. Numerous other sites have tried a similar approach, including the Guardian's own Been there readers' tips site, but for breadth of coverage, you can't beat it. Couchsurfing The art of travelling cheaply has always been appealing for webheads, but nobody took it further than this quirky site. What began as an experiment by one student (who emailed 1,500 strangers at the University of Iceland to find a bed for the night on a trip to Reykjavik) has now turned into a huge "hospitality exchange network". There have long been sites about extremely low-cost travel hobotraveler.com, for example but nothing caught the communal spirit quite like Couchsurfing. VRBO

Holiday swaps and owner rentals were the sort of thing that only a very select number of people did before the advent of the web. For the seller, advertising for tenants was an expensive, hit and miss affair, while the buyer rarely knew whether somebody was trustworthy or not. But sites like VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner) and Homeexchange.com helped pioneer a kind of peer-topeer holidaymaking - and opened up new horizons to hordes of people along the way. • Travel websites Bobbie Johnson guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Options update: Sun Micro volatility decreases, shares up on hopes for deal closure By Paul Foster (BloggingStocks)

rallied to close at $9.28 on hopes for a deal closure with Oracle's ( ORCL) proposed purchase of Submitted at 12/15/2009 8:00:00 AM Sun Microsystems. ORCL Filed under: Chesapeake Energy announced in April it was paying ( C H K ) , S u n M i c r o s y s t e m s $9.50 in cash per share for (JAVA), Oracle Corp (ORCL), JAVA. January put option Options implied volatility is at 28 below a Sun Microsystems ( JAVA) level of 41 from a month ago,

according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement. Chesapeake Energy ( CHK) closed at $24.37. Natural gas is recently up 1.46% to 5.41, according to Bloomberg. January option implied volatility is at 42; April is at 46, below its 26-week

average of 49, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement. Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com. Options update: Sun Micro volatility decreases, shares up on hopes for deal closure originally

appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Before the bell: Futures Producer prices rise a lower ahead of data; Fed hefty 2.4% in November meeting in focus By Connie Madon (BloggingStocks)

By Melly Alazraki (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:45:00 AM

Filed under: Before the bell, International markets, General Electric (GE), Market matters, Best Buy (BBY), Economic data, Wells Fargo (WFC), Oil, Federal Reserve U.S. stock futures declined somewhat Tuesday morning as investors await several key economic reports and anticipate the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting beginning today. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo joined Citigroup and repaid its bailout fund. On Monday, Wall Street finished on a higher note after Exxon Mobil's ( XOM) $41 billion acquisition of XTO Energy ( XTO) boosted the mood of the market. Abu Dhabi's

Submitted at 12/15/2009 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: Bad news, Economic data, Federal Reserve All is not well in paradise. Producer prices rose 2.4% in November. While this the first gain this year, the size of the jump was much more than expected and the highest since October 2008. At than time we bailout of Dubai and Citigroup's were coming off record oil repayment of TARP money also prices. Analysts had expected a helped push markets higher. meager 1.6% rise, a surge in Continue reading Before the energy prices in the past month bell: Futures lower ahead of data; contributed to a much higher rise. Fed meeting in focus The Federal Reserve is meeting Before the bell: Futures lower today and tomorrow. The Fed ahead of data; Fed meeting in w i l l t h e n i s s u e i t s p o l i c y focus originally appeared on statement on interest rates. It is BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Dec expected that interest rates will 2009 07:45:00 EST. Please see remain low. All eyeballs are on our terms for use of feeds. whether the Fed will still include Permalink| Email this| Comments

Does Twitter mean business with 'Contributors' test? By Harrison Hoffman (Webware.com) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:50:00 PM

Twitter is launching a small test of a new business-oriented feature called "Contributors." Might this signal the impending launch of Twitter business accounts? Originally posted at The Web Services Report

the words: "Extended period." Continue reading Producer prices rise a hefty 2.4% in November Producer prices rise a hefty 2.4% in November originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 By John Cook (Gawker) Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:59:49 AM see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Soulful crooner David Geffen to Comments be inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.

With Introductory Remarks by Satan [Moneymen]

U.S. Congress likely to pass debt ceiling hike before holiday break By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/14/2009 6:30:00 PM

Filed under: Politics Congress will likely increase the debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion to roughly $14 trillion, before the year-end holiday recess. The House will

act first, followed by the Senate. Congress has to raise the ceiling or the U.S. government will grind to a halt in a few weeks. There's little chance the majority, led by the Democrats, will face any substantive opposition from the minority, the Republicans. The reason? In 1995-96, the

Republican-led Congress picked a fight with President Bill

Clinton, D-Arkansas, and temporarily shut down the federal government. The result was a public backlash against the Republican Party. Continue reading U.S. Congress likely to pass debt ceiling hike before holiday break U.S. Congress likely to pass debt

ceiling hike before holiday break originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Gift Guide: Gadgets for the Home By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear)

your perusal: • HP DreamScreen($200 to $250)• eStarling TouchConnect($200)• Toshiba Digital Media Frame($180 to $230)• Kodak EasyShare($100 to $230)• IPEVO Kaleido R7($150)

actually pretty good. You fill the machine’s reservoir with water, pop a coffee pod into the Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:30:00 AM machine, and put your cup or Gadgets need not be relegated to mug underneath the spout. Press the darkest corners of your home the button and you’ve got nearoffice or rumpus room. There are instant coffee that tastes far better plenty of options that can easily than instant coffee. And there’s blend in to the less techno-centric basically no cleanup other than areas of your humble abode. In throwing the empty pod away. that spirit, here’s a list of Another fun idea, especially if relatively inconspicuous gadgets you have kids, is a home sodafor the home. making machine. They can get a Digital Photo Frames Solar Lighting bit expensive but the idea is that Digital photo frames have come Solar-powered lights are slowly you’ll save money in the long a long way in terms of style and finding their way into the realm rechargeable batteries, which are run, and the soda mixes for this features. And while you can of normal-looking items. With then used to power little LED Penguin machine I reviewed, for purchase inexpensive frames in the exception of not having a bulbs. Current charge times may instance, don’t contain high just about any store that sells cord protruding from the base, be long (9-12 hours) and actual fructose corn syrup. e l e c t r o n i c s , I ’ d p e r s o n a l l y there are more and more solar usage time may be short (3-6 For the germophobe in your life, recommend splurging a bit for lamps coming out that’ll fit in hours), but sunlight is free and there’s a new crop of touchless free is good. one with a wireless connection of just about anywhere. faucets on the market ( see John’s some type. A wireless frame I’ve been using the $17 solar • Can You Imagine LED Solar review here) — “touchless” is a allows you to do a few things that lamp from Geeks.com seen on L a m p ( $ 1 7 a t G e e k s . c o m ) • misnomer, but you’re able to you can’t do with standard the right here and it’s been Sunnan Work Lamp($20 at control the thing with your wrist, frames. working pretty well so far. The Ikea)• Smart Solar Powered forearm, or elbow. For starters, you can put it just batteries take a while to fully Table Lamp($80 at Amazon) And last but not least if you’ve about anywhere since you’ll be charge but once they’re ready to got a pancake lover in your life, updating it wirelessly. With a go, it’s nice to be able to use this you’re left with little choice than standard frame, you need to make lamp anywhere I need a little to spring for a $5 can of Batter sure it’s placed in an accessible extra light. And aside from the For the Kitchen Blaster pancake mix. They’re area so you can get at the l i t t l e s q u a r e s o l a r p a n e l There are hundreds of potential pancakes in a can. Again, they’re memory card to add new photos. embedded in the top of the lamp kitchen gadgets, but here are a pancakes in a can. See my review Secondly, many wireless frames shade, it looks just like a regular few I’ve personally tried and can here. let your family and friends add lamp (again, without the cord, or recommend. • Keurig Brewing Systems($90 As far as coffee goes, some to $250) their own photos to your frame course). from anywhere in the world. And You’ll want to make sure to people get intimidated by fancy • Home Soda Machines($90 to finally, if you’re interested, place your lamp in a spot where c o f f e e m a k e r s . I f t h e r e ’ s $200) w i r e l e s s f r a m e s c a n o f t e n it’ll get decent sunlight and someone like that on your list, • Delta Touch2O Faucet($400) s h o w c a s e i n f o r m a t i o n l i k e remember that these lamps are these Keurig machines are tough • Organic Batter Blaster($5) weather and news. basically collecting sunlight and to beat – any of the coffee A few wireless frame choices for using it to slowly juice up machines that use “pods” are

White House Wants Input On Public Access Rules For Federally Funded Research By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 12/14/2009 9:21:00 PM

The Office of Science & Technology Policy remains one of the few White House operations that seems to actually have a good grasp on the internet and what it means for various other aspects of governance. That's why it's good to see them asking for input into what the administration should do in terms of requiring public access for federally funded research(thanks to Lee for sending this over). There's been a big debate over this for years. Given that a significant portion of academic research is federally funded, it is immensely troubling that the results of much of that research is locked away in extremely expensive journals. There has been a good push over the years for requiring federally funded research to be accessible by the public, and OSTP is now looking for views into how to create policies that would achieve that goal. Who knows what will come out of it, but for those of you concerned about tax-payerfunded knowledge being locked up by private journals, now is your chance to comment in a way where (hopefully) the government will pay attention. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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Amazon's Virtual Private Cloud goes public (CNET News.com) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:12:55 AM

Giveaway: Olive No 4 Hi-Fi Digital Stereo By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:30:52 AM

You like music, right? How about CDs? Do you still have CDs? Don’t have any cash this week? Did you spend a lot of money on presents for the kids already? Do you want one of these Olive No 4 Hi-Fi? Am I asking too many questions? Yes? No? Well today we have one of the coolest prizes to come over the transom in a while. It’s the Olive No 4 Hi-Fi. How do you win? You need to convince us your current music system sucks in comments. We’ll pick the saddest of the sad sacks. Extra points if you include a link to an image of your sad, sad stereo. Here are some specs: –Storage capacity of up to 1,500

CDs in hi-fi digital instantly gets rid of CD clutter and ensures crystal clear sound quality –Full-color touchscreen display makes it easy for users to find the music they want –Multi-room music streaming and the ability to import music from a computer (wired or wireless) allow easy access to all your digital music sources in every room of your home –Seamless integration with existing hi-fi systems and a high resolution DAC deliver the best possible hi-fi audio experience (unlike any MP3 player) –Fine-grade aluminum and distinctive graphics provide an elegant design Roll out the comments and we’ll pick a winner on Friday.

Enter the LOL Blog Matrix By Mathew Honan (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:00:00 PM

The lolcat movement, with recurring-theme-as-joke website,

has gems and duds. Wired lays out those in the genre worth checking out (Must Share Hair) and some (Photoshop Disasters) that you can forget about.

Amazon.com is opening up its Virtual Private Cloud to all users of its EC2 cloud-computing services as part of a public beta launched Monday. The full beta of Virtual Private Cloud follows a limited public test that began in August. At the time of that launch, Amazon said virtual private clouds were the most popular feature request from enterprise customers. VPC is an enterprise-oriented feature that allows users to HD Wii we've all been clamoring connect to Amazon's cloudfor since November of 2006. Or computing services via an IPsec maybe it's nothing at all. virtual private network (VPN) Update: We've done a bit more link. The feature builds on other digging, and it looks as if this Amazon enterprise-friendly cloud here filing may simply be a efforts introduced over the past renewal of a 2006 trademark two years, such as reserved EC2 request. Moreover, we've found instances, longer-term deals, and Nintendo trademarks in Japan for volume pricing. It also integrates Cii, Bii, Oii and Yii, so it seems service-level agreements and the company may just be on partnerships with big enterprise some sort of rampage in order to software vendors such as IBM, cover its tracks in one form or Oracle, BMC and Red Hat. another. Read more of Amazon's virtual Nintendo trademarks 'Zii' over in private cloud goes public at Japan, Creative is like 'zaywha?' ZDNet UK. originally appeared on Engadget fivefilters.org featured article: on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:25:00 Normalising the crime of the EST. Please see our terms for century by John Pilger. Available u s e o f f e e d s . P e r m a l i n k tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text Slashgear| Siliconera| Email this| RSS, Term Extraction. Comments

Nintendo trademarks 'Zii' over in Japan, Creative is like 'zaywha?' By Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 12/15/2009 8:25:00 AM

Here's an interesting one. Siliconera has dug up what it claims to be a Japanese trademark for the term " Zii," and contrary to what you may expect, the application wasn't filed by Creative. We double checked the database, and sure enough, the paperwork went through on October 30th -- which almost certainly means that this was more than just some day-late attempt to fend off the nextgeneration of KIRF Wii consoles. There's obviously no way to tell what the Big N has in mind here, nor if this will cause any kind of friction between it and Creative, but we'll certainly be keeping an ear to the ground for more. Who knows -- maybe the Zii is that

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No, Shareholders Don't Get To Sue Heartland Just Because It Leaked More Data Than Anyone Else By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 12/14/2009 7:15:00 PM

Border security guards kill -- literally kill -- a MacBook By Vladislav Savov (Engadget) Submitted at 12/15/2009 8:50:00 AM

Young American woman travels over to Jerusalem to meet some friends, see the sights, live the life. Overzealous border security officers ask her a bunch of questions, take issue with her answers, and a few well-placed bullets later she is allowed entry

into the country with a somewhat altered MacBook in tow. So what can we all learn from this incident? Firstly, back up all the data you consider important; B, Israeli policemen don't mess about; and 3, distressed laptops look gorgeous no matter how they got there -- just look at the way the glass trackpad has wrinkled up from the force of the bullet penetrating near it, it's a

borderline work of art. The young lady in question has been promised compensation, but we're hearing she's not the only one to experience the wrath of Israel's finest. Flickr link below will lead you to fallout pictures from a separate incident, and we've got a couple more closeups of the ravaged MacBook after the break. [Thanks, Itai N.]

Continue reading Border security guards kill -- literally kill -- a MacBook Border security guards kill -literally kill -- a MacBook originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Lily Sussman, Flickr| Email this| Comments

Last year, Heartland Payment Systems, leapt into the lead as being the company with the largest data breach of all time (well, that we know of), when it potentially leaked the personal info on somewhere over 100 million people. As typically happens in these sorts of things, a shareholder lawsuit was quickly filed from bummed out shareholders pissed off that the stock dropped (like off a cliff) following the announcement. But, of course, for there to be liability it takes a lot more than just the stock to drop, so it comes as little surprise that the lawsuit has been tossed, as the court said there was no evidence that Heartland execs knew their data was exposed. Friendly reminder to litigious shareholders: just because the company screws something up, it doesn't mean you get to sue. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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MSI slides out 13.4-inch X-Slim X350 CULV laptop

Seesmic Twitter app lands in BlackBerry store

By Darren Murph (Engadget)

By Jessica Dolcourt (Webware.com)

available (DVD or Blu-ray), your choice of a 4- or 8-cell battery, VGA output and a pair of inbuilt MSI has been quite the snake of speakers. Mum's the word on late. Just over the past fortnight pricing and availability, but we alone the outfit has slyly rolled suspect the firm will be out a new Wind Top all-in-one showcasing this shortly when PC, a revamped X-Slim X600 CES kicks off. Pro and now a brand new CULV MSI slides out 13.4-inch X-Slim rig that promises up to 9 hours of X350 CULV laptop originally battery life and weighs just 3.31 appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 pounds. The 13.4-inch X-Slim keyboard, LED-backlit 1,366 x optional Bluetooth, WiFi, an SD / Dec 2009 09:42:00 EST. Please X350 doesn't deviate from the 768 resolution display, an MMC card reader, audio in / out, see our terms for use of feeds. design mantra established in integrated HDMI socket, GMA a couple of USB 2.0 sockets and Permalink| Hot Hardware| Email earlier X-Slim models, and 4500MHD graphics set, 2GB of Windows 7 Home Premium this| Comments within you'll find an Intel CULV DDR2 RAM, a 1.3 megapixel runnin' the show. There's also an Core 2 Duo processor, a 'chiclet' w e b c a m , g i g a b i t E t h e r n e t , optional external optical drive Submitted at 12/15/2009 9:42:00 AM

Nail Art Machine: Manicure “vending” machine By Serkan Toto (CrunchGear)

nails – to some extent. Apparently, this nail “vending” machine has been out since 2002. As everybody knows, Japan is Pay $3.40 and it will beautify the land of vending machines. two of your nails for that price Dozens and dozens of these within about 5 minutes, meaning things are standing right in front the machine measures your nails of my house in Tokyo, offering and produces a fitting nail stamp everything from drinks, to cup (hope that’s the right term) based noodles over to fresh rice 24 on that analysis. hours a day. But I’ve never seen You can choose between 15 o r h e a r d o f t h e N a i l A r t different colors and it’s possible lets you choose between different Machine[JP], a machine that to combine up to four colors with designs through a touch screen. (obviously) takes care of your a base color. The machine also A reason for the machine being Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:20:28 AM

so rare (and a bit of a letdown tech-wise) is that it requires humans (Nail Art Machine staff) to finish your nails and make sure they really look beautiful with what the machine produced. But I’m not sure if too many women would want to stick their fingers in a machine in the first place. Via Kirainet

Google gets into the URL-shrinking biz with Goo.gl By Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com)

Google launches its own URL- fast. The bad news? It's only built shortening tool called Goo.gl. into its own products. The good news? It's light and Originally posted at Web

Crawler

Submitted at 12/14/2009 2:12:00 PM

An update to Seesmic's Twitter app for BlackBerry adds a handful of enhancements and sticks the Twitter client in the App World application storefront. Originally posted at The Download Blog

Google ponders risky Android solo act By Tom Krazit (Webware.com) Submitted at 12/14/2009 12:54:00 PM

Is the search company about to throw a wrench into two years of Android community building with plans to sell its own phone directly to consumers? Originally posted at Relevant Results

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'I'm Sorry, But We Blew Up Your Laptop' [Travel] By Adam Frucci (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:37:11 AM

Lily was traveling to Tel Aviv. For some reason, the Israeli security officers thought she was suspicious. So they put three bullets through her MacBook. Then they asked me to wait. Since they had asked for friends and families phone numbers I assumed they might be calling to verify my answers to questions or confirm I really had extended family in Tel Aviv. An announcement played over the

sound system, interrupting my break in the sunshine. First in Hebrew, then Arabic, then in English. It was something along the lines of, "do not to be

where they instructed. It was still there so I went back outside. Moments later a man came outside and introduced himself as the manager on duty. And then, "I'm sorry but we had to blow up your laptop." Fortunately for all of her data, they missed the hard drive. Now she's trying to figure out how to alarmed by gunshots because the get the Israeli government to Israeli security needs to blow up reimburse her for her swiss cheese laptop. Be sure to read the suspicious passanger luggage." I went inside to check on my full story over at her blog. [ Lilly bag. I had left it unattended, Sussman via Cynical-C]

UCLA nanowire discovery could lead to faster, stronger, smaller electronics By Darren Murph (Engadget)

faster and more powerful electronics," also noting that Submitted at 12/15/2009 10:09:00 AM they're so small that they can be Advancements in silicon"placed in virtually anything." germanium have been going on Which is great, because the for years now, but a team at Adamo XPS is just entirely too UCLA is convinced that their pudgy. discovery really is "the next big UCLA nanowire discovery thing." For scores now, could lead to faster, stronger, microchip makers have struggled nanowires could be the key to smaller electronics originally with miniaturizing transistors as making the process a whole lot appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 the public at large demands that easier. According to study co- Dec 2009 10:09:00 EST. Please things get smaller and smaller. author Suneel Kodambaka, the see our terms for use of feeds. Thanks to researchers at the new nanowires could "help speed Permalink PhysOrg| UCLA| aforesaid university, it's looking the development of smaller, Email this| Comments like silicon-germanium

Yfrog's top searches of '09 are full of teen angst By Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com) Submitted at 12/14/2009 2:36:00 PM

What were the top 10 searches of 2009 for Twitter photo host Yfrog? Mostly pop stars and teen heartthrobs. Originally posted at Web Crawler

Blippy launches the Twitter of personal finance By Rafe Needleman (Webware.com) Submitted at 12/14/2009 4:04:00 PM

There's more to this service than sharing spending data with friends, thank goodness. Originally posted at Rafe's Radar

Schaeffer: Crazy for God (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/14/2009 7:40:54 PM

Here’s a fascinating interview with religious right apostate Frank Schaeffer, son of the late Calvinist preacher Francis Schaeffer, talking about the epiphany that led him to renounce his upbringing, from Point of Inquiry.[Audio] And here’s Schaeffer’s latest book, a memoir of growing up in the heart of the religious right: Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. (Hat tip: Summer.)

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Thugfest at Climate Conference (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/14/2009 11:42:53 AM

Someone at the United Nations thought it would be a great idea for us to hear what thugs, dictators, and religious fanatics think about global warming. COPENHAGEN –Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe plan to address negotiators at international By Tim Stevens (Engadget) ability to tune into Shoutcast and climate talks in Copenhagen next other undisclosed "internet week. Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:34:00 AM feeds." The company also This, of course, disproves the Looking for an... alternative after promises "very active new By Tim Stevens (Engadget) Motoblur frosting, there's a five Great Climate Change Hoax. being given a 1080p-streaming f i r m w a r e r e l e a s e s " w h i c h , Submitted at 12/15/2009 9:18:00 AM megapixel camera on the back, Come on, people, it’s another brick by Western Digital earlier without a little restraint, could be and with its push-to-talk this one piece of the puzzle! CRU emails, It's pretty rare that a tech demo looks to be going to Nextel or Ahmadinejad, Chavez … don’t this month? A.C. Ryan has a new a recipe to repeat WD's disaster. option, the Playon!HD Mini. It's Gallery: A.C. Ryan Playon!HD starts with the phrase "you know Boost Mobile. Those are the you see the New World Order what I'm gonna do?" But, this deets, but click on through if you conspiracy? a smaller version of the bigger Mini one certainly does, a dark, shaky, want to do that video, dawg. Playon!HD that seems to lose [Thanks, Gavie] Yes, that’s sarcasm, in case you only its internal drive bay, card A.C. Ryan's Playon!HD Mini but thoroughly comprehensive [Via iNicc0lo] had any doubt. reader, and €50, meaning this one player is tiny, still pushes 1080p exploration of the recently Continue reading Motorola Opus retails for €99 -- about $144. w o r t h o f p i x e l s o r i g i n a l l y rumored Motorola Opus One One caught on video, dawg Yes, a good bit more than the appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 smartphone. Jive- or profanity- Motorola Opus One caught on WD TV, but it hits all the right Dec 2009 07:34:00 EST. Please averse readers (or anyone who video, dawg originally appeared marks, including 1080p output see our terms for use of feeds. hates zebra cake) will probably on Engadget on Tue, 15 Dec over HDMI or component, Permalink| Playon!HD Mini want to skip the four videos 2009 09:18:00 EST. Please see support for streaming media or preview| Email this| Comments embedded below, but we'll give our terms for use of feeds. you the highlights: iDen is Permalink| android.hdblog.it| USB mass storage, and even the confirmed, Android 1.5 Cupcake Email this| Comments is currently installed with

A.C. Ryan's Playon!HD Mini player is tiny, still pushes 1080p worth of pixels Motorola Opus One

caught on video, dawg

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iriver's minimalist styled Stocking Stuffer: Fake pregnancy and flamboyant batteried test E30 player now available By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear)

By Tim Stevens (Engadget)

Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:00:00 AM

Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:58:00 AM

Just a few days after iriver's E30 was spotted doing a domino impression in China we're happy to say the thing is now making an appearance in American stores -or at Amazon, at least. The smallest of the three couldn't be bothered to make the trip, leaving only 4GB and 8GB models selling for $59 and $79, respectively. The little 1.8-inch player is just .3-inch thick, supports a plethora of media formats and, with 52 hours of battery life, should let you sample each and every one of them between recharges. It's a lovely, understated thing and would make a wonderful stocking stuffer -- though to be honest it would only really stuff the socks of those with very tiny feet. iriver's minimalist styled and

I’m just reporting, of course, so let’s not kill the messenger. Don’t think of this fake pregnancy test as a cruel/hilarious joke to play on your significant other but as more child and reacts happily, hooray! of a relationship barometer. If he creates a him-shaped hole in If your boyfriend, fiancé, or the nearest wall, also hooray! It husband sees that you’re with-

Judges May Reconsider Handing All Bratz Dolls Over To Mattel By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

that, it seemed to go too far to not just provide monetary payments and/or an injunction, but to tell We were pretty shocked when a MGA to hand over the entire line judge ordered doll maker MGA of dolls including future plans for t o h a n d o v e r p r e t t y m u c h the dolls. That seems to go well everything having to do with beyond the scope of what's Bratz dolls to Mattel, the maker reasonable -- and it seems like of Barbie -- one of the key the appeals court might agree. It products Bratz competes against. has lifted the original deadline While some of the facts are for when MGA had to transfer disputed by various parties, it stuff over to Mattel and seems to does seem pretty clear that a be considering whether itself Mattel designer was working on goes too far, saying that handing the concept of Bratz and then all of that over to Mattel seemed about upcoming movies, when all went to MGA to make the dolls "draconian." that exists is the screenplay. instead. Mattel claims that it Even if we grant that the These precaps, Wired's Scott owns the entire concept because designer created the dolls while Brown explains, reflect our its contract with the designer he worked at Mattel, it takes growing impatience with the included all rights to things he more than just an idea to be delivery of entertainment. worked on while under their successful. Yet this ruling seems employ. Even if you accept all to put the entire value of not just flamboyant batteried E30 player now available originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink iTech News Net| 4GB Model, 8GB Model| Email this| Comments

Some Film Reviews Get Written Before Cameras Roll By Scott Brown (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:00:00 PM

Forget spoilers. The no-frills Hollywood blog Scriptshadow reveals all you need to know

just wasn’t meant to be. Now you know that and you’re free to call up the guy you went to high school with who was insanely popular ten years ago but now he works as a courier for his dad’s law office and the last time you saw him he was totally into you. Either way, this one’s a winner. Ten bucks at PrankPlace.com. [via Random Good Stuff]

Submitted at 12/14/2009 11:23:00 PM

the Bratz line of dolls, but every forward thinking innovation in the Bratz line, into that single idea. That's going way too far. Sure, perhaps there should be some sort of sanctions or punishment, but MGA did a lot more than just see this idea, snap its fingers and have a success on its hands. The execution was what made it work, and it seems silly to ignore all of that and assume that the entire value is in the idea -- and everything else needs to be handed over because the guy had the idea while still at Mattel. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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Checking In, an app for when you're stressed out By David Winograd (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 12/14/2009 8:00:00 PM

Filed under: App Review Too much stress can kill. According to the American Medical Association, stress is a factor in over 75% of sickness and the World Health Organization has stated that stress is America's number one health problem. We all experience some degree of stress and that's on the increase due to information overload, the increasing complexity of our lives and a litany of reasons too numerous to count. We all know this on some level, but what can be done about it? One possible solution can be found in a very intriguing app called Check In: The 5 Tools of EBT[ iTunes Link] $.99 US. EBT stands for Emotional Brain Training, a method that was developed over the last 30 years at the University of California, San Francisco, to act as an appetite suppressant for obese children. Eventually, in response to new discoveries in neuroscience(the study of the nervous system) EBT reached its present form. EBT is a brainbased emotional response training method that purports to teach people how to effectively process stress so that their stress level returns to one of well being. The method involves 5 specific levels of stress ranging from 1:

feeling great, to 5: totally stressed out. Once a level is determined you are given systematic and repetitious tools to raise your level. With enough practice transitory results can become longer lasting as you, in effect, rewire your brain to deal with stress in a positive manner. When the app is first run, you'll see the screen at the top of this post. There are two major components of the app: one that determines your current brain state and another that helps you raise the brain state, eventually getting to 1. Tapping on the Brain State Finder runs a video of Laurel Mellin, one of the developers of the method, who explains each brain state in a brief video and presents a series of multiple choice questions involving thinking, feeling, relationships, spirituality and behavior. When that's done, another video of Laurel runs telling you your current brain state, and explaining it fully. Whenever you get through a task, you'll get another video of Lauren (these can be turned off), which is uncannily specific to what you just did. It's not the like having a therapist in the room with you, but more like a coach who, amazingly enough, always seems to have your number both literally and figuratively. Since there is so much video, the app is quite large (weighing in at 106 MB).

the occasional sound of something banging into the microphone. You'll have to set your iPhone/iPod touch not to go to sleep since with the usual minute or two sleep setting, the app will not stay open, and the audio will stop; this reduces any positive effect of the exercise. This needs to be corrected quickly by either having the app stay open or just keeping the audio going. There is a Progress option telling you how many times you checked in, and what your brain state averages out to be. Another button brings up an RSS feed of The next step is tap on Get To EBT news. The most interesting One, which asks you to tap on small option is called Grind In, the number you were given, which simply asks you to type in plays a video summarizing your powerful message that you really state and presents you with one want to take to heart. This is of number of tools. In this case remembered and new messages it's a number of sentences to can be added to the list. When f i n i s h . W h e n d o n e , y o u you tap on the Grind In Now! reevaluate your number and if it button, you are asked to say the changed, you tap once again on message out loud, then tap the Get To One which will take you Say It Again, button. To finish this task you need to repeat the through another tool. There are added smaller options phrase 10 times. This is a very t h a t d o n ' t c o n t a i n v i d e o s . simple, but quite effective way of Sanctuary is a audible relaxation taking on new beliefs through exercise that talks you through repetition. relaxing your body and offers This is a lot to get for a buck, but you positive EBT oriented there is a reason that this app is affirmations. This takes about 10 s o i n e x p e n s i v e . A l t h o u g h minutes. The voice is soothing potentially useful by itself, it's an and the narration is effective, but appetizer meant to get you the recording quality is horrible. interested enough in the method There is an annoying buzz that you'll consider buying a permeating the soundtrack and series of 6 courses at $100 each. I see nothing wrong with that since

what you are given is complete unto itself but limited. You soon realize that regardless of what you are asked, the video that comes up on a particular level is always the same. 5 levels with 5 videos talking about 5 tools are what you get. But you also get enough information and (although this isn't a game) play value to get a strong feeling of whether this is beneficial for you and whether you are interested in pursuing EBT further. I would really recommend this app to anyone feeling the pangs of too much stress. For a dollar I don't think that anyone will get to brain state 1, but it's already lowered my personal stress level noticeably. Here are two videos. The first is a tour of the app and the second, if you're interested, is an overview of EBT. TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page. TUAW Checking In, an app for when you're stressed out originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Putting Amazon's spot pricing into perspective (CNET News.com)

instances hour-by-hour, based on available supply and demand. • Customers pay whatever the As reported on CNET, Amazon spot price is up to their maximum Web Services has announced a price. So, if someone bids new pricing option that lets its $0.07/hour, and the spot price is customers take advantage of $0.05/hour, the person pays spare capacity within the EC2 $0.05/hour. infrastructure at variable, supply- • If the spot price exceeds the and-demand-driven pricing. customer's maximum price, the The news has taken the cloud c u s t o m e r ' s i n s t a n c e s a r e community by storm. For some, t e r m i n a t e d . it represents the beginning of a long-anticipated move to market Spot pricing is the third EC2 pricing for core IT infrastructure pricing option, joining existing services. on-demand and reserved instance While there is some truth to the options. The first two options importance of AWS spot pricing targeted two critical-use cases for t o t h e h i s t o r y o f c l o u d cloud computing: reserved computing, let's keep things in instances for mission-critical perspective: this pricing is set by apps where capacity must always Amazon, not any market. We are be available to meet demand, and a l o n g w a y f r o m a t r u e on-demand pricing for just about commodity market for any form everything else. of cloud computing service. However, the success of both Before I go any further, let's options likely left Amazon with a review how the feature works: big problem: excess capacity. • Each customer sets a maximum The success of reserved instances price he or she is willing to pay means that Amazon has to keep for "spot instances." around enough capacity to • Amazon sets a "spot price" for guarantee that it can handle any Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:24:28 AM

spike in demand that might come along. The success of on-demand pricing means that Amazon has to build out new capacity fast enough to stay ahead of the voracious demand curve. So, what to do? Enter spot pricing. Amazon's new pricing is an incredibly creative way to encourage consumption of unused data center capacity, by providing that capacity at clearance sale prices on the condition that Amazon can take it back at a moment's notice. For the right kind of applications, it's a true win-win situation. Why not profit from what would otherwise be a liability? Note, however, that this feature is not market-based pricing. Amazon determines the spot price and can raise that price enough to gain back capacity at will, at no real cost to itself. There is no competition. There is no commoditization. There is just consumption of what is not being used. The truth is, real commoditization of infrastructure

services--or any other cloud service, for that matter--isn't in the best interest of Amazon or any other service provider. Regardless, commoditization can't happen without open standards that allow easy portability and interoperability of data and code, as well as security, control, service-level assurance and compliance systems. Those standards are coming, but it is impossible to predict when they will arrive. I only hope Amazon embraces them when they do. In the meantime, we can watch with admiration how the success of Amazon Web Services allows it to explore the future of IT with the enthusiastic help of a customer base that truly benefits from each success. I can't wait to see how customers choose to take advantage of spot pricing. fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Mainstreaming the Birthers (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:28:12 PM

Nothing funnier than a joke about Obama’s birth certificate — on the front page of the North Dakota Republican Party website. (It’s been removed now.) (Hat tip: Ben Smith.) UPDATE at 12/14/09 6:52:12 pm: The Birther image is still posted on this page.

Australia moves toward mandatory ISP filtering (CNET News.com) Submitted at 12/15/2009 5:48:45 AM

Mandatory ISP filtering legislation will be introduced in Australia around the middle of 2010, after which there will be a one-year period to implement and activate the filtering technology. The Australian federal

government on Tuesday announced it will introduce amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act, which will by 2011 require all ISPs to block refusedclassification-rated material hosted on overseas servers. As part of the new legislation, the government intends to explore what additional process

could be implemented around how Web sites are added to the government's "Refused Classification" (RC) list. The obvious contender for the new RC list's oversight is the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which manages a list of locally hosted illegal content, and issues

so-called "take-down" notices to local operators. Read more of Mandatory ISP filter due mid-2011 at ZDNet Australia. And see also: Industry welcomes filter policy Telstra supports Conroy's filter EFA: Filtering 'damages Australia's reputation'

Welcome to National Censorship Day fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Patent lawsuit of the week: BetaNet goes after Apple and more By Michael Rose (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 12/14/2009 11:00:00 PM

Filed under: Apple Corporate Word from Jim Dalrymple at The Loop tonight that Monday brought a new patent lawsuit against Apple... and 17 other tech companies, including Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, Sony, Kodak (!) and more. This time, the complaining company, BetaNet, has a 1993 patent that it says covers a "Secure System for Activating Personal Computer Software at Remote Locations." While the patent holders clearly feel they have a pretty broad front to attack on, reading the complaint over at Justia makes it seem a little... well, I'm not a lawyer or a patent expert, but there's some confusion here. Have a look at the section of the complaint dealing with Apple: Upon information and belief, Defendant Apple has been and now is directly infringing, and indirectly infringing by way of inducing infringement and/or

contributing to the infringement of the '476 Patent in the State of Texas, in this judicial district, and elsewhere in the United States, by, among other things, using, selling and offering to sell computer software via a process that provides a program file having a loader segment and a registration shell portion - to a remote computer having a display. The program file lacks a critical portion that prevents the program file from operating properly. User identification information is entered in the registration shell portion, and transmitted from the registration shell to a separate registration program provided in a registration computer. The registration program merges user identification data with the critical portion to generate a unique overlay file that is transmitted from the registration program to the registration shell. The overlay file contains the critical portion originally lacking from the program file, and it is installed in the program file, thereby allowing operation of the

program file. For example, without limitation, Defendant Apple is marketing, distributing, using, selling, and offering to sell its iTunes, Aperture, QuickTime, and MobileMe programs. Defendant Apple is thus liable for infringement of the '476 Patent pursuant to 35 U.S.C. ยง 271(a), (b) & (c). OK, sure, that's one way you could handle remote registrations and software serialization, but how do we know that's the way Apple does it exactly? It actually sounds more like Sassafras's K2 to me. What 'critical portions' of these apps are supposed to be missing from the downloaded installation content?

Video: Black Carbon Travels the Globe By Betsy Mason (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:00:00 PM

Black-soot emissions from

burning fuels, such as diesel and coal, are potentially more harmful in some areas than warming from greenhouse gases. A video shows how black carbon

spreads through the atmosphere. New research suggests the warming effect of black carbon may accelerate glacial melt in the Himalayas.

Also, I might draw your attention to the examples of allegedly infringing software at the bottom of the paragraph... the " iTunes, Aperture, QuickTime, and MobileMe programs" that are of such concern? Well, as we all know, two of them are free, which means they aren't sold or serialized at all (if they meant QuickTime Pro, they should have said QuickTime Pro), and one of them isn't a 'program' but rather an online service. Nice research work, lawyers of BetaNet; you should feel proud. We'll run this one by our resident legal eagles and get their take. Another week, another patent case! TUAW Patent lawsuit of the week: BetaNet goes after Apple and more originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Ship Holiday Baked Goods Without Breaking Them [Gift Giving] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/15/2009 4:30:00 AM

If you're the type to craft and send out homemade gifts, especially the baked kind, there's a good chance your treats will get tossed around in the mail. Serious Eats' readers suggest how to protect their shapes and flavors. Photo by chadmagiera. Most clever among the Eat-ers' tips? A mostly foolproof way of shipping great cupcakes to faraway friends and relatives: Cakespy gave us a great idea: ship them in mason jars! Not only does it look fun but it ships safely, and if using a flat-rate box, it shouldn't be super expensive either. Read her tutorial for further instruction. Take-out containers also work well. How do you send along your favorite treats, baked or otherwise, to ensure they arrive intact? Spill the secrets in the comments. How to Ship Baked Goods[Serious Eats]

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Bebo founder drops $1 million at charity auction (CNET News.com) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:14:00 AM

One of the displays on Monday night for Charity Water, which aims to bring clean water to developing countries by digging new wells.(Credit: Melanie Aronson for Charity Water) NEW YORK--What's it like to watch a dot-com mogul spend $1 million? Well, it's sort of nice when it's going to a good cause. On Monday night, at the annual benefit gala for Charity Water-- a favorite cause of the dot-com set, this non-profit raises money to build wells in developing countries and then tags them with GPS devices so that donors can keep tabs on them in Google Earth--Bebo founder Michael Birch, one of the event's co-hosts along with the likes of Twitter co -founder Jack Dorsey and entrepreneur Sean Parker, made a surprise announcement. Shortly before the event's live auction to solicit donations for new wells, Birch declared that he would personally match all donations up to $1 million. Birch, who co-founded Bebo with his wife, Xochi, sold it to

AOL early last year for $850 million. It's a price tag that never made a whole lot of sense even with AOL's justification that Bebo's strong foothold among youth in the U.K. would help it with international expansion and that Bebo's technology would be the foundation of a new "People Networks" communication division. They also cashed out just in time: had Bebo sold much later, it would've been more

evident that potential buyers should have been conservative about the valuation of any general-interest social network that wasn't Facebook. AOL, currently under new management, has more or less put Bebo aside like an expensive Faberge egg that unexpectedly clashed with the furniture. Michael Birch hasn't announced a new project yet. But he's starting to emerge as an active

figure in philanthropy: Charity Water founder Scott Harrison explained to the 1,200 attendees on Monday night that a crucial donation from Birch had kept the organization afloat last year. (It operates on a "100 percent" policy, meaning that all donations, many of which are very small-scale go directly to building wells, whereas separate benefactors fund the staffing and operations of the non-profit

itself.) Birch also helped with a redesign of the site that lets interested members set up their own fundraising campaigns, encouraging donations in lieu of birthday gifts or as pledges for a goal (i.e. "If you help me raise $10,000 for Charity Water, I will legally change my name to 'McLovin.'") Birch brought his young daughter, Isabella, onstage to help make the announcement of the matching pledge. While I'm not sure what to think of the idea of a kid announcing to a thousand-plus people about just how much money her parents were about to spend, it was awfully cute that Isabella insisted on doing so with a finger drawn to her mouth in the manner of Austin Powers villain Dr. Evil. And, yes, the goal was met: the $1 million was raised via auction in a matter of 30 minutes. fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Use OutLook? Liaise Intelligent Assistant Available Now By Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:05:02 AM

Outlook users can now use email plug-in Liaise to automatically extract action items, delegation

and priority levels from the free text of email conversations. This is software that's so cool it makes me jealous of Windows users. Liaise launched in September and won the Peoples' Choice Award for Enterprise Products at

DEMO but is available to the

public at large for the first time today. Sponsor In removing its Beta label, Liaise has added a few new features, including calendar integration, group collaboration

and more user control over the UI. Check it out, I think if you're an Outlook user this is something you could really find useful. Discuss

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Rippol Tells You What You Want to Australia Plans to Filter Watch Right Now the Internet. Again. By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Butterfly Effect Network” cross references and recommends videos. Ultimately, Rippol is Submitted at 12/14/2009 6:52:52 PM designed to automatically present This post is part of Mashable’s you with an exact video match Spark of Genius series, which for what you want to watch in the highlights a unique feature of moment. Sponsored by Microsoft startups. If you would like to BizSpark have your startup considered for BizSpark is a startup program inclusion, please see the details relationships should help shape that gives you three-year access here. The series is made possible your Rippol experience. to the latest Microsoft by Microsoft BizSpark. Once signed in, you can start by development tools, as well as Name: Rippol entering TV shows, movie names connecting you to a nationwide Quick Pitch: Rippol is an or entertainment titles to tell n e t w o r k o f i n v e s t o r s a n d intelligent video discovery Rippol what you like. You can incubators. There are no upfront engine that leverages social also take advantage of filters to costs, so if your business is n e t w o r k i n t e r a c t i o n a n d start a more open-ended video privately owned, less than three intelligent machine learning to search. Of course, at any moment years old, and generates less than enhance content discovery. you can also optionally hit U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, Genius Idea: Like Boxee, Rippol “discover” and be served with a you can sign up today. is an entertainment dashboard v i d e o s e l e c t i o n c r a f t e d b y Entrepreneurs can take that houses video content from Rippol’s Intelligent Discovery advantage of the Azure Services all over web. So content from Engine. platform for their website hosting sites like Revision3, Hulu, CNN, Rippol’s claim to innovation is and storage needs. Microsoft Fox, Amazon, MSNBC, FanCast, their trademarked suggested recently announced the“new Netflix, YouTube and MTV is all entertainment algorithm for real- CloudApp()” contest– use the readily available for your online t i m e r a n k i n g , c a l l e d “ T h e Azure Services Platform for v i e w i n g p l e a s u r e . R i p p o l , Butterfly Effect Network.” hosting your .NET or PHP app, however, is entirely web-based Without using the site heavily, and you could be the lucky and even more focused on we can’t attest that it’s as great as winner of a USD 5000* ( please p e r f e c t i n g v i d e o it purports to be, but the site see website for official rules and r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s . r e p o r t e d l y u s e s a d v a n c e d guidelines).” Reviews: Boxee, You can sign into Rippol using machine learning technology to Facebook, Hulu, MySpace, PHP, your Twitter, Facebook or process information on users in Twitter, YouTube MySpace account, which means real-time. Tags: entertainment, rippol, you can bring your existing User activity, like ratings and video social network relationships and reviews, help refine the algorithm behaviors with you. Those a n d d e t e r m i n e h o w “ T h e

By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 12/15/2009 5:35:15 AM

According to the AP, the Australian government plans to start filtering certain web destinations in an effort to block harmful content from users in the country. The obligatory filter, which is likely to be implemented in 2011., would make Australia one of the strictest democracies as far as internet regulation goes. As always, the cause seems a noble one: it’s supposed to protect children from sexual violence, child pornography and crime-related websites. But it’s still a bad idea. First of all, having a government maintain a blacklist of forbidden sites opens up potential for abuse. According to Communication Minister Stephen Conroy, the blacklist is supposed to be transparent, but no details were given, and details like “transparency” can get lost in translation when it comes to implementation. Secondly, you can’t block child pornography merely by blocking a bunch of websites. What about chat rooms, IRC networks or P2P networks? The illegal material will still get through, only now users in Australia will have one

more thing to worry about: whether their government is filtering out something they shouldn’t be. Finally, one has to look only a couple of years in the past to see that Australia had already spent obnoxious amounts of money on an internet filtering system – and failed miserably. This initiative will likely result in very limited success, but as free speech lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) rightly points out, lots of damage to Australia’s reputation. As EFA vice president Colin Jacobs put it, “our sense is that people will be much more worried about the fact that the government will have a secret blacklist that is not very compatible with our status as a democracy and a free society.” Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Nikada Reviews: Australia, iStockphoto Tags: australia, freedom of speech, internet, privacy

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Tech coalition: You need real-time energy data (CNET News.com)

of taking 200 million cars of the road in the European Union and Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:34:00 AM shutting down 124 coal power A t t h e C o p 1 5 c l i m a t e plants, according to the coalition. negotiations in Copenhagen on "By empowering citizens with Tuesday, a group of advocacy i n f o r m a t i o n a n d t o o l s f o r groups and high-tech companies managing energy, governments including Google and Intel urged and businesses around the world g o v e r n m e n t s t o e n s u r e can harness the power of c o n s u m e r s g e t r e a l - t i m e hundreds of millions of people to information on energy use. fight climate change--and save Giving consumers regular data consumers hundreds of billions on consumption will help them of dollars in the process," the take steps to be more energy- group statement said. efficient and will be an effective The call to action was signed by way to cut greenhouse gas Google, General Electric, Intel, emissions, according to the Dow, Whirlpool, venture capital coalition. company Kleiner Perkins Studies have shown ( click for Caufield & Byers along with a PDF) that access to detailed number of non-governmental information, rather than only organizations, including the getting a monthly bill, can reduce National Resource Defense energy use by 15 percent in a Council, The Climate Group, the home. Alliance to Save Energy, The When aggregated at large scale, Energy Future, and the Center for t h e s e s a v i n g s w o u l d b e American Progress. significant. If all households in There are already a handful of the developed countries achieved home energy monitoring displays a 15 percent energy savings by available. But millions more will 2020, it would be the equivalent be installed in the coming years

Dec. 15, 1827: Boston Schools Require Vaccination By Ryan Singel (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/14/2009 9:00:00 PM

Vaccination against smallpox was relatively new, but cities and states were already making it

mandatory. Objections to mandatory immunization took nearly a century to reach the Supreme Court. Another century later, objections remain, with or without reason.

as part of utility-run smart-grid programs, although not all home energy displays need a smart meter to function. More sophisticated products will provide information on a small display, the Web, or a TV, and g i v e c o n s u m e r s recommendations on how to program appliances and lighting for efficiency. Although real-time energy information is helpful, time-ofuse electricity prices are also needed to give consumers financial incentive to use energyhungry appliances, such as dishwashers, at off-peak times. The coalition at Copenhagen said that national governments should ensure consumer have access to real-time or near realtime energy use data; pricing; and the carbon intensity of electricity sources. fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Jurors Cause Trouble By Friending Each Other On Facebook, Using Wikipedia For Research By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

concept. Some judges these days are specifically warning jurors not to use the internet to look up We've discussed numerous court anything related to a case, but for cases where modern technology a generation of folks who has caused significant procedural consider internet research to be problems from "the old ways" of an adjunct part of the thinking doing things. CitMediaLaw process, it's not hard to recognize points us to a story that includes why many would ignore this, and t w o m o r e c a s e s , b o t h i n not think they're doing anything Maryland. In one, lawyers are wrong (and they might have a seeking a new trial because some good argument). The real of the jurors became Facebook question is whether or not there "friends" during the trial. This are reasonable ways to change follows on the news that Florida the way the jury system works to i s f o r b i d d i n g j u d g e s f r o m allow for what many people friending lawyers on social consider perfectly natural: doing networking sites, but is it additional research on their own. reasonable to prevent jurors from For those who are comfortable friending each other? For many with the old system, this may Facebook users, "friending" seem like a horrific idea (and yes, people you meet is quite natural we all understand the reasons and something you do almost why the current system wants to i m m e d i a t e l y u p o n m e e t i n g limit things to just what's said in someone new. So it should be no the courtroom). However, at surprise that some jurors would some point the system may need choose to quickly friend each to recognize that an artificial other. It's hard to see how that constraint on learning about the would make the results of the details of the case may not jury verdict suspect, however. actually be the best system. The second case involved jurors Permalink| Comments| Email using Wikipedia to look up some This Story terms. This is hardly a new Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:07:25 AM

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Private Equity Firm That Bought EMI Sues Citigroup For Misleading It Into Deal

Bit.ly Responds to Goo.gl and Fb.me With Custom URL Service

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!)

hired some smart outsiders to help. Since then, however, everything You had to be pretty clueless in has pretty much collapsed. 2007 not to recognize that the While they weren't saddled with m a j o r r e c o r d l a b e l s w e r e preconceived notions, they were seriously struggling. Still, we saddled with dreadful contracts, thought that the decision by and every attempt to change them private equity firm Terra Firma resulted in charges from EMI's to buy EMI in 2007 might biggest artists that the company actually be an opportunity for a was trying to screw them over. major record label to change, On top of that, the company since the new bosses did not started giving really mixed c o m e f r o m t h e r e c o r d i n g messages. At times it seemed to industry, and weren't saddled be embracing the new, and at with silly preconceived notions other times, it would try to about how a major record label personally bankrupt the CEOs of had to do business. And, early innovative startups. It didn't take on, things actually looked long for the tech experts EMI positive. New boss Guy Hands brought in to quit. Then, there w a s q u i c k t o e m b r a c e were stories of infighting at Terra Radiohead's experiment and let Firma, with arguments over what everyone at EMI know that they to do with EMI altogether, which needed to learn from it, rather could explain some of the than deny it or freak out about it. contradictory strategy decisions. He also threatened to leave both Either way, Terra Firma has now the IFPI and the RIAA if they decided to sue Citigroup for didn't stop suing fans (eventually misleading it into the deal. he stuck with both, but cut their Again, given the state of the allowance). On top of that, he recording industry, it's hard to Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:47:00 PM

see how they thought it was going to be a good deal in the first place, but Terra Firma claims that Citigroup lied to Terra Firma about other bidders to get the firm to pay more and pay now -- noting that Citi had a major conflict of interest in acting both as an advisor and a financier of the deal. Of course, that's how investment banks make their money anyway. They want deal flow, so they have a neat little script that always encourages more deal flow. At times, they talk about synergies, and why companies need to buy each other, and then once they get big, they talk about spinning off parts to "unlock shareholder value." You can't trust those guys for an honest assessment of such a deal, and if Terra Firma did so, it seems like it should be the firm's own fault. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Gallery: Scenes From the Beijing Rock Underground By Keith Axline (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:00:00 PM

Stunning photos from China's Matthew Niederhauser sounds underground rock clubs show the off on his photos and the Beijing country in a cultural transition. music scene. Documentary photographer

Submitted at 12/14/2009 7:31:30 PM

Earlier today, we pondered what Google and Facebook’s move into the realm of URL shortening might mean for the leader in the space – Bit.ly. While it’s too soon to tell what the long term ambitions of Goo.gl and Fb.me might be, Bit.ly’s not taking the potential threat lying down. Tonight, the company revealed plans for Bit.ly Pro, a service that lets publishers create their own custom short URLs that use the Bit.ly platform. The company’s also introducing a new real-time dashboard to give publishers a better idea of how and where they’re content is being shared. Bit.ly explains the move on their blog: “Users and publishers benefit from the additional transparency that this private-label service provides. When you see a short URL like nyti.ms, you know the destination web site before clicking on the link. The service includes all the bit.ly features users and publishers have come to expect. Placing a simple “+” at the end of any bit.ly link (including these white-label, bit.ly-powered links) takes you to real-time information about that

page and how it is being shared: how many people clicked on that particular link, where they came from, and more. For publishers, the new service allows them to keep their brand visible while maintaining access to bit.ly statistics.” With the Pro service, Bit.ly moves even further ahead of anything Facebook or Google seem to have in mind for the near -term in the short URL space, in addition to locking in some big publishers (AOL, Bing, and HuffPost are among publishers in the private beta program). That, and the fact the service will remain Twitter’s default shortener for the forseeable future, leave little reason to believe that Bit.ly has much to worry about for now. Reviews: Bing, Facebook, Google, Twitter Tags: bit.ly, facebook, Google, twitter, url shorteners

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Ashton Kutcher Looks to Make a Major Splash in Live Video By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!)

this format used again by Kutcher and other celebs in short order. In addition to remaining The show will be broadcast live Twitter’s most popular user, on Wednesday at 8pm ET with Ashton Kutcher is also the coUstream serving as the live video founder of Katalyst Films. provider. As such, you’ll likely Thanks in-part to the see a whole lot of tweets and entertainer’s reach on social a u d i e n c e f o r K u t c h e r a n d Facebook status updates as users media platforms, the company Katalyst HQ, the experiment tune in and start chatting using says that one of its productions – should be another interesting test the service’s built-in social Katalyst HQ– is receiving “cable- for the live video format, which stream features. like viewer numbers” for 3 has been seeing huge viewership As with most live Web events, numbers recently for other the bigger the antics and the minute webisodes. On Wednesday, they’re planning celebrity themed events. celeb guests, the bigger the to try a new format for Katalyst While unscripted, Katalyst tells audience will likely grow. HQ: 30-minute, live, unscripted us that the show will follow a Here’s a clip from the “Jersey programming featuring Kutcher talk show-like format, with an Shore” cast interview that will air and some of his to-be-named opening monologue delivered by in-full with the show: celebrity friends (though we hear Kutcher as well as “celebrity Reviews: Facebook, ustream “one of the Kardashians” and the interviews, a musical guest, Tags: ashton kutcher, katalyst cast of “Jersey Shore” will make hilarious pre-taped segments and films, live video, ustream, video cut-aways to exotic animals.” If an appearance). C o n s i d e r i n g t h e b u i l t - i n successful, you can bet we’ll see Submitted at 12/14/2009 7:07:01 PM

Kids Bug Out Over Nanoscale Monsters By David Kushner (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:00:00 PM

Monsters are invading! Nanoscale monsters, that is.

Armed with the handheld Nanoscope, kids can interact with the creepy-crawly bugs, which in this ARG have wormed their way inside every computing device.

Court Says Personal Email From Work Can Still Be Protected Attorney-Client Communications By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

of lawsuits). And, as such, it makes sense. The attorney-client privilege should be seen as one We've seen plenty of cases that has an incredibly high where courts have said that an barrier. Any weakening of that individual has no expectation of privilege -- such as by saying that privacy on emails sent from if you email your lawyer from work, and therefore cannot work, it doesn't exist -- would be protect those emails. However, troubling. But what would be in an interesting new ruling more interesting is what would (found via the EFF), a court happen in a lawsuit where it was found that personal emails sent the employer looking at the from work computers can still be material. If a company has a c o n s i d e r e d p r i v i l e g e d a n d regular program of recording and confidential as an attorney-client examining employee email (as communication. many do), then how would the Of course, there's a bit more to issue be resolved? It would seem this case that makes the facts a that, in such circumstances, it bit different and makes me would make a lot less sense to wonder if it would apply in other consider the content protected, circumstances. In this case, it since the employer is not asking dealt with a federal prosecutor for it, but already has access to it. who was fired, and is trying to In related news, however, the claim that the firing was for his Supreme Court will be hearing a whistle-blowing. He was trying case that looks at whether or not to access the emails of a US your text messages are private, Attorney that he believes will even if sent from company reveal why he was fired. So it mobile phones. wasn't a case of a company trying Permalink| Comments| Email to review the email (which is This Story normally the case in these types Submitted at 12/15/2009 1:52:10 AM

Street Chic: New York By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 12/15/2009 4:00:00 AM

Bold stripes make a brilliant statement. Photo: Kelly Stuart Think you are Street Chic? E-

mail us your photo and you could

appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily. Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

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Adweek Media's Campaign of the Decade: Apple's Get a Mac ads By Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Now that Google has a URL shortener (Scripting News) Submitted at 12/14/2009 2:08:49 PM

Submitted at 12/14/2009 7:00:00 PM

Filed under: iPod Family, Odds and ends, Apple As Apple fans, we've loved Apple's"Get a Mac" ad campaign. With Justin Long as the cool, laid-back Mac and John Hodgman starring as the stodgy, uptight PC, the ads have managed to make us laugh since they first appeared in 2006. The campaign has spawned the "I'm a PC" response ads from Microsoft, which aren't nearly as fun or effective as the original (if we do say so ourselves). The ads have been incredibly effective at getting Apple's message across -- Macs just work, with no bloatware, few viruses and little malware, and Mac users can do a lot with the provided iLife software. AdweekMedia has paid tribute to the campaign in its Best of the

They should start using it in their own products. For example, Google Maps has the ability to generate a link to the map you're viewing, suitable for sharing with others. But the URL is a monster mess. Why not make it short? I first suggested this in November 2007. Also: It's about time Twitter put 2 0 0 0 s a w a r d s , g i v i n g t h e billboards, buses, and kiosks Campaign of the Decade: Apple's the fork in URL shorteners for Campaign of the Decade plaudits rather than on television or in G e t a M a c a d s o r i g i n a l l y good and transported links as to Apple and TBWA / Media print. The awards were voted appeared on The Unofficial metadata of the tweet, as they do Arts Lab for the memorable ads. u p o n b y t h e e d i t o r s o f Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, for geo data, the post time, etc. That's not the only Apple AdweekMedia, and reader's 14 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST. Why are they sacrificing the campaign that received an award choice awards were also listed. Please see our terms for use of stability of the web to keep bit.ly alive. I still don't get it. - - t h e i P o d " S i l h o u e t t e s " The "Get a Mac" campaign was feeds. campaign won the Out of Home third place in reader voting, while Read| Permalink| Email this| Ad of the Decade prize. Out of "Silhouettes" picked up the Comments H o m e a d s ( A K A o u t d o o r number one spot from readers in advertising) consist of those its category. advertisements that are shown on TUAW Adweek Media's

Turning the Tables on Climate Skeptics (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/14/2009 12:42:54 PM

New Scientist turns the tables on climate skeptics, in an article that documents a few of the many examples of lies, distortions and disinformation emitted by the global warming denial industry lies and distortions that never

seem to result in any consequences for the liars, and are endlessly repeated by denial websites long after being thoroughly debunked. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Climategateâ&#x20AC;? has put scientists on trial in the court of public opinion. If you believe climate sceptics, a huge body of evidence involving the work of tens of

thousands of scientists over more than a century should be thrown out on the basis of the alleged misconduct of a handful of researchers, even though nothing in the hacked emails has been shown to undermine any of the scientific conclusions. If we are going to judge the truth of claims on the behaviour of

those making them, it seems only fair to look at the behaviour of a few of those questioning the scientific consensus. There are many similar examples we did not include. We leave readers to draw their own conclusions about who to trust. Read the whole thing, and for much more information on the

people and groups involved in this massive campaign of confusion, I highly recommend: Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. (Hat tip: HoosierHoops.)

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Watch out AT&T: Operation Chokehold is coming By Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

comScore and VideoEgg to Measure How Online Ads Impact Offline Purchases By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:45:00 AM Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:09:22 AM

Filed under: iPhone After Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T Mobility, stated earlier this week that he wants iPhone users to limit their data usage the web exploded with anger. The New York Times sided with AT&T, but others thought that was bogus. Now Fake Steve Jobs is getting in on the action. Fake Steve is telling iPhone users to go crazy with their data usage this Friday, December 18, to teach De La Vega a lesson in for trying to stifle his customers contract-given-rights for unlimited data usage. Subject: Operation Chokehold On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of

If you’re advertising on the web, then you probably have a pretty solid understanding of online conversion metrics. You may not, however, know if your efforts are translating into actual offline sales. Today VideoEgg, the ad network that thinks they can make you more receptive to ads, is announcing VideoEgg ROI. The new offering is the product of a partnership with comScore that aims to answer the age old their abusive comments. The idea So TUAW readers. What's it question: What is the correlation is we'll create a digital flash mob. gonna be? You going to do a between online advertising and offline purchase behavior? We're calling it in Operation little choking come Friday? Chokehold. Join us and speak TUAW Watch out AT&T: VideoEgg’s new offering uses truth to power! Operation Chokehold is coming c o m S c o r e ’ s A d E f f x a d I'm in the UK where we have originally appeared on The measurement platform to provide multiple providers to choose U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g consumer packaged goods (CPG) from ( as many countries do), but (TUAW) on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 advertisers additional insight into I can understand the frustration 07:45:00 EST. Please see our their online video and rich media advertising. Apparently, the US users have with being limited terms for use of feeds. to only one carrier with poor P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | company thinks they’ve mastered the online advertising formula network performance and then C o m m e n t s and can help their clients connect being lectured about their data the dots between online ad usage. exposures and offline retail purchases.

Using VideoEgg ROI, CPG brands should be able to spot uplifts (or downticks) in retail sales by delving into consumer responses to ad units. Data around online ad engagement is matched against data from comScore third-party panel data to make the promised correlations. Ideally, clients will even be able to use the platform to identify the catalyst for spikes in sales. The approach has merit, but whether or not it’s accurate remains to be seen. We do, however, admire both companies for attempting to further close the gap between online advertising and offline purchases. [image courtesy of iStockphoto, AndyL] Reviews: iStockphoto Tags: ComScore, metrics, videoegg

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Rumor: Toshiba's 64GB NAND flash chip for iPhone

Is An Ebook 'In Book Form'? Question Means Everything For Authors Trying To Get New Ebook Publishers

By Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

Submitted at 12/15/2009 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Rumors, iPhone, iPod touch Last week, a brief tweet from Mobile Review's editor-in-chief, Eldar Murtazin sparked a rumor that Taiwan-based manufacturer Foxconn had received orders to build the next-generation iPhone. This week Toshiba has announced their 64GB NAND flash chip -- the largest capacity in the industry. Is this what Foxconn will be stuffing into future iPhones? Apple has doubled the capacity of the top-of-the-line model in previous updates. You'll remember that the curent iPhone contains either a single 16GB or 32GB Toshiba NAND module. We're not in charge of production

at Foxconn, but it seems that six months is enough time to produce a pile of these. This is speculation, of course, but speculation is fun. Note that Apple uses a pair of NAND packages in the 32GB or 64GB iPod touch. Can you say 128GB iPod touch? We don't know who would need that much

storage space, but Apple sells a 160GB hard drive-based iPod, so what do we know? Apple chews up a substantial slice of the worldwide NAND market, so any tweaks to capacity or manufacturing are definitely noteworthy in Cupertino. Last month the Korean Times accused Apple of manipulating flash memory prices. It's been estimated that Apple consumes 25% of the world's flash memory. TUAW Rumor: Toshiba's 64GB NAND flash chip for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

rights and royalties. Unfortunately for the publishers, Submitted at 12/15/2009 4:02:00 AM they may not have much of a We've been discussing some of legal leg to stand on. As the the problems book publishers article notes, there have already have had in coming to terms with been lawsuits on this topic, and the new age of ebooks -- such as Random House repeatedly lost in by trying to delay the release of its attempt to sue ebook publisher ebooks with a "windowing" Rosetta Books a while ago. The system. However, there's another court didn't find Random House's issue that's coming up as quite argument that the phrase "in book important for back catalog form" in its contracts covered authors. Many of them are ebooks as well. While that case looking to sign their own ebook was eventually settled, that only deals with other publishers than happened after Random House t h o s e w h o p u b l i s h e d t h e i r came out on the losing side in the physical books, and they note earlier battles. Random House is that the old contracts make no among the publishers still mention of electronic or ebook claiming that "in book form" rights -- mainly because such means ebooks as well, but it must things didn't exist at the time. be relying on the likelihood that But the publishers are pushing some authors won't bother to back and telling authors who look up those earlier rulings (or seek to sign separate ebook hire lawyers who are aware of publishing deals that those deals them). violate their existing agreements Permalink| Comments| Email while also seeking to amend This Story older agreements to add in ebook

Update and Release Date Rumor on Google Phone, a.k.a. Nexus One [News] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/15/2009 5:30:00 AM

Following up on our Monday morning roundup of "Google Phone"/Nexus One news, we thought we'd offer (just) one

more bunch of news. First up, the Reuters news service has a "source familiar with the matter" citing a Jan. 5 release date, both as an unlocked phone sold directly by Google, and at a reduced price, with two-year

tipster who claims something Genius Report, offers up some juicier: a $99 price through crisp, size-comparing shots. Google, for those with "old" Google accounts, with a $100 rebate that can be spent on data contract, through T-Mobile USA. service or other goods. Finally, The Android Guys blog has a Gizmodo, courtesy of Boy

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Facebook Could Learn a Thing or Two From LinkedIn’s Faceted Search By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 12/15/2009 1:41:59 AM

Business-oriented social network LinkedIn has a new feature out called faceted search. As you search for something or someone, it automatically generates search filters, based on your query results, which let you quickly refine your search. The filters are based on 8 facets: current company, past company, location, relationship, location, industry, school, and profile languages. In practice, this means you can create amazingly precise queries. For example, I’ve searched for web designers in the UK, who speak English, who used to work

options for its search to begin with; with the new faceted search, it really leaves Facebook’s search in the dust. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could, for example, search Facebook only for friends of friends, living only in Canada? For now, it’s wishful thinking (Facebook does at Yahoo, and who are my first let you filter people search results a n d s e c o n d c o n n e c t i o n s by school, workplace and (meaning, I’m either friends with location, but the location filter them directly, or they’re friends leaves something to be desired; of friends). The search results for example, neither “Canada” adapt instantly as you apply the nor “Zagreb” are viable options.) filters, making the entire process Check out a video overview of quick and effortless. LinkedIn’s faceted search in the While this is great for LinkedIn, video below. it also reminds me of how plain Reviews: Facebook, LinkedIn and unusable Facebook’s search Tags: facebook, linkedin, Search is in comparison. LinkedIn has a solid number of advanced

Sneak Peek: ABC's Happy Town By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/15/2009 8:03:00 AM

We told you earlier this year about the new ABC mystery series Happy Town. It's from the people who did Life on Mars and is about weird happenings in a small town. OK, that doesn't describe much, but from the extended preview below, it looks

like it has a lot of Twin Peaks and a little Harper's Island. It has a good cast, including Sam Neill, Steven Weber, Amy Acker, Geoff Stults, and Abraham Benrubi. Filed under: Other Drama By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog Shows, Video, Reality-Free (TUAW)) Permalink| Email this| | Submitted at 12/15/2009 9:00:00 AM Comments Filed OVERALL under: Hardware, page 31 Retail,

Overall Mac sales up 21%, desktops up 74% year over year

Best iPhone games of the year picks start to roll in By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 12/15/2009 8:30:00 AM

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store Gamasutra wins the award for being the first (that I've seen) to pick awards for their best five iPhone games of the year, and the list is respectable, if a little short for such a huge set of possibility. Unfortunately, they don't win any TUAW points for going with Skee-Ball over our preferred Ramp Champ, but Rolando 2 was a worthy sequel to a worthy game, Edge(now Edgy) and Eliss are both great games (too bad you can't play the former, but the latter was underrated for sure), and Space Invaders Infinity Gene deserves to be on almost any end -of-the-year iPhone game list.

Good picks in there for sure. DigitalTrends also has a long list, though strangely, they tend to stick to big names and brands. There are a few gems in there -Spider, UniWar, and Vay may be a couple good choices that you haven't heard of yet. And here's another top 10 list with some repeats from the ones above and a few more nice picks. I guess with the end of the year upon us, we'll probably have to choose TUAW's favorites of 2009, too, eh? Stay tuned. TUAW Best iPhone games of the year picks start to roll in originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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iMac There's probably a number of reasons why this might have happened (and we're sure you can come up with more than we can), but nevertheless, here you go: overall Mac sales are up by 21 percent in October and November since last year at the same time, according to Gene Munster ( not pictured), analyst at Piper Jaffray. Desktop Mac sales are especially huge, with the rise as high as 74%, which seems like a typo next to MacBook and MacBook Pro increases of just five percent. In fact, those gigantic desktop sales, some reason, might actually be the reason behind the recent iMac delays. At any rate, no matter why,

Apple is making a boatload on Macs this quarter already. Even without the bulk of the holiday season, the desktops were already flying off the shelves in huge numbers compared to last year. TUAW Overall Mac sales up 21%, desktops up 74% year over year originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Chris Brown Deletes Twitter Account After Rant Against Retailers By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!) Submitted at 12/14/2009 6:32:26 PM

As you may know, singer Chris Brown recently released his “comeback” album, the culmination of his ongoing attempt to rebuild his image. While part of that effort included a song dedicated to Twitter, the singer has just gone in the opposite direction when it comes to the microblogging service: account deletion. Brown raised some eyebrows over the weekend by using his Twitter account to claim that retailers were blackballing him and not giving his album proper shelf space in stores. Much of the entertainment press drilled him over it, and now his account is gone.

Of course, while it might be gone from the public eye, the controversial tweets live on in Google’s cache: Given the delicate nature of Brown’s situation, it’s hard to imagine his actions drawing much sympathy from fans and followers, though the deletion has certainly gotten him plenty of attention, with his name quickly rising to Twitter’s trending topics. Reviews: Google, Twitter Tags: chris brown, twitter

George Clooney Takes Golden Globe Noms 'Up in the Air' (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/15/2009 5:51:00 AM

The Golden Globe nominations are in! George Glooney's 'Up in the Air' floated to the top of the list with six nominations, including a best acting honor. Meanwhile, three of Hollywood's biggest actors picked up double nominations. Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock and Matt Damon all pulled double duty this year, getting two noms each. Meryl is nominated for 'Julie & Julia' and 'It's Complicated,' Sandra for 'The Proposal' and 'The Blind Side,' and Matt for 'The Informant!' and 'Invictus.' In addition to George's best actor in a drama nom, honors went to Jeff Bridges('Crazy Heart'), Colin Firth(A Single Man'), Morgan Freeman('Invictus') and Tobey Maguire('Brothers').

A Tea Party Die-In - The Circle is Unbroken (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/14/2009 8:42:02 PM

Yes, that’s right. Any differences remaining between the far left and the far right are now forever erased. The first breach in the wall: the giant puppets. And now the wall comes all the way down, with a much-favored tactic of Code Pink: the die-in.

It is time, once again, to flex our muscle and exert that influence to hold the line in our fight against the government takeover of healthcare. The Senate is busy working on the details of a government run health care bill and they would like to pass it as quickly as possible. Some of them are under the false impression that we’ve given up and gone away just because they

haven’t heard much from us in the past few days. And those Senators who have not made a final decision on how to vote are in danger of leaning in the wrong direction. We must remind them that our steadfast opposition to a government takeover of health care is as strong now as it has been all along. So here’s the plan. On Tuesday, December 15 at 8:45 AM

thousands of us will meet in Washington, DC at the fountain in Upper Senate Park. From there we will march to the Senate offices, go inside, and demonstrate our opposition to the government takeover of health care. We call this plan “Government Waiting Rooms”. The intention is to go inside the Senate offices and hallways, and play out the role of patients

waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities. As the day goes on some of us will pretend to die from our untreated illnesses and collapse on the floor. Many of us plan to stay there until they force us to leave. A backup location for this demonstration will be announced if they block us from entering the offices.

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Lieberman Won't Vote for Health Bill (Little Green Footballs)

told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and abandon In a surprise move that’s only any new government insurance surprising if you haven’t paid plan or lose his vote. m u c h a t t e n t i o n t o J o e On a separate issue, Mr. Reid L i e b e r m a n ’ s m a n y o t h e r tried over the weekend to concoct “surprise moves,” he announced a compromise on abortion that today that he won’t support the would induce Senator Ben health care bill in its current Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, form. to vote for the bill. Mr. Nelson WASHINGTON — In a surprise opposes abortion. Any provision setback for Democratic leaders, that satisfies him risks alienating Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, supporters of abortion rights. independent of Connecticut, said In interviews on the CBS News on Sunday that he would vote program “Face the Nation,” Mr. against the health care legislation Lieberman and Mr. Nelson said in its current form. the bill did not have the 60 votes The bill’s supporters had said it would need in the Senate. earlier that they thought they had Senate Democratic leaders, s e c u r e d M r . L i e b e r m a n ’ s including Mr. Reid and Senator agreement to go along with a Charles E. Schumer of New compromise they worked out to York, said they had been mindful overcome an impasse within the of Mr. Lieberman’s concerns in Democratic Party. the last 10 days and were But on Sunday, Mr. Lieberman surprised when he assailed major Submitted at 12/14/2009 9:43:40 AM

provisions of the bill on television Sunday. He reiterated his objections in a private meeting with Mr. Reid. Democrats are not pleased: 81% Of Dems Want Lieberman Punished For Health Care Filibuster. More than 80 percent of Democrats say they believe Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn) should be stripped of his powerful chairmanship in the Senate if he ends up supporting a Republican filibuster of health care reform, according to a new poll. It should be noted that over the course of his career, Joe Lieberman has taken almost $2.5 million in donations from the health care industries, and more t h a n $ 1 m i l l i o n f r o m t h e By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) insurance industry: Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:00:00 AM OpenSecrets.org. Sure, you can use Google Chrome's new tab page to quickly launch your favorite sites, but launching all your needed tabs at once, with a single click, is really darned helpful. The Session Manager extension The Hollywood Reporter. production, Lin-Manuel Miranda, makes it so. The famed director of Michael will follow his character to the Session Manager is one of the Jackson's 'This is It' and the 'High movie, reprising his role. Chrome extensions that doesn't School Musical' trilogy, Kenny Meanwhile, Corbin Bleu, also of need an options dialog—it Ortega, will direct the film, 'High School Musical' fame, will simply does what it does, and according to The Hollywood be joining the Broadway cast in does it quickly. When you've got Reporter. The star, composer, the later part of January. a group of tabs open worth reand writer of the stage opening in the future, hit the boxtype icon, give it a name like

Kenny Ortega to Direct 'In the Heights' Movie (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/15/2009 12:21:00 AM

Another Broadway musical will be coming to a movie theater near you. Tony Award-winning "In the Heights" will soar to new heights on the big screen, reports

Session Manager Enables Multi-Tab Setups in Google Chrome [Downloads] "Work Tabs," and hit Save. Hit the button again to fire up those tabs, or rename or remove other saved sessions from the dialog. That's all it does—and it's not quite as sophisticated as add-ons like SessionSaver for Firefox, but that's a nice feature that Chrome definitely benefits from. Session Manager is a free download, requires a Dev version of Chrome for Windows or the Linux beta (for now). For more Chrome-empowering extensions, check out our 18 picks from the extensions gallery. Session Manager[Google Chrome Extensions via Demo Girl]

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Smear Merchant of the Day (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/14/2009 2:01:38 PM

Usually I just ignore this kind of nonsense, but sometimes the smears my admirers post on their blogs are so egregiously dishonest that they need to be pointed out. Today’s example is at “Weasel Zippers,” a raving anti-Muslim blog that stole its name from one of our random sayings that appear at the top of the right column: Weasel Zippers: Charles Johnson Shocked, SHOCKED to Learn There are Actually People Who Don’t Believe in Man-Made Global Warming….. Zippy the Pinhead decided to smear me by pointing out that I used to be a “skeptic” (in actuality, I was uninformed and misled by the propagandists, as I noted in this post), and he captures the following screenshot from LGF to “prove it.” (Since I never denied this, I don’t know why he thinks it’s important to “prove it,” but it’s pretty pointless to try to figure out what goes through the alleged minds of these people.) Again, read this post to see how and why I changed my mind. But the really creepy part is here — Zippy writes: He really has become as dishonest as the people he once (in the not-so-distant past) detested…. (sorry, no link for the jackass)

Conversations in 140 Characters or Less are not Exactly Meaningful By Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb)

of the group. Each has its own threaded discussion. Members of the brain trust vote H a v i n g a m e a n i n g f u l on the ideas with the intention of conversation in 140 characters or driving the group to a consensus. less seems at times a tad, let's Real-time services with say, disjointed. It's not exactly c h a r a c t e r l i m i t s m a k e i t meaningful. challenging for meaningful But it is this Twitter like communications across a tight approach that is defining how group of confidants. real-time technologies are Email is even worse. deployed in the enterprise. Discussions scatter. Gathering AskMyBrainTrust looks at the i d e a s t o g e t h e r t o f o r m a real-time enterprise through a consensus almost has to be done different scope. Users are not o n a o n e - o n - o n e b a s i s . limited to a set number of Conference calls can sometimes c h a r a c t e r s f o r e x p r e s s i n g feel endless without any form of themselves. Instead, the service agreement. AskMyBrain represents the Why didn’t he link to my post? finding out that he was lying, uses a real-time model to elicit Was it just to spite me? Or was it since they couldn’t click through meaningful conversations with e v o l u t i o n o f r e a l - t i m e because there’s a very clear and see the update that he your brain trust, that inner circle technologies. Real-time services update right beneath the section deliberately left out. And he also you go to for counsel and like Yammer and present.ly have their own fit for ongoing he grabbed, that kind of makes prevented me from learning feedback. conversations with any number him look like a buffoon? about his smear, since I wouldn’t Sponsor Not just a buffoon — an outright see the link coming from his blog With most real-time services, the of people. application provides better value AskMyBrainTrust is not suited liar, trying to perpetrate a smear in my referral logs. job. Here’s the post he didn’t link Just another day in the life of the when a critical mass of people f o r t h e s e k i n d s o f s o c i a l to: The Great Global Warming idiots who will go to any length, participate. AskMyBrainTrust conversations. More so, it is a Swindle. tell any lie, sneak around, and limits a group to seven people. service for when you need to And the same note was posted at distort anything I say to smear Collaboration is limited only to collaborate among a small group of people to reach a collective the bottom of another LGF entry me. There’s an awful lot of this the people in the group. on this climate denial film: The stuff going around the wingnut After the group is formed, a agreement. Discuss topic is submitted. Great Global Warming Swindle. blogs right now. Idea are presented by members By not linking to my post, of course, he prevented people from Submitted at 12/14/2009 9:45:41 PM

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Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2009 [Best Of 2009] By Adam Pash (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:00:00 PM

We've featured hundreds of free Windows applications over the course of 2009 that we hoped might bolster your productivity, workflow, or your PC usefulness in one form or another. Here's a look back at the most popular Windows downloads of the year. As with 2008's most popular free Windows downloads, keep in mind that the apps featured here are chosen by the popularity of the associated post we published in 2009. Many were new, some were improvements to already loved apps, and others were simply new-to-us. Here's a quick look back at the 19 or so most popular Windows downloads of 2009: Windows 7â&#x20AC;&#x201D;from Beta to Release Candidate and So On 2009 was a big year for Windows, and Windows 7 was the most important ingredient in Windows' solid year. (In fact, you'll notice that several of this year's most popular downloads are related to Windows 7 in one way or another.) Sure it's not exactly an application but rather a full-blown operating system, but it only makes sense that a new version of Windows would top the list of Windows downloads for the year. It started with the Windows 7 beta download in January, which had a ton of hiccups. It was released,

then pulled, then released again, then extended because of the trouble Microsoft had handling the demand. (Actually, we just think they underestimated the web.) Later, in May, Microsoft released the Windows 7 release candidate. You even jumped on the chance to try Windows 7's beautiful new themes. Folks who were still using Vista also flocked to Vista's Service Pack 2( 32-bit; 64-bit) to keep their PCs secure and up to date. Enigma Desktop 2.0 Released, Adds Installer, Widget Manager, and Templates One of our very own readers

lot of tedious downloading and installing one app at a time. Ninite makes it easy, streamlining the download and installation processes for tons of the most popular free Windows apps, including most of our 2009 Lifehacker Pack. Windows 7 Shortcuts Enables the Best Win7 Shortcuts in XP or Vista Apart from all the new eye candy, Windows 7 really tickled our fancy with tons of incredible new keyboard shortcuts. For folks still chilling out with XP or Vista, we released Windows 7 Shortcuts, a lightweight utility written to bring some of the best new shortcuts of Windows 7 to previous versions of Windows. Computer Repair Kit Packs Dozens of Tools in One Portable Package released his popular desktop Windows runs an entire Linux By virtue of reading Lifehacker, configuration as a installable OS as a Windows application. you're more likely than not the utility that brings a handful of Better yet, it's portable. Seven most schooled person among g r e a t c u s t o m i z a t i o n a n d Remix XP Makes Windows XP your friends and family when it comes to fixing a bum PC. It's a p r o d u c t i v i t y t o o l s t o y o u r Look Like Windows 7 desktop. It's called Enigma 2.0. The release of Windows 7 left a dubious honor, because it also Then Rainmeter, another very lot of XP users wishing they means you generally are the popular desktop customization could get in on some of that person who gets called when tool, set Enigma as its default snazzy new eye candy. Seven s o m e t h i n g g o e s w r o n g . desktop. Fancy pants. Portable Remix XP is a free utility that Computer Repair Utility Kit puts Ubuntu Runs Ubuntu Inside does its best to bring Windows a handful of useful PC repair Windows 7's comely looks to XP. Ninite utilities in one handy, portable Ever wish you could enjoy some B u l k - I n s t a l l s G r e a t F r e e suite. Fences is a Seriously Awesome Desktop Icon of the finer tools available to W i n d o w s A p p s Linux but stay comfortably in Another result of the Windows 7 O r g a n i z e r your Windows desktop? Sure launch: A whole lot of us were Like to keep items you want to you could run a virtual machine, rebuilding systems from the MOST page 35 b u t P o r t a b l e U b u n t u f o r ground up, which often means a

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MOST continued from page 34

access frequently easily accessible on your desktop but don't want to deal with the added clutter? Fences arranges your cluttered desktop icons into containers so you can clean up the mess into useful groups of shortcuts—or optionally hide them altogether. AVG 9 Free Antivirus We're of the mind that Microsoft's security tools are good enough—including the new and impressive Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus app—but that doesn't mean many of you don't get excited when the AVG 9 Free update is available. It's still the favorite antivirus app of Lifehacker readers(who doesn't love free), though we're sensing a slow but steady sea of change on this one. Google Chrome—Stable, Beta, and Dev Releases Google Chrome is just over a year old, but it's made huge strides among early adopters. Chrome came out with its stable 2.0 release in May, then followed up with a Chrome 3.0 release in September. Early adopters willing to try their luck in the beta and dev channels get more features, which we detailed in our power user's guide to Google Chrome. Whichever version of Chrome interests you most, it's clear that it was a pretty good year for Chrome. Hulu Video

Downloader Saves Your Favorite Shows for Offline Enjoyment Hulu Video Downloader was a fun little app that lasted about as long as you could say Hu... that is, it doesn't work anymore. But when it did, it grabbed videos from the popular video service for your offline viewing pleasure, and you were eager to try it out. Safari 4 Tempts with Good Looks Safari's 4.0 beta release for Windows came with a lot of bugs and some serious eye candy, but despite the interest at release, we can't imagine many people still stick with Safari on Windows over, say, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc. Namebench Helps You Find the Fastest DNS Server for Your Computer Google very recently announced a free DNS service they boasted as fast, but rather than take their word for it, we pointed you toward namebench(and several readers also pointed toward the excellent DNS Name Server Benchmark). It tests various popular DNS servers to find what's really going to be the fastest choice for your system. Google Earth 5.0 Beta Released, Looks Incredible We're sort of junkies for maps and 3D, so when Google Earth 5 was released, we were pleased as punch. The update featured historical imagery, ocean maps,

and improved world touring capabilities. Maybe we just like saving ourselves some dough in these tough economic times with a little Google Earth sightseeing. And Then There Was Firefox The notorious Firefox memory slow-downs may have some of us down on the reliable old 'fox, but that doesn't mean we aren't all still eager to grab the latest and greatest releases and stick with it as our default browser—whether it's the big Firefox 3.5 release or the Firefox 3.6 beta ( 1, 2, 3, or 4). We're looking forward to more great Firefox'ing in 2010. Motion Detection Is an Effective, Dead Simple Security Camera App If your webcam is sitting around collecting dust, try out Motion Detection, a free, motiondetecting security camera application. It'll snap pics and video when it detects movement, can upload the results via FTP, and more fun at-home security stuffs. Thunderbird 3 Officially Released with New Features, Improved Look Sure it was two years since Thunderbird's 2.0 release, but at least they didn't disappoint. Thunderbird 3.0 comes with solid new search and filtering tools, better looks, and a great new tabbed interface. HandBrake Updates to 0.9.4 with Over 1,000

Changes, 64-Bit Support Free, open-source DVD ripping and encoding tool HandBrake released a pretty saucy update last month with a ton of fixes and improvements. It's no coincidence that it's always been our reader's favorite video encoder, and this year's big-ish (but still not 1.0) update should only help keep it there. DeskHedron Adds 3D Virtual Desktop Eye-Candy to Windows Linux users have a killer desktop management tool called Compiz Fusion that puts multiple desktop management on a 3D cube that we've always been jealous of on Windows. Open-source application DeskHedron brings a similar three-dimensional desktop management tool to Windows users. Now, for fun: Which Is Your Favorite Windows Download of 2009?( opinion) Got a favorite Windows download from 2009 that you'd add to your list of favorites? Let's hear about it in the comments. If you're craving still more popular Windows downloads, you can also take a look back at the most popular free Windows downloads of 2008.

Review: Two and a Half Men Warning. It's Dirty. By Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:55:00 AM

(S07E11) The holidays are a time for family and reflection and cheer. Unless you're the Harper family and gathering in Malibu becomes a test to see who can screw up each others' life more. This was an interesting Christmas get together, especially with the guest visit from Marty Pepper, sitcom king. Was it the ultimate inside joke that everything passing before Marty's eyes was fodder for a TV show? Yes, I think so. At the end of the show, the final credit was "A Marty Pepper Production." For more on Marty and Charlie's trouble making antics, read on. Continue reading Review: Two and a Half Men - Warning. It's Dirty. Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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From the Tips Box: Furniture Tools, Portable Windows, and Bottle Caps [From The Tips Box] By Whitson Gordon (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/14/2009 4:59:00 PM

Readers offer their best tips for keeping bundled furniture tools where they're useful, running Windows Vista/7 off a flash drive, and opening stuck plastic bottles. Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page. About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or email it to tips at lifehacker.com. Tape Tools to Furniture to Keep Track of Them Timothy tells us how he keeps his tools organized outside his toolbox: Duct tape weird tools to the underside of hand built furniture such as desks, sofas and bookcases instead of putting them all in one location - this

way if you ever need to take the item apart you know you have the right tool for it, and don't have to try about 15 different sizes because they were all in the "tools" box Obviously, this doesn't make sense for, say large hammers—but for desks or bookcases that come with small allen wrenches, for example, this is a great idea to keep them with their furniture counterparts. Run Windows Vista/7 From a

Flash Drive Without Installing Photo by Ambuj Saxena. 2MNY lets us know about a cool project for those looking to not install Windows: It seems there are around a million guides online to installing Win 7 from a USB drive. For those on the flipside looking to run Windows 7 (or Vista) from a USB drive check out the Portable Windows Boot Project at h t t p : / / w w w . b o o t land.net/forums/index.php?showt

Remind You of Your To-Dos tommertron sends in a tip that keeps him on top of his tasks for the day: This is very rudimentary, but I find at home I need a way to remember to check my Remember the Milk tasks. So I decided to make an application shortcut for RTM using Chrome. Then I set up a Scheduled Task in Windows to open up that shortcut every day at 6:30 am (when I usually first get on the computer). You just have to remember to add the arguments at the end of the command line in Schedule Tasks that were on the application launcher, as Windows strips them off when you add that as an action. Use a Nutcracker to Open Stuck Bottles opic=6851 . It's a quick system St. Fu tips us off to an patch that adds USB boot functionality to any Win 6+ unsuspecting piece of kitchen system without interfering with equipment to open stubborn pop the normal system functionality. bottles: To open really stuck, tight I imagine it would be a good pop/soda bottles (or similar thing to install for those just-incase scenarios, like if your main bottles) try using a nutcracker. I machine goes down and you find the bigger ones used for want to access your system from walnuts work best. Just use them a laptop or other computer you to grip the bottle cap and twist can't pop open to install a hard off. You could also use channellocks or pliers but they're not as drive on. Set Up Scheduled Tasks to likely to be in the kitchen drawer.

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Google Translate URL Generates Instant Text-to-Speech MP3 Files [Tricks] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

FlexNetwork: The Nationwide IP Voice Network from Bandwidth.com By Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 12/15/2009 5:00:19 AM

Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:00:00 AM

Need a quick MP3 file of a certain saying to goof on a coworker? Whatever your needs, Google Translate can be used as an impromptu text-to-speech converter, providing a handy MP3 file of your chosen words. It's not an official offering, but when Google Translate wants to provide you the spoken version of your translation, as it has done since last month's upgrades, it calls up a URL— translate.google.com/translate_tts —with something like q=Lifehacker+is+occasionally+m ore+goofy+than+productive appended at the end. Anyone can enter that URL on their own and attach their own search string. As an example, click on the example below to hear the text-to-speech work (or be prompted to

download an MP3, depending on your browser setup):

may or may not disappear if it sees heavy use/abuse. For the time being, enjoy Google http://translate.google.com/transl Translate's help in telling your ate_tts?q=Hey+Lifehacker+types coworkers just how you feel in +it+is+nearly+2010+so+get+dow robo-speak, or narrating your n+with+it slideshows, or crafting a killer The service is, unfortunately, computer-sung track. Google's limited to 100 characters, and is T e x t - t o - S p e e c h C o n v e r t e r English only at this point, and Service[Google Blogoscoped]

Bandwidth.com is unveiling FlexNetwork, its nationwide IP voice service that it built from the ground up, making it arguably one of the most significant VoIP investments in the past decade. Most IP voice networks grow by acquisition, which can mean inheriting legacy systems that require significant upgrades. Bandwidth.com built FlexNetwork at a fraction of the cost compared to IP voice networks built earlier in the decade. Sponsor By building its own network, FlexNetwork can feature the latest IP voice technologies such as HD Voice. What's HD Voice? It's a high quality voice service that takes away some of the quality issues that encumber traditional VoIP services. Here's a video that explains HD Voice and Phonebooth, its cloud-

based telephony service. VoIP Heroes Episode 2: Phonebooth OnDemand from Bandwidth.com on Vimeo. Application developers in the new world of Voice 2.0 may be the biggest winners with the FlexNetwork. These service providers often need the network to uniquely support what they're building. Most network providers simply aren't that flexible. Serving application developers is working out pretty well. The network is now on pace to deliver almost 4 billion minutes and 1 million numbers this year. The savings for a small business can be significant with VoIP. FlexNetwork looks like it could be quite a disruptive force in the telecommunications market by providing a service that is reliable, more affordable and a haven for application developers. Discuss

USA’s White Collar Delivers Obsessively Hot Numbers! By Bill Gorman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/14/2009 2:30:15 PM

via press release: USA’S WHITE COLLAR DELIVERS OBSESSIVELY

HOT L7 NUMBERS! For the episode that aired on Friday, November 27 (Thanksgiving Holiday), USA Network’s newest hit original series WHITE COLLAR saw its largest lifts yet in L7 numbers: up

+50% in P18-49 from 1.652 million to 2.480 million; up

+42% in P25-54 from 1.835 tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text million to 2.604 million; and up RSS, Term Extraction. +37% from 4.401 million to 6.040 million total viewers. fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available

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PackageTrackr Helps You Stay on Top of Incoming Shipments [Tracking]

Schools close as heavy rains drench the South (AP)

By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)

(Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:30:00 AM

If you've never used a package tracking tool before, it's a great time of year to start. PackageTrackr make tracking your packages online, on your desktop, or on your mobile phone as simple as can be. Sign up for a free account at PackageTrackr and plug in the numbers of the packages you want to track. Packagetrackr can track packages from over a dozen carriers and continually updates

the status of your packages with easy to recognize visual marker. When a package is in-transit it gets a blue T, out for delivery a green O, and delivered a red Dâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;those are the three most

common flags you'll see but they have a total of 12 covering just about every situation your package might find itself in. You can track your packages on the web site, on your phone using

their iPhone app or the mobileversion of the site, or Windows Vista/7 users can download a sidebar gadgetâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;see the screenshot to your right for a peek at the sidebar gadget. PackageTrackr is a free service and can be accessed by creating a new account or using your Yahoo or Google ID as your login credentials. Have a favorite tool for keeping an eye on lots of packages? Let's hear about it in the comments. Packagetrackr

Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:04:08 AM

William buzzed up: Some Texas faculty upset with Brown's $5M salary (AP) 19 seconds ago 2009-1215T07:31:26-08:00 fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Microsoft Caught With Hand in Plurk's Cookie Jar? By Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb)

source code screenshots incriminating or what? Sponsor Submitted at 12/14/2009 11:10:47 PM We received an email from a This morning, we got news that P l u r k c o - f o u n d e r A m i r Microsoft had unequivocally Salihefendic this morning calling ripped off design and code from MSN China's Juku an obvious m a r g i n a l l y s u c c e s s f u l counterfeit. The proof is in the microblogging service Plurk. pudding. And the screenshots. Now, we're seeing reports - and And the source code: seeing for ourselves on the Currently, the Microsoft Microsoft website - that the microblog site reads something k n o c k o f f s i t e h a s b e e n along the lines of "We regret to unceremoniously ganked from inform you that the service is t h e t u b e s . D i d a m a j o r temporarily not available due to corporation get caught red- system maintenance. Please visit handed stealing intellectual the site again later. We apologize property from a startup? Say it for the inconvenience." ain't so! More interestingly, is the Perhaps they ought to be site's removal an admission of apologizing to Plurk for the guilt? And are these side-by-side inconvenience.

"We were absolutely shocked and outraged," wrote Plurk rep Dave Thompson, "when we first saw with our own eyes the cosmetic similarities Microsoft's new offering had with Plurk... "We're still in shock asking why Microsoft would even stoop to this level of wilfully plagiarizing a young and innovative upstart's work rather than reach out to us or innovate on their own terms." Microsoft has issued this press release that passes the buck on to an unnamed third-party contractor. Is it likely that the

Microsoft executives in charge of producing the microblog were a) unaware of Plurk's existence and design to the extent that they wouldn't recognize a clone as such and b) that they didn't simply point at Plurk and tell their vendors to "make us one of those"? Having had some experience in both startup development processes and corporate application deployment, I personally know very well that a (literally) criminal amount of IP theft goes on every day in Silicon Valley and around the world. Most of the time, the offending parties are operating under the belief that they won't get caught. And a great deal of the time,

they're not caught. We must, however, applaud Microsoft's taking the site down to investigate the matter rather than being defensive or litigious. Still, the software giant should be accepting more accountability for the attempted theft that was conducted in its name and under the auspices of its brand. What do you think? Who is to blame in this situation? Cast your vote below, and tell us what you really think in the comments. How Do You See the MSFT/Plurk Situation?( polls) Discuss

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Google Releases API for Cool Review: Men of a Visualization of Data Mashups from Certain Age - Let It Go Many Sources By Allison Waldman (TV Squad)

By Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb)

show users' commments and any changes to the datasets over time. For an overview of how Fusion Submitted at 12/14/2009 6:20:34 PM Tables works, check out this A recently released Google Labs demo video that explains how product called Fusion Tables site. As data is added or altered, data can be mashed up and allowed users to grab data from the most up-to-date version will graphed: spreadsheets, text documents, be available as long as the dataset We also found this cool video PDFs and other sources and is synced to Fusion Tables. from Google engineer Alon create c o m p e l l i n g , The Fusion Tables API also Halevy and Pacific Institution comprehensive visualizations a l l o w s f o r q u e r i e s a n d president Peter Gleick on the downloads. It's built on a subset principles of interpreting and from a merged data set. Google has just announced it's of SQL. By referencing data u s i n g d a t a t o s o l v e w a t e r releasing an API for Fusion v a l u e s i n S Q L - l i k e q u e r y p r o b l e m s : Tables. The API integrates with expressions, developers can find Developers can get more Google Maps, App Engine, Base data and download it for use by i n f o r m a t i o n a t t h e A P I Data and Visualizations APIs, as their app. The application can d e v e l o p e r ' s g u i d e p a g e . well, to allow for motion charts, then do any kind of processing We think data itself is exciting timelines, graphs and maps with on the data, like computing and has the potential to tell many all the data available and running aggregates or feeding into a previously unheard stories. We on Google's infrastructure. The visualization gadget. wonder what kinds of apps will API allows users to upload data Visualizations of data can be be developed using Fusion from any source, from text files embedded in blogs and other Tables, and we also wonder to full databases, and see their sites all around the web, and where the datasets will come data merged and compared in attribution remains constant for from. cool visualizations. Surprisingly, all the data that is uploaded to What kind of data would you Fusion Tables. that's not even the best part. like to see explored and Another cool aspect of Fusion visualized in apps from Fusion Sponsor Perhaps best of all, for active, T a b l e s i s i t s r e a l - t i m e Tables developers? Let us know dynamic datasets, Fusion Tables collaboration features. As with your thoughts in the comments. is programmatically updated and Google Docs, collaborators can Discuss accessed, so new information is be invited via email. Multiple accessible without requiring an people can view and comment on admin login to the Fusion Tables the data, and these discussions

Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:10:00 AM

(S01E02) There's a possibility that Men of a Certain Age could become grumpy old men of a certain age. But I don't think that's going to happen because there's still enough irony and levity to keep the show from wallowing into a miserable experience. These guys aren't grumpy all the time and when they are, it feels justified. It's hard not to share their feelings. These are every American men in a lot of ways, well-off, spoiled to an extent, wondering what's going on in the world that's suddenly not as young as it used to be. This was an episode about injustice and fairness, and it's not surprising that our men feel like they've been subjected to too many slights, too many instances

when they've been dumped upon, and too many things that have them pissed off. Read on for more about how our three messketeers handled the weekly travails. Continue reading Review: Men of a Certain Age - Let It Go Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Traders wary ahead of Fed rate decision (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:10:42 AM

Traders wary ahead of Fed rate decision By Jamie Chisholm, Global Markets Commentator Published: December 15 2009

07:40 | Last updated: December 15 2009 15:10 fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Interim Results: Vote Now For Your Review: The Closer Favorite Web Products of 2009 Make Over By Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb)

Glue Google App Engine Google Apps Google Chrome Google Maps Google Search Options and Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:30:00 AM Rich Snippets Google Voice Over December we have Hootsuite HP CeNSE Hulu published our best Web products IBM's sensor solutions ioBridge of 2009 over ten posts. This week iPhone platform Jimdo Jive we've opened up our selections Software SBS 4.0 Jolicloud for you to vote on. The poll is Layar Microsoft Windows Azure embedded below and we invite MindTouch Mint Mir:ror MOG you to select your favorite web Moshi Monsters Mozilla products of 2009. You can vote Raindrop New York Times APIs for up to 10 products. If you don't 2009? (multiple choice)( polling) OneForty Open Calais OrSiSo see one of your favorites in the Top 100 Web Products of 2009, Outside.in Pachube Posterous list, note it in the comments and Alphabetical Postrank present.ly we'll count that as a vote too. Aardvark ActivityStreams P u b S u b H u b b u b R a c k s p a c e We will announce the final top A d o b e A I R A m a z o n E C 2 Cloud Drive Regator Ribbit 10, along with the full results, Android platform Appsfire R S S C l o u d S a l e s f o r c e . c o m this Friday. After one day of Apture Arduino Basecamp BBC's Seesmic Shazam SocialCast voting, here is the top 10: Semantic Music Project Bing Socialtext Spotify StockTwits Sponsor Blip.fm BNO (Breaking News Superfeedr Tornado (FriendFeed 1 Twitter 2 Google Maps 3 Online) box.net Boxee Brightkite framework) Tumblr TweetDeck Google Chrome 4 Facebook 5 ChartBeat Cisco Collaboration Tweetie Tweetmeme Twidroid Hulu 6 Adobe AIR 7 WordPress C i t y s e n s e C l i c k e r C l i q s e t Twingly Twitter Vuze Wetoku 8 TweetDeck 9 iPhone platform Collecta Data.gov DBpedia Echo WideNoise Wikitude Wolfram 10 Evernote (JS-Kit) Evernote Evri Facebook Alpha Woopra WordPress Yahoo Note: the poll is randomly Facebook iPhone app Fedex Query Language (YQL) Yelp ordered, but you can also view an S e n s e A w a r e F e e d l y F e v e r Zemanta Zoho CRM Discuss alphabetical list below. Foursquare Freebase FreshBooks What are your best products of

By Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/15/2009 9:29:00 AM

(S05E14) "Hello, Beau Bridges? Yes, this is The Closer calling. Would you like an Emmy nomination? You would... Okay, we're sending you the script now." Perhaps it didn't happen exactly that way, but here was a show in which a gifted actor was presented a wonderful opportunity and he rose to the occasion. The Closer is one of those procedurals that has a deft touch with the comic episodes. Oh yeah, there are occasions when it gets a little bizarre -- and this episode might have gone there but it didn't. Instead, we had a terrific twist in more ways than one. We also got to see how adorable

Kyra Sedgwick looks in a hot pink ski parka. For more on the wardrobe and the old folks getting killed by the faux nurse, read on. Continue reading Review: The Closer - Make Over Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Top TV Stories of 2009: Comcast buys NBC Universal By John Scott Lewinski (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/15/2009 10:02:00 AM

As 2009 draws to a close, the world has exactly what it needs -another massive media conglomerate.

On Dec. 3, cable giant Comcast justified a long-standing industry rumor and completed an $8 billion deal to acquire a controlling 51% of NBC Universal stock from former owner General Electric. Huge companies gobbling up big

(but not as huge) companies is

nothing new in any business, especially broadcasting. All of the major networks are owned by parent companies. Disney owns ABC. Newscorp owns Fox. Westinghouse owns CBS. Now, Comcast possesses NBC -- as Conan O'Brien celebrates in this

clip. Continue reading Top TV Stories of 2009: Comcast buys NBC Universal Filed under: News, Industry Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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MindTouch and SnapLogic: Another Dexter has lost its Affordable Way to Fit Information showrunner Together By Danny Gallagher (TV Squad)

By Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb)

thousands of dollars to implement. It's an Enterprise 2.0 play. The Submitted at 12/15/2009 5:45:13 AM service can be up and running in SnapLogic is one of those kinds almost no time at all. Custom, of companies we run across that heavyweight systems often take you can say, "yes, these guys get months to implement. it." The company provides data The companies maintain BAI integration services that snaps cuts down on operation costs information from the enterprise, such as maintenance and the need social networks and the web. to have multiple developers MindTouch is a company we constantly managing on premise have covered a lot about lately. systems. Almost more so, data is MindTouch provides a overwhelming companies right presentation layer that for now. Analytics are of critical instance, shows information from need. multiple data sources in a Will BAI be adopted? Larger dashboard environment. questions will be about the value Now the two companies are the service provides and how teaming up to provide Business customers view it. On the one Application Integrations (BAI). hand it is affordable and simple BAI integrates the database to implement. But those factors Systems that the companies say make for affordable enterprise functionality of SnapLogic and may be a hindrance, too, as integration services that are combines it with the presentation c o m p a n i e s a r e n o t q u i t e cheaper by an order of magnitude capabilities of MindTouch. The accustomed to the lightweight compared to more traditional service is priced at $4,995. systems that SnapLogic and H i s t o r i c a l l y , c u s t o m b u i l t MindTouch embrace. Discuss offerings. systems cost hundreds of Sponsor

Submitted at 12/15/2009 9:00:00 AM

Here comes some shocking news just as the crest of the Dexter buzz wave is starting to form. Clyde Phillips, the show's long running showrunner, has decided that the fourth season of the show which ended Sunday will be his last. Phillips said he made the decision during a long drive to his family's home in Connecticut and is leaving so he can spend more time with them. He described it as a "hugely difficult decision" and that he had "complicated feelings about it." Frankly, the timing couldn't have been better. It ended on a climax that was so well done and gripping that my mind cannot even wrap itself around the

possibilities of how to top it. It could, but it's giving me a headache like you would not believe. Filed under: Industry, Dexter, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

America Ain't Giving Its Baby No Boring Name [Usa] By Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:13:11 AM

Only when you see the list of most popular baby names do you realize that America is not just a bunch of chik'n-consuming Wal-

Mart zombies, but rather one big elegant catalogue of Victorian Body Shop models. Aiden (and Ayden, Aidyn, Aden, and Aaden) and Madeline (and Madeleine, Maddelin, and Madalen). The top baby names of 0 9 . F o l l o w e d c l o s e l y b y

Matthew, Owen, Ethan, Jackson, Evan, Braden, Noah, Jack and Zachary, and Madison, Emma, Hannah, Olivia, Audrey, Isabella, Grace, Taylor and Emily. Her prediction for the next decade is that there will be more

Edwards and a lot more Bellas being born due to the success of the Twilight film franchise. America: Dumb people, fancy names. [Present company included!]

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Complete Guide to Cleaning and Disinfecting Your Mac By Charles Moore (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 12/14/2009 10:00:30 AM

Computers get dirty, especially their human interface surfaces — keyboards and pointing devices. In some instances, dirt can even affect input device performance as well as appearance. Some time ago the faithful SlimType gave me a scare when the F and W keys stopped responding properly. A keystroke would register only when the key was pressed more firmly than usual, and the subtle over-center click of the SlimType’s scissors keyswitch mechanism was missing — the malfunctioning keys feeling “numb” and offering higher than normal resistance. The medicine that time proved to be blowing out the accumulated crud beneath the key console with compressed air. I successfully used an automotive shop compressor with a blow gun. For more cautious folks, or those without convenient access to a compressor, one of those little aerosol cans of compressed air used for cleaning photography equipment could do the trick. But sometimes a bit of compressed air isn’t enough. So, here is our guide to cleaning everything from mice to laptops. Getting Started: Apple’s Cleaning Recommendations Apple has posted a Knowledge Base article covering recommendations and guidelines for cleaning Apple computers,

displays, or input/ peripheral devices. Much of its advice should be common sense, such as before you start cleaning: • Turn off your Mac. • Unplug the power cord from the wall or power strip. • Remove the battery (from products with removable batteries such as some Apple portables or from wireless devices such as mice and keyboards). • Disconnect all external devices from the computer.

free cloth. For the new unibody MacBook’s non-slip plastic coated aluminum bottom case, Apple recommends using a 3M Gray Microfiber or soft dye-free, lint-free cloth for cleaning, once again giving its blessing to 70 percent isopropyl alcohol or iKlear on the bottom case. Mouse Cleaning Mice get dirty. When your mouse becomes covered in Instructions specific to Apple fingerprints or its surface is l a p t o p s i n c l u d e n o t u s i n g soiled, you can gently wipe it isopropyl alcohol on bare LCD with a clean, lint-free cloth. If panels (or any type of alcohol or necessary, moisten the cloth Other warnings some users ammonia-based glass or window using plain water, making sure might be less likely to think of cleaner, I hasten to add). Use not to over-saturate it, and be are: only a damp, soft, lint-free cloth mindful that the mouse’s internal • Don’t use window sprays or o r p u r p o s e - m a d e , A p p l e - electronic components may be cleaning products containing approved LCD cleaning product damaged if water seeps or drips ammonia, chlorine, or abrasive like iKlear. inside. ingredients. Aluminum portables are best With Apple’s Mighty Mouse, • Don’t use rough towels or tackled with a damp, soft, lint- the scroll ball can be cleaned cloths to dry the plastic. free cloth. Apple says it’s safe to using a lint-free cloth lightly • Don’t spray cleaner directly use 70 percent isopropyl alcohol moistened with water, making onto your computer. Liquid could on them (I personally wouldn’t) sure to rotate the ball itself to drip inside the case and cause an or iKlear. Remove surface dust or ensure complete coverage or you electrical shock or malfunction. loose dirt gently with your bare can use something like Wet One. • Don’t use excessively damp hand before proceeding with Drowned Keyboard First Aid cleaning wipes. cleaner and cloth. After cleaning, Moisture is potential death to dry the aluminum with a soft, lint electronics, as anyone who’s ever If more than dusting is needed, -free cloth. spilled liquids on a computer use a lint-free cloth slightly For plastic portables, the same keyboard or laptop can ruefully dampened to wipe away dirt or applies as aluminum, but I would tell you. Apple also warns against grime. Don’t over-wet the cloth. recommend a gentler, damp-cloth using solvents like acetone, If you can squeeze drips of water approach first and reserve the a l c o h o l , o r a l c o h o l - b a s e d out by wringing, it’s too wet. heavier-duty agents for stubborn cleaners on your computer, Solvents and Cleaners s t u f f . A s w i t h t h e m e t a l admonishing to never spray Plain water may not be effective machines, remove any loose c l e a n e r d i r e c t l y o n t o t h e on oils or grease residues, in surface dirt gently with your bare machine, since liquid could drip which case a stronger agent will hand before proceeding with inside the keyboard or case and be needed. Try iKlear or mild cleaner and cloth. After cleaning, cause an electrical shock (or detergent first. Cleaning Laptops dry the plastic with a soft, lint- more likely a component-frying

short-circuit and/or residual corrosion). Should you spill liquid on your keyboard, if it’s thin and clear fluid, immediately shut the computer down, unplug the keyboard, turn it upside down, and drain the liquid out, let it dry (inverted or on edge is best) for 24 hours at room temperature, after which it may or may not recover. If the liquid is greasy, sweet, sticky, or acidic, you’re likely out of luck. I ruined a MacAlly iceKey scissors-action keyboard a while back by sloshing diluted Grapefruit Seed Extract (extremely acidic) on it twice in a week — the only times I’ve drowned a keyboard in two decades of computer use. We disassembled the keyboard and cleaned the circuits, but corrosion had set in. Computer Disinfection With the H1N1 flu pandemic, computer contact surface disinfection has moved to the front burner, especially for machines accessed by multiple users. Apple support also has a Knowledge Base article entitled How To Disinfect The Apple Internal Or External Keyboard, Trackpad, And Mouse. The article recommends, in addition to regular cleaning of your computer and input devices, that disinfecting them may be desirable, noting that,”Multiple people using the same computer, people using the computer when they were ill, and the particular COMPLETE page 44

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iPhone Owners Suffer Stockholm Syndrome, AT&T is Actually Awesome (Just Don’t Mention Friday’s Outages) By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog)

day Stross’ article appeared on the WSJ website. AT&T acknolwedged the problem with a Submitted at 12/14/2009 8:00:56 AM statement via Engadget’s It’s hard to know where to w e b s i t e : begin. The weekend has seen a “We are seeing a hardware issue series of events unfold that in downtown San Francisco that m a n a g e t o c o m b i n e — is causing some degradation in beautifully, perfectly — into a service. GSM and EDGE voice s i n g l e g l o r i o u s m u t u a l l y - and data services are still a n n i h i l a t i n g m a e l s t r o m o f accessible. Our experts are aware silliness. and working to resolve as quickly On Friday the Wall Street as possible. Further resolution is J o u r n a l p u b l i s h e d a n expected this evening.” inflammatory piece by Randall Perfect timing, right? And Stross which began “I love my perhaps proof that Stross is right? iPhone…” but barely a half Just ignore for a moment that his dozen sentences (and some primary “source” is financially o b l i g a t o r y ‘ A T & T v e r s u s affiliated with AT&T. I’d love to Verizon’ white noise later) added rant some more about the whole “…the iPhone itself may not be stupid situation but I don’t need so great after all.” to, since I can offer you this I’ll spare you the tumultuous perfect conclusion from John (and largely inane) nonsense that Gruber: follows, and just give you the So on the one hand we have the bottom line; Stross thinks the simple theory that AT&T’s iPhone is a flawed device; that network stinks, especially in Apple has mass-produced shoddy large metro areas, and extrahardware; and that the iPhone’s especially in New York City and poorly engineered internals lie at San Francisco. the heart of AT&T’s network On the other hand, we have the problems. theory that AT&T’s network is In an example of utterly brilliant just fine because two network ( b u t c o i n c i d e n t a l ) t i m i n g , consulting companies say so, A T & T ’ s n e t w o r k i n S a n even though a Consumer Reports Francisco’s Bay area ground to customer survey says otherwise, an awkward halt the very same and it is the iPhone that is flawed,

but the flaws are for some reason worse on AT&T than other carriers around the world, and just happen to be worse still in some cities than others, and Apple has been unwilling and/or unable to address these flaws in three model years. Gruber debunks Stross’ claims with a few easy and, it appears, perfectly rational observations. But you can’t trust Gruber. And if you’re an iPhone owner, you can’t trust yourself, either. That’s because, according to a report from Strand Consulting(no, you’re not alone, no-one else has heard of them, either) we’re all delusional, suffering from a condition akin to Stockholm Syndrome. 9to5 Mac summarizes the most salient points from Strand’s report entitled “How will psychologists describe the iPhone syndrome in the future?”: It is no secret that there has been a great deal of hype surrounding the iPhone and it is also no secret that Apple probably has the most loyal and fantastic customers in the world. Apple has launched a beautiful phone with a fantastic user interface that has had a number of technological shortcomings that many iPhone users have

accepted and defended, despite those shortcomings resulting in limitations in iPhone users’ daily lives. When we examine the iPhone users’ arguments defending the iPhone, it reminds us of the famous Stockholm Syndrome – a term that was invented by psychologists after a hostage drama in Stockholm. Here hostages reacted to the psychological pressure they were experiencing, by defending the people that had held them hostage for 6 days… …the iPhone is surrounded by a multitude of people, media and companies that are happy to bend the truth to defend the product they have purchased from Apple. So there you have it. The takehome message from this weekend’s press is that, broadly speaking, the iPhone is a poorlydesigned piece of junk that simultaneously inspires mindless fanaticism in its fans while callously destroying poor old AT&T’s data network infrastructure. That embarrassing outage in San Francisco on Friday? Nothing to do with AT&T. All your fault, you pesky iPhone fanatics, gobbling up all that precious bandwidth. Shame on you.

The good news for AT&T is that they’re still liked by some people — Business Traveller Magazine’s readers have voted AT&T the operator with the Best Mobile Phone Coverage in the World. Naturally, AT&T is keen to milk any positive coverage it gets (which isn’t in great supply these days). Bill Hague, the company’s vice president of International Mobility and Consumer Markets, said in a statement: We are truly honored that Business Traveler readers have once again chosen AT&T as having the Best Mobile Phone Coverage in the World. AT&T is committed to helping our customers stay connected to their world when traveling abroad. Shame it’s not quite as committed to keeping its customers connected when they’re at home, too. That statement was released the very same day San Francisco’s iPhone customers lost SMS and Data services. Really, you can’t make this stuff up. There is a silver lining — Fake Steve has already had a chat with the Powers That Be. Let’s hope they listen…

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COMPLETE continued from page 42

environment where the computer is used, are a few reasons you may wish to disinfect areas of the computer that people come into contact with the most.” Using a mild soap with antibacterial properties will help, but Apple suggests properly disinfecting contact areas with products like Lysol Wipes, Clorox Disinfecting wipes, or Clorox Kitchen Disinfecting Wipes. I would be cautious about using them on the screen however (except for glasscovered aluminum laptop and iMac displays), and would stick

with water or iKlear for that. Otherwise, follow the general rules outlined in the regular cleaning instructions above, with a special caveat to not use disinfectant wipes containing bleach, or disinfectant sprays in general. What are some techniques you’ve used to clean those hard to reach and sensitive areas of your gadgets?

Buju: Setup, or Stupidity? [Crime] By Hamilton Nolan (Gawker)

purchase kilogramme amounts of cocaine in the Sarasota area of the Middle District of Florida." Reggae star Buju Banton is in a Yea, while you're in Sarasota, very tenuous PR situation right pick up some coke, k? So the now, with a Grammy nomination DEA stone cold set them up, under fire from gay rights undercover style. Allegedly: groups, but that did not stop Buju "Thomas subsequently utilised a from trying to buy five god damn knife to cut open the noted kilos of cocaine. Allegedly! kilogramme of cocaine and began Yes. Eleven god damn pounds of to inspect, along with [Buju], the coke, he tried to buy, in Florida. cocaine. Thomas subsequently Allegedly! He and two other handed the knife to[Buju] who guys were arrested last week, and instantly wiped the blade of the now the DEA has released its knife with his finger and placed version of the story, in which a that finger in his mouth in what snitch told them earlier this appeared to be an attempt to taste month that Buju et al"wanted to the cocaine," the document Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:32:18 AM

stated. Well that is one of the god damn stupidest career diversifications I've ever heard of. Allegedly! Because lots of fans are crying conspiracy—maybe from the gay mafia, dying to get back at him for years of homophobia (um, doubtful), maybe from the Feds, or some...shady government people (you never know! Remember what happened to Bob Marley). He could very well get locked up for more than 20 years. Buju. Oh Buju. There's never a good time for that.

Watch Extended Cut of “Caprica” Pilot By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/14/2009 4:11:00 PM

Syfy took the unique step of releasing the pilot of the upcoming Caprica series on DVD and iTunes months and months before the show would actually air on television. So it’s not particularly surprising that

they’ve gone ahead and released it online weeks before its January 22 premiere. Syfy says they are aware that their could be risk that less people will watch the pilot when it airs as a result. But that was a risk as soon as they released the DVD months in advance. It looks like they are hoping as many people watch the pilot as

possible in any venue, and that even if there is a ratings hit for

the pilot, that it will be made up for with viewers excited to see the second episode. The content will be slightly different from the DVD (I think it has been stripped of nudity, for example) and there will be some previously unseen footage in the TV premiere, which mostly sounds like it is from scenes that were subsequently re-shot and

Exclusive: A Ripped Jake Gyllenhaal in 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time'! (ETonline - Breaking News)

from blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer, in theaters May 28, Submitted at 12/14/2009 4:00:00 PM 2010, and only we've got an Jake Gyllenhaal holds the fate of exclusive look at new footage of the world in his hands in 'Prince a ripped Jake from the movie! of Persia: The Sands of Time' Much of the film was shot in the

baking Moroccan desert and in London, and Jake trained for months to build and maintain his action-hero physique. "I over-prepared myself because I never knew how much they

were going to ask me to do, so I just made sure I'd be hopefully able to do anything," Jake told ET, saying with a shrug, "I guess I've gotten buff."

new CGI for some scenes. You can watch via Hulu above, directly on Hulu or on Syfy.com fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Cable News Ratings for Friday, December 11, 2009 By Bill Gorman (TVbytheNumbers)

35-64 Prime Time FNC –963,000 viewers CNN – 286,000 viewers Submitted at 12/14/2009 2:37:43 PM MSNBC –292,000 viewers Live + Same Day Cable News CNBC – 69,000 viewers Daily Ratings for December 11, HLN –272,000 viewers 2009 Morning programs (6:00AMP2+ Total Day 9:00AM) P2+ (25-54) (35-64) FNC – 1,208,000 viewers FOX & Friends- 889,000 CNN – 508,000 viewers viewers (320,000) (524,000) MSNBC –341,000 viewers American Morning- 364,000 CNBC – 240,000 viewers viewers (117,000) (194,000) HLN –320,000 viewers Morning Joe- 346,000 viewers P2+ Prime Time (108,000) (184,000) FNC – 2,145,000 viewers Squawk Box- 177,000 viewers CNN – 743,000 viewers (53,000) (88,000) MSNBC –669,000 viewers Morning Express w/ MeadeCNBC – 129,000 viewers 301,000 viewers (154,000) HLN –539,000 viewers (179,000) 25-54 Total Day 5PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) FNC –338,000 viewers Glenn Beck – 2,267,000 viewers CNN –132,000 viewers (576,000) (1,145,000) MSNBC –106,000 viewers Situation Room—641,000 CNBC – 56,000 viewers viewers (113,000) (207,000) HLN- 134,000 viewers Hardball w/ Chris 25-54 Prime Time Matthews—499,000 viewers FNC – 555,000 viewers (94,000) (219,000) CNN – 202,000 viewers Fast Money—234,000 viewers MSNBC –175,000 viewers (a scratch w/37,000) (70,000) CNBC – a scratch w/48,000 Prime News —278,000 viewers viewers (100,000) (162,000) HLN – 175,000 viewers 6PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) 35-64 Total Day Special Report with Bret Baier – FNC – 577,000 viewers 2,096,000 viewers (415,000) CNN – 214,000 viewers (904,000) MSNBC – 152,000 viewers Situation Room—504,000 CNBC – 96,000 viewers viewers (83,000) (182,000) HLN – 175,000 viewers Ed Show—516,000 viewers

(88,000) (207,000) Mad Money —182,000 viewers (57,000) (81,000) Prime News – 275,000 viewers (105,000) (162,000) 7PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) The Fox Report w/ Shep –2,016,000 viewers (461,000) (852,000) CNN Tonight—521,000 viewers (102,000) (172,000) Hardball w/ Chris Matthews—494,000 viewers (111,000) (190,000) Kudlow Report — 204,000 viewers (60,000) (93,000) Issues– 392,000 viewers (151,000) (237,000) 8PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) The O’Reilly Factor – 2,569,000 viewers (655,000) (1,180,000) Campbell Brown – 551,000 viewers (126,000) (185,000) Countdown w/ K. Olbermann – 827,000 viewers (209,000) (394,000) Fast Money (8:00 – 8:30PM) – a scratch w/110,000 viewers (a scratch w/29,000) (70,000) Options Action (8:30 – 9:00PM) – a scratch w/86,000 viewers (a scratch w/16,000) (59,000) Nancy Grace – 744,000 viewers (270,000) (402,000) 9 PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) Hannity –1,982,000 viewers (529,000) (912,000) Larry King Live —865,000

viewers (226,000) (306,000) Rachel Maddow Show —706,000 viewers (153,000) (283,000) Buffett and Gates— a scratch w/124,000 viewers (a scratch w/45,000) (65,000) Joy Behar- 486,000 viewers (153,000) (230,000) 10 PM P2+ (25-54) (35-64) On The Record w/ Greta —1,866,000 viewers (469,000) (777,000) Anderson Cooper 360 — 811,000 viewers (252,000) (368,000) Countdown w/ K. Olbermann – 474,000 viewers (161,000) (199,000) American Greed – 165,000 viewers (77,000) (78,000) Nancy Grace –427,000 viewers (126,000) (215,000) 11 PM P2+ (25-54) (35-64) The O’Reilly Factor —1,264,000 viewers (388,000) (610,000) Anderson Cooper 360 — 542,000 viewers (176,000) (258,000) Rachel Maddow Show —430,000 viewers (155,000) (189,000) Mad Money – a scratch w/56,000 viewers (a scratch w/18,000) (a scratch w/26,000) Showbiz Tonight– 396,000 viewers (118,000) (199,000)

For other days cable news ratings click here. P2+ = viewers over the age of 2 (25-54) = Adults 25-54 viewing (35-64) = Adults 35-64 viewing Prime Time = 8-11pm LIVE+SD: The number that watched a program either while it was broadcast OR watched via DVR on the same day [through 3AM the next day] the program was broadcast. For more information see Numbers 101. Scratch = when a show’s audience fails to meet minimum Nielsen reporting levels. For more information go here. Nielsen Cable Network Coverage Estimates(as of September, 2009) CNN/HLN: 99.098 million HHs CNBC: 96.78 million HHs FNC: 96.26 million HHs MSNBC: 92.64 million HHs Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Phineas and Ferb Hits Series High, is Friday’s Cable’s No. 1 Telecast in Total Viewers

Alleged Stalker Arrested after Violating Jennifer Garner Restraining Order

By Bill Gorman (TVbytheNumbers)

(ETonline - Breaking News)

and Ferb Christmas Vacation,” Disney Channel held Friday’s Top 9 TV telecasts in Kids 611 and Tweens 9-14.

Submitted at 12/14/2009 3:29:40 PM

via press release: The Debut of “Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation” on Disney Channel Ranks as the Series’ No. 1 Telecast of All Time in Total Viewers, Kids 6-11 and Boys 6-11 “Phineas and Ferb” is Friday’s No. 1 TV Telecast Across All Kid, Boy and Girl Demos, and Cable’s No. 1 Telecast in Total Viewers Disney Channel Delivers Friday’s Top 9 TV Telecasts in Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14 “Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation”(8:00 – 8:40 p.m.) On the heels of its record-setting premiere on Disney XD, when it launched as the network’s No. 1 telecast of all time across all demos, the Disney Channel premiere of“Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation”(8:00 – 8:40 p.m.) became the series’ mostwatched telecast on record in Total Viewers(5.21 million), Kids 6-11(2.12 million/8.6

• As a reminder, “Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation” first premiered on sister-network Disney XD on Sunday, 12/6/09, becoming the network’s No. 1 telecast of all time across all key demos including Total Viewers(2.62 million), Kids 6 -11(1.11 million and Tweens 9-14(800,000). (Source: Nielsen Media Research (Preliminary National Ratings, r a t i n g ) a n d B o y s 6 - million – 11/20/09; 4.13 million Live + Same Day, 12/11/09). 1 1 ( 9 3 9 , 0 0 0 / 7 . 5 r a t i n g ) . – 11/13/09 and 4.01 million – Ratings based on national rating unless otherwise noted. I n T o t a l V i e w e r s , 10/30/09. Friday’s“Phineas and Ferb • “Phineas and Ferb Christmas fivefilters.org featured article: C h r i s t m a s V a c a t i o n ” o u t - Vacation” stood as Friday’s Normalising the crime of the delivered the previous series high No. 1 TV telecast across all kid, century by John Pilger. Available recently set on 10/16/09 by an boy and girl demographics, and tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text impressive 17% (5.21 million vs. was cable’s No. 1 telecast of the RSS, Term Extraction. 4.45 million). In fact, 5 of the day in Total Viewers. series’ last 6 original airings rank among its Top 6 most-watched ever: 5.21 million – 12/11/09; • Along with lead-in 4.45 million – 10/16/09; 4.27 marathon episodes of “Phineas

The Golden Globes Full Nominations List (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:30:00 AM

Did your favorite TV stars win? Read on to find out!

BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA • Avatar • The Hurt Locker • Inglourious Basterds • Precious • Up in the Air

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA • Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria • Sandra Bullock, The

Blind Side • Helen Mirren, The Last Station • Carey Mulligan, An Education • Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

Submitted at 12/14/2009 4:21:00 PM

A man was arrested Monday for both violating a court order and stalking while violating a court order after he was found to be near Jennifer Garner's daughter Violet Affleck's school. Steven Burky was arrested after he was found to be near the school, but not on the actual campus. Garner obtained the restraining order against Burky in November of 2008 after she said that he’d been stalking her since 2002. She said in court papers back in 2008 that Burky had followed her around the country and sent her packages and letters. "This past year, Mr. Burky has resurfaced and his obsessive and harassing behavior has escalated to the point of becoming dangerous and threatening," she reported. "He has now shown up at my private residence and has repeatedly expressed his belief that God has sent him a vision of me being persecuted in some manner that might result in my death," Garner also wrote in the court papers.

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Friday Broadcast Finals: Ugly Betty, Leno Down: Most Flat

Will Tiger Woods Get Served Up on 'Family Guy'?

By Bill Gorman (TVbytheNumbers)

(ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/15/2009 3:20:00 AM

Submitted at 12/14/2009 2:42:26 PM

Friday’s broadcast finals via@TravisYanan. Supernanny (95% coverage ABC normally 97%) - 4.451 million viewers - 2.9/5 HH - 1.2/4 A18-49 Ugly Betty (96% coverage) - 4.649 million viewers - 3.1/6 HH - 1.3/4 A18-49 20/20 - 7.386 million viewers - 5.1/9 HH - 1.7/5 A18-49 Yes, Virginia - 5.204 million viewers - 3.2/6 HH - 1.3/5 A18-49 The Big Bang Theory (R) - 4.490 million viewers - 2.8/5 HH - 1.4/5 A18-49 Medium (R) - 4.049 million viewers - 2.7/5 HH - 1.0/3 A18-49 Numb3rs (R) - 5.386 million viewers - 3.6/7 HH - 1.2/4 A18-49

"Family Guy" creator and star Seth MacFarlane is home for the holidays -- and he invited ET to the party! While the show is famous for skewering celebrities, Seth isn't so sure they will tackle the Tiger Woods scandal. "The problem is it will blow over," he says. "If we write a script now and it airs a year from now, nobody's going to care. He'll have slept with plenty of other women by then," he says with a laugh. Law & Order (97% coverage NBC normally 98%) - 8.812 million viewers - 5.7/10 HH - 1.7/6 A18-49 Dateline (61 minutes, 96% coverage) - 9.341 million viewers - 6.2/11 HH - 2.0/6 A18-49 The Jay Leno Show (59 minutes) - 5.723 million viewers - 3.7/7 HH - 1.4/5 A18-49

Dollhouse (8pm) - 2.722 million viewers - 1.7/3 HH - 1.0/3 A18-49 Dollhouse (9pm) - 2.125 million viewers - 1.4/2 HH - 0.8/3 A18-49 Smallville (R, 8pm) - 1.422 million viewers - 0.9/2 HH - 0.5/2 A18-49 - 0.5/2 A18-34 - 0.4/2 W18-34 Smallville (R, 9pm)

- 1.260 million viewers - 0.8/1 HH - 0.4/1 A18-49 - 0.4/1 A18-34 - 0.4/1 W18-34 – http://travisyanan.blogspot.com/ T w i t t e r : http://twitter.com/travisyanan fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available Review: The Big tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text Bang Theory - The RSS, Term Extraction. (S03E11) Christine Baranski is REVIEW: page 48 Maternal Convergence back! I loved this episode, but it

Your Best Shot 2009: Taking Flight By Heather Champ (Flickr Blog) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:07:27 AM

• About Flickr Flickr is a revolution in photo storage, sharing and organization, making photo management an

easy, natural and collaborative fivefilters.org featured article: RSS, Term Extraction. process. Get comments, notes, Normalising the crime of the and tags on your photos, post to century by John Pilger. Available any blog, share and more! tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text

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REVIEW: continued from page 47

was way too short. It was so fastpaced, that it seemed like it was over before it even got started. They really picked up where they left off the last time she gueststarred. In that episode; they established how she and Sheldon were basically the same person and hinted at a Mrs. Robinsontype relationship. In this episode, they totally went there. Sure, she was drunk and didn't really mean it, but when she pulled Sheldon in and kissed him, my jaw dropped. It's been a while since we've seen her, and they spent the first half of this episode establishing basically that Sheldon had replaced Leonard in his mother's life. He's

sending her get-well flowers, he knows about Leonard's dog dying, he's giving Beverly notes on her papers; so when she kissed him, it was jarring -- like she was kissing her own son. Continue reading Review: The Big Bang Theory - The Maternal Convergence Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Big Bang Theory Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Joey McIntyre Welcomes Baby No. 2! (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:59:00 PM

Joey McIntyre has welcomed his "new kid." The pop star took to his Twitter page to announce that he and his wife Barrett welcomed their second son in Los Angeles on

Sunday -- a 7-pounds, 10-ounce bundle of joy. People.com reported that they named the infant Rhys Edward McIntyre. Proud papa Joey tweeted, "He and his mom are both rock stars," and also wrote, "New Baby Mac is on the Block!!"

Which Actor Is Waging the War on Christmas? [Blind Items] By Brian Moylan (Gawker) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:05:10 AM

Hollywood is trying to ruin Jesus' Birthday for America, like this actor who told kids there is no Santa. Not as awesome as a dirty photographer or a rapper trying to patent a sex move, but still a cool move. 1."If you were at The Mall Of America this weekend in Minneapolis you might have seen this very good looking B-list actor from one of those network initial shows. He was walking through the mall when a woman stopped him and asked our actor

for his autograph. No problem. The actor obliged and even took a photo. So, where is the Jackass behavior? Well, the actor asked the woman what she was doing in the mall. What, is this like pick up time? Anyway, she pointed down to her 4 year old twins and said they were about to get in line to see Santa. The actor then bent down to the kids and said, "You should know by now there is no Santa." He then walked away." [ CDaN] 2."This hip-hop â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;rapper' is so you not, the man is trying to put a confident of his moves in bed, he copyright on a sex move. He is currently in the process of bragged to friends that once that having one trademarked. We kid

is done, he plans to launch a whole marketing scheme around the name. Underwear line, men's cologne, etc. No word yet on the name of the move (the celeb is keeping it super secret) but we're currently trying to track down anyone who has had the pleasure(?) of experiencing the move firsthand so we can see if it is all it is cracked up to be. Not Sean John/Diddy/Puff DaddyCombs." [ BuzzFoto] 3."It's great to have hobbies. This guy loves to sing and he loves to take photos. All of those girls whom he has bedded over the past few years should pay

attention to the second part of that statement. If you wondered why he asked you to come home with him for the night, watch out! He's just waiting for you to fall asleep so that he can take some photos of you in your birthday suit. Before you start popping Xanax, though, you should know that he doesn't really have any intention of ever making those photos public. However, the possibility alone is one of the reasons why none of these women badmouth him after dating him." [ Blind Gossip]

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Your Golden Globe Nominations Are Here [Beautiful Awards] By Gabriel Snyder (Gawker) Submitted at 12/15/2009 7:14:15 AM

The hacks of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have taken a pause from endless junketeering to release their list of the year's most excellent movies and TV shows. Up in the Air and Avatar continue their inexorable awards march. Here's the raw data: 1. BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA a. AVATAR Lightstorm Entertainment; Twentieth Century Fox b. THE HURT LOCKER Voltage Pictures C/O 42West; Summit E n t e r t a i n m e n t c . INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS The Weinstein Company; The Weinstein Company d. PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE A Lee Daniels Entertainment / Smokewood Entertainment Group Production; Lionsgate e. UP IN THE AIR Paramount Pictures; Paramount Pictures 2. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA a. EMILY BLUNT THE YOUNG VICTORIA b. SANDRA BULLOCK THE BLIND SIDE c. HELEN MIRREN THE LAST STATION d. CAREY MULLIGAN AN EDUCATION e. GABOUREY SIDIBE PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE 3. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA a. JEFF

BRIDGES CRAZY HEART b. GEORGE CLOONEY UP IN THE AIR c. COLIN FIRTH A SINGLE MAN d. MORGAN FREEMAN INVICTUS e. TOBEY MAGUIRE BROTHERS 4. BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL a. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER Watermark Pictures; Fox Searchlight Pictures b. THE HANGOVER Warner Bros. Pictures; Warner Bros. Pictures c. IT'S COMPLICATED Relativity Media, Scott Rudin Productions; Universal Pictures d. JULIE & JULIA Columbia Pictures; Sony Pictures Releasing e. NINE The Weinstein Company; The Weinstein Company 5. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION

PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL a. SANDRA BULLOCK THE PROPOSAL b. MARION COTILLARD NINE c. JULIA ROBERTS DUPLICITY d. MERYL STREEP IT'S COMPLICATED e. MERYL STREEP JULIE & J U L I A 6 . B E S T PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL a. MATT DAMON THE INFORMANT! b. DANIEL DAY-LEWIS NINE c. ROBERT DOWNEY JR. SHERLOCK HOLMES d. JOSEPH GORDON -LEVITT(500) DAYS OF SUMMER e. MICHAEL STUHLBARG A SERIOUS MAN 7. BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM a. CLOUDY

WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation; Sony Pictures Releasing b. CORALINE Laika, Inc.; Focus Features c. FANTASTIC MR. FOX American Empirical Picture; Twentieth Century Fox d. THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Animation Studios; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures e. UP Walt Disney Pictures/PIXAR Animation Studios; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 8. BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM a. BAARIA (ITALY) Medusa Film; Summit Entertainment b. BROKEN EMBRACES (SPAIN) El Deseo SA; Sony

Pictures Classics c. THE MAID (CHILE)(LA NANA) Forastero; Elephant Eye Films d. A PROPHET (FRANCE) Chic Films; Sony Pictures Classics e. THE WHITE RIBBON (GERMANY)(DAS WEISSE BAND – EINE DEUTSCHE KINDERGESCHICHTE) Wega Films; Sony Pictures Classics 9. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE a. PENÉLOPE CRUZ NINE b. VERA FARMIGA UP IN THE AIR c. ANNA KENDRICK UP IN THE AIR d. MO'NIQUE PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE e. JULIANNE MOORE A SINGLE M A N 1 0 . B E S T PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE a. MATT DAMON INVICTUS b. WOODY HARRELSON THE M E S S E N G E R c . CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER THE LAST STATION d. STANLEY TUCCI THE LOVELY BONES e. CHRISTOPH WALTZ INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS 11. BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE a. KATHRYN BIGELOW THE HURT LOCKER b. JAMES CAMERON AVATAR c. CLINT EASTWOOD INVICTUS d. JASON YOUR page 50

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YOUR continued from page 49

REITMAN UP IN THE AIR e. QUENTIN TARANTINO INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS 12. BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE a. NEILL BLOMKAMP, DISTRICT 9 TERRI TATCHELL b. MARK BOAL THE HURT LOCKER c. NANCY MEYERS IT'S COMPLICATED d. JASON REITMAN, UP IN THE AIR SHELDON TURNER e. QUENTIN TARANTINO INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS 13. BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE a. MICHAEL GIACCHINO UP b. MARVIN HAMLISCH THE INFORMANT! c. JAMES HORNER AVATAR d. ABEL KORZENIOWSKI A SINGLE MAN e. KAREN O, CARTER BURWELL WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE 14. BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE a. "CINEMA ITALIANO" - NINE Music & Lyrics by: Maury Yeston b. "I WANT TO COME HOME" EVERYBODY'S FINE Music & Lyrics by: Paul McCartney c. "I WILL SEE YOU" - AVATAR Music by: James Horner, Simon Franglen Lyrics by: James Horner, Simon Franglen, Kuk Harrell d. "THE WEARY KIND (THEME FROM CRAZY HEART)" - CRAZY HEART Music & Lyrics by: Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett e. "WINTER" - BROTHERS Music by: U2 Lyrics by: Bono 15. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA a. BIG LOVE (HBO) Anima Sola and Playtone in

association with HBO Entertainment b. DEXTER (SHOWTIME) Showtime Presents, John Goldwyn Productions, The Colleton Company, Clyde Phillips Productions c. HOUSE (FOX) Universal Media Studios in association with Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry d. MAD MEN (AMC) AMC e. TRUE BLOOD (HBO) Your Face Goes Here Entertainment in association with HBO Entertainment 16. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA a. GLENN CLOSE DAMAGES b. JANUARY JONES MAD MEN c. JULIANNA MARGULIES THE GOOD WIFE d. ANNA PAQUIN TRUE BLOOD e. KYRA SEDGWICK THE CLOSER 17. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA a. SIMON BAKER THE MENTALIST b. MICHAEL C. HALL DEXTER c. JON HAMM MAD MEN d. HUGH LAURIE HOUSE e. BILL PAXTON BIG LOVE 18. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL a. 30 ROCK (NBC) Universal Media Studios in association with Broadway Video and Little Stranger Inc. b. ENTOURAGE (HBO) Leverage and Closest to the Hole Productions in association with HBO Entertainment c. GLEE (FOX) Twentieth Century Fox Television d. MODERN

FAMILY (ABC) Twentieth Century Fox Television e. THE OFFICE (NBC) Universal Media Studios, Deedle Dee Productions, Reveille LLC 19. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL a. TONI COLLETTE UNITED STATES OF TARA b. COURTENEY COX COUGAR TOWN c. EDIE FALCO NURSE JACKIE d. TINA FEY 30 ROCK e. LEA MICHELE GLEE 20. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL a. ALEC BALDWIN 30 ROCK b. STEVE CARELL THE OFFICE c. DAVID D U C H O V N Y CALIFORNICATION d. THOMAS JANE HUNG e. MATTHEW MORRISON GLEE 21. BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION a. GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (LIFETIME TELEVISION) Sony Pictures Television b. GREY GARDENS (HBO) Specialty Films and Locomotive in association with HBO Films c. INTO THE STORM (HBO) Scott Free and Rainmark Films Production in association with the BBC and HBO Films d. LITTLE DORRIT (PBS) Masterpiece/BBC Co-production e. TAKING CHANCE (HBO) Motion Picture Corporation of America and Civil Dawn Pictures in association with HBO Films 22. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-

SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION a. JOAN ALLEN GEORGIA O'KEEFFE b. DREW BARRYMORE GREY GARDENS c. JESSICA LANGE GREY GARDENS d. ANNA PAQUIN THE COURAGEOUS HEART OF IRENA SENDLER e. SIGOURNEY WEAVER PRAYERS FOR BOBBY 23. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION a. KEVIN BACON TAKING CHANCE b. KENNETH BRANAGH WALLANDER: ONE STEP BEHIND c. CHIWETEL EJIOFOR ENDGAME d. BRENDAN GLEESON INTO THE STORM e. JEREMY IRONS GEORGIA O'KEEFFE 24. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION a. JANE ADAMS HUNG b. ROSE BYRNE DAMAGES c. JANE LYNCH GLEE d. JANET McTEER INTO THE STORM e. CHLOË SEVIGNY BIG LOVE 25. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION a. MICHAEL EMERSON LOST b. NEIL PATRICK HARRIS HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER c. WILLIAM HURT DAMAGES d. JOHN LITHGOW DEXTER

e. JEREMY PIVEN ENTOURAGE WINNERS BY MOTION PICTURE DISTRIBUTOR AND TELEVISION NETWORK MOTION PICTURE DISTRIBUTOR The Weinstein Company 12 Warner Bros. Pictures 9 Paramount Pictures 7 Sony Pictures Classics 6 Lionsgate 5 Twentieth Century Fox 5 Fox Searchlight Pictures 4 Sony Pictures Releasing 4 Summit Entertainment 4 Universal Pictures 4 Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 4 Focus Features 2 Relativity Media LLC 2 Apparition 1 Elephant Eye Films 1 Miramax Films 1 Oscilloscope Laboratories 1 TELEVISION NETWORK HBO 17 FOX 6 SHOWTIME 6 NBC 5 CBS 4 LIFETIME TELEVISION 4 ABC 3 AMC 3 FX NETWORKS 3 PBS 3 TNT 1 And for those of you who like to count things, here's who got the most nominations: WINNERS BY MOTION PICTURE AND TELEVISION SERIES OR PROGRAM MOTION PICTURE UP IN THE AIR 6 NINE 5 AVATAR 4 INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS 4 THE HURT LOCKER 3 INVICTUS 3 IT'S COMPLICATED 3 PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE 3 A SINGLE MAN 3(500) DAYS OF SUMMER 2 BROTHERS 2 CRAZY HEART 2 THE INFORMANT! 2 JULIE & YOUR page 53

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Ten Secret Santa Gifts to Avoid at the Office [Bah, Humbug] By Brian Moylan (Gawker) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:00:00 AM

Buying gifts for the forced merriment of the office holiday party is a tricky endeavor. Because gift guides suck we can't tell you what to get, but we can keep you from embarrassing yourself in front of your coworkers. The problem with these giftgiving endeavors is that you may know next to nothing about the coworker whose name you select other than the department they work in and that they could really use a new winter coat, because the one they have been showing up in for the past five years is looking a little bit ratty. The gift should be personal to show you put some thought into it, but not so personal that you creep the recipient out. You don't want anyone thinking you were lurking on their Facebook page looking for ideas. The other problem people fall into is just getting some random piece of junk to fulfill their obligation to the random present pool. A good gift can not only win you a great ally in the office, but the admiration and respect of all your coworkers. Fuck it up, and everyone will laugh at you behind your back and talk about how your homemade fudge tastes like chalky cats hit. Here are 10 throw-away gifts that will be calling your name this Christmas time. Don't fall into their trap! 1. Gift Certificates: This is a no-

thought gift idea, and an insult. choosing only one place where I Not only were you too lame to can spend your money. think up an actual gift, but then Give Instead: Cash. At least then you go and limit my options by we won't have to go for soggy

buffalo wings at T.G.I. Fridays. 2. Baked Goods: This shows you are too stingy to actually buy something, and we also got the

same thing that everyone else on the bottom tier of your giftgiving list got. We know if you gave us this that you spent a whole Saturday making a hundred batches of these cookies to give to everyone who you don't want to spend real dough on, but feel compelled to give something to. And no, putting them in the Christmas tin your drunk aunt Fanny left at your house last year does not spruce up the gift. This is never a good idea. Unless you make those peanut butter cookies with the Hershey Kiss in the middle. Those always rule. Give instead: Drugs. If we want something from your house, hook us up with a few left over Vicodins from your ankle surgery. 3. Candles or Pretty Much Anything Smelly: Here is how the thought process goes: "What should I get Joyce from accounting? Oh, I'll just get her a candle. Everyone loves candles!" No, everyone does not. The same goes for bath salts, incense, and room fresheners. Aside from telling Joyce outright that you think she and her house stink, you also revealed that you thought more about the wrapping you put around the gift than the gift itself. A candle is the ultimate cop out. Give Instead: A bottle of poppers. It says "room deodorizer" but it will make you TEN page 53

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New York Times Union Prepares Members For Layoffs [Internal Memos] By Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:07:15 AM

The following memos went out to members of the News Guild, the union representing the New York Times newsroom. In the first memo, the Guild says it has successfully managed to make the NYT adhere to seniority rules regarding the year's final round of layoffsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;coming today. In the second memo, the Guild says it's offered a plan to the company regarding the outsourcing of News Service jobs to Gainesville. [If you know more about the NYT layoffs, email us]. December 14, 2009 Guild upheld on seniority rights in ruling on Newsroom layoffs An arbitrator on Monday upheld Times' Newroom employees' seniority rights, added an annual week of severance pay for employees properly laid off in inverse order of seniority and sped up the challenge process for those laid off out of seniority in a ruling that resolved in the Guild's favor most aspects of a multifaceted dispute over job security. The binding decision by Arbitrator Martin Scheinman, issued a day before Times

management targets approximately 26 Newsroom employees for layoff, provides fresh clarity to a process that had been clouded by disputes since last year's Newsroom layoffs. After accepting the buyout applications of 74 News-side employees (60 Guild and 14 nonGuild) last week, Times management is expected on Tuesday to target additional Newsroom employees for involuntary layoffs to reach its goal of 100 job cuts. The numbers might change if people change their minds and revoke their buyout application. The arbitrator's ruling sustained the Guild's view that seniority used to determine Newsroom employees' vulnerability to layoffs must be measured by their service in the entire News Department. In last year's round of job cuts, management had taken the position that seniority gets reset to zero each time an employee moves to a new desk. Under the ruling, employees laid off in inverse order of seniority will receive three weeks per year of severance pay, instead of two weeks, the same rate as employees who are involuntarily

laid off out of order, and will have to sign a release, as they currently do. Employees with the least amount of seniority are generally most vulnerable to layoffs, but management can pass over more senior employees if it determines that a less senior employee's qualifications are "superior." Employees laid off out of seniority order who do not challenge their dismissals may receive their severance payments in a lump sum or in monthly installments, in exchange for signing a separation agreement and general release, Scheinman ruled. Those who challenge their out-of -seniority layoffs will have their cases decided by Scheinman within 30 days of the Guild's demand for a hearing, during which time they will receive no severance pay. If they prevail, they will be reinstated. If not, they may receive their severance pay only in monthly installments, in exchange for signing a separation agreement and general release. The issue of whether the release negated rehire rights had been in dispute, and has now been

resolved by the arbitrator in the following manner. If The Times hires more than two employees in a classification from which Newsroom employees were laid off within the past 12 months, the Guild may challenge the layoff "as having been not in good faith, not bona fide, or a subterfuge," Scheinman said. "In the arbitration, the Guild would have to demonstrate hiring individuals rather than rehiring employees involuntarily terminated within the preceding 12 months was unreasonable," he said. "The Times would have the responsibility to explain why it did not instead rehire employees involuntarily terminated within the preceding 12 months." If the Guild prevails in such a challenge, Scheinman said The Times would have to offer to rehire involuntarily a laid-off employee, even if they signed a general release. "We are pleased that the arbitrator has upheld the most important aspects of our position," said New York Guild president Bill O'Meara. "We also now have clarity on how layoffs are to be conducted and will have

a swifter way of resolving future layoff disputes, which is of great benefit to Guild members," he added. Guild offers plan to avert loss of News Service jobs Responding to a management proposal to subcontract the News Service, the Guild last week offered a comprehensive package of cost savings aimed at keeping the operation and its 28 Guildrepresented jobs in New York. Talks are continuing. As reported, Times management notified the Guild a few weeks ago that it intends to subcontract the News Service to a Times Company-owned entity in Gainesville, Florida. Workers there would be hired at about half the current rate of pay in effect here. That notification triggered a 60-day period during which the Guild can attempt to convince management not to go forward with its plans. The Guild proposal would cut costs by about 31 percent, saving the company nearly $900,000 a year.

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TEN

YOUR

continued from page 51

the hit of the office party. 4. Swag: If you got it for free, it is wrong to give it to someone as a gift, no matter how cool it is or how much you despise them. Period. If it actually has another company's logo on it, not only are you a Scrooge, but you are going to hell. Give Instead: A business trip. Try to get your coworker assigned to a cushy conference somewhere with lots of sun and little work where he can pick up some swag of his own. 5. Calendars: Everyone needs a calendar, right? Wrong! We have iCal and cell phones and the internet and watches and about seven million other things that will tell us the date. We don't want to learn a new word every day or see a different almost naked Hooters waitress every month. Calendars—even ones with naked fire fighters—are not only stupid, they are useless. Give Instead: A pen. We may not need calendars, but we still need to write, and nothing says class like a nice pen. 6. DVDs: Many offices have a $5-or-less rule, so it's easy to pick up a $4.99 copy of Kangaroo Jack at the Duane

continued from page 50

Reade or a cheap bootleg copy of Ninja Assassin on Canal Street. Guess what? Your taste in movies sucks, and probably isn't the same as ours. Give Instead: A gift certificate to Blockbuster. Go ahead, break rule#1, but then kill yourself. 7. Anything with a Slogan on It: If it says "Hang in There" or "You Can Do It" or "I Hate Mondays" or "Dare to Soar" then it is stupid. We don't care if it's a mug, a hat, a pencil, a poster, or a gold-plated watch. If it tries to make us do something, the only thing we're going to want to do is throw up. And if you think we'd actually like one of these, you don't know us at all. Give Instead: Incriminating pictures of the boss. Nothing says holiday spirit like, "These will be great for blackmail if you need it." 8. Funny Things for Our Desk: Instead of actually giving someone a desk-top zen rock garden or a clock in the shape of a golf ball or any of those other silly office accessories that come pre-wrapped at Macy's, just take the gift and throw it in the trash. That's where it's going to end up anyway.

Give Instead: A dart board. Preferably with a picture of your face on it. 9. Scratch Tickets: You might think this says, "I just gave you the chance to win $1 million," but what it really said is, "I have no imagination, and I just picked these up at the 7-Eleven five minutes before the party started." This is even worse than a gift certificate, because if we lose, we get absolutely nothing. Thanks for 30 seconds of fun and five useless pieces of paper, jerk. Give Instead: Casino chips. If we're gonna gamble, we wanna play our own game. 10. Donating Money in Our Name: Chances are, we want nothing to do with your charity, especially if it is related to some sort of political or religious cause. Also, you're totally ruining our street cred. We don't want people thinking that we actually give money to charity. Give Instead: Cash, of course. Just give us the $20 and we'll donate to the "Jack Daniels Fund for Sober Writers." [ Top image via Getty]

JULIA 2 THE LAST STATION 2 UP 2 BAARIA 1 THE BLIND SIDE 1 BROKEN EMBRACES 1 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 1 CORALINE 1 DISTRICT 9 1 DUPLICITY 1 AN E D U C A T I O N 1 EVERYBODY'S FINE 1 FANTASTIC MR. FOX 1 THE HANGOVER 1 THE LOVELY BONES 1 THE MAID 1 THE MESSENGER 1 THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG 1 A PROPHET 1 THE PROPOSAL 1 A SERIOUS MAN 1 SHERLOCK HOLMES 1 WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE 1 THE WHITE RIBBON 1 THE YOUNG VICTORIA 1 WINNERS BY MOTION PICTURE AND TELEVISION SERIES OR PROGRAM TELEVISION SERIES OR PROGRAM GLEE 4 30 ROCK 3

BIG LOVE 3 DAMAGES 3 DEXTER 3 GEORGIA O'KEEFFE 3 GREY GARDENS 3 INTO THE STORM 3 MAD MEN 3 ENTOURAGE 2 HOUSE 2 HUNG 2 THE OFFICE 2 TAKING CHANCE 2 T R U E B L O O D 2 CALIFORNICATION 1 THE CLOSER 1 COUGAR TOWN 1 THE COURAGEOUS HEART OF IRENA SENDLER 1 ENDGAME 1 THE GOOD WIFE 1 HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER 1 LITTLE DORRIT 1 LOST 1 THE MENTALIST 1 MODERN FAMILY 1 NURSE JACKIE 1 PRAYERS FOR BOBBY 1 UNITED STATES OF TARA 1 WALLANDER: ONE STEP BEHIND 1

and quick-to-sell-out styles will be available for up to 85 percent off on theOutnet.com. Happy holidays to me. —Violet Moon Gayno r designer’s much-obsessed-over, Daria wearing look #16, fall

2007; Balmain pieces that will go on sale tomorrow, theOutnet.com Runway photo: Imaxtree Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

Balmain Dreams Become a Reality By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

For me, the look that got away was #16 from fall 2007. The blazer-tank-trouser trifecta, worn Submitted at 12/14/2009 1:11:06 PM by Daria, captured Christophe Chances are, you’ve day- Decarnin’s rock ‘n’ roll darling dreamed about buying Balmain. vibe. Starting tomorrow, the

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Colts Defense Preserves Record Win Streak (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

doses of Manning or the team’s other signature stars. Outside the realm of undefeated, With all due respect to the t h e M i n n e s o t a V i k i n g s equally undefeated, manifestly r e b o u n d e d f r o m a p r e t t y f u n - t o - w a t c h N e w O r l e a n s thorough thrashing at the hands Saints, Week 14 of the NFL of the Arizona Cardinals in Week s e a s o n b e l o n g e d t o t h e 13 to hand out a beating to the Indianapolis Colts. The Saints Cincinnati Bengals and improve reached 13-0 in a squeaker of a to a mere 11-2. In Sports win against Atlanta, but Indy’s Illustrated, Joe Posnanski argues 28-16 victory over the Denver that Minnesota’s ability to shrug B r o n c o s m a d e h i s t o r y . off the Arizona loss augurs well Indianapolis also ran its record to for the Vikings’ prospects down 13-0 and, unlike the Saints, the stretch. “It was a loss. They extended its regular-season got outplayed,” Posnanski writes. winning streak to an NFL-record “And it doesn’t mean anything 22 games. Associated Press How important. This is the way teams would Peyton Manning do if he used to feel about regular season had to face Tim Jennings and his losses. And this, it seems to me, teammates on the fierce Colts is still the healthiest way for defense? teams to feel about losses.” It’s easy, especially for those of It’s saying something that, on a us who benefited from it in Sunday that saw Denver receiver fantasy sports, to focus on Peyton Brandon Marshall set a singleManning’s four touchdown game NFL record with 21 passes in the Colts’ win. But that receptions, Philadelphia Eagles requires overlooking both receiver DeSean Jackson Manning’s three picks and the managed to deliver the week’s brilliant work of the Indianapolis best performance by a receiver. defense in ensuring that none of Jackson powered Philadelphia’s those interceptions turned into 45-38 victory over the New York game-losing mistakes. “The Colts Giants with a pair of long displayed the kind of defense a touchdowns, gaining 178 yards in team needs come January to get all and also returning a punt 72 through to the Super Bowl,” yards for a touchdown. “He was Yahoo’s Jason Cole writes. must-see TV, the guy people all “Especially when Manning over the country will be talking wasn’t playing particularly well a b o u t t h i s m o r n i n g , ” t h e Sunday.” In the Indianapolis Philadelphia Inquirer’s Phil Star, Bob Kravitz predicts that Sheridan writes. “On a night Sunday’s win is the last time when the Eagles defense was before the postseason that NFL utterly helpless, turning Eli fans will be getting full-game Manning’s 10-yard passes into Submitted at 12/14/2009 9:25:40 AM

pursue, by most accounts, a massively duplicitous lifestyle — A thirst for danger? Anger at decades of imprisonment inside the bubble of fame? A megacelebrity’s delusion of immunity from consequence? — was a powerful force, and will only be long touchdowns, Jackson was defeated by his powerful will in just too good to let the Eagles return,” Newport writes. “If he so chooses.” lose.” Another must-watch receiver has At Golf.com, Cameron Morfit been nearly invisible of late. writes that the scandal — call it Slumps beset every player, but L’Affaire(s) Tiger — is just when the receiver is Randy another way an over-exalted Moss, the accusations that he has sport is coming back to earth. quit on his team are quick to “Golf has come down from on follow. At CBS Sports, Ray high because there is money in it, Ratto tackles the affair with his long term,” Morfit writes. “It’s why golf has followed football’s characteristic wryness.* * * Tiger Woods announced on lead: The Tour condensed its Friday that he will be taking an schedule in 2007 in part because indefinite hiatus from golf in the country’s most popular order to piece back together his league, the NFL, has an enviably family life, super-tarnished brand finite, clearly delineated season. and what’s left of his self-respect. And it’s why golf has aped auto It looks like the right thing to do racing: The Tour remade its end for any number of reasons, but game to resemble Nascar’s All of that doesn’t make the prospect of the above moves have helped a Tiger-free PGA Tour any easier golf shake its insular, imperious to imagine. It may have been rep. Even Tiger’s embarrassing predictable that Woods would get missteps have helped, in their dropped by some sponsors and own sad, bizarre way.” In the t h a t h e ’ d p r o v i d e h e a v i l y New York Times, Larry Dorman qualified non-explanations. But warns of lower TV ratings for a the Journal’s John Paul Newport Tiger-less tour.* * * gets at what remains so defiantly College-hoops upset season is odd about this whole sad affair: already upon us, as a pair of how the unknowable thing that unranked, crosstown rivals made Woods so great relates (or knocked off more highly touted doesn’t) to his not-so-great programs this weekend. On decision-making off the golf Sunday, Temple scored an impressive 65-55 win over thirdcourse. “Whatever drove Mr. Woods to ranked Villanova. The two

schools share a long-running rivalry as part of Philadelphia’s storied Big Five scene, but Temple’s upset was made in Argentina. Temple’s Argentine guard Juan Fernandez ripped ‘Nova for 33 points in the win, and went 7-for-10 from threepoint range. “The Wildcats were undone by a kid who couldn’t possibly understand the magnitude of the Big 5,” ESPN’s Dana O’Neil writes. “Fernandez came to Temple last December, following in the footsteps of his Argentinean hero Pepe Sanchez to enroll there. The Big 5? When I sat down with him this summer for a story, he was still trying to get his arms around the bright lights and show that is American college basketball, his studies and the English language.” As awesome as Fernandez’s fireworks were, Xavier’s 83-79 win over No. 19 Cincinnati contained more action — thanks to two tense overtimes, 12 ties, nine lead changes and a pair of near-brawls. “The drama of this rivalry was gone, some said. The intensity was supposed to be as stale as old chili,” Cnati.com’s Paul Dehner Jr. writes. “It only took one half to remind everyone why this is classified as one of the great rivalries in all of college basketball. Then it added two overtimes to ensure nobody would forget it.”* * * After several super-tempestuous COLTS page 57

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Sources: Roy Halladay to Philadelphia Phillies, Cliff Lee to Seattle Mariners deal close By Jayson Stark (ESPN.com)

The Phillies would receive one other prospect -- believed to be 21-year-old outfielder Tyson Sources: Halladay, Lee Deal Gillies -- from Seattle in the other Close Sources: Halladay, Lee trade for Lee, who is a year away Deal Close from free agency. A couple of companion deals Indications are that the Phillies that would send Roy Halladay to also will receive a third prospect Philadelphia and Cliff Lee to in the deal, but it wasn't clear Seattle are "close" but "not Tuesday morning whether that done," according to two sources player would come from Toronto familiar with the negotiations. or Seattle. However, As part of the deals, Halladay ProspectInsider.com reported the would agree to a three-year third prospect is Mariners rightextension through 2013, with a hander Juan Ramirez. v e s t i n g o p t i o n t h a t c o u l d Initially, sources said, Toronto lengthen the deal by another year was to receive Aumont, d'Arnaud or two, one source said. The and another Phillies prospect in e x t e n s i o n i s e x p e c t e d t o exchange for Halladay. The g u a r a n t e e H a l l a d a y i n t h e Phillies had balked at sending neighborhood of $60 million, Brown. plus the $15.75 million he would Phillies doctors also have to sign make in 2010, the final year of off on Halladay's physical. his current contract. The Associated Press reported The specifics of the trades took that J.A. Happ, Joe Blanton and s o m e t w i s t s a n d t u r n s o n Brown also took physicals in Monday. The latest structure Philadelphia on Monday, but that would send three Phillies -- was before specifics of the deals o u t f i e l d e r M i c h a e l T a y l o r , started to come out. c a t c h i n g p r o s p e c t T r a v i s The AP also reported that the d'Arnaud and pitcher Kyle commissioner's office granted a Drabek -- to Toronto, sources 72-hour window on Sunday for said. Toronto and Philadelphia to Under that scenario, the Phillies complete their trade. would not have to include their If all of the names being bandied top position-player prospect, about wind up in this deal, the Domonic Brown, and they would Phillies would get back what receive Seattle's top pitching Baseball America rates as the prospect, Phillippe Aumont, who Mariners' top two pitching originally appeared ticketed for prospects, plus an outfield Toronto. prospect (Gillies) they view as Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:25:35 AM

being similar to Taylor. So although the Phillies would be giving up two of their most highly regarded prospects in Drabek and Taylor, they would look at this deal as not significantly depleting their system for the long haul. In effect, the Phillies would be trading one Cy Young (Lee) for another (Halladay). And while that may seem difficult to understand from afar, the Phillies clearly view it as a swap that enables them to keep one of those Cy Youngs well into the future -a less likely scenario if they held on to Lee. Although the Phillies have done next to no actual negotiating with Lee, they heard enough rumblings that Lee wanted a CC Sabathia-type contract that they believed it would take a five-year or six-year deal to keep the 31year-old left-hander. And the Phillies have an organizational philosophy that precludes deals longer than three years for starting pitchers. Halladay, on the other hand, was willing to talk about a shorter guarantee if it meant going to the Phillies, a team with a spring training site minutes away from his home in Florida. The Phillies could have held on to Lee and taken a chance that they could sign one of the two pitchers as a free agent next winter. But they were apparently

concerned there would be a massive bidding war over Halladay and Lee that would price them both out of their range. The Mariners, meanwhile, were looking for a top-of-the-rotation starter to pair with Felix Hernandez. And Halladay, who has a no-trade clause, wasn't an option because he wouldn't approve a trade to Seattle. So the Mariners opted to deal for Lee after it became clear their other top target, John Lackey, was bound for Boston as a free agent. Before turning to Seattle, multiple sources say, the Phillies first attempted to complete a twoteam deal with Toronto alone for Halladay. However, the Phillies refused -- as they had last summer -- to include Drabek and Brown in that trade. So they began looking for another team that could help them meet the Blue Jays' price. Originally, Seattle looked like a perfect match because of Aumont, the Mariners' No. 1 pick in 2007 and a native of Quebec. But Toronto kept pressing for Drabek and/or Happ. And, in the end, the Phillies apparently decided their best option was to keep Brown and get Aumont, who would immediately become their top pitching prospect if Drabek is a part of the deal. The Phillies also had to clear payroll space to accommodate

the addition of Halladay. They attempted to do that by trading away Blanton, but found they couldn't get enough back to enable them to make a Halladay deal. SI.com first reported that the Phillies were close to acquiring Halladay. Halladay, 32, is 148-76 lifetime with a 3.43 ERA. He won the 2003 Cy Young Award and finished in the top five in the Cy Young voting four other times. Halladay went 17-10 with a 2.79 ERA in 32 starts for Toronto last season. He threw 239 innings and led the league with nine complete games. The Phillies acquired Lee from the Indians on July 29 for four minor leaguers. Lee quickly became Philadelphia's ace. He posted a 3.39 ERA in 12 starts for the Phillies and then went 4-0 with a 1.56 mark in five postseason outings, including 2-0 in the World Series. Lee, the 2008 AL Cy Young Award winner with Cleveland, will make $8 million in 2010 and then be eligible for free agency. Lee has told the Phillies he would like to stay but wants to be paid what the market will bear. In other Blue Jays news, backup catcher Ramon Castro agreed to a one-year with Toronto, a source SOURCES: page 59

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Report: Doctor who treated Tiger Woods, others had PEDs

Niners stop sloppy Cards from clinching West

By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

Submitted at 12/15/2009 4:28:57 AM

NEW YORK -- A Canadian doctor who has treated golfer Tiger Woods, swimmer Dara Torres and NFL players is suspected of providing athletes with performance-enhancing drugs, according to a newspaper report. The New York Times reported on its Web site Monday night that Dr. Anthony Galea was found with human growth hormone and Actovegin, a drug extracted from calf's blood, in his bag at the U.S.-Canada border in late September. He was arrested Oct. 15 in Toronto by Canadian police. Using, selling or importing Actovegin is illegal in the United States. The FBI has opened an investigation based in part on medical records found on Galea's computer relating to several professional athletes, people briefed on the inquiry told the Times on condition of anonymity because they did not want to be

identified discussing a continuing investigation. The anonymous sources did not disclose the names of the athletes, and Galea told the newspaper "it would be impossible" for investigators to have found material linking his athletes to performanceenhancing drugs. According to the newspaper, Galea has developed a bloodspinning technique -- plateletrich plasma therapy -- to help speed post-surgery recovery. Galea visited Woods' home in Florida at least four times in February and March, the newspaper reported, to provide that platelet therapy after his agents were concerned by his slow recovery from June 2008 knee surgery. Asked about Woods' involvement with Galea, agent Mark Steinberg told the newspaper in an e-mail: "I would really ask that you guys don't write this? If Tiger is NOT implicated, and won't be, let's please give the kid a break." Woods announced Friday he is taking an indefinite leave from

golf to work on his marriage after allegations of infidelity surfaced in recent weeks. A message was left by The Associated Press late Monday night seeking comment from Steinberg. Torres told the newspaper Galea found a previously undiagnosed tear in her quad tendon. "Excluding draining my knee, he has never treated me, but I did see his chiropractor who did softtissue work on my leg," she said in an e-mail to the Times. "That was the extent of my visit with him." Her agent, Evan Morgenstein, told the AP that Torres was not available for comment Monday night. Brian H. Greenspan, Galea's criminal defense attorney, said an investigation will vindicate his client. "Dr. Galea was never engaged in any wrongdoing or any impropriety," Greenspan said. "Not only does he have a reputation that is impeccable, he is a person at the every top of his profession." Galea, who acknowledged he

Copenhagen talks enter ‘new phase’ (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:39:24 AM

The Copenhagen climate talks

have entered a ”new phase” as ministers join in intensive negotiations to deliver an agreement by the end of the week, the president of the

meeting said on Tuesday. The United Nations described the talks as having reached a ”very distinct and important moment”.

has used human growth hormone himself for 10 years, told the newspaper he never gave any athletes HGH, which is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. And Galea told the Times he has never combined HGH or Actovegin with his platelet treatments. "All these athletes come see me in Canada cause I fix them, and I think people just assume that I'm giving them stuff," he told the newspaper. "They don't have to come to me to get HGH and steroids. You can walk into your local gym in New York and get HGH." Galea is also being investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for smuggling, advertising and selling unapproved drugs as well as criminal conspiracy, the Times reported. Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:04:56 AM

Fast Facts • The 49ers forced seven turnovers, including five in the first half. This was the first time San Francisco caused seven-plus turnovers in a game since forcing eight against the Saints on Sept. 14, 1997. • This was the most turnovers by the Cardinals since they turned the ball over seven times last season vs. the Jets. They also tied the Panthers in Week 1 for the most turnovers by a team in 2009. • The 49ers swept the Cardinals for the second time in the last three seasons. • San Francisco has now won three of its last five games following a four-game losing streak while Arizona has now dropped two of three following a three-game win streak. • Kurt Warner, who entered Monday with 12 TDs and zero interceptions in his previous four games, had 0 TDs and two picks. • Bloggers' wrapups • Rapid reaction -- ESPN Stats & Information fivefilters.org featured article: fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. RSS, Term Extraction.

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Source: John Lackey agrees to 5-year deal with Boston Red Sox

COLTS continued from page 54

seasons, the New York Knicks are more or less past the point of surprising anyone anymore. But By Jayson Stark and Jerry available, but the Red Sox's contract offer late last week and the franchise reached back and Crasnick (ESPN.com) heightened pursuit of Lackey was ready to "move on" from delivered a stunner over the came after reports that Boston is Boston, according to his agent, weekend by announcing the Submitted at 12/14/2009 11:02:42 PM fading in its efforts to retain free Joe Urbon. The Red Sox have no signing of former lottery pick Lackey Agrees To Deal With agent outfielder Jason Bay. intention of offering Bay a five- Jonathan Bender. The sweetRed Sox Lackey Agrees To Deal Lackey, 31, is 102-71 with a y e a r d e a l , a s o u r c e t o l d shooting seven-footer played just 28 games over his last three W i t h R e d S o x V I D E O 3.81 ERA in eight seasons with E S P N B o s t o n . c o m . PLAYLIST the Angels, and he would join In other moves on Monday, the seasons with the Pacers before • Lackey Agrees To Deal With Josh Beckett and Jon Lester at Red Sox reached a tentative injuries finally forced him from Red Sox Lackey Agrees To Deal the top of a powerhouse rotation agreement on a two-year deal the NBA in 2006, and he is now With Red Sox in Boston. The Mariners, Angels with free agent outfielder Mike attempting an out-of-nowhere • Edes With The Latest On and Mets are among the other C a m e r o n , a s o u r c e t o l d NBA return at age 29. In a Lackey And Bay Edes With The teams interested in signing ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick. Knicks season that’s already Latest On Lackey And Bay Lackey. Cameron will have to pass a circling the drain, Bender’s Entering the offseason, it was physical exam for the deal to comeback at the very least provides an interesting storyline. The Boston Red Sox have believed that Lackey would use become official. reached a tentative deal with A.J. Burnett's five-year, $82.5 Also still up in the air is the “If healthy, Bender fits well into r i g h t - h a n d e d p i t c h e r J o h n million contract with the New status of third baseman Mike Mike D’Antoni’s system. He’s Lackey, pending a physical, York Yankees as a benchmark, Lowell, who will undergo a long, versatile and can spread the worth slightly more than the but industry estimates of his physical for the Rangers this floor with his shooting,” Frank $82.5 million, five-year contract potential haul have ranged from w e e k , a s o u r c e t o l d Isola writes in the New York A.J. Burnett signed with the New $60 million to $100 million. ESPNDallas.com, as the Red Sox Daily News. “Think Danilo York Yankees last year, a source There were reports that Lackey and Rangers continue to evaluate Gallinari with two bad knees and familiar with the negotiations declined a $72 million offer a proposed trade that would send that’s Bender.” told ESPN.com's Jayson Stark. earlier this year from the Angels, Lowell to Texas and catcher Max At the minor-league hoops blog Ridiculous Upside, Scott Pair Of Aces but his representatives have since Ramirez to Boston. The Red Sox's rotation is characterized those reports as Jayson Stark and Jerry Crasnick Schroeder can’t fathom why the coming up aces. Here's a look at untrue. cover Major League Baseball for Knicks went with a surpassingly rusty 29-year-old instead of a Dhow Lackey and Josh Beckett, Lackey shut out the Red Sox ESPN.com. who is Boston's No. 1 guy, through 7 1/3 innings in Game 1 fivefilters.org featured article: League call-up.* * * compare: of the AL Division Series and Normalising the crime of the For most who followed it, 17Lackey traveled to Boston for a nearly no-hit Boston in 2008, but century by John Pilger. Available year-old Zac Sunderland’s solo physical exam Monday, fueling in nine career regular-season tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text circumnavigation of the globe aboard the 36-foot Intrepid speculation that an agreement starts at Fenway Park, he is 2-5 RSS, Term Extraction. provoked simple, gobsmacked was close at hand. with a 5.75 ERA. awe. From his 16-year-old sister S p e c i f i c d e t a i l s w e r e n ' t Bay turned down Boston's latest Abby, it elicited a different response — part inspiration, part sibling rivalry. In the Los

Angeles Times, Pete Thomas details the younger Sunderland’s even more ambitious sailing goal. Abby Sunderland plans to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone and unassisted, and departs later this month. “She’ll carry all provisions — including freeze-dried food and a water desalination device — and cannot make landfall or accept assistance, beyond advice, once she’s underway,” Thomas writes. “Whereas Zac traveled in higher latitudes in mostly warm climates, Abby will venture offshore and sail down the Pacific, round South America and treacherous Cape Horn, then continue east below the populated continents in the windswept and turbulent Southern Ocean — a direct but dangerous route around the world.” To his credit, Thomas gets both the “amazing adventure” and “who lets a 16-year-old sail solo around Cape Horn?” angles into his story. Found a good column from the world of sports? Don’t keep it to yourself — write to us at dailyfix@wsj.com and we’ll consider your find for inclusion in the Daily Fix. You can email David at droth11@gmail.com.

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The Count: How Much Is Tiger’s Record Pursuit Derailed? (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

If Woods misses all four majors in 2009, even by recent success rates he couldn’t have expected Tiger Woods is taking a hiatus to win more than one or two. from golf four majors shy of Jack The big unanswered questions Nicklaus’s career record of 18. are how he’d recover from How much will the hiatus hurt missing time for personal his chances to reach 19? Getty problems rather than physical Images Tiger Woods won the rusty after coming off knee o n e s , a n d h o w h e ’ l l a g e Bridgestone Invitational this surgery in June 2008. And over compared to prior greats and summer, one of seven titles in the last five years, those figures contemporaries. Just one major in 2009. are a remarkable 83% and 75%. the last decade has been won by a It’s impossible to say without He’s also won six majors during golfer 40 or older, and just six in knowing how long Woods will that span, and won 42% of all the past two decades (which be gone, something he probably t o u r n a m e n t s h e ’ s e n t e r e d , partly reflects that a younger doesn’t know yet, either. What’s compared to a career mark of Woods was winning 15 of 80 certain is that Woods, who turns 30%. That’s a remarkably high majors, leaving fewer to go 34 later this month, is stepping level of success over a five-year around for the old-timers). away from the sport while still in span, featuring better average Nicklaus had a great age-40 year, his prime. Despite having failed rates every year besides his winning two majors, but won just to win any of the last six majors, remarkable three-Grand Slam t h r e e P G A T o u r e v e n t s Woods may be better than he performance in 2000. So Woods afterwards. Woods has broken ever has been in his career. is contending at, and winning, the mold in many respects, but if For his career, he’s finished in more tournaments lately than he can’t sustain his peak beyond the top 10 in 60% of the majors earlier in his career. when others have, his majorhe’s entered, and in 68% of all Still, the cost in majors is likely winning clock may already be tournaments. Those respective to be minimal so long as his stay ticking. figures were 75% and 83% last doesn’t extend too long. The next year, despite worries he’d be Grand Slam is four months away. Submitted at 12/14/2009 1:46:40 PM

Some Texas faculty upset with $2 million raise for Mack Brown By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:58:56 AM

AUSTIN, Texas -- Some University of Texas faculty question whether football coach Mack Brown is worth $5 million annually when the school faces tough budget choices. Big 12 blog ESPN.com's Tim Griffin writes about all things Big 12 in his conference blog. • Blog network: College Football Nation University system regents last week decided Brown deserved more money, raising his annual pay from $3 million. The Longhorns will face fellow unbeaten Alabama for the BCS championship on Jan. 7. A resolution approved Monday,

in an informal vote during a UT Faculty Council meeting, said the $5 million deal was "unseemly and inappropriate." The group lacked a quorum for an official vote. UT President William Powers Jr. says the athletic program, under Brown, has had no subsidies or deficits and has channeled $6.6 million into academic programs in recent years. Brown's salary is paid with money raised by athletic department revenues. Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Six Thoughts on Suddenly Sizzling Stove By Jeff Fletcher (Fanhouse Main)

one of those Hot Stove season days that make you forget all of the other ones when we are Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:04:00 PM sitting around and pondering the Filed under: Angels, Blue Jays, significance of Pedro Feliz. The Braves, Mariners, Mets, Red MLB landscape shook, with Sox, Yankees, AL West, MLB signs pointing to the movement Inside Scoop, MLB Hot Stove, of three top-of-the-rotation MLB Free Agency Monday was starting pitchers, and one over-

the-hill-but-interesting

outfielder/designated hitter. There are still some physicals to be passed and an extension to be reached, but it looks like Roy Halladay is going to the Phillies in a three-team deal that will send Cliff Lee to the Mariners and prospects to Toronto; Meanwhile, John Lackey will

wind up with the Red Sox and Hideki Matsui to the Angels. Some of the names of the prospects being moved in the Halladay-Lee deal have yet to be confirmed, but we can still draw a few conclusions from the day's big headlines.

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What's Woods Doing With HGH Doctor? By Jay Mariotti (Fanhouse Main)

By Tim Povtak (Fanhouse Main)

Submitted at 12/14/2009 5:23:00 PM

Filed under: Golf So now, as if his world hasn't crumbled enough, Tiger Woods is being linked to a Canadian doctor who not only uses human growth hormone but is reportedly suspected in an FBI probe of providing athletes with performance-enhancing drugs. Dr. Anthony Galea, known as "Miracle Man" among NFL players and numerous other athletes who swear by his postsurgery recovery work, treated Woods at least four times early this year when his left knee wasn't recovering at the pace he and his agents preferred, the New York Times reports today. If this is another BALCO scandal, as it well could be, why is Woods in the middle of yet another public-relations fiasco that could do further damage to a

Is Dwight Howard Getting Punished or Protected? Submitted at 12/14/2009 4:30:00 PM

Filed under: Magic, Pacers ORLANDO -- Depending on who you listened to Monday night, Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard is either being mauled every night while officials swallow their whistles -brand already smeared beyond or he's a thug who should be repair? While Galea claims he suspended for throwing a punch. never has given performanceIt was all about perspective. enhancing drugs to Woods or any As expected, the Magic beat the other athlete, it more than raises Indiana Pacers, 106-98, Monday eyebrows when he tells the night, but not before a newspaper that he began surprisingly-close, very-physical injecting himself with HGH five game turned into a debate on the days a week about 10 years ago, way officials are either protecting after he turned 40. Why? For one or punishing Howard. reason, he wants to live a longer "It's out of hand, what they're life with his wife, who he says is letting people do to Dwight 22 years younger than him. (Howard),'' Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. "If you're going to let people continue to hit him around the head, and grab him around the neck, those are

flagrant fouls, and they need to be called.'' Although Van Gundy was making similar remarks even before the game began, the debate was intensified by one play midway in the third period. Murphy fouled Howard hard, wrapping his arm around Howard's shoulder and neck to draw the call. Howard swung his right arm in frustration, trying to free himself. He never connected.

SOURCES: continued from page 55

told ESPN The Magazine's Jorge Arangure Jr. A source told ESPN.com that Castro's deal, which is pending a physical, is worth $1 million. Castro split last season between the Mets and the White Sox. He's the second free-agent catcher to agree to terms with Toronto this week. The Blue Jays also signed free agent John Buck. Both of their primary catchers last season, Rod Barajas and Gregg Zaun, have exited via free agency. Jayson Stark covers baseball for ESPN.com. Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report. fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Rehab Becomes Reality for Michael Vick By Kevin Blackistone (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/14/2009 4:25:00 PM

Filed under: NFL A week and half ago at a middle school in Newport News, Va., a young man stood before a few hundred

kids and told them how wrongly he had lived much of his life and implored them not to do the same. It was a confession and plea he uttered in earlier weeks before kids in Chicago and Atlanta and Washington and other cities.

Unfortunately, there weren't any national broadcast crews or

writers there to show what the man, Michael Vick, had done. For had there been, we wouldn't have been hearing up until the last couple of weekends that the Michael Vick Experiment was a failure. The Vick experiment is no more

about football right now that winning the Tour de France was for Lance Armstrong when he was coming back from cancer.

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Fantasy Football Cardinals Fumble Away Roundtable: Should Chance at Clinching You Bench Your Colts? Division By R.J. White (Fanhouse Main)

By Nancy Gay (Fanhouse Main)

Submitted at 12/15/2009 2:00:00 AM

Submitted at 12/14/2009 6:20:00 PM

Filed under: NFL Start 'Em Sit 'Em When the Indianapolis Colts defeated the Denver Broncos on Sunday, they had just about locked up home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. When the Bengals lost their game against the Vikings, the Colts knew they'd be playing the entirety of the AFC playoffs at home. This now begs the question,"Will your Colts players receive enough playing time to produce useful fantasy lines?" With an undefeated season on the line, it seems like a silly question to ask, yet football isn't about avoiding a regular-season loss; it's about winning the Super Bowl. How terrible would the Indy coaching staff look if Peyton Manning or any other key

Filed under: 49ers, Arizona Cardinals, NFC West, NFL Analysis SAN FRANCISCO -At least the Arizona Cardinals recognize their own annoying tendency to cower when they're on the cusp of greatness. A few mistakes against a problematic division opponent, that can be expected. But seven turnovers against the perpetually rebuilding San Francisco 49ers? That was absolutely crippling Monday night at Candlestick Park, as a fired-up 49ers defense forced a franchise-record seven fumbles and recovered five of them, plus added two interceptions of Kurt Warner. The lethal combination of turnovers, penalties and overall

player was injured in a game the Colts didn't even have to win? Indianapolis faces Jacksonville this Thursday, so you'll have to make a decision about your Colts players rather quickly. A subject this important to your fantasy playoffs deserved more than one opinion, so the FanHouse staff discussed the issue at length.

China bans individual web domain names (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/15/2009 2:10:26 AM

embarrassing play became a 24-9 banana peel of a loss beneath the skidding feet of the defending NFC champions. "Obviously, it was ugly for us tonight," said Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt, whose team started off the night with three offsides penalties on San Francisco's first drive, and saw it snowball from there.

China has banned individuals from registering internet domain names and launched a review of millions of existing personal websites in the toughest government censorship drive so far on the internet. As of Monday, people applying to register a domain name in China must present a company chop and a business licence, the China Internet Network Information Center, a government-backed body, said in a statement. fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Fantasy Football Cut-N-Go: Introducing Arian Foster By Knox Bardeen (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/14/2009 3:58:00 PM

Filed under: NFL Sleepers, NFL Waiver Wire, NFL Stash or Trash Cut-N-Go is Fantasy

Football FanHouse's weekday roundup of the NFL news with fantasy football impact. Steve Slaton was all set to be the Houston Texans' next big thing at running back this season. He started slow and ended his season

early due to injury. Next came

Ryan Moats, who started strong but didn't have the staying power to be a featured back in Houston. The team considered a running back by committee approach, and they also considered handing the ball to Chris Brown. The point of

the matter is that there has been no real answer in Houston to finding a full-time running back that can carry this team to the playoffs. Enter Arian Foster.

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Rage will be published by Bethesda, EA out of the picture By Christopher Grant (Joystiq)

be published under EA's successful EA Partners program, home to other major titles from In a tersely worded press release, outside developers, like Rock Z e n i M a x M e d i a - p a r e n t Band, Left 4 Dead 2, and Brutal c o m p a n y o f F a l l o u t 3 - d e v Legend. Bethesda Softworks and, as of Unlike ZeniMax's other June, FPS hall-of-famer id development studio, Bethesda, id Software- has "announced today Software will not be selft h a t i t h a s p i c k e d u p t h e publishing Rage; instead, " Rage publishing rights for Rage, the will be published by Bethesda video game under development at Softworks," the press release marketing of Rage. The ongoing id Software." First announced in states. It concludes, "As a result, d e v e l o p m e n t o f R a g e i s July 2008 during Electronic Arts' Electronic Arts Inc. ... will not be unaffected by this development." E3 press conference, Rage was to i n v o l v e d i n t h e s a l e s a n d With EA out of the picture and Submitted at 12/15/2009 10:30:00 AM

publishing duties for Rage in ZeniMax's hands, the partnership between the two companies can finally be consummated without

having to wait for Doom 4, or whatever's next in the Wolfenstein franchise. Ah, love. Gallery: RAGE Continue reading Rage will be published by Bethesda, EA out of the picture Rage will be published by Bethesda, EA out of the picture originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Petition asks for colorblind options in Modern Warfare 2 By Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)

tell friend from foe in the online matches, as their names appear in these colors, and the radar uses Submitted at 12/15/2009 10:03:00 AM the colors too." Infinity Ward's With plenty of actual community manager has controversy surrounding Modern acknowledged that he will bring W a r f a r e 2 , t h e i s s u e s o f up the concern to the team. c o l o r b l i n d g a m e r s s e e m a Our very own red/green color r e l a t i v e l y i n n o c e n t ( a n d blind Ben Gilbert, who doesn't common) oversight. An ongoing have a particular issue with petition and Facebook group is MW2's spectrum decisions, requesting a patch for the game. noted, "I can think of about 20 According to the petition, those other games that need a solution w i t h a p a r t i c u l a r t y p e o f for this before MW2. How about red/green color blindness "cannot every puzzle game ever made

Any QA folks who can give better insight into whether color blindness is tested for (and how) should feel free to drop a note in the comments. [Via Escapist, Evil Avatar] Petition asks for colorblind options in Modern Warfare 2 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:03:00 EST. that depends on color matching -- Considering color blindness is Please see our terms for use of I'm looking at you especially, relatively common, especially feeds. Super Puzzle Fighter, you heart among males, it's surprising that Read| Permalink| Email this| breaker." it isn't tested for more regularly. Comments

Warm Up With the Roku and Netflix By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 12/14/2009 9:06:00 AM

It’s #&$*ing cold here in New York City, so this weekend I turned up the oven (no fireplace

in my tiny apartment) and turned on the Roku, a small black box that connects to the TV and plays any Netflix movie in my Instant Queue wirelessly. (Without the box, you can still watch a huge but in the glow of your laptop.) collection of movies instantly,

Other similar devices have come along— the Xbox 360, PS3, and Tivo HD can play Netflix movies instantly, and some LG HD TVs have the service built in— but the Roku’s price tag ($79) makes it a sweet accessory to my cold-

weather-fueled Netflix obsession. — Julie Vadnal, Assistant Editor Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

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Interplay not satisfied with defeated Fallout injunction By JC Fletcher (Joystiq)

You're not dreaming: Custom portable Dreamcast is the real deal By Randy Nelson (Joystiq)

Bacteria says the rest of the buttons and innards came from a PAL Dreamcast console, and that An intrepid Sega fan going by it "was primarily made to play the name Bacteria would like you Q u a k e 3 a n d a l s o U n r e a l to see what he's spent the last Tournament on the Dreamcast, four months building: a portable and it does it very well indeed." Sega Dreamcast -- complete with J u s t n o t f o r l o n g - - t h e a built-in VMU ( Visual Memory IntoDream's six amps of battery Unit, should you have forgotten). juice powers the device for just C a l l e d t h e I n t o D r e a m , t h e over two hours on a single handheld is actually comprised of c h a r g e . S t i l l , f o r s u c h a some non-Sega components, commendable custom carryspecifically a 5" LCD screen for along, you take what you can get, the PSone and ... a third-party right? N64 analog stick? The full specs Check out two videos -- one a are listed on his blog. making-of, the other of the Submitted at 12/15/2009 5:00:00 AM

IntoDream in action -- after the break. Oh, and in case you're wondering, it's not for sale. Continue reading You're not dreaming: Custom portable Dreamcast is the real deal You're not dreaming: Custom portable Dreamcast is the real deal originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage, Submitted at 12/15/2009 9:37:00 AM Rescission, Accounting and Last week, a US District Court Declaratory Relief seeking an judge denied Bethesda's request award of damages and other f o r a n i n j u n c t i o n a g a i n s t relief." Interplay, which would have Interplay reportedly claims that prevented Interplay from selling Bethesda shopped the Fallout its Fallout games -- and stopped legacy games around to other it from developing Project V13, publishers, telling them that the Fallout MMO. Interplay no longer had the The company released a short l i c e n s e , w h i c h c o n s t i t u t e s statement about the court case in "unreasonable interference" with the form of SEC Form 8-K, Interplay's property. which is intended to provide [Via Duck and Cover] information about major events Interplay not satisfied with to shareholders. Interplay is not defeated Fallout injunction happy to merely defend its rights originally appeared on Joystiq on to make and sell Fallout games: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:37:00 EST. the statement reads that Interplay Please see our terms for use of is going to continue pursuing "its feeds. C o u n t e r - C l a i m s a g a i n s t Read| Permalink| Email this| Bethesda, including its claims for Comments Breach of Contract, Tortious

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Missing Utah Mom's Father Doubts Husband Hurt Her (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:06:02 AM

SALT LAKE CITY The father of a 28-year-old woman who disappeared more than a week ago says he doesn't think his sonin-law would do anything to hurt his daughter, and understands why he felt the need to hire an attorney. Charles Cox tells CBS's "The Early Show" that the last time he spoke to his daughter, he asked her if things were OK between her and her husband and she said everything was fine. Priced at $2.99, Battleship â&#x20AC;˘ Click here for video. supports pass-around and local Cox also says Susan Powell WiFi / Bluetooth multiplayer. We would never leave her children. do not support playing the game He tells ABC's "Good Morning near water, as Apple's touch- America" that he's holding out based devices have a moisture hope his daughter will be found. sensor to rat you out when you Susan Powell was reported tell the Genius Bar you don't missing Dec. 7 when she didn't know why they stopped working. show up to work and her children Battleship ($2.99, EA Mobile): weren't dropped off at day care. Battleship now syncing on Josh Powell told police he took iPhone originally appeared on his two boys, ages 2 and 4, Joystiq on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 camping that day and returned in 02:00:00 EST. Please see our the evening. terms for use of feeds. fivefilters.org featured article: P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | Normalising the crime of the Comments century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Konami cuts iPhone game prices for Tomena Battleship now syncing on iPhone Sanner release By Justin McElroy (Joystiq)

during the holiday season." The list of bargain games (with Submitted at 12/15/2009 3:00:00 AM iTunes links) includes: Dance Much like the Joystiq staff when Dance Revolution S+, Dance the DJ plays our jam, prices on Dance Revolution S, Frogger, Konami iPhone games have once Metal Gear Solid Touch, Silent more gotten low, this time to Hill: The Escape, Krazy Kart mark the release of utterly bizarre Racing, Power Pros Touch, platformer Tomena Sanner. All Silent Scope, and Field Prowlers Konami's games are value priced Police Rush! at 99 cents until January 4, 2010, Which, if any, will you be when all the games will return to picking up? their usual prices. That included Konami cuts iPhone game prices Tomena Sanner, which will run for Tomena Sanner release you $1.99. Konami spokesman originally appeared on Joystiq on Robert Santini warned us that Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:00:00 EST. f u t u r e p r i c e d r o p s a r e n ' t Please see our terms for use of necessarily a sure thing: "This feeds. will not be something that will Permalink| Email this| happen every time a new mobile C o m m e n t s title is announced," he said. "Konami just wanted to do it

By Randy Nelson (Joystiq) Submitted at 12/15/2009 2:00:00 AM

Adding to its growing roster of Hasbro board games retooled for board-less play, EA has christened the iPhone / iPod touch version of Battleship on its maiden voyage to the iTunes App Store. The game distinguishes itself through an animated play field, cutscenes depicting the damage being done to the enemy fleet and the fact that people won't stare at you on the train like they used to when you broke out the physical board game and started playing with friends.

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Fashion Figure: Gilbert Adrian By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

SCEA consolidates first -party QA, 30 let go By Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)

road back to profitability-- expect some unfortunate bumps along the way. Submitted at 12/15/2009 9:00:00 AM Source-- SCEA Consolidating Sony Computer Entertainment First-Party Quality Assurance America has laid off 30 full-time [Gamasutra] members of the company's Source-- Dozens of Tester Jobs Quality Assurance department. A f f e c t e d i n S o n y Q A SCEA explained to Gamasutra C o n s o l i d a t i o n [ K o t a k u ] that its San Francisco-based first- SCEA consolidates first-party p a r t y Q A g r o u p h a d b e e n QA, 30 let go originally appeared consolidated and moved to San on Joystiq on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 Diego. The company would not 09:00:00 EST. Please see our comment on the 100 or so terms for use of feeds. contract positions reportedly Permalink| Email this| affected by the reorganization, as C o m m e n t s noted by Kotaku. Sony is currently on the long

only Oscar-winning role), during which she wears the most Submitted at 12/14/2009 3:00:34 PM stunning floor-length, fullIt’s taken long, steady urging coverage white gown with art from the film aficionados in my deco-inspired gold sequined life who feel a sense of shame embellishments on the neckline, every time I defend Pretty sleeves and nipped bodice. Its Woman and Walter Sobchek as silhouette sleek, its barely opaque the greatest movie and movie fabric understatedly sexy, and its character ever created, but I’ve tailoring perfectly executed, the finally come to a point where I gown gave the actress the old now willingly spend my days money slash modern independent off—particularly long, lazy, rainy duality her character was meant days off like yesterday—glued to to embody. It was costuming at the golden era of Hollywood its finest and most effective, and studio film on the Turner Classic thanks to IMDB.com, I now M o v i e ( T C M ) c h a n n e l . know the credit goes to famed Sometimes for discovering the Hollywood costume designer, who knew? good looks of such Adrian (also known as Gilbert actors as Albert Finney, Gordon Adrian and Adrian Greenburg). MacRae, Angela Lansbury, and A highly sought after couturier Jean Seberg, sometimes for on and off MGM movie sets to helping to fill in the blanks to the most glamorous women of cinematic allusions that for years the 1920s, '30s and '40s, Adrian whooshed over my head, but became a favorite collaborator of mostly, almost entirely, I sit and legends Greta Garbo, Ingrid watch these films for the fashion. Bergman, Jean Harlow, Lana And then there are times, like Turner, Cukor, and many others. this weekend, when I actually And though he never won an Academy Award (in large part learn something. Toward the end of the 1940 because the Academy didn’t George Cukor classic, The include nods for costume design Philadelphia Story, Katharine until 1948), he is the man Hepburn’s character Tracy shares responsible for giving Joan a lengthy, inebriated scene with Crawford what would ultimately Macauley (James Stewart, in his become her signature strong-

shouldered silhouette in The Women, Judy Garland her iconic blue and white gingham in Wizard of Oz, and Katharine Hepburn her big hat and polka dots in Woman of the Year. A graduate of Parson’s School of Design and a 1944 Coty Fashion Award recipient, Adrian served as costume designer on more than 250 films during his 20 year career, which ended short of his 57th birthday when he suffered his second heart attack. Though difficult to find and prohibitively expensive to acquire, Gowns by Adrian (as his tags read) are still available today at high-end vintage stores and online vintage boutiques. If you have 40” hips and you’re looking to treat yourself this holiday season, might I suggest this? And they say nothing worthwhile comes from watching TV and surfing the Internet all day. Pfft. Gowns by Adrian (L to R): Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story, Joan Crawford in Humoresque, the designer sitting at a fitting of Norma Shearer on-set at The Women, a seamstress working on an Adrian design for Greta Garbo on-set at The Painted Veil Photos: Getty Images

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Lily Cole on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Ohio Court: Warrant Needed to Search Cell Phone

By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

(FOXNews.com)

Submitted at 12/14/2009 8:51:10 AM

It’s impossible to take one’s eyes off catwalk darling Lily Cole in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Terry Gilliam’s trippy fantasy film, which hits theaters December 25. The PreRaphaelite beauty, who plays the teen daughter of the title character—the leader of a travelling theater troupe who wins immortality through a bargain with the devil—recently chatted with us about her first major role, her Cambridge studies, and upcoming acting projects. —Erin Clements What attracted you to Parnassus? I love fantasy films, but it was more that the script was incredibly fascinating. I met Terry Gilliam and he was such an unusual, brilliant person. I’d seen Brazil and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and was very excited to have the opportunity to work with him. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? To fly. What was it like working with veteran actors like Christopher Plummer? It was intimidating but very inspiring to be up against some

of the greatest actors of our age. It’s a wonderful place to be and also a scary place to be. What was the atmosphere like on set after Heath Ledger passed away and Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp, and Jude Law took over his role? It was very sad, but also lovely to see everyone again. There was a sense of unity and everyone really was so grief-stricken and really loved Heath and came back together in a beautiful and loving way to try and finish the film, so it was a strange mixture. Is acting a long-term goal? I’m going to see what’s offered to me. I’m definitely more interested in acting than modeling and if I’m lucky I’ll keep pursuing that path and keep finding these interesting projects. At the same time, I’m studying the history of art right now [at Cambridge] and the world’s got vast possibilities. I’m not hellbent on one particular path. What led you to study art? Wanting to know and appreciate the greatest influences in visual culture over the last 2,000 years. It’s an inspiring subject and it doesn’t seem at odds with filmmaking these days, which is a technologically developed way of expressing creativity. Do you have a favorite artist? I love artists who make

innovative changes—Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, if you look back hundreds of years. And then a lot of 20th-century artists—De Kooning, Eva Hesse, Newman, Picasso, Gerhard Richter. Has it been difficult juggling school with modeling? I never get sick of school—well, I hardly ever got sick of school, and I hardly ever get sick of modeling. But I’m sure I’d get sick of both if I’d just committed to one entirely. Who are your favorite fashion designers? Jean-Paul Gaultier, Noir, Alexander McQueen, Chanel, a lot of the French designers. How did modeling prepare you

for acting? I think it prepared me for being on a film set and having a hundred people in a room watching you and having cameras on you and not being self-conscious and being confident enough to take on such a proposition. It gave me a lot of tools that allowed me to not be too terrified by the prospect of acting. Do you have any other film projects lined up? I’m starting a film next year with Mary Harron. It’s based on a Rachel Klein book called The Moth Diaries. My character is accused of being a vampire throughout it, so it’s kind of ambiguously a vampire story, but it’s also about the narrator’s psychological obsession with another girl. What’s the best and worst advice you’ve gotten? The best is probably to stay true to yourself and pursue the impossible. The worst advice—did you hear about the Kate Moss scandal?—I know she was joking, but “Nothing tastes as good as being skinny.” Photo: Getty Images

Submitted at 12/15/2009 6:58:31 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio A divided Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that police must obtain a search warrant before searching the contents of a suspect's cell phone except under certain circumstances. The court's 5-4 decision Tuesday appears to be the first on the topic among state high courts. Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger, writing the majority opinion, also notes that the U.S. Supreme Court hasn't ruled on it. Lanzinger says conflicting federal court decisions provided the only guidance. The Ohio Supreme Court's decision overturns rulings by trial and appeals courts. It requires police to obtain a warrant to search a cell phone even if the phone is obtained during a lawful arrest. Lanzinger writes that doing otherwise violates the constitutional ban on unreasonable search and seizure. fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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I Don't Hate Tavi: Tempest in a Tutu Last-Minute Gifts from Boticca.com By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

there’s a fine line between embracing a sensation and Submitted at 12/14/2009 10:44:34 AM exploiting one, I think there is a Naturally, not all of what I said genuine concern for her wellto Amy O’Dell regarding Tavi’s being. writing abilities was quoted in As for her writing, I personally h e r p i e c e o n n y m a g . c o m . have no information as to Interview comments are never whether it is or isn’t her own or quoted at length. But in our whether she edits it herself. I’m conversation, I did comment on not the first person to discuss the impressive qualities of Tavi’s this, and there is nothing wrong, writing, especially the level of mean, or hateful in addressing the confidence and sophistication in question. And I’m sure Tavi her narrative voice and its adult would agree. I don’t recall ever tone, hence the comment “tween saying she had a “Tavi team,” but savant.” I also addressed what I have heard others say it. has been industry chatter since Regardless, it’s the gist of what the day Tavi appeared on the people are talking about, and scene: i.e., her great style, that’s what Amy and I were whether there’s anything amiss discussing. with being at the center of the That the way in which Tavi fashion industry at 13, and the speaks about fashion on a video question of whether or not her clip doesn’t embody the same level of sophistication that is in writing is her own. I think the discomfort some her writing, neither in tone nor people feel regarding the age c o n t e n t , c o u l d s u g g e s t a issue has more to do with the disconnect. Or maybe not. Many inherent contradictions of an writers are not overly verbose. i m a g e - b a s e d b u s i n e s s t h a t But I also discussed with Amy doesn’t always play nice and that it seemed to me the video from time to time eats its own was shot in so purposefully a laid than with Tavi’s obvious love of -back fashion that it brought to fashion. It’s natural to want to my mind a play on the Pink protect a 13-year-old from this Floyd song where everyone in while at the same time celebrate the video was “Comfortably her style and enthusiasm. But as Numb,” and it made me feel

“uncomfortably dumb.” A joke that got jumbled, but my point was essentially a random example of a potential inconsistency, not a hard-and-fast argument that she doesn’t write her own stuff, followed by a pun. But honestly, who cares? It’s all mere conjecture about conjecture. No one is picking on Tavi by discussing her provenance, writing skills, or style. They are just fascinated by her and asking obvious questions. Is it gimmicky to hire a 13-yearold au courant “sensation” to write about fashion when the mean age of your reader is over forty? Maybe. I’ve heard comments from “it’s fantastic” to “ridiculous.” Is that in any way an attack on Tavi the person? Not really. So if what’s good for the gander is good for the goose, then let everyone be on their merry way. If she’s this good of a writer at 13, I look forward to reading her in the future. If she isn’t, the truth will out. And if she is, part of me hopes she’ll aim high. I’m sure her style and thoughts would work wonders at CERN. In another ten years or so. —Anne Slowey Photo: Getty Images

By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 12/14/2009 7:40:49 AM

Many of us are still scrambling for prezzies for our loved ones, and Boticca.com is a place where you can find unique accessories by independent designers at varied price-points. You can pick up a pair of earrings for $25 or a set of cuff links for $2500, but rest assured, there is a large variety of products to fit anyone's budget. The site caters to those tuned into the international fashion scene: The designers are from all over the world and the site allows you to see the prices in dollars, pounds, or Euros, deleting all conversion issues. And because all the products on the website are by small designers, what you choose is sure to be as unique as the person you are gifting. Need some inspiration? Here are a few picks that won't break the bank. — Rebecca Suhrawardi Austin Antwerp Necklace on Blake Lively as Serena Van Der Woodsen Suzanna Dai $382.00 Silver Shine Bracelet by Arosha Luigi Taglia $50.00

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