Tuesday, July 9, 2013

'Ender's Game' Creator Orson Scott Card Responds To Ban Threats

Card said he hopes filmgoers will 'show tolerance' to his anti-gay-marriage views.
By Todd Gilchrist

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1710253/enders-game-orson-scott-card-movie-ban-response.jhtml

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Central African Republic in chaos, abandoned: MSF

BANGUI (Reuters) - Armed groups in Central African Republic have forced thousands to flee and pushed government and medical services close to collapse four months after rebels seized the capital, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) said on Tuesday.

Attacks and looting were common in Bangui, where a transitional government that includes some of the rebels has failed to keep order, MSF said in a report ahead of a visit by U.N. and European Union humanitarian chiefs on Thursday.

"The country is in the grip of a humanitarian emergency while the international community looks on with indifference," the aid group said.

Seleka rebels, led by Michel Djotodia who is now the interim president, marched into the riverside city on March 24, forcing former President Francois Bozize to flee.

The grouping of five rebel movements launched its insurgency in December, accusing Bozize of reneging on a 2007 peace deal.

The country bordering Chad, Sudan and four other countries in the heart of the continent has been plagued by unrest and poverty since its independence from France in 1960, despite its rich mineral deposits.

Since taking over, the interim government led by Djotodia has failed to control its fighters who have been accused of reprisal killings and other atrocities.

No one from the interim government was immediately available to comment on the MSF report on Tuesday.

MSF said there was a complete absence of state authority in the rest of the country, which was at the mercy of armed groups.

"U.N. agencies and many non-governmental organizations have withdrawn to the capital, leaving the majority of the country without aid ... The people have effectively been abandoned just when they most need help," it said.

State buildings, ministries, schools, hospitals and private homes have been looted. Most civil servants have fled.

"These attacks have deprived an already vulnerable population of 4.4 million people spread across a country bigger than France, access to even basic medical treatment," it said.

"Malnutrition and preventable diseases are rife, while malaria is the leading cause of death," it added.

MSF mission head, Ellen van der Velden, said there were a third more malaria cases than the same last year.

The country already has the second-lowest life expectancy in the world, at just 48 years.

(Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/central-african-republic-chaos-abandoned-msf-143614880.html

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Monday, July 8, 2013

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Source: http://picapixels.tumblr.com/post/54822607354

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Dollar gains, Japan shares rise on upbeat U.S. jobs data

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Source: hk.ibtimes.com --- Sunday, July 07, 2013
Japanese shares rose on Monday and the dollar hit a three-year high against a basket of major currencies after U.S. job creation accelerated in June, signaling growth in the world's largest economy is gathering momentum. ...

Source: http://hk.ibtimes.com/articles/20130708/dollar-gains-japan-shares-rise-on-upbeats-jobs-data.htm

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Andy Murray wins Wimbledon: Celebrity reactions on Twitter

He finally did it! Murry becomes the first Brit to win Wimbledon since oh AGES but what have the famous people tweeted about it?

It was a nail-baiting final but Andy Murray finally managed to defeat Novak Djokovich in straight sets.

But who cares about all that tennis stuff ( click here if you do ) what did the excited celebs have to say on Twitter?

Victoria Beckham, who was sat in the royal box, tweeted this lovely picture of the big moment:

Someone had a good view, eh?
?

And came over all patriotic:

"Congratulations to @andy_murray and his family. Wonderful day at #wimbledon!! So proud to be British! X vb"

David Baddiel simply tweeted the word: "WOW"

Holly Willoughy echoed the thoughts of the nation when she tweeted: "OMG...OMGFG!!!" x

Caitlin Moran asked the important question of the day:

Is Gerard Butler wearing a wig?

Wayne & Coleen Rooney & Gerard Butler
One of these men might be wearing a wig

Getty Images

?

Mel Sykes, who's celebrating her 43rd birthday today ( look at her career in pics here ) had this to say:

"Yeeeeeeeessssssaaaaaaaaa #andymurray wahoooooooooo xxxxxxxxx"

and "Tears are streaming!"

Trust Frankie Boyle to tweet this:

"Not a great game to be honest #wimbledon."

We think he's being sarcastic.

Joey Barton provided some LOLS:

"This pool of sportsman that are despised is shrinking with that victory by Murray. I'm starting to get lonely... #comebackandy"

As did David Walliams:

"So pleased for Andy Murray winning Wimbledon. I know how he must feel right now having once won a TV Quick Award."

Alesha Dixon got a bit emoticon-happy:

"So happy!!! :) So deserved!!!:) So emotional X"

Ellie Goulding was in a singing mood:

"The winner takes it aaaaaaall"

David Cameron was very formal and proper about the whole thing:

"It was a privilege to watch @Andy_Murray making history at #Wimbledon, and making Britain proud."

How many aides did it take to compose that?

Luckily Olly Murs was on CAPS LOCK to give his two cents:

"JUST WITNESSED HISTORY HERE.... @andy_murray @wimbledon CHAMPION!!!"

Clare Balding (who knows about sport) had this to say:

"Wow. Standing in tears with all the folks from @RDACarlisle. Well done Andy Murray! What a champ."

Tears were flowing over in LA in Patrick Kielty's house:

"Last time a Scot in shorts made me cry was when I found out Jimmy Krankie was a woman. Go Andy!? #wimbledonfinal"

Meanwhile his wife Cat Deeley had a bit of a crush:

"What a splendid chap ..."

As did Paul Hollywood:

"Wimbledon Champion Andy Murray wow!! Well done Andy"

We think betting for sports personality of the year is now off.

Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/andy-murray-wins-wimbledon-celebrity-2036403

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Sunday, July 7, 2013

PSNI confirm securing Boston College tapes on Jean McConville?s murder

THE PSNI have confirmed that transcripts of interviews relating to the murder of IRA victim Jean McConville, carried out as part of a project at Boston College, are being handed over.

The PSNI had been attempting to obtain the transcripts of tapes recorded with IRA member Dolours Price, who died in January.

The transcripts are understood to contain information about the death and disappearance of the Belfast mother-of-10.

In a statement the PSNI said: ?Two detectives from Serious Crime Branch have travelled to Boston to take possession of materials authorised by the United States appeal court as part of their investigation into the murder of Jean McConville.

The west Belfast mother was among dozens of people - later known as the Disappeared - who were abducted, murdered and secretly buried by republican militants during the Troubles.

The officers will return to Northern Ireland to assess the material and continue with their inquiries.?

The transcripts were made as part of Boston College?s ?Belfast Project?, which was designed to be an oral history of Northern Ireland?s Troubles.

Project director, Ed Moloney, and his researcher, Anthony McIntyre, had resisted attempts by the PSNI to obtain the transcripts, and had hoped that the US Supreme Court would overturn a Boston Federal Court decision to hand the tapes over.

Ms Price was an unrepentant republican hard-liner who became a bitter critic of Sinn Fein when the party endorsed the Good Friday Agreement and encouraged the IRA to give up its weapons.

She clashed with party leader Gerry Adams in recent years over her allegations that he had been her IRA Officer Commanding during the early 1970s.

The 62-year-old consistently claimed that Mr Adams, now a Louth TD, had ordered the kidnap and killing of Mrs McConville in 1972.

Mr Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA.

She said she had made the claims in an interview with the American university academics who have compiled an oral history on Northern Ireland?s 40-year conflict.

The recordings were started in 2001 and were made on the condition that confidentiality would be guaranteed until after the death of the republican and loyalist paramilitaries who took part.

Price, the former wife of actor Stephen Rea, was convicted and jailed along with her sister Marian for the 1973 attack on London?s Old Bailey courts in which one man died and more than 200 people were injured.

She spent eight years in jail including several weeks on hunger strike before being released in 1980.

Source: http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/33836/f/610127/p/1/s/69f40a8e/l/0L0Snewsletter0O0Cpsni0Econfirm0Esecuring0Eboston0Ecollege0Etapes0Eon0Ejean0Emcconville0Es0Emurder0E10E5259519/story01.htm

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These Incredible Facial Scans Capture Detail Down to the Skin Cell

Rendering CGI faces that look close to real is hard, but we're starting to see hardware that can pull it off. Then, the problem becomes the source material; you've got to have models that look good enough to pass for real. For that, a new kind of facial scanning is going to come in handy, one that can get detail all the way down to each skin cell.

A team of researchers led by led by Abhijeet Ghosh of Imperial College London and Paul Debevec of the University of Southern California have developed a process of scanning human faces at such a high level of detail that the reproductions are effectively perfect. No pore goes unnoticed.

The process works thanks to extremely detailed application of light during the capture process. As New Scientist explains:

Using a specially developed lighting system and camera, they photographed samples of skin from people's chins, cheeks and foreheads at a resolution of about 10 micrometres, so that each skin cell was spread across roughly three pixels. They then used the images to create a 3D model of skin and applied their light reflection technique to it. The result was CGI skin complete with minute structures like pores and microscopic wrinkles. Finally, they fed the CGI images to an algorithm that extended them to fill in an entire CGI face.

Earlier versions of this same tech have been put to commercial use before. In fact, digital effects company Weta Digital used some of these same techniques in the production of Avatar. But many of the finer details that helped get the Na'vi across uncanny valley?like moles and wrinkles?are were added by hand. The latest and greatest version of this capture tech can pull that stuff off automatically, making it waaaay more practical and less labor intensive.

The crew at USC is already working with games publisher Activision to try to find a way to bring these sort of high quality faces to games as soon as possible, though it'll probably be a while before consumer tech can handle it. We're close to finally getting across the uncanny valley though. The porn can't be very far behind. [New Scientist]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/these-incredible-facial-scans-capture-detail-down-to-th-688704163

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Metamorphosis University in Chicago Hosts Meditation Events & Retreat with ? ? Broadway World

Metamorphosis University in Chicago Hosts Meditation Events & Retreat with ?
Broadway World
The Chicago events will be taking place at the IMU Inner Metamorphosis University on Howard Street in Chicago and Yoga Now on LaSalle Street in Chicago. The meditation retreat will be located at Echo valley Farm in Ontario, Wisconsin. Live Joyously OR??

View full post on Meditation ? Google News

Source: http://spiritualminute.org/metamorphosis-university-in-chicago-hosts-meditation-events-retreat-with-broadway-world.htm

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Saturday, July 6, 2013

New arrivals today - Bags, Caps & Iphone 4 cases

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Source: http://www.archonia.com/index.php?page=news&id=8655

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2 stem cell patients stop HIV drugs, no virus seen

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Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-07-03-AS-Asia-AIDS/id-ba21e8671c774436a958885d884768af

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Mexican Land Donation to Church Draws Fire

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Source: www.nytimes.com --- Friday, July 05, 2013
A government donation of land for a Roman Catholic chapel in the Mexican resort city of Cancun is drawing fire in a country sensitive to religious favoritism. ? ? ? ? ...

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/07/05/world/americas/ap-lt-mexico-church-and-state.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Friday, July 5, 2013

Wall St. gains as jobs data signals stronger economy

By Angela Moon

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose sharply on Friday after robust jobs data pointed to economic growth and investors overcame concerns that the Federal Reserve may begin scaling back its stimulus efforts as soon as September.

After choppy trading through much of the session, which was marked by light volume, stocks extended gains in late afternoon, pushing the benchmark S&P 500 index <.spx> to close above the its 50-day moving average for the first time since June 19.

The government's report on non-farm payrolls showed employers added 195,000 jobs in June, exceeding expectations of 165,000. Job growth in previous months also was revised higher.

For the holiday-shortened week, the Dow rose 1.5 percent, the S&P 500 was up 1.6 percent and the Nasdaq composite advanced 2.2 percent.

At first some investors saw the jobs data as increasing chances the Fed would cut its stimulus efforts sooner than expected. But the market recovered smartly as investors took the view that the data was a positive sign for the economy, with sectors tied to the pace of growth leading the way upward.

Whether the jobs report "will stop the FOMC from the onset of its tapering process remains to be seen. However, we are trying, at the suggestion of the Federal Reserve, to ignore the latest single data point" and take a longer view about the economy, said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 147.29 points, or 0.98 percent, at 15,135.84. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 16.48 points, or 1.02 percent, at 1,631.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 35.71 points, or 1.04 percent, at 3,479.38.

Small-cap shares and banks rallied, giving credence to the idea that investors were viewing the strong payroll figures positively.

The S&P Small Cap 600 index <.spcy> rose 1.5 percent to hit a new all-time high of 568.15 while the S&P 500 financial sector index <.spsy> gained 1.8 percent.

"The jobs report this morning is a sign that the economy is growing and the private sector is hiring, and that bodes well for growth-oriented industries," said Janna Sampson, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois.

Bank of America Corp rose 1.8 percent to $13.06 while Citigroup Inc gained 1.8 percent to $48.53. Large banks benefit when interest rates rise because higher rates increase their net interest margin.

Interest rates rose sharply on Friday in anticipation that the Fed will start cutting its monthly $85 billion in bond buying, which was a major factor in the stock market's rally this year, as early as September.

Volume was light, with many traders still away after the Independence Day holiday on Thursday. About 4.9 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, compared to a daily average of about 6.4 billion shares this year.

Annaly Capital Management , a real estate investment trust that invests in mortgage-backed securities, slid 5.1 percent to $11.51 as the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note jumped above 2.7 percent. Annaly Capital was the fourth most-traded stock on the New York Stock Exchange.

Gold tumbled 3 percent, extending earlier losses as the dollar gained strength. Newmont Mining was the S&P 500's worst performer, falling 4.3 percent to $27.78.

On the NYSE, advancers beat decliners 1,708 to 1,309 while on the Nasdaq, advancers outperformed decliners 1,815 to 662.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stock-futures-jump-ahead-payroll-report-112700470.html

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Council okays golf discount at Delaware Springs for city employees...

July 02, 2013, 6:00 pm by James Walker

? The Burnet City Council has approved a policy that allows city employees a 20 percent discount to use the city-owned Delaware Springs Golf Course.

The council voted 6-1 at its June 25 meeting to approve the policy with council member Derek Fortin voting against it.

Full and part-time employees and approved volunteers working at the course will be elegible to receive the benefits.

Employees who retire from the City of Burnet with a minimum of the last 10 years of service with the city also will be entitled to receive the benefit.

For the complete story, see Wednesday's Burnet Bulletin.

Source: http://www.burnetbulletin.com/news_article.php?article_id=5011

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Variation between hot extrasolar planet atmospheres revealed

[unable to retrieve full-text content]First results from the analysis of eight 'hot Jupiter' exoplanets suggest that winds and clouds play an important role in the atmospheric make up of these exotic planets.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/X_AnfzJJn-4/130705102034.htm

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Jay-Z&#39;s $5 Million Samsung Deal - Business Insider

jay-z samsung ad

YouTube

Jay-Z

Record companies have spent more than a decade keening that free music was the subsidence in their basement and the dry rot in their rafters ? so they are unlikely to be grandstanding about the fact that one of the biggest acts in the world is giving away his new album for nothing.

Well, not entirely for nothing ? it comes with a catch. As part of a broader deal between Samsung and Roc Nation ? estimated at $20m ? a total of 1m copies of Jay-Z's new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, were given away on Thursday at one minute past midnight (US eastern time), a full 72 hours before it officially goes on sale. The Korean mobile company has paid $5m so that the first million owners of Galaxy S III, Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note II devices to claim the album though a free app from the Google Play store get a three-day headstart on the rest of Jay-Z's fans.

In the self-referential bubble of the music business, much has been made of the fact that, because it is free to consumers, those 1m "sales" will not count towards the charts in the US, the UK and elsewhere because of chart rules.

But at $5 a copy, Jay-Z is almost certainly getting a far higher royalty rate than he would if those sales came from download stores or the dwindling number of record shops on the high street. The album is already a banker in an age when there are, in sales terms, few superstar certainties.

The scale of the deal did, however, force the RIAA (the US equivalent of the BPI) to make significant tweaks to its gold and platinum awards programme, meaning Jay-Z will get a nice shiny sales disc to put in his downstairs toilet straight away rather than having to wait 30 days (as per the old sales certification rules). This will now cover any digital album sales that previously had to wait a month to be qualified in order to allow for "returns" (unsold, but shipped, stock) ? a throwback to the days when music was only available on physical formats. Yet within this all is a burning contradiction. The 1m album downloads are disqualified from the chart for being "free" to the consumer, but they count towards spraypainted discs in presentation frames because someone (in this case, Samsung) paid for them. Given the pre-hype and marketing spend, the album will almost certainly go to No 1 anyway on "normal" sales, so Jay-Z should win whichever way you slice it.

Beyond the cold, hard sales and revenue issues, this has revived, yet again, the debate about what it all means for investment in music and what the future of the album could be in an age of digital dislocation.

This is not quite a new form of blanket musical patronage ? that is happening instead on Kickstarter and PledgeMusic where the public has the final say and where winning projects rise like rockets (Amanda Palmer, Ginger Wildheart) and stinkers sink (Bj?rk's Android app for Biophilia, a thousand terrible bands). This is about one megabrand (Jay-Z) linking with another megabrand to create that most 1980s of business terms ? a "synergy".

The benefit for Jay-Z, apart from a guaranteed $5m, is turbocharged promotion and profile raising. But the benefits for Samsung are potentially greater. For a company that spends an estimated $4bn a year on marketing, the $20m it handed over to Jay-Z and Roc Nation is chump change. To put that in content, global record sales last year generated $16.5bn ? so Samsung throws a quarter of the gross value of the entire record business just at marketing every year.

Away from the boardroom cheers, it is not all wondrous news. For the fans, this is the diametric opposite of the Philips Red Book standard that, in the 1980s, dictated all CDs had to play on all CD players. Non-Samsung-owning fans are effectively being penalized for not having the right device and given the hard sell to upgrade, because this deal is really about atoning for the fact that Samsung's own Music Hub music service has failed to capture the public's imagination. This all says, arguably, more about Samsung trying to steal a march on the iPhone and iPad in the smartphone and tablet markets and using music to do that ? just as Apple did with the iPod in 2001 and the iTunes store in 2003.

Handing out brand new albums for free is nothing new. Prince did it with the Planet Earth album on the front of the Mail on Sunday in 2007, and Radiohead did it with the tip jar release of In Rainbows later than same year (fans could choose to pay nothing to download it). The idea of an album-as-an-app is not new either (see Bj?rk's release of Biophilia for the iPad in 2011 and Gwilym Gold's Tender Metal app in September last year). And brand partnerships long stopped being a novelty. The only thing that is really new here is the scale of the deal. It is all light years beyond Groove Armada being paid to be the "face" of Bacardi for a year.

It is proof of the continued lurch in the power balance that sees the music industry continue to dance to the tech industry's tune, like chickens on fairground hotplates. It is also a premonition of the near future of the music business where 99% of the cash on the table will be mopped up by the top 1% of acts ? the very ones who need the money the least.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/jay-zs-5-million-samsung-deal-2013-7

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Monday, July 1, 2013

Social Media Amplifying TV Advertising - Business Insider

bii_socialtv_simultaneous

BI Intelligence

Research has shown that TV-watching and social media usage isn't mutually exclusive. Consumers appear to love using social media?while?they watch TV. Many discuss what they're watching, and these conversations continue long after air-time, with TV-linked chatter?accounting for a significant percentage of overall social media activity.

TV industry players and TV-focused marketers realized they could piggyback on this new consumer habit. The idea was not to compete with social media, but to use it so that televised shows, events, and ad campaigns won?more?audience and audience participation.

Social TV is how these ideas are being made tangible.

In a new report?from?BI?Intelligence,?we define what social TV is, analyze?the most important social TV trends, examine the audience for social TV, detail how social TV is forcing broadcasters and advertisers to rethink their strategies, and look at how data vendors are slicing and dicing all that TV-linked social chatter.?

Access The Full Report And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here's an overview of the rise of social TV:

  • There's a lot at stake:?$350 billion was spent on TV ads globally in 2012. If social TV can help make that advertising more effective, or help social media skim some of those dollars, the opportunity is there for social TV to become a major business in its own right.
  • Social TV is already here: It's already an established habit with audiences around the world, with majorities of social media users saying they routinely comment about TV shows or events.?activity has grown hand-in-hand with the mobile explosion. Smartphones and tablets have made it much more convenient for people to comment on TV, even as they watch it.?Forty percent or more of U.S. mobile audiences browsed social media on their tablets or smartphones while watching TV. For smartphone users, social media is a more popular companion activity during TV-watching than shopping.
  • It can be used in many valuable ways:?There are variety of applications for social TV, including support for TV ad sales, optimizing TV ad buys, making ad buys more efficient, as a complement to audience measurement, and eventually, audience forecasting and real-time optimization. Social TV data can be like having a thousands-strong focus group at your fingertips.?Applied well, social TV can create a positive feedback loop for generating ultra-sticky TV programming and multi-screen ad campaigns.?
  • All the major social media platforms are moving into the space, but Twitter is in the lead:?Twitter, Facebook and Google+ have all been used for social TV-flavored strategies. Of the three, Twitter has taken the lead, in part because so much of its data is open and public, making it easier for marketers to target TV fans.?Twitter's?newest ad product, TV ad targeting, is a clever integration of tweets, hashtags, TV advertising, and digital video.?Twitter?is pitching it to advertisers?as a way to continue telling the brand stories they tell on TV commercials, but to do so in TV audience's twitter feeds ? online and on mobile.

In full,?the?report:?

To access BI Intelligence's full reports on The Rise Of Social TV, sign up for a free trial subscription here.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-amplifying-tv-advertising-2013-66

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PFT: Hernandez's red flags?didn't point to murder

HernandezAP

As the nonstop developments in the Aaron Hernandez murder case(s) begin to subside, it?s time to broaden the lens and address a topic that has popped up from time to time over the past two weeks.

Should the Patriots have avoided drafting Hernandez in 2010 and/or giving him a long-term, big-money contract in 2012?

Many are suggesting that the Pats screwed the proverbial pooch on this one, that they negligently brought a potential murderer to Massachusetts and, two years later, made him a multi-multi-millionaire.? But there are multi-problems with that logic.

For starters, there really was no indication that Hernandez was anything other than a kid who:? (1) liked to smoke marijuana; and (2) periodically made mischief.? As the folks at CFT pointed out on Saturday, Hernandez was indeed questioned in connection with a shooting nearly six years ago in Gainesville.? But it was perfunctory and brief.? Other Gators were questioned at the time, including safety Reggie Nelson and the Pouncey twins.

The only true red flag that attached to Hernandez from his college days came from an affinity for inhaling the fumes of a plant that, if anything, make the user less likely to commit violence or do anything other than sit around and eat Fritos.? And if there?s a link between smoking pot and murder, there would be a lot more murders.

Whatever was wrong with Hernandez, he supposedly had been rehabilitated by former Florida coach Urban Meyer, who according to the New York Times personally conducted ?daily Bible sessions? with Hernandez in order to turn him around.? Meyer presumably vouched for Hernandez to Patriots coach Bill Belichick.? Given the strong friendship between Belichick and Meyer that likely went a long way to persuading Belichick that Hernandez?s talents justified the risk.

Of course, some are now painting the picture that Hernandez entered the NFL with a pair of six-guns strapped to his side and ink on his arms that not-so-cryptically spelled out plans for his future crime sprees.? But where we these ?sources? with knowledge of supposed gang ties and other actual or perceived misdeeds or antisocial tendencies when Hernandez emerged as a fourth-round star in his second NFL season?

That would have been the obvious time for scouts, General Managers, and coaches to cover their collective asses by leaking the notion that, even though Hernandez was playing at a very high level, they avoided Hernandez in rounds one through three because he had more problems than marijuana.? But there was nothing ? not until after Hernandez was tied to a murder case and scouts and sources and some in the media all began to join in a hands-across-Whoville chorus of I told you so.

Even if Hernandez?s antics had generated real warning signs beyond marijuana, it?s impossible to connect dots from off-field misbehavior to premeditated murder.? It?s far more reasonable (or, as the case may be, far less reckless) to connect a substance-abuse problem (drugs or alcohol) to the potential for accidental death or dismemberment while driving a car.

Murderers come from all walks of life, with no way to prospectively screen for them ? unless they?ve actually killed in the past.? For every Aaron Hernandez there?s a Jovan Belcher, who generated no objective evidence to suggest that he would get into serious trouble before he repeatedly shot the mother of his young child and then killed himself in the presence of his coach and G.M.? Ditto for Rae Carruth, who orchestrated the murder of the mother of his unborn son because Carruth apparently didn?t want to pay child support.? The Chiefs and the Panthers saw neither problem coming, because there?s rarely any reason to suspect someone of having the capacity to deliberately kill someone else, regardless of the person?s history.

For the best proof of this, look no farther than O.J. Simpson.? Revered as a player, beloved as a broadcaster, and celebrated as an actor, he would have been the last man anyone would have regarded as the potential murderer of his ex-wife and a stranger who was in the worst possible place at the worst possible time.? (Simpson was acquitted in criminal court, but found legally responsible in civil court for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.)

On one hand, this is an extreme example of how the Modified Patriot Way of buying low ? via trades, free agency, and the draft ? can go very wrong.? On the other hand, the only way to avoid blame for harboring a potential murderer is to shun any player who has generated at any time any reason to believe that he could do anything wrong as an NFL player.

Even then, there?s still a chance that a player with no red flags will be the next Jovan Belcher, Rae Carruth, or O.J. Simpson.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/30/hernandezs-red-flags-never-pointed-to-murder/related/

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The Ephemeralnet

vanishIn the aftermath of the dot-com crash, a new era for the web began to take hold - a turning point whose seismic shift was hyped under the moniker "Web 2.0." The concept referred to the web becoming a platform, a home for services whose popularity grew through network effects, user-generated content and collaboration. Blogging, social media sites, wikis, mashups, and more reflected a changing consciousness among the Internet's denizens - one which Tim O'Reilly, whose Web 2.0 conferences helped solidify the term as a part of our everyday lexicon, once described as a "collective intelligence, turning the web into a kind of global brain."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/bh_z03zLF8E/

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Galaxy S4 lte GE with android 4.3

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tennandcoz1
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Not sure what this has to do with the Nexus 4...Can you explain please

Getting Ready for my mini bath with my N4

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vanmarek
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Why are you posting this on the Nexus 4 forums?

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gie62001
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crachel
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This is the Nexus 4 forum, not the Galaxy S4..

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Good Reads: From algorithms, to Roman walls, to the new liberals and conservatives

This week's round-up of Good Reads include doubts about algorithms' 'all-power,' the recipe for Roman concrete, the need for a Turkish Mandela, young liberals who may be more conservative than they realize, and the usefulness of military 'land power.'

By Marshall Ingwerson,?Managing editor / June 28, 2013

Johnny Depp is one of only three actors who reliably bring a positive box office return.

Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/File

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Algorithms all-powerful?

In spite of appearances ? from the US National Security Agency searching American phone records for patterns to Google counting keywords in e-mails to decide which ads to display ? the algorithm may not conquer all.

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This is the conclusion that science reporter Tom Whipple comes around to in his article ?Slaves to the Algorithm? in the magazine Intelligent Life, a sister publication of The Economist. An algorithm is how so-called big data is crunched into something meaningful. ?If p, then q? is an algorithm, but in the age of fast computers, the ?p? can include billions of data points.

Mr. Whipple explores the work of a company, Epagogix, that forecasts the earning power of proposed movies for Hollywood studios, based on thousands of factors punched into its software. It seems to work. And has uncovered some fun facts. One is that so-called bankable movie stars are almost nonexistent. Only three actors, Epagogix has found, actually bring a positive return on investment ? Will Smith, Brad Pitt, and Johnny Depp.

But human judgment has hardly left the picture. The head of Epagogix notes that his program assumes that everything about the movie is done well ? that the dialogue is credible and the actors good (stars or not). And even so, his algorithms can?t discern if the movie is good, only if, done well, a lot of people are likely to pay to see it.

Whipple discusses another facet of algorithms. They are good at finding patterns, sometimes surprising ones, in big numbers. They are not so good at predicting the behavior of individuals. Dating sites, for example, have yet to show any scientific evidence that they can predict who will hit it off with whom.

Lost recipe for Roman concrete, cracked

Some technology just isn?t what it used to be. The Portland cement that we use to make concrete these days doesn?t have a fraction of the lasting power of the aggregate the Romans used a couple millenniums ago. According to a report by Bernhard Warner in Bloomberg Businessweek, research engineers studying 12 ancient Roman-built harbors found that the breakwaters made of Roman concrete have stood the pounding waves for 2,000 years and are still intact. Modern concrete has a working life under water of a mere 50 years. The older, stronger stuff had an added advantage: Its manufacture was relatively clean. Creating Portland cement releases a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.?

Needed: a Turkish Mandela

One of the central dangers in Turkey today is of a slide into two sharply polarized camps ? the government and its conservative, religious, largely rural backers on one side and the more affluent, secular, and modernizing protesters on the other. They have come to be called ?black Turks? and ?white Turks.?

Daron Acemoglu, a Turkish-born economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been writing about the current troubles in his country of origin on his Why Nations Fail blog. He notes that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently grouped Turks into ?black? and ?white,? putting himself among the ?black Turks.?

How do societies break out of cycles of polarization? Mr. Acemoglu consults history and finds several routes, but the most attractive is when a leader musters the vision and courage to make peace across the fault lines and show goodwill to the other side.

?So bottom line: we badly need a Turkish Mandela,? he says.

What they really mean by ?conservative??

Meanwhile, Americans may not be quite as polarized as they think they are. A series of three new studies find that young adults who call themselves liberal Democrats are overall not quite as liberal on the issues as they think they are. But young people from the rest of the political spectrum tend to bill themselves as more conservative than they are on the issues. The biggest disparity is among those who regard themselves as most conservative. Not so much, it turns out. When asked their stands on a dozen major issues from welfare to gay rights, they didn?t toe as conservative a line as they thought they did, according to the studies, which were reported first in an academic journal, and brought to us by Tom Jacobs in Pacific Standard magazine. Clearly, conservatism is the more popular brand, even when it?s not an obvious fit.

The benefits of military ?land power??

With US forces finally checking out of Afghanistan and American attention pivoting to East Asia, it?s time for some soul-searching: What?s the Army for?

Maj. Robert M. Chamberlain, writing in the Armed Forces Journal, sees future peace and prosperity in currently unfashionable land power. Terrorists who hole up in the world?s backwaters can best be pursued by special forces teams and armed drones. The Navy can protect the world?s sea lanes and global commerce. Air power can strike awesomely anywhere. But land power ? the job of the Army and Marines ? is inherently less threatening, he argues. ?Land power is the only avenue by which America can enhance regional security and stability, deter Chinese militarism and encourage Chinese commitment to the global status quo.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/c6nz-yHibak/Good-Reads-From-algorithms-to-Roman-walls-to-the-new-liberals-and-conservatives

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