WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Washington Nationals have acquired outfielder Denard Span from the Minnesota Twins for minor league pitcher Alex Meyer, giving the reigning NL East champions a leadoff hitter and center fielder.
Span is a career .284 hitter with 23 home runs, 230 RBIs, 90 steals and a .357 on-base percentage during five seasons with the Twins.
The acquisition of Span allows the Nationals potentially to move 20-year-old Bryce Harper to left field, with Jayson Werth staying in right. Michael Morse could then move to first base ? the position played by free agent slugger Adam LaRoche.
Meyer went 10-6 with a 2.86 ERA at Class A this year.
Wood Partners, East West Partners and USAA Real Estate have teamed to break ground on Alta City House, a five-story, 281-unit luxury apartment complex in Denver, Colo., that?s part of an ambitious urban redevelopment project.
?It?s an entire city block that we?ve purchased and access is pretty special,? Tim McEntee, Wood Partners? director, told Commercial Property Executive. ?There?s a bridge that crosses over from Riverfront Park into Union Station and drops into our site. Then, 100 feet from there is the light rail platform that has just been relocated there.?
Located at 1801 Chestnut St., Alta City House will be situated west of Denver?s iconic train station at 17th and Wynkoop streets in the heart of the bustling Union Station neighborhood.
?Alta City House is going up in one of the most exciting urban living-working-entertainment centers in the country,? McEntee said.??With over six modes of transportation?from light rail to bike paths?and access to three pro sports venues, 1,200 restaurants and bars, and one of the largest arts complexes in the nation, Alta City House could hardly be better positioned.?
Alta City House will be part of a 12-block redevelopment initiative, anchored by Union Station, an ultramodern transit hub, surrounded by public plazas and gardens, restaurants, and residential and retail space.
?It?s going to be a world-class urban development and it?s already half way there,? McEntee added. ?Right now you have four million-square-feet of new commercial right next to Union Station and more corporate users moving in. It was a long time coming and right now it?s one of the most dynamic spots in Denver.?
The five-story apartment building will offer 183 one-bedroom units, ranging from 645 to 825 square feet; 90 two-bedroom units, from 991 to 1,227 square feet; and eight three-bedroom, 1,300-square-foot units.
Amenities planned include a rooftop deck with a year-round outdoor kitchen, fireplace, and swimming pool, a dog wash, a two-story fitness center, two-story club room, cyber caf? and outdoor courtyards and a plaza opening to the 18th Street pedestrian bridge.
?The amenity package is probably one of the most impressive that we?ve developed in Denver so far,? McEntee concluded. ?It will have a roof deck, it overlooks Coors Field, it will have a fully-equipped bike shop and a climate-controlled wine cellar with lockers for residents to utilize.?
Are You Looking for a Property Management Job or Waiting for a Property Management Job?
While being in ?the right place at the right time? to find a job may have some truth to it, there are also some practical actions you can take to make sure you set yourself in the right place at the right time when looking for a job. Instead of waiting for a job offer when seeking a property management position, you can actively increase your chances of getting the apartment job by improving yourself as a qualified candidate and making sure employers take notice.
No matter what stage you are at within the job process?searching for a position, in the middle of applications, or even working as a property management professional?there are a myriad of means by which you can continually educate yourself to become distinguished within the apartment industry. One of these is to become certified if you haven?t already. The IREM (Institute of Real Estate Management) and NAA (National Apartment Association) both offer three types of certification for property management professionals, and will increase your credibility when applying for a position. As an apartment job deals with a variety of fields and situations, trainings and classes in relevant work (finance, maintenance, law) enhance your skill set and set you apart within the apartment industry. Beyond these classes there are also more informal opportunities: for example a free maintenance class at Home Depot, or shadowing a property manager for a day to get a feel for the typical day of an apartment manager.
In addition to improving yourself professionally for the position of a property management professional, maximize your networking capacities to find out about opportunities and get your foot in the door. Once you have identified the management companies or properties where you would like to work, find out all you can about them and then see who you might connect with there. Apartment industry professionals can be found on Facebook, Linkedin, and other networking sites.? Search for links to potential employers, or others in the field who could give you advice.? You can even look at the previous jobs of your Linkedin contacts and see if they ever had an apartment job.? Even if you have already applied for property management positions, rather than waiting for a phone call you can continue to actively network in order to increase your chances of getting the job. Investigating all existing connections, and being persistent in forming new ones is a continual process that will give you an advantage as a property management professional.
Rather than passively waiting for a phone call or a job offer, actively improving as a candidate and networking will propel your job search forward. More than luck or being at the ?right place at the right time,? these practical steps will demonstrate to potential employers that you are or will be a successful property management professional.
Home ? Agriculture ? Aquarium Fish are Pretty, Easy to Maintain
Did you know that Florida is the largest producer of aquatic plants and aquarium fish in the United States? One out of every eight households keeps fish as pets, and that equates to more than $33 million in yearly sales in?Florida?fish alone! Add in aqautic plant sales at $17.5 million and you can see that this sector of aquaculture is strong.
Bright and colorful aquarium fish
Aquarium fish are pretty and it is no wonder that there are so many hobbyists in the country. As with any pet, there are basic guidelines which will help in providing quality care to your fish. These steps aren?t difficult or cumbersome, and they?vary from keeping a single air-breathing fish in a bowl to maintaining a large aquarium with a number of different fish. On our website you can find answers to frequently asked questions as well as tips for maintaining your fish and aquatic plants.
Not sure where to find aquarium fish? Click on the FisHedz link to search for retailers in your area, and to learn more about beautiful Florida aquarium fish.
There has been many email marketing trends online lately when it comes to managing email campaigns. While many companies use different styles to writing emails and marketing you will find some consistent trends across the board. As a business it is recommended you try some of the following strategies when it comes to email marketing.
Template Emails ? We are going through the world of customization where personalized template emails can do more for engagement and prompts a call to action.
Personalized Messages ? Email still has that personalized feeling where your audience will appreciate an email catered to them, their needs or their personal beliefs. Make your clients feel like they are in the spot light.
List Throttling ? Email Marketing to your lists throughout a period of time rather than at one given time. This will help with metrics and engagement.
Content Strategy ? Email Marketing copy writing needs to have more content integrated in it with context. It is important to engage your lists and capture their attention.
Target Call to Action ? A specific call to action will help define intelligence on an email campaign. Avoid scattering your call to actions or not having one completely.
Keeping somewhat of a low profile up until recently, singer Ashlee Simpson has returned to occupy the headlines once again with both the release of her new single ?Bat for a Heart? and her split from Boardwalk Empire?s Vincent Piazza. Simpson and Piazza have been dating since June 2011 but have now broken up over the Thanksgiving holiday, claiming that their busy schedules got in the way.? ?Vincent has been working a lot, so he hasn?t been able to spend that much time with Ashlee, which has caused some problems,? an undisclosed source informed Page Six of the New York Post.? Adding, ?It was a mutual agreement to split, but things have been bumpy for a little while, so perhaps they might reconcile.? There may be some truth to their decision to split.? At the moment the younger Simpson is gearing up to release her fourth studio album.? Could spending time in the studio and raising her son Bronx who she shares with Pete Wentz be to blame?? Or does it have something to do with the mystery man the singer was spotted with in New York.? Now it appears there is more to the story since Simpson was snapped [...]
Rasul Mirzayev attends his trial where he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, at a court in Moscow, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Mirzayev was sentenced to two years of house arrest over the death of a man he had punched outside a club. (AP Photo)
Rasul Mirzayev attends his trial where he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, at a court in Moscow, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Mirzayev was sentenced to two years of house arrest over the death of a man he had punched outside a club. (AP Photo)
Police officers stand guard outside a court where Russian martial arts champion Rasul Mirzaev was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Mirzayev was sentenced to two years of house arrest over the death of a man he had punched outside a club. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)
Police officers detain Dmitry Demushkin, the leader of the banned ultra-nationalist group Slavic Union, outside a court where Russian martial arts champion Rasul Mirzaev was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Mirzayev was sentenced to two years of house arrest over the death of a man he had punched outside a club. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)
MOSCOW (AP) ? A world martial arts champion from Russia's southern Caucasus region was convicted Tuesday of involuntary manslaughter, but set free after a trial that inflamed ethnic tensions.
The verdict led to protests by nationalists outside the court and prompted Russian riot police to flood the wide square outside the Kremlin to prevent possible violent clashes between nationalists and ethnic minorities from the Caucasus.
Rasul Mirzayev had punched former police academy student Ivan Agafonov outside a Moscow nightclub in 2011 after the drunken 19-year-old offended Mirzayev's girlfriend. Agafonov fell down, hitting his head on a sewer grate, and died four days later.
Mirzayev's trial had raised the anger of nationalists, who accused him of deliberately killing the Russian student. The athlete's supporters argued that Agafonov had provoked the lethal punch and his killing was accidental.
The Zamoskvoretsky court ruled Tuesday that since Mirzayev had already served his sentence while in custody awaiting trial he could walk free.
There are significant tensions between ethnic Russians, who make up two-thirds of the country's 142 million people, and dark-complexioned Muslims from the Caucasus, where there are more than 100 ethnic groups. Hundreds of thousands of Caucasus natives have flooded central Russia in search of jobs, causing a clash of cultures that aggravates deeply ingrained xenophobia.
Mirzayev, a bearded and lean 26-year-old, comes from Dagestan, Russia's most multiethnic province. Dagestan has for years been an epicenter of an Islamic insurgency that stems from separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya.
The Caucasus has also been beset by high unemployment and rampant corruption. The Kremlin has spent billions of dollars to subsidize the restive region, but government critics say most of the money is embezzled by local leaders.
Polls show that nearly half of Russians resent the Kremlin subsidies and dislike migrants from both the Caucasus and the former Soviet states in Central Asia.
A protest led by neo-Nazi leader Dmitri Demushkin erupted outside the court building Tuesday. Moscow police said six protesters, including Demushkin, were detained, while several dozen others chanted "Shame!" A similar protest took place in the western Siberian city of Novosibirsk.
Hundreds of riot police gathered outside the Kremlin, where they blocked off Red Square and limited access to the adjacent Manezh Square to prevent a nationalist rally. Two years ago, thousands of ultranationalists clashed with police and beat dark-skinned passersby on Manezh Square to protest the shooting of a Russian soccer fan by a group of Caucasus men.
A top human rights advocate urged Russians not to escalate ethnic tensions following Mirzayev's release.
"There is no need to turn this everyday conflict into an inter-ethnic collision," Mikhail Fedotov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.
But thousands of angry comments made the conviction one of the top Twitter hashtags in Russia.
"Such verdicts might trigger a social explosion," opposition leader and outspoken Kremlin critic Vladimir Milov tweeted.
Other comments suggested that Mirzayev's release was prompted by pressure from the Kremlin and Caucasus leaders.
"The regime is more afraid of a small riot in the Caucasus than a big one throughout Russia," opposition activist Nikolai Permyakov tweeted.
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny years ago coined a phrase urging the Kremlin to "stop feeding the Caucasus" and until this year was among the organizers of the Russian March, an annual rally of ultranationalists that also draws neo-Nazis, monarchists and militant Orthodox Christians.
Contact: David Hosansky
hosansky@ucar.edu
303-497-8611
Zhenya Gallon
zhenya@ucar.edu
303-497-8607
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
BOULDER Scientists at Columbia University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have adapted techniques used in modern weather prediction to generate local forecasts of seasonal influenza outbreaks. By predicting the timing and severity of the outbreaks, this system can eventually help health officials and the general public better prepare for them.
The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Homeland Security. NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
From year to year, and region to region, there is huge variability in the peak of flu season, which can arrive in temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere as early as October or as late as April. The new forecast system can provide "a window into what can happen week to week as flu prevalence rises and falls," says lead author Jeffrey Shaman, an assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health.
In previous work, Shaman and colleagues had found that wintertime U.S. flu epidemics tended to occur following very dry weather. Using a prediction model that incorporates this finding, Shaman and co-author Alicia Karspeck, an NCAR scientist, used Web-based estimates of flu-related sickness from the winters of 2003 to 2008 in New York City to retrospectively generate weekly flu forecasts. They found that the technique could predict the peak timing of the outbreak more than seven weeks in advance of the actual peak.
"Analogous to weather prediction, this system can potentially be used to estimate the probability of regional outbreaks of the flu several weeks in advance," Karspeck says. "One exciting element of this work is that we've applied quantitative forecasting techniques developed within the geosciences community to the challenge of real-time infectious disease prediction. This has been a tremendously fruitful cross-disciplinary collaboration."
In the future, such flu forecasts might conceivably be disseminated on the local television news along with the weather report, says Shaman. Like the weather, flu conditions vary from region to region; Atlanta might see its peak weeks ahead of Anchorage.
"Because we are all familiar with weather broadcasts, when we hear that there is a 80 percent chance of rain, we all have an intuitive sense of whether or not we should carry an umbrella," Shaman says. "I expect we will develop a similar comfort level and confidence in flu forecasts and develop an intuition of what we should do to protect ourselves in response to different forecast outcomes."
A flu forecast could prompt individuals to get a vaccine, exercise care around people sneezing and coughing, and better monitor how they feel. For health officials, it could inform decisions on how many vaccines and antiviral drugs to stockpile, and in the case of a virulent outbreak, whether other measures, like closing schools, is necessary.
"Flu forecasting has the potential to significantly improve our ability to prepare for and manage the seasonal flu outbreaks that strike each year," says Irene Eckstrand of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
Worldwide, influenza kills an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people each year. The U.S. annual death toll is about 35,000.
The seed of the new study was planted four years ago in a conversation between the two researchers, in which Shaman expressed an interest in using models to forecast influenza. Karspeck "recommended incorporating some of the data assimilation techniques used in weather forecasting to build a skillful prediction system," remembers Shaman.
In weather forecasting, real-time observational data are used to nudge a numerical model to conform with reality, thus reducing error. Applying this method to flu forecasting, the researchers used near-real-time data from Google Flu Trends, which estimates outbreaks based on the number of flu-related search queries in a given region.
Going forward, Shaman will test the model in other localities across the country using up-to-date data.
"There is no guarantee that just because the method works in New York, it will work in Miami," Shaman says.
###
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
On the Web
News releases, visuals, and more:
www.ucar.edu/atmosnews
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: David Hosansky
hosansky@ucar.edu
303-497-8611
Zhenya Gallon
zhenya@ucar.edu
303-497-8607
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
BOULDER Scientists at Columbia University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have adapted techniques used in modern weather prediction to generate local forecasts of seasonal influenza outbreaks. By predicting the timing and severity of the outbreaks, this system can eventually help health officials and the general public better prepare for them.
The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Homeland Security. NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
From year to year, and region to region, there is huge variability in the peak of flu season, which can arrive in temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere as early as October or as late as April. The new forecast system can provide "a window into what can happen week to week as flu prevalence rises and falls," says lead author Jeffrey Shaman, an assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health.
In previous work, Shaman and colleagues had found that wintertime U.S. flu epidemics tended to occur following very dry weather. Using a prediction model that incorporates this finding, Shaman and co-author Alicia Karspeck, an NCAR scientist, used Web-based estimates of flu-related sickness from the winters of 2003 to 2008 in New York City to retrospectively generate weekly flu forecasts. They found that the technique could predict the peak timing of the outbreak more than seven weeks in advance of the actual peak.
"Analogous to weather prediction, this system can potentially be used to estimate the probability of regional outbreaks of the flu several weeks in advance," Karspeck says. "One exciting element of this work is that we've applied quantitative forecasting techniques developed within the geosciences community to the challenge of real-time infectious disease prediction. This has been a tremendously fruitful cross-disciplinary collaboration."
In the future, such flu forecasts might conceivably be disseminated on the local television news along with the weather report, says Shaman. Like the weather, flu conditions vary from region to region; Atlanta might see its peak weeks ahead of Anchorage.
"Because we are all familiar with weather broadcasts, when we hear that there is a 80 percent chance of rain, we all have an intuitive sense of whether or not we should carry an umbrella," Shaman says. "I expect we will develop a similar comfort level and confidence in flu forecasts and develop an intuition of what we should do to protect ourselves in response to different forecast outcomes."
A flu forecast could prompt individuals to get a vaccine, exercise care around people sneezing and coughing, and better monitor how they feel. For health officials, it could inform decisions on how many vaccines and antiviral drugs to stockpile, and in the case of a virulent outbreak, whether other measures, like closing schools, is necessary.
"Flu forecasting has the potential to significantly improve our ability to prepare for and manage the seasonal flu outbreaks that strike each year," says Irene Eckstrand of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
Worldwide, influenza kills an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people each year. The U.S. annual death toll is about 35,000.
The seed of the new study was planted four years ago in a conversation between the two researchers, in which Shaman expressed an interest in using models to forecast influenza. Karspeck "recommended incorporating some of the data assimilation techniques used in weather forecasting to build a skillful prediction system," remembers Shaman.
In weather forecasting, real-time observational data are used to nudge a numerical model to conform with reality, thus reducing error. Applying this method to flu forecasting, the researchers used near-real-time data from Google Flu Trends, which estimates outbreaks based on the number of flu-related search queries in a given region.
Going forward, Shaman will test the model in other localities across the country using up-to-date data.
"There is no guarantee that just because the method works in New York, it will work in Miami," Shaman says.
###
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
On the Web
News releases, visuals, and more:
www.ucar.edu/atmosnews
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
TALENTED STUDENT EXCELS AS AN ENTREPRENEUR, HOPES TO ATTEND U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY AT WEST POINT
By Judy Bass
Michael Glick certainly stands out, due to his buoyant, can-do attitude, altruism, high-caliber professional abilities, and exceedingly lofty goals for the future ? goals that he is very likely to attain.
At the age of 17, this Blue Hills Regional Technical School senior from Canton who studies Graphic Communications is already a successful entrepreneur who, along with fellow Blue Hills student Brad Slocum, runs a thriving business called Three Guys Printing (the third person involved in the enterprise dropped out but they kept the name).? Headquartered in Slocum?s Canton home, Three Guys, which began operating in the summer of 2012 with equipment purchased on craigslist, tackles jobs as diverse as printing on sweatpants, sweatshirts, drawstring bags, mugs, and a wide variety of other items.
In fact, even though the company does not formally advertise except for being on Facebook (www.facebook.com/threeguysprinting), they are swamped with orders due to positive word of mouth that has spread like wildfire.
?It?s going excellent,? Glick exulted.? ?We?re almost overwhelmed with the amount of business we?re getting.?
Student organizations from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York, such as the paintball team, the scuba dive team, and the Korean-American Relationship Seminar, have all come to Three Guys for their printing needs; the connection is through Glick?s older brother, who is currently a West Point ?plebe? (the term for a freshman at a military or naval academy).
Glick cherishes his own dream of being accepted at the prestigious military academy founded in 1802, which counts among its storied alumni President Dwight Eisenhower, General George Patton, General Douglas MacArthur, and General Omar Bradley, just to cite a few luminaries.
Glick first visited the campus when he was only five and his brother was seven.
?Both of us fell in love with it,? he confirmed, and for him, that heartfelt affinity with West Point has truly deepened with time.
He envisions himself following his family?s strong tradition of distinguished military service.? For five generations, men in his family have served in the U.S. Army ? among them, Glick?s great-grandfather, who was a World War I veteran; his grandfather, a member of the 8th Air Corps who flew B-24s in 83 missions over Germany in World War II and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross; and Glick?s father, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division.
Glick himself is already preparing for a military career in the leadership role he seeks as an officer.? He?s in the junior ROTC program called the Naval Sea Cadet Corps, where he was a squad leader in boot camp at Camp Pendleton, VA, has served in the honor guard since 2009, and received the Academic Achievement and Unit Accommodation ribbon.
Glick also volunteers with Operation American Soldier, an organization that sends ?care packages? of letters, toiletries, snacks, and other welcome essentials to our men and women in the US Armed Forces.? The motto of OAS is ?No soldier walks away from mail call empty-handed.?
At Blue Hills, Glick also excels.? He is vice president of the school?s chapter of SkillsUSA, a national organization for vocational students that encourages the development of professionalism, good citizenship, teamwork, and a strong work ethic through various activities such as competitions in dozens of technical areas at the local, district, state and national levels.? This year, Glick placed first at the State Championship in Screen printing Technology, and a commendable 11th at the National level in that category.
?Mike is a very diligent, intelligent young man who has a strong drive and focus for future success,? attests one of his Graphic Communications teachers, Daniel Jordan.
As if all that weren?t enough for this high achiever, he?s a John and Abigail Adams Scholar thanks to his exceptional MCAS scores, a graduate of the Neponset Valley Leadership Institute, and is captain of the varsity golf and lacrosse teams.
Despite his impressive background, Glick is refreshingly modest, compassionate and attuned to others.? When he speaks of his relatives? longtime commitment to serving this nation in uniform, he beams with quiet pride, and it?s clear that Glick eschews cynicism, preferring to see what Abraham Lincoln referred to as ?the better angels of our nature.?
?I like to believe that everyone?s good on the inside,? he said.? ?If you keep the peace in yourself, you can spread peace in others.?
Here?s how you can acquire the greatest credit scores:
# 1 Take action and don?t make excuses You will feel much better and get much better responses from creditors if your focus on action rather than no action. As an alternative of throwing a pity party for oneself and making stories concerning the personal and financial problems that led to your poor credit rating, take action. Give oneself and creditors a brief version of what occurred and give a comprehensive evaluation of what you are performing to repair your credit.
# two Appear for loans that are provided for poor credit dangers The rates could be greater on the other hand in the lengthy run, you can always refinance these loans when your credit improves to take benefit of far better rates. Maintain in thoughts that rates tend to fluctuate nonetheless it should not deter you from obtaining a loan that makes sense.
# 3 See if you qualify for economic aid If you?re a student, the financial aid office at your college or university offers a single-on-a single financial counseling. They will also have data about scholarships, tips on budgeting, and many much more resources. Use these resources and ask for help.
# four Often reside inside your indicates Happiness and excellent credit scores go hand in hand. The important to happiness is to appreciate what you have and that implies residing within your implies. You could be earning minimal wage and nonetheless spend your bills without having possessing the luxuries in life. In the finish the only factor that matters is becoming accountable and meeting your obligations.
On his show, Comedian Rodney Perry covers arts and entertainment, everything from comedy and politics to music and acting, with his signature comedic slant.
MashUp Radio is a 30-minute podcast that discusses the fusion of technology, life, culture and science. Host Peter Biddle, engineer and executive for Intel?s Atom Software, dishes up a thought-provoking discussion.
Joy Keys provides her listeners with insight to improve their lives mentally, physically, monetarily and emotionally. Past guests on the show have included Meshell Nedegeocello, Blair Underwood, in addition to an impressive list of CEOs, humanitarians and authors.
Host Barry Moltz gets small businesses unstuck. He has founded and run small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for more than 15 years. This is a business radio show where he shares all the craziness of small business. It?s that craziness that actually makes it exciting, interesting and totally unpredictable.
The Bottom Line Sports Show is hosted by former NBA stars Penny Hardaway, Charles Oakley, Mateen Cleaves. Tune in to get the inside scoop on what's happening in sports today.
Deepak Chopra Radio provides an online forum for compelling and thought provoking conversations on success, love, sexuality and relationships, well-being and spirituality.
Hits Radio covers basketball, sports culture and entertainment with past guests including Jason Kidd, Robin Lundberg and Chris Herren.
Listeners get an earful on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds. Whether it?s the current political cocktail or the latest must-read award-winning book, Halli tackles all topics and likes to stir ? and sometimes shakes ? things up.
Award-winning World Footprints is a leading voice in socially responsible travel and lifestyle. Hosts Ian & Tonya celebrate culture and heritage and bring a unique voice to the world of travel.
Football Reporters Online is a group of veteran football experts in the fields of coaching, scouting, talent evaluation, and writing/broadcasting/media placement. Combined, the group brings well over 100 years of expertise in sports.
Host John Martin interviews the nation's leading entrepreneurs and small biz experts to educate small business owners on how to be successful. Past guests have included Emeril Lagasse and Guy Kawasaki.
The Movie Geeks share their passion for the art through interviews with the stars of and creative minds behind your favorite flicks and pay tribute to big-screen legends. From James Cameron and Francis Ford Coppola to Ellen Burstyn and Robert Duvall, The Geeks have got'em all.
Sylvia Global presents global conversations pertaining to women, wealth, business, faith and philanthropy. Sylvia has interviewed an eclectic mix from CEOs and musicians to fashion designers and philanthropists including Randolph Duke and Ne-Yo.
Seasoned entertainment reporter Robin Milling gets up close and personal with the world's most compelling celebs. From Michael Douglas to Katie Holmes to Kevin Kline to Ashley Judd to America Ferrera, she sits down in person each week with each and every A-lister.
Mr. Media host Bob Andelman goes one-on-one with the hottest, most influential minds from the worlds of film, TV, music, comedy, journalism and literature. That means A-listers like Kirk Douglas, Christian Slater, Kathy Ireland, Rick Fox, Chris Hansen and Jackie Collins.
Paula Begoun, best-selling author of Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me, separates fact from fiction on achieving a radiant, youthful complexion at any age. She?s regularly joined by health and beauty experts who offer the latest on keeping your skin in tip-top shape.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) ? A play about Amy Winehouse that was to premiere in Denmark in January has been canceled after the late British singer's family blocked its use of her music and photos.
Winehouse spokesman Chris Goodman said Monday the family had never granted the theater company permission to use the singer's materials.
The play "Amy" was written by a group of 11 Danish playwrights and was to have opened on Jan. 30 in a 220-seat theater in central Copenhagen. It was based on interviews, concerts, Winehouse's letters and newspaper articles.
The Danish copyright agency Koda had earlier granted permission for Denmark's Royal Theater to perform the play.
"We acted in good faith when we gave them the permission for the performance. We believed that the format ? a theater play ? was OK," Koda spokesman Nicolaj Hylten-Cavallius said. "We were told by her father and the lawyers around him that we can forget all about the rights for the music, the photos, branding and everything."
Koda said that Winehouse's father, Mitch Winehouse, objected to the use of any of her music, photos or belongings but gave no reason why, Hylten-Cavallus said.
"Amy" depicts the Grammy-winning soul singer's life and relationship with drugs and alcohol. Winehouse, known for her beehive hairdo, died from alcohol poisoning in July last year at the age of 27.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Youths clashed with police in Cairo on Saturday as protests at new powers assumed by President Mohamed Mursi stretched into a second day, confronting Egypt with a crisis that has exposed the split between newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.
A handful of hardcore activists hurling rocks battled riot police in the streets near Tahrir Square, where several thousand protesters massed on Friday to demonstrate against a decree that has rallied opposition ranks against Mursi.
Following a day of violence in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Suez, the smell of teargas hung over the square, the heart of the uprising that swept Hosni Mubarak from power in February 2011.
More than 300 people were injured on Friday. Offices of the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to power, were attacked in at least three cities.
Egypt's highest judicial authority said the decree marked an "unprecedented attack" on the independence of the judiciary, the state news agency reported.
Leftist, liberal and socialist parties have called for an open-ended sit-in with the aim of "toppling" the decree which has also drawn statements of concern from the United States and the European Union. A few dozen activists manning makeshift barricades kept traffic out of the square on Saturday.
Calling the decree "fascist and despotic", Mursi's critics called for a big protest on Tuesday against a move they say has revealed the autocratic impulses of a man jailed by Mubarak, who outlawed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.
"We are facing a historic moment in which we either complete our revolution or we abandon it to become prey for a group that has put its narrow party interests above the national interest," the liberal Dustour Party said in a statement.
Issued late on Thursday, the decree marks an effort by the Mursi administration to consolidate its influence after it successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August.
The decree reflects the Muslim Brotherhood's suspicion towards sections of a judiciary unreformed from Mubarak's days: it guards from judicial review decisions taken by Mursi until a new parliament is elected in a vote expected early next year.
It also shields the assembly writing Egypt's new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened the Islamist-dominated assembly with dissolution.
The Mursi administration has defended the decree on the grounds that it aims to speed up a protracted transition from Mubarak's rule to a new system of democratic government.
"It aims to sideline Mursi's enemies in the judiciary and ultimately to impose and head off any legal challenges to the constitution," said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations.
"We are in a situation now where both sides are escalating and its getting harder and harder to see how either side can gracefully climb down," Zarwan said.
"INTIFADA"
A central element of Egypt's transition, the drafting of the constitution has been plagued by divisions between Islamists and their more secular-minded opponents, nearly all of whom have withdrawn from the body writing the document.
Mursi's new powers allowed him to replace the prosecutor general - a Mubarak holdover who the new president had tried to replace in October only to kick up a storm of protest from the judiciary, which said he had exceeded his authorities.
At an emergency meeting called to discuss the decree, the Supreme Judicial Council, Egypt's highest judicial authority, urged "the president of the republic to distance this decree from everything that violates the judicial authority".
Al-Masry Al-Youm, one of Egypt's most widely read dailies, hailed Friday's protest as "The November 23 Intifada", invoking the Arabic word for uprising. "The people support the president's decisions," declared Freedom and Justice, the newspaper run by the Brotherhood's political party.
The ultraorthodox Salafi Islamist groups that have been pushing for tighter application of Islamic law in the new constitution have rallied behind the decree.
The Nour Party, one such group, stated its support for the Mursi decree. Al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, which carried arms against the state in the 1990s, said it would save the revolution from what it described as remnants of the Mubarak regime.
Facing the biggest storm of criticism since he won the presidential election in June, Mursi addressed his supporters outside the presidential palace on Friday. He said opposition did not worry him, but it had to be "real and strong".
Candidates defeated by Mursi in the presidential vote joined the protests against his decision on Friday. Former Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa was photographed linking arms with leftist Hamdeen Sabahi, liberal Mohamed ElBaradei and others.
Mursi is now confronted with a domestic crisis just as his administration won international praise for mediating an end to the eight-day war between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
"The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.
The European Union urged Mursi to respect the democratic process, while the United Nations expressed fears about human rights.
Digital Trends sits down with Randy Pitchford to talk about developing a proprietary engine to bring the world of Aliens: Colonial Marines to life. Plus: Gearbox's president on the future of video game consoles.
Randy Pitchford had a good year. In the thirteen years since founding his studio, Gearbox Software has never had a hit quite like Borderlands 2, one of the best selling and widely praised video games to come out in a very crowded year. What?s more his studio?s long labor of love, Aliens: Colonial Marines, is just three months away from release after a nearly six year development. Where some game makers are itching for the next console generation to start so it can ramp up the declining console market, Pitchford and his team of creators are sitting pretty.
Digital Trends caught up with Pitchford at a recent event to talk about the prolonged development of Aliens, the unique technology powering that game, and the future of how we play video games.
Aliens: Colonial Marines uses a new engine. Why? Why not use something simple like Unreal Engine 3 to speed up development?
We haven?t really talked about it much, but we made a proprietary lighting engine for this game. Even though we?re at the end of this console generation, because this is a deferred rendering engine it?s going to give us a good sense of what next gen games are going. Deferred rendering is the future. We do leverage Unreal for the architecture and the data sets, for a lot of the under the hood stuff, but in terms of graphics, that?s the stuff we created just for this.
The Aliens films, to do that authentically, we needed deferred rendering. We needed dynamic lights and shadows. In the current generation, for games without a non-deferred renderer, all of the lighting is sort of baked into the environment which means it?s static. Things can?t move. Now take the scene in the Sulaco: There are so many things shifting around, with crates sliding across the room, ship rocking and lolling. If things move, the lights all need to work. When stuff?s blowing up, when you?re on the surface of LV-426, the atmosphere is alive. We needed that to feel natural, so we needed the lighting to be rendered in real time with the game. If you think about some of the other stuff we?re doing like Borderlands, it has a totally different look and feel. Our Brothers in Arms franchise, it?s a totally different environment and feel. Aliens has a very unique art direction, so it demanded custom technology.
You said the team met with Ridley Scott to discuss doing the game before it went into production. When did that meeting happen?
I think that was May of 2006. Maybe 2005.
At what point in the past seven years then did you decide to build this unique technology?
The meeting was 2005 or 2006, but the deal didn?t happen for another year or so after that.
That?s when Sega announced it had the Alien franchise license.
We hadn?t even written the first line of code and Sega was so excited that they and Fox had to turn around and put out a press release! (laughs) It was a business statement, but if you?re an Aliens fan like me and you hear, ?There?s going to be a sequel to the movies as a video game and Gearbox is making it!?? suddenly there?s this expectation. I want that now! Usually when we make a game, we?ll be all the way through pre-production and into production before an announcement is made.
It was after our prototype, after our pre-production, that John Cavanagh, one of our programmers, took on the task of building the new renderer for this game. I believe we?ll be using this technology for a while. It?s going to be very useful in the future.
So that was the end of 2008 when we started making that technology and it was probably finished by the end of 2010.
Speaking of 2008, that was when you announced that Battlestar Galactica writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson would be working on Aliens: Colonial Marines. What role did they play?
Those guys are awesome! We had a framework and sketches of characters when we started the game. Those guys came in and wrote all of this material that brought the characters to life for us. So now we don?t have to think about what we want the characters to be, we think, ?Okay, in this situation, how would Bella react to this? What would Winter say?? We know the answer because those guys helped us flesh everything out. Amazing, amazing work. They wrote enough material that we could have an entire series of television, honestly. I loved working with them. [Gearbox writer] Mikey Neumann was able to work very closely with them, and he was able to adapt what they did and write it to a video game, which is very different than writing for a passive movie. The quality that we?ve gotten in the narrative was the result of that iterative process and David and Bradley were instrumental in that. It was so cool to work with them.
I?m not sure if you?re office is still like this, but I saw a picture of it once and the game console collection on display in there is impressive to say the least. You clearly love this old, devoted technology. Aliens, Borderlands, all of Gearbox?s games really are clearly built as multiplatform games, both PC and console. My question for you: What?s the future of the console? Do we need them anymore?
How far in the future are we talking about?
Say fifteen years.
Obviously power is great. There are two components to this. One is energy drawn from whatever source you get it from. In fifteen years, wireless power still won?t be ubiquitous. We?ll be experimenting with it in fifteen years and some people will probably have appliances in their garages that allow their cars to charge wirelessly, but we won?t have ubiquitous wireless power for all devices. So in fifteen years, we?ll still see an advantage in things that can plug into a wall, a devoted power source, and draw a tremendous amount of energy.
The more energy we can draw, the more fuel we have for computing power. Computing power takes energy. Computing power will always allow us to simulate things, whether it?s visuals or gameplay or logic or physics. The more computing power we have, the more robust that simulation will be. Within fifteen years, we?ll still be using our senses?touch, sight, sound?to consume that simulation. So the processing power we?ll be using will still be simulating something that reaches us through our normal senses. We won?t be at a point where our senses can be tricked into something that?s like the holodeck or when something?s plugged right into our brain, where there?s no interpretive layer between the simulation and perception, that?s not going to happen yet.
Within that construct, power will still be a factor and power will let us do all kinds of things. We?re going to see some new fronts in the next fifteen years that are kind of difficult to imagine when you just think, ?Okay, I?ve got a dedicated machine, I?ve got a portable thing that uses a battery like a phone or handheld, I?ve got large format stuff like in a movie theater.? You?re going to see that whole spectrum, and it will largely be the same. It will be an iteration of how we understand entertainment, but it?ll be a massive iteration. You?ll see between twelve and twenty-four times the complexity possible on today?s machines.
Today, though, what does having your game on a console give you? What?s the benefit of the technology?
One of the advantages that consoles have for a customer is that you can trust it. It?s a simple price, an entry point that?s accessible, and you can plug it in and it all works. It rides this balance where one step up is a PC that draws a lot more power and a big step up in visuals, but a lot more complexity since it?s a moving platform. That makes it not so comfortable. The dedicated platform is fixed, though, which lets us developers make tremendous assumptions about what the customer is using. Because of those assumptions, we can commit ourselves, we can be very efficient in what we make.
Consoles let you make those assumptions. Look at the iPhone. Because there are now several generations of iPhone, in creating software we can either choose to eliminate a percentage of the potential user base by making our game only compatible with the iPhone 4 or 5 or we can hold ourselves back and cover the whole spectrum. Even that fragmentation changes our efficiency and quality from what it would be if we had a single, unchanging platform.
Because the phone cycle is ramping up so quickly, our only choices are abandon our software, iterrating it, or making new software. With a long console cycle, we can really commit ourselves to that single fixed platform and be super optimal. You can feel it in the results. We?re doing things on these platforms that are a lot more incredible than what we saw at the beginning of the generation.
It really doesn?t matter, though. At the end of the day in the entertainment business, what you care about is how many people can I reach and to what extent can I satisfy them. Our mission is to make people happy. We want to entertain people wherever they are.
Former world boxing champion Hector "Macho" Camacho, of Puerto Rico, is taken by paramedics inside a medical center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012. Camacho, 50, was shot in the face as he sat in a car at his hometown of Bayamon, one of the cities that make up the San Juan metropolitan area and doctors said he was in critical but stable condition, expected to survive. (AP Photo/GFR Media, Primera Hora/El Nuevo Dia, Sebastian Perez)
Former world boxing champion Hector "Macho" Camacho, of Puerto Rico, is taken by paramedics inside a medical center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012. Camacho, 50, was shot in the face as he sat in a car at his hometown of Bayamon, one of the cities that make up the San Juan metropolitan area and doctors said he was in critical but stable condition, expected to survive. (AP Photo/GFR Media, Primera Hora/El Nuevo Dia, Sebastian Perez)
Maria Matias, mother of former world boxing champion Hector "Macho" Camacho, speaks with reporters outside Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. Camacho, who has been unconscious since he was shot in the face last Tuesday and declared brain dead by doctors, will be taken off life support on Saturday, his mother said in the brief news conference, a decision that the former championship boxer's eldest son opposes. (AP Photo/Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo)
Hector Camacho Jr., the eldest son of former world boxing champion Hector "Macho" Camacho, speaks with reporters outside Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. Camacho, who has been unconscious since he was shot in the face last Tuesday and declared brain dead by doctors, will be taken off life support on Saturday, his mother Maria Matias said in the brief news conference, a decision that Camacho Jr. opposes. (AP Photo/Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo)
Maria Matias, center, mother of former world boxing champion Hector "Macho" Camacho, and her grandson Hector Jr. walk together after holding a news conference at Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. Camacho, who has been unconscious since he was shot in the face last Tuesday and declared brain dead by doctors, will be taken off life support on Saturday, his mother said in the brief news conference, a decision that her grandson, Hector Jr. opposes. (AP Photo/Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo)
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) ? The mother of Hector "Macho" Camacho says she has decided to have doctors cut off life support for the former world champion boxer Saturday once three more of his sons get a last chance to see him.
Though opposed by Camacho's eldest son, Maria Matias, the boxer's mother, said she had decided it was time for doctors to disconnect the machines that have kept him alive since he was shot in the face earlier in the week.
"I lost my son three days ago. He's alive only because of a machine," Matias said. "My son is not alive. My son is only alive for the people who love him," she added.
She said at a news conference Friday night that she was waiting only for Camacho's three other sons, who were expected to arrive from the U.S. mainland early Saturday. "Until they arrive, we will not disconnect the machine," Matias said.
Another news conference was scheduled for Saturday morning at Centro Medico, the main trauma center for San Juan.
The former champion's mother has the final say in the matter, but his eldest son, Hector Camacho Jr., said he wanted to keep his father alive.
"He's going to fight until the end. My father is a boxer," the son said.
Although doctors had said Camacho was clinically brain dead from a shooting Tuesday night in his hometown of Bayamon, relatives and friends told The Associated Press they were still wrestling with the idea of removing him from life support.
"It is a very difficult decision, a very delicate decision," former pro boxer Victor "Luvi" Callejas, a longtime friend, said in a phone interview. "The last thing we lose is hope and faith. If there is still hope and faith, why not wait a little more?"
Aida Camacho, one of the boxer's aunts, said in an interview that the family could decide by late Friday whether to donate his organs.
As some relatives and friends continued to pray for a miracle, condolences flowed in for Camacho's family and preparations were being made for memorials and a funeral Mass.
Gov. Luis Fortuno lamented what he called a sudden loss. "'Macho' will always be remembered for his spontaneity and charisma in and out of the ring," he said.
Also offering condolences was governor-elect Alejandro Garcia Padilla, who defeated Fortuno in November.
"The life of Macho Camacho, like other great athletes of ours, united the country," he said. "We celebrated his triumphs in the streets and we applauded him with noble sportsmanship when he didn't prevail."
Camacho was shot as he sat in a car with a friend, 49-year-old Adrian Mojica Moreno, who was killed in the attack. Police spokesman Alex Diaz said officers found nine small bags of cocaine in the friend's pocket and a 10th bag open inside the car.
Police reported no arrests and said investigators continued to look for potential witnesses. Capt. Rafael Rosa told reporters Friday that they were following several leads, but declined to say whether police had identified any suspects. He said very few witnesses were cooperating.
Hector Camacho Jr. decried the violence that grips Puerto Rico, a U.S. island territory of nearly 4 million people that reported a record 1,117 homicides last year.
"Death, jail, drugs, killings," he said. "That's what the streets are now."
Camacho's sisters have said they would like to fly Camacho's body to New York and bury him there. Camacho grew up mostly in Harlem, earning the nickname the "Harlem Heckler."
He won super lightweight, lightweight and junior welterweight world titles in the 1980s and fought high-profile bouts against Felix Trinidad, Julio Cesar Chavez and Sugar Ray Leonard while compiling a career record of 79-6-3. He knocked out Leonard in 1997, ending the former champ's final comeback attempt.
Camacho battled drug, alcohol and other problems throughout his life. He was sentenced in 2007 to seven years in prison on burglary charges, but a judge eventually suspended all but one year of the sentence and gave Camacho probation. He wound up serving two weeks in jail after violating that probation. A wife also filed domestic abuse complaints against him twice before their divorce.
Just because you can do something doesn?t mean you should...because someone might sue you over it. Lots of folks are excited about software or browser extensions that will block ads on websites, such as the add-on Adblock Plus, but it?s possible that ad blocking could incite a legal battle.
The issue here is fairly straightforward: many websites, including the biggest in the world such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, and so on, rely on advertising to generate revenue. Advertisers pay money to show up as boxed ads on web pages, appear at the top of search results, and more, and if they?re getting blocked on the end user side, they?re not going to be happy about that.
But do they have a case?
ComputerWorld posits two potential legal arguments against ad blocking, neither of which are particularly compelling but could be used persuasively in arguments. One is that ad blocking could violate the page?s copyright, because removing ads could constitute an unlawful adaptation of the page. The other angle is that ad blocking could be a violation of the contract between a website and an advertiser; the two parties entered into an agreement, and the removal of ads could breach that contract.
In either case, both the website publisher and the advertiser may be compelled to take action, as the long-term result of ad blocking would be lost revenue for both parties. Makers of ad blocking software would then be in the crosshairs, and the resulting litigation could set a major precedent for years to come.
There?s another issue that ad blocking raises though, which is whether it?s ultimately prudent for end users to block ads at all. It?s true that ads are essentially annoying in that they interrupt whatever we?re reading or watching, but advertising also makes the world go ?round. Consider that currently, Internet users receive an unprecedented volume and number of services of (more or less) exceedingly high quality--for free. We pay absolutely nothing to use Google, the fastest, most efficient, and most comprehensive information-gathering tool of all time, nor for Facebook and Twitter, two of the most powerful online communication tools ever conceived. Web-based mail? Free. Youtube? Free. Unlimited music streaming? Free. News, weather, and stock info? Free. Word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation tools? Free.
Virtually all of it is paid for by ads.
Granted, some ads are just terribly annoying, so there?s an argument to be made for advertisers to see ad blocking as motivation to simply do a better job, such as by using targeted ads. Targeted ads can seem invasive and even disturbing at first blush, but in reality, it?s far better to see ads for things you actually like and are interested in as opposed to a glut of random ads. For example, if you?re an outdoorsy fellow in his mid-20s, which would you rather see: an ad for a 40% off sale on hiking gear from a company you buy from on occasion, or a skin care product ad aimed at women over 50? Further, users are more likely to engage with ads if they pertain to their interests and/or are entertaining, which benefits all parties as users are less annoyed and advertisers see more bang for their buck.
Ad blocking is a classic case of technology being able to accomplish something that may or may not be legal and disrupts the standard way of doing things. Hopefully in this case advertisers can pivot and adjust to this growing trend instead of dragging lawyers into the middle of it.
There has been many email marketing trends online lately when it comes to managing email campaigns. While many companies use different styles to writing emails and marketing you will find some consistent trends across the board. As a business it is recommended you try some of the following strategies when it comes to email marketing.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 27-Nov-2012
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on?t make excuses
That?s when Sega announced it had the Alien franchise license.