শুক্রবার, ৩০ নভেম্বর, ২০১২

France announces plan to save steel site

PARIS (AP) ? France's prime minister announced on Friday that there would be no layoffs at a blast furnace site that has become a symbol for maintaining jobs in a tough economic climate. Instead, steel company ArcelorMittal has promised a ?180 million ($233.75 million) investment and the government will modernize it with an eco-friendly project.

The announcement by Jean-Marc Ayrault caps months of tension over the future of the site at Florange where the jobs of more than 600 people were at stake.

The prime minister put to rest rumors the government would nationalize the site. Instead, he said in a televised announcement that ArcelorMittal had made an "unconditional" agreement to invest and that the government would keep watch for "non-respect" of the agreement.

Unions were skeptical and the mayor of Florange cautious.

The plan, which calls for an investment by ArcelorMittal of ?180 million over five years, "has positive points if they are kept," Mayor Philippe Tarillon said on BFM television. But he expressed regret that the accord "rests on the commitments of Mr. Mittal."

Unions expressed outright skepticism, saying that the deal means they remain "in the claws of Mittal."

Edouard Martin of the CFDT union listed a series of demands, including guarantees the funds will be injected into the site with an oversight committee that includes employees. The five-year plan renders the commitment more fragile still, he said.

"In five years, the Florange site risks being in agony," Martin said on BFM.

The company, assembled by Indian-born Chairman and CEO Lakshmi N. Mittal, one of the world's richest people, infuriated many with its announcement Oct. 1 that it planned to stop the Florange furnaces. In the face of sustained worker protests, the company gave the French government 60 days to find a new owner.

ArcelorMittal has more than 20,000 employees at about 150 sites in France and brought in ?4.6 billion in sales last year ? about one-sixth of its total revenues worldwide. Florange has not showed a loss, but hasn't performed like other ArcelorMittal sites.

The Florange blast furnaces will be maintained, but not running in the short-term, Ayrault said, announcing a plan to develop a European gas recycling project that would give Florange, and ultimately the industry, a competitive edge. The European Ulcos project is a demonstrator for recycling blast furnace gases and capturing CO2.

The prime minister said the priority project represents industrial and environmental excellence.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/france-announces-plan-save-steel-210735363--finance.html

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No charges against Chris Brown in Fla. phone grab

(AP) ? Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown will not face criminal charges for snatching a woman's cellphone when she tried to snap a photo of him outside a Miami Beach club, prosecutors said Friday.

A memo released Friday by Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle concludes there is no evidence that Brown intended to steal the phone in February or that he deleted any photos. One or the other is necessary for him to be charged with robbery or theft.

Prosecutors said that Brown tossed the phone from his limo and that it was picked up by Devon Blanche, head of security for rapper Tyga, who had performed with Brown at the Cameo club that night. According to the memo, Blanche tried to find out if someone had lost the phone, ultimately took it with him to Atlanta during the rapper's tour and said he intended to find its owner.

A felony charge against Brown, 24, might have triggered a violation of his probation for his 2009 assault on singer Rihanna, who was his girlfriend at the time. The two have recently collaborated on a new duet, "Nobody's Business," and have been spotted out together in recent weeks.

Rundle said the investigation's findings would be forwarded to probation officials in Los Angeles for review.

"We are grateful for the decision and the thorough investigation," Brown's attorney Mark Geragos said in an email.

According to the memo, after Brown and Tyga ? real name Michael Stevenson ? finished their performances, both got into separate limos to head for their hotels. Witnesses told prosecutors about 30 female fans gathered outside Brown's vehicle, at least one of whom reached inside to take a photo. Brown was accompanied by at least two women in the limo.

Stevenson told prosecutors that he saw Brown throw a white cellphone out of the limo. The phone's owner, Christal Spann, said Brown used a derogatory term for women and said "this will not run the website" when he grabbed the phone. Spann began beating on the limo's windows, according to the memo, until someone in a front seat told her the phone had been tossed out. She could not find it, however.

"She used to be a fan of Brown's, but no longer," the memo notes of Spann.

Blanche, the security man, told investigators he thought Brown was upset because "if photographs of himself with two females got out, it might cause him problems with Rihanna."

___

Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-11-30-Chris%20Brown-Phone%20Grab/id-c67290885c7347bbb919b7dd6ae0fa22

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Myth Busting ? when things hit the fan | DebtConsolidation.com.au

This week I wanted to share with you some of the biggest misconceptions people have when it comes to dealing with financial difficulties. When the ?financial? going gets tough for you these tips may come in handy.

Myth One: If I don?t think about it then it?s not really happening.

This myth is pretty self-explanatory. I like to compare it to children who close their eyes and believe that you can?t see them. If you look at the situation that child is still standing there, and you can still see them.

If you are faced with any financial difficulty, the best thing to do is get all of your emotional ?stuff? out of the way, then sit down with a nice cup of tea (or coffee if you prefer) and face the facts. You need to think out what you are going to do about it.

For examples sake, let?s assume that you have lost your job. You need to sit down and think the following things through logically:

  1. Am I getting a pay out?
  2. If I am getting a pay out, how many weeks? wages will it be? [This gives you an indication of how long you can go before starting the next job]
  3. Do I have any savings that I can use as ?wages? to add more time to the ?I must find a job by? dead line?
  4. Are there any expenses I can cut back on until I am employed?

With the above facts sorted you can then relax a little, figure out how much time you have and get started on finding a new job.

Myth Two: It?s best to not tell anyone about my financial situation.

I suppose that this myth is a bit of a half truth. If you are a private person, and not too fond of every Tom, Dick and Harry knowing your financial situation, then yes I agree, I wouldn?t be announcing on Facebook that you are broke.

However, there are some people who you MUST let know when things have hit the fan. You must always tell the people who you owe money to that you cannot make payments. I know that this seems like a really scary thing to do, BUT rest assured it isn?t that bad.

I know several companies (think electricity, phone and gas) that you can phone to get an extension on your payments, you don?t even actually need to talk to someone. You can just press a button on your phone key pad, and it extends the payment date by a couple of weeks.

If you can?t make your mortgage payment, the best thing to do is phone the home loan company and explain your situation to them. They may be able to set you up on a hardship program, or give you a few extra weeks to make your repayment ? at no cost.

If you don?t call them, you will risk not only getting charged a dishonour fee, you may also find it affects your credit rating.

Until next time

About Ashleigh Cooper

Ashleigh has personally helped over a thousand people to manage their daily finances and has a real understanding of how people in debt can be helped to make better financial decisions.

Source: http://www.debtconsolidation.com.au/myth-busting-when-things-hit-the-fan

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Rebbe Grover, Zombie Tax Cuts & the Golem (talking-points-memo)

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Hall voting an angst-filled burden

In the Steroids Era, voters are stuck in a place they don't want to be

Image: Sammy SosaAP file

Sammy Sosa's?name turned up on a list of those who flunked drug tests that were supposed to remain anonymous. But that report of a failed test only confirmed a suspicion very widely held by executives, players and writers.

Opinion

By Tony DeMarco

NBCSports.com contributor

updated 6:50 p.m. ET Nov. 28, 2012

Tony DeMarco

The controversial 2012 Hall of Fame ballot is out, and so here we go again ? this time with historic consequences.

This should be the greatest first-time-eligible class of inductees since the inaugural one back in 1936 ? when voters had four decades of legendary figures from which to choose.

Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson made up that first class of enshrines. Cy Young, Tris Speaker and Nap Lajoie had to wait a year. But in terms of numbers and on-field accomplishments, the old-timers had little on these 2012 first-time-eligibles:

Seven-time MVP Barry Bonds, seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens, 600-home-run-club member Sammy Sosa, 3,000-hit-club member Craig Biggio, and Mike Piazza and his best-ever offensive numbers by a catcher.

Normally, the only question surrounding Bonds and Clemens would be how close they'll come to unanimous election. The latter three would be virtual certainties for election, as well.

But normal disappeared somewhere during the Steroids Era, and a decade-plus later, voters are stuck in a place they don't want to be; shouldn't be. Filling out the Hall of Fame ballot isn't so much a privilege as it is an angst-filled burden.

I'm trying to stay open-minded. I've read, heard and solicited the opinions of several voters.

I respect all of those opinions, and know they were formed only after serious consideration.

But I remain unconvinced by any of the arguments in support of putting known PED users ? and even widely suspected ones ? into the Hall of Fame. So for now, I'm sticking with a zero-tolerance policy.

Nothing changes the fact that PED users cheated the game. And in an otherwise very complicated, murky field, that's enough of a violation of the Hall's character, integrity and sportsmanship guidelines for me. Call it sanctimonious if you'd like, but I prefer to consider it my humble little effort to protect the game's integrity.

For me, it's an easy call for those who have admitted to using, or who turned up in government investigations or the Mitchell Report, as is the case for Bonds and Clemens. That's why Mark McGwire hasn't climbed above the 25 percent voting mark. The same goes for Rafael Palmeiro.

And I don't care if slick lawyers can outfox the government in court. This is not a court of law, merely an election decided by 600-plus Baseball Writers Association of America members who have at least 10 consecutive years of membership. Circumstantial evidence can be enough here.

I'm also not buying the argument you often hear for Bonds and Clemens: They were Hall of Famers before they started using, so they should get in. Pete Rose was a Hall of Famer before he started betting on games, too. It still boils down to the fact that they cheated the game, no matter how long they may have played clean.

Sosa's case is a bit trickier; his name turned up on a list of those who flunked drug tests that were supposed to remain anonymous. But that report of a failed test only confirmed a suspicion very widely held by executives, players and writers.

Piazza never flunked a test, and so his candidacy very well could resemble that of Jeff Bagwell, the former Astros slugger who also was suspected of usage because of dramatic physical changes, but never was linked to a failed test. Bagwell's vote percentage jumped from 41.7 percent to 56 percent last year, putting him on track for election in the near future.

(There are none of those suspicions around Biggio ? Bagwell's longtime teammate.)

Here's another misguided thought: The Hall already includes on-field cheaters, recreational drug users and other miscreants. That doesn't make it right to elect more cheaters.

Or, the line of reasoning that since so many players were cheating in the steroids era, let's just honor the best players of that generation ? and let the Hall somehow denote it for what it was.

In fact, the steroids era arguably was the worst chapter in the game's history. It went far beyond one fixed World Series. It made a mockery of the record book, changed standards that stood for decades, and diminished what those who came before had done.

Never mind that the game's powers-that-be chose to either ignore it, or were ignorant of it for awhile. That's on them. The biggest reason why testing came about ? and a stonewalling union finally changed its mind ? was that enough non-cheating players finally complained loudly enough. It always come back to the fact that the cheating was wrong.

If 75 percent of my colleagues think differently, and elect a known user, or even a player who circumstantial evidence points to as a user, that's the democratic process. But for now, I'll err on the side of caution.

? 2012 NBC Sports.com? Reprints

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Hall voting an angst-filled burden

DeMarco: Normally, the only question surrounding Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens would be how close they will come to unanimous election. But normal disappeared somewhere during the Steroids Era.

Wright, Mets agree to $138M, 8-year deal?

NEW YORK (AP) - David Wright and the New York Mets have agreed to a $138 million, eight-year contract that would be the richest in franchise history, WFAN radio reported early Friday.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/50001483/ns/sports-baseball/

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Wis. on pace to set export record for year

MADISON, Wis. (AP) ? The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation says Wisconsin is on pace to set a record for state exports this year.

Through the first three quarters of 2012, Wisconsin businesses exported $17.4 billion worth of products.

Lora Klenke, vice president of International Development with WEDC, says if exports continue to grow at this pace during the final quarter, they would total $23.5 billion. That would break last year's record of $22 billion.

Wisconsin exports during the first three quarters of 2012 grew faster than total U.S. exports. Wisconsin exported 6.4 percent more in the first three quarters of 2012 than in 2011, compared with 5 percent growth for the United States during the same period.

The top three markets for Wisconsin exports from January through September 2012 were Canada, Mexico and China.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wis-pace-set-export-record-211834759--finance.html

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Man says prayer group leader told him to kill wife

Keith Myers / AP

In this Nov. 13 file photo, Micah Moore, 23, is escorted into the Jackson County Courthouse Annex in Independence, Mo., for his murder charge in the death of 27-year-old Bethany Ann Deaton.

By Bill Draper, The Associated Press

Less than three months after he stood as a groomsman in the wedding of two friends he had known since college in Texas, Micah Moore walked into a suburban Kansas City police department and unloaded a dark secret: He had taken the woman's life at the request of her new husband, a charismatic prayer group leader.

Police said Bethany Deaton's death initially appeared to be a suicide. Officers found a note and empty bottle of over-the-counter pain medication along with her body in a minivan parked by a lake on Oct. 30.

It wasn't until Moore confessed nearly two weeks later that police announced she had been killed. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on a first-degree murder charge Wednesday.?

In the criminal complaint filed in support of the charge, police detailed a stunning series of allegations that Moore made as part of his confession.?

Moore, 23, lived with Deaton and her husband, Tyler, in a communal home shared by male members of their prayer group. He told police that several members had sexually assaulted Bethany Deaton and that they were worried she would tell someone. Moore said that's when Tyler Deaton ordered him to kill Bethany Deaton, according to a criminal complaint.?

Tyler Deaton has not been charged in his wife's death. Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Deaton was under investigation but declined to elaborate. Deaton does not have a listed phone number and did not respond to requests for comment The Associated Press made through Facebook and phone and email messages to his father.?

Moore's attorney, Melanie Morgan, declined to comment.?

Tyler and Bethany Deaton moved to Kansas City in 2009 from Texas to attend a six-month internship at the non-accredited International House of Prayer University. The two had met as freshmen at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, in 2005, and two years later Tyler started a prayer group, a former longtime member of the group told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was afraid of retaliation from Tyler Deaton.?

Tyler Deaton was listed at one point as a division coordinator for IHOPU's "friendship groups," but the school said that was a mistake. It issued a statement distancing itself from Tyler Deaton after Moore, a student at IHOPU, was arrested.?

"Since Bethany's death it has come to light that over five years ago, both she and Mr. Moore joined an independent, close-knit, religious group in Georgetown, Texas," the school said in a statement. "This religious group of fewer than 20 people was led by Tyler Deaton. They relocated to Kansas City over the last few years and operated under a veil of secrecy."?

IHOPU is the educational arm of International House of Prayer of Kansas City, an evangelical Christian group focused on missions and preparation for the end of time.?

The Deatons' prayer group had at least two houses, with women living in one and men in another. Bethany Deaton, 27, moved into the men's house with Tyler Deaton after they married in August.?

According to the criminal complaint, Moore told police that men in the house began drugging Bethany Deaton and sexually assaulting her soon after she moved in. He said she was seeing a therapist and group members became concerned she would tell the therapist about the assaults.?

Moore and other men who lived in the house told police that several group members also were having sexual relations with Tyler Deaton, unbeknownst to his wife. One man, whose name was blacked out of the criminal complaint, told police that Tyler Deaton said after Bethany Deaton died that he had had a dream he killed his wife by suffocating her.?

Moore told detectives Tyler Deaton instructed him to kill Bethany Deaton because he knew Moore had it in him to do it, and that Moore reported back to Tyler Deaton after she was dead. Moore told police that he had placed a bag over Bethany Deaton's head and held it there until her body shook.?

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? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/28/15511530-man-says-prayer-group-leader-told-him-to-kill-wife?lite

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This is ?liberal arts-based education? | Fellowship of the Minds

Students Told to Disavow ?American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality?

The College Fix (Ryan Lovelace): A political science professor at Butler University asks students to disregard their ?American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status? when writing and speaking in the classroom ? a practice the school?s arts and sciences dean defended as a way to negate students? inherent prejudices.

The syllabus of the course at Butler, a small Midwestern liberal arts institution in Indianapolis, spells out that students should use ?inclusive language? because it?s ?a fundamental issue of social justice.?

?Language that is truly inclusive affirms sexuality, racial and ethnic backgrounds, stages of maturity, and degrees of limiting conditions,? the syllabus states, referencing a definition created by the United Church of Christ.

The syllabus of the class, called Political Science 201: Research and Analysis, goes on to ask students ?to write and speak in a way that does not assume American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status, etc. to be the norm.? It is taught by a black, female professor.

In an interview with The College Fix, Jay Howard, dean of Butler?s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, denied this practice essentially presumes every student who walks through the door is a racist or misogynist.

He said students must be told not to assume such prejudices because such assumptions are ingrained into the culture and remain there until questioned. With that, a liberal arts education questions these assumptions, and such questions can make for uncomfortable situations, he said.

?Sometimes in order to broaden the conversation and broaden the understandings you?ve got to risk making people uncomfortable,? Howard said. ?There?s nothing about a college education that guarantees you won?t be made uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, if you?re never made uncomfortable in your college education, you?re not really getting a college education.?

Howard said the college he oversees does not want students to continue to harbor such assumptions without question, ?but neither do we want to exclude the dominant group in society in our attempts to make sure that we?re leveling hierarchies.?

In twenty years, white people will no longer be the majority, but they will still be the largest ethnic group, Howard said. He said using inclusive language would help students prepare for a changing world as America becomes more diverse.

He added that American culture makes speaking inclusively difficult, and the English language is partly to blame. ?Our language doesn?t make it easy to write in ways that are inclusive,? Howard said. ?We don?t have a generic singular, I mean we have he and she. There is no pronoun that is gender-neutral there.?

However, not all writing- and language-intensive classes at Butler University mandate students use such ?inclusive? language.

Nancy Whitmore, director of the journalism school in the College of Communication, said in an interview with The College Fix that students in her department are encouraged to use diverse sources with a wide variety of opinions, but are not mandated to use so-called inclusive language.

Whitmore said she is unsure what educators in Butler?s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences mean when they ask students to write without assuming certain things to be the norm. ?I don?t think I could ever write from a black woman?s point of view because I?ve never been a black woman,? Whitmore said.

Indeed.

My name is Ryan Lovelace, and I dropped that politically correct political science class.

Clearly, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University believes its students were raised as racist and misogynist homophobes who have grown to harbor many prejudices, a stance that is both offensive and hostile to any student?s ability to learn.

As a student at an institution predominantly focused on the liberal arts, I expected to hear professors express opinions different from my own. I did not expect to be judged before I ever walked through the door, and did not think I would be forced to agree with my teachers? worldviews or suffer the consequences.

Being judged and forced to act a certain way is antithetical to how any institution of higher education should conduct itself. As a journalism major, I will now strive to avoid the liberal arts college as much as possible, not because the college fails to provide its students with any practical knowledge, but because the college seeks to indoctrinate its students with a hostile paradigm that views people like me?an American, white, heterosexual male from a middle-class background?as evil; whitey-righty need not attend.

Many consider higher education to be in turbulent waters because of rising tuition costs and student loan debt, but students who actually graduate may struggle even more if they view the world as Butler?s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences does.

The liberal arts college seeks to include people, but someone will always be excluded, as it is impossible to always include everyone. Furthermore, I?m not sure how to write assuming any other persona but my own. Any attempts to do so would only be offensive to people different from myself.

Lastly, the idea that people have different views from mine is not what makes me uncomfortable. The idea that I must walk, talk and act as the liberal arts college pleases does. I?ll speak as I always have and conduct myself in the way I deem fit. I think paying $40,000 a year should give me that basic right.

Well said Mr. Lovelace! Social engineering and indoctrination are the causes of so much turbulence in today?s educational system. Good for him for taking a stand against this PC madness.

DCG

Source: http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/this-is-liberal-arts-based-education/

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Casey Anthony movie to debut in January

MIAMI (AP) ? "Prosecuting Casey Anthony" starring Rob Lowe is set to debut early next year on the Lifetime cable network.

Based on prosecutor Jeff Ashton's book, "Imperfect Justice," the movie will air Jan. 19, at 8 p.m.

Lowe plays Ashton and the story is told through his point of view, with Anthony herself as a relatively minor character.

Anthony was arrested in 2008 and charged in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. She was acquitted of murder in summer 2010.

Ashton left the State Attorney's Office after the case but then unseated his former boss in an election this past summer. Ashton will take office Jan. 8.

Elizabeth Mitchell, of "Lost," plays prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick. Oscar Nunez, of "The Office," plays defense attorney Jose Baez.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/casey-anthony-movie-debut-january-005602093.html

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The benefits of water aerobics | Waverley Academy Blog - Steve ...

Water, water, water! How nice is it that water can offer such intense and enjoyable workouts. To me, water aerobics is defined as a?non-weight bearing (easy on the joints)?resistance and aerobic exercise performed in shallow water.?It has since evolved from just walking or jogging?forward and backward in the water to jumping jacks and popular?cross-country skiing movements.

Water equipment?has?also?become more popular.?Water weights,?floating belts, and other useful equipment are used to increase water resistance as well as help with flotation and balance.?Water aerobics?can be performed just about anywhere; from health and fitness clubs to public or private swimming pools to even shallow lakes. All you really need is the?motivation and dedication to splash around a little bit (warm weather wouldn?t hurt either).

Benefits of Water Aerobics:

  1. Non-weight bearing exercise
  2. Improves muscular endurance
  3. Improves core strength and endurance
  4. Great exercise for pregnant women
  5. Improves flexibility
  6. Improves cardiovascular conditioning
  7. Burns enormous amount of calories
  8. Keeps the body cool during exercise
  9. Fun and enjoyable exercise
  10. Great way to modify or spice up normal routine

?

?

This entry was posted in Sports & Fitness and tagged abs, aerobics, best workouts, cardio, exercise, health, muscles, swimming, water, water aerobics, water fitness, workout by Annmarie. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://academy.ie/blog/2012/11/26/the-benefits-of-water-aerobics/

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Source: http://vang40.typepad.com/blog/2012/11/the-benefits-of-water-aerobics-waverley-academy-blog.html

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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৯ নভেম্বর, ২০১২

Fantastical Lands On iPhone With A Calendar App Tailor-Made For Mobile Schedule Management

IMG_0056The iPhone's Calendar app is pretty good overall, and that's something that even Fantastical creator and Flexibits co-founder Michael Simmons admitted to in an interview regarding the launch of Fantastical for iPhone today. But "pretty good" also means there's plenty of room for improvement, and that's where Simmons and co-founder Kent Sutherland saw opportunity.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Ch7r4Xoo458/

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Buddha hoga tera baap: Bachchan the most prolific star on Twitter & 5 lessons from @ipoonampandey

Among eight top Bollywood stars, Amitabh Bachchan is certainly not the youngest, but he is by far the most prolific on Twitter with nearly 80 % of his tweets used up to share personal moments and to interact with fans, according to a new study.

The 70 year old superstar is also the most frequent tweeter with an average of 50 posts a week among the 8 stars, according to ThoughtBuzz, a social media intelligence company based in Singapore.

The company analyzed at least 100 tweets each from celebrities including Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Madhuri Dixit, Priyanka Chopra, Shahid Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor.

Interestingly, none of the celebrities talk about the brands that they endorse actively and there is no story in their tweets when it comes to talking about brand, the study said.

Other findings

Shahrukh Khan uses twitter to connect with fans, share experiences and promote films in a subtle mannter.

Madhuri Dixit Nene tweets in spurts, talks of personal moments, work and promotes brands.

Deepika Padukone tweets or re-tweets a lot about fitness and sports. She also promotes her work on twitter but is not a regular Twitter user.

Shahid Kapoor?s tweets show his love for sports. He also tweets his whereabouts and thoughts.

Akshay Kumar often used Whosay.com which allows longer tweets. He usually promotes his work, films and acknowledges appreciation.

Sonam Kapoor tweeted the most about brands she endorses. A significant part of her tweets were retweets ranging from politics to Jan Lokpal bill and Coal scam.

Priyanka Chopra used almost half her tweets to promote her work. She also uses instagram frequently. Interestingly, she endorses the Nokia Lumia series of phones for which Instagram is still not available.

According to Social Bakers, with over 300,000 followers, Poonam Pandey, the former Kingfisher calendar girl is ranked higher than superstars like Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra. She is second only to megastar Amitabh Bachchan in terms of follower count.? Here are five things we think she is doing right:
1. Do NOT bare it all.

Startups, for instance, when they meet investors (a big brand, especially) tend to bare it all in front of them. Not just investors, but even potential customers etc (who evaluate the roadmap against other competitive quotes). The trick is NOT to bare it all. As the famous Bollywood dialogue goes ? ?Thoda dikhao, thoda chupao?.

TLDR; Keep the interest ON.

2. Focus.

Poonam Pandey is heavily focused on Twitter ? and not on any other network (there are multiple Facebook pages, all pointing to her twitter account). She throws all her energy in just 1 communication channel and simply grows the channel.

Now, take a look at most of the other Indian brands ? they are everywhere (even on G+). For them, social media is spray and pray; but smarter ones know their audience and what they want out of the medium.

3. She is a PRO.

We don?t know what kind of video infrastructure she uses. But it looks like there is a LOT of background activity that?s going on. And that requires a lot of effort. It?s not just about shooting mediocre photos/videos, but I believe there is pretty much an in house crew.

That is, there is no excuses for being mediocre.

4. She is an Entrepreneur.

From nobody to iPoonamPandey, she has redefined the social media to suit her fancies. Call it a cheesy move, but offering to strip for the Indian team did the trick. It takes a lot of balls (oh!) guts, to even think of something like that.

And guess what ? she was already being called a Bollywood actor, even before there was any movie.

5. Show them the community power

Few days ago, Poonam Pandey decided not to publish any video till Twitter verifies her account. And she has asked her followers to sign the twition. And on in a few hours, the hashtag: TwitterwithoutPoonamPandey was trending. Talk about the power of community!

Source: http://www.nextbigwhat.com/film-stars-on-twitter-297/

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To get the best look at a person's face, look just below the eyes

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. However, to get a real idea of what a person is up to, according to UC Santa Barbara researchers Miguel Eckstein and Matt Peterson, the best place to check is right below the eyes. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It's pretty fast, it's effortless ?? we're not really aware of what we're doing," said Miguel Eckstein, professor of psychology in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences. Using an eye tracker and more than 100 photos of faces and participants, Eckstein and graduate research assistant Peterson followed the gaze of the experiment's participants to determine where they look in the first crucial moment of identifying a person's identity, gender, and emotional state.

"For the majority of people, the first place we look at is somewhere in the middle, just below the eyes," Eckstein said. One possible reason could be that we are trained from youth to look there, because it's polite in some cultures. Or, because it allows us to figure out where the person's attention is focused.

However, Peterson and Eckstein hypothesize that, despite the ever-so-brief ?? 250 millisecond ?? glance, the relatively featureless point of focus, and the fact that we're usually unaware that we're doing it, the brain is actually using sophisticated computations to plan an eye movement that ensures the highest accuracy in tasks that are evolutionarily important in determining flight, fight, or love at first sight.

"When you look at a scene, or at a person's face, you're not just using information right in front of you," said Peterson. The place where one's glance is aimed is the place that corresponds to the highest resolution in the eye ?? the fovea, a slight depression in the retina at the back of the eye ?? while regions surrounding the foveal area ?? the periphery ?? allow access to less spatial detail.

However, according to Peterson, at a conversational distance, faces tend to span a larger area of the visual field. There is information to be gleaned, not just from the face's eyes, but also from features like the nose or the mouth. But when participants were directed to try to determine the identity, gender, and emotion of people in the photos by looking elsewhere ?? the forehead, the mouth, for instance ?? they did not perform as well as they would have by looking close to the eyes.

Using a sophisticated algorithm, which mimics the varying spatial detail of human processing across the visual field and integrates all information to make decisions, allowed Peterson and Eckstein to predict what would be the best place within the faces to look for each of these perceptual tasks. They found that these predicted places varied moderately across tasks, and closely corresponded to where humans actually do look.

At least for the three important tasks investigated ?? identity, emotion, and gender ?? below the eyes is the optimal place to look, say the scientists, because it allows one to read information from as many features of the face as possible.

"What the visual system is adept at doing is taking all those pieces of information from your face and combining them in a statistical manner to make a judgment about whatever task you're doing," said Eckstein. The area around the eyes contains minute bits of important information, which require the high resolution processing close to the fovea, whereas features like the mouth are larger and can be read without a direct gaze.

The study shows that the ability to learn optimal rapid eye movement for evolutionarily important perceptual tasks is inherent in humans; however, say the scientists, it is not necessarily consistent behavior for everybody. Eckstein's lab is currently involved in studying a small subset of people who do not look just below the eyes to identify a person. Other researchers have shown that East Asians, for instance, tend look lower on the face when identifying a person's face.

The research by Peterson and Eckstein has resulted in sophisticated new algorithms to model optimal gaze patterns when looking at faces. The algorithms could potentially be used to provide insight into conditions like schizophrenia and autism, which are associated with uncommon gaze patterns, or prosopagnosia ?? an inability to recognize someone by his or her face.

###

University of California - Santa Barbara: http://www.ucsb.edu

Thanks to University of California - Santa Barbara for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/125495/_To_get_the_best_look_at_a_person_s_face__look_just_below_the_eyes

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Bulk Investors And The Real-Estate 'Recovery' | ZeroHedge

Via Ramsey Su of Acting-Man blog,

Bulk (Wall Street) buyers have been receiving a lot of attention recently. It's time to take a closer look.

There is little data available pertaining to bulk investors and even less meaningful analysis. Historically, Wall Street has never been active in direct ownership of single family homes, so there is no past histrory to learn from. We need to start from scratch.

How big are these bulk buyers? A few months ago, I read a report that Keefe, Bruyette & Woods estimated Wall Street had raised $6 billion to $8 billion so far, which is really a paltry sum in the world of high finance. It is impossible to estimate how much small investors are adding to this investment pool. We also have no clue how much this pool may grow over time, or whether it will? soon be exhausted and shrink instead.

Investors typically buy lower end properties. Say at an average of $100,000 per unit, the $6 billion to $8 billion raised so far would not even amount to 100,000 homes.

On the national level, and using the most recent releases, Existing Homes Sales and New Homes Sales combined are coming in at a pace of just over 5 million for 2012. The median price is $178,000 for existing homes and $242,000 for new homes. 100,000 homes would not even show up on the radar.

As for foreclosures, there are 5.6 million total non current loans in various stages of default. The current estimate for under water mortgages still exceeds 10 million, or about 20% of all mortgages. The Wall Street bulk investors are unlikely to put a dent in the distress property arena for the foreseeable future. In comparison, when the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) was dissolved back in 1992 due to the sunset clause, investors cleaned the entire inventory of REOs and loans off the books with just a few auctions.

On the localized level, it is a slightly different story. I am going to use three Western metro areas as examples. Phoenix, Southern California and Las Vegas were hotbeds of the subprime bubble and are once again the most sought after areas, this time by bulk investors. Using September data from DQNews, investors purchased 38.6%, 27.3% and 48.5% of all sales respectively. The actual number of absentee buyers for the four areas totaled 9,885 for the month of September. I expect this number will grow for the current months and into the near future, as investors eagerly place their funds. There is no data that separates absentee buyers into specific classes, such as Wall Street funds, local syndicates or small investors. However, if the bulk buyers are actively accumulating in these select markets, it is safe to assume that they do have some influence. The question is for how long.

Of the aforementioned metro areas, Las Vegas is the most out of whack. There were 4,570 sales in October.? 50.2% were sold to absentee owners, 52.5% in cash (43.2% were short sales, 16.7% were REOs) and 36.1% FHA financed. I have never seen a market where over half of the buyers paid cash and over 1/3 of the sales were financed via the FHA, leaving only 14% of sales in the "other" category.

In just the months of September and October, Las Vegas sold 4,278 single family units to absentee owners.? Assuming a majority of them will show up as rentals soon, if they haven't already, how much more can the market absorb? If this trend continues, how many months will it take to swamp the desert with single family rentals?

Even more out of whack is the "it's cheaper to buy than rent" theory. I am not disputing the math but rather the conclusions.? Just the fact that it is cheaper to buy does not mean that renters should buy. Maybe housing is simply unaffordable and rents are way too high.? As the supply of rentals continues to increase, natural economic forces should be driving down rent and home prices. Furthermore, if renters are buying because it is cheaper than renting, won't there be even more pressure from this supply of rentals? Where are the additional 2,000 renters going to come from each month?

Finally, it is mind boggling that they are still building in this market. Here are some of the new homes for sale.? Just this website shows 100 communities on the market.

As an investor, why would I touch the Las Vegas market? Check out the popular websites such as craigslist or rentals.com. There are countless houses, condos and apartments for rent, all chasing after this phantom demand.? Cash investors have to ability to lower rents to the level that the market will bear, but can current investors compete? With so many renters, are neighborhoods going to deteriorate, driving even more under water mortgages into foreclosure?

I took a number of these rentals in Las Vegas and did a quick analysis on their return. It is impossible to come up with a reliable vacancy allowance. It is entirely possible for a bulk investor today to be sitting on a bulk of vacant houses tomorrow. While the option exists to lower rents, that can cause a chain reaction which may result in more foreclosures, more distress properties and a new round of depreciation in value.

Phoenix was probably the first region to experience an investor driven rebound. The most recent data from DQNews for September are already showing a sequential as well as a year over year decline. I am eagerly waiting to see what the October statistics will look like. Is that recovery already running out of steam?? The median price has been appreciating to $155,000 but it is still 41.3% below the all time peak of $264,100 in 2006. I am not suggesting that the subprime peak was reasonable, just that there is still a boatload of homeowners who have little or no equity in their homes.

Here in Southern California, the herd mentality is in full control with buying increasing at all levels. How long will this feeding frenzy last? Will the bulk investors be able to generate enough returns to whet their appetite for more? Will the local investors continue to ride on the coattails of the Wall Street moguls? Will owner occupiers continue to overpay for new homes because the 1%ers are paying cash and squeezing them out of the non-FHA market?

Stay tuned.

Your rating: None Average: 4.6 (12 votes)

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/bulk-investors-and-real-estate-recovery

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Mexicans Will Have To Pay A Tax If They Want To Keep Chewing Gum

After the deaths of 60,000 people in Mexico?s war on drugs, a presidential election rife with accusations of fraud, abject poverty and a serious economic disparity, now a deputy with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is finally rolling up his sleeves and attacking one of the country?s most serious problems, which no one else dares to address: chewing gum.

According to the Mexican newspaper, El Universal, PRI deputy, Juan Manuel Diez Francos, has finally moved forward and proposed a federal tax of 50 percent on chewing gum, or chicle as it is known in Mexico. He says the chewing gum tax would help pay for the cleaning of chewing gum that people spit out in public places like sidewalks, plazas and parks. As it stands now, he says, the government spends an average of 2 pesos and 50 cents on every piece of gum it un-sticks from these public areas. The cheapest pack of chicle costs only 50 cents.

It might sound like a trivial issue, but Mexican?s love their gum. It is the second largest consumer of gum after the U.S. according to Kraft Foods. There are 92 thousand tons of chicle produced each year in Mexico, and on average Mexicans consume 2.5 pieces of gum per day. The average cleanup in Mexico City is 70 chicles per square meter. And in a single day, the cost of cleanup of the Zocalo amounts to approximately 2,800 pesos according to Diez Francos.

The cleaning of chewed gum is not a problem isolated to Mexico. Diez Francos points out that England spends 7 million euros each year cleaning up gum. And the fact is, chewed gum can be a health hazard since it can contain over 50 thousand germs and transmittable diseases. England?s chewing gum problem is so bad, it inspired artist Ben Wilson to take his talents to the tiny blobs spread all over the sidewalks. Concerned about the environment and how advertisements rule the urban environment, Wilson began painting on the gum. He doesn?t just dab them with color, he uses the gum as a canvas for his miniature paintings which he does just about everywhere and on most any subject.

Mexico not the first to impose a chewing gum tax

According to Diez Francos, in China, chewing gum can be considered illegal because authorities there have counted over 600 thousand pieces of gum stuck in Tiananmen Square. Besides, Mexico is not the only country considering a chewing gum tax as a solution to what has become a sticky problem. Ireland is considering an 11 percent chewing gum tax as well.

Mexico?s chicle problem is not going to go away by itself. The machines to clean the gum cost $6000 each, and then there is the salary to the personnel. But what about the poor kids selling gum on street corners? Will they have to hire accountants to maintain their purchases and sales so they can pay their share of the tax to the Secretar?a de Hacienda? And what about corruption? Mexico is notorious for its corruption at all levels. My question is whether the 50 percent tax will actually make it to the proper authorities, buy more chewing gum cleaning machines, and hire more workers.

We tax cigarettes and alcohol, and just about everything else. Why not gum? Personally, I hate it when I?m walking down the sidewalk and I get a piece of fresh gum stuck on the sole of my shoe. It?s embarrassing and disgusting. But if the price of gum goes up, I?m not sure it matters so much to me since my favorite Mexican gum, banana flavored Motita, was discontinued years ago.

Originally published by Voxxi as Mexico?s chewing gum tax, a way out of a sticky problem

Related on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/mexico-chewing-gum-tax_n_2205512.html

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To avoid fiscal cliff, Obama and GOP should compromise like Founding Fathers

Looming weeks away is America?s ?fiscal cliff.? President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are both optimistic that a deal on spending cuts and taxes can be reached. But Erskine Bowles, co-chair of the former bipartisan deficit commission, says there?s only a one-third chance Washington will reach an agreement in time to avoid the fiscal precipice.

What Washington seems to have forgotten is that America was established by men who disagreed sorely, but created a government founded on the philosophy that varying views could be coalesced for the common good. As challenging as these modern issues are, consider the questions grappled with by the 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

OPINION: 6 ways to avoid the 'fiscal cliff'

The delegates were faced with deciding the composition of the House and Senate, the method of electing the president, the structure and jurisdiction of the federal courts, and whether to count slaves for the purpose of representation and taxation. They had to agree on a tariff policy, the slave trade, the assumption of state debts, the admission of new states, the procedure for amending the Constitution, the control of the militia, and restrictions upon the states, and general relationship of the national and state governments.

While a majority quickly decided that the Articles of Confederation (the precursor agreement to the Constitution) needed to be replaced by a new document that ensured a stronger national government. But there were conflicting opinions over how the new government should look. This was to be expected given the divergent economic and geographic circumstances of the states the delegates represented. On many of these issues, a resolution came only after a long and bitter debate. The Constitution was born only after a series of imaginative compromises were agreed upon.

Take for example, the Three-Fifths Compromise. At the insistence of delegates from southern states, Congress was denied the power to limit the slave trade for a minimum of 20 years, and slaves ? although denied the vote and not recognized as citizens by those states ? were allowed to be counted as 3/5 persons for the purpose of apportioning representatives and determining presidential electoral votes.

Most important, perhaps, delegates compromised on the thorny issue of apportioning members of Congress, an issue that had bitterly divided the larger and smaller states. The small states wanted each state to have the same number of representatives, and the large states wanted representation determined by population. Under a plan put forward by delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut (known as the Connecticut Compromise), representation in the House of Representatives would be based on population, while each state would be guaranteed an equal two senators in the new Senate.

Although the delegates at the 1787 Convention faced an arduous challenge, the document they drafted continues to be the foundation of American government and political thought to this day. Compromise worked then, and it can work now.

Shortly after the work of the convention was completed, Thomas Jefferson penned a letter on the importance of compromise: ?It is necessary to give as well as take in a government like ours." And in another piece of correspondence, he echoed: "I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.?

Earlier, on Sept. 17, 1787, the final day of the convention, Benjamin Franklin delivered a remarkable closing address to the proceedings. Biographer Walter Isaacson tells us that Franklin?s speech is ?perhaps the best ever written by anyone about the magic of the American system and the spirit of compromise that created it.?

?Mr. President,? Franklin begins, ?I confess that I do not entirely approve this Constitution at present; but sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it: For, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and to pay more respect to the judgment of others....

?I doubt too, whether any other convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution; for when you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views....The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good...?

While Franklin put it most eloquently, a number of other delegates were similarly motivated. George Washington, for example, wrote that he ?was ready to have embraced any tolerable compromise that was competent to save us from impending ruin.?

In 1787, as the 13 colonies debated the merits of the proposed Constitution, John Adams told John Jay: ?The public mind cannot be occupied about a nobler object than the proposed plan of government. It appears to be admirably calculated to cement all America in affection and interest as one great nation. A result of accommodation and compromise cannot be supposed perfectly to coincide with any one's ideas of perfection. But all the great principles necessary to order, liberty, and safety are respected in it, and provision is made for correction and amendments as they may be found necessary.?

OPINION: 8 ways to find common ground

Today's lawmakers aren't simply tasked with forging a budget deal. They'll need to make tough decisions on the problems facing this country long after Jan. 1, 2013: the federal debt ceiling, entitlement reform, taxes, health care, unemployment, energy and environment, immigration, and education. The impasses are daunting, but they aren't insurmountable.

Washington should listen to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers for a moment. Our government isn?t broken. We have just momentarily forgotten how the Framers went about creating it.

Stephen W. Stathis served for 38 years as a specialist in American history for the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. His most recent book is ?Landmark Debates in Congress: From the Declaration of Independence to the War in Iraq.?

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/avoid-fiscal-cliff-obama-gop-compromise-founding-fathers-165817561--politics.html

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Controversy over Susan Rice's Benghazi comments continues

On Tuesday, U.S. United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice met with Republican senators who have accused her of misleading the public following the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi. The meeting came at a time when the White House is searching for a replacement for Hillary Clinton, who plans to leave her job as secretary of state in January.?

By Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell,?Reuters / November 27, 2012

This file photo shows U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice speaking at U.N. headquarters. With congressional opposition softening, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice could find her name in contention as early as this week to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.

AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File

Enlarge

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice?on Tuesday conceded that an early account she gave about the attack on the?U.S. mission?in?Benghazi,?Libya, was partly inaccurate, but her admission failed to win over Republican senators who accused her of misleading the public.

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Rice met for about an hour behind closed doors at the U.S. Capitol with Republican Senators?John McCain,?Lindsey Graham?and?Kelly Ayotte, who have threatened to block her nomination if President?Barack Obama?chooses her for secretary of state or another top post in his second-term Cabinet.

They have criticized her for initial comments after the Sept. 11 attack in?Benghazi?that suggested it was a spontaneous event arising from protests over an anti-Islam film rather than a premeditated attack.

The U.S. ambassador to?Libya?and three other Americans were killed in the attack on the?Benghazi mission?and a nearby CIA annex. Intelligence officials later said the attack was possibly tied to al Qaeda affiliates.

"We are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got, and some that we didn't get, concerning evidence that was overwhelming leading up to the attack on our consulate," McCain told reporters after the meeting.

"It is clear that the information that she gave the American people was incorrect when she said that it was a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a hateful video," he said.

"It was not, and there was compelling evidence at the time that that was certainly not the case, including statements by Libyans as well as other Americans who are fully aware that people don't bring mortars and rocket-propelled grenades to spontaneous demonstrations," McCain said.

Graham said he would move to block the nomination of "anybody" who was linked to the?Benghazi?events.

Republicans have argued that the?Obama administration?tried to play down the terrorist angle in its initial comments to avoid undermining the president's claims of success in fighting al Qaeda in the run-up to the Nov. 6 election.

Rice, who was accompanied to the meeting by acting CIA Director Michael Morell, later issued a statement.

"We explained that the talking points provided by the intelligence community, and the initial assessment upon which they were based, were incorrect in a key respect: there was no protest or demonstration in?Benghazi," she said in the statement.

"While, we certainly wish that we had had perfect information just days after the terrorist attack, as is often the case, the intelligence assessment has evolved," she said.

"We stressed that neither I nor anyone else in the Administration intended to mislead the American people at any stage in this process."?

Tempest over talking points?

Rice's controversial?Benghazi?statements were based on a set of unclassified talking points prepared by?U.S. intelligence?agencies for members of?Congress.

White House?spokesman?Jay Carney?said Tuesday that the questions about?Rice's appearance on the talk shows and the talking points she used had been answered. "The focus on - some might say obsession on - comments made on Sunday shows seems to me and to many to be misplaced," he said.

But Republican senators said the meeting with?Rice and Morell left them with more concerns than before. In a statement McCain, Graham and Ayotte said there was now more confusion about who had made changes in the talking points before they were given to Rice.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/qgSk8hVoHqw/Controversy-over-Susan-Rice-s-Benghazi-comments-continues

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Direct Mail And Facebook For Website Traffic - Internet Marketing ...

If you?re looking to improve the amount of brand new customers that come into your business each and everyday, you will have to find new ways to promote yourself online, and do a wide variety of marketing strategies on a daily basis. If you want immediate sales, you have to be a traffic generation master.

Now getting traffic to your website doesn?t have to be hard. All you have to do is follow a few simple techniques that will allow you to have the most success as possible in your internet business. I?ve been doing this for a long time now, and I can honestly tell you that if you want to get more new sales, you have to drive more and more traffic to your website on a consistent basis.

In today?s lesson, I want to share with you some of the traffic methods that are working for me now, and how you can use these same techniques to work in your online business also. These strategies are very simple, and once you read them, you will see that it?s very easy to make money online simply and easily.

Here?s the first traffic method that you can use in your online business today:

1) Direct mail to existing customers

Once you develop a large group of customers, there will come a point in time where the traffic from your existing will bring you 80% of your total business profits. Because of this, you will want to do anything that you can to sell more and more of your products to these people - over and over again.

One of the best ways to increase your conversion results and traffic count is with direct mail. You see if you just rely on email marketing to contact your existing customers, you?re missing out on a great bunch of potential profits that you could be getting in your online business. Direct mail has been proven to increase sales of online business owners, and the same can be true of you if you decide to put it into use in your business.

Here?s another way to get traffic to your website:

2) Facebook

Facebook is the number 2 ranked website on the internet (in terms of website traffic), and they are right behind Google (Youtube is number 3 by the way). The more ?likes? and members that you can get to your Facebook page, and the more you interact with them, the more people will start to visit your site repeatedly to learn more free information or even to buy some of your products.

I think all businesses can benefit from Facebook. You can build alot of relationships with your Facebook members, and can create special deals, campaigns, and activities that will allow you to get more website traffic, and boost your sales? all for free. But the first step is getting those Facebook ?likes? and getting people to respond to you.

These 2 ways to get traffic to your website are both very good ways to make your business a success, and to start earning the money that you are looking for in your business. Hopefully you will put them into use.

Good luck with earning the money that you are looking for in your online business.

For more internet marketing secrets, simply visit the website below:
http://www.internetmarketing-rules.com/internetmarketing.html

Source: http://blog.internetmarketing-rules.com/2012/11/direct-mail-and-facebook-for-website.html

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Sea Level Rise Accelerating Faster Than Initial Projections

From Climate Central's Michael D. Lemonick:

Sea level is rising as the planet warms up, but how much it will rise, and how fast is still something climate scientists are working out. And according to a study released late Tuesday in Environmental Research Letters the ocean is already rising faster than the most recent authoritative report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was projecting as recently as 2007.

?Results show that global temperature continues to increase in very good agreement with the best estimates of the IPCC," the authors of the new study write. "The rate of sea level rise of the past decades, on the other hand, is greater than projected by the IPCC models. This suggests that IPCC sea level projections for the future may also be biased low.?

The IPCC issues comprehensive reports every five to seven years, with the next one due out in 2013-2014. The reports summarize the state of scientific knowledge on climate change, and are used as the underpinning of interational climate talks aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The latest round of these negotiations is currently underway in Doha, Qatar.

The IPCC?s projections showed a worst-case scenario of just less than 2 feet of sea level rise by 2100. ?Lots of people felt that the IPCC was too conservative," said co-author Grant Foster, of the consulting firm Tempo Analytics, in Garland, Maine. "The IPCC explicitly stated in the 2007 report that its models excluded 'future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow.' ? In other words, it didn?t allow for the fact that ice flowing into the sea from Greenland and Antarctica might speed up as the planet warms.

That doesn?t entirely account for the lower prediction, according to the study's lead author, Sefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam (Germany) Institute for Climate Impact Research. ?We also have five more years of data,? Rahmstorf said. And much of that data is from satellites, which are more comprehensive than the tide gauges used in the pre-satellite era.

Still, many experts, including Rahmstorf, were convinced several years ago that the increase in sea level by 2100 should be more than 3 feet (assuming, that is, that no serious measures are taken to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions). Even the 1-foot rise in the New York area from 1900 to the present was enough to boost the destructive power of Hurricane Sandy?s storm surge; 3 feet of extra sea level could prove truly catastrophic. Their calculations were based, not on additional sea level data, but on more sophisticated analyses of the relation between sea level and temperature, based in part on evidence from ancient climate conditions.

The newly published figures don?t change that 3-foot projection for 2100: they look instead at the measured rate of sea level rise from 1993-2011, pegging it at about 3.2 millimeters per year. That?s 60 percent faster than the 2 millimeters per year the IPCC?s computer models suggested should have happened over that same period ? a clear indication that those models weren?t especially accurate.

Even at 3.2 millimeters per year, sea level would only go up by a foot by 2100; the extra 2 feet almost everyone expects will come from an accelerating sea level rise caused by ever increasing temperatures.

But 3 feet of sea level rise by 2100 is a projection; it isn?t necessarily destiny. ?A lot depends on what emissions path we follow,? Foster said. ?If we get our acts together, it doesn?t have to go that high.?

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/sea-level-rise-2012-rising_n_2204402.html

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Scientists design 3-D printed satellite

10 hrs.

Seeking?a low-cost way to launch their experiments into space, a team of scientists has designed a space-ready, 3-D printed CubeSat.

CubeSats are standardized, tiny satellites, often only 3.9 inches on each side and weighing just under 3 pounds. They are so small that they have room for only a few sensors, and burn up in the Earth's atmosphere after just a few months. Kits cost under $10,000, which is considered cheap for the space industry. But Jacopo Piattoni of the University of Bologna and his team aim to drive the satellites' price down even further, while making the devices easier to customize.

In 3-D printing, a computer-directed nozzle "prints" a three-dimensional object in plastic. Often, engineers use this method to design a prototype for a product that will then be built out of metal or another, sturdier medium. But Piattoni?s team hopes their plastic CubeSat could survive launch and low-Earth orbit.

Using 3-D printers, researchers can automate the CubeSat production process. ?We don?t need a technician,? Piattoni said, adding that this also makes the process faster.

[NASA Turns to 3-D Printing for Self-Building Spacecraft]

The CubeSat?s sensors and computer chips, of course, weren't printed in the lab, and the team had to add a small, metal heat sink to disperse the electronic components' heat. The method holds promise, though. When the researchers tested the chassis in near-space conditions, "it did really well," Piattoni said.

Piattoni chose ABS plastic, the same type of plastic used in Lego bricks, to construct his CubeSat because of that material's resilience to extreme temperatures, vibrations, radiation and more. A satellite will absorb a lot of solar radiation during its spaceflight, and its temperature will swing from -4 degrees F (-20 degrees C) to 176 degrees F (80 degrees C) each orbit. "It's not so easy for plastics in that environment," Piattoni said.

In fact, ABS plastic was famously indicted in a massive seat-belt buckle recall in the mid-90s because UV radiation weakened buckles made from the material. But such radiation, even at elevated levels, won't pose a problem for the CubeSat, due to its short lifetime.

With one successful satellite constructed, the team can now use the 3-D printer to crank out another copy each night. They can also test new designs or build support for other sensors or modules, just by clicking a few buttons on a computer.

The final product passed its tests with flying colors. Now, like most other CubeSats, it will hitch a ride into space as secondary cargo on a rocket already headed to its preferred orbit. Piattoni's team is working with QB50, which will put 50 CubeSats into orbit at once on a Russian Shtil-2.1 scheduled to launch in 2014.

The satellite was designed and tested by Piattoni and researchers in the University of Rome's Department of Astronautical, Electrical and Energy Engineering and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Copyright 2012 TechNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/scientists-design-3-d-printed-satellite-1C7265444

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20 Cutaway Drawings That Will Slice Open Your Mind

When I was a child I loved to bury myself in the centerfold cutaway illustrations of the monthly scientific magazines my father subscribed to for me. Cars, tractors, ships, trains, engines—I loved every tiny detail. I loved pretending I was one of the tiny men in the pictures. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/COMdXhyl1So/20-cutaway-drawings-that-will-slice-open-your-mind

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