Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Video: Matthews: Does anyone have a grip on who Romney is?

News sites knocked out as data center floods

When you see a website go down, the blame usually falls on hackers or, more often, software bugs. We don't often think of the Web as having a physical existence, but sure enough, Sandy has shown that nature can impact websites with greater force than any team of malicious code wizards can summon up.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/49615162#49615162

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Canterbury businesses find ways to survive | Stuff.co.nz

MARTA STEEMAN AND TAMLYN STEWART

The impact of the earthquakes on Christchurch businesses has not been as bad as expected, a Statistics New Zealand report reveals.

The "Business demography" report released yesterday shows Christchurch's number of business sites was only 2.5 per cent lower in February this year than February last year.

The report compares the number of business locations or sites in February this year with February last year before the destructive February 22 earthquake.

Christchurch had 37,340 business sites in February last year and 36,420 in February this year. That is only 920 fewer business sites.

It's the same for the Canterbury region. The 63,470 business locations in February this year is only 960 lower than the 64,430 in February last year.

The number of employees in Christchurch was only 1600 fewer in February this year, at 184,000, than February last year. And in Canterbury there was a slight rise in the number of employees to 256,600.

But Christchurch has a lot more businesses in building and the construction industry and a lot fewer cafes, restaurants, pubs, tourism businesses and education services, the report shows.

The numbers of painting and decorating businesses rose more than a third in the year to February 2012 , the number of house building businesses increased 11 per cent and other construction businesses rose 14.5 per cent.

The number of cafes and restaurants fell 19 per cent and pubs, taverns and bars dropped 13.5 per cent.

Christchurch economist Robin Clements, of research house UBS, said he expected the impact to be a lot worse.

"That's what shocked me," Clements said.

Many businesses just got on with the job and set themselves up in all sorts of alternative locations.

It suggested the economic loss to the region was not as great as some of the "scaremongers" were suggesting.

Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce chief executive Peter Townsend said the small decrease in business sites in Christchurch was in line with feedback from membership. The region was "still in pretty good shape and well positioned to engage in the rebuild."

The report gives more insight into the flight from the CBD. It shows about 18,200 fewer employees in the CBD in February this year - nearly 40 per cent fewer - and 1975 fewer business sites (about 34 per cent down) than February last year.

The western and southern suburbs took the migration from the centre.

They had an extra 16,710 employees in February this year, a 6 per cent increase, and an extra 1250 business sites.

FAST RELOCATION KEPT QUAKE-HIT FIRMS ALIVE

Winning the race to find new premises in the western suburbs of Christchurch ensured the survival of many businesses after the February 2011 earthquake.

Hi-tech manufacturer Enatel and web development company Hairy Lemon were two of those - Enatel relocating to Wigram and Hairy Lemon to Hornby.

Enatel managing director Gary Foot said one advantage of relocating was that the business, previously spread across four separate business sites in St Asaph and Tuam streets, was now in one much larger site in Wigram.

The hi-tech manufacturer produces standby power supplies for the telecommunications industry and solar inverters which convert electricity from solar panels into electricity suitable for everyday use.

Enatel's new location is close to the airport but traffic congestion was a problem. Morning and afternoon rush hours were "just a nightmare", Foot said.

But it was something to "grin and bear" because all the activity in the area was rebuild-related.

The firm was paying higher rent than before the earthquake but that was because its premises were much larger, Foot said. "But clearly there has been a significant increase in rental as a result of the earthquake."

Before the quake, one site had been offered for $100,000 a year, on a three-year lease, Foot said. Immediately after the quake, the landlord for that site had wanted a 10-year lease for $200,000 a year.

Another tenant accepted those terms within 48 hours.

Fortunately the firm had had its eye on its Wigram site before the September quake and was able to negotiate a seven-year lease. The company spent $1 million on a new fitout.

Web development company Hairy Lemon co-founder Graham Dockrill said its relocation to Hornby had been vital.

"Finding facilities that allowed us to continue business after the event, that continuity of business was incredibly important."

However the location, fit-out and size of its Hornby office was "not ideal", with only about half the office space of their former Victoria St site.

Rent was similar to what the firm had been paying in Victoria St.

The firm is returning to the city centre and is about to sign a lease for new premises.

- ? Fairfax NZ News

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/rebuilding-christchurch/7884663/Canterbury-businesses-find-ways-to-survive

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New tool aims to ensure software security policies reflect user needs

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2012) ? Researchers from North Carolina State University and IBM Research have developed a new natural language processing tool that businesses or other customers can use to ensure that software developers have a clear idea of the security policies to be incorporated into new software products.

Specifically, the research focuses on access control policies (ACPs), which are the security requirements that software developers need to bear in mind when developing new software. For example, an ACP for a university grading program needs to allow professors to give grades to students, but should not allow students to change the grades.

"These ACPs are important, but are often buried amidst a lengthy list of other requirements that customers give to developers," says Dr. Tao Xie, an associate professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. These requirements are written in "natural language," which is the conversational language that people use when talking or corresponding via the written word.

Incomplete or inaccurate ACP requirements can crop up, for example, if the customer writing the ACP requirements makes a mistake or doesn't have enough technical know-how to accurately describe a program's security needs.

A second problem is that programmers may misinterpret some ACP requirements, or overlook them entirely.

In collaboration with IBM Research, Xie's research team has developed a solution that uses a natural language processing program to extract the ACP requirements from a customer's overall list of requirements and translate it into machine-readable language that computers can understand and enforce.

After the ACPs are extracted, they can be run through Access Control Policy Tool (ACPT) -- also developed in Xie's research team in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) -- which verifies and tests the ACPs and determines whether the ACP requirements are adequate to meet the security needs of the program.

Once the ACP requirements have been translated into machine-readable language, they can also be incorporated into a policy-enforcement "engine" in the final software product -- which ensures that ACPs cannot be overlooked by programmers.

"In general, developing a program that understands natural language text is very challenging," Xie says. "However, ACP requirements in software documents usually follow a certain style, using terms such as 'cannot be edited' or 'does not have the ability to edit.' Because ACPs tend to use such a limited number of phrases, it is much easier to develop a program that effectively translates natural language texts in this context."

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/OMwt4-xby1E/121030210353.htm

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Friday, October 26, 2012

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Source: http://cannabismrsacure.letstalkaboutpot.com/say-goodbye-to-jason-witten-elite-jersey-boring-strategies-by-using-these-clever-internet-marketing-suggestions/

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Thursday, October 25, 2012

Is the Sammamish Community Center worth it? : Sammamish ...

October 24, 2012

By Caleb Heeringa

Both side make their arguments on community center vote

Sammamish voters have major decisions on their Nov. 6 ballots, with presidential, gubernatorial and legislative races all at stake. But no ballot measure is likely hit as close to home as Proposition 1, which asks Sammamish residents to weigh in on one of the biggest capital projects in the young city?s history ? a proposed $30 million YMCA-run community and aquatic center behind the library.

The non-binding vote is designed to give Sammamish City Council members a gauge on whether the public supports moving forward with the 60,000-square-foot building, which would feature a family-friendly leisure pool with a waterslide and lazy river, a six-lane lap pool, two gymnasiums, fitness equipment, meeting rooms and a children?s play room.

Under a broad framework agreed to by the city and the YMCA, the non-profit would kick in $5 million towards the construction of the facility, provide approximately an additional $1 million in internal improvements like furniture and light fixtures and ? perhaps most importantly ? run the facility to ensure city taxpayers aren?t on the hook in the event of any operating deficits. The city would cover the rest of the $25 million in construction costs, retain ownership of the building and also get a $1 a year lease on a parcel of YMCA-owned land near Pine Lake Middle School, for use as some sort of recreational facility.

The community and aquatic center would be run similar to other YMCAs around the Puget Sound, with dues tied to YMCA monthly fees ? currently $107 a month for a family with two adults and less for individual adults, seniors and children. YMCA officials have also verbally committed to multiple perks for Sammamish residents, including free use of multi-purpose rooms, regular free-swim days and a waiver of the normal $125 initial joining fee.

City Manager Ben Yazici has said the city can pay for its contribution to the project out its sizeable reserves ? projected at the Oct. 15 council meeting to be approximately $45.8 million at the end of 2014 due to higher than expected revenues from development fees and sales tax this year. The city?s savings account would go down to $20.8 million if it chipped in $25 million for the project. The proposition states that ?no new taxes are expected to be levied to pay for operations, maintenance or construction costs.?

Proponents of the project see this as a golden opportunity to address a long-standing request of local citizens ? a community pool, an affordable place to get exercise and a space to bring the community together in the future heart of the city. Construction costs will likely be low because of the sluggish economy, a nonprofit is offering to operate the facility and the city has amassed a large amount of savings because it contracts for services like police and fire instead of running its own, they argue.

?While other cities are struggling, Sammamish ? because it has been run in a fiscally frugal manner ? is in the envious position of having a strong reserve,? said Parks Commissioner Hank Klein, who helped author the ?pro? statement in the Voter?s Guide. ?This is not strictly a fitness club ? this is so much more.?

But the proposal has drawn vocal opposition from some. Former city council candidate Jim Wasnick, who helped author the ?con? statement in the voter?s guide, said citizens responding to surveys have been requesting a pool, not a more deluxe fitness center. He questioned why the city didn?t look into cheaper options like building just an indoor pool without the rest of fitness options that put the facility in direct competition with private health clubs like the Pine Lake Club and Columbia Athletic Center, run by Bellevue resident Cy Oskoui.

Wasnick suggested that the school districts and independent swim teams, which have been pushing the city to address the lack of pool space in the area, should chip in for any new facility they?d be using.

?There are so many different options out there that haven?t been explored,? Wasnick said. ?The City Council doesn?t care about small businesses and it?s unfortunate.?

Others have compared the proposed facility to YMCAs in neighboring cities and questioned why the city seems to be paying for so much more of this facility. The city of Newcastle waived about $400,000 worth of development and permitting fees for the YMCA when it spent more than $19 million on the Coal Creek YMCA facility in 2008. The Snoqualmie Valley YMCA, which opened up earlier this year in Snoqualmie Ridge, was funded by about $4 million worth of city money, with the Washington State Department of Commerce chipping in about $800,000 and the YMCA fundraising about $250,000.

Marcia Isenberger, Eastside Regional Executive of the YMCA of Greater Seattle, said the Snoqualmie facility is more indicative of the current partnerships the YMCA has been looking at, while the Coal Creek facility is a relic of pre-recession thinking. The YMCA had originally planned to build a facility on the land it owns near Pine Lake Middle School the same time it built the Coal Creek facility and two others ? in Shoreline and SeaTac. But the recession took the wind out of the $40 million total fundraising effort for those facilities and the YMCA was forced to scale back plans and drop the Sammamish facility. With the economy still finding its feet, the Isenberger said the YMCA needs partners ? like Sammamish ? to take the lead on fundraising for future facilities.

?Times have changed,? Isenberger said. ?We?d be foolish to try to raise $40 million in this climate.?

?

Big money

Cy Oskoui, owner of Columbia Athletic Clubs, has donated $45,000 to a political action committee that has sent out at least two different mailers urging voters to say no to the community and aquatic facility. Oskoui has said that he fears that his health clubs would go out of business if the facility is built.

Common Sense Sammamish, the PAC in question, also may have run afoul of Washington state election law by not disclosing the top five donors to the PAC on its mailers. Washington State Public Disclosure Commission spokeswoman Lori Anderson said PACs are required to disclose such information if they spend more than $1,000 on a mailer ? more than $10,000 was spent on these mailers.

Anderson said the top five donor requirement is new this year and that first-time offenders are generally given a warning, while repeat offenders can be fined up to $500. Oskoui said he became aware of the requirement after the mailers were sent and promised that any future mailers will abide by the requirement.

?I?ve spent 20 years of my life building these health clubs, and now I am fighting for my life,? Oskoui said of the proposed YMCA?s effect on his business.

?

Private offer rejected

Cy Oskoui, owner of Columbia Athletic Clubs, said he offered to partner with the city on building a community and aquatic center similar to the one being proposed by the YMCA, but his idea fell on deaf ears.

Oskoui said he had been planning on building a 40,000 square foot health club ? with a pool ? in the north end of Sammamish to replace an 8,000 square foot facility he runs in the Saffron development. Oskoui said developers backed out on those plans after the city announced it wanted to build its community and aquatic center.

A copy of a September 2011 letter sent by Oskoui to City Manager Ben Yazici called for the city to build the facility, which would include a child care center and community meeting rooms, and have Columbia Athletic Company run it. Oskoui proposed to give 15 percent of the gross revenue back to the city, though it makes no mention of how much citizens would be charged to use the facility.

In an interview, Yazici said he did not pursue the proposal any further because Oskoui made no promises about the monthly fees users would be charged. He also said the proposal could be seen as a gift of public funds under state law, since Columbia Athletic Club is a for-profit business.

?Having a nonprofit run the facility is much different than going out and just giving a facility to a private person,? Yazici said.

Written by Caleb Heeringa ? Filed Under Election News, Local News?

Copyright 2010 by Issaquah Press Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed without permission. E-mail editor@isspress.com

Comments

Source: http://sammamishreview.com/2012/10/24/is-the-sammamish-community-center-worth-it

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Human rights group, Christian Bale honour blind Chinese activist with award in NY

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Sitting in the Future (of Health Care?) By PAUL HERTEL - Whole ...

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Source: http://wholelivingdaily.wholeliving.com/2012/10/sitting-in-the-future-of-health-care-by-paul-hertel.html

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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

E.U. Antitrust Officials Say Microsoft Violated Deal

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Source: www.nytimes.com --- Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Regulators on Wednesday said Microsoft had failed to live up to an agreement to give Windows software users better access to rival Internet browsers. ...

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/technology/european-antitrust-officials-charge-microsoft-with-violation.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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FIRST LOOK: See Justin & Jessica's Wedding Photo

The couple revealed the first photo from their special day! Look back at how their relationship has blossomed over the years

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/justin-timberlake-jessica-biel-engagement-photos/1-b-415522?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Ajustin-timberlake-jessica-biel-engagement-photos-415522

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Media Advisory: Ministers Clement, Toews, and Blaney to Hold a Media Availability in Response to the Fall 2012 Report of the Auditor General of Canada

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Oct. 23, 2012) - The Honourable Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board; the Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety; and, the Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs will hold a media availability.

Date Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Time 12:00 (EDT)
Location House of Commons Foyer
Centre Block, Parliament Hill
Ottawa, ON

Source: http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=1716825&sourceType=3

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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Iran sanctions vs. oil prices: Obama faces tough decision

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Just weeks after the election, President Barack Obama will be faced with a pivotal decision on oil sanctions on Iran, in which he will have to balance the need to stay tough on Tehran without pushing oil prices too high.

In considering whether to extend a new series of six-month exemptions to Washington's oil sanctions, the administration must decide whether China, India, South Korea and other nations have done enough to wean themselves from Iranian oil.

Forcing cuts that are too aggressive could fuel a new rally in oil prices, benefiting Iran and hurting allies. Accepting meager cuts risks criticism from Congress and Israel.

The sanctions are aimed at slashing Iran's oil revenues to pressure it to stop efforts to enrich uranium to levels that could be used in weapons. Tehran has said its nuclear program is strictly for civilian purposes.

On paper, the sanctions require Washington to continuously tighten the screws on Iran's exports "toward a complete cessation" of purchases, forcing importers to make deeper and deeper price and volume cuts in order to win "exceptions," or waivers.

But the law allows the administration latitude to chart a middle ground in the sanctions, which have already proven more effective than some experts had forecast.

The sanctions require that importers must demonstrate that they are making "significant" reductions every six months, as measured by volume and price. What constitutes a "significant" reduction is at the administration's discretion.

"The point of this is that we would like to see a consistent and gradual reduction. That is the goal," said a U.S. government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Iran's oil exports hit a low of 860,000 barrels per day last month, down from 2.2 million bpd at the end of 2011. That reduction is already greater than some experts had forecast.

Critics are keeping close watch. Obama is expected to face questions about whether he has been tough enough on Iran later on Monday during a foreign policy debate with Republican candidate Mitt Romney, their last debate before the November 6 presidential election.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the United States and Iran have agreed in principle to private, bilateral negotiations on Iran's nuclear program, but both nations denied the report.

DIMINISHING RETURNS?

For countries including China, India and South Korea, the deadline for new waivers is December.

Even a key proponent of sanctions said he wonders about the need to force dramatically deeper cuts.

"We've probably reached the point of diminishing returns with respect to Iran's oil exports," said Mark Dubowitz, the head of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who has pushed for stronger sanctions on Iran.

Dubowitz said it would take a great deal of work to cut global imports of Iranian oil much below 800,000 bpd. Lawmakers are now turning their attention to new types of sanctions that could more quickly hit Tehran's foreign reserves.

A QUESTION OF "SIGNIFICANCE"

So far, all major oil importers have been granted the exceptions. Without the waivers, the United States has the power to blacklist foreign banks handling the oil transactions from the U.S. financial system.

Precisely what qualifies as "significant" is kept confidential, however, and may vary from buyer to buyer.

"The law is remarkably vague about what the baseline is," said Jeff Colgan, a professor at American University in Washington.

Japan had cut imports by 15-22 percent by the time it received its first waiver in March. It subsequently cut imports by more than a quarter each month except June, and won a second six-month waiver for the U.S. oil sanctions in September.

Senators Robert Menendez and Mark Kirk who co-authored the oil sanctions law last year have told the administration they believe a minimum cut should be about 18 percent for any nation seeking a waiver renewal, achieved through price discounts or volume reductions, a point Menendez underscored in a recent interview.

"We must make it clear - this is a big must - that absent some extraordinary circumstance, that we will not grant waivers to any nation that doesn't make our reduction benchmarks," Menendez told Reuters earlier this month.

DELICATE BALANCE

The administration is likely to carefully weigh the cuts required against the impact on prices, since price gains help Iran, hurt allies, and harm the global economy, said Trevor Houser, a partner with Rhodium Group, a New York-based policy and economic consultancy.

"If you tighten the screws too hard and it causes oil prices to spike, then you both undermine the effectiveness of the sanctions and you erode support for the sanctions from other countries," said Houser, a former State Department adviser.

Houser questioned how far Washington could push the sanctions while also keeping oil markets relatively stable.

Saudi Arabia, which has been pumping oil at its fastest rate in 30 years in order to make up for the diminishing exports from fellow OPEC member Iran, has limited additional capacity to tap if shipments fall further, analysts say.

The administration likely will face the most political scrutiny for its decision on a renewed waiver for China. China officially opposes the U.S. sanctions, but secured a waiver in June after a contract dispute resulted in steep import cuts in the first half.

Although its imports of Iranian oil rose in June to an 11-month high, they dropped in July and August to 25 percent below the same months in 2011, the most recent months for which data is available. China's first-half imports from Iran were down 20 percent from a year ago.

"China is a very different story and that's where we fear the administration will cook the books to give China a ?get-out-of-jail-free' card in order to avoid a showdown with America's largest creditor," a senior Congressional aide said, on condition of anonymity.

With much bigger trade issues at stake, American University's Colgan believes a waiver for China is likely. "The trade consequences are unknown and potentially very bad if they start a trade war over this," he said.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-faces-tough-call-iran-oil-sanctions-205911671.html

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Apple unveils new version of iBooks with continuous scrolling

Apple CEO Tim Cook took to a San Jose theater stage today to unveil a new version of the company's literature-based digital storefront, iBooks. Cook says it integrates better with iCloud, allows for quote sharing on Facebook and Twitter, and has support for "over 40 languages." Beyond the app update info, Cook touted iBook's sales exceeding 400 million books worldwide -- not too shabby! The updated iBooks app should be available today on the iOS App Store, though it's not there just yet.

For more from this event, follow along in our liveblog!

Filed under:

Apple unveils new version of iBooks with continuous scrolling originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Syrian warplanes strike rebel-held town in north

FILE - In this Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 file photo, A Free Syrian Army fighter fires his weapon at Syrian Army positions in Aleppo, Syria. Piece by piece, Syria's rebels are slowly starting to expand their arsenal and get their hands on more advanced weapons, something that has been their constant aim in the 19-month-old uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad. The process still appears to be haphazard and improvised: Far from a reliable, organized pipeline, it often remains a scramble by individual units in the highly fragmented rebel forces to obtain what they can. Most units still rely on their staple arsenal of automatic weapons, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades. (AP Photo/ Manu Brabo, File)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 file photo, A Free Syrian Army fighter fires his weapon at Syrian Army positions in Aleppo, Syria. Piece by piece, Syria's rebels are slowly starting to expand their arsenal and get their hands on more advanced weapons, something that has been their constant aim in the 19-month-old uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad. The process still appears to be haphazard and improvised: Far from a reliable, organized pipeline, it often remains a scramble by individual units in the highly fragmented rebel forces to obtain what they can. Most units still rely on their staple arsenal of automatic weapons, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades. (AP Photo/ Manu Brabo, File)

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 10, 2012 file photo, a Free Syrian Army fighter walks through a street in Amariya district in Aleppo, Syria. Piece by piece, Syria's rebels are slowly starting to expand their arsenal and get their hands on more advanced weapons, something that has been their constant aim in the 19-month-old uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad. The process still appears to be haphazard and improvised: Far from a reliable, organized pipeline, it often remains a scramble by individual units in the highly fragmented rebel forces to obtain what they can. Most units still rely on their staple arsenal of automatic weapons, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades. (AP Photo/ Manu Brabo, FIle)

FILE - In this Saturday, Oct. 20, 2012 file photo, a Free Syrian Army fighter shoots his machine gun towards Syrian Army positions in the Amriya district of Aleppo, Syria. Piece by piece, Syria's rebels are slowly starting to expand their arsenal and get their hands on more advanced weapons, something that has been their constant aim in the 19-month-old uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad. The process still appears to be haphazard and improvised: Far from a reliable, organized pipeline, it often remains a scramble by individual units in the highly fragmented rebel forces to obtain what they can. Most units still rely on their staple arsenal of automatic weapons, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades. (AP Photo/ Manu Brabo, File)

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian warplanes on Tuesday struck a strategic rebel-held town in the country's north in an attempt to reopen a key supply route, activists said, as a U.N.-proposed cease-fire meant to start this week appeared increasingly unlikely to take hold.

The U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria has suggested that both sides in Syria's 19-month-old conflict lay down their arms during Eid al-Adha, a four-day Muslim holiday that begins Friday. However, neither Syrian President Bashar Assad nor rebels fighting to topple him have committed to a truce, and international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has not said how such a truce would be monitored.

Syria's stalemated civil war, which has frequently spilled over Syria's borders and threatens to destabilize an already volatile region, featured prominently in the final pre-election debate Monday in the U.S. between President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney,

Both men said they would not send American troops to Syria, but Romney pledged to help arm rebels after vetting the intended recipients, earning him praise from Syrian opposition leaders. Obama warned of the risk of giving the rebels heavy weapons that could fall into the wrong hands and later be used against the U.S. or its allies.

"By not arming the (rebel) Free Syrian Army with heavy weapons, he (Obama) is giving Assad the upper hand," said Muhieddine Lathkani, a member of the Syrian National Council, an umbrella of opposition groups.

The rebels have said they need heavier weapons to counter Assad's military superiority, particular from the air. Since the summer, the regime has increasingly pounded rebel positions with warplanes and helicopter gunships.

On Tuesday, government aircraft attacked Maaret al-Numan and the village of Mar Shamsheh, as troops and rebels battled over a nearby Syrian military camp that has been under siege for days, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The activist group reported more than two dozen casualties among the rebels, but did not have the breakdown of killed and wounded.

Opposition fighters seized Maaret al-Numan, which lies along the main highway between Aleppo and Damascus, earlier this month. Their presence has disrupted the regime's ability to send supplies and reinforcements to the northwest. This has hampered the government's fight in Aleppo, where troops are bogged down in a bloody fight for control of the country's largest city.

Amateur video posted Monday showed rebel fighters unleashing heavy bursts of machine-gun fire, apparently at a convoy heading to the besieged army camp. Syria restricts access to foreign reporters and the authenticity of the video could not be independently confirmed.

An international human rights group, meanwhile, said the Syrian air force stepped up attacks with cluster bombs in the past two weeks, dropping more over a wider area, despite Damascus' denials that it has used the widely banned munitions.

Cluster bombs open in flight, scattering smaller bomblets over a wide area. Many of the bomblets don't explode immediately, posing a threat to civilians long afterward.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing amateur videos and interviews with victims, residents and activists, said it has received new information about more than 35 sites where cluster bombs were dropped.

The violence in Syria has killed more than 34,000 people, said Observatory chief Rami Abdul-Rahman, whose group relies on a network of activists on the ground. This figure includes civilians and rebel fighters, but also more than 8,000 regime soldiers, he said.

Abdul-Rahman said there were no signs on inside Syria that rebels or government troops were preparing to halt fighting during Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice.

Abdelbaset Sieda, the head of the Syrian National Council, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that rebel fighters are willing to halt fighting during the holiday, but will respond if attacked. He said he doubts the regime will honor the cease-fire and that Brahimi's plan is too vague.

"Brahimi hasn't any mechanism to observe the situation," Sieda said by phone from Stockholm, Sweden. "Now he is saying every side can do that (halt fighting) by itself."

In Damascus, Syria's deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, said the Assad regime is cooperating with Brahimi. "We are always optimistic," he said when asked about the chances of a cease-fire.

However, Brahimi said after a visit to Damascus on Sunday that he did not get a commitment to the truce from the regime.

The relentless fighting in Syria has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee the country to escape the violence.

The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday that Lebanon has become the third Syrian neighbor to host more than 100,000 refugees from Syria's civil war.

At least 101,283 people have registered as refugees in Lebanon, said agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. This compares to more than 105,000 in Jordan, at least 101,000 in Turkey, more than 42,000 in Iraq and 6,800 in North Africa.

Governments bordering Syria estimate tens of thousands more Syrian refugees have not yet registered, including an estimated 70,000 in Turkey who live outside refugee camps, she said.

Jordan alone says it hosting some 210,000 Syrian refugees, which Amman says has strained the country's health care, water and electricity sectors.

___

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and John Heilprin in Geneva contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-10-23-Syria/id-6088a977640544f0bec5d84896bb68e4

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Monday, October 22, 2012

Metairie's Cenacle Retreat House closing in 2013; property to be ...

The Cenacle Retreat House in Metairie plans to close in 2013, and the property will be sold (Photo by The Times-Picayune archive)

The Cenacle Retreat House in Metairie, for more than a half century a destination for spiritual nourishment, plans to close in 2013. The Roman Catholic order of nuns running it will sell the 20-acre property. Finances and a declining number of nuns were blamed for its demise.

?It?s a deep sorrow for me, as it is for many people,? Sister Rose Hoover, the Metairie Cenacle?s superior, said Monday.

Since it opened in 1958 at 5500 St. Mary Street, the Cenacle has functioned as a lakefront escape for thousands of people, mostly women, who visit its grounds of magnolia, live oak and white crepe myrtle trees for weekend retreats, daily programs and individual spiritual direction. The property includes 52 guest rooms, a chapel, meeting hall, library, dining room and parlors, as well as the convent.

?Usually people kind of get into a rhythm of making a yearly retreat,? said Sister Gloria Haagensen, the ministry coordinator.

But the number of nuns living and working at the Cenacle has fallen from more than a dozen in the late 1960s to seven last year and now just four, reflecting a national trend in religious orders. Where once the nuns provided what amounted to free labor for almost all tasks, the few remaining focus on administrative and spiritual duties. The Cenacle now pays a lay staff of some 20 people -- with help from many volunteers -- to cook, clean and keep up the buildings and grounds.

Individuals making three-day retreats are asked to pay $225, but the actual cost is closer to $350, Haagensen said. The Cenacle has held fundraisers and solicited gifts, yet it could no longer make ends meet.

?The retreat ministry by itself has never paid the costs of the retreat house,? Haagensen said. ?We?ve always relied on the generosity of our retreatants.?

Hoover said the order, officially the Religious of Our Lady of Retreat in the Cenacle, has been studying, discussing and praying over the Metairie mission for some time. The provincial headquarters in Chicago came to recommend closing it, and the governing office in Rome eventually approved.

The Cenacle said it will fulfill its scheduled commitments, which run through mid-August. It plans to sell the property, although exactly what will become of the buildings and land is not known.

In 1995, when the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception closed its convent adjacent to the Cenacle, the real estate was sold for $1.4 million and converted into a 12-lot residential subdivision, Holy Land on the Lake. The money was to be put into a trust fund for the nuns? medical care.

As for the remaining Cenacle nuns in Metairie, Hoover said they likely will be assigned to the order?s other nine missions in the U.S. and Canada.

It will be Hoover's third and last time to leave. Raised Presbyterian in Gainesville, Fla., she converted to Catholicism in New Orleans and made her perpetual vows in the Metairie house?s chapel in 1985. She has served two previous stints here, returning most recently just after Hurricane Isaac struck in August.

?While it is a time of great sadness for us, it is also a time of gratitude,? said Sister Mary Sharon Riley, the order?s province councilor in Chicago. ?We are grateful to God who has allowed us to minister to so many people for so many years.

?We have been blessed to be part of the greater New Orleans community -- and beyond -? for such a long time.?

Source: http://www.nola.com/religion/index.ssf/2012/10/metairies_cenacle_retreat_hous_1.html

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A Whole New Ball Game

Early teen boys. A study says that puberty is starting earlier in boys. How can you tell when a boy is going through puberty?

Photo by iStockphoto.

A new study published in Pediatrics indicates that American boys are beginning puberty earlier than previously indicated, with the first signs appearing at age 9.14 for African-American boys, 10.04 for Hispanic boys, and 10.14 for non-Hispanic white boys. What do scientists measure to determine the onset of puberty in boys?

Testes size. The earliest sign of puberty in boys is the enlargement of the testicles. Tanner staging, a method of visually assessing the development of secondary sex characteristics (breast development in girls, genital development in boys, and pubic hair growth in both sexes), uses the visual appearance of the testes to determine their length. But the new study used a more precise technique known as orchidometry to determine testicular volume. An orchidometer, also known as Prader beads, is a string of ovoid plastic or wooden beads ranging from 1 milliliter to 25 or 30 milliliters in volume. Prepubertal boys typically have a testicular volume of 1 to 2 milliliters; boys in the early stage of puberty have a testicular volume of 3 to 4 milliliters. (Adult men usually have a testicular volume between 15 and 25 milliliters.) To use an orchidometer, doctors gently pull the testicle to the bottom of a boy?s scrotum and use touch and sight to find the bead that matches it in volume.

Orchidometry is a clear improvement over visual assessments of testis size, since it takes a testicle?s three-dimensional nature into account and isn?t affected by scrotal tension. However, it has the drawback of being more invasive than a visual assessment. More reliable still is an ultrasound, which (unlike orchidometry) can?t be distorted by the thickness of scrotal skin. But since ultrasounds are even more invasive than orchidometers, researchers are unlikely to do any large-scale research on testis size using this method anytime soon. (For clinical rather than research purposes, endocrinologists sometimes prescribe testicular ultrasounds when they suspect developmental abnormalities in boys.)

Only one previous study has documented American boys? testicular volume using orchidometry , and it was on a smaller scale than the new study, so it?s unclear whether boys are really beginning puberty earlier than they used to?we simply don?t have comparable data from earlier decades.

Though testicle growth is the first sign of puberty in boys, later signs of puberty?including penis growth, thinning of the scrotal skin, changes in scrotal color, and the development of pubic hair?can and have been measured by researchers. Researchers use textbook pictures (either photographs or drawings) to determine which Tanner stage a boy is in. (The Tanner stages range from 1, prepubertal, to 5, fully developed.) Of course, there?s some subjectivity in rating phallic appearance and pubic hair thickness, for instance, which makes measuring these developments across populations difficult. Furthermore, pubic hair growth can sometimes be spurred by hormones released by the adrenal glands instead of those released by the pituitary gland in the course of puberty, which means that pubic hair appearance on its own is not a fully reliable source of information. Although puberty is associated with hormonal changes, measuring hormones in the bloodstream or urine is not considered a useful way of measuring development by most puberty researchers because the correlation between hormonal increases and physical changes is highly variable.

Ideally, puberty researchers would be able to track the physical development of a large number of boys over several years to get a better sense of the average rate of genital growth and timing of specific developments. Unfortunately, this kind of longitudinal study is highly impractical both because of its costs and because of the difficulty of finding boys whose families are willing to enroll them in a multiyear study that involves somewhat invasive measuring techniques. James Tanner did do a longitudinal study of boys to determine the contours of his famous Tanner stages?but that?s because he had a captive sample of 228 institutionalized orphan boys in the 1960s. Performing research on such populations is highly frowned upon today.

Got a question about today?s news??Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks Laura Bachrach of Stanford University, Frank M. Biro of Cincinnati Children?s Hospital, and Marcia Herman-Giddens of the University of North Carolina.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=681ebcc17966c85eac30e0a645f47f73

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Try This "Recipe" to Increase Productivity Over the Next Week

Try This "Recipe" to Increase Productivity Over the Next WeekIt's Monday morning. Is looking at your to-do list for the week overwhelming? Human Business Works CEO Chris Brogan presents this "recipe" to help you get more done over the next seven days and beyond (no cooking required).

Books like Getting Things Done are tireless bestsellers because we are buckling under the strain of our lives and our work load. We feel that we have more to deal with than ever before. But while that's true, it's also true that we act as our own worst enemy.

You Don't Realize You're Thwarting Your Own Chances

Let's look at what it takes to have optimum brain functionality:

  • Adequate rest. (How many hours did you sleep last night?)
  • A clear head. (How fast did you reach for your phone to check email, texts, social networks?)
  • A decent breakfast. (The number of people who don't eat within the first hour of waking up is staggering.)
  • A clear set of operating instructions. (Do you have any kind of template for how you'll arrange your months, weeks, days?)

Shortly after you wake up from a few hours of sleep (because you were catching up on blog reading and social networks and didn't realize the time), you grab your phone and read an email from an angry boss/customer/loved one. You have to rush to get dressed and out the door (we'll presume you showered), so you grab coffee and a croissant at the drive-through (if you work from home, who knows what you get). When you finally get to that "go" position at work, you flip open email and start there.

Does that describe you more often than not? Somewhat? Can you squint and see you?

You deserve so much better. And you can give it to yourself. And it doesn't take a whole lot of hard work. It does, however, take discipline and the willingness to set yourself up to succeed.

How to Get More Done: A Recipe

For the next 7 days, I want you to try this ritual as close to the details below as you can. Shoot for all seven days consistently, as it doesn't help if you start-and-stop. Ready?

Ingredients

  • No screens or radio after 9pm.
  • No phone first thing in the AM.
  • No news or radio first thing, either.
  • Right before bed, a notepad to jot nagging thoughts.
  • The willingness to try this for 7 days in a row.

Preparation

  1. At 9pm, have a glass of milk or almond milk or water, and a very small snack (preferably a small handful of nuts).
  2. Go to bed no later than 10 PM.
  3. Set your alarm for 6 AM(no snooze).
  4. DO NOT TOUCH YOUR PHONE OR LAPTOP OR TABLET OR TV OR RADIO.
  5. Upon waking, take the first 5 to 10 minutes and just breathe deeply (it's totally reasonable to do just five minutes?it took me weeks to get up to 10 minutes). If your family makes this hard, hide in the bathroom or a closet (not really joking).
  6. Get a light breakfast within the first 30 minutes of waking.
  7. If you have the time, get in a 15-20 minute brisk walk or work out. Whatever your morning will allow. If you've got to get kids ready for school, that's practically a workout.
  8. Write down (or note in whatever way you want) the most important 3 tasks you want to accomplish today, or at least the name of the projects you need to tackle. Not every task. Not your huge to-do list. Just 3 that you need to deal with in some way.
  9. You have 3 minutes (total!) to look for "fires" in your inbox. That's all.
  10. Commute or get to work, whatever. The rest of the day is yours to execute on.

Serving Suggestions

You're telling your mind and spirit a handful of instructions in this challenge:

  • Rest will give me competitive power and extra willpower.
  • Giving myself time for my own clarity will improve my processing power.
  • Shutting out the craziness of other people's lives for a while will empower my own choices.
  • Knowing what matters to me and my day and also to those who I serve is a great first set of instructions to consider.
  • Breathing (maybe meditating) and moving my body are necessary (vital!) to juicing my systems.
  • And then, with all that on board, you can tackle your day in a FAR more powerful way. Will you get more done? Follow this recipe and I have zero doubt.

    How to Get More Done?The Works | Chris Brogan


    Chris Brogan is CEO & President of Human Business Works, a business design company using publishing and media to provide tools and smarts to help professionals work better, do the work they want, and to be brave. He is the New York Times bestselling co-author of The Impact Equation, and a sought-after professional keynote speaker. He also plays in the band, D3one3, with Jacqueline Carly.

    Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/dsC-RWD96fk/try-this-recipe-to-increase-productivity-over-the-next-week

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Sunday, October 21, 2012

?Festering wound in hospital lease bid? | Daphne Caruana Galizia

The leading article (editorial), The Times, yesterday:

FESTERING WOUND IN HOSPITAL LEASE BID

Three things will probably spring immediately to mind if one were to ask Joe Citizen what bothers him most in the national health service: the long waits when attending for an outpatients? appointment; the waiting list for non-emergency surgical interventions; and the lack of beds.

Therefore, any action taken by the authorities to address and solve these problems should be more than welcome. So why the widespread negative reaction to the Government?s decision to lease the disused St Philip?s Hospital?

In a nutshell, it is because the whole matter seems like a rushed job or, at least, inadequately explained, with strong political connotations to boot.

Health Minister Joseph Cassar has insisted that Parliament was informed of initial evaluations about the possibility of leasing the private hospital in Santa Venera way back in 2010.

Admittedly, these are delicate matters that involve long and elaborate procedures, engaging notaries, lawyers and other professionals. But if the problem of a shortage of rehabilitation beds was so acute, as many insist it is, thenwhy did the government have to take two long years before deciding to do something about it? Did the government not realise that, with an election now round the corner, such a decision was bound to raise suspicion and, at best, prove to be controversial?

The private hospital owner is, after all, a former president of the Nationalist Party?s executive and of the general council who has also been highly critical of the government?s performance.

The government is now determined to sign the lease contract. Finance Minister Tonio Fenech thinks that doing so shows how serious the government is in doing what needs to be done. This notwithstanding calls from within and outside of Parliament for the deal to first be scrutinised ? not least from Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando who no longer sits on the government benches.

In the kind of arrogant manner this government has all but too often become associated with, the minister insists that the law is on the government?s side.

?Everyone should respect the country?s procedures and it would set a bad precedent if the Opposition gets its way and the contract is scrutinised before signing simply because the person involved happens to be Frank Portelli?, Mr Fenech was quoted as saying.

Indeed Mr Minister, it is precisely because Dr Portelli is involved that the Government should make one more move to put everybody?s mind at rest that the deal is fully justified on all grounds.

It cannot proceed with so many doubts and shadows hanging over it and that includes the fact that Dr Portelli is experiencing financial problems, so much so that the court has ordered the sale by auction of property he owns. To boot Dr Portelli has steadfastly refused to grant The Times access to the hospital.

The rush is also evident in an episode that happened last Saturday but has not been given much publicity.

Dr Cassar appeared on TVM programme Dissett that was recorded on Saturday morning. In it he said Cabinet would decide the following Monday whether the contract should be signed or not. Yet, that afternoon, the Finance Minister announced the deal would be signed.

Was this a case of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing or was it something else?

In the wake of what has happened and been said over the past days, one is justified in asking whether what the government is proposing is the best solution and whether the right approach and procedure have been adopted.

As it has done in certain other instances, the government ought to stop and take stock. Options do exist.

Source: http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2012/10/festering-wound-in-hospital-lease-bid/

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5 things that could sink Windows 8

19 hrs.

The Windows?8 launch is finally upon us, and I guarantee you there are a lot of nervous people in Redmond right now. How could they not be?

You?re about to launch a new version of your operating system that is such a radical departure from what PC users have come to expect that it should be called "Windows We Hope You?re Ready for Something Really Different." Sheer inertia is certainly a concern. After all, the Live Tiles, panoramic Modern-style interface and new tools like the Charms menu all require a learning curve. But that?s not the biggest challenge Microsoft?faces. These are.

1. Hardware is too pricey
One of the biggest reasons ultrabooks haven?t sold as well as Intel and its partners expected is that prices haven?t come down fast enough. You can finally find some in the $699 range, but that?s still about $200 more than the typical budget laptop.

Now, shoppers will be asked to pony up $1,100 to $1,200 to enjoy touch-based convertibles like the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga, Sony VAIO Duo 11 and Dell XPS 12. Intel shared with us recently that its own studies show that consumers are willing to pay $150 to $200 more for touch, but I?m not sure that will fly in a down economy and a holiday season dominated by the cheap iPad mini, Kindle Fire and Nexus 7.

Windows RT devices like Microsoft?s Surface are more affordable at $499, the same as the iPad. But opting for the Touch Cover keyboard (the accessory being touted in Microsoft?s ads) brings the price to $599.

Windows 8-powered hybrids like the $749 Acer Iconia W510 (with keyboard) and Samsung Ativ Smart PC 500T (I swear I?m not making that name up) don?t have the same sexy industrial design as the Surface, but their Atom processors make these devices more versatile because users can run traditional desktop apps. You can get the W510 without a keyboard for a reasonable $499.

[MORE: Top 10 Windows 8 Hybrids]

2. Windows 8 vs. Windows RT confusion
Shoppers will have a tough time telling the difference between the two flavors of new Windows devices on shelves this holiday season, because they both feature the same slick Live Tile interface. But there is a huge difference between the two platforms.

In a nutshell, Windows 8 PCs can run any app downloaded from the Windows Store as well as all desktop applications. Windows RT tablets and hybrids (powered by ARM processors) will be limited to Windows Store apps and Microsoft?s Office 2013, even though you?ll still be able to access the desktop for things like transferring files?off a USB drive.

Sounds like a pretty simple delineation, but as The Verge proved with some undercover testing, Microsoft?s own store employees don?t know the difference between the two operating systems. Microsoft responded to this eye-opening report by saying that all of its sales reps will receive 15 hours of training before launch. The clock is ticking.

[MORE: 8 Windows 8 Annoyances and How to Fix Them]

3. Not enough apps
At last count there were nearly 3,500 apps in the Windows Store. And while there are a handful of compelling options so far, there are a lot more holes in Microsoft?s lineup than I would expect at this late stage. Where is Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? Dropbox? Angry Birds??

The good news: Microsoft will unveil plenty of high-profile apps either at the launch of its OS or shortly thereafter, hopefully filling in a fair number of these holes. But I still have serious concerns about the breadth of options that will be available. After all, Apple has 250,000 apps just for the iPad, thanks to its huge head start.

Microsoft also needs to prove that Windows 8 is a viable gaming platform and not just rest on the Xbox name, as it has done with Windows Phone. Shoppers need to see console-quality eye candy along with casual fare. I?m encouraged by the fact that the Unreal Engine III has been ported to Windows 8, however, which should help lead to Infinity Blade-style titles in the Windows Store. Titles based on the Unity engine will come after launch.

[MORE: Top 20 Windows 8 Apps]

4. Crappy touchpads
Sure, Windows 8 works best with touch, but the sweet spot for most shoppers right now is $500 clamshell designs that rely on touchpads. Based on previous experience, I?m very worried that these pointing devices won?t deliver the smooth gesture support that will add up to a good user experience. On a lot of pre-production samples I?ve tried the touchpad didn?t always respond when I swiped in from the left to switch apps. And most of them didn?t support the gesture to move in from the left and quickly back to the right to see all of your open apps.

If notebook vendors can?t make pinch-to- zoom work well or two-finger scrolling, they?ll have an even harder time getting Windows 8 gestures to work reliably. I?m really hoping Synaptics, Microsoft and OEMs get it right, but it will probably take a while.

[MORE: Crappy Touchpads Could Kill the Ultrabook]

5. Macs on the rise
Microsoft shouldn?t just be concerned about the iPad and the rumored "iPad Mini." It should take note that Apple is now No. 1 in notebook sales in the U.S. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is consistently the top seller at retail, and all you need to do is peek inside any coffee shop to see a sea of MacBook Airs. I?ve said this before, but the Mac's?OS X?Mountain Lion could prove more attractive than Windows 8?to those looking for a more traditional operating system this holiday, especially for those who own other Apple devices and like the idea of having iCloud keeping everything in sync.

[MORE:?10 Reasons to Drop Windows for Mountain Lion]

Bottom line
Microsoft is reportedly spending $1.5 billion to launch and promote Windows 8, and the company has never been under more pressure to make sure that shoppers get the message. But what is that message? Is it that you can have your cake and eat it too with a Windows 8 PC that runs mobile and ?legacy? apps? That you can get all-day battery life, iPad-like portability and Office productivity with a Windows RT device? It?s actually all of the above, which is a big part of the challenge.

Although Microsoft?having a hero device like the Surface tablet?helps, Windows 8 will succeed or fail not based on how well the Surface fares. Just as with every other Windows launch, Microsoft will once again rely on an ecosystem of app developers and hardware?makers to make its software sing. All of the above five obstacles are not insurmountable, but they?re very real.

LAPTOP?editor-in-chief Mark Spoonauer directs?online and print editorial content and has been covering mobile and wireless technology for over a decade. Each week Mark?s SpoonFed column provides his insights and analysis of the biggest mobile trends and news. You can also follow him on Twitter.

More?from LAPTOP:

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/5-things-could-sink-windows-8-1C6579394

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Yale's Seeds Excel at USTA/ITA Northeast Regional Championships ...

October 20, 2012

Huang and Powers Reach Singles Round of 16, Brown's Win Streak Ends

NEW HAVEN, C.T. ? On the second day of main draw action at the United States Tennis Association (USTA)/Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Northeast Regional tournament, the Yale men's tennis team saw two of its singles players and two of its doubles teams reach the Round of 16.? Overall, Saturday was a productive outing for Yale at its home courts, as the squad won nine out of its 13 matches and the majority of its matches against Ivy League opponents.

Senior John Huang, seeded No. 3 in the singles main draw, led the charge for the Bulldogs, enjoying two relatively comfortable victories over two Ancient Eight opponents.? He first defeated Princeton's Jonathan Carcione 6-3, 6-3, and then followed up with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Bert Vancura of Columbia.? Huang is now on a five-match winning streak, as is his classmate, Marc Powers, who also powered his way into the Round of 16 on Saturday.? Powers, the No. 7 seed, first overcame Army's Asika Isoh 7-6, 6-0, and then secured a hard-fought win over Fordham's Emilio Mora, 7-5, 6-4.? Senior captain and No. 14 seed Daniel Hoffman defeated Brown's Brandon Burke 6-4, 7-5 in his opening match, but was unable to join his teammates in the Round of 16, falling to Kuba Kowalski of Fordham, 6-2, 6-4.?

Also competing in the Round of 64 was freshman Jason Brown, who suffered the first defeat of his college career in a 6-4, 6-3 loss to Penn's Nikola Kocovic.? Brown's loss ends an impressive twelve-match winning streak that included main draw wins at the Princeton-Farnsworth Invitational and the USTA Collegiate Invitational, as well as an undefeated showing at the Yale Shootout.? Brown's classmate, Martin Svenning, also lost in the Round of 64, succumbing to Will Spector of Brown, 6-0, 6-3.?

In singles consolation matches, junior Patrick Chase and sophomore Daniel Faierman both posted victories over players from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. ?Chase defeated Andres Albans 7-6, 6-3, while Faierman cruised past Erik Artursson, 6-2, 6-1.

The Bulldogs' seeds in the doubles draw also advanced to the Round of 16.? Hoffman and Powers, seeded No. 3 as a team, fought off a challenge from Columbia's duo of Winston Lin and Vancura, 8-5.? The No. 6 seeded team of Chase and Huang secured an 8-4 win for the Elis over Marist's tandem of Lorenzo Rossi and Joris Van Eck.? Yale's team of Zachary Dean and Matt Saiontz suffered its first defeat this season in an 8-4 loss to Brown's pairing of Soufiane Azargui and Burke.

The USTA/ITA Northeast Regional Championships will continue on Sunday at Yale's home courts, with plenty of exceptional talent sure to be on display.? The Round of 16 doubles matches are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., while singles main draw and consolation matches are scheduled for a 1 p.m. start.

Report by Robert Batista '15, Yale Sports Publicity

Singles ? Round of 64 ?????

(3) John Huang (Yale) def. Jonathan Carcione (Princeton), 6-3, 6-3

(7) Marc Powers (Yale) def. Asika Isoh (Army), 7-6, 6-0

(13) Will Spector (Brown) def. Martin Svenning (Yale), 6-0, 6-3

(14) Daniel Hoffman (Yale) def. Brandon Burke (Brown), 6-4, 7-5

(17-32) Nikola Kocovic (Penn) def. Jason Brown (Yale), 6-4, 6-3

Singles ? Round of 32

(3) Huang (Yale) def. Bert Vancura (Columbia), 6-3, 6-4

(7) Powers (Yale) def. Emilio Mora (Fordham), 7-5, 6-4

(17-32) Kuba Kowalski (Fordham) def. (14) Hoffman (Yale), 6-2, 6-4

Singles Consolation

Patrick Chase (Yale) def. Andres Albans (NJIT), 7-6, 6-3

Daniel Faierman (Yale) def. Erik Artursson (NJIT), 6-2, 6-1

Doubles ? Round of 32

(3) Hoffman/Powers (Yale) def. Winston Lin/Vancura (Columbia), 8-5

(4) Soufiane Azargui/Burke (Brown) def. Zachary Dean/Matt Saiontz (Yale), 8-4

(6) Chase/Huang (Yale) def. Lorenzo Rossi/Joris Van Eck (Marist), 8-4

?

Singles and doubles draws updated through Saturday can be found here.

Source: http://www.yalebulldogs.com/sports/m-tennis/2012-13/releases/2012102029p87x

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