Break out the gin, Athletics Nation. Oakland folded early in this game, showing little heart on the diamond as they allowed a strong St. Louis club to score runs in spades. Not a lot went right for the A's in today's 7-1 loss, and it felt like they were drawing dead by about the 6th inning.
The afternoon started out promising, as a full house packed the Coliseum for Coco Lean Bobbletorso Day. A pair of aces took the mound, with Jarrod Parker facing Adam Wainwright, and it looked like we would be treated to a classic pitcher's duel. Both starters were dealing through the first three innings.
Oakland's visions of victory were flushed down the toilet in the 4th inning, however, when Parker went down with a hamstring injury. With two outs, he threw a pitch to Allen Craig and crumpled straight to the IC card, clutching his right leg. He raised back up to his feet, but Oakland made the smart decision by calling Parker's bluff and going all-in with their bullpen for the rest of the game. That's just the luck of the draw, folks; better to be cautious in June than to gamble with Parker's long-term health.
Jesse Chavez entered the game hoping to provide a bridge from Parker to the set-up relievers, but he was unable to hold 'em. Chavez flopped today, and the pitcher's duel quickly turned into a river of runs for St. Louis. The Cardinals put a deuce on the board in the 5th thanks to some small-ball, and Oakland's long-man was sent to the showers after putting the first two batters on in the 6th. He was a bit wild overall, and he looked like a fish next to a St. Louis lineup full of sharks.
With Chavez unsuited to retire hitters today, Bob Melvin turned to clubhouse joker Jerry Blevins to mop things up. Unfortunately, Blevins pitched like he was blind, and Matt Holliday greeted him with an RBI single to center. On the very next pitch, rookie Matt Adams smoked a three-run jack to right which landed somewhere between Omaha and Texas. Adams made quite a splash today; he would later double down by adding a second homer in the 8th inning.
It was not a good bet that Oakland would fight their way back into this game, especially against a stud pitcher like Wainwright. They did manage to spoil the shutout in the 8th on back-to-back hits by Joshes Donaldson and Reddick, but they couldn't come up with anything to trump the Cardinals' starter. They also drew a pair of free passes late in the game, which is quite an accomplishment against the pitcher who has been the king of avoiding walks this year. In the end, though, they just couldn't see Wainwright's pitches well enough, and the chips didn't fall their way.
When your top starter leaves early with an injury in a game against a Cy Young frontrunner and the second-best team in baseball, you just have to accept that the deck was stacked against you today and that you can't win 'em all. Pour yourself some rummy, throw on your favorite Queen album to celebrate Pride weekend, and check back tomorrow for the rubber game. Six runs won it last night, and seven were enough today; let's hope that the A's can come up with a crazy eight tomorrow to clinch this series.
In the commonwealth, in order to get a license to fight, one needs a social security number. It’s a law that the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission was unaware of when the UFC first came to the state. It’s also a rule that none of America’s other 49 states share.
The problem with that regulation is that only American citizens are routinely issued social security numbers. For this show, nearly half of the fighters hail from foreign countries, including participants in the main event, Brazilian Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, and the co-main event, Alistair Overeem of the Netherlands.
Fighters, however, may apply for social security numbers if they have valid visas, and the UFC’s immigration department has been working overtime to make sure the fight card stands.
This isn’t the first time that White and the UFC had to jump through hoops to put on a show. When he took over the company in 2001, the UFC was not allowed on pay-per-view and was in danger of being banned by all 50 states. Today, New York is the only state that doesn’t sanction MMA events.
The Boston card is of particular importance to the UFC and its new broadcast partner, as it is to be the launching pad for Fox Sports 1 — the new Fox network aiming to rival ESPN.
Though the plans for Boston created some uncertain moments, White said the UFC won’t think twice about coming back to the city.
“No. We ended up getting everything straightened out. The fights will happen. The card will be great. It’s going to be good,” White said. “There’s always something. It literally never ends. There’s always something, something that pops up or whatever. We’re pretty used to dealing with this stuff.”
The third weekend in August will be a big one for the Hub, the UFC and Fox. On Friday, Aug. 16, the Patriots will play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a preseason game on Fox. The next afternoon, the Red Sox are scheduled to take on the New York Yankees on Fox while the UFC launches Fox Sports 1 later that night.
Read the full story at www.smartcardfactory.com!
2013年6月30日星期日
2013年6月27日星期四
Color of cutlery could change how food tastes
In the research, participants thought white yogurt tasted sweeter than pink-colored yogurt when eaten from a white spoon, but the reverse was true when a black spoon was used.
These findings could help people improve their eating habits by reducing portion sizes or the amount of salt they add to their food, the researchers said.
"How we experience food is a multisensory experience involving taste, the feel of the food in our mouths, aroma and the feasting of our eyes," said Vanessa Harrar and Charles Spence of the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. "Even before we put food into our mouths, our brains have made a judgment about it, which affects our overall experience."
They found that yogurt seemed denser and more expensive when eaten from a plastic spoon. White yogurt was rated sweeter, more liked and more expensive than pink-colored yogurt when they were eaten from a white spoon. These effects were reversed when the two colors of yogurt were eaten from a black spoon.
When participants were offered cheese on a knife, spoon, fork or toothpick, they said the cheese from the knife tasted saltiest, according to the study, which was published in the journal Flavour.
"Subtly changing eating implements and tableware can affect how pleasurable, or filling, food appears," Harrar said. "When serving a dish, one should keep in mind that the color of the food appears different depending on the background on which it is presented and, therefore, tastes different."
This may also be used to help control eating patterns such as portion size or how much salt is added to food. Alternatively, people may be able to make better food choices if their ingrained color associations are disrupted by less constant advertising and packaging.
Well, it’s usually me that eats all the chocolate, but in the case of Cadbury’s new integrated campaign featuring a new TVC, online games and in store presence, it is a sexed-up version of Goldilocks as Executive Barbie.
The three bears also feature, but as subservient chocolate brand creators with a winning new recipe. It’s cute and follows the Cadbury theme of big chocolate productions, beautifully illustrated, filmed and/or animated which get our attention. From delightful dancing monks to airborne cows, the magical chocolate factory and chocolate flavoured world of ‘Joyville’ are as delicious as previous campaigns. The online gaming component boasts particularly impressive animation and graphics.
Cadbury wants to own the “essence of joy” with this campaign. The TVC is by Ogilvy Johannesburg and directed by Mike Middleton of Jump and features the “famous glass and a half recipe”.
Coke commissioned several crate men for South Africa, the other notable one in Johannesburg, for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. But this one, designed by Porky Hefer, was the big daddy of them all.
Designed to highlight Coke’s recycling initiatives, it was built to be 15 metres high and made out of 2600 plastic Coke crates.
The construction of the Coca-Cola Crate Fan was an engineering feat. Being able to keep such a huge structure stable, meant that the foundations needed to include steel cabling, giant water bottles, weighted sandbags and further reinforcements along the harbour wall to support the weight.
The dismantling of the structure involves a rigid program, including barricading the entire surrounding area off and using carefully positioned scaffolding so that the crates can be removed one by one and lowered to the ground using ropes.
Oasis Water is trying to encourage consumers to reuse and refill its retail water bottles for only R1 a litre by running a competition over the winter months to create awareness of this service.
“Refilling with Oasis Water is safe and hygienic. It saves our customers money and saves on the use on new plastic bottles, thus ensuring that we look after the environment as well, said Oasis Water’s brand director, Brahm van Wyk.
They have created a competition/loyalty card with Z-Card.“We wanted to give our loyal consumers something back. As such, once they’ve collected 10 stamps, they can enter a competition to win a cruise. The draw takes place on 31 August 2013.”
“We are incredibly honoured to have won in Las Vegas on the back of our recent EXSA Awards achievements. All credit goes to our extremely talented design team,” says 3D Group sales and marketing director, Conrad Kullmann.
“Modular exhibits are hotter than ever as exhibitors, along with exhibit and event companies, are increasingly looking for ways to reconfigure and recycle their exhibit properties, positively impacting their bottom line and the environment.”
Trends influencing the industry, says Kullmann, include: convention bureaus; international exhibitions coming to South Africa; international corporate buy-outs of exhibition companies; build up times; and the overlapping of shows which puts a strain on industry resources; as well as the ‘next big thing’ – digital technology, including the use of augmented reality.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
These findings could help people improve their eating habits by reducing portion sizes or the amount of salt they add to their food, the researchers said.
"How we experience food is a multisensory experience involving taste, the feel of the food in our mouths, aroma and the feasting of our eyes," said Vanessa Harrar and Charles Spence of the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. "Even before we put food into our mouths, our brains have made a judgment about it, which affects our overall experience."
They found that yogurt seemed denser and more expensive when eaten from a plastic spoon. White yogurt was rated sweeter, more liked and more expensive than pink-colored yogurt when they were eaten from a white spoon. These effects were reversed when the two colors of yogurt were eaten from a black spoon.
When participants were offered cheese on a knife, spoon, fork or toothpick, they said the cheese from the knife tasted saltiest, according to the study, which was published in the journal Flavour.
"Subtly changing eating implements and tableware can affect how pleasurable, or filling, food appears," Harrar said. "When serving a dish, one should keep in mind that the color of the food appears different depending on the background on which it is presented and, therefore, tastes different."
This may also be used to help control eating patterns such as portion size or how much salt is added to food. Alternatively, people may be able to make better food choices if their ingrained color associations are disrupted by less constant advertising and packaging.
Well, it’s usually me that eats all the chocolate, but in the case of Cadbury’s new integrated campaign featuring a new TVC, online games and in store presence, it is a sexed-up version of Goldilocks as Executive Barbie.
The three bears also feature, but as subservient chocolate brand creators with a winning new recipe. It’s cute and follows the Cadbury theme of big chocolate productions, beautifully illustrated, filmed and/or animated which get our attention. From delightful dancing monks to airborne cows, the magical chocolate factory and chocolate flavoured world of ‘Joyville’ are as delicious as previous campaigns. The online gaming component boasts particularly impressive animation and graphics.
Cadbury wants to own the “essence of joy” with this campaign. The TVC is by Ogilvy Johannesburg and directed by Mike Middleton of Jump and features the “famous glass and a half recipe”.
Coke commissioned several crate men for South Africa, the other notable one in Johannesburg, for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. But this one, designed by Porky Hefer, was the big daddy of them all.
Designed to highlight Coke’s recycling initiatives, it was built to be 15 metres high and made out of 2600 plastic Coke crates.
The construction of the Coca-Cola Crate Fan was an engineering feat. Being able to keep such a huge structure stable, meant that the foundations needed to include steel cabling, giant water bottles, weighted sandbags and further reinforcements along the harbour wall to support the weight.
The dismantling of the structure involves a rigid program, including barricading the entire surrounding area off and using carefully positioned scaffolding so that the crates can be removed one by one and lowered to the ground using ropes.
Oasis Water is trying to encourage consumers to reuse and refill its retail water bottles for only R1 a litre by running a competition over the winter months to create awareness of this service.
“Refilling with Oasis Water is safe and hygienic. It saves our customers money and saves on the use on new plastic bottles, thus ensuring that we look after the environment as well, said Oasis Water’s brand director, Brahm van Wyk.
They have created a competition/loyalty card with Z-Card.“We wanted to give our loyal consumers something back. As such, once they’ve collected 10 stamps, they can enter a competition to win a cruise. The draw takes place on 31 August 2013.”
“We are incredibly honoured to have won in Las Vegas on the back of our recent EXSA Awards achievements. All credit goes to our extremely talented design team,” says 3D Group sales and marketing director, Conrad Kullmann.
“Modular exhibits are hotter than ever as exhibitors, along with exhibit and event companies, are increasingly looking for ways to reconfigure and recycle their exhibit properties, positively impacting their bottom line and the environment.”
Trends influencing the industry, says Kullmann, include: convention bureaus; international exhibitions coming to South Africa; international corporate buy-outs of exhibition companies; build up times; and the overlapping of shows which puts a strain on industry resources; as well as the ‘next big thing’ – digital technology, including the use of augmented reality.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
2013年6月26日星期三
Arresting journalists at work is a double-negative
Government surveillance of news media operations ranging from The Associated Press to Fox News has made national headlines for more than month now.
But there’s an ongoing government-press conflict that also is important in its effect on journalists’ ability to gather news and report to the rest of us, and to the proper role of a free press under the First Amendment.
Journalists — reporters and photographers — are being arrested while reporting on public demonstrations or police activity on matters of public interest. In a latest example, Charlotte Observer religion reporter Tim Funk was arrested June 10 at the General Assembly building in Raleigh, N.C., while interviewing local clergy involved in legislative protests.
As seen in a video of the arrest posted on Facebook, Funk, a veteran reporter, was interviewing members of the protest group while wearing a Charlotte Observer identification card on a lanyard around his neck. He continued to do interviews with several protesters after police ordered the group to disperse. He is standing in front of, not among, the group.
Funk first is grabbed by the arm and then handcuffed with a plastic tie. Later, the reporter was escorted away by three uniform officers. An Observer news story said Funk “was taken along with the arrested protesters to the Wake County magistrate’s office to be arraigned on misdemeanor charges of trespassing and failure to disperse.”
“We believe there was no reason to detain him,” said Cheryl Carpenter, the newspaper’s managing editor said in an Observer story about Funk’s arrest. “He wasn’t there to do anything but report the story, to talk to Charlotte clergy. He was doing his job in a public place.”
Gathering news — and in the process, performing the Constitutional duty as a “watchdog on government” that the nation’s founders envisioned for a free press — requires more getting a few facts from official sources. It means being at the scene, talking with those involved, observing the news first-hand.
If Funk’s arrest were a single incident, it still would be of concern. But, according to a website set up to track arrests of journalists in recent years who were reporting on the Occupy movement, in the year ending in September 2012, “more than 90 journalists have been arrested in 12 cities around the United States while covering Occupy protests and civil unrest.”
Add in a sizeable number of arrests in recent years of photographers for taking pictures at the scene of police actions and traffic incidents, and also those swept up in mass arrests of protesters at national and international conferences in the last decade, and there’s more reason to worry.
Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), said he deals with such arrest issues involving photojournalists “every day, all across the nation.” He works with police departments to educate officers on the rights of journalists — and the public — to take photos. He said catch and release police actions have no legal foundation, and that the increase in arrests may stem from a “perfect storm” of more cell phone cameras, and easier distribution and more visibility because of the Web.
Certainly, there are times when situations are chaotic and police must act to protect public safety. In such instances, it may be impossible to sort out the protester from the person reporting on the protest. But in Funk’s case, for example, there was no chaos and he visibly — with ID on and notebook in hand — was working as a reporter.
The rights to assemble, peaceably petition the government for change, and to raise one’s voice in doing so, are all protected freedoms under the First Amendment — along with the right of a free press to gather and report the news without government sanction or disruption.
If police are arresting demonstrators for what they say and do out of legitimate concerns for public safety or for trespassing or such, having an independent news media there to accurately observe and report is a plus for officials and for our society.
Ignoring that “plus” for whatever reason produces a double negative: Doubt over the unreported motives and actions of police and other officials, as well as the trampling of First Amendment rights.
About 50 middle school students have touched human organs, learned about emergency preparedness and designed their own space suits at the ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp at Texas A&M this week. Students also learned that while Bernard A. Harris Jr. himself was in space, he helped line up goldfish crackers for a fellow astronaut who floated through the shuttle, gobbling them up like Pac-Man.
Harris, the first African-American to walk in space, completed missions in 1993 and 1995, logging more than 438 hours and 7.2 million miles in space. Harris holds several appointments at universities and companies and is the founder of the Harris Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports math and science education and crime prevention programs for youth across the nation.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
But there’s an ongoing government-press conflict that also is important in its effect on journalists’ ability to gather news and report to the rest of us, and to the proper role of a free press under the First Amendment.
Journalists — reporters and photographers — are being arrested while reporting on public demonstrations or police activity on matters of public interest. In a latest example, Charlotte Observer religion reporter Tim Funk was arrested June 10 at the General Assembly building in Raleigh, N.C., while interviewing local clergy involved in legislative protests.
As seen in a video of the arrest posted on Facebook, Funk, a veteran reporter, was interviewing members of the protest group while wearing a Charlotte Observer identification card on a lanyard around his neck. He continued to do interviews with several protesters after police ordered the group to disperse. He is standing in front of, not among, the group.
Funk first is grabbed by the arm and then handcuffed with a plastic tie. Later, the reporter was escorted away by three uniform officers. An Observer news story said Funk “was taken along with the arrested protesters to the Wake County magistrate’s office to be arraigned on misdemeanor charges of trespassing and failure to disperse.”
“We believe there was no reason to detain him,” said Cheryl Carpenter, the newspaper’s managing editor said in an Observer story about Funk’s arrest. “He wasn’t there to do anything but report the story, to talk to Charlotte clergy. He was doing his job in a public place.”
Gathering news — and in the process, performing the Constitutional duty as a “watchdog on government” that the nation’s founders envisioned for a free press — requires more getting a few facts from official sources. It means being at the scene, talking with those involved, observing the news first-hand.
If Funk’s arrest were a single incident, it still would be of concern. But, according to a website set up to track arrests of journalists in recent years who were reporting on the Occupy movement, in the year ending in September 2012, “more than 90 journalists have been arrested in 12 cities around the United States while covering Occupy protests and civil unrest.”
Add in a sizeable number of arrests in recent years of photographers for taking pictures at the scene of police actions and traffic incidents, and also those swept up in mass arrests of protesters at national and international conferences in the last decade, and there’s more reason to worry.
Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), said he deals with such arrest issues involving photojournalists “every day, all across the nation.” He works with police departments to educate officers on the rights of journalists — and the public — to take photos. He said catch and release police actions have no legal foundation, and that the increase in arrests may stem from a “perfect storm” of more cell phone cameras, and easier distribution and more visibility because of the Web.
Certainly, there are times when situations are chaotic and police must act to protect public safety. In such instances, it may be impossible to sort out the protester from the person reporting on the protest. But in Funk’s case, for example, there was no chaos and he visibly — with ID on and notebook in hand — was working as a reporter.
The rights to assemble, peaceably petition the government for change, and to raise one’s voice in doing so, are all protected freedoms under the First Amendment — along with the right of a free press to gather and report the news without government sanction or disruption.
If police are arresting demonstrators for what they say and do out of legitimate concerns for public safety or for trespassing or such, having an independent news media there to accurately observe and report is a plus for officials and for our society.
Ignoring that “plus” for whatever reason produces a double negative: Doubt over the unreported motives and actions of police and other officials, as well as the trampling of First Amendment rights.
About 50 middle school students have touched human organs, learned about emergency preparedness and designed their own space suits at the ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp at Texas A&M this week. Students also learned that while Bernard A. Harris Jr. himself was in space, he helped line up goldfish crackers for a fellow astronaut who floated through the shuttle, gobbling them up like Pac-Man.
Harris, the first African-American to walk in space, completed missions in 1993 and 1995, logging more than 438 hours and 7.2 million miles in space. Harris holds several appointments at universities and companies and is the founder of the Harris Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports math and science education and crime prevention programs for youth across the nation.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
2013年6月25日星期二
The Hollywood, Florida,
"Lost all my money, man. She's gonna kill me," he said, shaking his head but also laughing. I chuckled back, not really knowing what else to do, curious as to where this conversation would lead. "Well, what are you going to tell her?" I responded, as we walked side by side.
Im'a tell her I got robbed. If I do that, she won't get mad, she'll say "What happened, baby?" and I'll say "No need to call the police, I was in the wrong place" and she's gonna say "Where'd you go?" and I'm gonna say "I was trying to buy some weed and they robbed the fucking weed man," because she knows I smoke weed.
It was 5:30 p.m. on a beautiful Friday afternoon, and this was my first introduction to the casinos of Hollywood, Florida. This conversation occurred only because I was walking back to my car to retrieve my ID. After a long week, all I wanted to do was withdraw a little money, play about 30 minutes of blackjack, and then be on my way. Walking into the Seminole Casino, that seemed like a realistic goal.
I was the youngest person in the casino by 30 years. Easily. Weaving through slot machines, I glared in wonderment — Why were these people here? — and those who looked up from their games reciprocated. How long had they been sitting in this cigarette-smoke fog machine of a room? And how long would they stay?
Finally reaching the $10 blackjack table, the lowest possible buy-in, I asked permission of the table's two participants if I could join. The older woman, a glamorously weathered Blanche Devereaux, nodded positively, just as a puff of smoke briefly made her face disappear. The man next to her didn't acknowledge my question, because he was staring at the televisions above.
All of the televisions were on Pacific Time. I couldn't help but laugh at that blatant act of disorientation and smart card. Regardless, as $70 in chips were pushed my way, I gave myself a time limit: 15 minutes. Once that TV said 3:00 p.m. PT, I was standing up, cashing out, and leaving.
Fifteen minutes later, I did just that. And after a chips-for-cash transaction, I walked out of the Seminole Casino toward my car, $100 richer. What a solid afternoon.
In my gambling history, which is not long but most certainly not positive, never had I shown anything resembling self-restraint. If I won, the assumption was that it was "my day," and if I lost, the assumption was that, eventually, on that day, it would become "mine." I'd thought this way because I tend to assume things will work out for me in the end.
I didn't know what to make of my cab driver's statement, but apparently he thought my target demographic was 75-year-old women. Maybe it was my Hawaiian shirt, an attempt to blend in with the older crowd. Regardless, through some combination of cabin fever and it being "my day," it was now 12:10 a.m. and I was getting a lift back to the casino.
This was Hollywood, Florida's night club. Most of those present were overdressed by way of being comically underdressed, the energy was high, the lights were bright, and "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)" was blaring. Again, I felt out of place in a casino, but it wasn't age this time — now I was all alone. This was very much a couples scene or a breeding ground for large, rowdy groups celebrating some life event.
Not enjoying myself in the slightest, I wandered, aimlessly, looking for an open blackjack table. Nothing was available. I began to notice my movements had caught the attention of two employees. Assuming this would end with my getting thrown in a dumpster, never to be seen again, I spotted the exit and left.
In a matter of hours, the Seminole Casino had changed. Drastically. Yes, it looked the same on the outside and the crowd within still leaned older, but instead of quiet and borderline-depressing, it was now bustling.
A great deal of thanks for that change goes to the cover band loudly performing jams inside. As I walked in, it was "Too Close" by Next, which bled nicely into a string of Prince hits that got quite a few slot players out of their seats to dance.
I walked straight to my blackjack table with confidence and exchanged my previous winnings for chips. My tablemates this time were two brothers in their fifties, one who did not speak and the other a source of commentary on every single thing that was happening. Everything.
There was his disgust over not getting drinks comped, there was the time he almost got into a fight after hitting on 14 when the dealer had 13, and there was the time he came into a casino with $25 and left with a grand.
I said nothing to him, but my head was constantly nodding in approval of everything he said. When a man and woman walked over and joined us about 45 minutes in, the gentleman in the couple lost his first three hands. His response to his subpar gameplay: "I always bust when I sit over here."
Im'a tell her I got robbed. If I do that, she won't get mad, she'll say "What happened, baby?" and I'll say "No need to call the police, I was in the wrong place" and she's gonna say "Where'd you go?" and I'm gonna say "I was trying to buy some weed and they robbed the fucking weed man," because she knows I smoke weed.
It was 5:30 p.m. on a beautiful Friday afternoon, and this was my first introduction to the casinos of Hollywood, Florida. This conversation occurred only because I was walking back to my car to retrieve my ID. After a long week, all I wanted to do was withdraw a little money, play about 30 minutes of blackjack, and then be on my way. Walking into the Seminole Casino, that seemed like a realistic goal.
I was the youngest person in the casino by 30 years. Easily. Weaving through slot machines, I glared in wonderment — Why were these people here? — and those who looked up from their games reciprocated. How long had they been sitting in this cigarette-smoke fog machine of a room? And how long would they stay?
Finally reaching the $10 blackjack table, the lowest possible buy-in, I asked permission of the table's two participants if I could join. The older woman, a glamorously weathered Blanche Devereaux, nodded positively, just as a puff of smoke briefly made her face disappear. The man next to her didn't acknowledge my question, because he was staring at the televisions above.
All of the televisions were on Pacific Time. I couldn't help but laugh at that blatant act of disorientation and smart card. Regardless, as $70 in chips were pushed my way, I gave myself a time limit: 15 minutes. Once that TV said 3:00 p.m. PT, I was standing up, cashing out, and leaving.
Fifteen minutes later, I did just that. And after a chips-for-cash transaction, I walked out of the Seminole Casino toward my car, $100 richer. What a solid afternoon.
In my gambling history, which is not long but most certainly not positive, never had I shown anything resembling self-restraint. If I won, the assumption was that it was "my day," and if I lost, the assumption was that, eventually, on that day, it would become "mine." I'd thought this way because I tend to assume things will work out for me in the end.
I didn't know what to make of my cab driver's statement, but apparently he thought my target demographic was 75-year-old women. Maybe it was my Hawaiian shirt, an attempt to blend in with the older crowd. Regardless, through some combination of cabin fever and it being "my day," it was now 12:10 a.m. and I was getting a lift back to the casino.
This was Hollywood, Florida's night club. Most of those present were overdressed by way of being comically underdressed, the energy was high, the lights were bright, and "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)" was blaring. Again, I felt out of place in a casino, but it wasn't age this time — now I was all alone. This was very much a couples scene or a breeding ground for large, rowdy groups celebrating some life event.
Not enjoying myself in the slightest, I wandered, aimlessly, looking for an open blackjack table. Nothing was available. I began to notice my movements had caught the attention of two employees. Assuming this would end with my getting thrown in a dumpster, never to be seen again, I spotted the exit and left.
In a matter of hours, the Seminole Casino had changed. Drastically. Yes, it looked the same on the outside and the crowd within still leaned older, but instead of quiet and borderline-depressing, it was now bustling.
A great deal of thanks for that change goes to the cover band loudly performing jams inside. As I walked in, it was "Too Close" by Next, which bled nicely into a string of Prince hits that got quite a few slot players out of their seats to dance.
I walked straight to my blackjack table with confidence and exchanged my previous winnings for chips. My tablemates this time were two brothers in their fifties, one who did not speak and the other a source of commentary on every single thing that was happening. Everything.
There was his disgust over not getting drinks comped, there was the time he almost got into a fight after hitting on 14 when the dealer had 13, and there was the time he came into a casino with $25 and left with a grand.
I said nothing to him, but my head was constantly nodding in approval of everything he said. When a man and woman walked over and joined us about 45 minutes in, the gentleman in the couple lost his first three hands. His response to his subpar gameplay: "I always bust when I sit over here."
2013年6月24日星期一
There's More!
Tustin Ranch’s Ron Cummings, on camera in the studio of Sydney’s TVSN channel, is momentarily taken aback. “I’ve called to perv on Ron a bit,” the caller had just said in her thick Australian accent. Perv? It isn’t until later that someone explains to the skin-care entrepreneur that in Aussie slang, it’s a verb that means, “I think you’re hot.”
That itself isn’t so disconcerting, because, after all, Cummings is in the business of looking good. In his early 50s, he’s got the trim, athletic build that suits business casual attire, plus a lush mane of graying hair and a smile that gleams like fine china. But those details just enhance Cummings’ calling card—his skin—which looks almost preternaturally smooth and supple, even in a low-budget YouTube video. He’s a walking advertisement for the restorative powers of the products he pitches, especially as a guy who’s overcome the ravages of adult chickenpox.
But while Cummings enjoys the compliment, he prefers to keep the friendly caller chitchat to a minimum. This is a business where you get a few minutes of free TV time to reach millions of potential customers, in exchange for providing thousands of units of your product for the network to sell directly to viewers. All that matters is how often the phones ring, and how many units you move. That number is displayed on a studio monitor so that on-air pitchmeisters such as Cummings can see in real time how well (or badly) they’re doing.
“You’ll say something, and you’ll see the sales spike, and the producer will be saying in your ear, ‘Do that again!’ ” he says. And making the connection with viewers sometimes means wrestling the conversation away from a host who likes to control it, or a caller who just wants to talk. “You live and die by your sales per minute,” he says. “Nobody knows for sure how you’re going to do until you get out there. ... Sometimes, God bless ’em, they’ll ramble on and on. You can’t rudely interrupt them, but you realize that’s precious time going by.”
In no trade is the equation of time and money more apparent than for a TV pitchman such as Cummings. His company, Newport Beach-based AminoGenesis Skin Care, has sold $30 million worth of products in the last two years during short, intense sales pitches on home shopping networks. He’s flown across the Pacific just to spend a few minutes selling one of his amino acid-laden rejuvenating preparations to an audience of presumably ruddy-complected, outdoorsy Aussie Shielas, hoping like hell they’ll call. The director talks into Cummings’ earpiece, pushing him through his gig while both keep an eye on that monitor’s second-by-second tab of units sold.
Cummings, who can make—or not make—tens of thousands of dollars in the time it takes most of us to find the remote control, is a man in the fast lane. When he founded his company 14 years ago, he was an ordinary Joe with an engaging smile who used his garage as a warehouse and peddled jars of cream from a cart in front of the Robinsons-May department store at Fashion Island, dreaming of being big enough to earn a spot at the cosmetics counter inside.
Millions of dollars later, Cummings has bigger ambitions. For the past several years, he personally has sold his wares on domestic channels such as QVC, the Home Shopping Network (HSN), and ShopNBC, and now is branching out into the global marketplace, from Turkey to Taiwan. In some countries, Cummings hires salespeople who speak the native language and trains them to mimic his carefully choreographed presentation, which he’s perfected down to the precise moment that they demonstrate the product. “It’s like a play,” he says. “They have to memorize exactly how it’s done.”
It’s an entrepreneur’s dream, he says. “Instead of hoping a salesperson at a store will know enough to tell your story to one customer, you’re able to go on yourself and tell your story to millions of people at once. ” But that high-stakes gamble also can be a potential nightmare of on-air glitches, inappropriate ad libs, and real-time callers with uncertain agendas.
Here’s how it works: A network typically invites someone such as Cummings to appear. The pitchman doesn’t pay the network for the airtime, but he does have to ship a large order of his product to its warehouse. Then he appears on camera to hawk his merchandise. If viewers like him and his product, they call and order it from the network, which then pays the company and keeps a cut for itself. Cummings only gets paid for the jars of skin cream sold; the rest are sent back to him, and he eats the shipping costs.
He went home demoralized, thinking that he’d blown his shot at the big time and knowing the network would return tens of thousands of dollars in unsold inventory. But he’d managed to move just enough units that the network execs gave him another try. Two months later, he went on at 3 a.m. for a six-minute stint. His numbers still weren’t good. “It seemed like the end of the road,” he recalls.
That’s why Cummings was startled to get a call from a product scout at HSN who saw potential in his early-morning debacle. The scout’s network wasn’t quite as stingy with its on-air time as QVC, and he figured that Cummings’ personable style—the one he’d developed working the kiosk at Fashion Island—might come across better in the network’s format. A few months later, Cummings again found himself in a green room nervously awaiting his 6 a.m. appearance. The 12 minutes went by in a blur, but when he returned to the green room, network executives hurried over to congratulate him. He’d sold $48,000 worth of skin cream, about $4,000 worth per minute—33 percent above target. The network put him before the camera repeatedly over the next two days, and on the plane home, a new reality began to sink in. He’d just sold $250,000 worth of products, and the network wanted him back in a couple of months.
But as Cummings quickly learned, TV pitchmen have precious little job security. Have one subpar outing, and you start hearing whispers that your numbers need to rise. There’s no malice to it. “When a person gets canceled, it can be a real downer for everyone involved,” he says. In the end, what matters is whether the public likes you. “You can be like a TV show that everyone [at the network] likes, but still gets canceled.”
Indeed, Cummings later had an HSN outing in which his sales inexplicably plummeted, and he found himself on the outside looking in. Fortunately, buyers at ShopNBC got wind that he’d just developed a new product, a wrinkle reducer called Gone in 60 Seconds. “By some strange bit of karma, I was getting yet another chance,” he says. This time he nailed it. Gone in 60 Seconds became one of the biggest-selling skin-care products in the network’s history.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
That itself isn’t so disconcerting, because, after all, Cummings is in the business of looking good. In his early 50s, he’s got the trim, athletic build that suits business casual attire, plus a lush mane of graying hair and a smile that gleams like fine china. But those details just enhance Cummings’ calling card—his skin—which looks almost preternaturally smooth and supple, even in a low-budget YouTube video. He’s a walking advertisement for the restorative powers of the products he pitches, especially as a guy who’s overcome the ravages of adult chickenpox.
But while Cummings enjoys the compliment, he prefers to keep the friendly caller chitchat to a minimum. This is a business where you get a few minutes of free TV time to reach millions of potential customers, in exchange for providing thousands of units of your product for the network to sell directly to viewers. All that matters is how often the phones ring, and how many units you move. That number is displayed on a studio monitor so that on-air pitchmeisters such as Cummings can see in real time how well (or badly) they’re doing.
“You’ll say something, and you’ll see the sales spike, and the producer will be saying in your ear, ‘Do that again!’ ” he says. And making the connection with viewers sometimes means wrestling the conversation away from a host who likes to control it, or a caller who just wants to talk. “You live and die by your sales per minute,” he says. “Nobody knows for sure how you’re going to do until you get out there. ... Sometimes, God bless ’em, they’ll ramble on and on. You can’t rudely interrupt them, but you realize that’s precious time going by.”
In no trade is the equation of time and money more apparent than for a TV pitchman such as Cummings. His company, Newport Beach-based AminoGenesis Skin Care, has sold $30 million worth of products in the last two years during short, intense sales pitches on home shopping networks. He’s flown across the Pacific just to spend a few minutes selling one of his amino acid-laden rejuvenating preparations to an audience of presumably ruddy-complected, outdoorsy Aussie Shielas, hoping like hell they’ll call. The director talks into Cummings’ earpiece, pushing him through his gig while both keep an eye on that monitor’s second-by-second tab of units sold.
Cummings, who can make—or not make—tens of thousands of dollars in the time it takes most of us to find the remote control, is a man in the fast lane. When he founded his company 14 years ago, he was an ordinary Joe with an engaging smile who used his garage as a warehouse and peddled jars of cream from a cart in front of the Robinsons-May department store at Fashion Island, dreaming of being big enough to earn a spot at the cosmetics counter inside.
Millions of dollars later, Cummings has bigger ambitions. For the past several years, he personally has sold his wares on domestic channels such as QVC, the Home Shopping Network (HSN), and ShopNBC, and now is branching out into the global marketplace, from Turkey to Taiwan. In some countries, Cummings hires salespeople who speak the native language and trains them to mimic his carefully choreographed presentation, which he’s perfected down to the precise moment that they demonstrate the product. “It’s like a play,” he says. “They have to memorize exactly how it’s done.”
It’s an entrepreneur’s dream, he says. “Instead of hoping a salesperson at a store will know enough to tell your story to one customer, you’re able to go on yourself and tell your story to millions of people at once. ” But that high-stakes gamble also can be a potential nightmare of on-air glitches, inappropriate ad libs, and real-time callers with uncertain agendas.
Here’s how it works: A network typically invites someone such as Cummings to appear. The pitchman doesn’t pay the network for the airtime, but he does have to ship a large order of his product to its warehouse. Then he appears on camera to hawk his merchandise. If viewers like him and his product, they call and order it from the network, which then pays the company and keeps a cut for itself. Cummings only gets paid for the jars of skin cream sold; the rest are sent back to him, and he eats the shipping costs.
He went home demoralized, thinking that he’d blown his shot at the big time and knowing the network would return tens of thousands of dollars in unsold inventory. But he’d managed to move just enough units that the network execs gave him another try. Two months later, he went on at 3 a.m. for a six-minute stint. His numbers still weren’t good. “It seemed like the end of the road,” he recalls.
That’s why Cummings was startled to get a call from a product scout at HSN who saw potential in his early-morning debacle. The scout’s network wasn’t quite as stingy with its on-air time as QVC, and he figured that Cummings’ personable style—the one he’d developed working the kiosk at Fashion Island—might come across better in the network’s format. A few months later, Cummings again found himself in a green room nervously awaiting his 6 a.m. appearance. The 12 minutes went by in a blur, but when he returned to the green room, network executives hurried over to congratulate him. He’d sold $48,000 worth of skin cream, about $4,000 worth per minute—33 percent above target. The network put him before the camera repeatedly over the next two days, and on the plane home, a new reality began to sink in. He’d just sold $250,000 worth of products, and the network wanted him back in a couple of months.
But as Cummings quickly learned, TV pitchmen have precious little job security. Have one subpar outing, and you start hearing whispers that your numbers need to rise. There’s no malice to it. “When a person gets canceled, it can be a real downer for everyone involved,” he says. In the end, what matters is whether the public likes you. “You can be like a TV show that everyone [at the network] likes, but still gets canceled.”
Indeed, Cummings later had an HSN outing in which his sales inexplicably plummeted, and he found himself on the outside looking in. Fortunately, buyers at ShopNBC got wind that he’d just developed a new product, a wrinkle reducer called Gone in 60 Seconds. “By some strange bit of karma, I was getting yet another chance,” he says. This time he nailed it. Gone in 60 Seconds became one of the biggest-selling skin-care products in the network’s history.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
2013年6月23日星期日
A new loyalty system for local business
YouGET -- available online, and via web mobile and app -- works most conveniently on the smartphone, where all the loyalty activity is at hand. It works like a key fob, an old-style plastic loyalty card and a paper stamp card all rolled into one. A shop can issue vouchers to the phone – or issue virtual stamps, called ‘GETS’ that you collect on a virtual stamp card to earn a reward.
You collect GETS by scanning a QR code (those black squares with squiggles in the middle) with the phone (or you can enter a number online). In most cases, the QR code is on a ticket which is handed over when you make a purchase, but it can also be displayed in-store. Each scan earns ‘GETs’ and, like with the paper stamp cards, when you collect a full card – up to 12 – you’ve earned the reward.
The clever part is that these virtual stamps and card can never be lost. When you first add a stamp you open a personal account where the value is stored – not only for the business visited – but for any business participating in YouGET loyalty. Each business sets its own loyalty terms and values – what you do to get a stamp and what you receive – but it’s all in one place and on one app for easy access.
Each business can send updates and news to your account so you always know when a good deal is on or if there’s something special awaiting. You can even interact with the business if it issues a mini-survey that you can answer on the smartphone and earn GETs wherever you are.
But the cleverest part is that YouGET is both an independent loyalty system for each business and a place where you can exchange value among businesses that choose to cooperate. This could be a matter of a shop giving GETS to be used in a nearby parking lot or on a much grander scale, a major international producer gives out GETS to be used in thousands of local shops selling their product.
This is unique, and explains why YouGET is much more than another bit of technology. Behind the pretty exterior, the YouGET teams in the UK and Netherlands are creating relationships that will benefit the consumer and small business in ways never possible on large scale before.
In the Netherlands, a major producer of potatoes has sponsored a programme at hundreds of fish and chip shops, whereby buyers of chips earn stamps branded to the producer – and for that little bit of promotion – can earn free chips. Elsewhere, a beer company offers consumers free entry to night clubs in exchange for completing mini-surveys about their product.
It’s a sad fact of modern American consumer life. Every time we swipe a piece of plastic at a gas station, grocery store or anywhere else, we’re vulnerable to cyberpickpockets.
That reality hit earlier this month when the Raley’s grocery chain in Sacramento, Calif., said it had been the victim of a cyberattack targeting customers’ credit and debit card numbers. The attack, which was reported to the FBI, is just one bite of a growing problem: Increasingly, credit and debit card numbers have become commodities sold by cyberthieves who harvest them from banks, businesses, restaurants and retailers.
Last year, targeted attacks on businesses jumped 42 percent, according to Symantec, the Mountain View, Calif.-based security software firm. Attacks spiked 31 percent among companies with fewer than 250 employees.
The attacks comprise a shift from mass assaults by computer viruses, worms and other cyberthreats to more pinpointed, targeted infiltrations, say online security experts. The attackers, often located overseas, “find this method more effective because it allows them to fly under the radar and avoid drawing widespread attention to their malware,” Brian Burch, vice president of consumer and small business marketing at Symantec, said in an email.
Small businesses are frequently targeted because they often lack adequate security practices, said Burch. Additionally, because small firms often partner with bigger organizations, cybercriminals “sometimes use them to gain access to a larger company.”
Longtime customer Pat Hoschler got a call June 3 from her financial institution, Schools Federal Credit Union, telling her that a suspicious $95 charge was made on her card in Atlanta. A second charge, for $125, was stopped by the credit union before it went through, she said.
‘’It gives me the creeps to think someone might be using my name and (debit) card information. I worry about it. I may not use my debit card anymore,” said Hoschler, who said she uses her debit card for Raley’s purchases several times a week.
Typically, the thieves who steal the data from retailers and other targets aren’t the ones who use it to rack up fraudulent charges. “There’s an underground ecosystem for the sale, transfer, purchase and exchange of stolen credit card and debit card information,” said security expert Hardy.
The dunking stool was a great success. Five great sports volunteered to get dunked for charity by anyone buying three softball tosses for five dollars - RTM Moderator Eileen Flug; former Board of Education member, and now First Selectman candidate Jim Marpe; Superintendent of Schools Elliott Landon; Third Selectman Charlie Haberstroh; and last minute volunteer Reverend Ed Horne, Senior Pastor of the United Methodist Church Westport. State Representative and Sunrise Rotarian Gail Lavielle oversaw the event.
Almost 100 people bought in. Each threw balls at a small circular plate about 10 feet away. Hitting the plate pushed a lever that dumped the dunkee into a four foot deep pool of water.
Flug got dunked 11 times, all the others close to that number. Haberstroh's daughter Kim offered the ultimate what-for - having lost her softball skills, she missed all three tosses, then slid up to the plate, banged it with her elbow and watched her unsuspecting father take another drop.
The club again sponsored a Duck Decorating competition. More than a dozen businesses and organizations bought yellow plastic ducks - big brothers and sisters of the racers - and transformed them into art objects. Celebrity judges Miggs Burroughs, Nina Bentley and Cathy Colgan selected three winners, a food themed quacker created by Lavinia Hurd of Whole Foods in Westport took First Prize, Indulge by Mersene won second, and Gault Rocks took third place.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
You collect GETS by scanning a QR code (those black squares with squiggles in the middle) with the phone (or you can enter a number online). In most cases, the QR code is on a ticket which is handed over when you make a purchase, but it can also be displayed in-store. Each scan earns ‘GETs’ and, like with the paper stamp cards, when you collect a full card – up to 12 – you’ve earned the reward.
The clever part is that these virtual stamps and card can never be lost. When you first add a stamp you open a personal account where the value is stored – not only for the business visited – but for any business participating in YouGET loyalty. Each business sets its own loyalty terms and values – what you do to get a stamp and what you receive – but it’s all in one place and on one app for easy access.
Each business can send updates and news to your account so you always know when a good deal is on or if there’s something special awaiting. You can even interact with the business if it issues a mini-survey that you can answer on the smartphone and earn GETs wherever you are.
But the cleverest part is that YouGET is both an independent loyalty system for each business and a place where you can exchange value among businesses that choose to cooperate. This could be a matter of a shop giving GETS to be used in a nearby parking lot or on a much grander scale, a major international producer gives out GETS to be used in thousands of local shops selling their product.
This is unique, and explains why YouGET is much more than another bit of technology. Behind the pretty exterior, the YouGET teams in the UK and Netherlands are creating relationships that will benefit the consumer and small business in ways never possible on large scale before.
In the Netherlands, a major producer of potatoes has sponsored a programme at hundreds of fish and chip shops, whereby buyers of chips earn stamps branded to the producer – and for that little bit of promotion – can earn free chips. Elsewhere, a beer company offers consumers free entry to night clubs in exchange for completing mini-surveys about their product.
It’s a sad fact of modern American consumer life. Every time we swipe a piece of plastic at a gas station, grocery store or anywhere else, we’re vulnerable to cyberpickpockets.
That reality hit earlier this month when the Raley’s grocery chain in Sacramento, Calif., said it had been the victim of a cyberattack targeting customers’ credit and debit card numbers. The attack, which was reported to the FBI, is just one bite of a growing problem: Increasingly, credit and debit card numbers have become commodities sold by cyberthieves who harvest them from banks, businesses, restaurants and retailers.
Last year, targeted attacks on businesses jumped 42 percent, according to Symantec, the Mountain View, Calif.-based security software firm. Attacks spiked 31 percent among companies with fewer than 250 employees.
The attacks comprise a shift from mass assaults by computer viruses, worms and other cyberthreats to more pinpointed, targeted infiltrations, say online security experts. The attackers, often located overseas, “find this method more effective because it allows them to fly under the radar and avoid drawing widespread attention to their malware,” Brian Burch, vice president of consumer and small business marketing at Symantec, said in an email.
Small businesses are frequently targeted because they often lack adequate security practices, said Burch. Additionally, because small firms often partner with bigger organizations, cybercriminals “sometimes use them to gain access to a larger company.”
Longtime customer Pat Hoschler got a call June 3 from her financial institution, Schools Federal Credit Union, telling her that a suspicious $95 charge was made on her card in Atlanta. A second charge, for $125, was stopped by the credit union before it went through, she said.
‘’It gives me the creeps to think someone might be using my name and (debit) card information. I worry about it. I may not use my debit card anymore,” said Hoschler, who said she uses her debit card for Raley’s purchases several times a week.
Typically, the thieves who steal the data from retailers and other targets aren’t the ones who use it to rack up fraudulent charges. “There’s an underground ecosystem for the sale, transfer, purchase and exchange of stolen credit card and debit card information,” said security expert Hardy.
The dunking stool was a great success. Five great sports volunteered to get dunked for charity by anyone buying three softball tosses for five dollars - RTM Moderator Eileen Flug; former Board of Education member, and now First Selectman candidate Jim Marpe; Superintendent of Schools Elliott Landon; Third Selectman Charlie Haberstroh; and last minute volunteer Reverend Ed Horne, Senior Pastor of the United Methodist Church Westport. State Representative and Sunrise Rotarian Gail Lavielle oversaw the event.
Almost 100 people bought in. Each threw balls at a small circular plate about 10 feet away. Hitting the plate pushed a lever that dumped the dunkee into a four foot deep pool of water.
Flug got dunked 11 times, all the others close to that number. Haberstroh's daughter Kim offered the ultimate what-for - having lost her softball skills, she missed all three tosses, then slid up to the plate, banged it with her elbow and watched her unsuspecting father take another drop.
The club again sponsored a Duck Decorating competition. More than a dozen businesses and organizations bought yellow plastic ducks - big brothers and sisters of the racers - and transformed them into art objects. Celebrity judges Miggs Burroughs, Nina Bentley and Cathy Colgan selected three winners, a food themed quacker created by Lavinia Hurd of Whole Foods in Westport took First Prize, Indulge by Mersene won second, and Gault Rocks took third place.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
2013年6月20日星期四
Hands-on with Razer Blade and Blade Pro
After getting hands-on with Razer's new gaming laptops at E3 2013, we found that those who love the metallic unyielding one-piece sleekness of a MacBook and everything that a PC laptop offers, may want to raise an eyebrow in the direction of Razer's new 14- and 17-inch gaming laptops, the Razer Blade and Blade Pro, respectively.
The Blade measures 0.66 inches thick and weighs 4.14 pounds. Its guts consist of a fourth-generation Intel Core i7 processor — Intel's "Haswell" chipset - and 8 GB of DDR3L memory. It also touts a 2 GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M video card and Intel HD4600 integrated graphics.
The 14-inch display is a 1600x900 screen with an LED backlight. According to Razer, the Blade offers as many as six hours of battery life. The Blade Pro weighs 6.5 pounds at 0.88 inches of thickness. According to Razer it is the thinnest in its 17-inch class.
After having the 14-inch resting on my lap, it looked like I had a flat screen TV floating on my knees, but it certainly didn't feel like I had an-old school phone book resting on lap — like most performance laptops do.
The Blade Pro boasts a 17.3-inch 1080p LED screen, and Razer will offer the laptop in models with a 128 GB, 256 GB or 512 GB SSD. It also has Razer's Switchblade interface resting next to the keyboard, which consists of an LCD trackpad and 10 keys to give users quickly access to creative software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and Maya.
Ease of access to well used programs and apps is all good, but the question is how long the sensitivity on the LCD trackpad will last or even how long it will work for before it becomes deadspace? With both laptops, the finish didn't have that plastic Fisher Price toy feel, nor did it have the almost scratchy rough surface feel of a MacBook's brushed aluminum surface.
"So this is the Blade Pro, we actually launched it about two years ago and we have taken a totally different direction from other gaming laptops which tend to be 2-inches thick, 10-pounds," Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan. "So our focus has been to get really performance and portability at the same time. So two years ago we launched this, we recently updated this to the latest Intel Haswel CPUS."
The demo had Metro Last Light running on the machine, which ran smoothly and quietly, zero fuss from the machine. "So on top of this GPU so it runs all of the latest games it has an incredible frame rate and stuff. We are not trying to put all of the power in there because it would get insanely hot to really get it into a really powerful laptop that runs the latest games that runs at beautiful resolution. This is 17-inches and this is as hot as it gets, it has been running all morning."
Although, in my experience, track records with performance laptops dishing out crotch burn after a few months of service is not uncommon. The intakes are around the back between the body and the hinge, so it is out of the way of the user. "Even the thermal problem with performance laptops is that they get really hot. Now this gets really hot too, but what we did was get a propriety cooling system in there and we focused it getting it hot in areas that would generally be out of the way, so if you use it for gaming it will be perfectly fine."
What we have discovered is that hardcore gamers really like this but a lot of them said that we want something better with a smaller footprint," said Tan. "And you know we looked at the 14-inch laptops and again they really tend to be either really thick and have like gaming laptops but I really like the MacBook Pro because it was really thin and light. This is the most laptop with the smallest form factor ever."
The machine's keyboard was responsive, light to the touch. There was no need to pound the keys for it to register a keystroke nor was the keyboard awkwardly spaced out. "We spent a lot of time on the keyboard, making sure there is enough travel we didn't cheap out on the keyboard, which some guys do," he said.
We closed the machines lid and it registered a muted thwump which caught Tan's attention. "We put this in a chamber to get the sound of this perfect," he said. "We put this in an actual volume chamber with little mics all around it and we built a little robot just to be able to do that."
And so it was with Lake Lakota. I remembered nothing more than a monstrous farm pond set in a pasture of short grass grazed to the limit. There were no trees, just rugged hills. There was no swimming beach, no facilities of any kind. The lake had been built a few years before. If memory serves me right it went dry or almost dry at one time because it didn't hold water. If that was before my visit or after, I cannot recall, but it does hold water now. I am told it provides good fishing for bass, bluegill, catfish and perch.
As I gazed across the water, my eyes searched for the tiny cove where I had made an incredible catch of bass 40 years ago. I've done better in other places many times since, but this one I remember. I was using a new technique for fishing plastic worms. Lakota's big bass loved it.
I finally made out a small divot in the shoreline far across the lake. That had to be the spot. It was a long ways from the road, but 40 years ago nothing seemed a long ways away to me.
This was in the days before catch and release, and after only a few casts I had strung a limit of bass ranging from 3 to 4 pounds. That was not particularly notable compared to some of the Iowa farm ponds I had been fishing for several years, but for anywhere in southeastern South Dakota it was phenomenal. I've never understood why I never went back.
The magic lure, and in those days I believed in them, was a plastic worm and a new method of fishing it. I had learned about it in a book entitled "Super Fresh Water Fishing Systems," by Col. Dave Harbour. I have it beside me as I write this. Inside, on the first page, in a lot better hand writing than I have now, is my name and under that is "May, 1972."
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
The Blade measures 0.66 inches thick and weighs 4.14 pounds. Its guts consist of a fourth-generation Intel Core i7 processor — Intel's "Haswell" chipset - and 8 GB of DDR3L memory. It also touts a 2 GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M video card and Intel HD4600 integrated graphics.
The 14-inch display is a 1600x900 screen with an LED backlight. According to Razer, the Blade offers as many as six hours of battery life. The Blade Pro weighs 6.5 pounds at 0.88 inches of thickness. According to Razer it is the thinnest in its 17-inch class.
After having the 14-inch resting on my lap, it looked like I had a flat screen TV floating on my knees, but it certainly didn't feel like I had an-old school phone book resting on lap — like most performance laptops do.
The Blade Pro boasts a 17.3-inch 1080p LED screen, and Razer will offer the laptop in models with a 128 GB, 256 GB or 512 GB SSD. It also has Razer's Switchblade interface resting next to the keyboard, which consists of an LCD trackpad and 10 keys to give users quickly access to creative software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and Maya.
Ease of access to well used programs and apps is all good, but the question is how long the sensitivity on the LCD trackpad will last or even how long it will work for before it becomes deadspace? With both laptops, the finish didn't have that plastic Fisher Price toy feel, nor did it have the almost scratchy rough surface feel of a MacBook's brushed aluminum surface.
"So this is the Blade Pro, we actually launched it about two years ago and we have taken a totally different direction from other gaming laptops which tend to be 2-inches thick, 10-pounds," Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan. "So our focus has been to get really performance and portability at the same time. So two years ago we launched this, we recently updated this to the latest Intel Haswel CPUS."
The demo had Metro Last Light running on the machine, which ran smoothly and quietly, zero fuss from the machine. "So on top of this GPU so it runs all of the latest games it has an incredible frame rate and stuff. We are not trying to put all of the power in there because it would get insanely hot to really get it into a really powerful laptop that runs the latest games that runs at beautiful resolution. This is 17-inches and this is as hot as it gets, it has been running all morning."
Although, in my experience, track records with performance laptops dishing out crotch burn after a few months of service is not uncommon. The intakes are around the back between the body and the hinge, so it is out of the way of the user. "Even the thermal problem with performance laptops is that they get really hot. Now this gets really hot too, but what we did was get a propriety cooling system in there and we focused it getting it hot in areas that would generally be out of the way, so if you use it for gaming it will be perfectly fine."
What we have discovered is that hardcore gamers really like this but a lot of them said that we want something better with a smaller footprint," said Tan. "And you know we looked at the 14-inch laptops and again they really tend to be either really thick and have like gaming laptops but I really like the MacBook Pro because it was really thin and light. This is the most laptop with the smallest form factor ever."
The machine's keyboard was responsive, light to the touch. There was no need to pound the keys for it to register a keystroke nor was the keyboard awkwardly spaced out. "We spent a lot of time on the keyboard, making sure there is enough travel we didn't cheap out on the keyboard, which some guys do," he said.
We closed the machines lid and it registered a muted thwump which caught Tan's attention. "We put this in a chamber to get the sound of this perfect," he said. "We put this in an actual volume chamber with little mics all around it and we built a little robot just to be able to do that."
And so it was with Lake Lakota. I remembered nothing more than a monstrous farm pond set in a pasture of short grass grazed to the limit. There were no trees, just rugged hills. There was no swimming beach, no facilities of any kind. The lake had been built a few years before. If memory serves me right it went dry or almost dry at one time because it didn't hold water. If that was before my visit or after, I cannot recall, but it does hold water now. I am told it provides good fishing for bass, bluegill, catfish and perch.
As I gazed across the water, my eyes searched for the tiny cove where I had made an incredible catch of bass 40 years ago. I've done better in other places many times since, but this one I remember. I was using a new technique for fishing plastic worms. Lakota's big bass loved it.
I finally made out a small divot in the shoreline far across the lake. That had to be the spot. It was a long ways from the road, but 40 years ago nothing seemed a long ways away to me.
This was in the days before catch and release, and after only a few casts I had strung a limit of bass ranging from 3 to 4 pounds. That was not particularly notable compared to some of the Iowa farm ponds I had been fishing for several years, but for anywhere in southeastern South Dakota it was phenomenal. I've never understood why I never went back.
The magic lure, and in those days I believed in them, was a plastic worm and a new method of fishing it. I had learned about it in a book entitled "Super Fresh Water Fishing Systems," by Col. Dave Harbour. I have it beside me as I write this. Inside, on the first page, in a lot better hand writing than I have now, is my name and under that is "May, 1972."
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
2013年6月19日星期三
Mobile technology gains ground as settlement option
When a large corporate embarks on a mission to enhance visibility of cash, it does so with a view to freeing working capital and allowing for better cashflow forecasting. One way to achieve better cash visibility, as well as cutting down on operational cost, is to move payments from cash and cheques to electronic means.
Regardless of location, paper-based processing of payments and receivables is more expensive than electronic alternatives and puts the corporate at greater risk of fraud. One common solution that transaction banks will propose is the implementation of internet-based portals through which suppliers and customers can, respectively, submit invoices and initiate payment (through automated clearing house transfers, for instance). Yet, technological innovation is rapidly adding alternatives to these portals.
In many Asian markets, suppliers and distributors of a large corporate may not be inclined to register and utilize these portals, due to unreliable access to broadband internet or, for some, the lack of a bank account. Providing these business partners with alternative methods of digital payments becomes critical in reducing cheque processing.
Adds Gautam Jain, global head of client access at the bank: “Insurance providers could benefit if the agents were in a position to collect premium payments through mobile devices, rather than having to wait for checks to clear and display in the insurance provider’s accounts days later. From a geographical perspective, B2B mobile money solutions make sense in countries with large upcountry check collection processes”.
As a result, Standard Chartered has launched in one of its Asian markets a collections product via mobile, which caters to large producers with wide distribution networks. “At the moment, we collect the paper check and the courier goes to the central treasury where it is presented so the goods can be released,” explains Jain. “This is a relatively easy process to which we introduce the mobile. The courier now takes the image of the check, it goes to the system and we are eliminating around eight hours of the collection cycle because the process is all image-based on mobile.”
The case study demonstrates how mobile devices aid in the digitization of receivables, thereby shortening the collection cycle and yielding benefits to both producer and distributor. “From a client perspective,” Jain elaborates, “information is received much earlier, and hence the retailer can receive the goods faster, enabling him to turn around his inventory quicker. His working capital and inventory are optimized.”
The next stage in this evolution is achieved when a corporate’s numerous distributors make payment using their mobile devices from the start, eliminating the need to capture the image-based cheque on a mobile device. In India, the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation – more prominently known under its trademark Amul – receives a growing share of payments from its retail distributors through mobile-initiated transactions. Amul’s distribution comprises some 5,000 dealers and one million retailers. (See April issue, p40.) In order to avoid non-payment, Amul used to rely on receiving post-dated cheques in advance of shipment and thus incurred large overhead costs of storing cheques and managing clearance information.
As one part of the solution that Amul’s banking partner BNP Paribas proposed, starting last year distributors have been able to transfer funds to Amul using their mobile phones. Targeted especially at those smaller distributors that may not be able to make payments through India’s RTGS or NEFT systems on a regular basis, the mobile channel builds on the country’s Interbank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS) and allows secure access to bank accounts to facilitate fund transfer without a computer. Amul receives and confirms payment quicker and can release goods to its retailers faster. Remitters receive a so-called MMID (mobile money ID) that is known to Amul and thus allows for quick reconciliation. Typically, funds are credited to Amul within 15 to 30 seconds.
Initially conceived for private or consumer-to-business transactions, IMPS was successfully introduced in this FMCG setting to yield benefits to both parties. Arvind Ronad, senior executive product strategy and marketing at technology vendor Fundtech, has followed the evolution of IMPS and asserts: “We see IMPS poised for growth, and it is just a matter of time before it obtains a critical mass of active users and transaction volume. Corporates and their supply chains will start exploiting it once they become more aware of the capabilities and benefits.”
With arguably more relevancy to Asia’s mature markets, credit card-based solutions are an alternative way to digitize payables. Vendor payment is a central treasury function that incurs significant operational costs, especially when this is still based on distribution of cheques. Card issuers have proposed that their networks can deliver secure payments in a B2B setting, provided that suppliers accept card payments. In this business model, payments are typically made using virtual credit cards that the treasury issues to its suppliers; each card modified with a unique card number, expiration date and the amount due. The cards are sent as an image via e-mail or even mobile devices. The supplier then processes the payment like a regular credit card, knowing that the invoice is settled immediately.
Virtual card solutions so far have seen strongest pick-up in the travel and entertainment industry, observes Vincent Patru, head of commercial products for Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa (APMEA) at MasterCard Worldwide: “Web-based travel aggregators, for example, spend millions on reconciliation. Our virtual account number solutions works like a card but without the plastic. Whenever there is a trip generated on their platform, MasterCard will generate a unique 16-code number to the end provider, restricted for a certain amount, merchant and validity. One number for each transaction allows the client to link payment to one specific trip.”
In industries with such high volume of transactions, a portal solution would make limited sense. In terms of industries, the greatest opportunities lie beyond travel and entertainment corporations, believes Patru. “You can imagine this for the public sector where agencies can pay their multiple suppliers,” he maintains. “It also makes sense for insurers or hospitals. Paying their suppliers through traditional money transfers is a mess. Introducing the virtual card brings a lot of cost-saving.”
Patru is keen to point out the size of the market in general: “In Asia, B2B payments are the largest opportunity out there. Looking at Asia, the Middle East and Africa, B2B transactions account for roughly US$33 trillion and out of this the potential that could easily be handled via cards is about US$6 trillion. So far, this number stands at about US$350 billion, both plastic and virtual. It takes time to go after CFOs and treasurers to make them understand the benefits.”
Read the full story at www.smartcardfactory.com!
Regardless of location, paper-based processing of payments and receivables is more expensive than electronic alternatives and puts the corporate at greater risk of fraud. One common solution that transaction banks will propose is the implementation of internet-based portals through which suppliers and customers can, respectively, submit invoices and initiate payment (through automated clearing house transfers, for instance). Yet, technological innovation is rapidly adding alternatives to these portals.
In many Asian markets, suppliers and distributors of a large corporate may not be inclined to register and utilize these portals, due to unreliable access to broadband internet or, for some, the lack of a bank account. Providing these business partners with alternative methods of digital payments becomes critical in reducing cheque processing.
Adds Gautam Jain, global head of client access at the bank: “Insurance providers could benefit if the agents were in a position to collect premium payments through mobile devices, rather than having to wait for checks to clear and display in the insurance provider’s accounts days later. From a geographical perspective, B2B mobile money solutions make sense in countries with large upcountry check collection processes”.
As a result, Standard Chartered has launched in one of its Asian markets a collections product via mobile, which caters to large producers with wide distribution networks. “At the moment, we collect the paper check and the courier goes to the central treasury where it is presented so the goods can be released,” explains Jain. “This is a relatively easy process to which we introduce the mobile. The courier now takes the image of the check, it goes to the system and we are eliminating around eight hours of the collection cycle because the process is all image-based on mobile.”
The case study demonstrates how mobile devices aid in the digitization of receivables, thereby shortening the collection cycle and yielding benefits to both producer and distributor. “From a client perspective,” Jain elaborates, “information is received much earlier, and hence the retailer can receive the goods faster, enabling him to turn around his inventory quicker. His working capital and inventory are optimized.”
The next stage in this evolution is achieved when a corporate’s numerous distributors make payment using their mobile devices from the start, eliminating the need to capture the image-based cheque on a mobile device. In India, the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation – more prominently known under its trademark Amul – receives a growing share of payments from its retail distributors through mobile-initiated transactions. Amul’s distribution comprises some 5,000 dealers and one million retailers. (See April issue, p40.) In order to avoid non-payment, Amul used to rely on receiving post-dated cheques in advance of shipment and thus incurred large overhead costs of storing cheques and managing clearance information.
As one part of the solution that Amul’s banking partner BNP Paribas proposed, starting last year distributors have been able to transfer funds to Amul using their mobile phones. Targeted especially at those smaller distributors that may not be able to make payments through India’s RTGS or NEFT systems on a regular basis, the mobile channel builds on the country’s Interbank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS) and allows secure access to bank accounts to facilitate fund transfer without a computer. Amul receives and confirms payment quicker and can release goods to its retailers faster. Remitters receive a so-called MMID (mobile money ID) that is known to Amul and thus allows for quick reconciliation. Typically, funds are credited to Amul within 15 to 30 seconds.
Initially conceived for private or consumer-to-business transactions, IMPS was successfully introduced in this FMCG setting to yield benefits to both parties. Arvind Ronad, senior executive product strategy and marketing at technology vendor Fundtech, has followed the evolution of IMPS and asserts: “We see IMPS poised for growth, and it is just a matter of time before it obtains a critical mass of active users and transaction volume. Corporates and their supply chains will start exploiting it once they become more aware of the capabilities and benefits.”
With arguably more relevancy to Asia’s mature markets, credit card-based solutions are an alternative way to digitize payables. Vendor payment is a central treasury function that incurs significant operational costs, especially when this is still based on distribution of cheques. Card issuers have proposed that their networks can deliver secure payments in a B2B setting, provided that suppliers accept card payments. In this business model, payments are typically made using virtual credit cards that the treasury issues to its suppliers; each card modified with a unique card number, expiration date and the amount due. The cards are sent as an image via e-mail or even mobile devices. The supplier then processes the payment like a regular credit card, knowing that the invoice is settled immediately.
Virtual card solutions so far have seen strongest pick-up in the travel and entertainment industry, observes Vincent Patru, head of commercial products for Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa (APMEA) at MasterCard Worldwide: “Web-based travel aggregators, for example, spend millions on reconciliation. Our virtual account number solutions works like a card but without the plastic. Whenever there is a trip generated on their platform, MasterCard will generate a unique 16-code number to the end provider, restricted for a certain amount, merchant and validity. One number for each transaction allows the client to link payment to one specific trip.”
In industries with such high volume of transactions, a portal solution would make limited sense. In terms of industries, the greatest opportunities lie beyond travel and entertainment corporations, believes Patru. “You can imagine this for the public sector where agencies can pay their multiple suppliers,” he maintains. “It also makes sense for insurers or hospitals. Paying their suppliers through traditional money transfers is a mess. Introducing the virtual card brings a lot of cost-saving.”
Patru is keen to point out the size of the market in general: “In Asia, B2B payments are the largest opportunity out there. Looking at Asia, the Middle East and Africa, B2B transactions account for roughly US$33 trillion and out of this the potential that could easily be handled via cards is about US$6 trillion. So far, this number stands at about US$350 billion, both plastic and virtual. It takes time to go after CFOs and treasurers to make them understand the benefits.”
Read the full story at www.smartcardfactory.com!
2013年6月18日星期二
Arrested Development Slow-Binge Recap
Of all the Bluth family members, Lindsay has the most fraught sense of self, the biggest questions about her role in the family. She grew up thinking she was Michael's twin (twinness itself a complication of identity, multiplying it), and then discovered at the end of Season 3 that she was adopted. In "Red Hairing," she approaches her literal identity crisis in a very literal manner: Changing her appearance, or, given the eerie manipulation her face seems to have undergone since 2007, it might be more accurate to say that she's changing it even more. "Who am I?" she frets throughout the episode, trying on different looks and different relationships until, like all Bluths must, she returns to the sea … Cinco de Cuatro, to be specific.
The episode picks up almost exactly where the first Lindsay episode began: at an ostrich farm run by Marky Bark, freegan activist son of Lindsay's one-time protest partner Johnny Bark. Lindsay and Marky met cute, as many couples do, dropping their original partners off at the methadone clinic. Now Lindsay has joined her face-blind, speedy lover at his desert ostrich farm and is experiencing a little sweat-and-squeeze herself. She's so hot she'd "give $20,000 for a lemonade," even as Marky's mother presses her into grimy service as Marky puts pressure onto the neighboring businessmen's retreat that's rubbing up against their property lines.
Yes, Marky is the Ostrich God that warns George Sr. and Oscar that "the weak will become the strong," a gambit to keep the corporate colony from taking over. Lindsay can't take the heat or the drugged wildlife ("Who keeps numbing these desert animals?"). When Marky's mom pipes up that Lucille has been "sent away," Lindsay leads the unusual family unit (her, Marky, and their ostrich, Cindy) to the empty condo and revels in the barely recollected smell of home: "not-urine."
Flash-forward a year and we see the condo in the state that it's in when Michael comes home from Phoenix and Tobias reconnoiters the place for things to steal to support himself and DeBrie: newspaper on the windows, stuffing torn out of the couches, but really, "the only thing they'd really changed was getting the not-urine smell out." Despite the continuous need for the two to reintroduce themselves to each other, the relationship has gone just as stale. Lindsay is understandably excited to come home from scrounging food and find Marky at work on a "love bomb." ("Let me just change out of these filthy clothes and into some filthy lingerie.") But Marky has a bigger, longer-lasting plan in mind: He wants to glitter-bomb Herbert Love.
He'll leap out of the lectern, he explains, and then Love and the audience will — Lindsay interrupts: "be blue in the face." Considers Mark: "That's better than mine, actually. I was going to say they'll be covered in ink and glitter."
Lindsay rolls her eyes at the plan, her impatience with their lifestyle having already reared its feathered head in Lindsay's furtive visits with Lucille Two across the hall. (Making Lucille three-for-three for Bluth sibling secret trysts.) Lucille Two is delighted in the company of Lucille Bluth's daughter; it's another notch in her ongoing battle for Lucille supremacy. She gifts Lindsay with sequined clothes and a darling red wig, previously used for nautical cosplay. (Lucille Two: "I used to wear that with the Captain, and I was …" Lindsay: "Tennille?" Lucille Two: "And not make eye contact, yes!")
Lindsay is happy with the arrangement as well: "You've been like a mother to me, except kind and loving and willing to let me eat." She has even made Lucille a banner. (Look at banner, Lucille!) Lindsay wants to support Lucille Two's run "4 Congres," drawing on her experience campaigning for student government against long-time nemesis Sally Sitwell, daughter of Bluth family rival Stan Sitwell.
She and Marky argue about the passion having gone out of their relationship ("It doesn't matter, but I'm really, really pretty!" "I'm the straightest guy you know!" "Why does every man have to say that to me?"), Marky storms out, and Lindsay discovers a check wedged in the pages of plastic card. It's for $50,000 and the memo indicates its intended recipient: "Gangie 4: Facelift." Using what could be called "banner logic," Lindsay interprets this to mean that the money is Lucille Bluth's gift to Maeby to pay for plastic surgery. Lindsay goes to the soft-time prison where her mother is serving time and tennis balls.
They argue, as usual. Lindsay defends Maeby's beauty but her emotional plea falls on two sets of dry eyes: "I'll be out on parole by the time you work up a tear," observes Lucille.
Lindsay rebelliously steals a jar of glitter and returns to the condo, ready to help Marky with his Love-bomb scheme by attending the candidate's fund-raiser incognito. She even offers to sign over the check for 50 grand, "It could buy a lot of leaflets … and Nature's Miracle." Marky insists Lindsay tear up the check.
Having donned the red wig (it's a better disguise than the original two-part horse costume), Lindsay runs into both her father, who asks for money, and her daughter, who asks what she's doing there. Lindsay's honest answer — "A random act of senseless non-violence" — provokes a like response from Maeby: She's there to pick up a lifetime achievement award for her work in the entertainment business. Lindsay sighs, "Tell your therapist I tried."
While dumping some vodka in her purse, Lindsay is chatted up by Love, who she doesn't recognize (face-blind Marky just showed her a picture of Nat King Cole): "The only phony I'm interested in is your phony number." She's too distracted to let Marky out of the lectern and thus when the glitter bomb explodes, he just blues himself. A déjà vu–despondent Lindsay brightens when Herbert Love presents his card and suggests "sexual congress."
Maeby lets her know who she's been schmoozing, which both further depresses and excites her. For a couple of days, Lindsay drinks her purse vodka and nurses her wounds, visiting Marky in prison ("They're dropping my charges from prank bomb to 'not Arab terrorism.'") and eventually attempting to reconcile with Maeby.
Maeby floats the idea that Lindsay could use her feminine wiles to get Love to let Marky out of jail. Lindsay jumps at the idea, eager to do right by Marky, but also intrigued by being with, as Maeby puts it, "one of those shallow guys only interested in looks." Sighs Lindsay, "I've missed that."
Lindsay and Love meet at the Ealing Club (where everyone does!). He uses clever wordplay ("Your cheekbones are higher than my approval rating") to ease her into a hotel room. On the way she runs into Michael and becomes ensnared in the favor-chain begun when Michael asked his father for movie rights. At this point, Michael wants Lindsay to talk to turn Love "against the wall." She agrees to, if Michael will talk to Warden Gentles about letting Marky out. He figures why not — "I have a script notes call with him on Tuesday" — only to then forge another link in the exchange: Will Lindsay sign over her movie rights as well? She agrees.
The episode picks up almost exactly where the first Lindsay episode began: at an ostrich farm run by Marky Bark, freegan activist son of Lindsay's one-time protest partner Johnny Bark. Lindsay and Marky met cute, as many couples do, dropping their original partners off at the methadone clinic. Now Lindsay has joined her face-blind, speedy lover at his desert ostrich farm and is experiencing a little sweat-and-squeeze herself. She's so hot she'd "give $20,000 for a lemonade," even as Marky's mother presses her into grimy service as Marky puts pressure onto the neighboring businessmen's retreat that's rubbing up against their property lines.
Yes, Marky is the Ostrich God that warns George Sr. and Oscar that "the weak will become the strong," a gambit to keep the corporate colony from taking over. Lindsay can't take the heat or the drugged wildlife ("Who keeps numbing these desert animals?"). When Marky's mom pipes up that Lucille has been "sent away," Lindsay leads the unusual family unit (her, Marky, and their ostrich, Cindy) to the empty condo and revels in the barely recollected smell of home: "not-urine."
Flash-forward a year and we see the condo in the state that it's in when Michael comes home from Phoenix and Tobias reconnoiters the place for things to steal to support himself and DeBrie: newspaper on the windows, stuffing torn out of the couches, but really, "the only thing they'd really changed was getting the not-urine smell out." Despite the continuous need for the two to reintroduce themselves to each other, the relationship has gone just as stale. Lindsay is understandably excited to come home from scrounging food and find Marky at work on a "love bomb." ("Let me just change out of these filthy clothes and into some filthy lingerie.") But Marky has a bigger, longer-lasting plan in mind: He wants to glitter-bomb Herbert Love.
He'll leap out of the lectern, he explains, and then Love and the audience will — Lindsay interrupts: "be blue in the face." Considers Mark: "That's better than mine, actually. I was going to say they'll be covered in ink and glitter."
Lindsay rolls her eyes at the plan, her impatience with their lifestyle having already reared its feathered head in Lindsay's furtive visits with Lucille Two across the hall. (Making Lucille three-for-three for Bluth sibling secret trysts.) Lucille Two is delighted in the company of Lucille Bluth's daughter; it's another notch in her ongoing battle for Lucille supremacy. She gifts Lindsay with sequined clothes and a darling red wig, previously used for nautical cosplay. (Lucille Two: "I used to wear that with the Captain, and I was …" Lindsay: "Tennille?" Lucille Two: "And not make eye contact, yes!")
Lindsay is happy with the arrangement as well: "You've been like a mother to me, except kind and loving and willing to let me eat." She has even made Lucille a banner. (Look at banner, Lucille!) Lindsay wants to support Lucille Two's run "4 Congres," drawing on her experience campaigning for student government against long-time nemesis Sally Sitwell, daughter of Bluth family rival Stan Sitwell.
She and Marky argue about the passion having gone out of their relationship ("It doesn't matter, but I'm really, really pretty!" "I'm the straightest guy you know!" "Why does every man have to say that to me?"), Marky storms out, and Lindsay discovers a check wedged in the pages of plastic card. It's for $50,000 and the memo indicates its intended recipient: "Gangie 4: Facelift." Using what could be called "banner logic," Lindsay interprets this to mean that the money is Lucille Bluth's gift to Maeby to pay for plastic surgery. Lindsay goes to the soft-time prison where her mother is serving time and tennis balls.
They argue, as usual. Lindsay defends Maeby's beauty but her emotional plea falls on two sets of dry eyes: "I'll be out on parole by the time you work up a tear," observes Lucille.
Lindsay rebelliously steals a jar of glitter and returns to the condo, ready to help Marky with his Love-bomb scheme by attending the candidate's fund-raiser incognito. She even offers to sign over the check for 50 grand, "It could buy a lot of leaflets … and Nature's Miracle." Marky insists Lindsay tear up the check.
Having donned the red wig (it's a better disguise than the original two-part horse costume), Lindsay runs into both her father, who asks for money, and her daughter, who asks what she's doing there. Lindsay's honest answer — "A random act of senseless non-violence" — provokes a like response from Maeby: She's there to pick up a lifetime achievement award for her work in the entertainment business. Lindsay sighs, "Tell your therapist I tried."
While dumping some vodka in her purse, Lindsay is chatted up by Love, who she doesn't recognize (face-blind Marky just showed her a picture of Nat King Cole): "The only phony I'm interested in is your phony number." She's too distracted to let Marky out of the lectern and thus when the glitter bomb explodes, he just blues himself. A déjà vu–despondent Lindsay brightens when Herbert Love presents his card and suggests "sexual congress."
Maeby lets her know who she's been schmoozing, which both further depresses and excites her. For a couple of days, Lindsay drinks her purse vodka and nurses her wounds, visiting Marky in prison ("They're dropping my charges from prank bomb to 'not Arab terrorism.'") and eventually attempting to reconcile with Maeby.
Maeby floats the idea that Lindsay could use her feminine wiles to get Love to let Marky out of jail. Lindsay jumps at the idea, eager to do right by Marky, but also intrigued by being with, as Maeby puts it, "one of those shallow guys only interested in looks." Sighs Lindsay, "I've missed that."
Lindsay and Love meet at the Ealing Club (where everyone does!). He uses clever wordplay ("Your cheekbones are higher than my approval rating") to ease her into a hotel room. On the way she runs into Michael and becomes ensnared in the favor-chain begun when Michael asked his father for movie rights. At this point, Michael wants Lindsay to talk to turn Love "against the wall." She agrees to, if Michael will talk to Warden Gentles about letting Marky out. He figures why not — "I have a script notes call with him on Tuesday" — only to then forge another link in the exchange: Will Lindsay sign over her movie rights as well? She agrees.
2013年6月17日星期一
Turkey Expands Violent Reaction to Street Unrest
The Turkish authorities widened their crackdown on the antigovernment protest movement on Sunday, taking aim not just at the demonstrators themselves, but also at the medics who treat their injuries, the business owners who shelter them and the foreign news media flocking here to cover a growing political crisis threatening to paralyze the government of Pr?me Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
After an intense night of street clashes that represented the worst violence in nearly three weeks of protests, Mr. Erdogan rallied hundreds of thousands of his supporters on Sunday — many of them traveling on city buses and ferries that the government had mobilized for the event — at an outdoor arena on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. In some of his toughest language yet, he called his opponents terrorists and made clear that any hope of a compromise to end the crisis was gone.
“It is nothing more than the minority’s attempt to dominate the majority,” he said of the protesters. “We will not allow it.”
The escalating tensions have raised the risk of an extended period of civil unrest that could undermine Turkey’s image as a rising global power and a model of Islamic democracy, which Mr. Erdogan has cultivated over a decade in power.
As he spoke, the police fired tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators in Istanbul and in several other cities. In at least two strongholds of support for Mr. Erdogan, the nature of the confrontation seemed to take a more dangerous turn, as antigovernment protesters clashed with his civilian backers. In Mr. Erdogan’s childhood neighborhood in Istanbul, a group of government supporters joined the police with sticks and fought against protesters, according to one witness. In Konya, a conservative town in the Anatolian heartland, government supporters also clashed with protesters, according to a local news report.
Even before Mr. Erdogan took the stage to deliver his nearly two-hour-long speech, the master of ceremonies had bashed the foreign news media, which the prime minister has suggested is part of a foreign plot, along with financial speculators and terrorists, to topple his government.
At least 400 people were detained on Sunday, according to the Istanbul Bar Association, with local news reports saying that some journalists had been among them. One foreign photographer documenting the clashes Saturday night said a police officer had torn his gas mask off him while in a cloud of tear gas, and forced him to clear his memory card of photographs.
Some doctors and nurses who treated protesters were detained by security forces on Sunday, according to the legal offices of the Istanbul Chamber of Doctors. Lawyers have been held by the authorities in recent days. Mr. Erdogan said Sunday that even the owners of luxury hotels near Taksim Square who had provided refuge to protesters fleeing the chaos of the police raid were linked to terrorism.
“We know very well the ones that sheltered in their hotels those who cooperated with terror,” he said at the rally. “Will they not be held accountable? If we do not hold them accountable, then the nation will hold us accountable.”
The last three weeks have laid bare Turkey’s deep divisions between the religious, largely conservative masses who support Mr. Erdogan and the mostly secular and middle class who have joined the protest movement. Their contesting visions of the country played out clearly across Istanbul on Sunday. As Mr. Erdogan’s supporters flocked to his rally, police forces were already firing tear gas at protesters who were trying to march to Taksim Square, which had become the center of the movement before the police cleared the area.
With a helicopter flying overhead, the police set up barricades and positioned armored vehicles, their water cannons aimed down side streets leading to Taksim. The center of the city once again resembled a war zone, as shops were closed and heavy clashes in central Istanbul continued long into the night.
At Mr. Erdogan’s rally on the seashore, near the walls of the ancient city, enthusiastic government supporters voiced anger at its opponents. Walking up to the rally grounds, people chanted, “Go gas them, Captain! Break their hands!” A helicopter flew overhead to provide panoramic footage for state television. Later, as Erdogan supporters rode buses and trains back to the city center, many removed their A.K.P. hats and discarded their flags, fearful of being targeted by antigovernment demonstrators.
Mr. Erdogan’s decision on Saturday to order a decisive police raid on protesters camped out in a part of Taksim known as Gezi Park, the last significant green space in the center of Istanbul that protesters mobilized to save from being turned into a mall, marked a turn in the crisis and set off clashes in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities that continued to Sunday night. Days after he appeared ready to compromise by offering the protesters a referendum in which residents of Istanbul would decide the park’s fate, Mr. Erdogan seemed to have run out of patience.
Saving the park from a government plan to replace it with a commercial replica of an Ottoman-era army barracks was the first cause of the protesters. But the movement quickly attracted other disillusioned Turks, who have chafed at what they viewed as the government’s rising authoritarianism, and the movement evolved into a broader challenge to Mr. Erdogan’s government.
In responding to the crisis, Mr. Erdogan sought to divide the protest movement last week by offering concessions on the park. But by then, it was too late: the movement had already become about much more. By Sunday, Mr. Erdogan sought to thoroughly delegitimize any opposition to his governance, linking the effort to save the park to a recent terrorist attack in Reyhanli, in southern Turkey, which was connected to the Syrian civil war and killed dozens.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
After an intense night of street clashes that represented the worst violence in nearly three weeks of protests, Mr. Erdogan rallied hundreds of thousands of his supporters on Sunday — many of them traveling on city buses and ferries that the government had mobilized for the event — at an outdoor arena on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. In some of his toughest language yet, he called his opponents terrorists and made clear that any hope of a compromise to end the crisis was gone.
“It is nothing more than the minority’s attempt to dominate the majority,” he said of the protesters. “We will not allow it.”
The escalating tensions have raised the risk of an extended period of civil unrest that could undermine Turkey’s image as a rising global power and a model of Islamic democracy, which Mr. Erdogan has cultivated over a decade in power.
As he spoke, the police fired tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators in Istanbul and in several other cities. In at least two strongholds of support for Mr. Erdogan, the nature of the confrontation seemed to take a more dangerous turn, as antigovernment protesters clashed with his civilian backers. In Mr. Erdogan’s childhood neighborhood in Istanbul, a group of government supporters joined the police with sticks and fought against protesters, according to one witness. In Konya, a conservative town in the Anatolian heartland, government supporters also clashed with protesters, according to a local news report.
Even before Mr. Erdogan took the stage to deliver his nearly two-hour-long speech, the master of ceremonies had bashed the foreign news media, which the prime minister has suggested is part of a foreign plot, along with financial speculators and terrorists, to topple his government.
At least 400 people were detained on Sunday, according to the Istanbul Bar Association, with local news reports saying that some journalists had been among them. One foreign photographer documenting the clashes Saturday night said a police officer had torn his gas mask off him while in a cloud of tear gas, and forced him to clear his memory card of photographs.
Some doctors and nurses who treated protesters were detained by security forces on Sunday, according to the legal offices of the Istanbul Chamber of Doctors. Lawyers have been held by the authorities in recent days. Mr. Erdogan said Sunday that even the owners of luxury hotels near Taksim Square who had provided refuge to protesters fleeing the chaos of the police raid were linked to terrorism.
“We know very well the ones that sheltered in their hotels those who cooperated with terror,” he said at the rally. “Will they not be held accountable? If we do not hold them accountable, then the nation will hold us accountable.”
The last three weeks have laid bare Turkey’s deep divisions between the religious, largely conservative masses who support Mr. Erdogan and the mostly secular and middle class who have joined the protest movement. Their contesting visions of the country played out clearly across Istanbul on Sunday. As Mr. Erdogan’s supporters flocked to his rally, police forces were already firing tear gas at protesters who were trying to march to Taksim Square, which had become the center of the movement before the police cleared the area.
With a helicopter flying overhead, the police set up barricades and positioned armored vehicles, their water cannons aimed down side streets leading to Taksim. The center of the city once again resembled a war zone, as shops were closed and heavy clashes in central Istanbul continued long into the night.
At Mr. Erdogan’s rally on the seashore, near the walls of the ancient city, enthusiastic government supporters voiced anger at its opponents. Walking up to the rally grounds, people chanted, “Go gas them, Captain! Break their hands!” A helicopter flew overhead to provide panoramic footage for state television. Later, as Erdogan supporters rode buses and trains back to the city center, many removed their A.K.P. hats and discarded their flags, fearful of being targeted by antigovernment demonstrators.
Mr. Erdogan’s decision on Saturday to order a decisive police raid on protesters camped out in a part of Taksim known as Gezi Park, the last significant green space in the center of Istanbul that protesters mobilized to save from being turned into a mall, marked a turn in the crisis and set off clashes in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities that continued to Sunday night. Days after he appeared ready to compromise by offering the protesters a referendum in which residents of Istanbul would decide the park’s fate, Mr. Erdogan seemed to have run out of patience.
Saving the park from a government plan to replace it with a commercial replica of an Ottoman-era army barracks was the first cause of the protesters. But the movement quickly attracted other disillusioned Turks, who have chafed at what they viewed as the government’s rising authoritarianism, and the movement evolved into a broader challenge to Mr. Erdogan’s government.
In responding to the crisis, Mr. Erdogan sought to divide the protest movement last week by offering concessions on the park. But by then, it was too late: the movement had already become about much more. By Sunday, Mr. Erdogan sought to thoroughly delegitimize any opposition to his governance, linking the effort to save the park to a recent terrorist attack in Reyhanli, in southern Turkey, which was connected to the Syrian civil war and killed dozens.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
2013年6月16日星期日
What being a dad really means
When I realized what it meant to be a father. We’d just brought our first child, Josephine, back from the hospital. She had proved unable to breast-feed, and I’d been instructed to tape a tiny plastic tube to my finger so she could practice sucking down formula. This was the first “finger feeding” I’d done solo. My wife was in the bedroom, sleeping the sleep of the dead. Things were not going well. Translation: Josie was wailing.
I tried everything in my extremely limited fathering repertoire?—?fresh diaper, burping session, tighter swaddle. Her misery escalated. She started choking on her sobs. Her tiny face turned Blood Blister Red. Before long I was also a trembling mess. My daughter was, for all I knew, dying, and I was completely helpless to do anything about it.
Both of us eventually calmed down. Josie exhausted herself and fell asleep on my chest. I’m happy to report that she is now a vibrant 6-year-old who is fond of jumping on my chest. But for me, that essential feeling?—?of being overmatched by the demands of the job, of searching for some elusive poise?—?has never quite gone away.
I’m reminded here of something my friend Karl once said to me at the tail end of a particularly rancorous play date. “Anybody can handle kids when things are going well,” he observed tiredly. “You only become a dad when it’s all going to hell.” I’m not suggesting that being a father boils down to crisis management. There’s plenty of happiness and laughter and balloons and cake. And there should be.
Wrinkled and skinny at first, the translucent, jellyfish-shaped balloons that Google released this week from a frozen field in the heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins as they rose into the blue winter skies above Lake Tekapo, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online.
It was the culmination of 18 months' work on what Google calls Project Loon, in recognition of how wacky the idea may sound. Developed in the secretive X lab that came up with a driverless car and web-surfing eyeglasses, the flimsy helium-filled inflatables beam the Internet down to earth as they sail past on the wind.
Still in their experimental stage, the balloons were the first of thousands that Google's leaders eventually hope to launch 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the stratosphere in order to bridge the gaping digital divide between the world's 4.8 billion unwired people and their 2.2 billion plugged-in counterparts.
The first person to get Google Balloon Internet access this week was Charles Nimmo, a farmer and entrepreneur in the small town of Leeston. He found the experience a little bemusing after he was one of 50 locals who signed up to be a tester for a project that was so secret, no one would explain to them what was happening. Technicians came to the volunteers' homes and attached to the outside walls bright red receivers the size of basketballs and resembling giant Google map pins.
Nimmo got the Internet for about 15 minutes before the balloon transmitting it sailed on past. His first stop on the Web was to check out the weather because he wanted to find out if it was an optimal time for "crutching" his sheep, a term he explained to the technicians refers to removing the wool around sheep's rear ends.
Nimmo is among the many rural folk, even in developed countries, that can't get broadband access. After ditching his dial-up four years ago in favor of satellite Internet service, he's found himself stuck with bills that sometimes exceed $1,000 in a single month.
While the concept is new, people have used balloons for communication, transportation and entertainment for centuries. In recent years, the military and aeronautical researchers have used tethered balloons to beam Internet signals back to bases on earth.
Google's balloons fly free and out of eyesight, scavenging power from card table-sized solar panels that dangle below and gather enough charge in four hours to power them for a day as the balloons sail around the globe on the prevailing winds. Far below, ground stations with Internet capabilities about 100 kilometers (60 miles) apart bounce signals up to the balloons.
The signals would hop forward, from one balloon to the next, along a backbone of up to five balloons.
Each balloon would provide Internet service for an area twice the size of New York City, about 1,250 square kilometers (780 square miles), and terrain is not a challenge. They could stream Internet into Afghanistan's steep and winding Khyber Pass or Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, a country where the World Bank estimates four out of every 100 people are online.
There are plenty of catches, including a requirement that anyone using Google Balloon Internet would need a receiver plugged into their computer in order to receive the signal. Google is not talking costs at this point, although they're striving to make both the balloons and receivers as inexpensive as possible, dramatically less than laying cables.
The signals travel in the unlicensed spectrum, which means Google doesn't have to go through the onerous regulatory processes required for Internet providers using wireless communications networks or satellites. In New Zealand, the company worked with the Civil Aviation Authority on the trial. Google chose the country in part because of its remoteness. Cassidy said in the next phase of the trial they hope to get up to 300 balloons forming a ring on the 40th parallel south from New Zealand through Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.
Christchurch was a symbolic launch site because some residents were cut off from online information for weeks following a 2011 earthquake that killed 185 people. Google believes balloon access could help places suffering natural disasters get quickly back online. Tania Gilchrist, a resident who signed up for the Google trial, feels lucky she lost her power for only about 10 hours on the day of the quake.
"After the initial upheaval, the Internet really came into play," she said. "It was how people coordinated relief efforts and let people know how to get in touch with agencies. It was really, really effective and it wasn't necessarily driven by the authorities."
At Google's mission control in Christchurch this week, a team of jet lagged engineers working at eight large laptops used wind data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to maneuver the balloons over snowy peaks, identifying the wind layer with the desired speed and direction and then adjusting balloons' altitudes so they floated in that layer.
"It's a very fundamentally democratic thing that what links everyone together is the sky and the winds," said Richard DeVaul, an MIT-trained scientist who founded Project Loon and helped develop Google Glass, hidden camera-equipped eyeglasses with a tiny computer display that responds to voice commands.
DeVaul initially thought their biggest challenge would be establishing the radio links from earth to sky, but in the end, one of the most complex parts was hand building strong, light, durable balloons that could handle temperature and pressure swings in the stratosphere.
Google engineers studied balloon science from NASA, the Defense Department and the Jet Propulsion Lab to design their own airships made of plastic films similar to grocery bags. Hundreds have been built so far.
He said they wouldn't interfere with aircraft because they fly well below satellites and twice as high as airplanes, and they downplayed concerns about surveillance, emphasizing that they would not carry cameras or any other extraneous equipment.
The balloons would be guided to collection points and replaced periodically. In cases when they failed, a parachute would deploy.
While there had been rumors, until now Google had refused to confirm the project. But there have been hints: In April, Google's executive chairman tweeted "For every person online, there are two who are not. By the end of the decade, everyone on Earth will be connected," prompting a flurry of speculative reports. Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
I tried everything in my extremely limited fathering repertoire?—?fresh diaper, burping session, tighter swaddle. Her misery escalated. She started choking on her sobs. Her tiny face turned Blood Blister Red. Before long I was also a trembling mess. My daughter was, for all I knew, dying, and I was completely helpless to do anything about it.
Both of us eventually calmed down. Josie exhausted herself and fell asleep on my chest. I’m happy to report that she is now a vibrant 6-year-old who is fond of jumping on my chest. But for me, that essential feeling?—?of being overmatched by the demands of the job, of searching for some elusive poise?—?has never quite gone away.
I’m reminded here of something my friend Karl once said to me at the tail end of a particularly rancorous play date. “Anybody can handle kids when things are going well,” he observed tiredly. “You only become a dad when it’s all going to hell.” I’m not suggesting that being a father boils down to crisis management. There’s plenty of happiness and laughter and balloons and cake. And there should be.
Wrinkled and skinny at first, the translucent, jellyfish-shaped balloons that Google released this week from a frozen field in the heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins as they rose into the blue winter skies above Lake Tekapo, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online.
It was the culmination of 18 months' work on what Google calls Project Loon, in recognition of how wacky the idea may sound. Developed in the secretive X lab that came up with a driverless car and web-surfing eyeglasses, the flimsy helium-filled inflatables beam the Internet down to earth as they sail past on the wind.
Still in their experimental stage, the balloons were the first of thousands that Google's leaders eventually hope to launch 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the stratosphere in order to bridge the gaping digital divide between the world's 4.8 billion unwired people and their 2.2 billion plugged-in counterparts.
The first person to get Google Balloon Internet access this week was Charles Nimmo, a farmer and entrepreneur in the small town of Leeston. He found the experience a little bemusing after he was one of 50 locals who signed up to be a tester for a project that was so secret, no one would explain to them what was happening. Technicians came to the volunteers' homes and attached to the outside walls bright red receivers the size of basketballs and resembling giant Google map pins.
Nimmo got the Internet for about 15 minutes before the balloon transmitting it sailed on past. His first stop on the Web was to check out the weather because he wanted to find out if it was an optimal time for "crutching" his sheep, a term he explained to the technicians refers to removing the wool around sheep's rear ends.
Nimmo is among the many rural folk, even in developed countries, that can't get broadband access. After ditching his dial-up four years ago in favor of satellite Internet service, he's found himself stuck with bills that sometimes exceed $1,000 in a single month.
While the concept is new, people have used balloons for communication, transportation and entertainment for centuries. In recent years, the military and aeronautical researchers have used tethered balloons to beam Internet signals back to bases on earth.
Google's balloons fly free and out of eyesight, scavenging power from card table-sized solar panels that dangle below and gather enough charge in four hours to power them for a day as the balloons sail around the globe on the prevailing winds. Far below, ground stations with Internet capabilities about 100 kilometers (60 miles) apart bounce signals up to the balloons.
The signals would hop forward, from one balloon to the next, along a backbone of up to five balloons.
Each balloon would provide Internet service for an area twice the size of New York City, about 1,250 square kilometers (780 square miles), and terrain is not a challenge. They could stream Internet into Afghanistan's steep and winding Khyber Pass or Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, a country where the World Bank estimates four out of every 100 people are online.
There are plenty of catches, including a requirement that anyone using Google Balloon Internet would need a receiver plugged into their computer in order to receive the signal. Google is not talking costs at this point, although they're striving to make both the balloons and receivers as inexpensive as possible, dramatically less than laying cables.
The signals travel in the unlicensed spectrum, which means Google doesn't have to go through the onerous regulatory processes required for Internet providers using wireless communications networks or satellites. In New Zealand, the company worked with the Civil Aviation Authority on the trial. Google chose the country in part because of its remoteness. Cassidy said in the next phase of the trial they hope to get up to 300 balloons forming a ring on the 40th parallel south from New Zealand through Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.
Christchurch was a symbolic launch site because some residents were cut off from online information for weeks following a 2011 earthquake that killed 185 people. Google believes balloon access could help places suffering natural disasters get quickly back online. Tania Gilchrist, a resident who signed up for the Google trial, feels lucky she lost her power for only about 10 hours on the day of the quake.
"After the initial upheaval, the Internet really came into play," she said. "It was how people coordinated relief efforts and let people know how to get in touch with agencies. It was really, really effective and it wasn't necessarily driven by the authorities."
At Google's mission control in Christchurch this week, a team of jet lagged engineers working at eight large laptops used wind data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to maneuver the balloons over snowy peaks, identifying the wind layer with the desired speed and direction and then adjusting balloons' altitudes so they floated in that layer.
"It's a very fundamentally democratic thing that what links everyone together is the sky and the winds," said Richard DeVaul, an MIT-trained scientist who founded Project Loon and helped develop Google Glass, hidden camera-equipped eyeglasses with a tiny computer display that responds to voice commands.
DeVaul initially thought their biggest challenge would be establishing the radio links from earth to sky, but in the end, one of the most complex parts was hand building strong, light, durable balloons that could handle temperature and pressure swings in the stratosphere.
Google engineers studied balloon science from NASA, the Defense Department and the Jet Propulsion Lab to design their own airships made of plastic films similar to grocery bags. Hundreds have been built so far.
He said they wouldn't interfere with aircraft because they fly well below satellites and twice as high as airplanes, and they downplayed concerns about surveillance, emphasizing that they would not carry cameras or any other extraneous equipment.
The balloons would be guided to collection points and replaced periodically. In cases when they failed, a parachute would deploy.
While there had been rumors, until now Google had refused to confirm the project. But there have been hints: In April, Google's executive chairman tweeted "For every person online, there are two who are not. By the end of the decade, everyone on Earth will be connected," prompting a flurry of speculative reports. Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
2013年6月8日星期六
10 hot tech gifts for every kind of dad
Just say no to neckties, kids. We all know that gadget gifts are really what Dad wants this Father's Day. And the countdown is on. Dad's big day is just around the corner, and he deserves something he really wants — some really fun gadgets and gizmos he'll actually use around the house and on-the-go (and, yes, even on the golf course).
To help you choose, I put together a list of 10 of my personal favorite Father's Day gadget gifts and tech tools. They're perfect for all kinds of dads — from DIY Mr. Fix It Dads to Digital Dads who can't live without their techie toys, and everyone in between.
The new Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon – 27-inch Tabletop PC ($1,700) makes a great "splurge" gift for the early-adopter dad who always has to have the coolest new tech toys on the block. This multi-user tabletop PC, which doubles as the family's computing and entertainment center, was all the buzz at this year's Consumer Electronics Show — and for good reason. It's a jack-of-all trades desktop PC that stands up to be a large touchscreen for personal computing or lies flat to be a giant, tablet-like interactive device. I've been using it for the past two weeks, and I love it. It reminds me a lot of how record players, radios and even TVs once brought the family together around an entertainment device for an hour or so every night... so it looks like Dad might have to share.
If the Dad of your domain is an Android lover, he'll no doubt want to get his hands on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone (about $250 with contract). It's packed with the latest hands-free features, including eye- and hand-gesture control, a 13 megapixel autofocus camera that snaps front and back photos (even at the same time!), a powerful 1.9GHz quad-core processor, a slick 5-inch, Full HD Super AMOLED display, and even works as a TV/DVR remote.
This one's for the digitally deft dad who always saves the day – and all of your family's most valuable (and confidential) digital data. Help him protect your family's smart card, videos and documents even better with a smart subscription to Backblaze Cloud Backup service ($50 per year). Backblaze has Dad's back 24/7 by continuously backing up all of your family's valuable files and documents to the cloud, ensuring they're recoverable should you ever experience an unfortunate major data loss or even computer theft.
Okay, yes, so this one's a tool gift, but it's not your typical one. It's a cutting-edge tech tool, and one with a quirky-cool name: the Flipout Tantrum Electric Screwdriver (about $160). It's an innovative electronic screwdriver designed to fit into extremely tight spaces because you can use it in 168 different tricky positions. The Flipout Tantrum stands up to just about any project Dad takes on and easily squeezes into tight spots that most traditional power tools can't get a grip on, hopefully reducing the chances that Dad will, yup, flip out and have a tantrum during a DIY project.
There are seemingly endless awesome choices available this year for the dad who likes to make a statement with his smartphone or tablet case. One of my favorites is the Q Card Case for iPhone 4S/4 by CM4 ($40). It simplifies Dad's busy life by doubling as a slick rubber iPhone protector and a wallet that stashes up to three credit cards or IDs, plus cash. Don't forget to slip a few bills in before you wrap it up for Dad. Trust me, it's just good gift-giving form.
There's also the idAmerica's Cushi iPhone5 Retro Camera Case ($25) for hipster dads who like to keep their gadgets extra safe — and looking extra retro cool. The Cushi case is a sleek, sophisticated — and protectively foam padded — case that makes Dad's iPhone looks like a blast-from-the-past camera.
For all those lovable but clumsy dads out there (you know who you are!), I give you the essentially everything-proof OtterBox Armor series ($65-$100), available to dutifully protect Dad's Galaxy S3, iPhone 5, iPhone 4, or iPhone 4s. OtterBox Armor smartphone cases are waterproof, drop-proof, dust-proof and crush-proof. Even the most accident-prone Dads probably couldn't destroy them, even if they wanted to.
This Auvio PBT 1000 Bluetooth Portable Speaker ($130) from RadioShack is music to the ears of the music-loving dad in your life, delivering exceptionally loud, crisp and rich-sounding music at an affordable price. Auvio's lightweight, 4-watt wonder block works with any Bluetooth-ready smartphone, laptop, tablet or MP3 player (including iOS and Android). And there's no need for Dad to dock or plug in his device to listen to music. Bonus: He can even use the portable speaker to take hands-free phone calls via speakerphone.
For the big kid in the family, the Sphero by Orbotix ($130) promises to deliver a ton of goofy fun. It's a durable robotic ball that you control with your iPhone, iPod, Android phone or tablet. How? By simply tilting, tapping or swiping your device, the ball rocks and rolls in all kinds of directions. You can play a bunch of fun family games with it, weaving the Sphero in and around DIY obstacle courses (which dads love setting up with their kids, hint, hint). Or Dad might feel inspired to use the Sphero to chase the family cat or dog around the house. A short charge on the small, portable charging unit delivers a full hour of unpredictable fun.
To help you choose, I put together a list of 10 of my personal favorite Father's Day gadget gifts and tech tools. They're perfect for all kinds of dads — from DIY Mr. Fix It Dads to Digital Dads who can't live without their techie toys, and everyone in between.
The new Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon – 27-inch Tabletop PC ($1,700) makes a great "splurge" gift for the early-adopter dad who always has to have the coolest new tech toys on the block. This multi-user tabletop PC, which doubles as the family's computing and entertainment center, was all the buzz at this year's Consumer Electronics Show — and for good reason. It's a jack-of-all trades desktop PC that stands up to be a large touchscreen for personal computing or lies flat to be a giant, tablet-like interactive device. I've been using it for the past two weeks, and I love it. It reminds me a lot of how record players, radios and even TVs once brought the family together around an entertainment device for an hour or so every night... so it looks like Dad might have to share.
If the Dad of your domain is an Android lover, he'll no doubt want to get his hands on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone (about $250 with contract). It's packed with the latest hands-free features, including eye- and hand-gesture control, a 13 megapixel autofocus camera that snaps front and back photos (even at the same time!), a powerful 1.9GHz quad-core processor, a slick 5-inch, Full HD Super AMOLED display, and even works as a TV/DVR remote.
This one's for the digitally deft dad who always saves the day – and all of your family's most valuable (and confidential) digital data. Help him protect your family's smart card, videos and documents even better with a smart subscription to Backblaze Cloud Backup service ($50 per year). Backblaze has Dad's back 24/7 by continuously backing up all of your family's valuable files and documents to the cloud, ensuring they're recoverable should you ever experience an unfortunate major data loss or even computer theft.
Okay, yes, so this one's a tool gift, but it's not your typical one. It's a cutting-edge tech tool, and one with a quirky-cool name: the Flipout Tantrum Electric Screwdriver (about $160). It's an innovative electronic screwdriver designed to fit into extremely tight spaces because you can use it in 168 different tricky positions. The Flipout Tantrum stands up to just about any project Dad takes on and easily squeezes into tight spots that most traditional power tools can't get a grip on, hopefully reducing the chances that Dad will, yup, flip out and have a tantrum during a DIY project.
There are seemingly endless awesome choices available this year for the dad who likes to make a statement with his smartphone or tablet case. One of my favorites is the Q Card Case for iPhone 4S/4 by CM4 ($40). It simplifies Dad's busy life by doubling as a slick rubber iPhone protector and a wallet that stashes up to three credit cards or IDs, plus cash. Don't forget to slip a few bills in before you wrap it up for Dad. Trust me, it's just good gift-giving form.
There's also the idAmerica's Cushi iPhone5 Retro Camera Case ($25) for hipster dads who like to keep their gadgets extra safe — and looking extra retro cool. The Cushi case is a sleek, sophisticated — and protectively foam padded — case that makes Dad's iPhone looks like a blast-from-the-past camera.
For all those lovable but clumsy dads out there (you know who you are!), I give you the essentially everything-proof OtterBox Armor series ($65-$100), available to dutifully protect Dad's Galaxy S3, iPhone 5, iPhone 4, or iPhone 4s. OtterBox Armor smartphone cases are waterproof, drop-proof, dust-proof and crush-proof. Even the most accident-prone Dads probably couldn't destroy them, even if they wanted to.
This Auvio PBT 1000 Bluetooth Portable Speaker ($130) from RadioShack is music to the ears of the music-loving dad in your life, delivering exceptionally loud, crisp and rich-sounding music at an affordable price. Auvio's lightweight, 4-watt wonder block works with any Bluetooth-ready smartphone, laptop, tablet or MP3 player (including iOS and Android). And there's no need for Dad to dock or plug in his device to listen to music. Bonus: He can even use the portable speaker to take hands-free phone calls via speakerphone.
For the big kid in the family, the Sphero by Orbotix ($130) promises to deliver a ton of goofy fun. It's a durable robotic ball that you control with your iPhone, iPod, Android phone or tablet. How? By simply tilting, tapping or swiping your device, the ball rocks and rolls in all kinds of directions. You can play a bunch of fun family games with it, weaving the Sphero in and around DIY obstacle courses (which dads love setting up with their kids, hint, hint). Or Dad might feel inspired to use the Sphero to chase the family cat or dog around the house. A short charge on the small, portable charging unit delivers a full hour of unpredictable fun.
2013年6月7日星期五
US Consumer Credit
Economists forecast consumer borrowing increased $13.5 billion in April from March, according to a survey by FactSet. The Federal Reserve will release the report at 3 p.m. EDT Friday.
In March, consumers increased their borrowing by $8 billion from February to a seasonally adjusted $2.81 trillion. While that was a record high level for borrowing, the March increase was the smallest in eight months. And nearly all of the gain was in a category that measures auto and student loans.
Consumers barely increased their credit card debt, continuing a trend of resisting high-interest debt that began during the Great Recession. Economists believe consumers will continue to resist their plastic this year, in part because of higher Social Security taxes have reduced most paychecks. They are also more cautious because job growth, while steady and solid, is still not strong enough to rapidly lower the unemployment rate.
The credit report doesn't separate auto loans from student loans. But according to quarterly data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt has been the biggest driver of borrowing since the recession ended in June 2009. Student loans reached $986 billion in the first three months of this year. That's up from $675 billion in the second quarter of 2009.
Consumers increased their spending from January through March at the fastest pace in more than two years. However, they had to trim the pace of their savings to finance their purchases. After-tax income dropped at an annual rate of 7.5 percent in the first quarter. That drop reflected in part the increase in Social Security taxes that took effect on Jan. 1.
Economists are hoping that hiring will remain solid and counter some of the drag from the tax increase and federal spending cut that began on March 1.
The overall economy grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the January-March quarter. The expectation is that growth is slowing in the April-June quarter to around 2 percent.
The Federal Reserve's borrowing report covers auto loans, student loans and credit cards. It excludes mortgages, home equity loans and other loans tied to real estate.
In order to compete with retail giants during the holiday season, it is important to stand out from the crowd with your product or marketing strategy. One point that Custom Wooden Cards identified is that shelves in stores have become over-saturated with plastic gift cards. One way to stand out with product differentiation could include creating a custom shaped wood gift card, a laser engraved wood gift card, or a wood gift card.
In terms of marketing strategies, it could be important to reflect an eco-friendly image to consumers. According to The 2006 Cone Millennial Cause Study, 74% of consumers are more likely to pay attention to a company’s message when they see that the company is very committed to a cause, such as being environmentally conscious. Consumers like to see passion, and many of them like to see passion in a cause that can better the planet.
In terms of online advertising strategies, it has been proven that buzz words like "free shipping" perform much better than percent off discounts. Instead of offering percent off discounts, offer free shipping to help increase sales around the holiday season.
I'm a fan of Harmonix, to be perfectly clear. When I first purchased an Xbox 360 way back when, one of the earliest titles in my collection was "Guitar Hero 2," and boy did I play that thing until the buttons on my fake guitar got stuck, making the experience rather difficult. When "Rock Band" came along, I didn't buy it because it was released on the same day as the original "Mass Effect" — a game I was legally obliged to purchase — and also because my bank account was rather empty, and I didn't have enough room on my credit card to drop $200 on more plastic instruments.
And then I got a Kinect sensor, and to date I have enjoyed only one series of games on it: "Dance Central." I still think that the only reason to have this generation of Kinect is so you can play "Dance Central," as I didn't find any of my other Kinect experiences — be them full-motion games like "Rise of Nightmares," which were too exhausting and awkward for me to really enjoy, or standard controller games with voice commands like "Mass Effect 3," which were just dumb — worth any sort of investment. But I like dancing, and Kinect made it possible for there to be a dancing game that wasn't utterly stupid. Harmonix definitely delivered there.
All that aside, I was wary of the studio's impending announcement of a new game that was related to neither "Rock Band" nor "Dance Central." We'd known for a while that it was working on something new, and last year it had been reportedly seeking a "combat designer" to add to the team, which to me indicated it was branching beyond music. That scared me, frankly. "Harmonix" is not the full name of the studio, after all; it is actually called Harmonix Music. The possibility that they were working on a non-music property just seemed weird.
And so in the lead-up to its announcement of this new game Tuesday morning, I was pretty skeptical. I didn't really know what to expect, and given the evidence it might be straying outside its wheelhouse, I was curious but not necessarily optimistic. Bah, everyone told me. It's gonna be awesome, whatever it is, they said. I wasn't convinced.Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
In March, consumers increased their borrowing by $8 billion from February to a seasonally adjusted $2.81 trillion. While that was a record high level for borrowing, the March increase was the smallest in eight months. And nearly all of the gain was in a category that measures auto and student loans.
Consumers barely increased their credit card debt, continuing a trend of resisting high-interest debt that began during the Great Recession. Economists believe consumers will continue to resist their plastic this year, in part because of higher Social Security taxes have reduced most paychecks. They are also more cautious because job growth, while steady and solid, is still not strong enough to rapidly lower the unemployment rate.
The credit report doesn't separate auto loans from student loans. But according to quarterly data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt has been the biggest driver of borrowing since the recession ended in June 2009. Student loans reached $986 billion in the first three months of this year. That's up from $675 billion in the second quarter of 2009.
Consumers increased their spending from January through March at the fastest pace in more than two years. However, they had to trim the pace of their savings to finance their purchases. After-tax income dropped at an annual rate of 7.5 percent in the first quarter. That drop reflected in part the increase in Social Security taxes that took effect on Jan. 1.
Economists are hoping that hiring will remain solid and counter some of the drag from the tax increase and federal spending cut that began on March 1.
The overall economy grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the January-March quarter. The expectation is that growth is slowing in the April-June quarter to around 2 percent.
The Federal Reserve's borrowing report covers auto loans, student loans and credit cards. It excludes mortgages, home equity loans and other loans tied to real estate.
In order to compete with retail giants during the holiday season, it is important to stand out from the crowd with your product or marketing strategy. One point that Custom Wooden Cards identified is that shelves in stores have become over-saturated with plastic gift cards. One way to stand out with product differentiation could include creating a custom shaped wood gift card, a laser engraved wood gift card, or a wood gift card.
In terms of marketing strategies, it could be important to reflect an eco-friendly image to consumers. According to The 2006 Cone Millennial Cause Study, 74% of consumers are more likely to pay attention to a company’s message when they see that the company is very committed to a cause, such as being environmentally conscious. Consumers like to see passion, and many of them like to see passion in a cause that can better the planet.
In terms of online advertising strategies, it has been proven that buzz words like "free shipping" perform much better than percent off discounts. Instead of offering percent off discounts, offer free shipping to help increase sales around the holiday season.
I'm a fan of Harmonix, to be perfectly clear. When I first purchased an Xbox 360 way back when, one of the earliest titles in my collection was "Guitar Hero 2," and boy did I play that thing until the buttons on my fake guitar got stuck, making the experience rather difficult. When "Rock Band" came along, I didn't buy it because it was released on the same day as the original "Mass Effect" — a game I was legally obliged to purchase — and also because my bank account was rather empty, and I didn't have enough room on my credit card to drop $200 on more plastic instruments.
And then I got a Kinect sensor, and to date I have enjoyed only one series of games on it: "Dance Central." I still think that the only reason to have this generation of Kinect is so you can play "Dance Central," as I didn't find any of my other Kinect experiences — be them full-motion games like "Rise of Nightmares," which were too exhausting and awkward for me to really enjoy, or standard controller games with voice commands like "Mass Effect 3," which were just dumb — worth any sort of investment. But I like dancing, and Kinect made it possible for there to be a dancing game that wasn't utterly stupid. Harmonix definitely delivered there.
All that aside, I was wary of the studio's impending announcement of a new game that was related to neither "Rock Band" nor "Dance Central." We'd known for a while that it was working on something new, and last year it had been reportedly seeking a "combat designer" to add to the team, which to me indicated it was branching beyond music. That scared me, frankly. "Harmonix" is not the full name of the studio, after all; it is actually called Harmonix Music. The possibility that they were working on a non-music property just seemed weird.
And so in the lead-up to its announcement of this new game Tuesday morning, I was pretty skeptical. I didn't really know what to expect, and given the evidence it might be straying outside its wheelhouse, I was curious but not necessarily optimistic. Bah, everyone told me. It's gonna be awesome, whatever it is, they said. I wasn't convinced.Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
2013年6月6日星期四
Sickened By Hepatitis A After Eating Frozen Berries
Geoff Soza was celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary in Yellowstone National Park when the 64-year-old man learned the hard way that his seemingly healthy breakfast habit of mixing thawed berries with Greek yogurt had exposed him to a national outbreak of hepatitis A.
Dozens of illnesses have been reported, and federal officials have recalled a frozen berry mix sold by Costco and Harris Teeter in seven states.
Soza, a semi-retired contractor, was resting at his Encinitas home this week after an ordeal that threatened to put him on a liver transplant list.
He hadn't felt right in the weeks before leaving for Yellowstone on May 29 – but his lack of appetite and disorientation didn't merit canceling the trip.
"I thought, `I'm getting something. I'm coming down with something' and I thought I'd just ride it out and live with it," he said.
His wife, Rita, said he doesn't complain much as "a very active, tough kind of person," but he seemed lethargic when they flew to Salt Lake City and rented a car to drive to the park.
On the second night of their trip, the Sozas called paramedics who examined Geoff and recommended he visit St. John's Medical Center. They didn't think a medical evacuation was necessary.
But general surgeon Dr. Michael Rosenberg halted the surgery, scheduled for June 1, because of Soza's elevated liver enzymes.
Symptoms include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, abdominal pain and jaundice – a yellowing of the skin or eyes. There is no specific treatment. The ill can feel sick for weeks – or up to six months – as their body heals itself.
Healthy and health-conscious, the Sozas always inspect their foods and select organic produce. They were surprised to learn that some of the fruit from Townsend Farms of Fairview, Ore., was from outside the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control said the recalled berries included products from Argentina, Turkey and Chile, in addition to the United States.
But the packaging convinced the Sozas the fruit was all-American because it bears the slogans "Grower. Processor. Distributor." and "Field to Farm to Family, since 1906."
"It was our distinct impression that these are raised under U.S. standards, especially organic food standards," Rita Soza said.
Geoff Soza said he chose the berries to have for breakfast for about 6 months. The Sozas are fairly adventurous eaters who like to experiment with new foods. Frozen berries were the last thing he thought would make him sick.
"I would have thought it would be from fish or something like that, but not ever from fruit, especially berries," Soza said.
Rita Soza said after she learned of the berries, she was upset by Costco's response, saying she unsuccessfully tried to call the number on her membership card for information – but she couldn't get a live person on the phone. She returned home to find a message on her answering machine Tuesday.
Costco Vice President for food safety Craig Wilson said the company contacted 240,000 members with information about the outbreak and received more than 10,000 calls over the weekend.
Some of those sickened by the berries have filed lawsuits seeking medical costs and damages, and at least one suit filed in Los Angeles this week seeks class action status. The Sozas say they haven't decided to take legal action.
If shooting an arrow at a target doesn’t break the ice, I’m not sure what will. If you’re thinking of asking a woman out on a date, why not shake things up and invite her to an archery range? Now the gussied-up, prissy ones may not take a liking to the bow and arrow, but the more adventurous ones will get a kick out of it. Archery isn’t the most common pastime, so this may be the first attempt for both parties. Dabbling in an unfamiliar activity together will encourage an unforgettable date. In this atmosphere, there’s opportunity for laughter, being a bit of a show pony, and conquering a challenge together. For this date, you’ll have to rise and shine a little early on a Saturday. Discover Archery classes are every Saturday at Texas Archery Academy at the Elm Fork outdoor range. You can go any time from 9 a.m. to noon and it costs $10 per person for 30 minutes. All equipment is included, so aim right and get a date.
How many people in Dallas-Fort Worth can say they went surfing on a first date? Depending on how involved you want to get on a “surf” date in the middle of Texas, I have a couple of options for you. With AquaShop Indoor Surfing at the Shops at Willow Bend, you can literally ride a huge wave on a surfboard in the Flowrider apparatus. But don’t bust out the bikini for this. The wave is pretty ferocious and speedy and will whip a two-piece right off. Another word of warning to the ladies: Don’t waste your hair spray or fake eyelashes on this date. They don’t stand a chance. It costs $20 per person for a 30-minute session. If you want something a little less wet, try City Surf in Uptown. It’s a brand-new simulated surf experience that will serve the same purpose and potentially leave you a bit less embarrassed than the Flowrider. Classes are $20 per person, and the schedule is online. City Surf also offers a free initial session, so what do you have to lose? Surf’s up!Read the full story at www.smartcardfactory.com!
Dozens of illnesses have been reported, and federal officials have recalled a frozen berry mix sold by Costco and Harris Teeter in seven states.
Soza, a semi-retired contractor, was resting at his Encinitas home this week after an ordeal that threatened to put him on a liver transplant list.
He hadn't felt right in the weeks before leaving for Yellowstone on May 29 – but his lack of appetite and disorientation didn't merit canceling the trip.
"I thought, `I'm getting something. I'm coming down with something' and I thought I'd just ride it out and live with it," he said.
His wife, Rita, said he doesn't complain much as "a very active, tough kind of person," but he seemed lethargic when they flew to Salt Lake City and rented a car to drive to the park.
On the second night of their trip, the Sozas called paramedics who examined Geoff and recommended he visit St. John's Medical Center. They didn't think a medical evacuation was necessary.
But general surgeon Dr. Michael Rosenberg halted the surgery, scheduled for June 1, because of Soza's elevated liver enzymes.
Symptoms include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, abdominal pain and jaundice – a yellowing of the skin or eyes. There is no specific treatment. The ill can feel sick for weeks – or up to six months – as their body heals itself.
Healthy and health-conscious, the Sozas always inspect their foods and select organic produce. They were surprised to learn that some of the fruit from Townsend Farms of Fairview, Ore., was from outside the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control said the recalled berries included products from Argentina, Turkey and Chile, in addition to the United States.
But the packaging convinced the Sozas the fruit was all-American because it bears the slogans "Grower. Processor. Distributor." and "Field to Farm to Family, since 1906."
"It was our distinct impression that these are raised under U.S. standards, especially organic food standards," Rita Soza said.
Geoff Soza said he chose the berries to have for breakfast for about 6 months. The Sozas are fairly adventurous eaters who like to experiment with new foods. Frozen berries were the last thing he thought would make him sick.
"I would have thought it would be from fish or something like that, but not ever from fruit, especially berries," Soza said.
Rita Soza said after she learned of the berries, she was upset by Costco's response, saying she unsuccessfully tried to call the number on her membership card for information – but she couldn't get a live person on the phone. She returned home to find a message on her answering machine Tuesday.
Costco Vice President for food safety Craig Wilson said the company contacted 240,000 members with information about the outbreak and received more than 10,000 calls over the weekend.
Some of those sickened by the berries have filed lawsuits seeking medical costs and damages, and at least one suit filed in Los Angeles this week seeks class action status. The Sozas say they haven't decided to take legal action.
If shooting an arrow at a target doesn’t break the ice, I’m not sure what will. If you’re thinking of asking a woman out on a date, why not shake things up and invite her to an archery range? Now the gussied-up, prissy ones may not take a liking to the bow and arrow, but the more adventurous ones will get a kick out of it. Archery isn’t the most common pastime, so this may be the first attempt for both parties. Dabbling in an unfamiliar activity together will encourage an unforgettable date. In this atmosphere, there’s opportunity for laughter, being a bit of a show pony, and conquering a challenge together. For this date, you’ll have to rise and shine a little early on a Saturday. Discover Archery classes are every Saturday at Texas Archery Academy at the Elm Fork outdoor range. You can go any time from 9 a.m. to noon and it costs $10 per person for 30 minutes. All equipment is included, so aim right and get a date.
How many people in Dallas-Fort Worth can say they went surfing on a first date? Depending on how involved you want to get on a “surf” date in the middle of Texas, I have a couple of options for you. With AquaShop Indoor Surfing at the Shops at Willow Bend, you can literally ride a huge wave on a surfboard in the Flowrider apparatus. But don’t bust out the bikini for this. The wave is pretty ferocious and speedy and will whip a two-piece right off. Another word of warning to the ladies: Don’t waste your hair spray or fake eyelashes on this date. They don’t stand a chance. It costs $20 per person for a 30-minute session. If you want something a little less wet, try City Surf in Uptown. It’s a brand-new simulated surf experience that will serve the same purpose and potentially leave you a bit less embarrassed than the Flowrider. Classes are $20 per person, and the schedule is online. City Surf also offers a free initial session, so what do you have to lose? Surf’s up!Read the full story at www.smartcardfactory.com!
2013年6月5日星期三
The Star Trek Laptop Needs a Next Generation
The Acer Aspire R7 is a departure from normal laptop design, with an extended hinge that lets the screen float over the base, and an odd placement of the trackpad behind the keyboard. Acer could be onto something here, but the idea needs refinement.
With its extended hinge, the R7 allows you to pull the screen forward, blocking the trackpad but making the touchscreen easier to reach. It also lets you flip the display over so someone across the table can take a look, or fold it down into a tablet–though the hinge prevents the screen from laying completely flush with the base.
My favorite mode of all: by bringing the hinge part-way forward, and tilting the screen slightly upward, the R7 gains an almost desktop-like quality. The display hovers a few inches above the base of the laptop, leaving enough room to access the trackpad. The screen also becomes easier to see and touch this way, and it helps shift the weight balance of the laptop toward the center. It makes a lot of sense, especially when the laptop is on your lap.
The R7’s flexibility requires one major trade-off: The keyboard simply has to be up front, otherwise it’d be difficult or impossible to use, which means the trackpad gets kicked to the back. As such, there’s no place to rest your palm while using the trackpad without accidentally engaging the keyboard.
It doesn’t help that the trackpad is placed at dead-center of the laptop. I wouldn’t mind if Acer slid the trackpad all the way over to the right side, where a strip of plastic beyond the keyboard provides a resting place for the user’s palm. A more futuristic design–one that would appease lefties–might include a touch-sensitive bar that runs the length of the base (see Intel’s Nikiski concept laptop for an example), though I’m not sure if that technology is ready for primetime.
For what it’s worth, the trackpad isn’t great to begin with. The clickable portion starts tapering off about halfway up the pad, and the R7 occasionally confused single clicking with clicking-and-dragging. Tapping the trackpad instead of clicking proved a bit finicky as well. Worst of all, I couldn’t find any option in the trackpad’s drivers to reverse the direction of two-finger scrolling. If you despise inverse scrolling, you’re out of luck with the R7. I found myself using the touch screen on the R7 more than I normally would on a laptop, just because it was less vexing than dealing with the trackpad. The R7’s backlit keyboard, at least, was adequate, if only a smidge on the soft side.
Unique design aside, the Acer Aspire R7 is a typical PC, with a 1080p display, Intel Core i5 processor, 6 GB of RAM and a 500 GB hard drive paired with a 24 GB solid state drive for operating system functions. It’s not the snappiest machine–I noticed occasional delays when firing up apps and waking the machine from standby–but it should be fine for work and light entertainment. Just don’t try playing high-end games on it; I barely got Just Cause 2 into a playable state at 1024-by-768 resolution and minimum graphics settings. The 2D indie gem Thomas Was Alone was silky smooth in 1080p, at least.
I had a couple other minor nitpicks with the R7; namely its overly intrusive anti-virus bloatware, and the fact that the Windows software keyboard always pops up when you tap on a text field, even if the laptop’s keyboard is in use.
But the Aspire R7’s biggest weakness is battery life. Even with “Power Saver” mode enabled, I never managed much more than four hours on a charge. Throw the R7 into the pile of laptops that need to be saved by Intel’s upcoming Haswell chips, and their promise of greatly improved battery life.
Acer deserves credit for trying to rethink the laptop, and coming up with a design that offers some practical benefits. But keep in mind that for roughly the same price, you could instead get a thinner and lighter Ultrabook, a better laptop-tablet hybrid or a beefier PC with a discrete graphics chip card for gaming. With the R7, you’re paying a premium for the interesting design, not for performance or portability.
My advice to Acer is to iterate on this design, rather than treat it as a one-off concept. The placement of the trackpad needs rethinking, and given the Aspire R7’s desktop-like aspirations, it might make more sense with a 17-inch display. Combined with better performance and battery life, it could be a winner as a full-blown desktop replacement. While the Acer Aspire R7 has promotional ties to Star Trek, I’m hoping it appears in a sequel long before the crew of the Enterprise does.
While on patrol, an officer saw Chad Ratliff in Woodland Hills and realized he had an outstanding warrant. When approached by the officer, Ratliff ran into a friend's apartment, followed by the police officer. Ratliff reportedly said he had to go to the bathroom. When he discovered he was being arrested on the warrant, Ratliff reportedly began taking off his belt and kicking off his shoes and shorts, saying if he was going to jail, he wanted his girlfriend to have them. The officer picked up the shorts and reported finding in the pocket a crack pipe, digital scales with white powder residue on them and a plastic baggy with pieces ripped off. Ratliff was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia in addition to the warrant. His age and address were not listed on reports.
Shellie Nelson, Wilbert Avenue, was cited for unreasonable noise after being warned numerous times by different officers about her son's loud stereo.
With its extended hinge, the R7 allows you to pull the screen forward, blocking the trackpad but making the touchscreen easier to reach. It also lets you flip the display over so someone across the table can take a look, or fold it down into a tablet–though the hinge prevents the screen from laying completely flush with the base.
My favorite mode of all: by bringing the hinge part-way forward, and tilting the screen slightly upward, the R7 gains an almost desktop-like quality. The display hovers a few inches above the base of the laptop, leaving enough room to access the trackpad. The screen also becomes easier to see and touch this way, and it helps shift the weight balance of the laptop toward the center. It makes a lot of sense, especially when the laptop is on your lap.
The R7’s flexibility requires one major trade-off: The keyboard simply has to be up front, otherwise it’d be difficult or impossible to use, which means the trackpad gets kicked to the back. As such, there’s no place to rest your palm while using the trackpad without accidentally engaging the keyboard.
It doesn’t help that the trackpad is placed at dead-center of the laptop. I wouldn’t mind if Acer slid the trackpad all the way over to the right side, where a strip of plastic beyond the keyboard provides a resting place for the user’s palm. A more futuristic design–one that would appease lefties–might include a touch-sensitive bar that runs the length of the base (see Intel’s Nikiski concept laptop for an example), though I’m not sure if that technology is ready for primetime.
For what it’s worth, the trackpad isn’t great to begin with. The clickable portion starts tapering off about halfway up the pad, and the R7 occasionally confused single clicking with clicking-and-dragging. Tapping the trackpad instead of clicking proved a bit finicky as well. Worst of all, I couldn’t find any option in the trackpad’s drivers to reverse the direction of two-finger scrolling. If you despise inverse scrolling, you’re out of luck with the R7. I found myself using the touch screen on the R7 more than I normally would on a laptop, just because it was less vexing than dealing with the trackpad. The R7’s backlit keyboard, at least, was adequate, if only a smidge on the soft side.
Unique design aside, the Acer Aspire R7 is a typical PC, with a 1080p display, Intel Core i5 processor, 6 GB of RAM and a 500 GB hard drive paired with a 24 GB solid state drive for operating system functions. It’s not the snappiest machine–I noticed occasional delays when firing up apps and waking the machine from standby–but it should be fine for work and light entertainment. Just don’t try playing high-end games on it; I barely got Just Cause 2 into a playable state at 1024-by-768 resolution and minimum graphics settings. The 2D indie gem Thomas Was Alone was silky smooth in 1080p, at least.
I had a couple other minor nitpicks with the R7; namely its overly intrusive anti-virus bloatware, and the fact that the Windows software keyboard always pops up when you tap on a text field, even if the laptop’s keyboard is in use.
But the Aspire R7’s biggest weakness is battery life. Even with “Power Saver” mode enabled, I never managed much more than four hours on a charge. Throw the R7 into the pile of laptops that need to be saved by Intel’s upcoming Haswell chips, and their promise of greatly improved battery life.
Acer deserves credit for trying to rethink the laptop, and coming up with a design that offers some practical benefits. But keep in mind that for roughly the same price, you could instead get a thinner and lighter Ultrabook, a better laptop-tablet hybrid or a beefier PC with a discrete graphics chip card for gaming. With the R7, you’re paying a premium for the interesting design, not for performance or portability.
My advice to Acer is to iterate on this design, rather than treat it as a one-off concept. The placement of the trackpad needs rethinking, and given the Aspire R7’s desktop-like aspirations, it might make more sense with a 17-inch display. Combined with better performance and battery life, it could be a winner as a full-blown desktop replacement. While the Acer Aspire R7 has promotional ties to Star Trek, I’m hoping it appears in a sequel long before the crew of the Enterprise does.
While on patrol, an officer saw Chad Ratliff in Woodland Hills and realized he had an outstanding warrant. When approached by the officer, Ratliff ran into a friend's apartment, followed by the police officer. Ratliff reportedly said he had to go to the bathroom. When he discovered he was being arrested on the warrant, Ratliff reportedly began taking off his belt and kicking off his shoes and shorts, saying if he was going to jail, he wanted his girlfriend to have them. The officer picked up the shorts and reported finding in the pocket a crack pipe, digital scales with white powder residue on them and a plastic baggy with pieces ripped off. Ratliff was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia in addition to the warrant. His age and address were not listed on reports.
Shellie Nelson, Wilbert Avenue, was cited for unreasonable noise after being warned numerous times by different officers about her son's loud stereo.
2013年6月4日星期二
YOU TAP IN TO YOUR ROOM
These days you don’t need any of the above to unlock a hotel room, buy a mojito or snap a vacation photo. All you need is, well — you. At hotels like Alma Barcelona in Spain, a scan of your fingertips opens the door to your room. At Ushua?a Ibiza Beach Hotel in the Mediterranean, you can buy suntan lotion and a sarong with a tap of two fingers. On some Disney Cruise Line ships, facial recognition technology enables onboard photographers to easily group every candid picture they take of you so that you can later browse (read: buy) them.
Like it or not, we are living in an age of human holograms that welcome us to airport security checkpoints and luggage tags capable of texting us when our bags are lost. Technology and travel are becoming ever more fused, even at hotels where for centuries the basic demand has remained unchanged: a safe place to lay one’s head. Today, your head could spin from some of the amenities. At Hotel 1000 in Seattle the rooms have infrared signals that scan and detect body heat to ensure that the housekeeping staff doesn’t knock or barge in, while at Starwood’s Aloft Hotel chain, radio frequency identification allows you to skip the front desk and check in with your smartphone instead (the chain said that more than 10,000 guests have already tried it).
Arguably, the most compelling and unnerving of these technologies is biometrics — the measurement of physical or behavioural traits to verify identity. Once strictly in the realm of spy novels and science fiction flicks, biometrics are increasingly being used by real-world hotels, resorts and cruise ships. For some travellers, it signals a new era of convenience: no more inadvertently demagnetizing your room key or hiding your wallet in your shoe at the pool. For others, it’s yet another zone that Big Brother is penetrating (not to mention making “Mad Men”-style rendezvous less clandestine).
Biometric technology has been around for decades. Hotels in chains like the Four Seasons and Hyatt have used them to track their employees’ hours and whereabouts and to increase security on their properties. And a handful of hotels in the vanguard — Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Murano Resort and Kube, both in Paris — introduced biometric room keys years ago. (In Boston, Kimpton’s Nine Zero Hotel has a penthouse suite that opens with a flash of your iris.) Even so, many travellers were unaware that biometrics were being deployed.
Now, after years in the background, biometrics are slowly becoming a part of everyday life, popping up in stores, clubs, gyms. One of the most visible travel examples is evident at airports: Frequent fliers who have undergone background checks as part of U.S. programs like Global Entry and Clear can now be seen sailing through security after pausing at kiosks to verify their biometric information through fingerprint and iris scans. Millions of travellers who want to be fast and unfettered have willingly paid the price, both in terms of money ($100 for five years for Global Entry; $179 a year for Clear) and privacy (the applications require personal information like your passport number, fingerprints and photos).
Indeed, the technology has consumer advocacy groups and data privacy experts worried about civil liberties and the protection of personal data. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, for one, has outlined half a dozen areas of concern about biometrics, including how the data is stored and how vulnerable it is to theft or abuse (available at Epic.org/privacy).
Still, new research from the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group suggests that biometric identification will only become more prevalent as accuracy improves, eventually giving rise to a “fully automated” check-in, security, border-control and smart-visa system that could improve security and whittle down long lines at airports and borders.
“Check in for a flight would be expedited by replacing paper documents with an electronic passport,” explains a summary of the innovations laid out in the report, “as well as biometric traveller identification through fingerprints, facial recognition, or an iris scan.”
Hotels, too, are embracing technology and not simply by placing iPads in their rooms and lobbies. One of the most eager to adopt biometrics is the Ushua?a Ibiza Beach Hotel. If you think an island vacation ought to consist of a quiet afternoon sprawled on a beach towel and unplugged from the world, don’t bother making a reservation there. Last year, the hotel was using wristbands with radio frequency identification technology, or RFID, which relies on electromagnetic waves, to allow guests to instantly update their Facebook status by swiping the bands against sensors around the property. New this year: biometrics status updates. Guests input their fingerprints at kiosks and from then on, sensors in the “Facebook pillars” around the property allow them to tap two fingers to update their status with messages like, “Hanging out at the Ushua?a Ibiza Beach Hotel ... Jealous?”
For some, like my cousin Charlie, it was the breakfast of champions. He would visit Mami with a copy of El Diario folded under his arm. Mami would brew café con leche and set it on the plastic-covered dining room table, and together they would read the paper. The ritual was set — read a story, dip a slice of Gouda into the coffee, savor the gooey cheese, talk. Lamenting the sad state of the world, or rejoicing at some Puerto Rican kid’s triumph, was optional.
Now a lot more people will be able to savor part of that experience, sans coffee and gooey Gouda, as Columbia University recently acquired 5,000 images spanning 40 years of El Diario’s photographic coverage. The collection, part of Columbia’s Latino Arts and Activism Archive, is a rich documentation of another world — albeit one that has existed in plain sight of New Yorkers.
“The narrative about our city is often stitched to yesteryear’s European migration, or today, to waves of hipsters, with a splash of color thrown in on occasion,” Erica Gonzalez, the paper’s executive editor, wrote in an e-mail. “In that context, Latinos have long been treated as an ‘other’ at best, or as a nuisance or invisible at worst. What you see in the photos, in the archives, is how Latinos have been part of the fabric of this city for a long time, not beginning when marketers ‘discovered’ us.”Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
Like it or not, we are living in an age of human holograms that welcome us to airport security checkpoints and luggage tags capable of texting us when our bags are lost. Technology and travel are becoming ever more fused, even at hotels where for centuries the basic demand has remained unchanged: a safe place to lay one’s head. Today, your head could spin from some of the amenities. At Hotel 1000 in Seattle the rooms have infrared signals that scan and detect body heat to ensure that the housekeeping staff doesn’t knock or barge in, while at Starwood’s Aloft Hotel chain, radio frequency identification allows you to skip the front desk and check in with your smartphone instead (the chain said that more than 10,000 guests have already tried it).
Arguably, the most compelling and unnerving of these technologies is biometrics — the measurement of physical or behavioural traits to verify identity. Once strictly in the realm of spy novels and science fiction flicks, biometrics are increasingly being used by real-world hotels, resorts and cruise ships. For some travellers, it signals a new era of convenience: no more inadvertently demagnetizing your room key or hiding your wallet in your shoe at the pool. For others, it’s yet another zone that Big Brother is penetrating (not to mention making “Mad Men”-style rendezvous less clandestine).
Biometric technology has been around for decades. Hotels in chains like the Four Seasons and Hyatt have used them to track their employees’ hours and whereabouts and to increase security on their properties. And a handful of hotels in the vanguard — Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Murano Resort and Kube, both in Paris — introduced biometric room keys years ago. (In Boston, Kimpton’s Nine Zero Hotel has a penthouse suite that opens with a flash of your iris.) Even so, many travellers were unaware that biometrics were being deployed.
Now, after years in the background, biometrics are slowly becoming a part of everyday life, popping up in stores, clubs, gyms. One of the most visible travel examples is evident at airports: Frequent fliers who have undergone background checks as part of U.S. programs like Global Entry and Clear can now be seen sailing through security after pausing at kiosks to verify their biometric information through fingerprint and iris scans. Millions of travellers who want to be fast and unfettered have willingly paid the price, both in terms of money ($100 for five years for Global Entry; $179 a year for Clear) and privacy (the applications require personal information like your passport number, fingerprints and photos).
Indeed, the technology has consumer advocacy groups and data privacy experts worried about civil liberties and the protection of personal data. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, for one, has outlined half a dozen areas of concern about biometrics, including how the data is stored and how vulnerable it is to theft or abuse (available at Epic.org/privacy).
Still, new research from the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group suggests that biometric identification will only become more prevalent as accuracy improves, eventually giving rise to a “fully automated” check-in, security, border-control and smart-visa system that could improve security and whittle down long lines at airports and borders.
“Check in for a flight would be expedited by replacing paper documents with an electronic passport,” explains a summary of the innovations laid out in the report, “as well as biometric traveller identification through fingerprints, facial recognition, or an iris scan.”
Hotels, too, are embracing technology and not simply by placing iPads in their rooms and lobbies. One of the most eager to adopt biometrics is the Ushua?a Ibiza Beach Hotel. If you think an island vacation ought to consist of a quiet afternoon sprawled on a beach towel and unplugged from the world, don’t bother making a reservation there. Last year, the hotel was using wristbands with radio frequency identification technology, or RFID, which relies on electromagnetic waves, to allow guests to instantly update their Facebook status by swiping the bands against sensors around the property. New this year: biometrics status updates. Guests input their fingerprints at kiosks and from then on, sensors in the “Facebook pillars” around the property allow them to tap two fingers to update their status with messages like, “Hanging out at the Ushua?a Ibiza Beach Hotel ... Jealous?”
For some, like my cousin Charlie, it was the breakfast of champions. He would visit Mami with a copy of El Diario folded under his arm. Mami would brew café con leche and set it on the plastic-covered dining room table, and together they would read the paper. The ritual was set — read a story, dip a slice of Gouda into the coffee, savor the gooey cheese, talk. Lamenting the sad state of the world, or rejoicing at some Puerto Rican kid’s triumph, was optional.
Now a lot more people will be able to savor part of that experience, sans coffee and gooey Gouda, as Columbia University recently acquired 5,000 images spanning 40 years of El Diario’s photographic coverage. The collection, part of Columbia’s Latino Arts and Activism Archive, is a rich documentation of another world — albeit one that has existed in plain sight of New Yorkers.
“The narrative about our city is often stitched to yesteryear’s European migration, or today, to waves of hipsters, with a splash of color thrown in on occasion,” Erica Gonzalez, the paper’s executive editor, wrote in an e-mail. “In that context, Latinos have long been treated as an ‘other’ at best, or as a nuisance or invisible at worst. What you see in the photos, in the archives, is how Latinos have been part of the fabric of this city for a long time, not beginning when marketers ‘discovered’ us.”Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
2013年6月2日星期日
Jennings offers hiking, flowers, even an endangered snake
It will be another two months before the rare, 20-acre prairie ecosystem of Jennings Environmental Education Center is in full bloom, but late spring is a beautiful time to hike the trails of the park's woodlands.
Sitting just 12 miles north of Butler and adjacent to Moraine State Park, Jennings encompasses 300 total acres, three-quarters of which is covered by dense forest. There are more than five miles of well-maintained and marked trails that run on either side of the Route 528.
An easy loop to follow begins behind the center at the Old Elm Trail, continues across Big Run and turns right onto the Black Cherry Trail. Turning right onto the Ridge Trail will take hikers into Moraine State Park, but the Black Cherry Trail continues on and turns left just before a power line cut. When it makes its way back to Big Run, the ruins of an old saw mill are visible on the other side of the creek.
According to center director Wil Taylor, the mill was constructed by the same person who built the nearby Old Stone House off Route 8.
“We had an archeological survey done recently and it was a saw mill/timber mill where they processed timber around 1870, 1880,” he said. “At that time in this area people were clearing the landscape and taking a lot of that timber to this saw mill to have it processed. It didn't last very long, and we don't know why. Either it wasn't very successful or it was just a temporary mill used as the area expanded.”
From there, hikers can continue on the Old Mill Trail left back to the center or extend it a bit more by linking into the Woodwhisper Trail.
Hikers can expect to see dense ground cover developing as the canopy closes in and skunk cabbage, cinnamon fern, interrupted fern and false hellbore thrive. Many of the spring wildflowers are sparse this time of year, Taylor said, but there are some still holding on, including jack in the pulpit, sweet cicely, purple phlox and wild geranium.
“As far as wildlife goes, the birds are nesting so there's a lot of nesting warbler action in the woodlands and over on the prairie side people can get nice views of the eastern bluebirds and swallows using the nesting boxes,” Taylor said. “It's also a fairly good time to see the massasauga rattlesnake.”
The Jennings prairie is one of the few places in Pennsylvania to find the endangered snake. Venomous but also reclusive, the small rattlesnake may bite if startled. Therefore, the people at Jennings ask visitors to the prairie to stay on the mowed paths and keep alert. Taylor said they've also started a snake reporting program and ask that if visitors do spot one that they fill out a card.
There is ample parking at the center, and it's worth stepping inside to check out some of the exhibits. The center provides a variety of educational programs throughout the year and serves 167,000 visitors, including many school groups. Even when there are no programs, visitors can stop in and observe bees as they come and go through an opening that leads from the outside to a beehive encased in clear plastic or view displays of some of the flora and fauna that inhabit the area.
Past programs have included maple sugaring, battling invasive species, wild edibles and spring wildflowers. The park will host Celebrate the Bloom on July 20 to showcase the blazing star, a prairie flower that is rare to Pennsylvania and for which Jennings was established to protect. The reserve is the only public and protected prairie in the state.
But we're more interested in how good the new models' diesels are, as they're something of a novelty from these brands, if you can ignore the manual-only previous diesel RAV that sold in very small numbers and the existing Mitsubishi ASX diesel, also a manual-only prospect.
The RAV4 and Outlander couldn't be any more different to look at. The edgy, chiselled look of the Toyota makes it seem like a bigger, taller Corolla, though it doesn't look as big as it is, as the interior space, particularly its rear legroom, load space and overhead airiness is unexpectedly generous.
Sadly it doesn't offer extra chairs to make it a seven-seater, and neither does the Outlander in its base versions. When you do get the seven-seater versions the ease with which you can stow the seats completely out of the way means that even if you don't use them all the time, they're well worth having. Both second and third rows fold to create a flat load area which in VRX form is accessed through a powered tailgate. The cargo area is protected by a retractable and stowable blind.
A big bonus from the new RAV4s is its use of a hatch instead of a side-opening rear door, which opens up to a much bigger loadspace at 506 or 577 litres depending on if you have the Limited model which has a full-sized spare. There's also 100 litres under the floor. The Toyota may have the stowage space and underfloor volume, but its complicated load barrier is difficult to remove if you want to take awkward loads - we kept it in the garage refitting the two-poles, netting and shelf, only when we'd finished with the vehicle.
Both makers make much of the changes in their SUVs' interior quality and it shows. The Toyota has adopted the same soft, padded surfaces used successfully with its Corolla and Camry revamps and it provides a very special place to sit, with tonnes of seat and wheel adjustments, good seating and logical ergonomics except for the touch-screen. You have to learn to leave the touch screen alone to be honest as once the radio settings are in place the steering wheel buttons are better - and safer - to use. Connectivity was quick and simple and the model I drove with sat-nav left nothing on the must-have checklist.
One element of real class was the TerraCotta leather option which gives the dash as well as the car's seating a real dash of luxury and colour. That'll cost you nearly $63k, but you do get a tilt-slide glass and shade sunroof too. In for a penny, eh? Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
Sitting just 12 miles north of Butler and adjacent to Moraine State Park, Jennings encompasses 300 total acres, three-quarters of which is covered by dense forest. There are more than five miles of well-maintained and marked trails that run on either side of the Route 528.
An easy loop to follow begins behind the center at the Old Elm Trail, continues across Big Run and turns right onto the Black Cherry Trail. Turning right onto the Ridge Trail will take hikers into Moraine State Park, but the Black Cherry Trail continues on and turns left just before a power line cut. When it makes its way back to Big Run, the ruins of an old saw mill are visible on the other side of the creek.
According to center director Wil Taylor, the mill was constructed by the same person who built the nearby Old Stone House off Route 8.
“We had an archeological survey done recently and it was a saw mill/timber mill where they processed timber around 1870, 1880,” he said. “At that time in this area people were clearing the landscape and taking a lot of that timber to this saw mill to have it processed. It didn't last very long, and we don't know why. Either it wasn't very successful or it was just a temporary mill used as the area expanded.”
From there, hikers can continue on the Old Mill Trail left back to the center or extend it a bit more by linking into the Woodwhisper Trail.
Hikers can expect to see dense ground cover developing as the canopy closes in and skunk cabbage, cinnamon fern, interrupted fern and false hellbore thrive. Many of the spring wildflowers are sparse this time of year, Taylor said, but there are some still holding on, including jack in the pulpit, sweet cicely, purple phlox and wild geranium.
“As far as wildlife goes, the birds are nesting so there's a lot of nesting warbler action in the woodlands and over on the prairie side people can get nice views of the eastern bluebirds and swallows using the nesting boxes,” Taylor said. “It's also a fairly good time to see the massasauga rattlesnake.”
The Jennings prairie is one of the few places in Pennsylvania to find the endangered snake. Venomous but also reclusive, the small rattlesnake may bite if startled. Therefore, the people at Jennings ask visitors to the prairie to stay on the mowed paths and keep alert. Taylor said they've also started a snake reporting program and ask that if visitors do spot one that they fill out a card.
There is ample parking at the center, and it's worth stepping inside to check out some of the exhibits. The center provides a variety of educational programs throughout the year and serves 167,000 visitors, including many school groups. Even when there are no programs, visitors can stop in and observe bees as they come and go through an opening that leads from the outside to a beehive encased in clear plastic or view displays of some of the flora and fauna that inhabit the area.
Past programs have included maple sugaring, battling invasive species, wild edibles and spring wildflowers. The park will host Celebrate the Bloom on July 20 to showcase the blazing star, a prairie flower that is rare to Pennsylvania and for which Jennings was established to protect. The reserve is the only public and protected prairie in the state.
But we're more interested in how good the new models' diesels are, as they're something of a novelty from these brands, if you can ignore the manual-only previous diesel RAV that sold in very small numbers and the existing Mitsubishi ASX diesel, also a manual-only prospect.
The RAV4 and Outlander couldn't be any more different to look at. The edgy, chiselled look of the Toyota makes it seem like a bigger, taller Corolla, though it doesn't look as big as it is, as the interior space, particularly its rear legroom, load space and overhead airiness is unexpectedly generous.
Sadly it doesn't offer extra chairs to make it a seven-seater, and neither does the Outlander in its base versions. When you do get the seven-seater versions the ease with which you can stow the seats completely out of the way means that even if you don't use them all the time, they're well worth having. Both second and third rows fold to create a flat load area which in VRX form is accessed through a powered tailgate. The cargo area is protected by a retractable and stowable blind.
A big bonus from the new RAV4s is its use of a hatch instead of a side-opening rear door, which opens up to a much bigger loadspace at 506 or 577 litres depending on if you have the Limited model which has a full-sized spare. There's also 100 litres under the floor. The Toyota may have the stowage space and underfloor volume, but its complicated load barrier is difficult to remove if you want to take awkward loads - we kept it in the garage refitting the two-poles, netting and shelf, only when we'd finished with the vehicle.
Both makers make much of the changes in their SUVs' interior quality and it shows. The Toyota has adopted the same soft, padded surfaces used successfully with its Corolla and Camry revamps and it provides a very special place to sit, with tonnes of seat and wheel adjustments, good seating and logical ergonomics except for the touch-screen. You have to learn to leave the touch screen alone to be honest as once the radio settings are in place the steering wheel buttons are better - and safer - to use. Connectivity was quick and simple and the model I drove with sat-nav left nothing on the must-have checklist.
One element of real class was the TerraCotta leather option which gives the dash as well as the car's seating a real dash of luxury and colour. That'll cost you nearly $63k, but you do get a tilt-slide glass and shade sunroof too. In for a penny, eh? Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.
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