CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? Upon first seeing Atlantis, a space shuttle that's been to space and back 33 times, it?s not uncommon to gasp ? or cry. The retired orbiter is displayed at an angle, with its cargo bay doors open and robotic arm outstretched, and it seems to be just barely out of reach. The sight is arresting, to say the least. The public got its first official look at the display Saturday (June 29), when the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibition opened here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. "I'm not going to lie ? I shed a tear," said Jess Johnting of Boca Raton, Fla., an avid space fan who said she'd long been looking forward to the opening of the show. [ See photos of the new Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit ] The grand opening was attended by a massive crowd and more than 40 astronauts representing all 33 of Atlantis' missions to space. It "launched" with a bang as sparks and smoke appeared to furl out of the humongous life-size fuel tank and solid rocket boosters guarding the entrance to the Atlantis building. Visitors then proceeded inside, where a giant screen shows a film on the origin and history of the space shuttle program . "I can't believe how long it took to build," said Brittney Frey, age 13, of McDonough, Ga. "It's amazing how far it's come," added her brother, Aaron Frey, age 10. After the video, visitors come face to face with Atlantis herself. "It was breathtaking. It blew my mind," said John Hurley of West Palm Beach, Fla. The sight of the magnificent shuttle grounded for good, and beginning life as a museum exhibit, was also hard for some. "I have mixed emotions. It's kind of bittersweet," Jessica Hurley said. Nonetheless, the Hurleys said the presentation here did Atlantis justice, and they planned to come back "over and over again," she added. Atlantis dominates the center of a multistory building that allows views of the orbiter from many angles . The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is unique in displaying the vehicle as if it were mid-mission, on orbit. The other retired space shuttles, at Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Los Angeles' California Science Center, and New York's Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, all present their orbiters in horizontal position. "The size of it ? what you see on TV doesn't compare to real life," said Ricky Rawls of Crystal River, Fla. "It's an awesome flying machine." Many said Atlantis was larger than they expected. "It's just amazing, incredible," said Mike Kitslaar of Orlando, Fla., who'd been following the preparation of? Atlantis ?for display via the KSC Visitor Complex's online webcam. Organizers of the exhibition said their prime hope for the show is to inspire the next generation of scientists, astronauts and explorers. Judging by the awed reactions of many kids Saturday, they may be well on their way toward that goal. "It was really cool," said Markis Cheng, age 10, of Arcadia, Calif., who said he'd like to go to space someday. "I've always wanted to see what happens when you float." Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter ? and Google+ . Follow us? @Spacedotcom , Facebook ? and Google+ . Original article on? SPACE.com . Where to See NASA's Space Shuttles This Summer Photos: Rare Last Look Inside Shuttle Atlantis Where to See America's Greatest Spaceships (Infographic) Copyright 2013 SPACE.com , a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
I remember when I was monitoring in Missouri 25 years ago, that when counties needed to communicate with each other, they would use the point-to-point frequency of 155.370. I think that here in Arkansas they used 37.240, correct?
Anyway, obviously they still communicate with each other, but not via radio. Are they using teletype? Email? How do counties communicate information with each other?
And here we thought the only privacy risk with having a Wi-Fi network at home was someone figuring out our password. Researchers at MIT felt that a stranger having access to your wireless network wasn't scary enough, so they developed a way for someone to use Wi-Fi signals as a sort of x-ray vision to track a person's movements in another room.
Borrowing similar techniques as used with radar and sonar, the Wi-Vi system?as the researchers have called it?sends out a pair of inverse wireless signals as pings. When they hit something stationary, they cancel each other out, but when an object is in motion it creates an offset between the signals that can be processed to determine where and how fast it's moving.
In its current state it's far from Superman's x-ray vision, though. The system isn't precise enough to determine exactly what someone is doing in another room, but that doesn't mean its useless. Using a smartphone as the signal source, Wi-Vi could provide a cheap way for rescue workers to search for captives in a building, or even as a way to hunt for survivors trapped under rubble, as long as they're moving. Or, as a mobile version of Kinect that doesn't necessarily need to see you to detect your gestures. [MIT via SlashGear]
29 June 2013, News Wires ? No one will drill in Arctic waters off Alaska this year, but there is still plenty of offshore work for the oil industry to do when conditions finally allow it next month, Reuters reports.
The Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which canceled its 2013 Arctic offshore drill season after numerous troubles there last year, plans to send ships to study sites around oil prospects in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, according to permit applications.
The company plans to do specialised surveys in the Chukchi, investigating shallow water hazards and other features around its prospects, said Curtis Smith, Shell?s Alaska spokesman. ?This work continues to increase our understanding of the sub-surface and ocean bottom near our leases,? he said via email.
The Chukchi survey will involve one or two ships, according to Shell?s permit application, a far cry from the armada amassed last year for preliminary drilling. Shell also plans scientific and ecological baseline surveys in both seas, collecting data in preparation for more aggressive exploration activities.
Smith said no decision had been made about drilling in 2014.
Two other firms plan to conduct seismic surveys off Alaska?s coast. The most extensive programme will be by SAExploration , which will have eight vessels survey the Beaufort, according to its application for permits submitted to federal agencies.
Another, TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company, plans to use two vessels to conduct surveys in U.S. and international waters of the Chukchi Sea, according to its permit application.
Shell, SAExploration and TGS-NOPEC plan to start work as early as mid-July and continue as late as October, according to their applications. Permits are pending but have not yet been issued, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
These plans are a shadow of what was contemplated a year ago, when Shell expected to complete multiple exploration wells off Alaska and ConocoPhillips was preparing for a 2014 drill season at its Devils Paw prospect in the southern Chukchi.
But after the grounding of a Shell drillship in the Gulf of Alaska, citations for safety and environmental breaches on its second rig, and equipment failures, Shell had to limit last year?s drilling to incomplete ?top holes? at two sites. Future drilling is shelved until repairs are completed on both rigs at shipyards in Asia and other equipment is reviewed and augmented.
Conoco has also postponed its drilling plans indefinitely.
For the U.S. government, which is promoting increased energy production as part of a new National Arctic Strategy, fallout from 2012 is just a setback.
?I think it is safe to say we were disappointed in Shell?s performance last year,? Tommy Beaudreau, director of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said at a meeting in Anchorage this month. But Beaudreau added that he is still bullish on energy exploration in the waters off northern Alaska, and the relative lull in activity this year should not be seen as a harbinger of future events, given ongoing interest from the industry.
June 28, 2013 ? This may look like a tangle of squiggly lines, but you're actually looking at a molecular machine called a ribosome. Its job is to translate DNA sequences into proteins, the workhorse compounds that sustain you and all living things.
The image is also a milestone. It's the first time the atom-by-atom structure of the ribosome has been seen as it's attached to a molecule that controls its motion. That's big news if you're a structural biologist.
But there's another way to look at this image, one that anyone who's suffered a bacterial infection can appreciate. The image is also a roadmap to better antibiotics. That's because this particular ribosome is from a bacterium. And somewhere in its twists and turns could be a weakness that a new antibiotic can target.
"We're in an arms race with the resistance mechanisms of bacteria," says Jamie Cate, a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division and a professor of biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology at UC Berkeley.
"The better we understand how bacterial ribosomes work, the better we can come up with new ways to interfere with them," he adds.
Cate developed the structure with UC Berkeley's Arto Pulk. Their work is described in the June 28 issue of the journal Science.
Their image is the latest advance in the push for more effective antibiotics. The goal is new drugs that kill the bacteria that make us sick, stay one step ahead of their resistance mechanisms, and leave our beneficial bacteria alone.
One way to do this is to get to know the bacterial ribosome inside and out. Many of today's antibiotics target ribosomes. A better understanding of how ribosomes function will shed light on how these antibiotics work. This could also lead to even "smarter" molecules that quickly target and disable a pathogen's ribosomes without affecting friendly bacteria.
Cate and Pulk used protein crystallography beamlines at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source to create diffraction patterns that show how the ribosome's molecules fit together. They then used computational modeling to combine these patterns into incredibly high-resolution images that describe the locations of the individual atoms.
The result is the colorful structure at the top of this article. Those blue and purple halves are ribosomes. They're from E. coli bacteria, but they work in similar ways throughout nature. Ribosomes move along messenger RNA and interpret its genetic code into directions on how to stitch amino acids into proteins.
But sometimes ribosomes want to move backward, which isn't good when you're in the protein-making business. That's where that yellow-red-green squiggle wedged between the two ribosome halves comes in. It's elongation factor G. It acts like a ratchet and prevents the ribosome from slipping backward. It also pushes the ribosome forward when it's sluggish.
Scientists knew that elongation factor G performs these jobs, but they didn't know how. Now, with an atomic-scale structure in hand, they can study the chemical and molecular forces involved in this ratcheting process. Cate and Pulk found that the ratchet controls the ribosome's motion by stiffening and relaxing over and over. This is the kind of insight that could lead to new ways to monkey-wrench the ribosome.
"To create better antibiotics, we need to learn how bacterial ribosomes work at the smallest scales, and this is a big step in that direction," says Cate.
The National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute supported the research. The U.S. Department of Energy provides support for the Advanced Light Source, where this research was conducted.
The Atlanta Falcons? plans for building a $1 billion replacement for the Georgia Dome are running into a bit of a roadblock.
According to WXIA-TV in Atlanta, negotiations to purchase the land necessary for the new building have reached a standstill. The city has been in talks with Friendship Baptist Church over the price of the land occupied by the church just south of the Georgia Dome that is needed for the new stadium. However, disagreements over the price to be paid have ended progress toward a solution.
Per the report, the city offered $13.5 million for the land and later raised their offer to $15.5 million. However, the church is asking for $24.5 million to agree to move. The end result is a stalemate devoid of progress.
Lloyd Hawk, Friendship Baptist Church?s board of trustees chairman, said the church needs to be compensated fairly for the price of land and the costs of relocating.
?We?re not going to incur new debt to do that and we?re not going to diminish our savings to do that,? Hawk said.
The church has asked for a mediator or in-person meeting with the mayor to attempt to find a suitable deal for both sides but the city currently seems unwilling to do so. In the meantime, the church?s focus is on serving their patrons first and not the wants of the Falcons.
?If they feel five or six million dollars makes a difference in a billion dollar project, that?s their prerogative,? Hawk said.
Slowly pulling and lifting the pendulum bob of a triple pendulum aside to store energy, and then quickly releasing it, triggers an earthquake/tsunami like event. Such eneraction, the transfer of energy into action, animates and powers our wonderful world.
In the above incident, experience gravity, also called weight at or near sea level, as an equal and opposite pull acting between an object and the earth. Lifting the bob through a distance transfers and stores energy as height, that transfers back into motion. Lifting it twice as far requires twice the energy. Likewise, any push or pull acting through a distance transfers energy. Leverage involves a smaller push acting over a greater distance to accomplish the same thing, a tough task.
Handcrafted from hockey pucks and fishing line, STEM Triple pendulums simply connect together three classical pendulums suspended from an elastic band or pivot tube. The bob consists of two hard rubber disks threaded on a flexible line, and capped with a plastic cup balanced on a pivot post. Like an exciting sports event, experience interacting objects transferring energy into action push and pull on each other to move, flex, bobble, and sense per laws of nature, such as Hooke's law of elasticity, and Newton's laws of motion and gravitation.
Enjoy the live technology involved. Invoking mysterious gravity and transferring mystical energy into action, the Earth pulls on the upper disk to swing it. Swinging sideways from the pivot tube, the upper disk pushes cup and pulls lower disk to follow its motion. Coasting fore and aft, the Earth pulls on all parts, moving them together as one body.
Exercising a triple pendulum, you see interacting objects transferring energy into action, including the Earth and you, push and pull on one another to move, flex, and sense per laws of nature, as properties of materials: elasticity, mass (God particles), friction, and gravity, storing energy in different ways resist or allow moving. Such eneraction, a new word, animates and powers pendulums, your incredible self, and our remarkable world.
Like you, the embedded cup and disk sensors flex to sense changes in motion of the upper disk when swinging sideways from the pivot tube, but not when swinging fore and aft, creating a mystery. They dramatically show that without a transfer of energy, nothing happens, objects don't move, structures don't flex, and sensors don't sense, or change status. More than a billion similar, commercial, inertial sensors help trigger car air bags and stabilize camera images.
Triple pendulums serve as educational, handheld novelties, or as inspirational desktop swings with regulation size hockey pucks having team logos. Simple educational dual pendulum versions do most of the same things, but not as dramatically.
Join our president, legislators, and educators in promoting STEM education: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, to help solve our nation's job and debt problems. Employ all four fields of STEM to explain observed pendulum behavior, and to encourage the transfer of personal energy into action benefiting the economy.
Ancient wisdom encourages us to test and model all things, especially pendulums, and retain what is good (1Th5:21). Thank a legion of famous scientists, including Galileo and Newton, for employing pendulums to discover a wealth of practical knowledge about physical realities. Thank Mother Nature for gifts of gravity, abundant energy, and pendulums, but not without extracting her due.
As evidenced above, mysterious gravity and pendulums serve as valuable keys to understanding physical realities, such as the transfer of energy.
With a wealth of varied, exciting experience as a journeyman ironworker, infantry scout (WWII), scholar, engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, and adjunct associate professor, Robert W. (Bob) Lally has authored numerous technical articles and war stories. See http://www.penduplum.com and http//www.ozark.peopling.net for details.
Apple recently made a small change to the Purchased tab in the App Store on the iPad, allowing users to view their purchased apps not just chronologically, but alphabetically.
Select any given letter from the left-hand side of the Purchased tab to find the results you're looking for. Tap the clock above the letter "A" in order to switch back to a chronological view of all of your apps. Viewing items alphabetically still allows you to see both all of your apps, or just those that are not on your iPad.
The old way was a huge pain, the new way much better. Let's hope this is the kind of thing Apple keeps improving.
Thanks: Balazs
Update: Looks like it happened a couple weeks ago, according to iDB
From New York?s sweltering sidewalks to Brazil?s sandy beaches, there?s no sandal that signals summer quite like the flip-flop. But are these no-fuss flats as harmless as they seem? Studies show that despite their easy-breezy appeal, extended flip flop use can cause a range of physical ailments, ranging from plantar fasciitis and muscle soreness, to lower back pain. Not exactly what we signed up for, right?
Foot Action ? Why it Matters
With the average American taking 5,117 steps a day ? and experts recommending we take close to 5,000 more ? our footwear is hardly an inconsequential choice. A 2012 survey found 78 percent of American adults over the age of 21 ?report having had some sort of foot pain or issue at some point in their lives, and more than half reported having such issues at the time of the survey. And while there?s no single shoe that?s a perfect across the board, flip flops may be the riskiest pick of them all?? excluding Gaga?s armadillo hoof stilettos, of course (and just imagine how that armadillo feels).
While a 2010 study suggests flip flops may actually decrease the load on our knees, it looks like there?s more risk in wearing the unsupportive shoes than benefits. In one?study, researchers compared the effects of wearing flip-flops and athletic shoes on 39 male and female college students. The flip-flop wearers took shorter steps and struck their heel to the ground with less vertical force than when in sneakers, causing their gaits to sway away from their natural rhythm. The reason? Most flip-flop wearers tend to clench their toes around the thong portion of the sandal to keep them from flying off. But toe curls aren?t quite what the doctor ordered and can instead lead to repetitive stress on the ankle and foot.
Where Flip Flops Fall Flat ? The Answer/Debate
Even though thong-like sandals provide some cushioning benefit over bare feet alone, studies show?they?re responsible for throwing human gait kinetics out of whack. The body is forced to compensate, and what starts as stress on the arch, heel, and the rest of the foot can eventually manifest as soreness in the legs, hips, and lower back.
Among the most treated flip-flop induced injuries is plantar faciitis, an inflammation of the connective tissue along the bottom of the foot that affects close to two million Americans each year. This acute heel pain is most often sparked by all-day wear, with overweight or sedentary wearers even more susceptible since their arches are already under strain. Roughly 20 percent of sufferers develop a chronic condition, making plantar faciitis even worse.
But it?s not all doom and gloom on the flip-flop front. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when picking a pair to rock for the warm weather:
Time it right. Replace flip-flops every three to four months, and only wear them for short periods of time.
Opt for leather.?The plastic ones may come in every color under the sun, but a soft, high-quality pair of leather flip-flops is less likely to cause irritation, including blisters.
Find the right fit. Make sure the heel and toes don?t hang off the edges of the sandal and that when you bend the sandal from end to end it bends where the ball of the foot hits ?? not at the arch!
Wear selectively. Beach walking, pool deck trolling, and a quick run to the grocery store? Yes. Soccer game, lawn mowing, and a five-mile hike? Not so much.
Make it official. Look for sandals approved by the American Podiatric Medical Association. They have a whole handy-dandy list of the approved shoes (of all types), so search around and see if there?s something you dig!
And whatever you do: Please, don?t wear them with socks.
Originally published June 2011. Updated August 2012. Updated June 2013.
NEW YORK (AP) ? CDW's stock climbed Thursday in the information technology company's first day of trading on the Nasdaq.
CDW rose $1.48, or 8.7 percent, to $18.48 in late morning trading Thursday after rising as high as $18.67 earlier.
The offering of about 23.3 million shares was priced at $17 per share. That was at the low end of its projected range of $17 to $18. CDW Corp. raised about $396 million from the IPO.
The underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 3.5 million shares.
CDW said in a regulatory filing that it plans to use part of the net proceeds to redeem $156 million senior subordinated notes. It intends to use $24.4 million in proceeds for a one-time payment related to the termination of a management services agreement. The company also plans to use some of the proceeds to exercise its right under an equity clawback provision related to $175 million senior secured notes.
CDW reported 2012 net income of $119 million on revenue of $10.13 billion. In 2011, the Vernon Hills, Ill.-based company had net income of $17.1 million and revenue of $9.6 billion.
The shares are trading under the "CDW" ticker symbol.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures advanced on Friday, putting the S&P on track for its first four-day gain since early April, as concerns eased over a premature pullback of central bank stimulus measures and following upbeat economic data from Japan.
The S&P 500 <.spx> has risen 2.6 percent over the past three sessions as economic data and comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials soothed worries over an earlier-than-expected reining in of stimulative bond purchases by the Fed.
The benchmark S&P index had slumped as much as 4.8 percent in the days following a June 19 statement from the U.S. Federal Reserve, when Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed could start slowing its stimulative bond purchases later this year if growth was strong enough.
"When you have dramatic selloffs like we had, so quickly and so far, that just doesn't happen in the U.S. equity markets without some sort of bounce back," said Keith Bliss, senior vice president at Cuttone & Co in New York.
"The market was set up to move higher based on quantitative and technical work, and then you've got all these Fed officials talking - they just basically put gas on the fire."
Japanese data showed consumer prices stopped falling in May and labor demand was at its strongest in five years, though the Bank of Japan's time frame for achieving a 2 percent inflation target still appeared unlikely.
U.S. economic data expected on Friday includes the June index of manufacturing activity from the Institute for Supply Management Chicago at 9:45 a.m. EDT. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast a reading of 56.0, from 58.7 in May.
Shortly after at 9:55 a.m., the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers final June consumer sentiment index is due. Economists polled by Reuters expect a reading of 82.8 compared with 82.7 in the preliminary June report.
The recent rally for the S&P 500 marks its best three-day performance since early January. The index is currently up 2.8 percent for the quarter and 13.1 percent for the year, though it is on track for its first monthly loss since October.
S&P 500 futures rose 4.5 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 33 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 7.25 points.
Investors can expect a surge of volume at the close Friday when Russell Investments is due to set the final update for the annual reconstitution of its indexes.
U.S.-listed shares of Research in Motion plunged 20.7 percent to $11.48 in premarket trading after the BlackBerry maker reported a fiscal first-quarter loss and forecast a loss in the current quarter.
Molycorp Inc jumped 11.1 percent to $6.23 in premarket after the rare earths producer said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has completed an investigation against the company and has not recommended any enforcement action.
Accenture PLC tumbled 8 percent to $73.80 in premarket after the outsourcing and consulting services provider cut its full-year outlook, and reported third-quarter revenue below analysts' estimates.
Arch Coal Inc rose 12.2 percent to $4.04 before the opening bell after the company agreed to sell its Canyon Fuel subsidiary for $435 million in cash.
European shares fell, hitting the buffers as technical resistance around the 1,156 level stalled momentum. Trade was subdued, as investors avoided making large bets at the end of a volatile quarter. <.eu/>
Asian shares rose for a third day, led by Tokyo's Nikkei index, to end the first half of the year up a barnstorming 31.5 percent.
Each term, the School of Business Administration offers two or more sections of ?Personal Finance,? a class currently taught by Brenda Eichelberger, instructor of management at Portland State.
The class is open to any PSU student, and is even available to take as pass/no pass. There are no prerequisites for the class and it counts as a business elective for the majors that require it.
Eichelberger believes that every student should take ?Personal Finance,? and addressed concerns about the large number of students going into debt to get an education.
?[Is education] a good investment? What kind of rate? How long will it take to pay that back?? Eichelberger asked. ?I personally feel that it is an excellent investment, and I feel that if you?complete your degree you?re going to get a better job over time?but you?ll have to extend your horizon over five?years.?
To look at the long-term timeline, Eichelberger has her class go to deathclock.com and livingto100.com to determine their life expectancy, and then track every penny that they spend for a?month.
?It is surprising how little we know about how much we spend, and even how much we make,? Eichelberger said.
She has students project how much they will make and spend at the beginning of the month and then compare that with what they actually do. This allows students to see the ?mystery spending,? as Eichelberger calls it, and ultimately try to turn that into mindful spending.
The class has five main learning objectives: the planning process, managing money, protecting oneself with insurance, managing investments, and retirement and estate planning. The term culminates with each student creating a financial plan, for which they put together a detailed plan that includes various worksheets, resumes, budgets and other key financial pieces created in?class.
This past spring term, one student wrote in his final project that his financial plan had always been similar to salmon. He explained that the fish know exactly where to go to spawn and never think about what they?re doing.
?This is the best way to describe what my financial plan had been before this class. It became instinctual. I was battling the currents, swimming upstream. I worked hard to live. I only thought about the next week?never the next year. And it wasn?t until I started the class that I ever thought about any future financial goals,? Eichelberger read from his?paper.
Eichelberger said she often hears from past students thanking her for what they learned in the class. Even when students thought they were doing well with their finances, the class taught them basic information that remains useful throughout life.
Eichelberger also pointed out that many people in our society think talking about money is a bad thing, but that college actually provides a great opportunity to open the conversation and get people actively thinking about it. It also enables people to look at the big picture?at financial problems around the world?and what can be changed.
President Obama said on Thursday that while he is concerned about Edward Snowden and wants to bring the NSA leaker back to America, he's not interested in "wheeling and dealing and trading" to get him extradited.?Obama, at the first press conference on his week-long trip to Africa, took questions from the media while in Dakar, Senegal, but naturally everyone wants to talk about the news from home. ...
It is amazing when you think about the difference in how others view you and how you view yourself. Others judge you by what you have achieved while you judge yourself by what you are capable of achieving, or rather, to be put it precisely, what you think you are capable of achieving. Sometimes all of these are vastly different from each other.
For instance, many newspapers write about me and they highlight 'blogger turned author'. This gives most people an impression that all you have to do to become a successful author is to start a blog. The fact is, I have always been in love with the written word, and I have always written. I used to write in a diary, every single day, since I was 12. In school, I have won lots of prizes for writing competitions. In college, I have won prizes at University level for short-story writing, creative writing and Public speaking among others. Before I became a published author, I wrote for many magazines, including Readers Digest. I have also written for Times of India.
The blog, no doubt helped me reach out. The popularity of this blog (this blog is among the top blogs in India) , no doubt pushed me towards my first book. But there was a lot of ground work, which had been happening for years, before that!
If you want to be a published author, it is not imperative to start a blog, though of course, a blog will help. A blog will help you to connect directly with your readers, give you a platform to showcase your writing skills, will help you get noticed, and you will also have a 'ready sample' of your writing when you approach people for writing assignments.
When I started this blog, it wasn't with any intention to get published. I wrote here everyday, because I loved to write and I wanted to connect to people. For months and months, nobody even read my blog. But I continued writing, as it gave me joy. I still remember how excited I was, when I first got a comment on my blog, from someone living in the UK. I remember flying down the stairs excitedly, telling Satish that someone from UK, actually could connect to what I was saying. That someone later went on to become a good friend. When I moved to the UK, I met him many times and to this day we remain in touch. regular readers will know that I am referring to Niall Young, an awesomely talented artist and a wonderful human being. (My home is full of paintings by Niall)
The other day, at a social gathering, a discussion about writing came up and when I mentioned that I am doing a blog-marathon, most people in the group were taken aback. 'Oh my God, I could never do that. It just isn't my cup of tea,' they said in admiration. But I was just doing something that came naturally to me.
I write, because I love to write. I do the blog-marathon, as a challenge. Ask a marathon runner and he/she will tell you that he/she runs because they love to run.
I do believe that is so essential to success. You have to be passionate about something if you want to keep doing it day-in and day-out. Malcolm Gladwell in his book 'Outliers' (a brillant book--i loved it) says that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in any field.
And if you have to persist for that long. you will be miserable, if you are forcing yourself to do it.
Discover what gives you joy. Do what comes to you naturally. Do what you enjoy.
Persist.
Persist.
Persist.
And you will find success chasing you, instead of the other way round.
And even if it doesn't, you will still be? happy. __________________________________________________________
?To Buy my books in India, click here. To buy my books on Amazon click here
Mortgage rates have been extremely low for some time now. However, with rates on the rise once again, some worry that the declining affordability could be harmful to the recovery of the market as a whole.
The number of homes currently on the market remains relatively constrained and that in turn is leading to higher prices every month, as it has for more than a year, according to a report from the Times of Trenton. However, with rising rates, consumers may be less interested in buying, which in turn could likely reduce values and cause growth in that area to decline.
It's important to note that the issue isn't necessarily that rates have gone up, but the rate at which they have done so. At the start of May, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages carried rates of 3.35 percent, which was near an all-time low, but by the time mid-June rolled around, these FRMs averaged 3.98 percent. Those for 15-year loans, which are preferred by consumers seeking to refinance their current home loans, rose as well, though slightly less appreciably, to 3.1 percent from 2.56 percent.
Those rates are still extremely affordable, especially when compared to those many current homeowners may now be paying on their mortgages, the report said. However, the added cost of these higher rates is nonetheless appreciable. For instance, on a $200,000 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, an increase of just 1 percentage point can add nearly $1,400 in annual costs through payments into principal balances and interest.
"Even if mortgage rates continue to increase from here, the median home will still be affordable to the median borrower, based on the conventional 25 percent debt-to-income threshold," said Hui Shan and Marty Young of Goldman Sachs, according to the newspaper. "As a result, rising interest rates will likely slow the strong house price appreciation observed over the past year, but the impact will likely be modest given the cushion provided by the high level of housing affordability at present."
Home value growth has been expected to level off at least somewhat for a while now, as the improvements seen in the previous 12 months or more were largely considered to be unsustainable, or worse, a sign of another growing bubble. As time goes on and rates grow at more reasonable levels, though, fears of another bubble will likely diminish appreciably.
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Influenza infection increases likelihood of bacterial pneumonia 100-fold, U-Michigan-led study findsPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Erickson ericksn@umich.edu 734-647-1842 University of Michigan
ANN ARBOR It's been known for more than two centuries that pneumonia cases increase during flu epidemics.
But population-level epidemiological studies looking at seasonal patterns of influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia incidence have revealed either a modest association or have failed to identify any signature of interaction between the two.
These seemingly inconsistent observations at the personal and population scales have puzzled public health officials. Now a team of University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues have used a novel approach that they say resolves the dichotomy and shows that influenza infection increases susceptibility to pneumococcus, the most common bacterial cause of pneumonia, by about 100-fold.
An accurate characterization of the influenza-pneumococcal interaction can lead to more effective clinical care and public health measures, including influenza pandemic preparedness, according to the authors.
"The results concerning the nature of the interaction between influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia were unequivocal in our study," said U-M population ecologist and epidemiologist Pejman Rohani, senior author of a paper scheduled for online publication in Science Translational Medicine on June 26. "Simply put, our analyses identified a short-lived but significant about 100-fold increase in the risk of pneumococcal pneumonia following influenza infection."
Rohani and his colleagues created a computer model of pneumococcal pneumonia transmission that analyzed various hypotheses about the potential effects of a prior influenza infection. By challenging the model with hard data from epidemiological reports weekly records of influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia hospitalizations in Illinois between 1989 and 2009 they were able to rank the likelihood of each hypothesis.
The clear winner was the susceptibility impact hypothesis, which proposed that individuals infected with influenza are more susceptible to pneumococcal pneumonia. The increased susceptibility to pneumonia lasts for up to a week after infection by influenza.
The researchers also looked at the fraction of pneumonia cases that could be attributed to interaction with influenza. They found that during the peak of flu season, interaction with the influenza virus accounted for up to 40 percent of pneumococcal cases. But on an annualized basis, the fraction was between 2 percent and 10 percent of cases, a relatively subtle signature that could help explain why previous epidemiological analyses failed to detect the connection, Rohani and his colleagues concluded.
"We infer modest population-level impacts arising from strong processes at the level of the individual, thereby resolving the dichotomy in seemingly inconsistent observations across scales," they wrote.
Rohani said the results suggest that the best way to reduce the incidence of bacterial pneumonia is to encourage the public to receive both pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations.
Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs that is usually caused by bacteria or viruses. Globally, pneumonia causes more deaths than any other infectious disease. In 2009, 1.1 million people in the United States were hospitalized with pneumonia, and more than 50,000 people died from the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1918, at least 24 percent of those killed during the Spanish influenza pandemic showed signs of a bacterial pneumonia infection.
In the United States, the most common bacterial cause of pneumonia is pneumococcus (Streptococcus pneumonia), and the most common viral causes are influenza, parainfluenza, and respiratory syncytial viruses, according to CDC.
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Rohani is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, a professor of complex systems and a professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health. The first author of the Science Translational Medicine paper is Sourya Shrestha, a postdoctoral fellow in Rohani's laboratory.
The other authors are Betsy Foxman of the U-M School of Public Health, Daniel M. Weinberger of the Yale University School of Public Health and the National Institutes of Health, Claudia Steiner of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Cecile Viboud of the National Institutes of Health.
Funding was provided by the Vaccine Modeling Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Fogarty International Center and the National Institutes of Health.
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Influenza infection increases likelihood of bacterial pneumonia 100-fold, U-Michigan-led study findsPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Erickson ericksn@umich.edu 734-647-1842 University of Michigan
ANN ARBOR It's been known for more than two centuries that pneumonia cases increase during flu epidemics.
But population-level epidemiological studies looking at seasonal patterns of influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia incidence have revealed either a modest association or have failed to identify any signature of interaction between the two.
These seemingly inconsistent observations at the personal and population scales have puzzled public health officials. Now a team of University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues have used a novel approach that they say resolves the dichotomy and shows that influenza infection increases susceptibility to pneumococcus, the most common bacterial cause of pneumonia, by about 100-fold.
An accurate characterization of the influenza-pneumococcal interaction can lead to more effective clinical care and public health measures, including influenza pandemic preparedness, according to the authors.
"The results concerning the nature of the interaction between influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia were unequivocal in our study," said U-M population ecologist and epidemiologist Pejman Rohani, senior author of a paper scheduled for online publication in Science Translational Medicine on June 26. "Simply put, our analyses identified a short-lived but significant about 100-fold increase in the risk of pneumococcal pneumonia following influenza infection."
Rohani and his colleagues created a computer model of pneumococcal pneumonia transmission that analyzed various hypotheses about the potential effects of a prior influenza infection. By challenging the model with hard data from epidemiological reports weekly records of influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia hospitalizations in Illinois between 1989 and 2009 they were able to rank the likelihood of each hypothesis.
The clear winner was the susceptibility impact hypothesis, which proposed that individuals infected with influenza are more susceptible to pneumococcal pneumonia. The increased susceptibility to pneumonia lasts for up to a week after infection by influenza.
The researchers also looked at the fraction of pneumonia cases that could be attributed to interaction with influenza. They found that during the peak of flu season, interaction with the influenza virus accounted for up to 40 percent of pneumococcal cases. But on an annualized basis, the fraction was between 2 percent and 10 percent of cases, a relatively subtle signature that could help explain why previous epidemiological analyses failed to detect the connection, Rohani and his colleagues concluded.
"We infer modest population-level impacts arising from strong processes at the level of the individual, thereby resolving the dichotomy in seemingly inconsistent observations across scales," they wrote.
Rohani said the results suggest that the best way to reduce the incidence of bacterial pneumonia is to encourage the public to receive both pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations.
Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs that is usually caused by bacteria or viruses. Globally, pneumonia causes more deaths than any other infectious disease. In 2009, 1.1 million people in the United States were hospitalized with pneumonia, and more than 50,000 people died from the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1918, at least 24 percent of those killed during the Spanish influenza pandemic showed signs of a bacterial pneumonia infection.
In the United States, the most common bacterial cause of pneumonia is pneumococcus (Streptococcus pneumonia), and the most common viral causes are influenza, parainfluenza, and respiratory syncytial viruses, according to CDC.
###
Rohani is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, a professor of complex systems and a professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health. The first author of the Science Translational Medicine paper is Sourya Shrestha, a postdoctoral fellow in Rohani's laboratory.
The other authors are Betsy Foxman of the U-M School of Public Health, Daniel M. Weinberger of the Yale University School of Public Health and the National Institutes of Health, Claudia Steiner of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Cecile Viboud of the National Institutes of Health.
Funding was provided by the Vaccine Modeling Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Fogarty International Center and the National Institutes of Health.
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
This isn't too big of a surprise given a preceding leak earlier this month, but Verizon and Casio have now gotten official with their latest, and suitably rugged, G'zOne phone. As the name suggests, the Commando 4G LTE adds some faster data not found in its predecessor, although the differences are less readily apparent beyond that. You'll get an "enhanced G'zGear multi-sensor tool" that promises to deliver accurate information of the world around you, as well as a couple of upgraded cameras to capture that world (8-megapixel with 1080p recording 'round back, plus a 1.3-megapixel front-facing cam). You can also take advantage of a Glove Mode to use the touchscreen without exposing your hands in particularly harsh conditions, although specs remain a bit light beyond that. Look for this one to be available starting June 27th for $99.99 on the usual two-year contract (and after a $50 mail-in rebate).
Police continue to investigate the murder of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, and Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez continues to get legal advice from a large, international, corporate firm with more than 1,000 lawyers.? If Hernandez ever ends up facing murder charges there?s one thing he needs more than anything else:? A lawyer who has tried many murder cases.
For now, Hernandez is represented by Michael Fee of Ropes & Gray.? Fee is the obvious choice from the firm?s broad corporate practice.? Basically, he?s the guy who represents the corporate muckety-mucks who get charged with ?white collar? crimes.
Fee?s online bio, the carefully-crafted practice summary prepared for every lawyer at every large firm, makes it clear that Fee has plenty of experience in criminal cases, but says nothing about murder cases.
Plenty of white-collar criminal defense lawyers at major firms started as prosecutors.? So did Fee.? But his online bio indicates he enforced laws regarding corruption from public officials, not laws against murder or related crimes.
At some point, Hernandez will need to realize that he may need something other than a white-collar criminal defense lawyer.? If he?s charged with murder, Hernandez will need someone who has tried murder cases.? Preferably as both the prosecutor and as the defense attorney.? It?s critically important to have a lawyer who knows from experience how these cases get put together, and how they can be taken apart.
Also, Hernandez arguably would be far better off with a lone Vincent LaGuardia Gambini-style wolf than a prominent partner in a prominent firm.? Lawyers in large firms can be almost as worried about the questions they?ll face from their colleagues as they are about getting a successful result for the client.? Cases can easily be overlawyered by folks who dread the ?Did you argue this?? Did you argue that?? Did you do this?? Did you do that?? inquiries they?ll face from jerk-store colleagues who like to point out in passive-aggressive fashion that they would have done a better job.
If Hernandez ever is charged with murder and if Fee ends up sitting at counsel table as the lead lawyer, he?ll possibly be out of his element ? but he?ll never be able to admit it.? The best (or perhaps worst) example of this comes from the defense fashioned by the late Vincent Fuller on behalf of Mike Tyson in 1992.? Fuller, a powerful lawyer at a big D.C. firm who represented Don King on tax evasion charges and proved John Hinckley was insane when he shot Ronald Reagan, had no experience handling rape cases in Indiana.? And it showed.? Fuller, as explained by Sports Illustrated at the time, painted Tyson as sex-crazed animal in order to show that Tyson?s victim had to know what was going to happen when she went to his hotel room.
The picture painted by Tyson?s own lawyer likely made it easier for the jury to send him to jail.
If Hernandez faces murder charges in Bristol County, Massachusetts, he needs someone who has prosecuted murder cases in Bristol County, Massachusetts (preferably with the person who?ll be prosecuting Hernandez), who has defended murder cases in Bristol County, Massachusetts (preferably against the person who?ll be prosecuting Hernandez), and who has practiced before the Bristol County judge who?ll preside over the case.? Even if Fee has none of those qualities, it will be tempting for Fee to explain to Hernandez that Fee can do the job, since Hernandez has one thing most murder defendants don?t ? a lot of money to pay the bill.
In the end, that money will be best spent on someone who knows the prosecutor well, knows the judge well, knows the courtroom well, and knows the ins and outs of crafting reasonable doubt in a Bristol County, Massachusetts murder case.
Actually, the smartest move could be to assume charges are coming and to hire that lawyer now.? It?s obvious that Hernandez being targeted for potential prosecution, at a minimum for obstruction of justice.? The sooner he?s getting advice from a uniquely-qualified person who?d handle a murder trial, the better.
The Chicago Blackhawks were down a goal to the Boston Bruins late in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final. In the closing minutes, the Blackhawks scored twice to win their second NHL championship in four years.
By Pat Murphy,?Staff / June 25, 2013
Chicago Blackhawks' Jonathan Toews hoists the Stanley Cup after defeating the Boston Bruins 3-2 in Game 6 to win the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Finals, Monday, June 24, 2013, in Boston.
Charles Krupa/AP
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The Chicago Blackhawks came from behind with two goals less than 20 seconds apart late in the third period of Game 6 Monday night to defeat the Boston Bruins, 3-2, clinching the team's second Stanley Cup championship in four years.
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Going into the contest, Chicago held a three games to two series lead. The Bruins, on their home ice, had gamely and methodically built a 2-1 lead in the third period on the stick of bruising forward Milan Lucic.
Then, with the clock ticking down towards a Game 7 matchup Wednesday night in Chicago, the Blackhawks struck with a quickness reflected in the lightning that lit up the skies over the greater Boston area just before and during Game 6.
First, Chicago center and captain Jonathan Toews made a nifty pass to linemate Brad Bickell, who tied the score at 2 from in front of the Boston goal with 1:16 left in regulation. The Blackhawks had just lifted goalie Corey Crawford for an extra attacker as the scoring play developed.
Then, just 17.7 seconds later, Dave Bolland corralled a shot off the Boston net post by teammate Johnny Oduya and slipped the puck past Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask for the decisive score.
Now down a goal, the Bruins tried to get the equalizer by also pulling Rask for the extra skater. But Chicago's defense kept the puck away from the net and the final horn sounded.
"It's the greatest feeling in the world," Chicago coach Joel Quenneville told reporters after the game. "Once you win one, you can't wait to do it again, but it's a hard road. We had some great hurdles, some great ups and downs here, but what a finish. I'm so happy for the guys."
For Chicago fans, the improbable victory set off a raucous celebration Monday night that lasted into Tuesday morning when Blackhawk players brought the Stanley Cup to several establishments in the Windy City.
As for Bruins fans, it will be a summer of "what-ifs"as their team came up just short in their quest for a second Stanley Cup in three years. Granted, Chicago had a number of skaters playing hurt. But what if Boston centers Gregory Campbell and Patrice Bergeron were available at close to full strength? What if the Bruins had quicker defensemen as the Blackhawks buzzed around the Boston net? What if late-season acquisition Jaromir Jagr had been able to buy a goal in this last playoff series?
"It's a tough way to lose a game, tough way to lose a series," Bruins captain Zdeno Chara said afterwards.
All these Bruins questions and more will be digested over the summer as the Blackhawks and their fans celebrate winning the franchise's fifth Stanley Cup, emblematic of NHL supremacy.
BANKING ON IRAQ: Citigroup Inc. is set to become the first American bank to open an office of its own in Baghdad, highlighting financial firms' growing interest in Iraq.
CONCERNS REMAIN: Iraq has struggled to attract interest from Western companies outside of the oil sector in the 10 years since U.S.-led forces toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. Security and political instability remain major concerns, and corruption within the top-heavy statist economy is deeply entrenched.
ECONOMIC OPENING: Even so, foreign banks see opportunities as Iraq's economy opens up on the back of an oil boom. British bank Standard Chartered is also making a push in Iraq.
Wondering how AOL's RSS client will rank as a Google Readerreplacement? Today's the day we find out, as the doors to the AOL Reader beta have officially swung open. Feedly's been absorbing Google's castaways for weeks now, and Digg's is only two days away from launching its own freemium RSS client -- but we couldn't resist getting an early taste of what our parent company (Disclaimer alert!) is cooking. Join us after the break for all the details about this latest entrant in the field of feed readers.
29 June 2013, News Wires ? No one will drill in Arctic waters off Alaska this year, but there is still plenty of offshore work for the oil industry to do when conditions finally allow it next month, Reuters reports.
Mortgage rates have been extremely low for some time now. However, with rates on the rise once again, some worry that the declining affordability could be harmful to the recovery of the market as a whole.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 26-Jun-2013
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