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Supervise Kids Using Playground Equipment
- To ensure playground safety actively supervise children on playgrounds. It won't be hard – they'll probably be calling for you to watch them climb, jump and swing.
- Check playgrounds where your children play. Look for hazards, such as rusted or broken equipment and dangerous surfaces. Report any hazards to the school or appropriate local office.
- Teach children that pushing, shoving or crowding while on the playground can be dangerous.
- Dress appropriately for the playground. Remove necklaces, purses, scarves or clothing with drawstrings that can get caught on equipment and pose a strangulation hazard. Even helmets can be dangerous on a playground, so save those for bikes.
- Little kids play differently than big kids. It is important to have a separate play area for children under 5.
Choose the Right Play Area Based on Your Child's Age
- Ensure that children use age-appropriate playground equipment. Separate play areas for children under 5 should be available and maintained.
- For babies who are learning to walk, the play area should have a smooth and easy surface to walk on.
- If your baby has fairly good head control and can sit up with support (usually around 9 months old), give the baby (bucket-shaped) swings a try.
Ensure Safe Surfacing Beneath and Surrounding Playground Equipment
- Avoid playgrounds with non-impact absorbing surfaces, such as asphalt, concrete, grass, dirt or gravel.
- Recommended surface materials include: sand, pea gravel, wood chips, mulch and shredded rubber. Rubber mats, synthetic turf and other artificial materials are also safe surfaces and require less maintenance.
- Surfacing should be at least 12 inches deep and extend at least 6 feet in all directions around stationary equipment. Depending on the height of the equipment, surfacing may need to extend farther than 6 feet.
- For swings, make sure that the surfacing extends, in the back and front, twice the height of the suspending bar. So if the top of the swing set is 10 feet high, the surfacing should extend 20 feet.
Check That Playgrounds Are Inspected and Maintained by Qualified Personnel
- Double check with your school and child care center to make sure they have age-appropriate, well-maintained playground equipment. A playground inspection can help asses the safety of playground equipment
- If there are any hazards in a public or backyard playground, report them immediately and do not allow children to use the equipment until it is safe.
- Report any playground safety hazards to the organization responsible for the site (e.g., school, park authority or city council).
Playground Safety
Playgrounds and outdoor play equipment offer kids fresh air, friends, and exercise. So it's important for parents to make sure that faulty equipment, improper surfaces, and careless behavior don't ruin the fun.
Each year, more than 200,000 kids are treated in hospital ERs for playground-related injuries. Many of these accidents can be prevented with the proper supervision.
You can make the playground entertaining and safe for your kids by checking equipment for potential hazards and following some simple safety guidelines.
And teaching kids how to play safely is important: If they know the rules of the playground, they're less likely to get hurt.
Adult Supervision
Adult supervision can help prevent injuries by making sure kids properly use playground equipment and don't engage in unsafe behavior around it. If an injury does occur, an adult can assist the child and administer any needed first aid right away.
Kids should always have adult supervision on the playground. Young kids (and sometimes older ones) can't always gauge distances properly and aren't capable of foreseeing dangerous situations by themselves. Older kids like to test their limits on the playground, so it's important for an adult to be there to keep them in check.
Before you visit a playground, check to make sure that play areas are designed to allow an adult to clearly see kids while they're playing on all the equipment.
Playground Design Safety
The most important factors in evaluating the safety of any playground are proper surface, design and spacing, and equipment inspection and maintenance.
A proper playground surface is one of the most important factors in reducing injuries — and the severity of injuries — that occur when kids fall from equipment. The surface under the playground equipment should be soft enough and thick enough to soften the impact of a child's fall.
Here are some things to consider:
- Concrete, asphalt, and blacktop are unsafe and unacceptable. Grass, soil, and packed-earth surfaces are also unsafe because weather and wear can reduce their capacities to cushion a child's fall.
- The playground surface should be free of standing water and debris that could cause kids to trip and fall, such as rocks, tree stumps, and tree roots.
- There should be no dangerous materials, like broken glass or twisted metal.
- The surfaces may be loosely filled with materials like wood chips, mulch, sand, pea gravel, or shredded rubber. Wood chips containing chromated copper arsenate (CCA) treatment are not recommended since the material can pose a potential health hazard.
- Surfacing mats made of safety-tested rubber or rubber-like materials are also safe.
- Rubber mats allow the best access for people in wheelchairs.
- Loose-fill surface materials 12 inches deep should be used for equipment up to 8 feet high. The material should not be packed down because this will reduce any cushioning effect.
- No surfacing materials are considered safe if the combined height of playground and the child (standing on the highest platform) is higher than 12 feet.
- The cushioned surface should extend at least 6 feet past the equipment. Additional coverage may be needed, depending on how high a slide is or how long a swing is.
- If there is loose-fill over a hard surface (like asphalt or concrete), there should be 3-6 inches of loose-fill like gravel, a layer of geotextile cloth, a layer of loose-fill surfacing material, and then impact mats under the playground equipment.
Keep in mind that even proper surfacing can't prevent all injuries. Also, the greater the height of the equipment, the more likely kids may get injured if they fall from it.
Design and Spacing
Playground equipment should be designed for three different age groups: infants and toddlers under 2, 2- to 5-year-olds (preschoolers), and 5- to 12-year-olds (school-age kids).
In the safest playgrounds, play areas for younger children are separated from those meant for older kids and signs clearly designate each area to prevent confusion.
Younger children should not play on equipment designed for older kids because the equipment sizes and proportions won't be right for small kids, and this can lead to injury. Likewise, older kids shouldn't play on equipment designed for younger ones. Smaller equipment and spaces can cause problems for bigger kids.
Here are some things to check for to ensure the equipment is designed and spaced to be safe:
- Guardrails and protective barriers should be in place for elevated surfaces, including platforms and ramps.
- Play structures more than 30 inches high should be spaced at least 9 feet apart.
- Swings, seesaws, and other equipment with moving parts should be located in an area separate from the rest of the playground.
- Swings should be limited to two per bay.
- Tot swings with full bucket seats should have their own bay.
- Swings should be spaced at least 24 inches apart and 30 inches between a swing and the support frame.
- Be sure there are no spaces that could trap a child's head, arm, or any other body part. All openings on equipment (for example, rungs on a ladder or bars on a guardrail) should measure less than 3½ inches or they should be wider than 9 inches.
- Climbing nets should have openings that are either too small to allow a child's body through or large enough to prevent entrapment of the head. Net perimeters which are 17-18 inches pose entrapment hazards.
- Playground equipment with moving parts — like seesaws and merry-go-rounds — should be checked for pinch points that could pinch or crush a child's finger or hand.
Maintenance and Inspection
Whether your kids play on a home or public playground, it's important for you to take a general look at the equipment to make sure that it is clean and well maintained.
- There should be no broken equipment.
- Wooden equipment should not be cracking or splintering.
- Metal equipment should not be rusted.
- The fence surrounding a public playground should be in good condition to prevent kids from running into surrounding traffic.
- Surface materials on the playground should be maintained regularly so that the surfacing is loosely packed and covers all appropriate areas — especially the fall zones surrounding playground equipment.
- Playground equipment should be made of durable materials that won't fall apart or worn down too much by the weather.
Check for objects (like hardware, S-shaped hooks, bolts, and sharp or unfinished edges) that stick out on equipment and could cut a child or cause clothing to become entangled.
All hardware on equipment should be secure, with no loose or broken parts. Plastic and wood should show no signs of weakening, and there should not be any splintered or rusted surfaces.
If the local playground has a sandbox, check for hazardous debris such as sharp sticks or broken glass, and be sure that the sand is free of bugs. Sandboxes should be covered overnight to prevent contamination from animals, such as cats.
Help keep your playground clean and safe by picking up trash, using the equipment properly, and reporting any problems to the city, town, or county parks department, school, or other organization that is responsible for the upkeep of the playground.
If a part seems broken, loose, or in need of other maintenance, designate it as off-limits immediately and report the problem to the appropriate authorities.
Teaching Kids About Playground Safety
Safe playground equipment and adult supervision are extremely important, but it's only half of the equation: Kids must know how to be safe and act responsibly at the playground.
Teach your kids to:
- Never push or roughhouse while on jungle gyms, slides, seesaws, swings, and other equipment.
- Use equipment properly — slide feet first, don't climb outside guardrails, no standing on swings, etc.
- Always check to make sure no other kids are in the way if they're going to jump off equipment or slide, and land on both feet with their knees slightly bent.
- Leave bikes, backpacks, and bags away from the equipment and the play area so that no one trips over them.
- Always wear a helmet while bike riding, but take it off while on playground equipment.
- Never use playground equipment that's wet because moisture makes the surfaces slippery.
- Check playground equipment in the summertime. It can become uncomfortably or even dangerously hot, especially metal slides, handrails, and steps. So use good judgment — if the equipment feels hot to the touch, it's probably not safe or fun to play on. Contact burns can occur within seconds.
- Wear clothes that do not have drawstrings or cords. Drawstrings, purses, and necklaces could get caught on equipment and accidentally strangle a child.
- Wear sunscreen when playing outside even on cloudy days to protect against sunburn.
Safe Equipment Guidelines
Because swings, slides, and climbing equipment are so different from one another, each requires a different set of safety considerations. And some kinds of equipment are not safe for playgrounds, no matter how careful kids are.
Swing Safety
Swings are the most frequent source of childhood injuries from moving equipment on a playground. But a few simple precautions can help keep kids safely swinging in the breeze:
- Swings should be made of soft material such as rubber or plastic, not wood or metal.
- Kids should always sit in the swing, not stand or kneel. They should hold on tightly with both hands while swinging, and when finished swinging, stop the swing completely before getting off.
- Children should stay a safe distance from other kids on swings, being careful not to run or walk in front of or in back of moving swings.
- Kids should never ride with more than one child to a swing. Swings are designed to safely hold only one person.
Seesaw Safety
Because seesaw use requires cooperation between kids, they're generally not recommended for preschoolers unless the seesaw has a spring-centering device to prevent abrupt contact with the ground. Regardless of design, both seesaws and merry-go-rounds should be approached with caution.
Other safety tips to keep in mind:
- Seesaw seats are like swings: one child per seat. A child who is too light to seesaw with a partner should find a different partner — not add another child to his or her side of the seesaw.
- Kids should always sit facing one another, not turned around.
- Teach kids to hold on tightly with both hands while on a seesaw, not to touch the ground or push off with their hands, and to keep feet to the sides, out from underneath the seesaw.
- Kids should stand back from a seesaw when it's in use. They should never stand beneath a raised seesaw, stand and rock in the middle, or try to climb onto it while it's in motion.
Slide Safety
Slides are safe if kids are careful when using them. Guidelines to keep in mind:
- Children should take one step at a time and hold onto the handrail when climbing the ladder to the top of the slide. They should not climb up the slide itself to get to the top.
- Kids should always slide down feet first and sitting up, never head first on their back or stomach.
- Only one child should be on the slide platform at a time, and kids shouldn't slide down in groups.
- Kids should always check that the bottom of the slide is clear before sliding down. When they reach the bottom, they should get off and move away from the end of the slide so it's clear for other kids to slide down.
Climbing Equipment Safety
Climbing equipment comes in many shapes and sizes — including rock climbing walls, arches, and vertical and horizontal ladders. It's generally more challenging for kids than other kinds of playground equipment.
Be sure your kids are aware of a safe way down in case they can't complete the climb. The highest rates of injuries on public playgrounds are associated with climbing equipment, which is dangerous if not designed or used properly. Adult supervision is especially important for younger kids.
Climbing equipment can be used safely if kids are taught to use both hands and to stay well behind the person in front of them and beware of swinging feet. When they drop from the bars, kids should be able to jump down without hitting the equipment on the way down. Remind kids to have their knees bent and land on both feet.
- Too many kids on the equipment at one time can be dangerous. Everyone should start on the same side of the equipment and move across it in the same direction.
- When climbing down, kids should watch for those climbing up; they should never race across or try to reach for bars that are too far ahead.
- Children younger than age 5 may not have the upper-body strength necessary for climbing and should only be allowed to climb on age-appropriate equipment. Preschoolers should only climb 5 feet high and school-age kids should only climb 7 feet high.
Track Ride Safety
Track rides are a form of upper-body equipment where kids hold on to a handle that slides along a track once they lift their feet. These rides require significant upper-body strength and are recommended for school-age kids and above.
- Track rides should not be included in play areas for toddlers and preschoolers.
- There should be no obstacles along the track path, especially in take-off and landing areas.
- If two track rides are next to each other, they should be spaced 4 feet apart, minimally.
- The handle should be between 64 inches and 78 inches from the surfacing.
- Nothing should be tied or attached to any part of the track ride.
- Rolling parts should be enclosed to avoid crush injuries.
Log Roll Safety
Log rolls require kids to grasp handles, then balance on top of the log as they spin it with their feet. This helps older kids to develop balance skills and increase strength.
- Log rolls are recommended for school aged-kids and above.
- All log rolls should have handholds to assist balance.
- The highest point of the log roll should be 18 inches above the protective surface.
Soft Contained Playgrounds
There are specific recommended safety checks for soft contained playgrounds:
- Make sure there are no tears or frays in the safety netting, cargo webbing, and ropes.
- The floor surface should be made of mats in good condition that are not torn and are placed tightly together.
- Look for the posted safety rules and size recommendations for the activity. Keep older kids away from areas designated for smaller children and vice versa.
- As in any other playground, kids should not wear clothing with loose strings, necklaces, or earrings.
- Many slides are contained in tubes, so a child going down will not see if there is anyone at the bottom of the slide. Kids should stay clear of the area at the bottom of slides and not climb up a slide.
More and more cities are opening spraygrounds, which are water playgrounds. At a sprayground, kids can spray each other with water cannons and get sprayed by dozens of water jets that squirt from different colored nozzles and hoses.
- Be sure to read posted signs for rules, age recommendations, and safety information. Often, no lifeguard is on duty.
- Protective footwear like water shoes with non-skid soles are a good idea to help prevent falls and other injuries. Remember to bring swimsuits, towels, sunscreen, and hats.
- Kids should not drink or inhale aerosols of water to minimize risk of water-borne illnesses.
Unsafe Playground Equipment
These types of equipment are not safe for playgrounds:
- animal figure swings
- glider swings that hold more than one child at a time
- swinging ropes that can fray, unravel, or form a noose (any kind of rope attached to play equipment poses a strangulation hazard, so never let your child tie jump ropes or leashes onto the equipment)
- exercise rings (as used in gymnastics) and trapeze bars
- monkey bars
- trampolines
Parents should not place plastic climbing equipment indoors. Even carpet does not give enough protection from falls. This type of equipment is intended for outdoor use on safe surfaces.
Play is an important part of kids' physical, social, intellectual, and emotional development. Following these safety tips will help your kids play as safely as possible.
From Kids Health.org – Reviewed by: Yamini Durani, MD- Date reviewed: July 2014


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STANFORD — The foundation for conference titles and BCS berths is laid during the second session of Stanford's spring practice. That's when the coaching staff turns its focus, almost exclusively, to the most important plays in football: Third down, red zone and short-yardage.
"We don't ever want to come out here and just run plays," coach David Shaw said Monday. "We put the base stuff in the first session; the second session is, in my opinion, what wins games."
The Cardinal will have three key players available for the second session, which began Monday and ends April 13.
Linebacker Shayne Skov, tailback Tyler Gaffney and safety Ed Reynolds rejoined the team this week after missing all or part of the first session for a variety of reasons:
"I'm much more mature," said Gaffney, who is expected to compete for the starting tailback position with veteran Anthony Wilkerson. "I've really hit the film. Before, I would just play."
Gaffney, who wasn't enrolled in school during the winter quarter, worked out with Stanford's NFL Draft prospects. He did offensive and defensive drills in an attempt, he said, to become more "football savvy" after being away from the game.
Asked if Gaffney looked rusty, Shaw said: "It wasn't noticeable."

subset: commoncrawl


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One of my former newspapers, the Omaha World-Herald, has posted one of my best stories online. I wrote a 1997 narrative of the rescue of 3-year-old twins Jennifer and Kourtney Woracek. The story from the World-Herald archives was republished Sunday as a related link to an update on the twins (now 17), written by World-Herald columnist Mike Kelly, a friend for 18 years.
I don't know what was my best story ever, but this one was close, if not the best. This was a story about heroic police and medical workers saving 3-year-old girls (both doing well now, as Mike reports).
In the years since I wrote that story, I have used it on occasion as an example in teaching narrative journalism. So I'll repeat here some of the lessons that I learned or practiced in this story:
Write as you report. I was assigned this story on a Friday morning, a week after the incident. I needed to turn the story in Saturday afternoon for Sunday's paper. After some interviews and a visit to the scene Friday afternoon, with more interviews scheduled for Saturday morning, I spent Friday night writing my first draft. In the writing, I came up with lots of details I wanted to nail down the next day: What color was the line on the heart monitor that went flat? How much did the girls weigh? What was Jennifer's precise body temperature (we had reported 69 degrees already, but in writing, it occurred to me that temps are recorded in 10ths, so I nailed it down to 68.9)? What were the girls wearing? I knew I needed to get people who were in the emergency room to walk me through what happened, re-creating dialogue for me. I was able to do that Saturday morning. I had done a good job of reporting Friday, but the writing I did Friday night helped my Saturday reporting.
Get tapes where you can. My colleague Jennifer Dukes Lee obtained and transcribed tapes of the 911 call from the twins' parents and of the police radio traffic during the search for the girls. Both provided valuable details and dialogue as well as a timeline.
Get records where you can. My colleague Loren Keller, who had left town for the weekend, had left me notes from a Thursday night interview with the sergeant who led the search. His notes prompted my editors to assign me to the narrative (I had not been involved in earlier coverage of the incident). I was unable to arrange further interviews with officers who participated in the search (police had been upset by coverage of a press conference the previous weekend, which they thought depicted a particular officer as a hero, when all the police were heroes). Police incident reports (dry just-the-facts forms) are public records in Nebraska. Supplemental reports (narrative accounts by officers) are neither public nor confidential under Nebraska law (or that was the case in 1997 at least; my knowledge may not be current). Police can release information from supplemental reports at their discretion. I was able to persuade the police public information officer Saturday morning to read me the supplemental reports of more than a dozen officers involved in the search. (I wouldn't have had time to listen to them all if I hadn't written my rough draft already). The supplemental reports presented candor I might not have seen in interviews a week after the incident — again and again, officers personalized the search, mentioning a daughter or niece they imagined missing on such a cold night, as they searched for the twins. One of the supplemental reports also provided a detail I was seeking: The officer who carried Kourtney from the alley where the girls were found to the squad car described in her report the girl's clothes. I got a few more details from records at the emergency room (might be tougher to get that information now, given stricter federal laws on patient records; I wondered at the time whether the hospital staffer who checked the records should be answering my questions).
Identify story elements. Narrative needs story elements: characters, setting, plot, theme, conflict, resolution. My story didn't have a single protagonist that I needed to develop fully. But I had to give glimpses of the various characters who contributed to the rescue. I needed to see the alley where the twins were rescued as well as the emergency room, the key settings. I needed to drive and walk the scene of the rescue so I could describe it and help the reader see and feel the place. The plot, conflict and resolution were pretty obvious, but I had to keep them in mind in the reporting and writing. For a theme, I settled on the many hands that saved the girls:
Helping hands would pump her heart for her. First Wood steadily compressed her chest as she was carried out to the helicopter. On the three-minute flight to Children's, flight nurse Kerri Alexander continued the rhythmic pushing on the child's chest. At Children's, Dr. Stephen Raynor met the flight crew and placed his hand on the girl's chest, firmly squeezing the heart as she was wheeled to the operating room.
A succession of heroic and healing hands saved Jennifer and Kourtney when their early morning adventure went awry on a bone-chilling, 9-degree-below-zero Nebraska night.
Use dialogue instead of quotes. The quotes in the story are not people talking to me in past tense. They are characters speaking in scenes:
Paramedics quickly checked the connections between the girl and the monitor. They were secure. Jennifer's heart had indeed stopped beating.
Life Flight paramedic Corrie Vrbicky told Dr. Charles Denton, "We lost the rhythm."
No one wanted to panic the girl's already distraught parents, who were watching nearby. Wood discreetly reached under the blanket that was wrapped around the frozen girl, found the right spot on her chest and pressed firmly down with one hand, pumping her heart for her.
Vrbicky asked Dr. Denton, the emergency room physician, "Do you still want her to go?"
With a wave of his hand, the physician sent the flight crew away, saying: "There's nothing more we can do for her here."
Keep your lead brief and enticing. My lead here did not try to tell the whole story, just to set up the basic conflict:
Jennifer's tiny heart gave up. But no one else would.
Identify your key moments. My narrative started at 4:03 a.m. and continued into the evening. But it was about key moments: the moment Jennifer's heart stopped beating, the moment police found the girls' boots stuck in the snow, the moment they found the girls, the moment a nurse raised her arms triumphantly. Key moments are the heart of a strong narrative. You need to help the reader see the action and feel the emotion of those moments.
Keep your beginning in mind when you write the ending. When I learned about the emergency room's reaction to news about the twins' condition, I knew it would make a perfect contrast to the opening, which told of those workers' efforts to restart Jennifer's heart and keep it pumping on the helicopter as they transferred her to Children's Hospital:
Ms. Alexander called the surgery department at Children's, though part of her didn't want to hear any news, because she feared it was bad.
"She's doing terrific," the Children's nurse told Ms. Alexander. "She's off pump. She's pink. She's making urine. We're a little worried about her toes."
It was the best news Ms. Alexander could have hoped for. She hung up the phone and walked out with her arms raised over her head, like an athlete celebrating a victory, and spread the joyous news.
Her toes? The worry had moved from Jennifer's heart to her toes.
Read your story aloud. Because I had written that draft early, I had time after finishing my story Saturday to read it aloud. That helped me smooth out a few passages and identify some long sentences to tighten.
The story underscored for me that you can write narrative on deadline. It reminded me that reporters do our best work when we tell stories. Thanks to Mike Kelly for updating this story and to Deb Shanahan for pointing out that the story was republished.
If I were doing this story today, I would certainly include audio clips from the 911 call and police radio. I would seek clips from videos in police cruisers, to show whatever I could of the actual rescue (might be difficult since the snowy alley where the girls were found was inaccessible by car). I would probably have a video of ER workers explaining on a doll or a child-sized dummy used to teach CPR how they kept Jennifer alive. (With similar deadlines, I would need a colleague to shoot and edit the video.) But I think the long text narrative remains a powerful storytelling technique. I'm glad this one resurfaced from the archives.


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Sunnyvale Startup Sees Floating Office As Visa Solution
You've heard of tech companies starting in a Silicon Valley garage. What about on a ship?
That's the idea being floated by a California startup that wants to dock a vessel off the coast to house foreign entrepreneurs who have dreams of creating the next Google but can't get visas to work in the United States.
Sunnyvale-based Blueseed Co. says current immigration rules can sink promising ventures and torpedo innovation and job creation. The ship aims to provide a remedy by giving foreign entrepreneurs a place to build their companies only a short boat ride from high tech's hub.
"A lot of people say, `I'd like to go to Silicon Valley' but there is no way for them to do it," said Max Marty, Blueseed CEO and co-founder.
Marty, the son of Cuban immigrants, thought of the ship after listening to international classmates of his at the University of Miami business school lament about having to leave the U.S. after graduation.
Politicians have wrangled with the issue, but efforts to change the system have stalled.
Last July, President Barack Obama said during a Twitter town hall he wanted to make sure talented people who studied in the U.S. were able to stay to create jobs.
"We don't want to pay for training them here and then having them benefit other countries," Obama said.
A bill to address so-called brain-drain was reintroduced this year by Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., John Kerry, D-Mass., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind. The Startup Visa Act would allow immigrant entrepreneurs and foreign graduates from U.S. universities to appeal for a two-year visa "on condition that they secure financing from a qualified U.S. investor and can demonstrate the ability to create American jobs."
But Blueseed founders don't expect any real reform from a bitterly divided Congress during an election year. "Our solution is an entrepreneurial solution," said Dario Mutabdzija, Blueseed's president.
From cruise ships to oil rigs to military aircraft carriers, there are several examples of individuals living and working on ships. This one would accommodate about 1,000 people and be docked 12 miles southwest of San Francisco Bay, in international waters.
It would be registered in a country with a reputable legal system, maybe the Bahamas or the Marshall Islands, Marty said. Residents would be subject to the laws of that nation.
Residents would be ferried ashore with temporary business or tourist visas, which are easier to get, to meet with investors, collaborators, partners and others. Mutabdzija said the ability to have face-to-face meetings cannot be underestimated when trying to gain trust - and secure funds - from investors.
"Yes, we live in an interconnected age with Skype and other video conferencing. But if you want to grow a company, physical interactions are of paramount importance," Mutabdzija said. "We're a startup. We ran into this. Some people said if you're not within a 20 mile radius, we won't talk to you."
The proximity to high-tech's center, Silicon Valley, is also important.
"The talent, the money, the expertise and a cultural acceptance of risk. Elsewhere if it doesn't work out, you're a black sheep and the funds dry up," Mutabdzija said.
The ship would be a remodeled cruise ship or barge that Blueseed leases or owns. It would have all the high-tech amenities expected of a startup incubator and the look of employee-friendly Internet giants Facebook and Google, famous for their modern campuses complete with gourmet cafeterias, exercise facilities and an environmentally-sustainable design.
A live-work space would cost about $1,200 a month. Logistical support, including food and other supplies, would come from local businesses along the coast, helping the economies of Half Moon Bay and San Francisco, though it hasn't been determined exactly which port Blueseed would use.
A helicopter also would be available for emergencies.
Critics deride the ship as a publicity stunt, and say investors would be better served contributing to ventures that help Americans create businesses.
"I would say the whole thing is a perfect metaphor for how in corporate America the practice to grow talent and incubate business locally is drifting away - quite literally," said Bob Dane, of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for limited immigration.
But supporters of foreign entrepreneurship say immigrants are responsible for some of the most successful businesses in the world and if the U.S. doesn't try to attract them, others will.
"The ship may sound like a crazy idea but it illustrates how seriously flawed the immigration system here is," said John Feinblatt, who runs Partnership for a New American Economy, which advocates for immigration reform.
The organization published a report in June that said 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children.
Feinblatt said countries including Chile, Singapore and the United Kingdom have programs to attract immigrant entrepreneurs. "While the U.S. is driving people away, other countries are welcoming them with open arms," he said. "If you miss out on them, you miss their talent, their ideas and ultimately the jobs that they create and the taxes that they pay."
Christopher S. Bentley, a spokesman with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the agency has not seen the proposal and it's premature to comment.
Maritime experts say such an idea is feasible, but very costly.
"A good single point mooring costs in the millions of dollars but it could restrain a ship-shape vessel in quite severe storms and in deep water," said Bil Stewart, CEO of Houston-based Stewart Technology Associates, an engineering consultancy specializing in offshore and marine structures.
"But it would be prudent if the vessel had its own propulsion if you had a Pacific hurricane come along," Stewart added. Blueseed's idea has started gaining steam.
Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, a founder of PayPal, announced he would lead Blueseed's financing search. Thiel has been a big supporter of "seasteads" - self-ruling cities on the ocean - and both Marty and Mutabdzija worked at the Seasteading Institute.
Blueseed wants to raise $10 million to $30 million over the next year and a half. The goal would be to launch in late 2013.


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The more Joe Oliver defends George Zimmerman with his ridiculous rational and "what the hell did this Negro say" quotes, the more we have to wonder if it was him, not Trayvon Martin (allegedly), who once experimented with the purple haze.
Over the past few days, we've heard Oliver say that coon is not really a racial slur. Or, in his words, "matter of interpretation." Then he suggests that Zimmerman is a victim, too.
Oh, hell to tha naw!
The NewsOne crew put together a list of his most outlandish quotes to put into perspective how foolish this clown really is!
1) "Coon A**es" Not Racial Term
On Chris Mathews' "Hardball, Oliver said coon is not as bad as we think it is: "…To me, it's a matter of interpretation whether he's saying coon or goon. There are parts of this country where people proudly call themselves "coon a***s" in Louisiana in particular…"
How much money are they paying this man to propagate this Tom foolery?
2) George Zimmerman Prays For Trayvon And The Martin Family
"He's not the man that I knew before the shooting," Oliver tells "People" in this week's cover story. "He'll never be the same. He prays for Trayvon and he prays for the Martin family. He is so distraught that he took a life. That's the price he had to pay for saving his own."
Zimmerman will never be the same. Well, how about the fact that Trayvon will never be ALIVE again!
3) Joe Oliver Suggests Nation Would Be Talking About Trayvon Killing Zimmerman, If Tragedy Were Reversed
During the end of an interview with Lawrence O'Donnell on "The Last Word," he tried to criminalize Trayvon Martin by suggesting a "what if Trayvon was the killer" scenario.
"We know that if we weren't here talking about George shooting Trayvon, we'd be talking about Trayvon shooting George"
Oh come on, Joe! Once again, how much is he being paid?
4) "This Was Not A Racial Incident."
Needs no commentary! Source: Lawrence O'Donnell's "Last Word" and other interviews.
5) Joe Oliver Has 'Gut Feeling' Zimmerman Was Victim On Night He Killed Trayvon
When questioned by the New York Times' Charles Blow on Lawrence O'Donnell's "Last Word," on whether he knew Zimmerman as well as he claims, Oliver got uncomfortable. Unable to fall on his well-rehearsed talking points, Oliver got desperate saying he feels in "his heart" that Zimmerman's account is the correct one. When that answer didn't work, he threw a Hail Mary:
"Have you ever had a gut feeling," he asked Blow of The Times. "Have you ever had a gut feeling."
Well, yes. We all have had those. However, how we feel is not important. What we know is that George Zimmerman had a "gun feeling" on the night he killed Trayvon. That is not a feeling. It's a fact! Joe would serve himself better if he had a few of those on his so-called friend!
This list is going to be updated as 'Brotha' Joe continues to make prime-time a** of himself. There is a reason why Zimmerman's so-called black friends will not go on camera defending him. They know better!


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Airline literally paying 2 people to fly around the world, share travel experiences
A low-cost airline based in Iceland is paying two people to travel around the world.
What's the catch? You have to be least 18 years of age and you have to create "travel vlogs" to review your travel experiences.
The idea is to promote Iceland-based WOW Air, which was founded in 2011.
Those who take the job can get free flights from Wow Air to cities that the airline serves, according to the position's terms and conditions. The airline also says it will pay expenses for hotels and activities and provide a travel allowance.
Business Insider reported that each traveler will receive a salary of about $4,000 per month.
The position is to work as a content creator and travel guide, creating travel videos to rate cities on food, nightlife, activities, hospitality and affordability.
The airline is looking for a "dynamic duo," such as you and a friend.
The pair will stay at a furnished apartment in downtown Reykjavík, Iceland, that will serve as their home base.
Applicants can apply by sending a one- to two-minute video travel guide for their hometown.


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Update: At 14:45 UTC on May 8, 20 hours after practically taking the country off the Internet, Syria's data connections to the outside world were restored, according to data from Arbor Networks.
At about 2:45 Eastern time (18:45 UTC) on May 7 , Internet traffic in and out of Syria came to a sudden stop, as routers stopped propagating routes to the country's block of Internet Protocol addresses. The suddenness and completeness of the disconnection is indicative of another government-directed shutdown—the first since a two-day outage last November.
All but three entries in Border Gateway Protocol routing tables "were definitely just dropped," said Dan Hubbard, CTO of Umbrella Security Labs, the research branch of security firm OpenDNS in a phone interview with Ars Technica. "There was no degradation or packet loss beforehand. It was either a government action or a full cable cut (of Syria's three outbound connections)."
The last time Syria disappeared from the Internet was on November 29, 2012. But unlike the last outage, today's wasn't preceded by smaller interruptions in network traffic. Since December 1, when Syria's Internet was restored from the first shutdown, "there hasn't been anything notable going on with [Syria's] traffic," Hubbard said.
While there are still three routes being broadcast for Syrian IP addresses, the same was true of the last outage—and many of those addresses were actually being hosted outside of Syria over Indian telecom provider Tata's networks. Domain name resolution for all domains in the .sy top-level domain has been cut off. Google has also reported the Syrian outage as a service disruption for all its products.
In an email to Ars, CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince said that it "looks like it happened right at 20:00 UTC (last few requests coming through at 20:01, then basically dead)." Cloudflare has posted a video of the BGP routes being dropped in realtime, as captured by its network operations center.
Activist Internet provider Telecomix has posted dial-up Internet access numbers for Syrians trying to bypass the outage.


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NEW YORK — John Lennon"s fans celebrated his life Wednesday by visiting Strawberry Fields, the Central Park garden dedicated in his honor, while a newly released interview he gave shortly before his death showed he was optimistic about his future.
On the 30th anniversary of Lennon"s murder outside his Manhattan apartment building, admirers played his music nearby at Strawberry Fields and placed flowers on a mosaic named for his song "Imagine."
The steady stream of visitors represented the range of people who love Lennon, from those who watched his career unfold as it happened to those who know only his music.
Father-daughter pair Paul DeLuca, 50, and Marissa DeLuca, 17, came from Boston to mark the day.
"I grew up with his voice," said Marissa DeLuca.
"The Beatles are the soundtrack to my childhood," she said. "His voice is just kind of like home."
Her father said, "Nothing is timeless like the stuff John and Paul (McCartney) wrote."
In Liverpool, where Lennon was from, hundreds were expected to gather for a vigil Wednesday around the Peace and Harmony sculpture, recently unveiled by Lennon"s former wife, Cynthia, and their son Julian in Chavasse Park.
In the newly released interview, conducted just three days before he was gunned down, John Lennon complained about his critics — saying they were just interested in "dead heroes" and mused that he had "plenty of time" to accomplish some of his life goals.
The interview, believed to be his last print interview, was released Wednesday to The Associated Press by Rolling Stone magazine, which uses the full interview for a story that will be on stands Friday. While brief excerpts of Jonathan Cott"s interview were released for a 1980 Rolling Stone cover story days after Lennon"s death, this is the first time the entire interview has been published.
"His words are totally joyous and vibrant and hopeful and subversive and fearless," Cott told the AP on Tuesday. "He didn"t mince words."
Lennon saves some of his harshest words for critics who were perennially disappointed with his music and life choices after he left the Beatles.
"These critics with the illusions they"ve created about artists — it"s like idol worship," he said. "They only like people when they"re on their way up … I cannot be on the way up again.
"What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I"m not interesting in being a dead (expletive) hero. … So forget "em, forget "em."
He also predicted that Bruce Springsteen, then hailed as rock"s bright future, would endure the same critical barbs: "And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he"s no longer God. … They"ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it."
Lennon also talked about trying to be a good father to his youngest son, Sean, and learning how to relate to a child (he admitted he wasn"t good at play). He also spoke of his strong bond with wife Yoko Ono: "I"ve selected to work with … only two people: Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. … That ain"t bad picking."
At 40, he was also reflective of what he had accomplished and remained committed to his goal of peace and love on earth.
"I"m not claiming divinity. I"ve never claimed purity of soul. I"ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can … But I still believe in peace, love and understanding."
That"s what makes Lennon"s music so relevant to so many people even after all these years, said David Thomas, 24, from Nyack, N.Y., who was braving the cold temperatures Wednesday to visit Strawberry Fields.
"It"s so universal and simple, and it doesn"t need to be overthought to be understood," he said.
The magazine also included an essay by Ono recalling her final days with her husband.
Ono released a statement Tuesday night in tribute to Lennon.
"On this tragic anniversary please join me in remembering John with deep love and respect," Ono said. "In his short lived life of 40 years, he has given so much to the world. The world was lucky to have known him. We still learn so much from him today. John, I love you!"–


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By Josh Kramer
The "smartest" man ever to step foot on a baseball diamond strikes again. This time, he is playing for keeps. Despite being retired, Tony LaRussa is still going after his bitter rival, the Cincinnati Reds. Now I am not naive enough to think that snubs don't happen every year in regards to the All-Star Game rosters. Due to a flawed selection system, this is inevitable. But it is very atypical to see a particular "city" get snubbed like this. Continue reading


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Apennines ăp´ənīnz [key], Ital. Appennino, mountain system, running the entire length of the Italian peninsula. It extends south c.840 mi (1,350 km) from the Cadibona Pass in Liguria, NW Italy, where the Apennines join with the Ligurian Alps, to the Strait of Messina; the mountains of Sicily are a southwest continuation of the system. The Apennines are widest (c.80 mi/130 km) in the central section, which also contains the highest peaks, Mt. Corno (9,560 ft/2,914 m high) and Mt. Amaro (9,170 ft/2,795 m high). However, in general the peaks are much lower. The central and southern Apennines have mineral springs, crater lakes, fumaroles, and volcanoes (two, Vesuvius and Etna, are still active). The southern section also experiences many earthquakes. In 1980 one near Campania left 4800 people dead. Of the many rivers rising in the Apennines, the few important ones (Arno, Tiber, and Volturno) all flow W into the Tyrrhenian Sea. The N and central Apennines are rich in a great variety of minerals. There are many hydroelectric plants in the mountains. The once heavily forested slopes of the system have been greatly reduced by humans through the centuries; attempts at conservation and reforestation have been made. The greatest population concentrations are found in the valleys and the fertile basins. Extensive pasturelands are used for sheep and goat grazing. The Apennines are pierced by many railroad tunnels and highway passes, and by the Appian, Cassian, Flaminian, and Salarian ways (see Roman roads).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Italian Physical Geography


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One of England's most besieged castles has turned the ripe old age of 1000 this year.
A new exhibition at Carlisle Castle in Carlisle, England, tells its thousand-year history. Well, approximately a thousand years, since nobody actually knows when the first castle was built here. Like with many great English castles, it got its start with a Roman fort. This fell to ruins and was replaced in the late 11th century by a Norman fort built by William II, son of the famous William the Conqueror, known to his detractors as "Billy the Bastard."
Carlisle Castle is located on the English side of the Scottish border by an important river and town. This made it of vital strategic importance. The Scots took it several times, only to have it taken back by the English again and again in a series of bloody conflicts that only ended when Bonnie Prince Charlie's Scottish uprising lost at Culloden in 1745 and the bodies of my ancestors were tumbled into a mass grave.
(It's a bit freaky to know there's a mass grave with my name on it, but I don't hold a grudge. Why should I?)
I got to visit Carlisle Castle when I hiked the Hadrian's Wall Path. What remains of the castle is very well preserved and shows a series of changes over the years, not the least of which was when Henry VIII adapted the place for use by artillery. While artillery meant the death of most castles, Carlisle hung on because of its thick walls, earthworks, and the large number of artillery emplacements it had to defend itself. After 1745, however, it lost its purpose. There was never another serious rebellion in Scotland. The castle became the headquarters of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment, which has recently moved out and been replaced by the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment.
The oldest part of the castle, the Captain's Tower, probably built around 1180, has opened for the first time in 25 years. There's also a regimental museum on the grounds and some fascinating renaissance graffiti in the Keep, including a crude drawing of a mermaid.
Carlisle itself it worth a day or two of exploration, with its windy medieval streets, museums, old pubs and the most awesome indie bookshop in England.


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GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Oregon"s famous wandering wolf has fathered pups with a mate in the southern Cascade Range — the first confirmed wolf pack in those mountains since the 1940s, officials said today.
Biologists made the determination after traveling Monday to a site on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest east of Medford, where photos and a GPS tracking collar showed the wolf known as OR-7 has been living with a mate.
They saw two pups peering out from a pile of logs and may have heard more, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said.
OR-7 and his mate were nowhere to be seen but could well have been nearby in the dense timber, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist John Stephenson said.
"It was pretty exciting seeing the pups," he said. "OR-7 was probably off getting some food. We saw a couple deer (and elk) legs that had obviously been getting chewed on."
Scientists also saw some ground disturbance where the pack "clearly had been playing around," Stephenson said.
The discovery marked the farthest west and south a wolf pack has established itself since the animals were reintroduced in the Northern Rockies in the 1990s, he said.
Any wolves that set up house in western Oregon or California are still covered by the U.S. Endangered Species Act, but U.S. Fish and Wildlife is expected to decide in December on a proposal to lift that protection.
The bulk of Oregon"s wolves in the northeastern corner of the state are protected by the state, and California is considering whether to protect any wolves that move there.
OR-7 set off in search of a mate in September 2011, covering thousands of miles from his birthplace in northeastern Oregon to Northern California and back into southwestern Oregon.
OR-7 became famous as his tracking collar chronicled his lonesome wanderings across deserts, highways and mountains. Last winter he began spending his time in a limited area, typical of a wolf that has found a mate. Trail camera photos confirmed it last month.
Stephenson said he went into the area one evening in late April and howled and got a return howl, indicating OR-7 was protecting his territory from other wolves that might want to move in.
"In real wolf country, where you have a lot of wolves, if a lone man is among other wolves in that territory it can be dangerous," he said. "You can be attacked."
Stephenson expects the pack to leave the den this summer, moving some distance to what is known as a rendezvous site, where the pups are left behind while the parents hunt.
Stephenson said he has issued an advisory about the wolf to ranchers who will be turning out cattle on federal grazing allotments.
"They are not really excited about it," he said. "They seem to be taking it in stride. We will be working to take preventative measures."
No evidence has surfaced that OR-7 has attacked livestock, despite coming from the Imnaha pack, which has been blamed for several livestock attacks in Wallowa County.
"Typically livestock depredation becomes more of a problem in bigger packs," Stephenson said. "Hopefully we won"t have any problems."


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Composite Educational Services, Inc
CES Composites
For over 25 years, CES has provided advanced composite training, equipment and materials to air carriers, repair stations, and AMT schools. We understand the practical, cost effective requirements of the aviation industry in terms of flight line reapirs and class room training. Our training and equipment have enabled thousands of technicians and AMT students to receive the practical understanding necessary to perform advanced composite repairs.
Providing service to the Aviation Composite Maintenance Industry and Composite Wind Blades since 1986.
CES Composites,
Composite Educational Services Inc.
(719) 487-1795 phone, (719) 487-1915 fax
1460 Lone Scout Lookout, Monument, CO 80132


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Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Disney's Frozen 2 Full Trailer and Poster
Check out the official trailer for Frozen 2 now, and see the film in theaters November 22. Why was Elsa born with magical powers? The answer is calling her and threatening her kingdom. Together with Anna, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven, she'll set out on a dangerous but remarkable journey. In "Frozen," Elsa feared her powers were too much for the world. In "Frozen 2," she must hope they are enough. From the Academy Award®-winning team—directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, producer Peter Del Vecho and songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez—and featuring the voices of Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff and Josh Gad, "Frozen 2" opens in U.S. theaters on Nov. 22, 2019. Facebook: https://facebook.com/DisneyFrozen/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/disneyfrozen IG: https://www.instagram.com/disneyfrozen/ Hashtag: #Frozen2
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Top Items:
Karlgaard / CESblog:
Yahoo Snaps Up Mybloglog.com — Yahoo Inc. is making notoriety a mouse click away. — The Internet portal has purchased Mybloglog.com, an Orlando, Fla.-based website that enables readers of web pages to leave information about themselves, building a social network among fans of such things …
Discussion: Bloggers Blog, PaidContent, Mashable!, FactoryCity, 10e20, Digital Inspiration, duncanriley.com, Clickety Clack and Susan Mernit's Blog
Rafat Ali / PaidContent: Yahoo Buys Distributed Social Network MyBlogLog; Reportedly Around $10 Million
Pete Cashmore / Mashable!: Confirmed: Yahoo Acquires MyBlogLog for $10 Million
Chris Messina / FactoryCity: Sticking eyeballs with toothpicks; or Yahoo buys MyBlogLog
Chris Winfield / 10e20: Yahoo Acquires MyBlogLog.com - For Real This Time
Amit Agarwal / Digital Inspiration: MyBlogLog: Now Playing At the Yahoo! Theatre
Duncan / duncanriley.com: Yahoo! buys MyBlogLog
Junior Hines / Clickety Clack: Yahoo Buys MyBlogLog
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Yahoo buys MyBlogLog... for real! — Updated: 8.58 pm: A few minutes after we had ordered our dinner at Mehfil Restaurant in San Francisco's SOMA district, Scott Rafer, chairman of Orlando, Florida-based MyBlogLog, checked his Blackberry Pearl, and broke into a smile.
Discussion: Screenwerk, Marketing Blog Bent …, Search Marketing Gurus, Mark Evans and Web Worker Daily
Greg Sterling / Screenwerk: Getting Y!'s Mojo Back: A Release a Week
Jason Dowdell / Marketing Blog Bent …: Yahoo Aquires MyBlogLog for 12 Million
Chris Gilmer / Web Worker Daily: MYBLOGLOG, A VIRTUAL COMPANY, SOLD TO YAHOO
Chad Dickerson / Yodel Anecdotal:
Bloggers unite! Yahoo! joins forces with MyBlogLog — There once was a time when bloggers basically lived in silos of independent existence. Hunched over your keyboard, you checked your ego feeds every day, looked for inbound links, followed the various meme-tracking sites, and read who you thought was interesting.
Discussion: 10e20, Jeremy Zawodny's blog, Yahoo! Developer Network blog and Marketing Blog Bent …
Chris Winfield / 10e20: How Long Until Spam Becomes a Huge Problem for MyBlogLog?
Jeremy Zawodny / Jeremy Zawodny's blog: Welcome MyBlogLog to Yahoo!
Jeremy Zawodny / Yahoo! Developer Network blog: MyBlogLog Joins YDN!
Evan Roberts / Marketing Blog Bent …: Something Smells Funny in this Shoe
Eric / The MyBlogLog Blog:
The Jig is Up — MyBlogLog joins Yahoo! — Todd, John, Steve, Scott and I are pleased to announce that Yahoo! has brought MyBlogLog into the fold. I've been drafting a post about this for the better part of a week and it's just not happening. No matter how hard I try, there's just too much here that I can't yet put into words.
Discussion: Read/WriteWeb and Scott Rafer at WINKsite
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb: MyBlogLog Acquired by Yahoo - Grist To The Distributed Network Mill
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Buys MyBlogLog. No, They Didn't. Wait, Yes. — Ok so it's official and confirmed from Yahoo: They bought MyBlogLog. This was first rumored to be happening in November, but was never confirmed and we updated our post to reflect that. This morning the news broke again but was pulled immediately afterwards.
Discussion: Matt McAlister, Rex Hammock's weblog, TechAddress and Webomatica
Yahoo! Ushers in New Era in Mobile Internet Services With Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 — Available for the MOTORAZR maxx V6 and MOTORAZR V3xx, More Than 70 Other Mobile Devices and Through Major Mobile Operators Worldwide First Half 2007 — Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) today launched a beta version of Yahoo! …
Discussion: LXer Linux News, IP Democracy, MobileTracker, StartupSquad and Paul Kedrosky's …
Cynthia Brumfield / IP Democracy: Yahoo! Ramps Up Wireless Hopes with Go Mobile 2.0
Samsung and Google Align to Create Rich Experience for Mobile Phone Users Worldwide — Cooperation ensures quick and easy access to GoogleTM search, Google MapsTM for mobile, and a fast, new GmailTM application for Samsung enthusiasts worldwide — Seoul, Korea and Las Vegas …
Discussion: ResourceShelf, Google Blogoscoped, Googlified and digg
Yahoo! Reinvents Internet Search for the Mobile Phone — Yahoo! Launches oneSearch(TM), a First of Its Kind Service Designed to Instantly Give Consumers The Information They Want While on the Go — Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today launched Yahoo! oneSearch, an entirely new search service designed …
Discussion: Engadget, Google Operating System, The Technology Chronicles, Yahoo! Search blog and Phone Scoop
Barb Dybwad / Engadget: Live at the Yahoo press conference
Ionut Alex. Chitu / Google Operating System: Yahoo Go - Most of Yahoo in One Mobile Software
Rory / Channel 9:
Windows Home Server — Microsoft is a big company. Everybody knows this, but it really hits home when your job is to go around and interview people from its many divisions. — Before shooting this video, I didn't even know there was a Windows Home Server coming out. — But there is.
Discussion: InsideMicrosoft, Business Filter and onten.net
Nathan Weinberg / InsideMicrosoft: Microsoft CES 2007: The Day After
Jesse D. Lewin / onten.net: Windows Home Server will live in your closet, simplify your life
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Windows Home Server prototypes on parade
Windows Home Server prototypes on parade
Discussion: Seeking Alpha
Ryan Block / Engadget:
Windows Home Server, everything you need: features rundown, screens, hands-on
Windows Home Server, everything you need: features rundown, screens, hands-on
Discussion: PVR Wire, CNET News.com, CyberNet Technology News, The Tao of Mac, PaulStamatiou.com, saunderslog.com and cek.log
Charlie Kindel / cek.log: Windows Home Server
Ina Fried / CNET News.com:
Home sweet home for Microsoft
Home sweet home for Microsoft
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily and Bink.nu
Tekmaven / Bink.nu: Gates sees a home server in your future
RESTON, Va. — 01/08/2007 — Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) announced today an update to its financial outlook and detailed its plans designed to improve operational performance and drive long-term shareholder value. The company will be hosting a conference call to discuss these plans …
Discussion: GigaOM, Tech Trader Daily and MobileTracker
Sprint Nextel Cites WiMAX Network Progress For 2007 — Media Contact: — John Polivka, 972 405-5139 — Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) announced progress with its plans for a large scale advanced mobile broadband network designed to bring wireless innovation to devices and new multimedia mobile applications to customers.
Discussion: dailywireless.org
Wagner James Au / GigaGamez:
Second Life Goes Open Source- First Thoughts, With Linden Lab's Replies — Analysis — I was only hours from posting a sequel to the ongoing "Is Second Life Over-Hyped?" controversy, when Linden Lab spun the conversation in a totally different direction: starting today …
Discussion: NevilleHobson.com, tecosystems, TechCrunch, MediaVidea and digg
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch: Second Life Goes Open Source - Should It Be Non Profit, Too?
Pramit Singh / MediaVidea: Second Life officially declares open house for spammers
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:
Second Life frees source code under GPL
Second Life frees source code under GPL
Mathew Ingram / mathewingram.com/work: Open sourcing the virtual universe
David Kirkpatrick / Fortune: Second Life to go open source
Allison Randal / O'Reilly Radar: Second Life as Open Source
Jon / Weblogsky: Open Source Second Life
John Paczkowski / Good Morning Silicon Valley: Second Life opens construction trades to proletariat
Steve O'Hear / The Social Web: Second Life client open-sourced
Times of London:
Yo ho ho - buccanerds give studios a broadside — A website that tells you where to get the latest films for nothing has enraged movie moguls. Simon Kurs meets the swashbucklers fighting claims of piracy — First came the pirate radio ships of the 1960s offering new musical thrills to the pop-starved young.
Smaran / TorrentFreak:
TPB: The MPAA are "rabid, obsessed lunatics"
TPB: The MPAA are "rabid, obsessed lunatics"
Discussion: digg
San Francisco Chronicle:
O Googlers, where art thou? — Some employees found instant riches in the Internet search company's initial public offering — affording them the luxury of pursuing new dreams — Who in their right mind would leave a job at Google Inc., a company legendary for pampering workers with free annual ski trips and gourmet food?
Discussion: Got Ads? and Google Blogoscoped
Eliot Van Buskirk / Wired News:
Who's Killing MP3 and iTunes? — Everyone knows the MP3 format is used by more devices and people than any other file-based digital-audio format. Most also know that record labels prefer DRMed alternatives such as the ones sold by Apple's iTunes, because they make it harder for people to share music.
Discussion: TechEffect, Blogging Stocks, iMedia Law Blog and digg
Brian Ward / TechEffect: Is the iTunes walled garden on its way down?
Windows Vista Ushers in New Era of Gameplay — Microsoft unveils powerful Games for Windows lineup and more at 2007 CES. — Kicking off the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas with a bang, Microsoft Corp. today unveiled revolutionary games …
Discussion: Bink.nu, Microsoft News Tracker, The Tech Report and New York Times
David Hunter / Microsoft News Tracker: Not much happening in Gates' CES07 keynote
Cyril Kowaliski / The Tech Report: Microsoft to give PC gamers a taste of Xbox Live
John Markoff / New York Times: Microsoft and Ford Combine Products
Microsoft Integrates IPTV Software Platform With Xbox 360 …
Microsoft Integrates IPTV Software Platform With Xbox 360 …
Discussion: The Tech Report and IP Democracy
Cyril Kowaliski / The Tech Report: Microsoft to add IPTV support to the Xbox 360
Cynthia Brumfield / IP Democracy: Bill Gates: The Connected Home is Here
New Intel Processors Expand Quad-Core PC, Server Line-Ups — Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Processor Jump Starts Digital Applications, Software and Devices; Two More Server Quad-Core Products Introduced — INTERNATIONAL 2007 CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW, Las Vegas, Jan. 8 …
Discussion: The Tech Report and dailywireless.org
Scott Wasson / The Tech Report: Intel pulls curtain back on the Core 2 Quad Q6600
Paul Miller / Engadget:
Apple to unveil 802.11n Airport Extreme X2, X4 at Macworld? — Alright, deep breaths, we might have us some actual pre-Macworld Apple news here, and we don't want anybody passing out on us. It looks like Apple is indeed hopping on board the 802.11n bandwagon, with its own draft-N devices …
Discussion: Gizmodo, CrunchGear, Byte of the Apple, Wi-Fi and MacUser
Matt Hickey / CrunchGear: Apple Set to Launch New Airport Gear
Arik Hesseldahl / Byte of the Apple: Looks Like An Airport Refresh Is Upon Us
Aaron Freedman / MacUser: Apple 802.11n was hiding under our noses all along
Patrick Ross / IPcentral Weblog:
Dispatch from CES: Copy Fight War or Peace? — The title of the CES session I attended today, "Copy Fights: Consumers and Hollywood: Are They Compatible?" is reflective of the myopia one sometimes finds here at CES. I say this with no malice — I have seen some remarkable innovations …
Discussion: The Progress & Freedom … and The 463
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
Fraudwall, an anti-click fraud company, raises millions — Ron Conway, a well-known Internet investor, and entrepreneur Jim Pitkow have co-founded a company to stop advertising fraud online. They've invested an undisclosed amount of millions, alongside other angel investors.
John Siracusa / FatBits:
MWSF 2007 keynote bingo — I debated doing a MacWorld bingo card for a long time. At first, I was sure I wasn't going to create one. WWDC bingo was a cute diversion, but do I really want to commit to doing one of these for every Stevenote? I also didn't know if people would be hungry for more bingo after WWDC's bingo bust.
Michael Calore / Monkey Bites: Macworld: Feel the iHeat
Jeff Ventura / Graceful Flavor: Get Your Macworld Bingo Card(s) or Risk Ridicule From Those Who Have Them
John Gruber / Daring Fireball: Daring Fireball, Live Tuesday at Macworld Expo
Matthew Himler / Blogging Stocks: Get into the Macworld fever with Macworld Bingo


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The long and wine-ding road of 2013 began with a personal plea for it to be the year of drinking better wine. I wrote about iconic wines at affordable prices and a personal hermeneutic public service announcement, a wine prescription for cold and flu. January rounded out with good reds, twenty-somethings, Robbie Burns, weekday wines and a wine analogy Super Bowl prediction gone bad.
I played pond hockey, chatted about wine and said no to ambient, rich pinks because you gotta be cruel to be wine for Valentine's. Real wines, more hockey, Oscars, French grapes and a Somewhereness sea of grape-driven humanity occupied my winter thoughts, along with California, The Beamsville Bench, Cuvée 2013 and the zeitgeist of my virgin expert's tasting with music as its guide. Cool grapes marched on with wines for the Ides, St. Patrick, Passover, Momofuku in Toronto and New York City.
Spring brought 100-km wine, value reds, sunshine, Masters' colours, a Stanley Cup for house league hockey, Ontario wine events, Peter Franus, wild leeks and Mother's Day. There was a 'London Calling' for Canadian wine, Go Gamay Go, an averted LCBO strike and the Elsie Awards. I delved into the schadenfreude matters of tasting notes, the humanity in real value wine and the Venn Diagrams in a paradox of accents.
The weather warmed, I cooked for 1,300 Ultimate Frisbee players, contemplated the Rolling Stones and struck Semillon in a showcase showdown. Father's Day, Riesling and the Canada Day long weekend preceded excursions to Fenway Park and the eleemosynary earth in the North Fork of Long Island. This followed by a search for the wine pulse of the Finger Lakes and the indelible stamp of British Columbia's Okanagan Valley.
The International Cool Climate Chardonnay conference took Niagara by storm (literally), leading into the August long weekend. I wrote on Sauvignon Blanc, chill red wine, The Great Canadian Wine Challenge, Free My Grapes and the plea for wine to flow across Canadian provinces.
September came, as did Low alcohol wine for the High Holidays. Ontario wines shone on, especially those from Stratus, along with Spanish and Italian reds. I touted the vinous acumen of Canadian wines for Thanksgiving, the wines of Chile, the best from Ontario and presided as guest judge at the WineAlign World Wine Awards of Canada 2013. October ended with Champagne and reasons to pour a glass of wine on Halloween.
Napa Valley came to town, there were private tastings with Ontario winemakers and I made notes on Canadian made apolitical wines. There were gems, Friday bites, Beaujolais Nouveau and more from Italy. At the end of November I wondered if the wine sign of the apocalypse was upon us. Sparkling wines and the unavoidable Christmas picks have brought us to here.
Edward Steinberg once asked Angelo Gaja, "how do you make the best wine?" to which Gaja replied, "with the best grapes." In tasting notes I extrapolate from that base and simple notion, with an intent to convey the salient facts of the grape's life, to give life to the agriculture, even if the first two syllables are removed in the process.
Tasting notes can be clerihews, pithy poems that begin with a winemaker's name, become the reviewer's purport and more often than not, are penned in four lines. Word play leading the mind to consider wine as anagram, palindrome and lipogram. Writing a tasting note not as a vinous jape, but rather an artfully woven acrostic.
Reviews align like Burma Shave signs on North American highways, spaced one hundred feet apart, connected by their language. Phrases are turned on their heads, causing the notes to be peculiarly unsuccessful in making any decided impact upon the consumer college. So be it.
The musical and other (sometimes) obscure references bring about metaphasis to the tasting notes, an habitual transposition of sounds, connecting smell, flavour and structure to groove, pitch and aesthetic. The best wines produce the greatest emotion and excess of language. Here is a look back at the top 15-$30 and over releases tasted in 2013 and the tasting notes that brought them to light.
15 wine releases $30 and over
RAINOLDI CRESPINO VALTELLINA SUPERIORE 2006, Lombardy, Italy (316331, $31.95, WineAlign)
Composed of 100 per cent Chiavennasca (Nebbiolo) from Lombardy. Grace, flowing ruby robe, striking. Lit by cherries bathing in a silica and gravel mineral bath, tightly wound in a swirling pensieve of real vinous thought. Elevated by cool, altitudinous breezes and gothic, statuesque like a Mantegazza. Northern, alpine and proud. 93 Tasted April 2013 @VinumValtellina From: Top ten wines for May Day
TAWSE CABERNET FRANC LAUNDRY VINEYARD 2010, Lincoln Lakeshore, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario (130997, $31.95, WineAlign)
Assures us of several things. First, 2010 was a gift for making idiot-proof Cab Franc in Niagara, Second, the Lincoln Lakeshore is one of three obvious and essential CF locales in Niagara. Third and most important, properly adjudicated new oak can elevate CF to the upper reaches of the cool-climate troposphere. While not as masculine or bovine like brother Van Bers, Laundry's got black cherry, tar, coal, herbs and a peaceful, grilling feeling. Essential CF from winemaker Paul Pender. 92 Tasted July 2013 @Tawse_Winery @Paul_Pender From: Alternative wines for the August long weekend
CHARLES BAKER WINES RIESLING 'PICONE VINEYARD' 2011, Vinemount Ridge, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario (241182, $35.20, WineAlign)
Does not so much pick up where cracking '09 left off (with no offence meant to the soothing and tuneful '10) but rather re-writes the Baker book. From the almost famous windswept vineyard atop the Vinemount Ridge, this Picone, from older Riesling plantings is crazy lively. That '10 is now imbued with rich, oily glück. The '11 will realize such a future, but much further along and in combination with its inborn tension. Right up there with Baker's "perfect vintage" 2006. 93 Tasted October 2013 @cbriesling From: Top wines shine at Taste Ontario 2013
PETER FRANUS RED WINE 2008, Red Hills Lake County Red, California ($39.95)
Composed of Syrah (85 per cent), Grenache (10) and Mourvèdre (5) comes from Fore Family Vineyards fruit on the top of 3000 foot Cobb Mountain. A fiery paradox of climate met by altitude works a strange magic on the grapes. It's no mistral but rather some sort of wine weather occult. This SGM is highly influenced by a very tempest of dramatic temperature changes, from solar radiation to cool, tempering Pacific breezes and at great heights. Exhibits the hills' red earth, in colour, in fragrance and in rich berry flavour. I'm grateful for this SGM blend, cool and hot at the same time, "almost ablaze still you don't feel the heat." 93 Tasted April 2013 @ProfileWineGrp From: The Wine Diaries: Peter Franus
FEUDI DI SAN GREGORIO TAURASI 2007, Campania, Italy ($39.95)
Lush and gorgeous. The most immediately gratifying young Aglianico yet such an infant. Earthbound red berries, perfectly ripe plums, biting tannin and off the charts acidity. Epochal verve of Middle Pleistocene volcanic rocks. Southern Italian equivalent to Southern Rhône reds, offering tremendous value under $50 where Bordeaux and Tuscany pedantically fall short. Should join the ranks of recent great vintages, '01 and '04. 93 Tasted January 2013 @FeudiDSGregorio @StemWineGroup From: Iconic wines, affordable prices
CHÂTEAU DES CHARMES EQUULEUS 2010, St. David's Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario (319525, $40, SAQ, 11156334, $41.25, WineAlign)
From the Paul Bosc Estate Vineyard is a classically styled blend of 50 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon, 25 per cent Cabernet Franc and 25 per cent Merlot, only made in exceptional years. Apropos choice from 25-year old vines (in 2010) from the warmer St. David's Bench for Cuvée's 25th show. Poised, balanced and regal yet this mare is temporarily a head-shy, sensitive equine red. Will trot out furlongs of tobacco and meaty aromas from now and through maturity in five plus years. A saddle of round, red fruit will age gracefully. 92 Tasted March 2013 @MBosc From: Top juice flows at Cuvée 25th anniversary
BACHELDER CHARDONNAY WISMER VINEYARD 2010, Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario (345819, $44.95, WineAlign)
So sumptuous, presumptuous and precocious. Ahead of the curve, effortless and full of 20 mile mineral length. The ripe green apple never quits. My earlier note from Top juice flows at Cuvée 25th anniversary from the Twenty Mile (Vineland) Bench is the most righteous, understated charred butterscotch remoulade sauce of dreams. Richly textured and built upon a sneaky, slow and stretched breath of wild yeasts. A creeper, gatherer and traveler of both knowledge and persistence. The journey with Thomas Bachelder as related by partner Mary Delaney, from out of Quebec, by way of Ponzi and Lemelson in Oregon and to Niagara is the stuff of dreams. Tasted twice same night and hypnotized both times. 94 Tasted July 2013 @Bachelder_wines From: Hot weekend wines and cool Chardonnay
CLOSA BATLLET GRATALLOPS 2007, Priorat, Spain (156398, $49.95, WineAlign)
Stupid gorgeous Priorat and though inaccessible to most of us mere mortals, if you were to shell out $50 in November for one wine, this has to be considered. A blend of 65 per cent Cariñena, 22 per cent Garnacha, with a smattering of Syrah and Merlot. Pure purple pitch, an early summer Catalonian garden in bloom, air warm, breeze light. Wow. Blows high priced Napa and over the top Châteauneuf-du-Pape out of the water. The oak is so beautifully integrated. 94 Tasted October 2013 From: Nine big November best buy wines
GIROLAMO RUSSO SAN LORENZO 2008, Sicily, Italy ($59.95)
From agronomist and oenologist Giuseppe Russo lives a Sicilian dream. Composed of Etna's indigenous Nerello Mascalese with a small percentage of Nerello Cappuccio, this red is a veritable lava flow of molten magma, volcanic igneous solder and opulent Scoria. Pure, unchained fruit, no disguise, striking. 94 Tasted February 2013 @Oenophilia1 From: Real wines, whisky and boys night out
PALLADINO BAROLO PARAFADA 2008, Piedmont, Italy (280412, $68.00, WineAlign)
This just has the look, the look of love. "A look that time can't erase." Nebbiolo you can see right through, this impossible light, this impossible life. Tea, tar and roses. A mineral spring, iron-earth field, where the game runs wild. You can relate to this Barolo, love it, relish it now but it will give pleasure for years. Not necessarily 25 but certainly 10-15. "Well, it takes my breath away." Great vineyard. 94 Tasted October 2013 From: Holiday wine gems hit November shelves
M. CHAPOUTIER LES BÉCASSES CÔTE-RÔTIE 2010, Ac Northern Rhône, France (280420, $82.95, WineAlign)
Strictly beautiful Syrah. The offspring of the Côte Rôtie's two necessary points of view. First, the schist, silt and shingle of the Brune. Second, the silica and limestone of the Blonde. In combination they produce an iron-rust wine of a ferruginous nature, in colour and in aroma. Seeping, exotic Rooibos tea, Provençal tapenade and smouldering flowers send smoke signals clear as day. Smells so rich though it's full of grace and bathed in ultra-elegance. 94 Tasted October 25, 2013 From: Holiday wine gems hit November shelves
MOËT & CHANDON GRAND VINTAGE BRUT CHAMPAGNE 2004, Ac Champagne, France (69773, $83.95, WineAlign)
May not be the esteemed house and vintage of the century's love-child but I can't think of a single reason not to spend a pittance more on a vintage-dated Champagne like this Moët in lieu of a sea of NV alternatives. Granted it's wound maddeningly tight, spewing still young venom, crazed by pear and citrus concentrate but…trust must be placed in its charms. This Moët is quite refined. Apples tempered in acidity, beloved for its building blocks, it's really good Champagne. 94 Tasted November 2013 @MoetUSA From: Ten sparkling wines to life
DOMAINE LONG-DEPAQUIT MOUTONNE GRAND CRU CHABLIS 2011, Monopole, Ac, Burgundy, France (46706, $89.95, WineAlign)
From Mathieu Mangenot's "Grand Cru" plots, the Monopole holdings in the steep amphitheatre slope of Vaudésir and the gentle rise of Les Preuses. The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine. He spoons piles of flint and chunks of rock. He explains the tin pan elevation of Chablis and Chardonnay squeezed from the bedrock, capturing every last drop of geology, refuse of stars and fossils of the ancient animals. Stoic, metazoic, super Chablis, with tremendous length. How can this Chablis have so much fruit but no apple, no lemon, no pith. "You think things are straight but they're not what they seem." Candy for the soul. Novacaine in liquid form. Amazing. 94 Tasted November 2013 From: Twelve days of wine for Christmas
CHASSAGNE MONTRACHET VIDE BOURSE 1ER CRU 2010, Ac Burgundy, France (344887, $101.95, Quebec $85.00, WineAlign)
A mild sylvan reductive stink is neither abstruse nor in fruit obstruction. What we have here is a brass tax in Chardonnay histrionics. Yellow and green tree fruit, wicked wild yeast game and just about as much ruminating, mineral tang as one might desire. Something wicked this way woos my wistful longing for quality white Burgundy. I could imagine drinking this well into my pension days. 95 Tasted November 2013 From: Twelve days of wine for Christmas
MASI MAZZANO AMARONE DELLA VALPOLICELLA CLASSICO 2006, Doc, Veneto, Italy (215764, $99.95, WineAlign)
If a wine clocking in at 16 per cent alcohol by volume can be considered elegant and restrained and if that's even possible, the Mazzano is the one. Though there is nothing outright prune, dried raisin or fig paste about it, this single-vineyard Amarone is enormously tannic. Any attempt at cracking its hard shell inside of 15-20 years should be thought of as counter-productive. Smells like the aforementioned fruit just picked at maximum ripeness so there is nothing cooked, roasted or overdone here. You simply have to wait for tertiary complexity to see what it will become. I sense great. Near-perfect vintage. 96 Tasted October 2013 From: Holiday wine gems hit November shelves
Good to go!


text:
December 16th, 2012
God will 'wrestle the light from darkness,' pastor tells heartbroken congregation
By Eric Marrapodi and Kate Bolduan, CNN
Newtown, Connecticut (CNN)– The bulletins were printed on Thursday for the third Sunday of Advent for Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown. There was no mention of Friday in the pages' long order for worship.
By Sunday morning, the church was hosting its fourth service since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, and the sanctuary had been open for 72 straight hours keeping vigil.
A half-empty pallet of tissue boxes greeted church members as they arrived in the front hallway. As the second of the morning's two worship services got underway, people were already quietly weeping in their seats.
Young children sat and quietly played or colored next to their parents, unaware of the tragedy around them or that their friend Benjamin Wheeler, a 6-year-old who attended Trinity with his family, was not there. Wheeler was among the 26 people killed at Sandy Hook on Friday when a gunman burst into his elementary school.
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Pastor Kathleen Adams-Sheperd recounted to the church how she spent Friday at the fire station, waiting with the parents of elementary school children to find out if their child had made it out safely or was among those who did not.
"Friday in some part has changed our lives forever," she said in her sermon as she stood in the middle of the congregation, eschewing the pulpit for proximity to her members.
Speaking to a crowd still raw and still suffering, she told them of the sermon she had prepared and how it was long gone, asking them to be patient with her as she preached with no notes.
On this day, she said, it was "important to be where we are," to be "present with people." She encouraged them to hug one another.
"No, really, get up and hug someone," she said. Old and young, visitors and members, embraced tearfully.
"Families of our lovely innocent children need our prayers," she said. "Families who survived need our prayers."
"I want you to know talking to the ones who have lost, the one spot of joy is that your children are not lost."
Adult men from the church were posted at the doors this week, she said, so the children in the service and Sunday schools would know this was a safe place for them.
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Dressed in purple vestments and wearing a small stud nose ring, Adams-Sheperd walked the church through pieces of the planned Advent service, when Christians light four candles in the four weeks leading up to Christmas to prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
"I believe faith will save us," she said. "To loose this faith is to let the darkness win."
"Was God absent from our world?" she asked, a burning question on the minds of many in this heartbroken town.
"Indeed not."
"Have we been shaken? Yes. Have we seen hope? Yes, yes, yes."
She pointed to the hero teachers who shielded children, administrators from the school who rushed toward the shooter, and the first-responders as evidence of that hope.
"So many signs of hope and light in the darkness that seems to envelope us; that's what Advent is," she said.
She said she believed the horrific acts were not the will of God.
"Where was God? Surrounding all the children. The 430 that made it out, and the 20 that did not."
God, she said, "was with them, is with them, and will be with them always.
"God will find a way to bring comfort and hope and light. He will wrestle it from the darkness."
In the coming days the church will see multiple funerals, including for little Benjamin Wheeler on Thursday and for another classmate, 6-year-old Madeleine Hsu, on Friday. Adams-Sheperd told the church local funeral directors had donated costs of the funeral to the families.
Cameras were not permitted to film the worship service but the church welcomed reporters to come and worship. Adams-Shepard explained to the crowd she would not go on camera and talk to reporters because she had given her word to the victim's families, and that what happened in the school is "owned by the parents."
She told the congregation if anyone was holding any enmity in their heart it was time to let it go.
"I'm done. I love you. Pray, everyone," she said. And with that she turned to prayer and recited the name of each victim.
CNN's Jeremy Moorhead contributed to this report.
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About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.


text:
Truthful Mechanisms for Selfish Routing and Two-Parameter Agents
- We prove a general monotonicity result about Nash flows in directed networks and use it for the design of truthful mechanisms in the setting where each edge of the network is controlled by a different selfish agent, who incurs costs when her edge is used. The costs for each edge are assumed to be linear in the load on the edge. To compensate for these costs, the agents impose tolls for the usage of edges. When nonatomic selfish network users choose their paths through the network independently and each user tries to minimize a weighted sum of her latency and the toll she has to pay to the edges, a Nash flow is obtained. Our monotonicity result implies that the load on an edge in this setting can not increase when the toll on the edge is increased, so the assignment of load to the edges by a Nash flow yields a monotone algorithm. By a well-known result, the monotonicity of the algorithm then allows us to design truthful mechanisms based on the load assignment by Nash flows. Moreover, we consider a mechanism design setting with two-parameter agents, which is a generalization of the case of one-parameter agents considered in a seminal paper of Archer and Tardos. While the private data of an agent in the one-parameter case consists of a single nonnegative real number specifying the agent's cost per unit of load assigned to her, the private data of a two-parameter agent consists of a pair of nonnegative real numbers, where the first one specifies the cost of the agent per unit load as in the one-parameter case, and the second one specifies a fixed cost, which the agent incurs independently of the load assignment. We give a complete characterization of the set of output functions that can be turned into truthful mechanisms for two-parameter agents. Namely, we prove that an output function for the two-parameter setting can be turned into a truthful mechanism if and only if the load assigned to every agent is nonincreasing in the agent's bid for her per unit cost and, for almost all fixed bids for the agent's per unit cost, the load assigned to her is independent of the agent's bid for her fixed cost. When the load assigned to an agent is continuous in the agent's bid for her per unit cost, it must be completely independent of the agent's bid for her fixed cost. These results motivate our choice of linear cost functions without fixed costs for the edges in the selfish routing setting, but the results also seem to be interesting in the context of algorithmic mechanism design themselves.


text:
It's October! You know what that means — candy shelves overstuffed with fun sized candy bars, sweaters and boots and tights and scarves in Gap commercials — and everywhere you turn, pink crap for sale under the guise that buying it means that you're promoting Awareness® of Breast Cancer. Thing is, not only is most of that crap doing nothing to actually cure breast cancer, it's attempting to translate cancer guilt into $PROFIT!$, sometimes in incredibly silly, unhelpful ways. Sometimes the very products hawking pink crap are actually selling products that cause cancer! Let's take a short tour through the most useless, hypocritical pink crap you can buy this October. For the Cure®.
Breast Cancer Action has been at the forefront of calling Bullshit on the deluge of pink crap for the better part of a decade. The organization's Think Before You Pink campaign serves to highlight some of the more egregious uses of Cancer! Incorporated and a decade ago coined the phrase "pinkwashing," a term used to describe companies that sell products that actually cause breast cancer in the name of raising money to, uh, fight breast cancer. The organization's badass executive director Karuna Jaggar reports that while this year, it seems like consumers are finally getting wise to what she calls "Big Pink," but that doesn't mean that attempts to take advantage of people's good intentions through pink marketing has abated. Are you ready for some emotionally manipulative marketing?!!?
Big Pink Sightseeing
You've always wanted to ride one of those Gray Line double decker buses around New York City and gawk, slack jawed, at regular people just trying to go about their goddamn business. So why not do it For The Cure?!? The Big Pink Sightseeing Tours will donate $1 per $49 ticket to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. With corporate generosity like that, you'd only have to take 49 separate Big Pink bus rides in order to equal one direct gift of $49 directly to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, but if you donate money directly, you don't also get to experience the joy of knowing you played a role in emitting carcinogenic stinky bus farts directly into my face.
Also, Does the name remind anyone else of cavernous vaginas?
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If bus riding isn't your bag but you still want to see a big pink vehicle driving around, eagle-eyed readers have spotted pink garbage trucks, pink fuel trucks, and pink drilling rigs. How exactly is this curing breast cancer?
Pink Crystals Fore a Good Cause
For only $71, you can show that you Care about Cancer and that you like ugly jewelry. There are sport-specific bits of jewelry — this golf bracelet (because it has a tee!) or a Football model for only $51 that shows that you love both sports and tepidly endorsing women not dying of breast cancer.
But here's the best part — 10% of every sale of Sport Chic's Breast Cancer Awareness collection goes to Susan G. Komen For the Cure, which means that you could be contributing a full $7 or $5 to an organization that uses 20% of its donations to actually research cures for cancer. So you're actually giving like, dozens of cents to breast cancer research. Worth it!
But Pink Crystals FORE (ugh) the Cure aren't the worst example of a beautification product that inscrutably helps fight cancer. Lead-containing lipsticks have been branded with the pink ribbon as has Komen's Promise Me perfume, which was discontinued after consumers discovered that it contained chemicals that actually cause breast cancer.
These really ugly NFL branded rain boots
Here's my product description: (sound of gagging).
Here's the NFL's official product description:
The Cuce Shoes women's Enthusiast rain boots are waterproof so you'll be ready to look great and cheer for your favorite NFL® team in any weather. A special breast cancer awareness design decorates these boots, supporting a great cause.
Anyone who has watched an NFL game during October of the last 4 years has probably noticed the suffocating wall of pink crap festooning NFL players, referees, and stadiums. It's all part of the League's campaign to encourage women to have mammograms, thus, uh, preventing breast cancer (or getting them into expensive breast cancer treatment ASAP). In celebration/recognition of the fact that breast cancer sucks giant pink footballs, interested parties can buy pink crap from the NFL's site, ostensibly because some of the proceeds go toward FINDING A CURE. Except the A Crucial Catch program press release doesn't indicate exactly how big a "portion" of the proceeds go to the American Cancer Society, just that the NFL has raised $3 million to "fight" breast cancer since the advent of the program.
But the worst part of the NFL's over-the-top Breast Cancer Awareness campaign is having to look at Ben Roethlisberger in a pink breast cancer awareness jersey. Oh, Ben. If anything, you've proven yourself to be too aware of breasts.
Poo-Pourri: A 'Fun' Way to Think About a Disease that Affects Millions of Women!
Poo-pourri is a liquid you spray in your bathroom before you defecate so the next person to enter doesn't get two nostrils full of your shit stink. WHAT BETTER PRODUCT TO PROMOTE BREAST CANCER AWARENESS?!
I... I can't with this. From the PR email about the product:
Kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month by stocking up on the most effective before-you-go bathroom spray, while making a difference in women's lives.
Like every busy mom, corporate hot shot, and college student, Poo~Pourri is learning how to multitask. They're keeping bathrooms odor free and creating more hostesses with the mostesses, all while raising awareness for breast cancer and aiding in the research for a cure. They're committed to donating 20% of each sale of their No. 2 bathroom spray and Treasure Chest oil to research in the hopes that they can make a difference in more than just the restroom.
Poo-pourri also sells "breast massage oil," which "promotes breast tissue health" using magic and chemicals, thus assuring that I die of WTF before I'm able to turn into the giant human tumor my genes say I'm destined to become.
Pornhub.com's Save The Boobs campaign
One of the most grating micro-trends in the Breast Cancer Awareness industry is the tendency for some vendors and awareness groups to sanitize the disease into something cute or sexy. Save the Ta-Ta's! I HEART BOOBIES! As though the biggest tragedy of breast cancer isn't the pain and suffering caused to women and their families, but to the hoards of breast-aficionados who are DEPRIVED THE SIGHT OF JIGGLING NATURALS thanks to stupid fun-ruining cancer. Adult video site Pornhub gets in on the ridiculous YAY TITTIES! train with its own cancer-fighting PSA-
During October, Pornhub.com, the leading destination for online adult entertainment, will donate 1c for every 30 views of its 'Small Tits' and 'Big Tits' videos, meaning the more boobs that are viewed, the more money that will be showered upon the Susan G. Komen Foundation. And with the site attracting millions of clicks per month, the amount raised over the next 31 days will be considerable.
It doesn't matter if you're into itty-bitty-titties, the perfect handful, jumbo fun-bags or low-swinging flapjacks, what matters most is that your kind and selfless gesture will go a long way towards helping our sisters to find a cure.
Just what every internet masturbator wants to think about as they stroke it to boobies videos: tumors. Breast cancer: number one killer of boners.
The Faith Breast Cancer Awareness Vibrator
I'm just going to leave this here.
Sabre Red National Breast Cancer Foundation Pink Pepper Spray Keychain
Because the only stranger who should be putting their hands on your breasts is the mammogram machine operator?
Breast cancer awareness pepper spray. Because, remember, ladies: you might get raped. But if you don't get raped, you might die of breast cancer.
And... I'm exhausted.
All this ridiculousness shouldn't dissuade people from buying any product that donates profits to breast cancer research or treatment, explains BCA's Jaggar. But before consumers buy pink crap in the name of making themselves feel better about the fact that breast cancer is awful, they should ask themselves some crucial questions, among them Does this product actually cause breast cancer? How much money from sales of this item actually support breast cancer research? What organization receives the breast cancer research funds? I'd like to add my own pre-pink buying questions: is it ugly as sin or incredibly, incredibly tacky? If so, you'd be better off just skipping it and donating your money to a reputable organization directly. You dont' really need a pink drain stopper.
But if you think this year's Komen debacle marked the beginning of the end of pinkwashing, think again. The new hotness in the Breast Cancer Awareness industry seems to be emphasis on individual responsibility for preventing the disease — "It's YOUR health!" Except, given the fact that consumer chemicals often contribute to the development of breast cancer, that's hardly fair. Says Jagger, "You can't ask people to become experts on carcinogenic chemicals found in consumer products. We need systemic change. We need the government to do what only the government can do and regulate chemicals that cause cancer."
In other words, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but: that shiny pink butt plug won't cure cancer. Neither will your Save the Tits oven cleaner.
Seen any particularly egregious pink crap this Breast Cancer Awareness!-stravaganza? Post them in the comments or email email@example.com