text:
U.S. grounds entire F-35 fleet pending engine inspections
The Pentagon's F-35 program office, Air Force and Navy issued directives on Thursday ordering the suspension of all F-35 flights after a June 23 fire on an Air Force F-35A jet at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, according to statements by the Pentagon and the F-35 program office.
The Pentagon said preparations were continuing for F-35 jets to participate in two UK air shows later this month, but a final decision would be made early next week. The fire has already derailed plans for an F-35 jet to fly by a naming ceremony for Britain's new aircraft carrier on Friday.
The June 23 incident was the latest to hit the Pentagon's costliest weapons program, the $398.6 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It followed an in-flight oil leak that triggered mandatory fleetwide inspections of the jets last month.
Pratt & Whitney said it was working closely with Air Force officials who are investigating the fire to determine the cause of the incident and inspect all engines in the fleet. Spokesman Jay DeFrank said it would be inappropriate to comment further since the incident was the subject of an investigation.
The Pentagon's F-35 program office has made determining the cause of the fire its highest priority and it is assessing the impact on flight tests, training and operations of the radar-evading warplane.
A person familiar with the situation said it was premature to rule in or out any quality problem or manufacturing defect.
Both Australia and South Korea said there had been no change to their plans to buy the fighter jets. Australia plans to buy 58 of the fighters and South Korea intends to buy 40.
"To date the JSF aircraft has accrued 15,000 flight hours While the F135 engine has successfully completed nearly 32,000 hours of testing," a spokesman for Australia's Defense Minister David Johnston said.
"Single engine fighters are operated by many air forces and Defense remains confident the F-35 JSF will be reliable and safe."
Reuters reported on Wednesday that U.S. and British authorities were preparing directives ordering a mandatory engine inspection estimated to take about 90 minutes.
British officials remained part of the discussions with U.S. officials and concurred with the U.S. recommendation to ground the jets, pending further inspection results, the F-35 program office said.
The Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) kicks off July 11 followed by the Farnborough International Air Show starting on July 14.
By Andrea Shalal
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text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Day 108 without playing golf
A Golf World survey last year found that 68 percent of golfers use custom-fit golf clubs.
The other 32 percent who play with off-the-rack clubs may be at a disadvantage — at least according to the world's best golfer.
"I think the ultimate key is to have the golf clubs fit you, not you fit the club," Tiger Woods was quoted as saying in a November issue of Golf World. "I stress that to the juniors and amateurs I give clinics to, or when they ask me in pro-ams. You got to get a club that fits."
I have to admit that I was a little surprised by the data: more than two in three amateurs have been custom-fit for clubs. Whoa.
I wish I could say I have new custom-fit clubs, but I'm playing with ancient off-the-shelf equipment. And the truth is, it doesn't really matter until I start playing more.
The Armchair Golfer


text:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Man of Steel" leaped over box office expectations in a single weekend.
The Warner Bros. superhero file earned $113 million in its opening weekend at the box office, according to studio estimates Sunday. The retelling of Superman's back story earned an additional $12 million from Thursday screenings, bringing its domestic total to $125 million. Original box-office expectations for "Man of Steel" ranged from $75 million to $130 million.
"They finally got the Superman formula right," said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. "Superhero movies really are the bread and butter of the summer box office. The fact that 'Iron Man 3' has the biggest opening of the year so far and 'Man of Steel' has the second biggest opening of the year just proves that."
Read more: http://www.timesleader.com/news/local-news/605571/Man-of-Steel-takes-flight-with-$125M-debut


text:
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text:
I've been using Windows 8 off and on for the past few weeks and, while I agree with many of the sentiments expressed by folks like Chris Pirillo and our own MG Siegler, especially regarding the Surface RT, I still think Microsoft did a good (not excellent) job on Win8.
In the immortal words of losing Little League coaches everywhere, at least they tried and there's always next season. Windows 8 won't be universally hated, say, when it pops up on a few hundred thousand new laptops come the holidays and kids and parents start mousing around the new interface. In fact, given its unique nature, I think even Apple could learn a thing or two from Microsoft in this case. That said, we scrounged around for five things Apple could do to learn from Microsoft.
Try a little touch – I was writing on my Mac the other day and suddenly an autocorrect box popped up and stayed up a little to long. The suggested words appeared and the little X to close the window. My finger instinctively rose to tap it closed and, much to my chagrin, nothing happened.
Apple has ingrained the idea of touch as a viable interface yet refuses to add it to its own line of laptops and desktops. Arguably OS X is definitely not ready for a touch interface with its tiny buttons and menus, but fullscreen mode and Launchpad ostensibly point to a potential iOS-like interface. I think the desktop/window user experience is going to be difficult to tear away from the laptop or PC experience, but as Apple proved with iOS, users are more than happy to try a new paradigm. Microsoft tried constantly to make tablets work by throwing a stock Windows experience onto a slate. Now they have a chance.
Hide the file system – While arguably Windows 8 doesn't exactly hide the file system from prying eyes, in the Metro interface you are reminded that it exists far less than usual. While dumping into the desktop interface offers a jarring reminder that all your files are still there, the default Win 8 concept is of a machine that holds files with little input or mussing about by the user. This, in a way, is a good thing.
While we nerds love deep, branching file systems, the average user is mystified by them. Where do files go? Why did they end up in Documents and not Downloads? Instead of making a home directory, why not make a home space. Everything can pop up in there and a quick search reveals the files. Granted, Apple has done some of this in iCloud, but it's not quite there yet.
Better system-wide social – Granted neither company has quite implemented social quite that well just yet, but Microsoft's live tiles with flipping and flopping feed images and the interaction between social networks and contact lists is doing an interesting job of it. Simply Tweeting from the Services menu isn't exactly what many of us had in mind when we thought of true social interaction.
Smarter icons – If there's anything I like about Win 8 and Windows Phone, it's the concept of live tiles or, more precisely, live icons. OS X and iOS badges work and something can be said for the zen-like stasis of most previous-gen icons, but more information at a glance is becoming increasingly more important. Although we could argue about the potential distractions associated with messy live tiles all over the screen, I still think it's a sight better than that incessant bouncing or the tiny numbered badge that offers little in the way of informative content.
Shake things up – Here's the thing: at least Microsoft knows that the desktop model is stagnant. Touchscreens are a proven method for device interaction and they have tried, and failed, to bring Windows to slates. They know what works and what doesn't. Love them or hate them, Microsoft has a dog in the fight for the future OS design. Now everyone else will have to play catch-up.


text: Parental Guidance Comedy. Starring Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Marisa Tomei and Tom Everett Scott. Directed by Andy Fickman. (PG. 105 minutes.) "Parental Guidance" offers a very cranky worldview, suggesting that the current generation of parents isn't fit to raise a fern. A 5-year-old who never hears the word "no" becomes a one-person wrecking crew, ruining a kitchen, a symphony performance and the X Games in one 48-hour period. Bette Midler and Billy Crystal come to the rescue, trying to salvage both their movie grandchildren and this harmlessly mediocre cross-generational comedy. They have varying degrees of success with both jobs. The script offers no surprises - it's the kind of movie where the writers get out of a comedic jam by hitting Crystal in the testicles with a baseball bat, and putting Midler on a stripper pole. The setup is old school versus new school, with Artie and Diane Decker (Crystal and Midler) forced by a last-minute crisis to parachute in and raise their over-programmed grandchildren for a few days. A stressed-out music prodigy older daughter, stuttering middle son and red-haired hellion kindergartener offer a variety of obvious conflicts. The vibe reflects the latter third of John Hughes' career - where members of the chilly upper middle class learn life lessons from grittier forces. (Replace Crystal and Midler with Jonah Hill, and this would be an "Uncle Buck" remake.) From the moment the Deckers arrive, everything is presented in stereotype-perpetuating extremes. Grandpa wants to play kick the can. The kids think he should recycle it. The grandparents are aghast that a children's baseball game has unlimited strikes and no score. One of the funnier running jokes: The kids' dad started a company that has turned the entire house into a clone of Apple's Siri software. Perhaps anticipating an older audience, most of the lessons are one-sided, with the old-timers seemingly harming the children while actually saving them. How much does this movie skew toward Boomers? The late Giants announcer Russ Hodges figures prominently in the plot. If you're going to sneak a pastrami sandwich into one movie this Christmas, make it "Parental Guidance." All of the above puts Crystal and Midler in a comfortable place, rattling off greatest hits of their earlier cinematic successes. She gets to sing a couple of times. He talks about baseball, complains a little too much and makes fun of Twitter. The children's parents are secondary characters, with Marisa Tomei wasted in the trying-to-have-it-all maternal role. It's hard to watch this wonderful actress and scientific marvel - she's looked 33 years old since 1986 - strapped with recycled "Modern Family" subplots minus the sharp writing. Director Andy Fickman opts against subtlety at every turn. A score filled with heavy strings and the occasional ringing of chimes telegraphs all emotional cues, practically willing the water out of your tear ducts. The grandparents are feisty, but the language and themes never challenge the PG rating. (Midler remains very tastefully dressed on that stripper pole.) The result is the rare film that can be watched by three or four generations at once, with no one feeling particularly alienated. Two more compliments for the filmmakers, who have taken a little bit of an unfair beating in this review: 1. Huge credit for making the Fresno Grizzlies figure prominently into the plot. Take that, East Coast bias! 2. My generation may take issue with your parenting criticisms, but we thank you for bringing Gedde "Long Duk Dong" Watanabe back in a short but entertaining role. He's a close second to Tom Wopat in "Django Unchained" as the most welcome cameo in a 2012 Christmas release. Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle's pop culture critic. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub


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Testing a Circuit Breaker Panel for 240-Volt Electrical ServiceUpdated: Dec. 14, 2018
Before you add a 240-volt appliance, you need to make sure you've got what it takes
You might also like: TBD
What to look for in the breaker box
Unless your home is very old and has never had its electrical service updated, it has 240-volt service from the street and into the main electrical panel as well.
Nearly every main electrical panel has two 120-volt wires and one neutral wire running to it from the utility company. Each wire powers one "bus" (copper vertical leg) inside the main service panel. That's why you usually see two columns of breakers (or fuses) when you open your service panel door. The common 120-volt circuits that power everything from your lava lamp to your vacuum cleaner are powered from one of those two buses. The standard 15- or 20-amp circuit breakers work by clipping onto one of the buses. Then the circuit's hot (red or black) feed wire is clamped to the circuit breaker, while the neutral (white) wire and bare copper ground wire are clamped to the common neutral bar.
The way you get a 240-volt circuit is simple. A "double-pole" circuit breaker is clipped into both 120 buses at the same time, so the voltage to the circuit is doubled. That's why 240-volt circuits need two hot wires and a neutral to carry the electricity to the appliance, plus a ground wire.
Do you have enough amperage capacity in the service panel for a new 240-volt appliance?
Service panels are rated for the maximum amps they can provide. A 60-amp panel found in an older home, for example, can handle up to 60 amps of current to the house. The panel has to be large enough to handle the existing electrical demand of the house plus the new appliance without exceeding the panel's amperage rating. (A standard, no-frills electric range needs 40 amps.) Figuring this out is more complicated than simply calculating the total amperage of the circuit breakers already in the panel. The electrician you hire to install the new circuit will help you decide if the panel is up to the task. Most home electrical panels have plenty of power for extra appliances, but if you have to increase the capacity, there are solutions. Most likely, if you have enough circuit spaces, you'll have no problem adding the range circuit, especially if you don't have any 240-volt power-hungry appliances like air conditioners, electric water heaters or dryers.
Is there physical space in the service panel for another double-pole 240-volt breaker?
Last, there have to be two spaces left in the panel for two additional circuit breakers. If the available spaces aren't stacked directly above each other, existing breakers can be pulled and reinserted in new positions to provide that arrangement.
If you have an older panel that has fuses instead of breakers, or if the circuit breaker panel is already full, an electrician can add a subpanel to handle the extra 240-volt circuit. A subpanel is a mini electrical panel that is fed from the main panel to create spaces for more circuits. Adding a subpanel is relatively inexpensive, depending on how much work needs to be done and the condition of your service panel.
A subpanel probably isn't worth the investment if you have a fused panel. It would be better to have the main home electrical panel upgraded to a modern circuit breaker–based one with plenty of room for extra circuits. Putting in a larger panel with higher amperage capacity may be several times the cost of a subpanel. It also might entail improving the home's electrical system to bring it in line with local code requirements, a substantial additional expense.
Circuit Breaker Panel
A 120-volt circuit breaker occupies one slot on one of the two legs (buses). A 240-volt breaker occupies two adjoining slots on one bus, but draws power from both buses.
Panel cover removed for instruction only. Do not remove yours. Bare wires can easily shock and kill you. Hire a licensed electrician for work on the main panel.


text:
Today Abt is retired and lives in a suburb of Paris. He sat down with Bicycling's James Startt in February 2012 to discuss his long career and the many changes he has seen in the sport.
Bicycling: Is it true that for most of the 31 years you covered the Tour de France it was sort of a summer vacation from your "real job" as an editor at the International Herald Tribune?
Samuel Abt: Yes, for most years it was. For the first 10 years I was assigned to cover the Tour while working at the Herald Tribune, so it didn't come out of my own time. But then we got an editor who said, "If you want to do it, you've got to do it on your own time, but we'll pay you for the stories." So that's when it became a sort of summer vacation for me, and it stayed that way up until the end.
Bicycling: Your job at the Tribune was putting together page one of the paper.
Abt: That was one of my jobs. When I started I was sports editor for about three years. Then I was features editor, then deputy editor, where, yes, I'd often put together page one. But I only got into sports as a sort of sanctuary, to get away from a bad political situation in the newsroom for a while.
Bicycling: Was the Tour in some ways a sanctuary too?
Abt: I don't know if it was a sanctuary, but I liked doing it. I liked the Tour. It was something to do and there were almost no Americans doing it. You never saw another American journalist until Greg LeMond came along. But it wasn't a sanctuary; it was a job. I covered the Tour and other races. I also worked for The New York Times, but they were never interested in Paris-Roubaix or the Worlds, but the Herald Tribune was.
But you have to remember that back in the 1970s, the Tour de France was nothing in the United States. It just didn't mean much. There were no American riders; there were no Anglophone riders. I'll never forget when someone at The Times said, "We don't have many Belgians in our readership, so please never write another story about a rider whose name ends in 'ckx.'" And I said, "Well shit! That's Eddy Merckx, the greatest rider in the world!" And they said, "Well, it's just of no interest to us." So I wrote about Eddy Merckx anyway, and they came to their senses.
Greg LeMond changed it for Americans, obviously. Then Sports Illustrated decided that they had to pay some attention to the Tour, so they would send over some guys who just regarded it as a three-week vacation. They didn't even file every week, but would just do one wrap-up at the end of the race. I remember one guy who came over with his teenage son and immediately went down to Spain and spent three weeks on the beach and then came back. These were days when people wrote on paper, and when he came back he bought somebody's carbons so that he knew what had gone on!
And sometimes CBS would cover the race, but they were pathetic. They covered it in a totally half-ass way. They would cover it maybe twice a week, but they had no idea what was going on. I even remember one year when the Tour DuPont finished in Washington, D.C., and the Washington Post didn't even cover it. The editor basically didn't consider bicycle racing a sport.
So back then the Tour was an entirely different kind of race. But every year at the end of the Tour, The Times would send me about 10 letters from readers saying how much they appreciated my stories because they couldn't find coverage anywhere else. And this meant a lot to The Times, which liked international coverage.
Bicycling: By getting your stories about the Tour de France in The New York Times, you were a pioneer, the first to bring bicycle racing to the mainstream media in the U.S.
Abt: Well, they were neither enthusiastic nor unenthusiastic about it; they were indifferent. But over the years I had a lot of very understanding, very supportive editors. Until the end, that is, when we got some dumbo who was only interested in scandal. I won't use a name, but he was really unsupportive and stupid.
And this was during the Armstrong years. The Times became unhappy with me because I still insisted on covering the race rather than snooping around for scandal. At one point a whole lot of reporters showed up who were basically crime reporters. And my last few years doing it were pretty unhappy because I was getting all this pressure to dig up Lance Armstrong doping stories.
Bicycling: Well, there were a lot of doping scandals then.
Abt: Yeah, of course there were, and I covered the Festina Affair, for example. But I wasn't going to go snooping around under beds. I wasn't going to interview people looking for dirt, which at that time is what The New York Times wanted.
Bicycling: Going back to your first Tour, what originally piqued your interest?
Abt: Barbara, my wife at the time, was a big bike fan and she was always talking about seeing the Tour. I remember in 1976 she wanted to go see the finish of the Tour in Paris, and I was like, "Hmm. I'm going out with a friend to pick mushrooms." But when I became sports editor in 1977, I was just like, "You want to see the Tour? Let's go see the Tour!"
Bicycling: Sam, as long as I've known you, you've possessed a profound love for the sport. When did you fall in love with cycling?
Abt: The first time I saw it. That first day of the 1977 Tour was a time trial and I just thought, "God, this is gorgeous." Everything about it pleased me—the uniforms, the crowd excitement, the athletes. I remember how impressed I was when the race got to the mountains and I could interview a guy two minutes after he had just raced up Alpe d'Huez. You know, they really are tremendous athletes. You'd think that they'd be lying on the ground, gasping for breath. But no, they were articulate. So the first time I saw it I was just like, "Hey, this is terrific."
I'm a big fan of mainstream sports: baseball, football, and so forth. But in those days in France, you couldn't see them on TV or get them on shortwave. In those days there were no American troops in France so there was no Armed Forces Radio or anything, so you were limited in the sports that you could follow. As sports editor, I covered some sports that I had absolutely no interest in, you know, sports like skiing, boxing. But that was all there was and you had to do something in the paper. But the first day that I saw cycling—even though I didn't know anything about it—it was just fascinating.
Abt's last book, Up the Road, 2005. (Image courtesy of VeloPress)Bicycling: What was it like working on the Tour then? Today, it's a fine-tuned media circus, perhaps only second to the Olympics. But what was it like back in those days?
Abt: It was so primitive. The Tour de France in those days was the world's biggest and richest race, which is to say that all the other races were really small and impoverished. I read that Félix Lévitan, who joined the Tour in 1947 and was the managing director until 1987, said that for the first 30 years the Tour didn't make any money because the Tour didn't generate any money.
Lévitan was terrible about selling TV rights. He was just too old; he was sort of like me in the internet age. He didn't get it. I remember that he proudly told me that from 1977 to 1987 the Tour had made 3 million dollars total—in other words, 300,000 per year profit. So the Tour was pretty poor. In those days, the riders would stay in les foyers de jeunes travailleurs, or school dormitories, and more than once I stayed in one of those dormitories.
Back then, when the Tour came to Alpe d'Huez, the chapel on the Alpe would open its doors, and it had some bunk beds. But the Tour back then did nothing to help you. I remember the guy in charge of lodging was a real nasty guy and he was always like, "What! You want me to help you find a room?"
Back then, when the Tour came to town—after the race was over in the evening—they would put up a big bed sheet and show movies of previous stages. And they had a few entertainers, such as Yvette Horner, the accordion player. But in the '70s France was still a post-war country. Nobody had television! And television was primitive. Shows never started on time, and you'd always see stagehands scurrying around behind the set.
Bicycling: Today the Tour boasts thousands of journalists. What was the pressroom like back in the day?
Abt: Well, you couldn't even call it a pressroom! Back in the late '70s or early '80s, a lot of the pressrooms were simply cattle sheds. You'd be in some town that had a cattle market; it had a roof on it but no sidewalls. And they'd set up some benches and chairs. Some were so primitive that it was like there was just tin sheeting over your head, so when it got hot it was like being in a rotisserie. The heat would just come through.
And this was always especially true in Pau. It was just abominable. It smelled like a cattle market and you were roasting away in there. But then over the years it changed. It went from those conditions to a big sports center. It was a tremendous auditorium, very modern. And now look at it. It's in the casino! Back in the old days the casino was so exclusive that I don't think they would have allowed a journalist to enter.
Bicycling: This was before the computer age. How did you write and send your copy each day?
Abt: We wrote on our typewriters. There were a lot of people who worked as telegraphers for the PTT, the French post, telegraph, and telephone company. They would Teletype. So as soon as I'd finish a page, I'd rush off and give it to a telegrapher who would type it out and send it along. They didn't speak English at all, which made them very good because they just typed; they didn't get slowed down by the meaning in any way. They were remarkably accurate because they didn't have to think. That may be the key to success in France! The only problem was if you forgot something that should have been up high; you had to retype it all because there was no "insert" key.
Bicycling: You did 31 Tours. Is there one stage that stands out?
Abt: Yes: Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault into Alpe d'Huez in the 1986 Tour. That one stands out much more than the LeMond beating Fignon in the final time trial on the Champs-Elysées, but I will get to that.
I'd been in very close with LeMond during the race, and I talked with him every day. So I knew the turmoil and agony and everything, that is, the rivalry between him and Hinault. And so when you saw the two go across the line hand in hand—the idea of two rivals agreeing to work with each other for the common good—it just seemed like such a great moment in sports. It was such a beautiful moment. Of course it turned out to be less beautiful the next day because Hinault announced that the race wasn't over, saying, "What—me give up?"
Bicycling: So why does the Alpe d'Huez stage in 1986 surpass the final time trial on the Champs-Elysées in 1989, when LeMond ended up winning the Tour by eight seconds, the smallest margin ever in the race?
Abt: Well, I wasn't too thrilled about that stage for very selfish reasons, although that is No. 2. What happened was, I'd get home late Saturday evening from being on the road with the Tour, and then on Sunday morning I'd write my wrap-up story, just leaving some room for the blanks—you know, what the final time gap was and so forth.
That way, as soon as the stage was over you could give your story to the telegrapher and go home. And of course like everybody I wrote my story about Laurent Fignon winning the 1989 Tour de France: "Laurent Fignon withstood the challenge of Greg LeMond." And then, when Fignon came up the Champs-Elysées and started to make the turn and they announced that he'd lost, I heard myself saying, "Oh shit!" And I wasn't the only one in the pressroom to say that. We just assumed he was going to win and everybody wanted to get out of there!
Back then the press tent was on the Champs behind the finish line. And everybody just wanted to go home. And so you had to start all over again, obviously. I mean, it was a beautiful stage. I was very happy for LeMond. I was very happy for the sport. But it made a lot of extra work for me, whereas Alpe d'Huez made no extra work.
And there were obviously others. Over the years, I've just seen so many beautiful stages, stages that were pleasing aesthetically, sportingly. It didn't matter who won. Of course I always had a special place in my heart for any foreign rider who could win on Bastille Day and beat the French. I always loved when that happened, and I'd write the same story every time, just sort of gloating!
Bicycling: Which riders impressed you?
Abt: A lot of riders impressed me, but not many over a long period.
Indurain impressed me tremendously in his five-year reign. It was just never close. He was giving away victories in the mountains and would still win by nine minutes! LeMond of course impressed me, both in 1986 and then in his comeback in 1989. Armstrong impressed me very much in 1999, especially the way he started off in the prologue, just blasting them out of the water and then winning so many stages. And later too, he won some races pretty impressively, very impressively.
Sean Kelly was a guy I enjoyed watching very much, and Bernard Hinault, too, in some years. Laurent Fignon in 1984 was so dominant. And then there are the individual exploits. Certain stages where, if I hadn't seen it, I would have been poorer for having missed it.
Over the years, especially as you get older, you lose your short-term memory. And so much gets balanced out by the bad eggs—the Virenques, the Ullrichs, the Vandenbrouckes.
Bicycling: Do you still enjoy following cycling?
Abt: Not nearly as much. What I always said, and what I wrote more than once, was that if you really want to appreciate bicycle racing, you have to know the participants. It takes on a whole new profundity when you know the players, which you don't have to do in most sports.
But in bicycle racing there is a narrative line; it's not simply a sport. And in stage racing there is a developing line that gives it a richness that you don't get in other sports. In baseball, for example—and I love baseball—if I go to a game and don't know any players, I still enjoy watching it. But in cycling, if you don't follow it, it loses a lot of its interest to me.
Bicycling: Who in your eyes is the cyclist of this era?
Abt: Right now? I'd love to say Contador, because I don't see anybody else, although Contador is no longer of this era. But you know, a lot of bicycle racers have become something out of a RoboCop movie. I'm all for safety and have nothing against helmets, but I don't like sunglasses and I don't like radios. And when you put them all together, you can't see what the riders look like because, well, you don't know what they look like.
When I started covering the sport nobody wore a helmet, obviously. You didn't have all the people from Oakley all over giving everyone sunglasses and then everyone else following along. You didn't have the car radios. So it was very much more of an individual sport. And also you could talk to these guys—not just the journalists but the fans too. You used to see guys sitting on the hoods of their team cars, talking to fans. And you never see that anymore. The sport has become more and more remote.
Bicycling: Was it ever a burden to write for a general audience, as when you wrote for the Herald Tribune or The New York Times? Did you ever want to write for the specialist press to avoid having to define words like "peloton" or "UCI" for the thousandth time?
Abt: That's a good question. I never used the word "peloton." Lance Armstrong popularized it. I just called it "the pack." And I always wrote out "International Cycling Union" for "UCI" because I was a reporter and that's what reporters do. It was never a challenge to write for the general public, and I was always pleased when I would ask an editor if there was anything they didn't understand and they'd say no, because everything was clear.
And never once in my career have I written about gear ratios, because I felt that as soon as I did I'd lose my audience. I remember my mother, who was pretty much my biggest fan, would say, "Whenever I come across the word 'kilometer' in your story I stop reading."
Bicycling: What do you miss most about covering cycling?
Abt: The good times. The company. The life. You know as well as I do that it's fun to drive around the countryside and to see a gorgeous country like France, to try to eat at least one good meal a day, to drink some wine, and to have somebody else pick up the bill for you. All that helps. It was fascinating to do it. I even miss the work. I like writing. I like communicating.


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Happy Thanksgiving!9:25 PM
Check out my mom's sewing skills here.
12 comments
sooo cute! I love the photos (and all the work put into the outfits!) You are gorgeous!ReplyDelete
Jessica the pictures are lovely! I can't believe how much the children have grown since I started to follow your blog. Elaria went from being a Great Expectation to beautiful little girl, and big brother went from being a toddler to being a great kid who looks pretty independent these days!ReplyDelete
Thanks for sharing your pictures!
These pictures are great! I am so impressed you made everything! Makes them that much more special!ReplyDelete
Your family pictures are beautiful! I love all of your clothes. Good for you for making so much!ReplyDelete
Such wonderful photos! You never cease to amaze me. :)ReplyDelete
Your pictures turned out fantastic! You did a great job!ReplyDelete
Your photos are so lovely. I really like the colours you chose, and they seem to match the leaves in the background so well too!ReplyDelete
Love your photos!! My favorite is the one of you with with your children and you with your husband. She is really good and the background was so nice for pictures.ReplyDelete
OK, seriously? I mean, I read your blog everyday, and I have noticed all the clothing posts you've been doing... duh... BUT, making all your clothes for a family picture? Man, I want to be you when I grow up. Seriously. Even if you only did it this one time, these are pictures that your kids will show to their kids and grandkids and say, yeah, my mom was nuts and she decided to make all our clothes. But dad wouldn't wear the scarf :) I love these so so much. Amazing!ReplyDelete
Where did you get your daughter's yellow tights? We are taking family pics next month and one of our colors is yellow, but I've been having a hard time finding yellow for my 3 month old.ReplyDelete
the baby yellow tights were white cotton tights I dyed with Rit brand golden yellow dye!ReplyDelete
Your sewing skills are amazing! The pictures are wonderful. Keep up the good work :)ReplyDelete


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We've got the first clip from the upcoming animated sequel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2. Below, you'll find Batman taking on an entire army of police officers! The film will be available on DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD on January 29, 2013.
With Gotham City back under his watchful eye, and accompanied by able sidekick Robin, Batman continues to battle crime but his resurgence awakens a far worse evil at Arkham Asylum: The Joker. In the meantime, Superman has been dispatched by the President to halt Batmans unsanctioned reign by whatever means necessary. Between the Jokers diabolical scheme to drag Batman to the darkest levels of insanity, and the Man of Steels seemingly invincible physical presence, the Dark Knight must confront adversaries and allies simultaneously while maintaining the peace in Gotham City.
Primetime television stars Michael Emerson (Person of Interest, Lost) and Mark Valley (Human Target, Fringe) join the voice cast as The Joker and Superman, respectively; and popular talk show host Conan OBrien gives voice to animated talk show host Dave Endochrine. Fanboy favorite Peter Weller (RoboCop, Dexter) continues as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and he is once again accompanied by David Selby (The Social Network, Dark Shadows) as Commissioner Gordon, Ariel Winter (Modern Family) as Carrie/Robin, and Michael McKean (This is Spinal Tap) as Dr. Bartholomew Wolper. Also featured in the voice cast is Maria Canals-Barrrera (Wizards of Waverly Place) as new Commissioner Yindel, Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) as Lana Lang, and Radio Hall of Fame member Michael Jackson as Alfred.


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The Late Movies: Talking Heads
I worship David Byrne, the lanky Scot frontman of Talking Heads. He's a sort of lyrical god to me. If he told me to do something, you know what? I'd do it. So when I tried to think of a topic for my first Late Movies installment, I had to go Byrne. Here are some favorite tunes from Talking Heads, courtesy of YouTube. Get 'em now while they're extremely hot.
"This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)" - 1984
In this performance from Stop Making Sense, Byrne dances with a lamp. It's catchy and smart and just awesome. (Also notice right after the five-minute mark, he doesn't quite make it back to the mic in time; what's up with that?)
"Psycho Killer" - 1978
According to Wikipedia, Byrne has said of this song: "When I started writing this (I got help later), I imagined Alice Cooper doing a Randy Newman-type ballad. Both the Joker and Hannibal Lecter were much more fascinating than the good guys. Everybody sort of roots for the bad guys in movies." This live performance on The Old Grey Whistle Test (a BBC music show) dates from 1978.
"Take Me To The River" - 1980
Live in Rome, featuring Adrian Belew from King Crimson. Dude.
"Burning Down the House" - Circa 1983/1984
The provenance of this clip is unknown. According to Wikipedia:
Once the whole band had reworked the groove into something resembling the final recording, Byrne began chanting and singing nonsense syllables over the music until he had arrived at phrasing that fit with the rhythms-- a technique influenced by former Talking Heads producer Brian Eno-- "and then I [would] just write words to fit that phrasing... I'd have loads and loads of phrases collected that I thought thematically had something to do with one another, and I'd pick from those." [Byrne said.]
"Dream Operator" - 1986
So if you haven't seen Byrne's film True Stories, you're really missing out. It's weird, fun, and...well, weird again. Here's the infamous "fashion show" sequence from the movie:
Bonus Video: MGMT Performing "This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)"
Shot on April 20, 2003 at Wesleyan, this is one of the earliest public performances by MGMT. Watch as they have a good time with this Talking Heads number.


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Last year I didn't really have a proper Halloween. All of the oxygen was sucked out of that particular room by Milo Yiannopolous visiting Cal State Fullerton, which wound up being a massive, exhausting reporting project that I was the lead on.
Nobody around campus got to have a real Halloween that year. As great as it was getting lost in that world, it was a shame that I didn't get to dress up or do any of that fun, traditional spooky stuff.
As a result I'm a bit out-of-practice when it comes to doing things like pulling together costumes.
So when my friend Mimi invited me to come to a Halloween party tonight, I panicked over how to dress.
And by panicked I mean I got really busy with school and didn't bother pulling anything new together. Instead I just reused my costume from two years ago and came as the esteemed Willy Wonka.
Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka of course. I put this thing together two years ago after he passed away, and I'm impressed I still somewhat fit into the women's size pimp-purple coat that I dug out of a thrift store.
Guess there's something to this whole exercising regularly thing after all.
I'm kind of writing this in the corner of the party while waiting for my turn at Mario Kart, so I won't be too verbose. But I figure I should highlight some of the fun things here because it's a cool little shindig.
For instance, the aforementioned drunk Mario Kart.
I'm not personally drunk because I have a long drive home after this, but basically everyone else is fucked up on every kind of alcohol under the sun.
And we're playing Mario Kart.
For some reason a decision was made to start the game at the hardest difficulty while playing a Rainbow Road race.
First off, I have to say, it's incredible that that's the decision everyone collectively came to. But also it was just plain hilarious watching everyone struggle through it while inebriated.
(I personally got fourth place as my girl Rosalina while everyone else was 10-12, so I got to flex my sober video game muscles a little)
Jackbox came in later, but for me Mario Kart at a massive party full of people who aren't purely nerds was way more surprising.
Also on the list of party attractions was the food, of course. Mimi put together a lovely spread of chips, candy and cheeses for people to soak up that alcohol with.
Plus there were these lovely cupcakes:
Very Halloween-y.
Naturally the costumes are also very important to discuss. Someone is wearing a dragon made out of a cardboard box, and her boyfriend is dressed as Daenerys from Game of Thrones.
There are at least two one-pieces in the room, a cheetah and a Stormtrooper.
Two girls came dressed as an angel and a devil.
We've got Miguel from Coco, Lucas from Earthbound, a Slytherin student with the dark mark tattooed on…
It's a very interesting, eclectic mix that I don't exactly feel comfortable taking a larger photo of. So maybe check my social media stuff in case I like some pictures Mimi puts out or whatever.
Oh yeah, also there's a cat. A very sweet cat with big ol' eyes. Animals are always welcome at a party.
Even though I'm basically meeting everyone at this place tonight, I'd say it's been a great time! Certainly a wonderful distraction from my Mass Media Ethics assignment and preparing for class registration.
But that said, I'm going to get back to the festivities. I'd wish everyone a happy Halloween, but we're still a bit early for that.
So happy pre-Halloween?
Happy Saturday night?
I don't know, I'll figure it out later. It's party time right now.


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Instead of glasses, I wear contact lenses. This means throwing out scraps of plastic (as well as their packaging) every two weeks, in addition to using cleaning fluid (which comes in plastic containers) and plastic lens cases. How much better would it be for the planet if I switched to glasses?
Sure, there are going to be impacts associated with manufacturing contact lenses—for example, you need energy to run the factories (which will result in greenhouse gas emissions), and until soy-based contact lenses hit the market, you need petroleum to make the plastic. But the Lantern doesn't believe that contact lenses represent some kind of major, hidden environmental concern. However, as a lifelong four-eyes herself, she'll admit a certain curiosity about this question.
Let's start by estimating the amount of plastic that goes into a pair of contact lenses and a pair of eyeglasses. According to data collected in the early 2000s by Eurolens Research—an industry consulting group based at the University of Manchester—a single pair of soft contact lenses weighs about 25 milligrams after it's been dehydrated. Twenty-six pairs of your biweekly lenses, then, would produce about 0.65 grams of dried-out plastic. A year's worth of the Lantern's own daily disposables—that's 730 lenses total—would produce 9.125 grams of plastic—or a little less than would go into the production of two credit cards.
What about eyeglass lenses? The amount of material can vary, depending on the type of plastic used, the prescription, and the shape of the frame. But a reasonable estimate, according to the Minnesota-based manufacturer Vision-Ease Lens, might be 120 grams of plastic for a pair of blanks—little slabs that opticians can grind down into finished lenses—and 35 for lenses that come pre-finished from the manufacturer, and just need to be shaped to fit the frame. Consumers tend to buy new glasses every 2.2 years, but 35 grams of plastic is the equivalent of almost four years' worth of daily contacts, or more than 50 years' worth of biweeklies.
This calculation leaves out several important factors, though. As you note, contact lenses come with a lot of extra plastic paraphernalia, like bottles of solution, lens cases, and individual blister packs.Once you've accounted for all these, eyeglasses start looking much better. In a 2003 paper, the Eurolens researchers calculated how much waste contact lens wearers generate in a year. They looked at one brand of daily disposables, which don't require cleaning, and one brand of monthly disposables, which are cleaned and stored at night. A year's worth of daily lenses—360 pairs, in this study—produced 953 grams of plastic, between the lenses themselves and the blister packaging. Twelve pairs of monthlies, with 12 carrying cases and 12 bottles of cleaning solution, produced 549 grams. (The researchers also tallied the metal used to seal the blister packs and the paper used in the boxes and instructional leaflets.)
Eyeglasses do come with their own accoutrements, but these hardly make a difference in the overall calculation. At this online shop, the heaviest pair of eyeglasses—with lenses included—weighs about 0.07 pounds. At Amazon.com, cases seem to max out at around 0.25 pounds. Even if you threw in a stack of chamois cloths, it seems unlikely that a pair of glasses would create more than a pound or so of consumer waste. Plus, most contact lens wearers need a pair of glasses, too—meaning they will almost always produce more trash.
For all that, it's not worth getting worked up over the impacts of contact lenses. A year's supply of dailies produces a total of about 3 pounds of plastic, metal, and paper trash; monthlies, about 2.5 pounds. By comparison, the average American generates an annual total of more than 1,600 pounds of garbage (PDF). And according to Philip Morgan, one of the co-authors of the Eurolens paper, companies have been steadily reducing the amount of plastic used in their bottles and blister packs—perhaps by as much as 10 percent or 20 percent.
Of course, the picture would get far more complicated if we stepped back and looked at the entire life cycle of each option. The Lantern's been able to collect some scraps of data on the topic—for example, Bausch & Lomb told her that making one pair of soft contact lenses produces approximately 0.29 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent, and Vision-Ease has estimated that (in its Minnesota facility, at least) making a pair of eyeglass lenses produces 10.5 pounds of CO2-equivalent. If those numbers can be trusted, wearing daily disposables for a couple of years would contribute 22 times more greenhouse gas emissions than wearing a pair of glasses over that time. However, there are still frames and plastic bottles and cardboard boxes to consider, not to mention the production of all the raw materials.
Lacking a proper cradle-to-grave accounting, then, concentrate on reducing your vision-related waste. Cardboard boxes and paper leaflets can be recycled, and solution bottles may as well, depending on what kind of plastic they're made out of. Double-check with your local waste agency before you put lens cases in the recycling bin, however—like prescription medicine bottles, they may be too small to be accepted. Old eyeglasses can be donated via organizations like New Eyes for the Needy and Lions Clubs International, and you can send unopened, unexpired contact lenses to MADRE, an international women's human rights organization based in New York. (Your original prescriber may take them back, as well.)
Now, would LASIK surgery be greener than a lifetime's worth of eyeglasses? That's fodder for another column.
Is there an environmental quandary that's been keeping you up at night? Send it to firstname.lastname@example.com, and check this space every Tuesday.


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Rep. Todd Akin, the man nominated by Missouri Republicans two weeks ago to run for the U.S. Senate, has an interesting idea about the female reproductive system. Yesterday on KTVI-TV in St. Louis, Akin was asked whether abortion should be permitted in the case of a pregnancy caused by rape. He answered:
From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should be some punishment. But the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.
Denying rape survivors a right to abortion is hard to defend. Challenging whether reported rapes are "legitimate" is downright retro. And the suggestion that getting pregnant means you weren't really raped is so stupid and offensive it's almost unbelievable, even for a congressman. Within hours, Republicans recognized that Akin had created a huge, potentially fatal political problem with women.
Actually, the damage goes deeper. Abortion for rape victims isn't just a women's issue. It's a crime issue.
Rape has always played this role in the abortion debate. If you're a pro-choice candidate running against a pro-lifer, you can motivate your base by talking about women's rights. You can pick up some independents by arguing that the government shouldn't interfere in private decisions. But to cut into your opponent's support—to pry away voters who are socially conservative—you need a sharper angle. That angle is rape.
The logic is brutally simple. Rape victims didn't choose to have sex. This exempts them from the common conservative notion that women should live with the consequences of their choices. And this exemption, in turn, transforms the virgin/whore dichotomy into a weapon against pro-lifers. It also turns the culture of law and order against them. It puts them in the politically untenable (though morally consistent) position of defending the result of a violent crime. That's why Akin bought and peddled the idea that "legitimate" rape victims can shut down pregnancy. Pregnancy from rape violates his righteous understanding of nature.
Over the years, dozens of pro-choice politicians have exploited this angle. I'll quote just two of them. Here's President Clinton in 1995: "It's one thing to say that the taxpayers should not pay for a legal abortion that arises from a poor woman's own decision. That's one thing. Quite another to say the same rules apply to rape and incest." And here's Rep. Steny Hoyer (now the House Democratic whip) in 1989: "God was gracious. And Willie Horton did not impregnate that woman that he raped in Maryland. But if he had, colleagues, if he had, which one of us would have stood before her and said, 'Carry Willie Horton's baby to term'?"
Does abortion for rape victims really connect with law-and-order voters? To check the data, I went to the University of California's Survey Documentation and Analysis site, where you can run customized cross-tabulations using the multidecade General Social Survey. I started with the GSS rape question: "Please tell me whether or not you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion if she became pregnant as a result of rape." For comparison, I selected an identically phrased GSS question about a scenario in which "the family has a very low income and cannot afford any more children."
I found three GSS crime questions that, when cross-tabulated against the abortion queries, yielded samples large enough to analyze. One question asked whether we spend "too much, too little, or about the right amount" on "halting the rising crime rate." A second question asked whether courts "deal too harshly or not harshly enough with criminals." A third question asked whether you "favor or oppose the death penalty for persons convicted of murder."
On the issue of abortions for low-income families, respondents who said we spend too little money on crime control were no different from those who said we spend too much. Both groups opposed legal abortion in that scenario by 53 to 47 percent. When the scenario was changed to rape, the numbers shot upward. The group that wanted to spend less money on crime control endorsed legal abortion by a margin of 77 to 23 percent. But the group that wanted more money for crime control became even more supportive, endorsing legal abortion by 83 to 17 percent.
I wondered whether the money aspect was skewing the numbers. Maybe the group that wanted to spend more money on fighting crime included too many liberals. But the second question, which focused on harshness rather than money, yielded the same pattern. In the low-income scenario, liberal respondents—those who said courts deal too harshly with criminals—were more supportive of legal abortion than were respondents who said courts aren't harsh enough. The bleeding-heart group split 50-50, while the law-and-order group opposed legal abortion by 55 percent to 45 percent. But when the scenario switched to rape, the factions switched positions. Support for legal abortion rose to 81 percent in the law-and-order group, two points higher than in the bleeding-heart group.
Even the death-penalty crosstab showed a similar gap. Here, you'd expect an anti-abortion boost from pro-lifers who oppose all killing. Indeed, in the low-income scenario, death-penalty foes opposed legal abortion more than death-penalty supporters did, by about five points. But when the scenario changed to rape—a shift that's logically irrelevant from a purely pro-life point of view—the spread increased. While support for legal abortion jumped by 31 points among death-penalty opponents, it jumped by 36 points among death-penalty supporters.
I ran one more crosstab, this time against the main GSS question on premarital sex. The question asked: "If a man and woman have sex relations before marriage, do you think it is always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all?" As expected, respondents who opposed premarital sex also opposed abortion. But they were also more affected by the rape scenario. Among respondents who said premarital sex was "not wrong at all," support for legal abortion rose by 29 points when the scenario shifted from low-income women to rape. Among respondents who said premarital sex was "sometimes wrong," support for legal abortion rose by 34 points. But among respondents who said premarital sex was always or almost always wrong, support rose by 41 and 43 points, respectively.
That's the power of the rape scenario. It's a wedge into the Republican coalition, driven by themes of crime, justice, and sexual innocence. Akin's opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill, hammered those themes in her response to his gaffe: "As a former prosecutor, Claire McCaskill has worked closely with hundreds of rape victims and intimately understands their trauma and pain." She added: "The ideas that Todd Akin has expressed about the serious crime of rape and the impact on its victims are offensive." Meanwhile, Akin scrambled to reassert his law-and-order credentials: "Those who perpetrate these crimes are the lowest of the low in our society and their victims will have no stronger advocate in the Senate to help ensure they have the justice they deserve."
Poor Akin. Insulting women is bad enough. But when you also look soft on rape and hard on victims, it's time to shut the whole thing down.


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AT&T is now rolling out support for FaceTime over cellular networks to more of its customers, as the carrier announced last week, but there may be a twist. While AT&T said it would only extend the video-conferencing feature to LTE-enabled devices on tiered data plans, reports from several sources suggest that customers previously thought ineligible may also be able to join the party.
MacRumors was among the first to report that even customers with grandfathered-in unlimited data plans may be getting access to FaceTime over cellular. However, as the rollout is gradual—AT&T estimated it would take between eight and ten weeks to reach all customers—it's difficult to establish whether or not this is a case of quiet generosity on AT&T's part, an inadvertent error, or simply inaccurate information.
These newly eligible users would join customers of AT&T's Mobile Share plans, who the carrier said in August would be granted access to the feature when it arrived as part of iOS 6.
Macworld has reached out to AT&T to determine whether the carrier has expanded its pool of eligible customers; the carrier says it's investigating Wednesday's reports.
Responses from users we queried on Twitter were mixed, with some saying that their phones had gotten access to FaceTime over cellular on unlimited plans, and others saying the feature was not available to them.
On our own iPhones—both of which are on tiered plans—we found that the Settings preferences for allowing FaceTime over cellular were only partially enabled after a reboot on Wednesday morning. There are two places in the Settings app to check the status of FaceTime over cellular: Settings > FaceTime > Use Cellular Data and Settings > General > Cellular > FaceTime; only the former automatically slid to On after we rebooted our phones.
But, when we attempted to enable the latter option, or place a FaceTime call over cellular, an error message stated that "FaceTime requires an active Wi-Fi connection or an eligible cellular data plan," along with instructions for contacting AT&T to add such a plan. We heard similar responses from some of our colleagues.
It's entirely possible that we're dreadfully unlucky, or that AT&T's slow and unexpectedly broad FaceTime over cellular rollout hasn't reached our respective areas yet. It's also possible that the reports suggesting FaceTime over cellular works even on those grandfathered, unlimited plans are in fact mistaken—either about the option working, which cellular plan they have, or other important details.
We'll update this story with further details from AT&T when and if they become available.


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BarBug! shows you how to make a BARTON SPECIAL (1) Mixed Drink.
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Look for rare game jersey cards and Game Dated Moments cards!!! Key Rookies: Patrik Elias
24 packs per box, 12 cards per pack
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Confession time. There are a few Christmas songs I don't particularly care for. Take Carol of The Bells, for instance, which usually scrapes along the edge of my nerves like a dull razor. The song is merciless for any singer with articulation problems, or any listener who prefers their music to stay on pitch. And, don't even get me started with all of the painful High School Choir concert renditions I've been forced to sit through…"ding, dong, dinng, doonnnnng"…But, I digress. Enter cellist extraordinaire Steven Sharp Nelson and the magic elves with The irresistible Piano Guys (all classically trained Mormon musicians). They have just redeemed this poor carol from its drudgery status and demonstrated to the world how truly brilliant it can be! I'm sharing their festive new video to help you "throw cares away", or, at least pause and put your feet up for a couple of minutes during your frantic last-minute holiday rush and enjoy the joyful spirit of the season!
And, if you are still looking for a unique gift idea, you might want to check out the "founders" program over at the Piano Guys official website. Pretty cool.


text: Make your passion for the Hurricanes pop out with this Officially Licensed 3' x 5' blue Tulsa flag! This flag is made of nylon and measures 3 feet by 5 feet wide, and the logo is hand sewn onto both sides with the back side being a reverse image. The quadruple-parameter stitching along the edge gives it more durability and extra security so that the flag won't come undone, while the 2 metal grommets allow for easy attachment to your flagpole if you choose to hang it outside. This flag is a great choice for you Hurricane fans wanting a better quality, hand-sewn, American-made flag.


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|Jun 13, 2012
New energy source for future medical implants: sugar
|(Nanowerk News) MIT engineers have developed a fuel cell that runs on the same sugar that powers human cells: glucose. This glucose fuel cell could be used to drive highly efficient brain implants of the future, which could help paralyzed patients move their arms and legs again.
|The fuel cell, described in the June 12 edition of the journal PLoS ONE ("A Glucose Fuel Cell for Implantable Brain–Machine Interfaces"), strips electrons from glucose molecules to create a small electric current. The researchers, led by Rahul Sarpeshkar, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, fabricated the fuel cell on a silicon chip, allowing it to be integrated with other circuits that would be needed for a brain implant.
|This silicon wafer consists of glucose fuel cells of varying sizes; the largest is 64 by 64 mm. (Image: Sarpeshkar Lab)
|The idea of a glucose fuel cell is not new: In the 1970s, scientists showed they could power a pacemaker with a glucose fuel cell, but the idea was abandoned in favor of lithium-ion batteries, which could provide significantly more power per unit area than glucose fuel cells. These glucose fuel cells also utilized enzymes that proved to be impractical for long-term implantation in the body, since they eventually ceased to function efficiently.
|The new twist to the MIT fuel cell described in PLoS ONE is that it is fabricated from silicon, using the same technology used to make semiconductor electronic chips. The fuel cell has no biological components: It consists of a platinum catalyst that strips electrons from glucose, mimicking the activity of cellular enzymes that break down glucose to generate ATP, the cell's energy currency. (Platinum has a proven record of long-term biocompatibility within the body.) So far, the fuel cell can generate up to hundreds of microwatts — enough to power an ultra-low-power and clinically useful neural implant.
|"It will be a few more years into the future before you see people with spinal-cord injuries receive such implantable systems in the context of standard medical care, but those are the sorts of devices you could envision powering from a glucose-based fuel cell," says Benjamin Rapoport, a former graduate student in the Sarpeshkar lab and the first author on the new MIT study.
|Rapoport calculated that in theory, the glucose fuel cell could get all the sugar it needs from the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that bathes the brain and protects it from banging into the skull. There are very few cells in the CSF, so it's highly unlikely that an implant located there would provoke an immune response. There is also significant glucose in the CSF, which does not generally get used by the body. Since only a small fraction of the available power is utilized by the glucose fuel cell, the impact on the brain's function would likely be small.
|Karim Oweiss, an associate professor of electrical engineering, computer science and neuroscience at Michigan State University, says the work is a good step toward developing implantable medical devices that don't require external power sources.
|"It's a proof of concept that they can generate enough power to meet the requirements," says Oweiss, adding that the next step will be to demonstrate that it can work in a living animal.
|A team of researchers at Brown University, Massachusetts General Hospital and other institutions recently demonstrated that paralyzed patients could use a brain-machine interface to move a robotic arm; those implants have to be plugged into a wall outlet.
|Mimicking biology with microelectronics
|Sarpeshkar's group is a leader in the field of ultra-low-power electronics, having pioneered such designs for cochlear implants and brain implants. "The glucose fuel cell, when combined with such ultra-low-power electronics, can enable brain implants or other implants to be completely self-powered," says Sarpeshkar, author of the book "Ultra Low Power Bioelectronics." This book discusses how the combination of ultra-low-power and energy-harvesting design can enable self-powered devices for medical, bio-inspired and portable applications.
|Sarpeshkar's group has worked on all aspects of implantable brain-machine interfaces and neural prosthetics, including recording from nerves, stimulating nerves, decoding nerve signals and communicating wirelessly with implants. One such neural prosthetic is designed to record electrical activity from hundreds of neurons in the brain's motor cortex, which is responsible for controlling movement. That data is amplified and converted into a digital signal so that computers — or in the Sarpeshkar team's work, brain-implanted microchips — can analyze it and determine which patterns of brain activity produce movement.
|The fabrication of the glucose fuel cell was done in collaboration with Jakub Kedzierski at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. "This collaboration with Lincoln Lab helped make a long-term goal of mine — to create glucose-powered bioelectronics — a reality," Sarpeshkar says. Although he has just begun working on bringing ultra-low-power and medical technology to market, he cautions that glucose-powered implantable medical devices are still many years away.
|Source: By Anne Trafton, MIT
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Welcome to the ocho
To coincide with the first day of MIX08, the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 has been released. The big feature is, of course, better standards compliance, and to this IE8 adds a few small bells and whistles. This release is aimed squarely at developers so that they can get a head start on preparing their pages for the new browser; a later beta will be more suitable for a wide audience.
IE8's address bar
The look of the browser will be familiar to anyone who has been using IE7, with some small changes to the links bar. The links bar has been rechristened the "favorites bar." When enabled, the bookmark and history buttons migrate off the main toolbar onto the favorites bar. Beyond that, the appearance is similar to its predecessor; the menu bar is still spurious and unnecessary, with its features being found on the toolbars and context menus elsewhere in the application. The address bar also appears slightly different; it slightly emphasizes the last two parts of the domain name of the web site being visited. I suspect this is some kind of anti-phishing measure to mitigate against deceptive domain names.
Acid2 and standards support
The biggest question about IE8 is undoubtedly "How compliant is it?" I'm pleased to see that the answer is, "A lot better than IE7." The Acid2 test, a widely-used benchmark for evaluating CSS 2 compliance, renders correctly. This is a significant landmark, and when compared to IE7's attempt, we can see that the browser has really come a long way.
IE8 passes the Acid2 test...
... unlike IE7
Microsoft has also developed a suite of CSS 2.1 test cases, which make it easier to test specific features and see which bits are surpported and which bits still aren't; this shows the company is taking these standards much more seriously, and is very good to see.
It's not all good news. IE8 still doesn't understand the "application/xhtml+xml" MIME type, which is how XHTML web pages arguably ought to be served. If offered such a page, IE8 prompts you to save it somewhere, as with its predecessor. There still isn't any SVG support, either.
In my brief usage so far, pages that trigger standards mode generally look OK, but not perfect. The screenshot of the Ars front page at the beginning shows the rounded corner images are slightly wrong; not visible in the screenshot is the fact that I can't click in the Search box, nor any of the links adjacent to it (though I can tab to them). Something appears to be trapping the clicks. This experience seems to be quite representative of the overall experience with IE8; pages look mostly okay, but small bits and pieces are not quite right. Whether this is because of bugs in IE8 or web pages making inappropriate assumptions about IE (trying to use hacks that are needed for IE7 but not standards mode, for example) is something that the developers will have to figure out.
It might just be an unfortunate property of the sites I've visited, but standards mode is also considerably slower than IE7 mode. Sites that load in a few seconds in IE7 will peg the processor for several tens of seconds in IE8. Also, selecting data with the mouse looks to be haphazard at best; standards mode seems to have a tendency towards selecting just about everything on the page except the thing I actually have some interest in, and the spacing between lines of selected text occasionally tightens up.


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Updated 7:30 a.m. ET, 5/28/2014
(CNN) – They've been few and far between this primary season, but the tea party racked up some high-profile victories on Tuesday in runoff elections in Texas.
And among those doing down to defeat was the oldest member of Congress.
[twitter-follow screen_name='politicalticker'][twitter-follow screen_name='psteinhausercnn']
The grassroots conservative movement scored one of its biggest wins in the last election cycle in Texas, when the candidate it was backing in the Senate GOP runoff, Ted Cruz, defeated Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.
Tea party beats Dewhurst again
Thanks in part to support from now-Sen. Cruz, the tea party remains alive and well in the Lone Star State, and two years later, Dewhurst was defeated again, this time by state Sen. Dan Patrick.
Patrick, a conservative talk radio host and former Houston sportscaster and bar owner, bested Dewhurst in the runoff for lieutenant governor, winning by nearly a two-to-one margin.
Complete coverage of the 2014 midterm elections
Patrick was considered the favorite going into the runoff. In the March primary, Patrick brought in 41% of the vote, 13 percentage points ahead of Dewhurst, who poured in millions of his own money into the campaign.
Patrick, who helped found the tea party caucus in the Texas legislature, has appealed to conservatives in part with his hardline stance on illegal immigration.
Patrick will go on to face Democratic nominee Leticia Van de Putte in November. She's a long time state lawmaker and practicing pharmacist.
Paxton bests Branch for attorney general
In another statewide race, Texas state Sen. Ken Paxton easily beat veteran state Rep. Dan Branch in the GOP primary for attorney general, CNN projects.
Paxton, who was praised by Cruz, hopes to succeed Greg Abbott, the party's nominee for governor.
"Texas remains a red state with Mitt Romney winning by double digits in 2012. What Ted Cruz proved is that if you run a strong enough race, you can win statewide as a grassroots conservative, even when you are outspent," said Texas-based Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak, who runs the political blog MustReadTexas.com.
Mackowiak, also a consultant for former U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe, noted the net result of this year's elections is that Texas "will be more conservative in the State House and Senate and among statewide elected officials."
Hall loses to Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe narrowly defeated Rep. Ralph Hall, the oldest elected official in Washington, in a runoff battle for the GOP nomination for the state's 4th Congerssional District, which is located in the northeast part of the state.
The 91-year-old Hall becomes the first incumbent member of Congress to go down in defeat this primary season. Hall was first elected to the House in 1980 and was vying for an 18th term.
With Hall's defeat, and with longtime Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan retiring, Congress is losing its last two veterans of World War II.
The 48-year-old Ratcliffe, running as an anti-establishment candidate, called for "new leadership" and has promised to leave office after eight years. He had the backing of some powerful national conservative groups like Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund.
In the March primary, Hall captured 45% of the vote – not enough to stave off a runoff against Ratcliffe, the second place finisher at 28%.
CNN: Key races to watch in 2014
Alameel to face Cornyn
There was one Democratic runoff that grabbed some national attention.
Dallas dental mogul David Alameel easily won the Democratic Senate showdown.
He crushed Kesha Rogers – who's called for President Barack Obama's impeachment and is a supporter of gadfly extremist and perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche.
Alameel now faces an uphill battle against incumbent John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, considered the overwhelming favorite, in the general election.
Cornyn's campaign immediately released a statement slamming Alameel ahead of November's general election.
Alameel, the Republican incumbent's campaign said, is too liberal for Texas.
"And no matter how many big checks David Alameel writes to his own campaign, this seat belongs to the people of Texas and this election will not be bought.
CNN's Dana Davidsen contributed to this report.
-many stalwarts go to dogs in Republican Party of no, this Teatrolls....karma. Drive these drivel out.
It may be a good day for the TEA Party in Texas- but then again, consider the location, and their Governor.
Taxed Enough Already [not a] Party is a fictional DNC "boogieman" invented, with help of compliant media, to have someone to blame for their failure to deliver on a massive number of promises. Reality is the so-called TEA Party is the vast majority of independents and libertarians, mostly unaffiliated with a party, but unified by disappointment at the arrogant way politicians ignore their promises and abuse their authority. ...quit pretending LIFE is a game! We need no uniforms to vote our will!
91..yea must be trying to pass conyers or dingel...
Well, Wouldn't ya know it,
Texas saw the light! They also used to be solidly democrat. A Congressman, a good democrat got elected and went to Washington. In no time flat the liberals in Washington started telling him how he would vote. he didn't like it, resigned, went back to Texas, ran as a GASP!, Republican, and came back! Hey, I hear Toyota is moving it's Headquarters from California to Texas! Maybe they saw the light also? Tsk, Tsk.
Now that they have been CRUSHED by Turtle McConnell, can't wait to see Thom Tillis,Sheldon Adelson,Rupert Mourdoch,Rove,Grover Norquist and the GOP stuff Jeb Bush down the tea party's throats EXACTLY like they stuffed Romney down.
But but but what about blah blah blah year of the establishment yammer yammer?
The tea bags embrace Ted Cruz, who cannot be POTUS since he was born in Canada of an American mother and Cuban father, meaning he is a naturalized American citizen (if he's bothered to file the paperwork yet) and not a natural-born citizen as required by the C O N S T I T U T I O N.
Here's a thought: If Ted Cruz's naturalization papers were finalized while Hillary Clinton was still Secretary of State, then Ted's naturalization papers would carry her signature (I know, because my naturalization papers have Henry Kissinger's).
Show us your paperwork, Ted!!
Why are backward folks still voting tea partiers into congress when they know they refuse to govern. our country us going backward, while china economic and armed forces pass us by. These repubs slashed tea partiers have done reprehnsable harm to this country with their obstructIonary policies. Have someone compared our crubling down infrastructure to China's lately. Please don't because it would be too embarrassing
Any thing to stop the dem handouts to the PPL that would rather put out .
"Tuesday's results will likely deliver strong grassroots conservatives "
Yeah. They get any more "grassroots" they'll have permanent Koch Brothers stains on their knee breeches.
Dewhurst killed a bill that would have kicked the TSA out of Texas airports for good and had unanimous support from both parties. google it if you want. I used to like this guy, but he clearly lost his way


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I wanted to add some Eco-friendly eating products to my Eating Healthy Week because to me- that's just as important. When I think about napkins and paper towels, my first thought is convenience. I'm guilty of being a paper towel user. But after reading how paper towels and napkins get so white and that if every household in the US switched 1 roll of virgin fiber paper towels to recycled or reusable- 1.4 million trees would be saved, I've changed my mind.
Napkins and paper towels get their bright white color through a chlorine bleaching process. The bleaching process releases chemical dioxins and furans which end up in our air and water supply. I couldn't find any studies about the chemicals being released in the napkin or paper towel themselves, but it wouldn't surprise me. If you do continue using paper towels and napkins, look for 100% recycled or a label that says, "chlorine bleach free." Or you can do what we are doing and buy organic cotton/bamboo reusable napkins. There is a debate about the energy used in washing reusable napkins, dish towels and such. But if you add them to your usual laundry load and have an energy saving washer and dryer you are helping the environment rather than harming it.
I found an awesome company called FabiKins that makes organic cotton and bamboo blend of napkins for every age and occasion. They can even personalize them!! Geraldine Anders, the maker of FabKins, wanted to reduce her family's trash contribution to landfills and teach her children about reducing and reusing. The smallest things have a great impact on the environment! The idea for FabiKins came from Geraldine's husband's family since they used color coded napkins for each family member. Geraldine wanted to create a napkin that used Eco-friendly fabrics since they are better for the earth and your family. The mission of FabiKins is to reduce waste, save trees, teach environmental awareness through actions, and to help the planet. They only use Oeko-Tex 100 certified organic cotton and bamboo in their napkins.
FabiKins sent Ella a personalized ballerina napkin along with a 17X17 napkin that can be used as a dish towel. I was amazed at how soft they are! They almost feel like a terry cloth, but smoother. I like how you can wet the napkin and get off yucky food stuck to your child's face. Ella loves her yogurt, and is quite messy while eating it. The napkin worked well and it was easy to wash the blueberry powder off. What I really love is that the napkin is made with bamboo, which has natural antibacterial properties. So it's OK to reuse your napkin a few times before needing a good wash since the bamboo's natural properties will destroy or suppress the growth of the nasty bacteria. You should still make sure you wash off all of the food before laying out to dry for the next use. The 17X17 is perfect for wiping spills on the counter, dry dishes, and use for cleaning.
FabiKins has many adorable monograms you can choose from to personalize your FabiKin or you can choose from their pre-made selections. They carry napkins for events, weddings and even the holidays. Their baby Bamboo Bunny Washcloths and Burpees are really cute! FabiKins also carries a variety of bamboo eating utensils, placemats, organic cotton napkins and more.
The Giveaway: FabiKins would like to give 1 lucky winner a Earth Friendly Symbol Organic Cotton Jersey Drawstring Tote with 2 lunch sized FabiKins. Great for taking on the go!
Rules: You have until 11:59 p.m. EST November 6, 2009 to enter. The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced after they respond to the winning email. The winner has 48 hours to respond to the winning email, or a new winner will be chosen. You must leave your email address! This contest is only open to the US
EXTRA entries: You must complete the "How To Enter" before making any extra entries. Make sure you leave a comment for each extra entry and tell me which one.
2. Become a fan of Mkokopelli on FB, Mkokopelli on Twitter, or Follow my blog
3. Subscribe to my blog by email (on the right sidebar) You must verify and be active at the time of the giveaway- those who are unverified will become disqualified4. Blog, Tweet or send a message on FB and leave a link here (3 extra entries)
5. Enter another giveaway I have going on and tell me which one or leave a comment on a non-giveaway post (1 extra entry total)
6. Follow FabiKins on Twitter
7. Tell me a company FabiKins supports
8. Grab my Eating Healthy Week Button and post on your blog or FB page
*New Disclaimer- I was sent 2 FabiKins to review for free. This in no way changes how I feel about the company or products. These are my results, thoughts and opinions.


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A US plan to send humans to explore an asteroid is losing momentum.
Once again, NASA's human space-flight programme is looking for a destination. It happened in the early 1970s, after US astronauts had left the Moon for the last time; then in the 1990s, after the collapse of a costly vision of sending astronauts to Mars; and again in 2010, when US President Barack Obama abandoned a plan to return humans to the Moon because he did not consider it ambitious enough. He suggested visiting a near-Earth asteroid instead, but a report released on 5 December by the National Academies says that this plan, too, has misfired.
"There is no broad acceptance of the asteroid as the next principal destination for space flight, despite the fact that the president has indeed said so several times," says Albert Carnesale, chairman of the committee behind the report and a former chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles. For its part, NASA — whether through inertia or out of practicality — seems unwilling to shift the focus of its human space-flight efforts away from the Moon.
Part of the tug of war over destinations is political. The administration's choice of an asteroid is a volte-face from the 'Moon-first' doctrine espoused during the presidency of George W. Bush. By many accounts, Obama had not garnered much support for the new policy before springing it on NASA and Congress nearly three years ago. NASA's administrator, Charles Bolden, has been left to negotiate the rocky ground between a suspicious Congress and an administration that has largely neglected the space agency. Some say that Bolden — who was not the administration's first choice when he was appointed in 2009 — may face replacement as Obama heads into his second term. "It's not a happy situation," says a senior astrophysicist. "Names are being discussed."
Politics aside, the asteroid proposal remains short on details and long on technical challenges, including the problem of which asteroid to visit. Few asteroids would be close enough in the mid-2020s for a crew to reach them within a year-long round trip, the longest that many experts think practical, and NASA has not yet made a serious effort to prioritize possible targets. If the administration is serious about a rendezvous with an asteroid, Carnesale says, then "which asteroid do you have in mind, and when?".
Even if one is selected, some scientists are worried about the hazards of approaching an object that may be no more than a loosely bound pile of rubble — that could also be spinning dangerously fast. And how would astronauts anchor themselves to the potentially friable surface without kicking up dust? asks Stephen Mackwell, director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. "We have problems enough at the Moon with dust."
Then there is the problem of just getting there. NASA is increasingly concerned about the radiation exposure and bone loss that astronauts might face during a long voyage outside Earth's protective magnetosphere. "You get a bad solar storm and you're toast," says Mackwell.
Meanwhile, Carnesale notes that private companies and other nations are mobilizing to visit the Moon. And NASA itself has not written off the Moon either. On 28 November, William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's human-exploration division, presented plans to test the agency's next generation of heavy-lift rockets with trips to the vicinity of the Moon in 2017 and 2021. Although those missions could be seen as stepping stones to a later asteroid mission, many lunar scientists view the region as a destination in its own right (see 'Moonstruck').
But Mark Sykes, president of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and chair of NASA's Small Bodies Assessment Group, remains a big fan of asteroids. He notes that human explorers could search for resources such as water. Scientists could seek to understand the subtle pressure of light that causes asteroids to change their spin, and could retrieve samples for dating and chemical analysis that would offer a clearer picture of Solar System material than do meteorites, which, although they are pieces of asteroids, are altered during their fall through Earth's atmosphere.
But all this could be done more cheaply with a robotic mission, says Sykes. Without a sustained drive towards something bigger — such as a human presence on Mars — even Sykes isn't terribly excited. "You go to an asteroid, then what?" he says. "If it's all performance art, that's not much of a mission."
Related links
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NASA human space-flight programme lost in transition 2011-Apr-05
Obama outlines vision for space 2010-Apr-16
Presidential panel narrows NASA's options 2009-Aug-06
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NASA's Strategic Direction and the Need for a National Consensus
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Hand, E. Duelling visions stall NASA. Nature 492, 161–162 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/492161a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/492161a


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Going to college in NYC is a lot different than attending a
in a college town, especially when it comes to what we do in our off time! Since there aren't college football games and parties (at least not at FIT!), us college kids have to find other ways to spend our time. Thankfully there is always something to do in the city!
A few of my favorite things to do in my free time include:
- Going to museum. New York has a ton of museums and many are free, or at least cheaper, for college students! I love
spending a lazy Sunday walking around the Met with friends.
- Going out with my
friends after work. I spend a lot of time working at Guess when I'm not in
class and tend to work pretty late. To relax after we're off, my coworkers
and I like to go out and grab some ice cream, see a movie, or go ice-skating!
Everything here stays open super late, so even if we work until 10:45 there are
still plenty of fun things to do.
- Discovering delicious
restaurants. I consider myself a total foodie and NYC is definitely not
lacking in restaurants. Whenever our budgets can allow it (ok, even when they
can't... oops!) my friends and I love to go out and try a new restaurant.
Sometimes I get really jealous of everyone who is off at
universities going to football games and frat parties, but the great thing
about New York City is that, no matter what time it is, there's always
something going on!


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All ransomware is not created equal and therefore should not be universally feared, a researcher will tell the Black Hat 2015 conference this week.
In fact, some ransomware – which locks up infected computers until a demanded sum is paid – makes false claims about the damage it is capable of doing, and some of the data it purports to seize can be recovered, says Engin Kirda, the cofounder and chief architect at Lastline Labs.
+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Read all the stories out of Black Hat +
For example, certain families of ransomware threaten to delete files, but the method they use to do so doesn't securely wipe them from the disk, he says, and as a result, "there is a good chance that the deleted files can be recovered."
Some ransomware – notably Cryptolocker and Cryptowall – do a good job of encrypting data until victims pay to get it decrypted, he says. "However, many other ransomware families also exist that do a bad job in cryptography," he says in a white paper he'll release at the conference.
He found a variant of Gpcode ransomware that used a static key that can be recovered by comparing the encrypted files to the originals and unlocking the encryption. Similarly, TeslaCrypt said it was using asymmetric RSA 2048 encryption, but it wasn't. Instead it used symmetric AES encryption, and that has been successfully broken, he says. "Don't assume ransomware means everything is gone forever," he says.
In a corporate environment a good way to stop ransomware is to catch it at a security gateway before it has the chance to infect endpoints, Kirda says. That can be done because the malware has to perform certain detectable functions in order to do its damage. It has to repeatedly work on files in different drives and directories, something that can be readily detected when a ransomware sample is being analyzed. And ransomware announces itself to the victim in order to demand payment. That, too, is a feature that is apparent under analysis, he says.
He looked at 1,359 active ransomware samples that were observed in the wild between 2006 and 2014. Of those, 61% only targeted the desktop of victim machines, not any documents in the file system. They used a mix of custom and standardized encryption systems, such as CryptoAPI in Windows systems. "After all these libraries are widely available, and they are easy to use," he says.