The ugly baby reared by the words hungry and angry, "hangry" is an unpleasant state to be in. Yet, when the clock rolls around to about 3 p.m., there it goes, doing its thing, making us miserable. That afternoon slump is caused by the body's natural circadian rhythm (which regulates sleep), plus not getting enough sleep in the first place makes it even worse, according to Refinery29. Add on the stress from work and it may actually be time to fuel up.

Processed snacks tend to be unhealthy and can contain excess sugar, fat or starch. This can lead to weight gain, increase risks for heart disease and cause tooth decay, Meg Campbell wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Instead, reach for snacks with high levels of protein, which stay in the stomach longer and slow down the body's release of carbs and fat — basically it keeps you full for an extended period of time. The best sources of protein are fish, poultry, eggs, beans, dairy and nuts, according to Harvard University.

Below are seven high protein snacks that'll power you through the rest of the day.

The old childhood standby makes a good adult snack too, according to Greatist. Just smear about two tablespoons of your choice of nut butter onto celery and top with raisins.

This convenient gluten-free snack consists of wrapping up sliced cheese in sliced deli meat. Add hummus, sliced tomatoes or mustard, too.

This snack, whether it's beef or turkey, is high in both protein and chewiness. As a bonus, it comes in almost every flavor imaginable. You can even make your own.

Not only is it super portable but string cheese offers around six to nine grams of protein.

Popcorn is a low calorie, whole grain snack — as long as it's not dripping in butter and salt. Although it's light, popcorn actually has fiber too. Sprinkle it with nutritional yeast to up the protein, according to Food & Wine.

Season with chili powder, fresh herbs and olive oil and salt, and toss them in the oven to roast for a crunchy snack. Chickpeas can be used for more than just hummus. Find the recipe here.

Cottage cheese has a little more protein than its friend, Greek yogurt, according to EatingWell. One cup of cottage cheese has 24 grams of protein.

See images of more healthy snacks:

7 high protein snacks that will keep you full through the afternoon struggle

Summary: Rach for snacks with high levels of protein, which stay in the stomach longer and slow down the body's release of carbs and fat.


Well played, Mike Tyson. Well played.

The boxing legend tweeted one of the more unusual tributes to Prince, who died Thursday at age 57, by presenting an amusing and not a little disturbing glimpse of what might have resulted if he and the "Purple Rain" musician had conceived a love child.

"#supertribute to #Prince #RIP Like the world I mourn but celebrate your spirit with your music," Tyson wrote Thursday night.

Also Read: Prince's Death: Everything We Know, So Far (Photos)

And then it got weird.

See other stars' reactions to Prince's death:

Mike Tyson's bizarre Prince tribute: RIP meets WTF (Photo)

And just like that...the world lost a lot of magic ✨ Rest in peace Prince! Thanks for giving us so much...

I'm Crushed!! UK news reporting Prince Is Dead?! For Real?! Massive Loss for us all! What a Genius! Speechless.

Thank you Prince. All my thoughts & prayers are with all your loved ones. https://t.co/JT52sKlJBJ

"Dearly beloved We are gathered here today 2 get through this thing called Life..." -Prince

Prince was brilliant and larger than life. What a sad day.

THIS CAN NOT BE POSSIBLE!!!!!!! NO NO NO NO NO

You can't take Bowie and Prince in the same year. You can't. No. No!!!!

Crushed to hear the news about Prince... What an artist. What an influence. Thank you for the love. And the funk ✨

Wow. RIP Prince. Another legend gone way too soon.

So Prince and Chyna die in the same day NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! My heart is hurting :( R.I.P

RIP Prince. You were the king https://t.co/RwKxVsOx8F

We've just lost an incredible talent! So sorry to hear about #Prince we will always love your music forever and ever! #RIPPrince

A culture pushing icon and creative genius. Rest in peace Prince. https://t.co/vPWCGipU95

If the news about prince is true it will be a terrible loss of such an amazing music legend and icon.

Damn. Moms just went to prince concert in ATL like 3 days ago...

The Prince is dead. Long live the Prince.

Numb. Stunned. This can't be real.

I was hoping it wasn't true. Until it was breaking news on tv. Gutted beyond words. Soundtrack to all our lives!

One of my biggest inspirations. A true icon. You will be missed. Sad sad news today... #RIPPrince

We just lost a ton of heavy groove. #RIPPrince

R.I.P. Prince. Shocking. A real artist.

OMG I can't believe Prince died :-( we lost a true musical legend today. RIP prince 🙏🏼👑

R.I.P PRINCE, another icon gone to soon

We've lost the greatest artist of my generation. I danced on stage with him when milo was in my belly. Prince, I will forever love you. #RIP

Crushed to hear the news about Prince... What an artist. What an influence. Thank you for the love. And the funk ✨

"Every day I feel is a blessing from God. & I consider it a new beginning. Yeah, everything is beautiful." ~ Prince 💜

From one 6/7 to another 6/7… Rest in peace, Prince!

So sad to hear the bad news today. RIP prince. You will be missed!!

Can’t even process this. There will never be another. Thank you for everything, Prince Rogers Nelson.

For real though, shouldn't everyone go home from work and school? It's Prince. Its like hearing the Grand Canyon died.

This fucking sucks... Prince on repeat all day. Just like I did with Michael and Whitney 😔

So sad to hear about Prince- We've not only lost an incredible talent but we've lost a legend. 💜

"Artist" & "Genius" are thrown around carelessly these days. Prince Rogers Nelson was an actual artist & a legit genius. I'm so sad #RIP

This is what it sounds like when doves cry.. Prince R.I.P. Condolences to his family & 2 us all

I am shocked and saddened by the news of the death of Prince. A great brother and music genius.

Dang it... Truly hate hearing we lost Prince. Sad day..

R.I.P. Prince ... One of Miles Davis' last collaborators. You will be woefully missed ...

Long live the Prince. Thank you for the magic you bestowed upon my eyes & ears. The best live show ever witnessed. https://t.co/3ZgxpsLoyk

RIP to #Prince 🙏🏽 your influence will be forever felt... https://t.co/iS5daD5IDj

"Dearly beloved, We are gathered here today to get through this thing called life". --#Prince

This is truly a sad day or maybe a year. All my music heroes are dying. Prince died today. . Prayers and thoughts to his family. #purplerain

Been a fan since this 1978 album. My older intro'd me to his music. She in college, I in grade school. #RIP #Prince https://t.co/GWyK39LG2b

Sorry loves we are rescheduling the live chat to April 28th. Sending condolences to the family, friends, and fans of Prince.

Rest in peace sweet Prince. 💔 https://t.co/JCSeyI3FE4

Ths average of death for an entertainer is 57. The music legend @prince died at his home today. He was 57.

I'm heart broken #RIP #Prince my favorite singer of all time💔💔💔💔

https://t.co/59LDb3rktb To the man who didn’t need to say a word. The best performer of all time. Rest easy.

I stand Confidently in Peace knowing that our brother Prince knew and loved God. Therefore, ALL is well with his soul RIP our Beloved Prince

Rest in peace, Prince. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

So sad to hear about the loss of Prince today. #RIP #legend #purplerain 💔 https://t.co/GwbL8R975M

Prince's music hit you in your soul. Songs like Adore & Raspberry Beret made me think of falling in love, making love, everything love...

My musical brother... My friend... The one who showed me the possibilities within myself,… https://t.co/UumElgEgFg

This is so heartbreaking💔 I had this Prince pic drawn on my wall years ago because his music inspired so many R.I.P😥 https://t.co/60msa6hm3I

I Miss My Brother. Prince Was A Funny Cat. Great Sense Of Humor. https://t.co/67umQghtbi

Oh my god I can’t believe that Prince has died…he was a great great talent…RIP

Absolutely stunned and heartbroken! #PRINCE

PRINCE, sad to say, has passed on!!! He was a Giant. My deep condolences go out to his family, friends and fans.

Today is the worst day ever. Prince R.I.P I am crying!

RIP Prince. You were the king https://t.co/RwKxVsOx8F

Prince was the greatest live performer I ever saw. A musical genius ablaze with astounding, sexually charged energy. Loved him. RIP

So sad to hear about this terrible loss, Prince was a visionary musician and artist. https://t.co/49ZY5IFpUL

Now Prince? No no no.. RIP You genius x

Prince? Say it isn't so...

I'm in complete shock. More than doves are crying today. Rest in power, Prince.

I can't believe #Prince has passed. This is horrible news. #ripprince so sad :( :(

Just heard the news about Prince. We are losing all our greats. So sad .... Met him several times. Sweet man. The epitome of talent.

He was doing a post EMMY secret show in a tiny club. Maybe 40 people. He pulled me up on stage to dance w HIM. It was A MOMENT #PRINCE

So sad to hear about the loss of Prince today. #RIP #legend #purplerain 💔 https://t.co/GwbL8R975M

Im sooooo very sad right now... PRINCE can't die.

Sending love out to #Prince #AmericanGenius Thank you for all you gave us- https://t.co/fGX0MSfQd3 via @youtube

I'm stunned & so saddened to hear about the passing of Prince. He changed it all!!!! The true definition of talent!! https://t.co/Ni17GvPu67

R. I. P to the King Prince thank u for inspiring me to be a Musician First and using this tool to heal people

Can't breath..RIP Prince...Farewell Sexy Mother Fucker 💝

Deep tragedy. I'm so sorry for your loss Minneapolis. We will try and cheer you up for at least a little while tonight. #RIPPrince

Shocked and soooo sad!! #RIP PRINCE #music #legend #gonetoosoon https://t.co/KlEBPPl40U

LEGEND❤ 💦PRINCE💦 I wish I could have expressed my love for him before he left. https://t.co/drlyFNWF9X

Today we lost a true artist. Thank you #Prince for all the music you put into this world. #RIP https://t.co/4yZ6Cb5hMb

Prince was a true gentleman, a king among men. He was as sharp and as talented as they come. I'm so glad I was lucky enough to work with him

RIP Prince. The only person I ever saw a crowd part for.

Rest easy, legend ❤ #RIPPrince

Included with the message was an alteration of the cover of Prince's 1979 self-titled album, with Tyson's mug swapped in for the musician's.

The title of the album was also altered to "Printhe," an apparent nod to the boxer's famous lisp.

Also Read: Prince Overdosed on Percocet One Week Before Death (Report)

Oh, well; at least Tyson didn't use the "Lovesexy" album cover as the basis for his tribute.

The Carver County Sheriff's Department confirmed that Prince died at his Paisley Park home in Minnesota on Thursday. The singer had been hospitalized the week before in Illinois, after his plane made an emergency landing following a concert in Atlanta.

At the time, it was reported that the singer had been experiencing flu symptoms, which grew worse during the flight. However, TMZ later reported that the singer had been treated for a possible overdose of the painkiller Percocet.

An official cause of death has not yet been determined; an autopsy was scheduled to take place on Friday.

Read original story Mike Tyson's Bizarre Prince Tribute: RIP Meets WTF (Photo) At TheWrap

Summary: Boxing Legend Mike Tyson tweeted one of the more unusual tributes to Prince, who died Thursday at age 57.


Before you go, we thought you'd like these...

Hello, Drake fans. How are you doing lately? Kinda stressed out but trying to keep calm despite the fact that Drake is pretty much just messing with us at this point? He just dropped two songs from his upcoming album Views from the 6 in a series of two tweets. When will the album come out? Sometime this month. When specifically? No one knows! What an unreasonable thing to ask. Until the record drops, we will all just be living on the edge, dutifully going on the internet every day, never knowing when Drake is going to bless us with another track or perhaps even the whole album. Anyway, please enjoy the unexpected boon of these two songs. They are "Pop Style ft. The Throne" (The Throne is Jay Z and Kanye West) and "One Dance ft. Wizkid & Kyla." They're on iTunes now. Run, buy them now.

See photos of Drake through the years:

Drake surprises us by dropping two songs from forthcoming album, continues to stress out fans

NEW YORK - MAY 26: Drake performs at S.O.B.'s on May 26, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage) *** Local Caption ***

LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 28: Rapper Drake onstage at the 2009 BET Awards at the Shrine Auditorium on June 28, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by John Shearer/WireImage) *** Local Caption ***

Actor and Rapper Drake Graham, known simply as Drake, attends A Conversation with Drake sponsored by the Nashville Chapter at Ocean Way Studio on November 19, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Frederick Breedon/WireImage)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 02: Rapper Drake poses in the press room during The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live! at the Club Nokia on December 2, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

(L-R) Trey Songz and Drake attend DJ Clue's birthday party at M2 Ultra Lounge on January 21, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

MIAMI BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 05: Singer Drake attends Axe Lounge at Fontainebleau Miami Beach on February 5, 2010 in Miami Beach, Florida. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

NEW ORLEANS - APRIL 24: Canadian actor, rapper and recording artist Drake performs during day 2 of the 41st annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at the Fair Grounds Race Course on April 24, 2010 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Skip Bolen/WireImage)

NEW YORK - JUNE 15: Drake visits Best Buy on June 15, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - FEBRUARY 12: Singer Drake arrives at the Cash Money Records Annual Pre-GRAMMY Party at The Lot on February 12, 2011 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/WireImage)

LAS VEGAS, NV - MARCH 05: Drake performs at Chateau Nightclub & Gardens opening in Paris Las Vegas on March 5, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Denise Truscello/WireImage)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 08: Drake attends John Wall's 21st birthday celebration at Greenhouse on September 8, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

SAN JOSE, CA - DECEMBER 18: Hip-Hop vocalist Drake (aka. Aubrey Drake Graham) performs during the 2011 WildJam at HP Pavilion on December 18, 2011 in San Jose, California. (Photo by C Flanigan/WireImage)

OTTAWA, ON - JANUARY 29: Rap artist Drake performs during the 2012 Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Game between Team Alfredsson and Team Chara at Scotiabank Place on January 29, 2012 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

TORONTO, ON - AUGUST 05: Drake performs at Ovo Fest 2012 at Molson Amphitheatre on August 5, 2012 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Sarjoun Faour Photography/WireImage)

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 18: (L-R) Singer Usher, music producer Noah '40' Shebib and rapper Drake in the audience at the 40th American Music Awards held at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 18, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/AMA2012/WireImage)

LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON -- Episode 891 -- Pictured: (l-r) Musical guest Drake during an interview with host Jimmy Fallon on September 13, 2013 -- (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

MIAMI BEACH, FL - DECEMBER 31: (L-R) Drake and Rick Ross attend Sean Diddy Combs Ciroc The New Years Eve Party at his home on December 31, 2013 in Miami Beach, Florida. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

PARIS, FRANCE - FEBRUARY 24: Drake performs at Palais Omnisports de Bercy on February 24, 2014 in Paris, France. (Photo by David Wolff - Patrick/Redferns via Getty Images)

TORONTO, ON - APRIL 22: Hip-Hop artist, Drake, celebrates during Game Two of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals between the Toronto Raptors and the Brooklyn Nets during the NBA Playoffs at the Air Canada Centre on April 22, 2014 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2014 NBAE (Photo by Dave Sandford/NBAE via Getty Images)

SCOTTSDALE, AZ - JANUARY 31: Drake performs at the Bootsy Bellows Pop Up event on January 31, 2015, in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/Getty Images)

ATLANTA, GA - SEPTEMBER 18: Drake performs on stage during 2015 Music Midtown at Piedmont Park on September 18, 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paul R. Giunta/WireImage)

More from Vulture: Taylor Swift and Her Stunt Double Perfectly Illustrate the Hell of the Treadmill Here Are All the Winners From the 2016 iHeartRadio Music Awards Rihanna and Fifth Harmony ‘Work’ the Hot 100, Chase Career Milestones

Summary: Drake just dropped two songs from his upcoming album Views from the 6 in a series of two tweets on Tuesday.


For a tango-filled evening in Buenos Aires on March 23, Obama opted for a tea-length satin dress with shimmering embroidery.

Earlier in the day, she chatted with Argentina's First Lady Juliana Awada wearing Michael Kors.

The Argentine arrival called for a forward-thinking dress by Narciso Rodriguez -- one of her all-time favorites.

On March 22, she rocked Latin-flavored Tory Burch for a tour around Old Havana.

Meeting Cuban President Raúl Castro occasioned another floral creation, this one from Naeem Khan.

At a forum hosted at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano in Havana she sported a wrap dress by Tracy Reese.

FLOTUS said hola to Cuba on March 21 in Carolina Herrera.

And let's not forget the Canadian State Dinner, where she stole the spotlight (sorry, Sophie Trudeau) in a strapless gown by Jason Wu.

March has been a good month for Michelle Obama.

While many of us on the East Coast have been subject to the mental turbulence of spring-season dressing — Monday, sunny: Shorts! Tuesday: Where the hell are those snow boots? — FLOTUS has been traversing subtropical Latin America, doing important ambassadorial duties in some of her most confident looks to date.

Yes, the first lady already holds an unimpeachable fashion record. But this year, her last in the White House, Ms. O. seems to be gently communicating through clothes a budding sense of freedom. So far, starting with that viral State of the Union dress, she’s already accomplished the tricky feat of showing variety while fully embracing what she loves best: Vivid colors and patterns — especially floral print.

And here’s another theory: The first lady is trolling America, stoking the nostalgia we already feel for Obama-era excellence, saying, one flawless ensemble at a time, “Hillary, honey, good luck — I’m going out with a bang.”

Summary: March has been a good month for Michelle Obama. While many of us on the East Coast have been subject to the mental turbulence of spring-season dressing — Monday, sunny: Shorts! Tuesday: Where the h…


CHICAGO (AP) Court documents filed by Little League International contend Chicago's Jackie Robinson West baseball team was stripped of its national championship because of ''fraud and cover-up.''

Little League filed the documents last week in response to a lawsuit by Jackie Robinson West seeking documentation for why the league took the action.

At the time the lawsuit was filed in June, Jackie Robinson West attorney Victor Henderson said he believed some of what Little League International claimed - that some of the players did not live within local league boundaries. But he added that he thought the team was unfairly singled out for scrutiny, in part, because all of its players are black.

The Little League court filings say that the original league boundary map submitted in May when the team began tournament play accurately reflected the league boundaries but showed only five of the team's players lived within them. Maps submitted in September and December by Jackie Robinson West then showed that all players lived within the boundaries, according to the court documents.

''To repeat, discipline was imposed because JRW officials falsified the JRW boundary maps, and therefore used ineligible players,'' Little League said, alleging ''fraud and cover-up.''

In the court papers, Little League contends that as accusations of impropriety began to surface after the team's title run, a district administrator and a team director met with officials from surrounding leagues ''to attempt to persuade them to retroactively agree to boundary changes'' so players would not be found ineligible.

Little League filed its paperwork Thursday, with Little League spokesman Brian McClintock saying the group received notice afterward by mail that Jackie Robinson West filed a petition to withdraw the lawsuit. McClintock said ''the response speaks for itself, and we have no further comment.''

In a statement Tuesday, Henderson blasted Little League International for how it has acted, saying legal disputes, like baseball games, don't take place in one inning. ''The game is far from over,'' he added, though he did confirm Tuesday that the team was withdrawing the suit.

Jackie Robinson West's run to the championship started as an uplifting and inspirational story that ended with its win over Las Vegas to capture the national crown at the 2014 Little League World Series. The team fell to South Korea in the world championship game. When it was over, the players were treated to a massive parade downtown, a trip to the White House to meet President Barack Obama and another trip to San Francisco to watch the World Series.

Summary: Little League claims fraud, cover-up by Jackie Robinson West


For television buyers, there’s only one letter that will truly matter in the future and that’s the letter K.

Consumers who have shopped for TVs lately have undoubtedly been asked what version of high definition they’re after. The vast majority of televisions today come with a 1080p resolution. Recently, however, an increasing number of televisions have hit store shelves that deliver 4K resolution. The K in that equation may mystify some consumers. After all, it’s a relatively new entrant and without context it means nothing.

In general, a number followed by the K defines the number of horizontal lines that run across the screen to create a picture. In theory, a 1080p television could be considered 2K, since it has nearly 2,000 horizontal lines (1,920, to be exact). A 4K TV, with its 4,096 horizontal lines, therefore, delivers more than twice the resolution. To make matters worse, there are other Ks to worry about.

Apple’s AAPL 27-inch iMac, for example, has offered 5K resolution with 5,120 horizontal lines, since last year. (Last week, the company announced its entire 27-inch iMac line would offer 5K resolution.) Meanwhile, 8K is starting to surface as an emerging technology that could, well into the future, become the new standard.

“For TVs, the next evolution is 4K because we are still at the early part of the adoption curve,” says IDC analyst Linn Huang. “I suppose if we are thinking about a very long-term view, I would assume that 8K would be the next destination. 5K is largely locked to one panel size at the moment (27 inches), meaning this resolution will largely remain a monitor/all-in-one desktop PC specification. Some TV vendors are already working on 8K TVs, but these aren’t really ready for the market and the market is not really ready for these TVs.”

In theory, the more lines used to create a picture, the more detail and, thus, the better the picture. Therefore, some may believe that buying a 4K television rather than a traditional full HD, 1080p television, may be preferable. In reality, there are several roadblocks that will ultimately ratchet back the 4K craze.

One of the major roadblocks to 4K TVs, and one of the main reasons some may hold off on buying new televisions with the technology, is the general lack of content. As Huang notes, the vast majority of broadcast television content Americans watch today is delivered in standard HD resolution of 1,280-by-720 and not full HD. A precious few companies are even considering delivering 4K content to movies or TVs in the near future, and devices like Apple’s iPhone have only just begun to capture 4K video. While the buildup of 4K content is growing, it’s happening at a snail’s pace.

“Netflix has select content available in 4K and is reportedly shooting some of its original content in native 4K,” Huang says. “Comcast announced that it will release their first 4K set top box this year… however, 4K TVs will remain a very small part of the TV installed base worldwide even in five years.”

What’s more, the true value of 4K may only be experienced on larger screens. In smaller displays, packing in more lines does not necessarily deliver the same visual-quality improvements that one could find in a larger screen.

According to IHS analyst Paul Gray, television vendors can deliver the best visual quality in screens of 50 inches and above. Gray says that by 2018, “all sets of 50 inches or larger will be 4K.” The “entry size” for an eventual 8K television will be 65 inches, but the “real experience” of enjoying the higher resolution won’t result until consumers watch content on 80-inch televisions.

Despite those caveats, 4K televisions, which are currently substantially more expensive than their 2K alternatives, are expected to grow in numbers. Brian Markwalter, senior vice president of research and standards at the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), says 4.5 million 4K sets will be sold in 2015. That figure will jump to nearly 9 million next year. “4K Ultra HD will make up almost 50% of TVs over 40 inches sold in 2016,” Markwalter says.

In April, research firm IHS said that the global demand for 4K content is on the rise. The company noted that the 4K-display market—which includes televisions, as well as smartphones, PC monitors, and other components—will hit $52 billion by 2020. That’s up from $9.2 billion last year.

Still, it’s hard to tell whether that increase in demand will be the result of vendors foisting upon consumers 4K technology or whether the technology is truly desirable. Markwalter pointed to research conducted by CEA earlier this year that shows consumers care most about picture quality when buying a new television. While 4K technology certainly plays into that, Gray argues that resolution alone is not sufficient to deliver the best picture quality.

“For premium coverage like major sports events [4K] gives an enhanced sense of realism,” Gray says. “However, there is far more to perception than simply resolution: color accuracy, sharpness of moving objects and dynamic range are more important.”

Indeed, the goal is ultimately not more pixels, which higher K devices will offer, but something much different.

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For more on high-end TVs, check out the following Fortune video:

Summary: The market has been flooded in recent years with higher resolution TVs that promise more detail and better picture quality.


While Nick (David Giuntoli) cradles Juliette's body, Agent Chavez's people run in and grab Trubel. Nick is knocked out and left behind. When he comes to the next morning, Trubel, Juliette's body and his mother's head are all gone. Remembering Trubel's words, Nick realizes Chavez is behind the abduction. He quickly fills in Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell), Rosalee (Bree Turner) and Hank (Russell Hornsby) and heads to Chavez's office to confront her. She plays dumb, causing Nick to grow more incensed and be escorted out by Chavez's agents. Undeterred, he does a background check on Chavez and learns her address. When he arrives, Monroe is there. He, Rosalee, Hank and Wu (Reggie Lee) are worried, but Nick is having none of it and dismisses Monroe. When Chavez comes home, Nick surprises her and reveals he's a Grimm. A startled Chavez Woges and Nick knocks her unconscious.

Nick brings Chavez to the Spice Shop, where he, Monroe, Rosalee, Hank and Wu take turns interrogating her to no avail. Their mission is unexpectedly halted when Bud calls to say Adalind (Claire Coffee) is in labor. While Nick and Rosalee wait at the hospital as Adalind undergoes an emergency C-section, Chavez's phone rings and she tells Hank, Monroe and Wu that if she doesn't answer, people will come looking for her. Hank lets Chavez answer, then calls Nick. Hank gives the phone to Chavez, who tells Nick that if he wants answers, he must come with her now, alone. Rosalee stays at the hospital while Nick accompanies Chavez to a warehouse. Inside, they discover the men they were supposed to meet dead. A group of Wesen ambushes Nick and Chavez. Though they are able to defeat them, Chavez is fatally wounded. With her dying breath, she warns Nick that "they" are rising and coming to Portland. When her phone rings, Nick answers... and hears Meisner on the other side.

When Nick arrives at the hospital, Rosalee informs him that Adalind and the baby are doing fine. Nick reluctantly enters Adalind's room and meets his son, Kelly. Just like that, Nick's new family is born.

Summary: Nick's search for answers after Trubel and Juliette's body are kidnapped puts him at odds with those closest to him.


We all could use a little help remembering the things we need to get done in life. Luckily there are a lot of sites out there to help you do just that! What follows is a list of 30+ sites to send you emails, text messages, and phone calls to help you get to where you need to be on time and... what was I saying?

AbbyMe.com - Send an SMS broadcast to multiple friends at specified times to remind them of events.

BigDates.com - Send yourself reminders to your email or phone for all the big dates in your life.

BirthdayAlarm.com - Enter birthdays and holidays and receive email reminders for yourself so you don't miss any.

bitBomb.com - Schedule texts to go to your phone at the appropriate time to remind you of tasks.

Braincast.com - Schedule reminders to go to any US based cell phone or regular phone network.

Candor.com - A birthday reminder site that you can set to remind you before the date so you don't forget.

Free-Minder.com - Can be set up for events like birthdays and anniversaries as well as every day events.

FutureMe.org - Send your future self emails, or just use it as a reminder service.

GottaKeepUp.com - Set up reminders for just about any task you can think and receive them at work, home, or on the go.

Hallmark.com - The famous Hallmark card company offers you a free reminder service for the important events in your life.

HappyBirthday.com - As the name would imply, this is all about reminding you about birthdays.

HassleMe.co.uk - Need help sticking to your New Year's resolutions? Or do you just need random reminders to do things? HassleMe will do just that by sending you random "hassles".

iPing.com - A site to set up phone calls to wake you up, remind you to take medications and more. Does have fees.

L8r.nu - Schedule email reminders to be sent for up to five-years from the present day.

LaterGator.ca - Set up emails and ecards to be delivered at future dates to yourself or others.

Luvup.com - Enter all the important birthdays in your life and receive reminders so you'll never forget one again.

MemoToMe.com - Free and premium versions available from this service that seems to take reminding you very seriously with redundant servers and power supplies.

MonkeyOn.com - More of a reminder for other people that you are waiting on them to do something for you.

Mosuki.com - Enter calendars with your friends and receive reminders to all ov you of upcoming events.

MyMemorizer.com - Enter your calendar and get email or SMS messages reminding you of what you need to do.

MyTicklerFile.com - Can group your tasks and reminders by project so you can keep them organized.

NeverForget.net - A UK based reminder service for sending notes to your PC or mobile phone.

OhDontForget.com - Schedule text message reminders to go to any phone at any time you want.

Ownersite.com - A preventive car maintenance service that lets you track your expenses and notify youof when it's time to change the oil and so on.

pcReminder.com - Costs $9.95 a year, will send reminders to numerous styles of devices.

RememberTheMilk.com - Create reminders and to-do lists, have it remind you on all the major IM programs, your phone, and now access it via the iPhone or iPod Touch.

RemindTime.com - Offers all of the normal reminder services plus... personal visits?

ReminderFeed.com - Create an RSS feed you can place in your reader to receive reminders for yourself.

rminder.com - Enter your reminder and receive a voice or text message to your phone to remind you. Can sync with iCal, Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar and more.

ServiceBeacon.com - Schedule car maintenance reminders so you remember to keep your car tuned up.

Snoozester.com - Schedule reminders to go to your phone, including wake-up calls.

WakerUpper.com - Set up reminders to go to your phone at pre-set times. Make sure you never forget to do anything again. And they amusingly suggest sending yourself a message to go off during a date so you can escape.

Whatbills.com - Set up email reminders when your bills are due to keep you from being overdue.

Summary: We all could use a little help remembering the things we need to get done in life. Luckily there are a lot of sites out there to help you do just that!  What follows is a list o...


Electric car company Tesla Motors announced on Tuesday that it plans to buy solar installer SolarCity.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is a co-founder and CEO of Tesla, and is also a major shareholder and chairman of the solar company, which he helped create. The CEO of SolarCity is Musk’s cousin Lyndon Rive.

The estimated value of the deal is on the order of $2.5 billion to $3 billion said Musk on a call.

The move would create a vertically-integrated energy company that would sell electric cars, make and sell energy storage for buildings and the grid, and make and install solar panels.

This Tesla investors predicts big things for the company in our video.

Tesla said in a statement that it had offered $26.50 to $28.50 per share for the solar installer, which is a premium of 21% to 30% over the closing price of SolarCity’s shares on Tuesday.

Musk said on a call that the combined company would focus on the Tesla brand and that there were obvious synergies and savings that could be delivered from a union of Tesla TSLA and SolarCity SCTY . SolarCity would be a division of Tesla, said Musk on the call.

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The deal is contingent on approval from the boards of both companies. Musk said he’s recusing himself from the vote, which will only count shares of “disinterested” stockholders.

Tesla’s stock dropped over 10% after hours following the announcement of the proposed deal, while SolarCity’s stock surged over 18%.

Musk said that the deal is something that the teams have been thinking about and debating “for years.” “We think there’s a huge opportunity to have a highly sustainable energy company, from generation to storage to transport,” said Musk.

Musk said that the timing seems right for a deal partly because Tesla is ramping up activities with its energy storage products for buildings and the power grid. Last year Tesla launched a division to sell batteries that can be used by utilities to better manage the power grid or paired with solar panels. Companies can use the batteries to lower their monthly energy bills.

Summary: The combined company would be a vertically-integrated energy powerhouse.


A Republican congressman is trying to block the Treasury from redesigning U.S. currency, a move that could prevent the government from replacing Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill with abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa has offered an amendment to a spending bill barring the use of funds to redesign any Federal Reserve note or coin. It wasn’t immediately clear why King opposed the redesign, and his office did not immediately respond to messages.

Under plans announced in April by Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill. The abolitionist and former slave who was a leader of the Underground Railroad will become the first African-American featured on U.S. paper currency and the first woman on paper currency in a century.

Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, will be moved to the back of the $20 bill, which will also retain an image of the White House on the back.

Alexander Hamilton’s portrait will remain on the front of the $10 bill. The back, which now features the Treasury building in Washington, will be redesigned to commemorate a 1913 suffragette march and feature famous suffragette leaders including Susan B. Anthony.

The $5 bill will retain Abraham Lincoln on the front. The back, which now features the Lincoln Memorial, will be redesigned to include important civil rights events at the memorial including Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech and a 1939 concert by African-American opera singer Marian Anderson.

King is a conservative Republican known for his outspoken criticism of U.S. immigration policy. His Democratic opponent in Iowa, Kim Weaver, said it’s “a headline-grabbing piece of stunt legislation.”

“And what chance does this meaningless and mean-spirited gesture have of actually passing? Just like most measures introduced by Steve King, none,” she said.

Summary: It's not clear why he's against the redesign.


Danika Landers, a 29-year-old Web designer, walked into a public bathroom last year and was so disgusted by the gnarly conditions that she decided to create a Web site fully dedicated to helping people find clean bathrooms: SitOrSquat.

SitOrSquat, which features user-generated recommendations of the nation’s best public restrooms, was such a hit that Procter & Gamble, maker of Charmin, signed the toilet paper brand as a sponsor. It then rolled out a new SitOrSquat mobile application this year. With 400,000 downloads, the free app has become one of the most talked about among consumers and companies and is one of Forbes CMO Network’s top 10 branded mobile applications of 2009.

What makes a brand successful on a handset? We turned to five marketing experts (see below) for their advice, and they all agreed on one thing: Utility. “Gimmicks are fun, but brands ultimately need to create something people can use,” says Brandon Evans, managing partner and chief strategy officer of social media agency Mr. Youth.

Two other attributes that can make or break a brand’s mobile app effort: audience and speed. The same rules that apply to great marketing apply to the mobile sphere, says Patrick Collins, president of New York mobile marketing agency 5th Finger. Companies should cater to their core fans, making the interface as streamlined as possible for users who are on the go, working on limited time and in limited space, he says.

Apps must be self-serving for brands, says David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy at digital marketing shop 360i. To create an application that doesn’t lead back to a corporate site or give users information on where they can find the company’s products is useless.

Click here for the 10 best branded mobile apps of 2009.

Click here for the five biggest flops among 2009′s branded mobile apps.

Brandon Evans, managing partner and chief strategy officer of social media agency Mr. Youth.

David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy at digital marketing shop 360i.

Patrick Collins, president of New York mobile marketing agency 5th Finger.

Noah Elkin, senior analyst at eMarketer.

Steve Rubel, senior vice president, director of insights, Edelman Digital.

Comments are turned off for this post.

Summary: The year's biggest hits and bombs of on-the-go mobile ad applications.


J .K. Rowling has some good news for fans of her "Harry Potter" universe, especially ones on this side of the Atlantic.

The author's website, Pottermore, will publish a four-part story this week called "History of Magic in North America." The story will provide the background for "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," the film adaptation of Rowling's "Harry Potter" prequel book, which is scheduled for release in November.

The new writing comes a little more than a month after Rowling revealed the name of the North American wizarding school, the suspiciously Scottish-sounding Ilvermorny.

A video posted on the Entertainment Weekly website provides some hints as to what readers can expect from the new story.

"The wizarding world you thought you knew is much larger than you imagined," a narrator intones ominously, just before a person leaps from a rock and is turned into a fiery eagle. "History has many secrets. The official story is never the whole story."

The first installment of the story will be published on the Pottermore website on Tuesday at 6 a.m. Pacific time, with the other parts following this week.

The video teases some of the material that Rowling's new writing might contain: "Ilvermorny, skin-walkers, the witch trials and the Magical Congress of the United States of America." Skin-walkers, in Navajo legends, are people who can transform into animals.

Meanwhile, fans will soon be able to visit the magical world of Harry Potter in Southern California, when Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios — we've seen a preview — officially opens April 7.

J.K. Rowling reveals her favorite 'Harry Potter' chapter -- and it's a weeper

It's not just Hogwarts: J.K. Rowling reveals other wizarding schools

'Harry Potter' expands with a 'Fantastic Beasts' featurette, and wizarding schools

Where to grab grub and grog at Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter


The attacks in Paris are horrific and an unprecedented form of evil intended to disrupt the lives of free people.

The tragic death of 298 people on board MH17 in a wheat field in eastern Ukraine marks a moment when words of disapproval and expressions of grief are not enough. This is a...

I served as U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2001 to 2005 and had a front-row seat for the beginnings of a similar transition away from fossil fuels that most Germans now regret.

Our economy is like a leaking ship being plugged with a few sticks of gum. Congress and the White House must act if we want to avoid the same fate as the Titanic.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has chosen exactly the wrong tactic to restore Russia’s power and influence – an invasion of Ukraine.

Summary: Browse stories from Dan Coats on FoxNews.com


When Amy and her husband celebrated 20 years of wedded bliss this past May, the 44-year-old Jersey City, NJ, advertising exec took to Facebook to celebrate the milestone. She posted a gushy message about her spouse — including details about how he was so drunk the night of the wedding, he passed out in his tux — alongside one of her favorite photos of him, unshowered and unshaven.

“I didn’t think twice about posting the photo and some details about our past 20 years,” says Amy, who asked that her last name not be used for professional reasons. “I thought it was cute, funny and showed just how much I care about him.”

But what to Amy was a loving gesture sent her husband into a red-faced furor. “The conversation turned into a huge argument, where he felt like I was sharing way too much of our life with my ‘friends,’” she says.

In hindsight, Amy says that the pressure to “keep up” with her married pals — who constantly dote on their spouses online and flaunt photos from “#datenight” — was what led her to craft the offending post in the first place. The couple has since agreed to no longer share details of their marriage on their newsfeeds.

Amy and her hubby are hardly the first couple to fight over Facebook. A study conducted earlier this year by the Australian law firm Slater and Gordon found that 17 percent of the married folks polled argue about social-media use on a daily basis, with one in seven saying it’s caused them to even consider divorce.

If Facebook is factoring so largely into failed relationships, can you predict which married couples will call it quits based on how they interact via the social-media site?

Devon White, 38, and his wife of 10 years, Julie, 43, have a perfect marriage — at least online. The Nyack, NY, residents use the site to write love notes to one another on a nearly daily basis. “We see it as sharing our love,” explains Devon.

While the sentiment is sweet, experts say such over-the-top expression could be indicative of a doomed romance.

“Oversharing may be a sign that things aren’t going very well, or else why would a couple need to toot their own horn?” asks Jane Greer, Ph.D., a New York-based therapist and author of “What About Me?: Stop Selfishness From Ruining Your Relationship.”

“Too much emphasis on social media may indicate that the couple is less concerned with how they feel, and more about how their relationship looks to outsiders.”

Too much emphasis on social media may indicate that the couple is less concerned with how they feel, and more about how their relationship looks to outsiders.

Greer also warns against the growing trend of sharing a Facebook account with your spouse, which, according to a 2014 Pew survey, 11 percent of couples do. “People need personal space, even online.”

In this case, distance, rather than closeness, may be the secret to a successful marriage.

“Ideally, you should have some posts tagged with your partner and some posts showing your own activities or thoughts,” says Lisa Lavelle, a New York-based marriage and family therapist.

And what about couples who are silent on social media? Experts stress they’re not missing out. “In fact, not being ‘friends’ can be healthy. It shows that there’s boundaries for the couple about privacy,” says Lavelle.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, a writer living in the East Village, has been with her partner, app engineer Jesse Jiryu Davis, 36, for nearly six years, but they’re not about to celebrate their anniversary on Facebook. The couple made the decision to remain unlinked on social media — even if just to spare them the pain of taking it down were they ever to split.

“We’re very settled in our relationship,” notes Armstrong, 39. “But I always think the saddest thing in the world would be to undo [our Facebook relationship] in a breakup.”

The key to communicating effectively online, say experts, is ensuring both parties have consented to the same degree of intimacy on the Web.

“The important thing is that couples are on the same page regarding social-media usage,” says Jaclyn Cravens, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Texas Tech University who researches Facebook usage.

People need personal space, even online.

Cravens recommends having a face-to-face conversation about how you’ll handle social media, including your Facebook relationship status and tagging and uploading photos — whether it’s the frequency or, in some cases, partner approval before clicking “Post.”

Regardless of what others think, Devon enjoys having reminders of the love he has for his wife a mouse click away.

“Not only [is it] a time capsule to look back on, but, to me, it’s an outstanding way to show our love to the world,” he says. “Why hide it?”

Meanwhile, Amy, whose spouse took a dimmer view of her oversharing, notes, “Why couldn’t I have spent that time directly telling my husband [how I felt]?”

Summary: When Amy and her husband celebrated 20 years of wedded bliss this past May, the 44-year-old Jersey City, NJ, advertising exec took to Facebook to celebrate the milestone. She posted a gushy message…


General Electric’s software that collects and analyzes data from network connected machines is “a fledgling startup,” has underdeveloped technology and lags in market penetration compared to its marketing, says a new report from an analyst at Lux Research.

The report is in stark contrast to GE’s communication efforts and major investment in the software, called Predix, which it has pitched as an important new opportunity for future growth for the company.

GE says claims in the report “are not based on fact or objective research,” and contain “numerous factual errors.”

GE’s Predix software extracts and crunches data from machines like jet engines and gas turbines. The data can be used to make the machines run more efficiently, saving GE’s customers money, time, and energy.

For example, coal plant operators can use the software to collect data from their equipment and to run the gear more efficiently or predict when certain parts might fail.

For more on the Internet of Things watch our video.

GE calls the software the “digital glue” for the “industrial Internet,” enabling infrastructure like power grids, buildings, energy generation gear, and manufacturing equipment to be controlled by computers and connected to wireless networks.

But the Lux Research report says that “Predix is not as fully developed as GE says it is,” and “has not been battle-tested at scale,” writes Isaac Brown, an analyst of Lux Research and the author of the new report. GE’s Predix software has a smaller market share than competitors like PTC, C3 IoT, Aeris, Autodesk’s SeeControl, Electric Imp, Cisco’s Jasper and Wyless, says Brown.

Brown alleges that core parts of GE’s technology relies on partnerships, like with industrial company PTC, instead of using GE’s own technology. These technologies include software that lets developers quickly assemble and deploy applications for connected machines, and software that connects machines to the cloud. Both of these features are important parts of connecting industrial machines to networks and collecting data. GE says the report mischaracterizes its relationship with, and reliance on, PTC.

One of the key issues that the report raises is that GE’s Predix software is just new and hasn’t yet had time to attract many customers. While GE has discussed the software’s potential for years and used it in-house, the company confirmed that it only introduced Predix to customers in its current form in February 2016.

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GE doesn’t break out revenue for Predix, but says its overall annual software sales, which includes sales of Predix, will grow from $5 billion in 2015 to $15 billion by 2020. Much of that growth is supposed to come from software for industrial applications as well as Predix, GE has said.

Customers of the Predix software include RasGas, Pitney Bowes, Exelon, Schindler, Lixil and Toshiba. The CTO of GE Software, Harel Kodesh, tells Fortune that the Predix software is on track to meet GE’s projections.

The rise of connected devices, commonly called the Internet of things, is supposed to grow into a huge industry over the coming years. Eventually most machines and many objects—from cars to street lights to factory equipment—will be connected with wireless connections, computing power and algorithms.

Brown says that Predix will need another three to five years to mature. In general, the Internet of things sector is still quite new and the technology is still only emerging.

Summary: Launched several months ago, it'll need another 3 to 5 years to mature, says an analyst.


To promote the film “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell,” based on the best-selling book by his good friend Tucker Max, public relations and marketing executive Ryan Holiday purchased a series of billboards. Shortly after they began appearing around Los Angeles, he ventured into a deserted intersection at 2 a.m. dressed in black and defaced one of the ads with obscene, 2-foot-long stickers of his own design that implied that Max deserved to have something horrific happen to his genitals.

Holiday, with his girlfriend driving, circled the block and took photos of the billboard from the passenger seat. He then dashed home and e-mailed the photos, under the fictional name Evan Meyer, to two carefully selected blogs — Curbed Los Angeles and Mediabistro’s FishbowlLA — with a note that said, “Good to know Los Angeles hates Tucker Max, too.”

When one of the bloggers (he doesn’t specify who) wrote back to say, “You’re not messing with me, are you?” Holiday-as-Meyer replied, “Trust me, I’m not lying.”

‘Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator,” Holiday’s new book, is both a screed against blog culture and an admission of misbehavior from Holiday, the longtime director of marketing for the controversial clothing company American Apparel.

While the observation that the Internet favors speed over accuracy is hardly new, Holiday lays out how easily it is to twist it toward any end, since “the news is created and driven by marketers, and no one does anything to stop it.”

In the case of “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” Holiday’s trickery — further fueled by anonymous outraged e-mails he sent to local websites and women’s rights groups in areas where the film was screening — worked exactly as planned. His pictures of the defaced billboards spread to other blogs, leading to real-life protests, further billboard defacings across the country, and editorials against the film in The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.

Holiday writes that the media can be easily manipulated today because bigger blogs often get their stories from smaller blogs and Twitter, and the mainstream media takes its cue from all of them.

So if you offer juicy information to a series of smaller, strategically selected sites, the information can travel up the chain with predictable efficiency.

“Take the outlet where you’d ultimately like to receive coverage and observe it for patterns,” he says. “You’ll notice that they tend to get their story ideas from the same second-level sites. By tailoring the story to those smaller sites, it sets you up to be noticed by the larger one.”

He cites examples such as how Gawker and Mediabistro are “read very heavily by the New York City media set,” and how Katie Couric has said that she gets story ideas from Twitter. This, he says, means that “getting a few tweets out of the 700 or so people she follows is all it takes to get a shot at the nightly national news.”

The other side of this equation, he writes, is that the nature of the Internet economy has destroyed any pretense of accuracy among blogs and that their inaccuracies often find their way up the media food chain.

Websites make their money by selling ads that are evaluated by the number of pageviews they receive, putting bloggers under constant pressure to produce as many clickable posts as possible.

One example of this pressure is the policy of the blog Business Insider, which, he says, requires writers to generate “three times the number of pageviews required to pay for their own salary and benefits, as well as a share of the overhead, sales, hosting and [CEO Henry] Blodget’s cut. In other words, an employee making $60,000 a year needs to produce 1.8 million pageviews a month, every month, or they’re out. This is no easy task.”

This has created a stunning drop in standards in some areas, such as with an editor from the retail shopping blog Racked NY, who told Holiday that she did all her shopping online — even though retail was her beat — because she simply didn’t have time to walk into a store.

Max, Holiday recalls, once e-mailed the editor of the sports blog Deadspin after they incorrectly guessed the identity of someone in one of Max’s stories. The editor e-mailed back, with stunning candor, “Honestly, I could give a f – – -. You keep doing whatever it is you’re doing, and I’ll do the same.”

This attitude, as Holiday presents it, would seem to be pervasive. He quotes MG Siegler of TechCrunch, “one of the dominant voices in tech blogging,” as having said that in what he and his competitors write, “there’s a lot more bulls- – – than there is 100% pure, legitimate information.” He also quotes TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington saying, “Getting it right is expensive; getting it first is cheap.”

Given this environment, Holiday says that spreading one’s own agenda can be as easy as sending carefully tailored e-mails from a fake address or via some other false pretense, techniques that Holiday has used frequently.

Once, when he wanted certain legal information about American Apparel widely circulated, he alerted several bloggers, who responded with a collective yawn. So he wrote a fake internal memo and e-mailed those same bloggers posing as a low-level company employee, with the note: “memo we’d just gotten from our boss.” The same blogs that rejected the official news, he says, now covered it with a big “EXCLUSIVE!” tag across the top.

Holiday also created fake controversies, such as sending half-naked photos he couldn’t use for legal reasons to the feminist blog Jezebel under the pretense of their having been leaked from the company’s servers, or placing purposely provocative ads on the company’s website and falsely stating they were part of an upcoming campaign just to generate scandalous articles.

Holiday used these tactics for more nefarious ends as well. When a friend had a problem with a powerful talent agent, Holiday says he advised him to “draft a letter announcing his intention to file an embarrassing lawsuit, which he could then leak to the gossip blogs.”

While the friend was never serious about filing suit, the leaked letter made its way to TMZ, ESPN and others, and the friend received a $500,000 payment “to go away.”

While Holiday’s own examples of media manipulation and “spread” — the ability of a story to get picked up by other outlets — may affect just his company, sometimes the consequences are far greater.

He talks about the Terry Jones case, where the Florida pastor burned a copy of the Koran. While journalists initially ignored the event, a freelancer for a French wire service couldn’t resist. When his story wound up on Yahoo and Google News, it then made its way up the blogosphere and into other news outlets, ultimately resulting in riots in Afghanistan that left 27 people dead. Forbes categorized the incident as an example of “when Journalism 2.0 kills.”

Political campaigns use the exact same strategy, meanwhile, to create viral controversies.

Of course, those who live by the blog die by the blog, as Holiday discovered.

Holiday devotes an entire chapter to his feud with Jezebel blogger Irin Carmon (now with Salon). According to Holiday, when several bottles of a new American Apparel nail-polish line cracked in the stores, the company pulled the polish from the shelves, intending to replace them with new bottles. Carmon somehow received an internal company memo about this and e-mailed Holiday early one morning, saying that a story was about to be posted but that she would “be more than happy to update or post a follow-up.”

The post was online by the time Holiday woke up, with the headline, “Does American Apparel’s New Nail Polish Contain Hazardous Material?” and Holiday’s follow-up explanation, which he claims fully refuted her story, wound up as merely a short update at the bottom of the original post. The ensuing controversy, he says, led to the “undoing” of the nail-polish company they were working with and a $5 million lawsuit by American Apparel against the company, later dismissed.

While it’s a bit rich to ask for sympathy after all the lies he peddled, Holiday still froths as he explains how Crain’s New York e-mailed him to ask if American Apparel would be closing any stores due to the financial crisis. When Holiday answered with an emphatic “no,” the paper “found a real-estate agent who didn’t work for American Apparel to say we might.”

This led to the headline, “American Apparel Likely To Shed Some NY Stores,” which was then picked up by blogs including AOL’s DailyFinance, which included the company in a slideshow titled, “10 Leading Businesses Shuttering Stores Because of Downturn.” The tale came full circle a week later, when Crain’s ran another story, “Unraveling American Apparel Could Put NYC Stores on the Block,” which then turned up on Google Finance and “started the same chain all over again.”

Throughout the book, Holiday presents examples of the damage blogs can do, such as citing how the blog Engadget “posted a fake e-mail announcing a supposed delay in the release of a new iPhone and Apple operating system,” which led to a $4 billion drop in Apple’s stock price.

But Holiday fails to mention that much of that value was recovered within a day, when news of the hoax was made public.

Could it be that the Internet, while flawed, is still occasionally self-policing enough to correct problems?

Holiday — who at one point refers to blogging as “digital bloodsport,” and at another compares it to the Salem witch trials — mentions a whisper campaign Facebook commissioned about Google’s privacy issues, and claims that Google’s declining to make a detailed public statement was their version of quaking in their boots. Of course, the Internet giant could also have just decided that, as it sometimes is, silence is the best public-relations strategy.

He also cites the case of the video producer who approached the French food corporation Danone, telling them that he had created two videos — one a fun spoof of one of their products, the other a far nastier one — and asked for a fee-per-view if he released the first one instead of the second. While Holiday calls it “extortion via viral video,” he leaves out the fact that in the end, the company apparently wasn’t that frightened, since they ultimately refused to pay.

Then again, on the Internet, bad press is forever. For every company or individual that successfully turned the tables or manipulated the message their way, there are plenty of others done in by bad reviews and snippets of video — legitimate complaint or no.

At the very least, “Trust Me, I’m Lying” provides valuable food for thought regarding how we receive — and perceive — information.

“You cannot have your news instantly and have it done well,” Holiday writes. “You cannot have your news for free; you can only obscure the costs.”

Summary: To promote the film “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell,” based on the best-selling book by his good friend Tucker Max, public relations and marketing executive Ryan Holiday purchased a series of billb…


"There is going to be a demand, and a need, for at least 5,500 new positions over the next three to five coming years," said Sarah Nageotte, president of the National Court Reporters Association. Fifteen percent of the industry is poised to retire. Nageotte said a lot of people are not even aware the career still exists.

Court reporting not only exists, it's expanding.

Most new reporting jobs are outside the courtroom, doing depositions or closed captioning. There is a new federal initiative to provide captioning services to hearing-impaired students. The pay for those jobs can range from $35 an hour up into six figures. One current opening for a court reporter in San Francisco starts above $100,000, plus benefits.

Read MoreHow much will college cost in 25 years?

"It's absolutely a growth industry," said Margaret Ortiz, who runs the court reporting program at West Valley College in Saratoga, California. "You are your own boss, even if you're in court."

At her school there are 85 students enrolled in the court reporting program, a number expected to increase as more students take classes online. In one class, for example, Ortiz and three other instructors re-enacted court testimony, speaking at different speeds, as students both in the classroom and checking in online typed away. Ortiz said that students at West Valley can complete training in as few as two years for a total cost of about $3,000, plus the $300 to $700 for a used machine.

"Our typical student is a perfectionist and loves words, loves language," said Ortiz. "Many of our students have musical backgrounds. A lot of them have played the piano."

Nageotte added that even bartenders are considered good candidates, "because they multitask, and they are good at approaching challenges."

Read MoreThe best (and worst) jobs for 2014

To become certified nationally, a court reporter must be able to type 225 words per minute as two voices speak. In California, Ortiz said reporters have to type 200 words per minute as four voices speak.

Students come from all kinds of backgrounds: high school graduates, college graduates dissatisfied with their job prospects, and people looking to start over. Katherine Schilling graduated from Smith College with a degree in Japanese.

"The corporate environment started to wear on me," she said. Schilling was watching "Sons of Anarchy" one night with the subtitles on, "And I thought, 'It's a job? People do this? People get paid for this?' " She enrolled at West Valley College and hopes to start off making "at least $65,000" after finishing classes next year.

Summary: Believe it or not, enrolling in a court reporting course may have a higher pay-off than many four-year college degrees.


May 1, 2016 | 5:52am

Watching her toddler happily playing with toy blocks on the rug, Manhattan mom Christina was pleased to have been invited to the apartment of another mother she’d met at the park.

Then a familiar phrase wrecked the occasion. “Have you tried the It Works wrap?” asked the hostess, whipping out a pamphlet for the cellulite-minimizing product sold via at-home parties. “Trust me, you want to be part of this.”

“If I had a dime for the number of times [at play dates] I’ve been asked to join a Rodan + Fields skin-care trial or sell dōTerra essential oils, I’d be rich,” says Christina, a 28-year-old Upper West Sider, who, like everyone interviewed for this article, asked that her last name be withheld so as not to offend any mommy pals.

“You’re cornered because your kid is there playing — you’re stuck in the middle of a sales pitch without the option to leave.”

Christina’s situation is an increasingly common one in the ultracompetitive world of New York City play dates, where prearranged get-togethers are less about the kids and more about the giant-size egos — and financial interests — of the parents. Whether it’s to gather gossip from nannies, further real-estate dreams, or push your tot to make friends with a celebrity’s offspring, parents need a dog-eat-dog mentality to navigate the traps.

‘You’re cornered because your kid is there playing — you’re stuck in the middle of a sales pitch without the option to leave.’

The phenomenon is explored in the new book “The Playdate: Parents, Children, and the New Expectations of Play” by Tamara R. Mose, an associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College.

“Play dates are often seen as opportunities where the parent can gain a social or career advantage,” says Mose, who interviewed 66 parents, teachers and caregivers across the five boroughs. “They’re not necessarily about the children’s relationships, but those of the parents’.”

“The worst thing about parenting is the other parents,” sniffs Aisha, 41, the spouse of an NYC real-estate agent. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been hit up for apartments on play dates.”

A classic example is the “low-paid” actress who badgered her to help secure a place in the affordable Brooklyn apartment building Aisha’s husband was working on.

In the book, Mose meets Anna, the Brooklyn-based CEO of a high-end toy company, who finagled things so her daughter could play with a certain girl from school. It turned out the girl’s father was an in-demand set designer Anna wanted to hire for photo shoots.

As the author writes, “When the man wasn’t being used anymore because of Anna’s new creative direction, that relationship was severed . . . causing tension between the children, who stopped having play dates.

Mose argues that, over the last 20 years, since indoor play dates have replaced more casual interactions in playgrounds and parks — with helicopter parents worried about pedophiles, and the perceived increase in violence in the big bad city — a fresh set of rules is in place.

Companies such as familystickers.com now even manufacture calling cards for children to exchange with their parents’ information on it.

“Back in the day, kids could be kids, playing among themselves, but now everything is mediated by parents,” Mose tells The Post. “The issues that always come up — like handling the bully or appropriately sharing toys — are supervised and dealt with by the adults.”

And that can cause tensions.

Take 43-year-old Catherine from Queens. She recalls a hellish play date where her 8-year-old son was pursued by a friend wielding a baseball bat.

“It was horrible because he was actually going to beat him up,” she recalls. “What was worse was that the mom, who was really touchy-feely and crunchy, wanted to sit her son down to talk about it.

“Most mothers would shout, ‘Hey, hey, hey!’ if they saw their kid chasing someone down with a bat, but not this one. It was the last time we had a play date with them.”

Then there’s the case of 40-year-old Jane from the Upper East Side, who was appalled by the obviously learned behavior of her son’s over-privileged classmate.

Toward the end of a play date — supervised by Jane and a preschool teacher she’d hired for the occasion — the kids were instructed to help clean up.

“The little girl pointed toward her nanny, who was sitting on the couch, and said: ‘I don’t do cleanup. She does.’ The nanny sprang up immediately to do her ‘duty’ while the teacher and I were left open-mouthed,” Jane recalls.

“I said, ‘That’s not the way we do things in our house,’ and the girl begrudgingly started to pick things up.”

Says Mose, “It is usually the host who is supposed to create the boundaries because, again, play dates are not about the children. But if the visitors’ rules are different from the host’s rules, there can be clashes.”

Mother-of-one Katie once had to handle a hysterical parent who couldn’t believe it when her own boys enthusiastically grabbed the Nerf guns that Catherine’s son plays with regularly.

“She was screaming, ‘We don’t play with guns in our household!’ And I calmly replied, ‘Neither do we; they’re Nerf guns!’ ” recalls Catherine, who says she enforces rules about the toys, such as not allowing the kids to shoot each other in the face.

“It became very awkward because the mom continued to freak out, even though her sons were frothing at the mouth to have a go.

“Afterward, I never heard from her again, and that was fine.”

Repeatedly throughout her research, Mose found that upper- middle-class parents actively seek out children of similar social, racial and cultural status for play dates, a trend she calls the People Like Us (PLU) syndrome.

“You are going to bring home whomever you feel most comfortable with — somebody who looks like you and is of the same class background. One woman said, ‘My child interacts with all different kids at the playground,’ so I questioned her: ‘But who are the ones you bring back to your home?’ ” says Mose. “Then she reacted differently and said, ‘Yeah, they’re not that diverse.’

“When I asked white people in my interviews, ‘Do you have play dates with black children?’ they’d have to think for a while. And then they could only point to one case.”

Even though the kids are well under the voting age, PLU syndrome also applies to politics. One Park Slope mother of two, Sarah, 29, told The Post how her 2-year-old was denied a play date because Sarah is, God help her, a member of the GOP.

“I was at a toddler music class and chatting pleasantly with one of the moms,” remembers Sarah. “I asked if she’d want to meet at the park before class the following week.

“Her response was: ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I try to limit my child’s interactions with Republicans.’ ”

Sarah — who was once admonished by a woman in a Gowanus Whole Foods for handing her baby a nonorganic banana — found the episode hilarious. But Mose is less amused.

“It is all part of the exclusion that happens during the play-date experience,” she says. “It has nothing to do with the fact that children might enjoy each other’s company regardless of their parents’ politics.”

The sociologist also uncovered the faux pas that is organizing a play date — and sending your nanny to supervise.

“The [nannies] felt it was an invasion of their time . . . because they’re being forced to interact with a stranger,” she says.

‘I asked if she’d want to meet at the park before class … Her response was: “Well, I’m sorry, but I try to limit my child’s interactions with Republicans.”‘

Nanny Connie, a Seventh-day Adventist, felt “inherent discomfort” when she entered a Fort Greene apartment staffed by another child-care provider who didn’t share her religious views.

“She immediately objected to the way [the other woman] communicated because she was cursing and talking about her employers in a negative way,” recounts Mose. “Connie stayed for about an hour, and then excused herself from the play date.”

Play dates also tend to reinforce class barriers when a nanny is invited to bring her ward to a parent’s home.

Catherine, the Nerf-gun mom, laughs when she recalls a neighbor’s nanny bringing over her charges.

“The nanny would tell me private stuff about the family, which I really didn’t want to know. She’d tell me that she wasn’t getting paid enough,” Catherine says. “And the ‘hot dad’ wasn’t so hot anymore when she told me how he’d laze on the couch, picking at his feet.

“He also used to yell at the nanny to bring him soup. Not very sexy.”

This being New York, there are certain circumstances when parents will rabidly pursue play dates for their children, no matter whether their kids are friends or enemies.

“If there is a celebrity — even a D-list reality star — in your kid’s class, people will be swooning over them at parents’ evenings to try and secure a play date,” adds Harriet, 38, from the West Village. Her two offspring attend a top Manhattan prep school where Oscar-winning movie stars also send their kids.

“People will do anything to take a peek inside a [star’s] apartment or attend a birthday party, because it’s almost bound to be lavish,” explains Mose.

Harriet reveals how one family ingratiated themselves to an A-list actor by offering a driver to take their daughter and the star’s child to dance lessons.

“The mother was a bit of a starf - - ker who wanted to get into [the actor’s] apartment to see what kind of furniture and gadgets they had,” says the mom.

In May 2012, Page Six reported how moms in Park Slope were in a flap about handsome “Smash” actor Jack Davenport setting up in the tony neighborhood with his actress wife, “Doctor Who” star Michelle Gomez, and their son, Harry.

Swooning posts popped up on Facebook: “Just spotted Jack Davenport in the local playground. Bet you wish you’d been there, Brooklyn girlies.”

“Everybody wanted to be invited to the Davenports’ place for a play date,” a neighborhood source tells The Post. “They were definitely the ‘in couple’ for a while.

“When one woman who lived in the same building accidentally got Davenport’s mail delivery, it was a good excuse to go around to introduce herself and have their kids play together.”

But what better prize than a play date with the grandchild of the potential next president of the United States?

“Some people have been going to Friday night services at the synagogue near Madison Square Park where Chelsea Clinton goes with Marc Mezvinsky because they want their kid to play with [their 1-year-old daughter] Charlotte,” says Upper West Sider Christina.

If it gets them one step closer to an ice-cream social at the White House, who can blame them?

Summary: Watching her toddler happily playing with toy blocks on the rug, Manhattan mom Christina was pleased to have been invited to the apartment of another mother she’d met at the park. Then a familiar p…


Authorities searched the offices of France’s soccer federation and seized documents to help a Swiss investigation into former FIFA President Sepp Blatter, Switzerland’s prosecutor said on Wednesday.

The operation, carried out a day earlier, was linked to a 2 million Swiss franc ($2 million) payment to France’s Michel Platini at the heart of proceedings against Blatter, Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said.

Swiss prosecutors said in September they had opened a criminal investigation into Blatter on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and misappropriation of funds, allegations he dismissed.

Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini were both banned from soccer for six years over the FIFA payment to Platini in 2011, made with Blatter’s approval for work done a decade earlier. Both have denied any wrongdoing and made no immediate public statements on Wednesday.

“Documents were seized in connection with the suspected payment of 2 million Swiss francs that is inter alia the subject of the proceedings,” the Swiss prosecutor said in a statement.

The French financial prosecutor’s office confirmed the search took place, saying documents useful to the Swiss investigation were taken.

Platini’s status in the OAG proceedings remains unchanged, the OAG said. In September, it described Platini as a “person asked to provide information.”

More than 40 individuals and entities, including many former FIFA officials, have also been charged with corruption-related offenses in the United States, amid the worst corruption crisis in FIFA’s history.

Swiss Blatter’s 18-year tenure as FIFA president officially ended last month with the election of Gianni Infantino but he remains in the spotlight as he appeals against his FIFA ban.

In an interview with German news agency DPA published on Wednesday, Blatter said he hoped his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport would be concluded by mid-April.

Swiss authorities are also investigating the awarding of the hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

Germany’s hosting of the 2006 World Cup is also under scrutiny over a 6.7 million euro ($7.35 million) payment to FIFA.

Asked in a separate interview with Swiss newspaper Blick about suggestions money may have changed hands in exchange for votes, Blatter said: “The allegation that FIFA has to be paid in order to get the World Cup is fanciful.”

However, the Department of Justice’s charges of bribery and corruption are sticking more and more widely these days. On Monday, Miguel Trujillo, a Colombian-born FIFA match agent, pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe soccer officials across Latin America and the Caribbean, according to U.S. prosecutors.

Summary: Germany's Ruling Soccer Body is Also Suspected of Corrupt Dealings


BERLIN—More than 120 German police officers were injured in Berlin and 86 people detained during violent protests overnight in what the police described as the most aggressive demonstrations Germany’s capital has seen in over five years.

The clashes were staged by roughly 3,500 mainly leftist protesters who threw bottles, cobblestones and fireworks at police cars and police officers.

“During the operation conducted by roughly...

BERLIN—More than 120 German police officers were injured in Berlin and 86 people detained during violent protests overnight in what the police described as the most aggressive demonstrations Germany’s capital has seen in over five years.

The clashes were staged by roughly 3,500 mainly leftist protesters who threw bottles, cobblestones and fireworks at police cars and police officers.

“During the operation conducted by roughly 1,800 police forces…123 police officers were injured,” the police said in a statement on Sunday. “Police officers initiated over 100 criminal proceedings for serious civil disorder, disobedience to police officers, putting on face covers, attempting to free detained people, serious physical assault and violations of the explosive law.”

The police couldn’t be reached to comment on how serious the police officers’ injuries were and whether protesters were also injured.

Of the detained protesters, three people will be brought to an investigative magistrate due to alleged serious civil disorder, the police statement said.

Clashes between activists and police have intensified over the past weeks following massive police operations and forced evictions at squatted buildings in the eastern Berlin district of Friedrichshain at the end of June.

“Let’s turn the entire city into a danger area for the state that day. Prepare yourselves and organize actions in solidarity with self-organized projects. Be out of control, angry and creative,” a group supporting the squatted buildings, called Rigaer94, said in a post on its website last Sunday, two days ahead of a court hearing on one of the evictions.

Over the past years, left-wing activists have also repeatedly set cars alight in protest against what they call the invasion of “yuppies” and “big shots” to Berlin.

Write to Andrea Thomas at andrea.thomas@wsj.com

Summary: Police detained 86 people during violent protests overnight in Berlin in what authorities described as the most aggressive demonstrations Germany’s capital has seen in over five years.


General Motors apologized Tuesday for sending recall notices to families of car owners killed as a result of their vehicles’ defects.

“We are deeply sorry to those families who received a recall notice,” GM spokesman Greg Martin told Reuters.

GM recalled 2.6 million cars in recent months after they were linked to an ignition switch defect that GM blames for 13 deaths, though other reports say the number is many times that.

Terri DiBattista, the mother of a 16-year-old who died in a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt, said she received two recall notices from GM to fix the vehicle. The Cobalt was destroyed in the accident.

Federal regulators believe that GM’s death toll of 13 is a low estimate. A recent Reuters analysis says at least 74 people have died in accidents similar to the ones GM has linked to the defective switches, though GM refutes that number.

Summary: The embattled carmaker says it regrets sending recall notices to families of victims


Why Budapest? My first visit, in the Nineties, was in the depths of winter – a wonderfully crisp, icy weekend. Then, in summer 2010, I spent two months there filming a television series, The Pillars of the Earth. The city is split into two by the Danube: Buda is very beautiful and ancient – it's where most visitors flock. I prefer Pest. It has a slightly crumbling Austro-Hungarian imperial swagger and there's more to explore.

Is there anything special I should pack? Whatever season it is, take your swimming things. One of the great pleasures is relaxing in the thermal baths and venturing into the steam rooms. The 1956 revolution was hatched in them – there were no hidden microphones. My favourite is the 16th-century Kiraly Bath, built during the Ottoman era. It's architecturally exciting, and hasn't been tarted up like others.

What's the first thing you do? Hire a bike. There are trams and buses but I prefer exploring on two wheels, though it can be perilous. I enjoy cycling on the Pest side of the Danube, along boulevards flanked by Art Nouveau buildings. I'll also wander around Lehel covered market and Margaret Island, a popular park in the middle of the river.

The Chain Bridge over the Danube

Where is the best place to stay? Brody House (0036 1266 1211; brodyhouse.com; doubles from €60/£49). I like small hotels and it has just eight bedrooms, all named after contemporary artists. It's based in the prime minister's former palace and art hangs in every room. Being in downtown Budapest, it's close to many restaurants and sights.

Where would you meet friends for a drink? The Four Seasons Gresham Palace Hotel (1268 6000; fourseasons.com). Built in 1906, this spectacular Art Nouveau palace was converted into a hotel in 2004 – an epic, splendid place for a cocktail. Otherwise, one of the many Ruin Bars would be the place to meet. These impromptu open-air bars are springing up everywhere, usually in courtyards of empty flats earmarked for redevelopment. Instant (Nagymezo Street) is a favourite, but seek out the new ones.

The Four Seasons Gresham Palace Hotel

Where is the best place for lunch? Ket Szerecsen (1343 1984; ketszerecsen.hu) is a relaxed café-cum-restaurant where you get more than just goulash. Hearty, well-prepared Hungarian, French and Moroccan cuisine is dished up by friendly staff. Avoid the touristy restaurants with table-hopping violinists.

And for dinner? Deryne Bistro (1225 1407; cafederyne.hu), a Parisian-style restaurant behind Buda Castle. It has great ambience and delicious food. Make sure you start with an Aperol Spritz.

Where would you send a first-time visitor? The thermal baths, for starters. The most beautiful and ancient is the Kiraly, but the Rudas or Szechenyi – supposedly Europe's largest medicinal bath – are alternatives. You should explore the main sites, including Buda Castle, with its panoramic views. If you think you're into Commie-chic just visit the House of Terror museum. It's where the secret police took suspects for questioning and is a reminder of Hungary's days of totalitarianism.

Budapest's thermal baths are a must for first-time visitors

What should I avoid? Hassles with taxi drivers. That awful insecurity when climbing into a taxi in a foreign destination is lessened with City Taxis. They're reliable and trustworthy.

What should I bring home? Tokay wine. So many drinks never taste the same when you get home but I love this – it travels well.

Anywhere that isn't your sort of town? Dubai. It's "Hubris-on-Sea". When I did a world tour of my one-man play, Alex, based on the Telegraph's cartoon, I took the show there. Everything is fake. But maybe I'm just missing the point of the place. I stayed in a hotel with its own souk; but it's the only souk I know with a Starbucks.

 Robert Bathurst is touring in 'Blue/Orange' until November 24, visit blueorangetheplay.com

Summary: The actor on his fondness for the Hungarian capital, which he loves for its wonderfully crisp winters, beautiful scenery and ancient history.


Hats off to Silicon Alley Insider for their continued coverage of the overseas iPhone market.

Last week, Henry Blodget plucked a pseudonymous post from a New York Times comment stream and re-published what may be the smartest analysis to date of what’s driving the extraordinary demand for iPhones overseas, especially in emerging markets (see “Tantrum” here).

Today, Dan Frommer treats us to an informal survey of the going rate for those iPhones once they are unlocked and put up for sale. The results, grabbed from Craigslist or their local equivalents (Molotok, anyone?), are posted at right. For comparison, he notes, Apple (AAPL) sells the 8 GB iPhone for $399 in the U.S. and the 16 GB model for $499. (link)

Summary: Hats off to Silicon Alley Insider for their continued coverage of the overseas iPhone market. Last week, Henry Blodget plucked a pseudonymous post from a New York Times comment stream and re-published what may be the smartest analysis to date of what's driving the extraordinary demand for iPhones overseas, especially in emerging markets (see "Tantrum"…


Toibin, who last visited in 1992, said he was struck most by the elaborate system of Israeli control over Palestinians, including roadblocks and fences, and the energy spent on maintaining it.

"All of us have been surprised by the amount of architecture and engineering required to make sure one side is locked in and the other side is free to move," said Toibin, who has won several literary awards and whose novel "Brooklyn" about an Irish immigrant was adapted into a movie last year.

The anthology is meant to introduce a wider audience to this reality through the power of story-telling, said those involved in the project.

"I want to get to people who would normally avoid at all costs thinking about this issue because it makes them uncomfortable," said Israeli-American writer Ayelet Waldman, one of the book's editors.

Toibin's millions of readers, for example, might not be interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "but they might read an essay by a writer like Colm Toibin and then they might think of the place in a new way," the U.S.-based Waldman said in a phone interview.

The occupation began with Israel's swift capture of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war — lands the U.N. General Assembly recognized in 2012 as making up a state of Palestine. The international community, including Israel's closest allies, has said a final border should be based on the pre-1967 frontier, with agreed land swaps, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected that as a baseline for negotiations.

Over the past five decades, Israel, citing security needs, established a military bureaucracy that enforces movement restrictions on Palestinians through a complex permit system. Close to 600,000 Israelis, or 10 percent of Israel's Jewish population, now live in settlements on war-won land, often lured by government subsidies. It's a multi-billion-dollar enterprise the international community overwhelmingly considers illegitimate.

Israel has also fragmented the territory of what is meant to be Palestine.

Israel annexed east Jerusalem in 1967, withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but then sealed the territory after the 2007 takeover of the territory by the Islamic militant group Hamas. Under interim peace deals reached in the 1990s, it directly controls 62 percent of the West Bank, known as Area C, home to settlers and largely off-limits to Palestinian development. Palestinians led by Hamas' rival, Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas, have some autonomy in the rest of the West Bank.

Israel says it has been willing to negotiate an end to occupation, but that Palestinians rejected or responded with violence to generous Israeli offers in 2000 and 2008. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he remains open to talks, but he has shown little faith in Abbas. Talks have been at a standstill since Netanyahu took office in 2009.

Palestinians say a systematic colonization of east Jerusalem and the West Bank belies Israel's claims that it is serious about ending occupation. Many members of Netanyahu's government oppose Palestinian statehood, and several advocate annexing large parts of the West Bank.

The anthology, to be published in English, Hebrew, Arabic and several other languages, was conceived by Shaul and Waldman, who say they are Israeli patriots and want to contribute to ending occupation by helping shift public opinion at home and abroad.

"It is on our shoulders to stop the occupation and save Israel," said Shaul, 32, who spent part of his military service in Hebron and a decade ago founded "Breaking The Silence," a veterans' group that collects soldiers' testimony about abusive practices in the West Bank.

Netanyahu's office did not respond to a request for comment on the book project.

Last week, Shaul accompanied Toibin to the Palestinian hamlet of Susiya, home to several dozen families. The village is flanked by a Jewish settlement and the ruins of a centuries-old Jewish town of the same name.

Palestinians lived in the area of the ruins until it was declared an archaeological site and they were forced to leave in the mid-1980s. Some moved to other Palestinian communities, while others settled a few hundred yards away, on land they say they own.

Israel refused to recognize the community or hook it up to electricity and water grids, while providing such services to the settlement of Susiya and unauthorized Jewish outposts in the area. Israel has also threatened to demolish the Palestinian village of tents and shacks.

In his essay, Toibin said he will tell the story of some of the displaced, including Nasser Nawaja, who now has to pay $7 to visit his birthplace at the archaeological site. Even then, Nawaja said, settlers only let him enter the site when he is accompanied by Israelis or foreigners.

On a hot summer day, Toibin toured the park with Nawaja, including a cave where the 34-year-old Palestinian said he was born and that is now used to screen a short film about ancient Susiya for visitors. The novelist, dressed in a crisp white shirt and gray linen pants, and the villager sat in the dark as they listened to a Jewish version of local history.

In writing about his experience, Toibin said he will avoid words like "occupation" and "''settlements" that he believes convey little meaning. "What I want to use are the smaller words to let people actually see what it is like on the (given) day for people who are humans under the same sky," he said.

Summary: Notebook in hand, acclaimed Irish author Colm Toibin walks into Hebron to observe Israeli military rule in its rawest form.


A quarter ago, as I noted on TheStreet.com on Friday, new CEO Mary Dillion was saying how "solid" the company's long-term growth strategy is.

Now, Ulta's stock price plunged 20 percent on Friday, a day after Ulta posted disappointing results, and the company is undertaking a strategic review of its long-term growth strategy.

(Read more: Carnage in sales spreads past retailers)

Perhaps for good reason: The balance sheet has been flashing red at Ulta for quarters with various issues depending on the quarter, including high inventories, rising receivables and in the most recent quarter payable growth well below inventory growth—a sign that what's on the shelf isn't selling.

Or, put another way, it would appear the company didn't need to load up on new inventory last quarter after having stuffed its shelves with more than it could sell. In the prior quarter, among the concerns was that inventory growth outstripped revenue growth.

No wonder Ulta was forced to resort to more "promotional" activity during the most recent quarter, forcing it to suspect prior management's "mid-teen" margin forecast.

(Read more: Cramer: 'Throwing up my hands')

And talk about puzzling: Ulta projected fourth-quarter same-store sales of 7 percent to 9 percent versus earlier expectations for 6 percent, while forecasting sales below consensus. Disconnects like that warrant concern, and one analyst asked about it. In response, CFO Scott Settersten said, in effect, that while "stores are continuing to perform at the levels that we expect them to," they're not outperforming, either.

Reality: All in all, a situation where it looks like even lipstick won't help this, uh, company look better.

—CNBC Contributor Herb Greenberg is a commentator at TheStreet.com and editor of Herb Greenberg's Reality Check. Follow him on Twitter:@herbgreenberg and Google.

Subscribe to Herb at http://www.facebook.com/herb.greenberg

Questions? Comments? Write to herbonthestreet@thestreet.com.

Summary: The stock of a beauty retailer Ulta shed more than 20 percent on Friday and Ulta's balance sheet has been showing red flags for quarters.