This year, Mashable has been getting into the holiday spirit by talking about the most gift-worthy gadgets available and inviting readers to get together at Mashable Holiday Meetups.

But what spreads holiday cheer more than the gift of giving? That’s why we’re giving away a MashPack filled with social media and tech prizes every weekday through Friday, December 17. A different grand prize will be added each day, getting bigger and better as we get further into the holiday season.

Today’s grand prize is a Kobo Wireless eReader, complete with eBooks chosen by Mashable staff. You’ll find a list below detailing the 19 other fantastic prizes in today’s MashPack — and see information on how to win. Yesterday’s MashPack went to Vanessa Williams from from Bethlehem, Pa. (Congratulations, Vanessa!) For those who didn’t win yesterday’s prize pack, go ahead and try your luck today.

Tweeting for today’s MashPack will end Wednesday, December 15 at 12 p.m. ET. Please use your real identity in the submission so that we may contact you via e-mail, Twitter or Facebook to let you know that you’ve won. We’ll contact the winner after the contest closes. The contest is limited to those 18 and older in the U.S. For contests and prizes, also make sure to “like” us on Facebook.

Today’s grand prize is a Kobo Wireless eReader. Weighing less than 8 ounces, the Kobo is compact and easy to tote around. With 1 GB of memory, you can carry up to 1,000 titles — your first 21 of which have been chosen by Mashable staff, thanks to Kobo’s recently launched eBook gifting service. Here’s what we picked for today’s MashPack winner: The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick (from Lauren Indvik), Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris (from Kate Hayden), American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (from Brett Petersel), Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart (from Sarah Kessler), A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays And Arguments by David Foster Wallace (from Erica Swallow), Life by Keith Richards (from Todd Wasserman), The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (from Brenna Ehrlich), Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (from Josh Catone), The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt (from Karen Hartline), Storyteller: The Authorized Biography Of Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock (from Christina Warren), Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations by Simon Rich (from Jolie O’Dell), One Day by David Nicholls (from Lauren Rubin), Half Empty by David Rakoff (from Evan Wexler), Ophelia Joined The Group Maidens Who Don’t Float: Classic Lit Signs On To Facebook by Sarah Schmelling (from Jennifer Van Grove), Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (from Ben Parr), How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker (from Matt Silverman), The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (from Jay Irani), The Botany Of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View Of The World by Michael Pollan (from Charlie White), The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (from Ada Ospina), 1776 by David McCullough (from Emily Banks), Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (from Meghan Peters).

Phosphor’s new World Time Curved E-Ink digital is on the cutting edge of time telling devices. It has a dual time zone display and provides a selection of 24 time zones. This means you can chose one of the 24 zones for the main display, while displaying a second time zone simultaneously. The watch can also be configured to display just the time of day or both the date and time in either over-sized or conventional-sized segments. There are five total display options. It’s curved case is sleek and ultra-thin, measuring 9.3mm thick. The Phosphor World Time Curved E-Ink watch’s assortment of different functions and display modes can’t be beat!

Sony’s Bloggie Touch camera captures Full HD video and 12.8-megapixel still shots with the simple touch of its single record button. The large touch screen showcases your photos and videos, which are stored on built-in memory. Its size makes it readily available from your pocket or purse, and you can easily upload your photos and videos to your favorite social networking sites while you’re on the go.

The Home Audio Link (HAL) by Aperion transmits high-quality uncompressed audio up to 100 feet. This means you can stream music from your computer, home theater, MP3 player or any other audio source to almost any speaker system in your home — wirelessly! With additional HAL receivers, you can stream a single audio source to up to three listening zones, giving you true whole-house audio without running wires across rooms.

The iPom from Speakeal is a 2.1 stereo speaker system that plays music from a USB Memory stick, SD cards or any other music device that has a 3.5mm output, such as an iPod. You can adjust the volume and which song you’re listening to just by touching the device. It has three speakers that are strategically positioned for 360 degree sound separation and distribution. Bass is adjustable and the airflow design is optimized for consistent sound performance. It has a 3.5mm AUX input jack to connect to your TV, gaming Console, MP3 player or other music sources. It comes in several colors for brightening up your listening experience!

Your iPad and your iPhone (or your iPod) get seats of honor in PowerDock Dual’s built-in charging dock, while the valet dish is a resting place for your change, keys and whatever else might live in your pockets. It has an AC power supply with four international plug adapters, 10 watt (2 amp) charging for your iPad and 5 watt (1 amp) charging for your iPhone or iPod. The screens and speakers are unobstructed while the batteries get charged, so you can listen while you watch. It’s perfect side table entertainment!

The AirCurve Play acoustically amplifies the speaker of your iPhone without batteries, cables or electricity. It collects the sound from the built-in speaker of your iPhone, amplifies it in a built-in coiled waveguide, and projects it out into the room. AirCurve’s transparent polycarbonate body lets you appreciate the waveguide’s graceful curves, inside, that do all the work. Its internal engineered waveguide requires no power, making it a perfectly portable audio/video conference phone, and self-contained music player and video viewer.

Caseable, a startup based right in Mashable HQ’s backyard — Brooklyn, New York, creates handmade, customized cases for just about any size laptop or tablet. You can get any look you’d like by handpicking your colors for each detail — even the zipper! Caseable made specialized 15-inch Mashable cases exclusively for our holiday MashPack winners. They’re quite snazzy, if we might say so ourselves.

Picaboo photo books can be fully customized by dragging-and-dropping photos and captions anywhere on your pages. You have complete creative control with powerful-yet-simple editing options. The Madison’s heavyweight, archival quality lay-flat pages are ideal for highlighting panoramic, two-page spreads, and the paper’s pearlescent sheen coating adds a luminous glow to your photos. The elegant custom cover features a photo of your choice under a protective laminate and a full-grain glove leather wrap around the spine and back cover is available in five colors.

Skullcandy headphones are known for their funky fashion and durable design. Their style is in line with an impressive list of celebrities who endorse the brand, including rap czar Snoop Dogg; snowboarding legends Terje Haakonsen, Mark Frank Montoya and Devun Walsh; skate pros Lizard King, Theotis Beasley and Greg Lutzka; surf rulers Mick Fanning, Owen Wright, Kolohe Andino, the Gudauskas brothers, and Clay Marzo; as well as free-ski greats Tanner Hall, Kaya Turski, and Tom Wallisch.

The Universal Square Stereo Speakers are just one example of Merkury Innovations’ fun and stylish electronic accessories. These battery-free speakers will work with audio devices featuring a 3.5mm audio jack. The slim design and exciting metallic colors can complement any decor. Their compact size make them convenient for toting from room to room in the house or packing up for a friend’s party.

Lonely Avenue contains 11 new songs featuring music by Ben Folds with words by Nick Hornby for what The Huffington Post calls “one of the most interesting collaborations of the year.” This special deluxe edition includes the album on CD and vinyl, four short stories by Nick Hornby and 15 images by acclaimed photographer Joel Meyerowitz, all in a hardbound, 152-page book.

Hard Candy Cases merges fashion and function to distinguish and protect mobile phones and now tablets from the wear and tear of daily use. It’s one of the fastest growing brands in the Apple accessories industry with distribution in the United States, Singapore, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, France, Puerto Rico, Thailand, Indonesia, Ireland, UK and Malaysia, among others.

The ZAGGsparq 2.0 is a mobile device charging unit that plugs into a standard outlet and provides two USB ports to plug devices into. When it’s unplugged, the ZAGGsparq 2.0 carries four complete recharges, so even the most power-hungry smart phones can live on while you’re on the go. It can be used for just about everything portable and chargeable, be it a cell phone or a hand-held gaming device. It also works with iPad, bringing it from 0% to 60% at the same rate as the iPad wall charger.

The Skitterbot is a speedy legged robot that travels at one foot per second and is controlled by a unique patent pending five button USB remote controller/charger. Made by Desk Pets, it moves forward, backwards, turns left and turns right and stops. The Skitterbot comes in four different colors and four different frequencies, so they can race, battle and explore together. Thirty minutes of charge gives you 15 minutes of play.

Constructed with premium quality leather, the Power Support USA iPad sleeve protects while complimenting the aesthetics of the device. The sleeve’s soft inner lining prevents scratching while using this sleek carrying case. Its clean design and superb manufacturing techniques make for high-quality iPad protection.

Power Support USA films protect your iPhone 4 screen from scratches, dirt and dust while reducing glare, fingerprints and smudges. It’s specially formulated to be compatible with retina display and resist glare and fingerprints while protecting your screen. The static cling adhesive film leaves no residue if film is removed.

Power Support has teamed up with cutting-edge designers Tibi, Rachel Pally and Rory Beca to create a set of super stylish air jackets. Measuring under 1 mm, the jacket snugly hugs the back of your iPhone 4. You can keep your phone protected from dings and scratches while looking fashionably fresh with the Power Support Designer Collection. It’s a win-win for any iPhone 4 owner!

The Smartfish ErgoMotion Laser Mouse isn’t your average desktop mouse. It provides the fluid, air-like comfort of the patented ErgoMotion pivot system. The mouse pivots with your natural wrist movement for comfortable and relaxed flexion, preventing cramping, fatigue and injury while promoting comfort and productivity.

Preloaded with ink good for 5,000 assertions, the Like and Dislike stamps let you make your opinion known on tangible things in real life. The idea for the stamp was born in summer 2010 after a joke image of a wooden-handled “Like Button Stamp” circulated on the web. Soon after, the Jailbreak Collective and Nation Studio in the U.K. collaborated to create real Like and Dislike stamps. It’s a formidable duo of approval and distaste.

Twournal allows you to create, buy and sell Twitter books printed from your tweets. All Twournals have color covers, can include replies and Twitpic/Tweetphoto/Yfrog pictures in color or black and white. You can choose a custom picture for your front cover. Select which tweets you want to start and end at. And you can add a dedication message to appear after your title.

Summary: Mashable is giving away a holiday MashPack filled with social media and tech prizes every weekday through Friday, December 17.


Mar 11th 2011, 10:15 by N.V. | LOS ANGELES

SINCE the second iteration of Apple’s svelte iPad tablet computer was unveiled to the public a little over a week ago, the blogosphere has been abuzz with predictions about the demise of the PC. With more than 100 tablet devices from over 60 different manufacturers now scrambling for a piece of the market that the original iPad staked out a year ago, pundits have been writing epitaphs for makers of laptops and other personal computers.No question that Apple—having sold an estimated 17m iPads over the past 12 months—has put a serious dent in laptop sales, its own as much as any other maker’s. Following the iPad 2’s announcement on March 2nd (it goes on sale today, March 11th), Gartner, a technology research company based in Stamford, Connecticut, promptly slashed its forecast for this year’s growth in worldwide laptop sales from 25% to less than 15%. Analysts expect some 50m tablet computers of various shapes and sizes will be shipped in 2011.But your correspondent thinks talk of a “post-PC era” is rubbish. The phrase, uttered most famously by an ailing Steve Jobs during his brief appearance at the launch of the iPad 2, is typical of the caustic hyperbole computerdom has come to expect from Apple’s iconoclastic leader. The surge in tablet sales signifies not the end of an era, but the emergence of yet another form-factor for personal computing—as happens every decade or so.First there were just desktop computers. Then luggable laptops were added, followed by slimmer notebooks and, more recently, lightweight netbooks joined the fray. Along the way, various attempts have been made to get users to embrace tablet and palmtop computers as well. Overall, however, the PC has continued to follow its evolutionary trajectory from a 50lb (23kg) lump that dominated the desktop to a 1.5lb device that can be cradled in one arm or curled up with in bed.Why now, when all previous attempts to introduce tablet or palmtop computers have fallen flat on their touch-screen faces? Your correspondent has toted both at one time or another, and admits they were hobbled by their clunky touch-screens, flaky operating systems and inability to cram enough computational horsepower within their diminutive form-factors while maintaining a useful enough battery life. Since then, however, smartphones—the natural inheritors of the palmtop mantle—have licked all those problems and more.Take the latest generation of low-power gigahertz processors based on designs licensed from ARM Holdings of Cambridge, Britain, and used in mobile phones everywhere—and now in iPads and over half of all the other tablet computers on the market or about to be launched. The ARM processor is an advanced “reduced instruction-set computer” (RISC) that can trace its origins back to the MOS 6502 chip used by Acorn, a British computer maker, back in the early 1980s. ARM (short for Advanced RISC Machines) was spun out of Acorn in 1990, to create RISC processors that consumed little power for Apple and other customers. To date, over 15 billion ARM-based processors have been shipped by the company’s 200 or so licensees.ARM’s attraction is that it owes no allegiance whatsoever to Intel’s x86 architecture. As such, ARM processors incur no royalty fees to Intel. Nor do they need to be backwardly compatible with the x86 instruction set used by Intel processors and workalike chips from AMD and others. That is the key to the design’s low power consumption.Because modern x86 processors use far more efficient instruction sets than their ancestors, Intel chips nowadays include additional circuitry to translate their new instructions so that they can interpret legacy software. This extra circuitry means more transistors generating yet more heat. Not only do the chips themselves gobble power as a result, but they also need special cooling fans to keep their temperatures within their operating range, consuming yet more energy in the process. The result is that portable devices using them either require bigger batteries or suffer from a shorter life between charges.By comparison, ARM processors are smaller and run at temperatures low enough not to need forced cooling. That makes them ideal for the cramped innards of smartphones and other handheld gizmos. Devices that use them get longer battery life. The processor in the iPad 2 has a pair of ARM cores working in tandem that deliver 10 hours of continuous use between charges. According to management consultants PRTM, three out of five tablets about to hit the market will use similar ARM-based processors.But processors are not the only thing tablet computers have borrowed freely from smartphones. Thanks to innovations made by suppliers, touch-screens capable of displaying high-definition video have come down in price dramatically. Nowadays, ten-inch displays (like those used in the iPad and Motorola’s Xoom) cost around $65 apiece; seven-inch versions can be had for less than $50.

In a similar vein, practically all tablet computers announced so far use operating systems developed originally for smartphones. The iPad's is based on iOS, the iPhone’s operating system. Meanwhile, more than half of the other tablets being rushed to market have adopted the latest version (Honeycomb) of Google’s free Android operating system. A quarter have licensed the Windows Phone 7 operating system from Microsoft. As for applications, the vast majority of tablet computers run software likewise written originally for smartphones. Apple's suppliers have already adapted some 60,000 programs (out of 350,000 iPhone programs offered by its App Store) for the iPad’s much larger screen. After a slow start, Android apps for tablet-sized screens are now multiplying fast.All this means that, compared with laptops, the price of entry to the tablet market is extraordinary low. As a consequence, nimble newcomers could well gobble up the business before established brands can get their acts together. The new entrants are going to have a significant impact on how established brands like Asus, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Samsung have traditionally marked up their digital goods—with retail prices typically set at three times the cost of manufacture. Needing next to no research and development, and with all the software free, back-street manufacturers around the globe will be able to enter the tablet business with only modest up-front costs. So, expect a bloodbath in pricing as dozens of low-cost Chinese assemblers crank out knockoffs galore for western retailers.Your correspondent believes the tablet computer is on the verge of becoming the fastest product in the history of consumer electronics to be commoditised. It took little more than a year for e-readers to go from being premium products costing well over $300 to selling for $100 or less. Sharing many of the same components, but with vastly more suppliers bidding for a piece of the action, tablets will suffer even greater price attrition.Despite its special charms and famously loyal customers, even Apple will feel the pinch. At least, the iPad maker has room to accommodate lower prices. A loaded iPad selling for $729 costs roughly $245 to produce, according to market researcher iSuppli. The same goes for Motorola's $799 Xoom, which is reckoned to cost the maker $278. But both contain high-end features that mainstream users will happily forgo in favour of rock-bottom pricing. As such, they are destined to become niche products for a minority willing to pay top dollar for bragging rights and other cravings. Last weekend, your correspondent saw a harbinger of things to come—a perfectly competent Android tablet with a seven-inch screen selling at a local electronics chain for $139. He was almost tempted to buy one. The only thing preventing him from making an impulse purchase was the certainty that many more models would shortly be available at even lower prices. His silent prayer to the Chinese: send in the iPad clones!


Entrepreneur Joe Chen, who runs China's leading social-networking sites from his Beijing-based startup Oak Pacific Interactive, no longer looks to Silicon Valley for clues on strategy.

A Stanford MBA grad who formed and sold his first startup while still a student, Chen is rarely in the Valley anymore. That's because China's entrepreneurial roots have shifted away from there.

What concerns Chen most about keeping Oak Pacific Interactive healthy is not Silicon Valley stars Facebook, Google ( GOOG - news - people ) or eBay ( EBAY - news - people ), but three giant Chinese brands he collectively calls the BAT--search engine Baidu, e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba and instant messaging service Tencent.

(See video) These Chinese upstarts are so hypercompetitive that Chen finds himself continually aiming to outsmart these super-sized brands. But even as Chen does battle with the BAT, he has his eye on driving Oak Pacific Interactive to an IPO.

In China, the action is shifting from returnee entrepreneurs--so called "sea turtles" who were educated in the U.S., got experience there and then moved back to China to start companies--and tilting toward what Chen calls "pancake turtles." Known for their ferocious eating habits and for being a Chinese delicacy, the pancake turtle is an exceptionally aggressive Chinese entrepreneur who is increasingly one-upping the returnees.

What's remarkable is that Chen says that Silicon Valley know-how isn't a crucial ingredient to an entrepreneurs' success in China anymore.

Not everyone agrees. While venture investors along Sand Hill Road may dig China, they still think Silicon Valley has a decided edge over the Mainland for innovative, if not disruptive, technologies--and will have it for at least another decade.

What China lacks now is the infrastructure and educational system to support full-scale tech innovation that can compete with the best in Silicon Valley. But don't blink. "It's just a matter of time and maturity," said GSR Ventures' special adviser Kevin Fong, speaking at a recent Silicon Dragon event in the Valley. (See video)

Even intellectual property protection in China is improving, as Chinese companies develop their own technologies and get patents. Indeed, China now ranks fifth in the world for new patent applications, though the U.S. remains the leader globally with about one-third of all patent filings.

Summary: Chinese venture investing is growing ever less dependent on Silicon Valley.


A Boston developer has proposed building a $60 million apartment complex with 278 units between the JFK/UMass MBTA station and the Shaw’s Supermarket on Morrissey Boulevard — a potential step toward a more extensive development with restaurants, shops, and office space along the sparsely populated roadway.

David Greaney, president of Synergy Investments, said his firm has sent a letter of intent to the Boston Redevelopment Authority, outlining its plans for the 2.35-acre Dorchester property, much of which is overgrown with waist-high weeds and surrounded by a chain-link fence. A portion of the site is used as surplus parking for Shaw’s.

The apartment proposal would transform the vacant lot into a complex of two 5½-story buildings with a club room, gym, parking garage and lots, and courtyard. Greaney said he expects the apartments to be the first wave of development in the neighborhood, helping to spur investment in retail and other business opportunities around the JFK/UMass station and Columbia Point.

City officials have long acknowledged the area — a more than 400-acre swath of Boston — is too isolated, despite being just off Interstate 93 and home to the University of Massachusetts Boston and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

In 2011, the BRA adopted a master plan to better connect Columbia Point’s neighborhoods, entice new residential and retail developments, and make the area more accessible to public transit riders, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

Greaney sees Synergy’s apartment complex as a starting point: bringing more residents into the area who will want places to shop and eat. Greaney said he hopes residents will be a “cross section of Boston” from “different income levels, different jobs, different neighborhoods.”

“We’re really trying to gear this building more to working professionals, young families, and people working in Boston,” Greaney said.

“We need to establish this as an additional viable neighborhood in Boston.”

Rents for the apartments — a mix of studios and lofts, and one- and two-bedroom units — are expected to range from $1,200 to just over $2,000 a month.

Car dealer Herb Chambers, meanwhile, said yesterday that he soon expects to close on a nearby vacant property on Morrissey Boulevard — the former Channel 56 lot next to The Boston Globe building — which he hopes to renovate into a certified, pre-owned BMW dealership.

“We’ve put a deposit on it,” he said. “It’s a very high traffic location, so we’d have great visibility there.”

If he gets approval from the city for the dealership, Chambers estimated he would invest about $6 million to buy, renovate, and landscape the property, and would probably hire about 30 to 40 people.

State Representative Martin J. Walsh, the Dorchester Democrat who represents the area, lauded the developments and said he believes the community will welcome the apartment complex and the BMW dealership.

“That area has been a barren — I don’t want to say wasteland — but a barren spot for so long,” he said. “Hopefully this will put some confidence in some investors looking at this spot.”

The president of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, a neighborhood group, could not be reached.

Summary: A Boston developer is looking to build a $60 million apartment complex with 278 units between the JFK/UMass MBTA station and the Shaw’s Supermarket on Morrissey Boulevard — a potential step toward a more extensive development with restaurants, shops, and office space along the sparsely populated roadway.


Niners starting cornerback Tarell Brown unwittingly forfeited a $2 million escalator in his base salary in 2013 because he didn't participate in the team's voluntary offseason workout program.

Brown, 28, who wasn't aware of the escalator clause in his contract, fired his agent, Brian Overstreet, Thursday shortly after he learned that his base salary had dipped from $2.9 million to $925,000 in 2013. Brown said he heard about his slashed base salary on Twitter.

"That's what agents get paid to do - to orchestrate the contract and let you know what you can and can't do as far as workouts, OTAs, things of that sort," Brown said. "That's what he got paid to do. He didn't do that. So, in my opinion, you have to be let go. We all are held accountable for our actions, and it's just part of the business."

Brown, a six-year veteran who is entering the final year of his contract, said Overstreet spoke to the 49ers Thursday to see "what we could work out" as far as recouping some of his lost salary. Brown said he would "hope for the best" before adding, "Pray for me." He signed a three-year, $7.1 million extension in 2009.

"There's no love lost," Brown said. "For me, I always want to be a professional in everything that I do. And I think I've done that so far throughout my career. It's an unfortunate situation. I'm going to take it in stride and get better. And learn from this."

Brown, who participated in the team's mandatory minicamp in June, emerged as arguably San Francisco's most reliable cornerback last year in his second full season as a starter. According to Pro Football Focus, he surrendered one touchdown in 19 games (including the postseason) and quarterbacks had a 77.7 rating when throwing in his direction. Since 2011, he's started all 37 games, including the playoffs.

A few hours after he learned about his contract snafu, he participated in the first practice of training camp this afternoon.

"It definitely was hard to concentrate just because my mind was somewhere else," Brown said. "But this is a business. And I understand that. And I have a job to do. The 49ers are paying me to do a job. I have to come out here, regardless of what's going on off the field, personal or financial. I have to do what's best for the team."

With the reduction in Brown's base salary, the 49ers are $7.4 million under the salary cap, according to NFLPA records.

Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

Summary: Niners starting cornerback Tarell Brown unwittingly forfeited a $2 million escalator in his base salary in 2013 because he didn't participate in the team's voluntary offseason workout program.  Brown, 28, who wasn't aware of the escalator clause in his contract, fired his agent, Brian Overstreet, Thursday shortly after he learned that his base salary had dipped from $2.9 million to $925,000 in 2013.  Brown, a six-year veteran who is entering the final year of his contract, said Overstreet spoke to the 49ers Thursday to see "what we could work out" as far as recouping some of his lost salary.  According to Pro Football Focus, he surrendered one touchdown in 19 games (including the postseason) and quarterbacks had a 77.7 rating when throwing in his direction.  Since 2011, he's started all 37 games, including the playoffs.


ThePostGame recently caught up with Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan. Jordan was testing out some maps in "Call of Duty: Ghosts" for the Global Multiplayer Reveal Event in Los Angeles.

ThePostGame: I know you're a huge Call of Duty guy. Are there any other guys on the Clippers who are into Call of Duty? DEANDRE JORDAN: Eric Bledsoe was. He was super into it. Like 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m. playing Call of Duty, volume on 117. He’s definitely big into it.

Some of the younger guys played it – Eric Gordon played it. Trey Tompkins would play it. I tried to get the older guys to play it, but it’s too many buttons. They’re used to Atari.

TPG: Who's the best Call of Duty player on the team? JORDAN: I feel like now, after those guys have left, I may be holding up the No. 1 spot. I don't have anybody else in the running, but I'll take the No. 1 title.

TPG: What was your experience like at the USA Basketball minicamp in Las Vegas? JORDAN: That was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my life. It was great. I haven’t done anything with USA Basketball since I was like 17. This was straight NBA competition with Hall of Fame coaches.

I learned so much from those guys. Coach K. Tom Thibodeau. Randy Ayers. All those guys. Even the college coaches who were there, Coach Cal, Billy Donovan, they definitely let you pick at their brain a little bit. I love that. Jim Boeheim. Those guys were great and they helped me out a lot.

TPG: I know you were working on your defense. Any skill in particular? JORDAN: Just being more of a leader. Communicating more on defense. Because once you get a little tired you start to just "play defense." You won't talk, you won’t say anything.

But definitely my communication as a leader. Especially on the defensive end because I know that that's where my teammates rely on me the most.

If I’m not playing defense we can win some games, but we've got to be able to win a title.

TPG: Doc Rivers said he thinks you can be Defensive Player of the Year. Do you think you could be a contender for the award? JORDAN: Yeah, I mean, if my coach said it, then Hell yeah. That’s definitely one of my individual goals. I don’t want to win it just one time, that’s definitely something I want to win multiple years.

When your coach says something about you like that, and we haven’t even had one practice together, that’s definitely something that’s humbling. And it’s definitely going to make me work even harder because I want that and I want to back his word up.

I’m really excited about that challenge that I think he put in front of me.

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TPG: How much are you looking forward to playing under and learning from Doc Rivers? JORDAN: He's one of the best in the league, he’s a Hall of Fame coach. He's won a title, he’s played, so he knows the game. You can’t argue with that. He's coached Hall of Famers. Anytime I can talk to him and pick his brain, ask him what he thinks I need to be doing, what I need to look at, what I need to get better at, what I need to fall back away from, I’m all his. Whatever he wants me to do.

TPG: You’re really active on social media. What do you like about Twitter, Instagram and the other sites? JORDAN: Whether it’s Twitter, Instagram, Vine whatever it is, people love that. And when you like to do it, it makes it even better. I’m only 25 years old, so I like to have fun. I like to hang with my family and my friends. I like to zipline. I did that and I posted it one time and people went crazy about it. It’s like, that's something that you don’t know DeAndre Jordan does -- a zipline. So it’s cool to let people in your life a little bit.

It kind of takes them off the court and gives them a different perspective, which I think people definitely enjoy.

TPG: It’s crazy to think about how much these sites are changing out culture. JORDAN: Yeah, I remember growing up we had MySpace. My Top 8 was my crew.

When Facebook came I was like, "No, I don’t want Facebook. MySpace is my stuff." But everyone was like, "Once you go to high school and college, you got to get a Facebook." And I was like, "Nah, Facebook is weak."

So I ended up getting a Facebook and I loved it. Same with Twitter. I didn't get a Twitter until late. Instagram I got that late. Vine I just got that.

I’m just starting to get up to date with everything, I definitely enjoy it. I have a good time with it, I'm making an Instagram video now.

TPG: Speaking of videos, you've done some hilarious "Funny or Die" skits. How much of a kick do you get out of that?

JORDAN: I love it. Because if anybody knows me, they know I like to have a good time. I like to have fun, I like to prank people and I like to get pranked. So anything that stays lively and upbeat and just have fun, I love that.

I didn’t know I was really like an on-camera guy until somebody told me, "You should be on camera." I was like, "Nah, I only like to tell jokes with my friends and imitate people in front of my friends." And they were like, "No, you should do it!"

So I gave it a shot and I love it now.

TPG: What’s the best prank that you’ve pulled or seen anyone pull? JORDAN: Oh my goodness [laughs]. I would have to say in college, one of my freshman buddies, we called him and we were like, "Hey we have a photo shoot today in the gym." I’m acting like I’m a reporter, "Yeah, bring all your practice gear and game gear. Bring a cold pair of shoes, we’re going to have a photo shoot. I already called DeAndre, I called B.J. [Holmes]. Can you be there an hour?"

And he was like, "Yeah, I’ll be there!" He calls us and he was like, "Hey, we got a photo shoot." And I was like, "Yeah, the guy just called me. I’m getting ready right now, I’ll meet you there."

He gets his stuff ready, he goes up to the gym, he’s waiting there and he’s like "Where is this guy at?" He tries to call, we don’t answer. He goes to the coach’s office and he’s like, "Coach, I’m late for this photo shoot, where’s the guy?" And coach [Mark] Turgeon was like, "What photo shoot, what are you talking about? I think DeAndre got you."

So he grabbed all of his stuff and came banging on our door and he was like, "Yeah, that was a pretty good one." [laughs]

TPG: That's great. Are people more cautious around you now? JORDAN: Yeah, like people don’t want to sleep around me now, which is bad. And I definitely don’t want to sleep around anybody. Even on a plane, not even like a team plane, when I’m going with my brother or with my mom somewhere, I’m not going to sleep. If they go to sleep I’ll put my hat on and put my hood over it.

I don’t want anybody to get my face. Even if I’m on the plane by myself, if people are like looking at me I’m like, "No, no, this is war. You’re not going to get me."

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Baghdad governor Ali al-Haidri has been assassinated in the capital, police and hospital sources say.

Details of al-Haidri's death on Tuesday remain unclear.

Al-Haidri is the most senior Iraqi official to be assassinated in Baghdad since the head of the Governing Council was killed by a bomb in May last year.

He had survived a previous assassination attempt in September.

Armed fighters have repeatedly targeted Iraqi officials as well as the country's fledgling security forces as part of a fierce effort to destabilise the US-backed interim government.

Also on Tuesday, a truck bomb exploded at a police post near an entrance to the fortified Green Zone complex in Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding at least 28.

Speaking to Aljazeera, Iraqi journalist Ziyad al-Samarrai said a very loud explosion rocked Baghdad at 8.50am (0550 GMT).

Bombers have targeted the Green Zone on many occasions

The journalist said the explosion targeted the headquarters of the special Iraqi forces in al-Qadisiya neighbourhood in Baghdad.

The Green Zone is a sprawling complex housing the interim Iraqi government and the US and British embassies. Bombers have attacked entrances to the complex several times.

The blast followed at least two car bomb attacks in the capital on Monday. One of the attacks killed two policemen and a civilian near interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party headquarters.

Three British nationals were also killed in a Baghdad explosion on Monday, the British Foreign Office said.

Separately, a US marine was killed in action in al-Anbar province, west of Baghdad, on Tuesday, the US military said, giving no further details.

Al-Anbar province includes the cities of Ramadi and Falluja, where US forces launched a major assault in November.

Since the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein in March last year, at least 1049 US military and Pentagon personnel have been killed in action in Iraq.

Including non-combat deaths, the toll is now at least 1334.

Later in the day, a Turkish oil tanker was burnt by unidentified fighters in central Mosul city, Aljazeera learned. The driver's fate is still unknown.


Last night, Lance Bass paid a visit to the Tonight Show to help carry out a viewer’s suggestion that Jimmy Fallon have somebody come on the show to recreate Big Mouth Billy Bass. You know, that electronic fish that everyone had up on their walls and mantles in the late ’90s for some reason.

We can only assume that when Fallon first received their request, he spent hours crafting an algorithm to determine who’d be the best person for this very important job. Then, he probably realized that Lance Bass was the obvious choice because his name is already Bass, plus he is comfortable with singing (because of his ‘N Sync days) and being up high (because of his astronaut days).

And so Lance Bass very gamely took on the challenge, flopping around on a mantel on national television. He did a respectable job — but good enough to ward off burglars? Maybe not quite.

Summary: Sure, Lance. You do you


FORTUNE — Veteran court watchers will tell you that it’s dangerous to read too much into the questions judges ask during closing arguments in a trial. Some are probing, some are rhetorical, and in some cases the judge may be playing devil’s advocate, seeming to take positions he or she doesn’t actually hold.

Still, in a bench trial — like U.S.A. v. Apple, the e-book antitrust case that wrapped up on Thursday — the judge is the sole finder of fact and will make the final ruling. In such a trial, the questions the judge asks may be our best clues about where the case is headed.

So we took a close look over the weekend at the transcript of the Apple AAPL trial’s final day to see if there were any telling patterns in the 41 questions U.S. District Judge Denise Cote put to Orin Snyder, representing Apple, and Mark Ryan for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Seven of the questions we can eliminate altogether. They were either simple clarifications or corrections that proved nothing more than that Judge Cote was paying close attention — catching, for example, every time Ryan said “Apple” when he meant “Amazon.”

Out of the 34 substantive questions that remain, the first thing that jumps out is that more were directed at Apple (21) than the government (13) and that the nature of the queries she put to each side was, for the most part, quite different.

Six of the questions Judge Cote asked Apple’s attorney had to do with the alleged conspiracy among the publishers to raise the price of e-books, and the extent to which Apple consciously joined it. For example:

Four of her questions had to do with Apple’s intent as it entered negotiations. For example, at one point Judge Cote asked Snyder:

Judge Cote questioned both sides closely on the purpose of the MFN — the “most-favored nation” provision in Apple’s contract with the publishers that gave Apple the right to match its competitors’ lowest prices.

Four of the questions she put to the DOJ seemed to cast doubt on the government’s theory of the case. For example:

In seven of them, she seemed to be taking Apple’s side. For example:

So there you have it.

If Judge Cote believes the preponderance of the evidence shows that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of e-books — something she said she thought it would before the trial began — Apple is in trouble.

If she buys Apple’s argument that it was simply pursuing its own legitimate business interests and that the government has failed to provide evidence that shows unambiguously that the company was doing otherwise, then the government has wasted a lot of tax payers’ money.

Court drawings: Illustrations by Elizabeth Williams

PED talks about the case: The Mac Observer’s Apple Context Machine Podcast

Summary: What do the patterns in Judge Cote's queries tell us about where the case is headed?


Updated AUG 19, 2014 7:31p ET

PHOENIX -- Lest anyone fret that the Diamondbacks view their franchise-record $115 million payroll this season as a one-year fling, president/CEO Derrick Hall has a simple message.

The D-backs are fully committed to another nine-figure payroll in 2015, Hall said as he helped son Logan move into his dormitory at Pepperdine University on Tuesday morning. It is the new normal.

As was the case last winter, some of the money will be earmarked to add an outfield bat and starting pitching, Hall said, as the D-backs move past an injury-plagued 2014 that has seen them log the most player-games on the disabled list of any team in the league. The new pieces most likely will come via trade while they gird for the big free agent class of 2016.

"It is safe to say it will be $100 million-plus," Hall said of the payroll for next year. "We definitely want to be close to where we were. Will we get to $115 million? I don't know. But I don't know if that is necessary."

The D-backs will lose money this season, Hall said, but the July 31 trade deadline deals that sent third baseman Martin Prado and outfielder Gerardo Parra elsewhere created enough payroll flexibility that they can attack the future without compromise. Prado was due about $25 million from the time of the trade through 2015.

The D-backs are committed to spending about half of their yearly revenue on payroll, Hall said, and competing in the NL West, where the free-spending Los Angeles Dodgers set the tone, demands that sort of strong commitment.

"Someone could say we would have an $80 million payroll" and rebuild for the next several seasons, Hall said.

"I don't think we are ever going to do that."

The D-backs are in the process of establishing a new standard. Their payroll has been more than $100 million in a season only twice, the first time in 2002 when the figure reached $102 million in the wake of a World Series title. But with the new FOX national TV contract and the team's deferred salary payments basically down to the $1 million owed Bernard Gilkey every year through 2017, the D-backs are as fluid as they ever have been. They also could expect a revenue hike from a new regional TV contract after their current deal expires following 2015.

The D-backs added left fielder Mark Trumbo and veteran right-hander Bronson Arroyo after wooing Masahiro Tanaka last winter, but it became impossible to assess those fixes after the spring training injuries to No. 1 starter Patrick Corbin and setup man David Hernandez. The trickle became a torrent as Trumbo (10 weeks), center fielder A.J. Pollock (12 weeks and counting), Arroyo (out for the season) and now All-Star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt (out for the season) were lost to injury.

Pollock and Goldschmidt should be healthy for the start of 2015, but it is hard to pinpoint a return for Corbin and Arroyo, who underwent Tommy John surgery in early July. The D-backs will not rush 2013 All-Star Corbin, and the safest assumption seems to be that he will return in mid-2015, Hall indicated.

“Pitching is going to be big for every team. Nobody has enough of it.”

The D-backs still have an excess of talent in the middle infield and are likely to deal from that area over the winter, and they also have depth in the outfield with the surprise emergence of David Peralta. The bullpen appears solid. A new starting pitcher or two is more likely to be a veteran, and a trade is the most likely scenario, given the D-backs' roster composition.

The 2015 free agent class has some quality starters in Max Scherzer, Jon Lester, James Shields, Yovani Gallardo, Jorge De La Rosa and Wei-Yin Chen, but the D-backs are more likely to jump into the free agent pool the following offseason, when David Price, Johnny Cueto and Rick Porcello are scheduled hit the market barring any long-term signings.

"For us to compete, we have to improve in the starting pitching department," Hall said. "Our bullpen is strong."

The D-backs believe top prospect Archie Bradley will challenge for a rotation spot next spring, and he could join Wade Miley, Patrick Corbin and a newcomer in that group, with Chase Anderson, Trevor Cahill, Josh Collmenter and Vidal Nuno in the competition.

Chief baseball officer Tony La Russa also wants to improve the starting rotation. And like Hall, he believes a turnaround can happen quickly, given health and a few good player moves.

"Pitching is going to be big for every team," La Russa said. "Nobody has enough of it. Then you have to make a realistic evaluation of your team. You make a move or two or three, it takes it to the next level."

That is in the D-backs' plans.

Follow Jack Magruder on Twitter

Summary: President/CEO Derrick Hall emphasizes that the payroll will not suffer in 2015.


The Vis. A. Vis. Bisected. Or the Ladies Coop, 1776. Part of the exhibition Graphic Satires from the Georgian Period. Image courtesy the British Museum

The late-18th century was a golden age for graphic satire and caricature. The often outrageous political prints of James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson seem, even through 21st-century eyes, astonishingly unbridled and mordant. They nudge at the limits of freedom of expression with a wit, grace and daring unparalleled by artists working within the 17th century's chaos of revolution and regicide, and by those who followed in Victoria's more decorous reign.

The satirists did not confine themselves to politics, however. They were also interested in manners, morals - and fashion. The late-18th century may have seen ferocious political debate, but it also saw ferocious shopping. Urban streets gained pavements and more lighting. Fashionable emporia sprang up. Buying pretty stuff became a pastime for the privileged classes, as for Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, who buys a bonnet out of boredom: "I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not." Teenagers, perhaps, have not changed much.

The ridiculous vagaries of fashion were meat and drink to graphic satirists, as an exhibition gleaned from the British Library's department of prints and drawings shows. They evoked everything from a skyscraper-high wig set off by a miniature coach-and-six to the effete "exquisite" who faints at the opera. "Pray unloose the dear loves Stays and lay him on the Couch," reads part of this print's caption.

As Diana Donald, the curator of the show, points out, satirical prints often have more in common with today's fashion photography than with the staid and rather flat fashion plates of the time. While satirists were clearly not terribly interested in the minutiae of the clothes' cut, they seem fascinated by its architecture, which is gleefully exaggerated and mocked.

But they are also interested in the "atmosphere" of the clothes - the people who wore them, their milieu, their affectations and foibles. The satires can tell a story, in other words, as do the modern photo-shoots of Juergen Teller and Corinne Day. Isaac Cruikshank's A Crop, of 1791, shows a man sporting a newly fashionable haircut, inspired by the French revolution. This dandy, with his swaggering pose and his coat hanging oh-so-casually from his left shoulder, would not be out of place in the pages of L'Uomo Vogue. The image is fascinating in its contradictions: the man's left foot and right little finger are daintily extended, yet he carries a bludgeon (the must-have post-revolution men's accessory) and a sneering expression. One can sense a cultishness about the way he is wearing this outfit.

The "modernity" of the images can be deceptive, however. Moral messages often lurk just beneath their surface. Fashion, with its power to disguise, brought danger. Trick a strumpet out in fine silk and satin and you could mistake her for a duchess. The rhetoric of the time also linked urban fashion and luxury with decadence and moral decline, rather as the ancient Romans had railed against luxuria. The moral flimsiness and flightiness of women was, naturally, an evergreen topic. In The Vis a Vis Bisected, from 1776, two grandes dames en route to the Pantheon in search of amusement are forced to huddle up, cramped in their carriage, to accommodate their high, feathered wigs. They suffer to be beautiful. The artist has had fun with this image: the coach depicted in cross section, the handsome play of pattern and shape. It is a long way from the soft-focus belles of Joshua Reynolds.

The artifice of fashion was often set against the notion of a purer Nature in these prints. A familiar theme was the old woman who shamelessly employs all the means at her disposal - false buttocks and breasts, wigs, make-up - to disguise her true appearance. Gillray's A Fashionable Mama, or the Convenience of Modern Dress (1796) shows a fine lady breastfeeding her child. But her body language says it all: she is cool and disinterested. Her carriage waits outside to whisk her away to some glamorous gathering. A painting on the wall of an apple-cheeked rural mother provides an exemplar of true maternal love.

It was not just the pros who made these images; there was a steady output of satirical prints from amateur hands, too. A delightful etching from 1787, engraved from a drawing by one Catherine Maria Fanshawe, is called Ancient and Modern Pyramids. A great-auntish character in full mid-18th-century splendour looks askance at her younger companion's fashionable outfit, with its equestrian overtones and slender silhouette. It is hard not to suspect a touch of self-portrait about the younger figure. And, while it would be overstating the case to suggest she might be more emancipated than the grumpy great-aunt, at least she would find it easier to get through doors.

· Followers of Fashion: Graphic Satires from the Georgian Period is at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery until February 9. Details: 01273 290900.

Summary: Breeches, feathers, false buttocks - the dandies of the 18th century were ripe for satire. By  Charlotte Higgins.


FORTUNE — As the debate over raising the federal minimum wage goes on, Wal-Mart WMT , the nation’s largest employer, has backed away from news reports that it would support higher pay. The discount retailer recently said it’s staying “neutral,” which is really just a veiled way of opposing any increase. It would be easy to dismiss this as just another temporary fiasco for Wal-Mart, but the implications could be far bigger.

One way to view Wal-Mart’s impartiality is that it contradicts capitalist principles. Capitalism is neither emotional nor ideological; it is opportunistic. Not directly supporting a minimum wage hike is a lost opportunity and a bad business decision that can compromise the financial interests of the company if you look at its target market. A significant segment, 40%, of Wal-Mart’s customers make less than $35,000 a year, which suggests that its fortunes are tied to the same low-income segment who receive at or close to minimum wage.

MORE: Who will occupy RadioShack’s retail desert?

The less those customers earn, the less they have to spend, as analysts saw when Wal-Mart reported disappointing earnings for the fourth quarter of 2013. Profits fell 21%, at least partly due to a decline in government benefits like food stamps. Since wages have a similar impact, Wal-Mart is effectively giving up more sales by not directly supporting a minimum wage increase.

Another factor is the trade-off between higher wages and welfare. Raising the minimum wage will enable the U.S. government to cut $4.6 billion in food stamps, according to a report by the Center for American Progress. So while Wal-Mart may have to pay employees more, that could be offset by reduced taxes if government spending declines. This is not guaranteed but should still be part of the math.

Wal-Mart also seems to have forgotten a basic tenet of smart business: If you can’t beat them, join them. True, Wal-Mart can usually dictate wage levels due to its size, but in the current climate, that power is tenuous. In a midterm election year, politicians are likely to support some type of minimum wage increase in order to court the popular vote, and with other companies like Gap Inc. GPS and Costco ( COST ) jumping onto that bandwagon voluntarily, Wal-Mart risks losing out in terms of good workers as well as its image.

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The value of good public relations is hard to quantify, but anyone in the retail business can tell you that it is not trivial. By refusing to support a higher minimum wage, Wal-Mart is giving up a rare opportunity to get positive press and generate goodwill with both customers and workers — all of which then translate to more sales. It is also paying a price in bad publicity (which could be another reason for the sharp fall in earnings last quarter) over an issue it can’t really control, so from a cost-benefit standpoint, Wal-Mart is doing the wrong thing.

It was not always like this. The CEO of Wal-Mart in 2005, H. Lee Scott Jr., urged Congress to raise the minimum wage to help his struggling customers since he was worried about the impact on his sales. It was a pragmatic approach that made business sense. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart’s current management does not seem to be as astute.

Sanjay Sanghoee is a political and business commentator. He has worked at investment banks Lazard Freres and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, as well as at hedge fund Ramius. Sanghoee sits on the Board of Davidson Media Group, a mid-market radio station operator. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School and is also the author of two thriller novels. Follow him @sanghoee.

Summary: The discount retailer is forgetting the basic principle of business that those who earn more also spend more.


If you'd like to see inside the London home of Mario Testino, then hop on a plane for New York. One of the walls of the fashion photographer's drawing room has been recreated at the Yvon Lambert Gallery, and will be on show from July 10 until the end of August. It will be the same size and colour, and will be hung with artworks selected by Testino from his own collection. There will also be works by British photographer Idris Khan.

· This note was added on Friday June 22 2007. Mario Testino's office has asked us to point out that the New York exhibition At Home consists of works chosen and installed by him but that they are not from his own collection.

Summary: A New York gallery is to exhibit a recreation of one of Mario Testino's living-room walls.


Employees who work with a mix of male and female coworkers tend to be more productive but less happy than those who work in more homogenous environments, according to a recently published study coauthored by an MIT economist.

The findings contradict previous research showing that happier employees are more efficient.

Having a broad range of viewpoints and experience provides more tools to complete a task, leading to a healthier bottom line, noted coauthor Sara Ellison, a senior economics lecturer at MIT, and this diversity trumps happiness when it comes to heightened performance. Interestingly, employees who thought that their firm cared about gender diversity were more satisfied than employees who were actually in an office with a mix of men and women.

“They liked the idea of diversity more than they liked actual diversity,” Ellison said. “We all think that we want to be in this pluralistic society in a diverse setting. But when push comes to shove, when our coworkers don’t think like we do, that can cause some friction.”

The study examined a Boston-based professional services company with 60 offices around the world. The researchers examined employee surveys from 1995 to 2002 that measured cooperation, trust, and work enjoyment, along with office data on diversity and revenue over that same eight-year period. The study was written in 2010 but, as is common in economics, it took several years for it to be published in an academic journal.

Even though the study looks at work situations from more than a decade ago, the findings remain relevant because the mechanisms of how gender diversity affects productivity and happiness are still in play today, Ellison said.

The Boston company’s offices ranged in size from two to 19 employees, and several were made up of either all men or all women. When the researchers tweaked the data from the same-sex offices to see what expected earnings would be if the employees were split evenly along gender lines, they found that revenue increased by roughly 41 percent.

Anne Litwin, an organizational development consultant in Boston, was not surprised that satisfaction was higher among homogenous groups. In workshops she has conducted, Litwin has found that people are often more comfortable with coworkers who look and act like themselves.

Men feel that they have to “walk on eggshells” around women colleagues, she said, watching what they say more carefully than they do around other men so as not to offend their female coworkers. “They feel like their equilibrium is being thrown off, and it’s uncomfortable,” said Litwin, author of the recently published “New Rules for Women: Revolutionizing the Way Women Work Together.”

Women, on the other hand, say they have to fight to get their ideas heard around men.

“They feel like they have to be assertive to be heard, and then they get accused of being the ‘B’ word,” Litwin said. “They get told that they’re hard to work with.”

In other words: Diversity shakes things up by incorporating more points of view and challenging people to rethink their assumptions, often leading to more innovative solutions -- but that doesn’t necessarily mean everybody’s happy about it.


Jean Tirole, a French economist who earned his doctorate at MIT and holds the title of visiting professor there, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics Monday for his studies of market power and regulation.

Tirole, 61, a professor at Toulouse School of Economics in France, completed his Ph.D in 1981 and taught at MIT from 1984 to 1992. He has frequently collaborated with professors at Harvard and MIT.

“It’s more than amply deserved,” said Emmanuel Farhi, a professor of economics at Harvard who has co-authored several papers with Tirole. “He’s revolutionized the field of industrial organization by bringing new tools and thinking about imperfect competition and how to regulate those industries.”

Tirole, whose work has spanned several fields of economics, was the sole winner of the award, which comes with a prize of $1.1. million. The Nobel committee cited his analyses on how monopolies and cartels wield power in the marketplace and how governments respond. Tirole’s research and writings could be a resource for governments that seek to regulate industries where power is concentrated among a few companies, such as telecommunications and banking, the committee said.

“Drawing on these new insights, governments can better encourage powerful firms to become more productive and, at the same time, prevent them from harming competitors and customers,” the Nobel committee said in a statement.

The economics Nobel has been awarded annually since 1969. Last year, it was shared by Eugene Fama, University of Chicago professor, Boston native and Malden Catholic High School, Lars Peter Hansen, another University of Chicago professor, and Robert Shiller, a Yale University professor who earned his Ph.D at MIT. They were recognized for their work on the efficiency of markets and asset pricing.

Tirole is the first economist since 2009 to be named the sole winner of the prize.

Summary: Jean Tirole was given the award “for his analysis of market power and regulation,” according to the award citation from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Tirole was the sole winner of the award, which comes with a prize of $1.1. million.


Meeting your significant other's family for the first time may be the single most nerve-wracking experience of a relationship. More than the first date, more than the first time you sleep together, more than your first fight. Why? Because bringing your beau into the inner sanctum is a high-stakes summit of the first order, a make or break meeting. It's the meeting with a gravity all its own. And that's why I say to put it off until you're really, really ready.

Why wait? Lots of reasons: 1) You'll present yourself as a more viable couple because you'll be more comfortable with each other and have had more time to plot a charm offensive in advance, and you'll be able to pick just the right event and venue (hint: it's not a family funeral); 2) You'll have more time to prepare your significant other for any potential problem characters; 3) By holding out, you'll create anticipation and a sense that you're in charge of how the meeting should go.

I know what you're thinking: but my family is great, they're gonna love my new beau, why not to get the love fest started? Just keep in mind that the stars need to line up - yours and your significant other's - and your family's; there are lots of expectations to juggle, and the cost of not thinking it through could be catastrophic.

And if it's true that they'll love your new beau, it'll be just as true after a few months and in the right context, versus forcing things at the very next family gathering. Love me, love my family is an undercurrent that rolls underneath any relationship, and while it's a huge relief to get your family's blessing, it needs to be orchestrated.

Agree? Disagree? Leave your comments below.

Don't wait! I'm a huge fan of moving a relationship ahead, in little and big ways, every day. At it's most magnificent, love is and should be a whirlwind, a streak of emotions that underscores how short our time is here on earth. Follow your heart, always. Don't be afraid of destiny. If you're feeling it, bring your significant other around to meet those who are closest to you and do it soon.

Too flighty, too emotionally risky, too eager you say? Well, there are also plenty of practical reasons to make the meeting happen sooner not later: 1) The longer you wait, the longer you're putting off the inevitable - if your family is going to love (or hate) him or her, you'll want to know quickly - why wait to find out? 2) Similarly, if the process is going to freak out your guy or gal, or if they're plain afraid to meet the family, you may as well find that out too. 3) Bringing your new love around sooner and not later also sends a message to your family that you're in charge, can make decisions on your own and that their input/love/scrutiny is only going to count for so much.

Give in to your feeling, make it happen, accept that if it's meant to be, it's meant to be.

Agree? Disagree? Leave your comments below.

Summary: MEET THE FAMILY? */ HEAD


Holiday sales forecasts are starting to sound like a broken record.

Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, is “cautiously optimistic” — a phrase he used to define his outlook on the holiday season last year and something very similar to what he’s said since 2010.

The ho-hum forecast is echoed in national projections from analysts and economists.

“We have not yet fully escaped the economic challenge that we experienced even four or five years ago,” said Madison Riley, an analyst with Kurt Salmon in New York. “The economy is still improving and not where it was prior to 2008.”

The state retail association predicts sales will climb 3.9 percent to $15.4 billion in November and December, which is just under the National Retail Federation’s forecast of 4.1 percent growth to $616.9 billion.

The forecasts are slightly better than last year, when sales climbed 3.3 percent in Massachusetts, and retailers are working hard to pursue every possible avenue for growth again this year.

Many are offering door-buster-like deals earlier than ever to extend the season, some have retooled warehouses, and others poured millions into credit-card security.

Tricia Patrick, a principal at Bain Capital in Boston who focuses on the retail and consumer industries, said this season should be helped by lower gas prices and lower rates of unemployment.

“In general, if the consumer is a little bit stronger, it should be better for retail,’’ Patrick said. But, she noted, most Americans have not seen meaningful gains in their incomes in recent years.

Another problem: There aren’t many must-have items this season other than the iPhone 6, introduced in September.

“There’s nothing new and exciting this year,” said Marshal Cohen, an analyst with the NPD Group, a market research firm in New York.

It’s one reason why most Americans plan to stay home on Black Friday this year, according to a new report from Bankrate.com. The report, which surveyed 1,000 Americans, found that only 28 percent said they’d shop in-store on the day after Thanksgiving. A total of 40 percent said they would shop at stores or online.

E-commerce for the holiday season is projected to increase by 8 to 11 percent and will reach $105 billion nationally, according to the retail federation. “Upwards of 40 percent of traffic and approximately 25 percent of sales are being generated now through tablets and smartphones,” Patrick said.

That means retailers need to do all they can to make sure their mobile sites work well — including as a place to let shoppers actually pay for items and complete transactions. “One of the oldest rules in retail is collect the money. Getting that right is important,’’ Patrick said.

Summary: The state retail association predicts sales to climb 3.9 percent to $15.4 billion in November and December, which is just under the National Retail Federation’s forecast of 4.1 percent growth to $616.9 billion.


There is a precedent: iPhone sales have doubled, on average, every year since 2007

The chief difference between the independent analysts who follow Apple AAPL and their counterparts on Wall Street is that the independents put a premium on being right.

The professionals, with all due respect, seem to care more about not over-promising or straying too far from the consensus. (See here, here and here, for example.)

So investors who want informed guidance about what Apple is likely to announce when it reports its earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which ends next week, would do well to listen closely to Asymco‘s Horace Dediu, one of the best of the independents. Not only do his Apple forecasts regularly beat the professionals’, but he explains how he gets his numbers clearly and in great detail.

On Wednesday, Dediu published his Q2 2012 estimates on Asymco.com and discussed them at some length on The Critical Path, his weekly podcast on Dan Benjamin’s 5by5 Network.

Predicting how many iPhones Apple will sell, Dediu says, is relatively straightforward. Sales have been growing 100% per year, and based on his analysis of Apple’s capital spending plans and his deep knowledge of the mobile phone market (he worked for Nokia for eight years), they seem poised to do it again this year.

Predicting iPad sales is far more difficult, he explains, because contemporary tablet computers are a market that Apple created out of whole cloth two years ago. But that market — which Apple continues to dominate — has been growing at the rate of more than 150% per year, and based on first weekend sales of the new iPad, Dediu now believes that rate may be sustainable.

The difference between the launch performance of the first iPad and the third, he points out, is a factor 28. Adjusted for the number of countries where each device was launched, that boils down to roughly 3 to 1.

Dediu is calling for Q2 iPad sales of 12.2 million. That’s more than 1.2 million units higher than Wall Street’s current consensus, but it’s hardly the biggest estimate out there. This week, Citigroup’s Richard Gardner and Evercore’s Robert Cihra both issued notes predicting Q2 iPad sales of 13 million.

Summary: There is a precedent: iPhone sales have doubled, on average, every year since 2007 The chief difference between the independent analysts who follow Apple and their counterparts on Wall Street is that the independents put a premium on being right. The professionals, with all due respect, seem to care more about not over-promising or straying…


Thomas Gilbert Jnr (left) who is accused of the murder of his father Thomas Gilbert Snr (right). (Supplied)

A 30-year-old man reportedly shot his wealthy father dead because he threatened to cut his $400-a-week pocket money and stop paying his rent.

The New York Daily News reports that Thomas Gilbert Jr allegedly shot his father, who helms a hedge fund worth a quarter of a billion dollars, after showing up at his parents' upscale Manhattan address on Sunday afternoon and telling his mother to buy him a sandwich.

He is alleged to have shot his father while she was on this errand before placing the gun in his dead father's hand.

The Princeton graduate allegedly fled the scene on foot and returned to the apartment his parents rented for him in in Chelsea, where police arrested him and brought him to a local police precinct for questioning.

Police said a .40-caliber Glock handgun was recovered from inside the apartment.

Gilbert Sr was the founder and president of Wainscott Capital Partners, which was established in 2011 and focuses on the biotech and healthcare industries.

The elder Gilbert was also graduate of Princeton University as well as Harvard Business School and had more than 40 years of investing experience.

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Summary: The founder of a $245 million hedge fund has been shot dead inside the family's plush New York apartment, police say.


(REUTERS) – Sue Ann Arnall, the ex-wife of Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm, vowed on Monday to press on with an appeal of her divorce case even after she cashed a $975 million check that Hamm provided her.

In November, an Oklahoma court ordered the Continental Resources chief executive to pay his ex-wife about $1 billion in cash and assets when the couple divorced after a 26-year marriage. The check for $975 million, which Arnall cashed last week, represented the entire balance owed by Hamm according to the court’s decision.

But Arnall has appealed the case in the Oklahoma Supreme Court, claiming that the earlier ruling allowed Hamm to keep the vast majority of a marital estate worth up to $18 billion. Legal experts say it may be more difficult for Arnall to pursue an appeal after accepting the benefits of the trial court’s award.

“I will not dismiss my appeal and do not feel that my right to appeal should be denied because I have accepted, in the interim, a small portion of the estate that we built over more than two decades,” Arnall said in a statement through her lawyers.

Last week, one of Hamm’s lawyers, Craig Box, told Reuters that Arnall’s deposit of the oil man’s check in anOklahoma City bank was likely to end her case. If she continues an appeal, Box said, Hamm will try to have it dismissed on grounds she has already accepted the benefits of the earlier ruling.

The Hamm divorce has been ongoing since 2012 and the November ruling was among the largest ever for U.S. divorces.

Last month, Hamm too had pledged to appeal the decision, after a sharp fall in oil prices cut billions from his personal fortune. The earlier court ruling allowed Hamm to retain his 68 percent stake in Continental.

Summary: Sue Ann Arnall, the ex-wife of Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm, says she will appeal.


Indonesian Navy crew carry the body of a victim of crashed AirAsia flight QZ8501. (AAP)

Indonesian divers have found six bodies still strapped into their seats near the main section of an AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea last month.

A total of 58 bodies have now been found following the crash of flight QZ8501 which went down on December 28 in stormy weather as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were 162 people on board.

"We have found six bodies, four of whom were females and two males, all adults," SB Supriyadi, a rescue agency official co-ordinating the search, said on Thursday.

He said they were found among debris, with some still strapped into their seats, not far from the jet's main section.

"They were still belted to their seats.

"We believe they spilled out of the fuselage, which is 50 to 100 metres away," he said.

They had been flown to Pangkalan Bun town on Borneo island, the search headquarters.

He added that divers had yet to reach the main section of the plane, which is thought to contain the bulk of passengers and crew, as visibility under water was only two metres.

"But it is a bright, clear day so we remain optimistic that the divers might reach the wreckage today," he said.

The main body of the Airbus A320-200 was spotted on the seabed by a military vessel last week following an arduous search in shallow Indonesian waters, but strong underwater currents and rough seas have prevented divers from reaching it.

The jet's black boxes - the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - were recovered last week, and investigators are analysing them.

Indonesian Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan said this week that the plane climbed abnormally fast before stalling and plunging into the sea.

Just moments before the plane disappeared off the radar, the pilot had asked to climb to avoid a major storm but was not immediately granted permission because of heavy air traffic.

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Summary: Indonesian divers trying to reach the main fuselage of the crashed AirAsia plane have found five bodies near it, still strapped in their seats.


TUCSON, Ariz. -- Bill Walton went silent for a couple of seconds. That rarely, if ever, happens.

He hesitated after hearing the question: What does he think about Arizona basketball fans' love-hate relationship with him?

"What am I supposed to say?" he said after a short but longer-than-usual pause. "I love my job. ... I just report the facts."

Some love him; some hate him. Some mute him; some laugh out loud.

No question, Walton, an NBA Hall of Famer turned commentator, has his followers, critics and admirers -- and all for the love of basketball.

"I think it is terrific," said Pac-12 Conference commissioner Larry Scott, one of the men responsible for bringing Walton back on TV during the 2012-13 season after a two-year hiatus. "He is an iconic and important figure in the history of Pac-12 basketball. (He) has a good perspective on the sport."

His critics, however, say that perspective is too tangential. He meanders away from the game, often referring to subjects that have nothing to do with basketball, and that irritates some of the viewers.

Where did he get his style?

"I don't have a style," he said. "I'm just me. Just Bill."

Bill is just so many eclectic things, including being arguably the best college basketball player ever while he was at UCLA and becoming perhaps the Grateful Dead's most legendary fan.

To wit: "Tucson has more species of birds than anywhere else except the Amazon rain forest."

"Lute Olson, the man who brought water to the desert."

"My bike is my gym, my wheelchair, my church."

"Parker Jackson-Cartwright has two syllables in each name -- a nightmare for a stutterer."

That is just a sampling of his wayward thoughts during recent Arizona games. References to Tucson native Linda Ronstadt often make their way into the telecast, too. Any topic could come into play.

His random thoughts have led to "Bill Walton Bingo," inspired by a Colorado student who placed Walton's most common sayings on a bingo-like card. As soon as Walton says one of them, cross off that box.

"When you are watching a game on TV with someone, you should never, with very few exceptions, end up talking about the commentator and not the game," said Arizona fan Lanny Watts, a frequent Facebook critic of Walton.

"Walton is a prime example of someone that, similar to (Howard) Cosell in the '70s and '80s makes himself larger than the game he is commenting on. When my son and I watch a game together and Walton is in the booth, we end up talking about him.

"He also seems intent on arguing with his play-by-play partner many times, rather than focusing on the game. ... What I mentioned are things I've said and heard and read others say, so I know it is not my imagination."

"Bill Walton is the only reason to watch college basketball during the silly season that is the regular league schedule," said Gabrielson, a former Tucson sports radio talk show host.

"I know that hard-core basketball fanatics may find his commentary to be off-topic at times but that's even more reason for Bill to keep doing what he is doing. ...

"Walton, whether we like it or not, forces us to put this silly game in perspective. The fans that can't do that have a problem with Walton. Or at least they think they do. Their real problem is finding perspective in their own lives. Bill just becomes a target because those fans choose to criticize the messenger rather than face their own issues."

Still, UA fan Joel Laos last month created an on-line petition, calling on a ban of Walton from working Wildcats games.

Bill Walton with the UCLA Bruins in a December 1973 game against North Carolina State.

"Bill Walton is the worst commentator to ever announce University of Arizona basketball games," Laos wrote. "Die-hard fans across the nation mute their televisions to avoid constant inane 'Waltonisms.' Please help me make Arizona basketball watchable again by keeping Walton away."

The petition had about 1,500 signatures as of this week, but what's it really going to do? Walton continues on.

Scott said the Pac-12 reviews all the broadcasts as well as the feedback from the fans. When it comes to Walton, Scott said the league is "delighted with his performance and success."

As for his nonsensical comments and the fans' love-hate relationship, Scott said, "Like many of the best broadcasters, Bill has strong opinions and interesting takes on important issues and the game. Bill brings a terrific blend of personality, perspective and expertise to our games. He makes the broadcast more interesting for fans."

And he loves Tucson. When in southern Arizona, he's a frequent visitor to Rialto Theater, where he helped hold a large fundraiser just two weeks ago. He spent three hours, mixing and mingling. After a 70-minute talk -- waxing poetic about his days with John Wooden, his years following Lute Olson and Jim Rosborough as they coached his son Luke at Arizona, his love of the Biosphere and all things cycling -- he spent another hour playing the drums with a local band.

"Bill Walton is a wonderful storyteller," said Rosborough, a former Arizona basketball assistant and the master of ceremonies at the Rialto fundraiser. "He exudes passion, sensitivity, humor and brutal honesty. He's one of the very best (people) I have experienced in my life. And he has a selfless way of presenting those stories."

Walton, 62, has come a long way as a broadcaster. When he says Parker Jackson-Cartwright's name is tough for him to pronounce, it's true. For years, Walton was a stutterer. But he's stretched his broadcasting career well past 20 years.

"It's a lucky career, but it's the most unlikely career," he said. "I'm 6-foot-11, have red hair, a big nose, have freckles, a goofy, nerdy-looking face, can't talk and I'm a Deadhead. They said, 'We're not putting you on TV, Walton.'"

But lots of networks did and do, most recently the Pac-12 and then ESPN.

"I'm back," he said. "It's a great honor and privilege. It's a humbling opportunity to work with the conference and interact with the fans. It's inspiring to me."

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And in between games in Tucson, he said, he gets to go to the Rialto and the Biosphere. In fact, few know the facts about Tucson more than Walton, who surprised many by pointing out the number of bird species in the region and by mentioning that Tucson is the third-sunniest place in the United States with some of the cleanest air in the country.

How does he know all this?

"Because I like to read and I'm interested in birds," he said, with a smile. "I played with Larry Bird. And I love Tucson. I love riding my bike to Mount Lemmon. I love watching the javelina.

"The people are super cool. It's a fantastic place and it's beautiful."

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Summary: Bill Walton's blend of analysis with random thoughts is unique, and not for everyone.


Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and “Saturday Night Live” cast members Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones will star in the upcoming remake of “Ghostbusters,” slated to hit theaters on July 22, 2016. “Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig tweeted a photo of the four women as well as the movie’s scheduled opening date on Tuesday afternoon.

In other news, #Ghostbusters will be hitting theaters July 22, 2016. Save the date!

McCarthy and Wiig worked with Feig previously in 2011’s “Bridesmaids,” and McCarthy also worked with him in the 2013 film “The Heat” and the soon-to-be-released “Spy.”

In October of last year, Feig announced via Twitter that he and Katie Dippold, with whom he co-wrote “The Heat,” would write the newest “Ghostbusters” movie, noting that it would star “hilarious women.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Feig said that the movie is not going to be a sequel or a remake, but instead it will have an entirely new plotline, as if the 1984 “Ghostbusters” and the 1989 “Ghostbusters II” never happened.

For years, Feig said, a “Ghostbusters III” had been in the works, but Harold Ramis, who played co-star Dr. Egon Spengler, died, and the production was halted. Feig told EW that he decided an all-female cast would provide a way to do a movie reboot independent of the past storylines.

“Ghostbusters” starred Dan Aykroyd as Dr. Raymond Stantz, Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman, and Ramis, all out-of-work paranormal psychology professors who save the world from a ghost invasion. The original movie was a critical and commercial success, garnering two Oscar nominations and grossing almost $230 million in the United States since its release. The film launched a franchise, which produced television series, videogames, and a sequel five years after the original.

Summary: Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy will star as two of the new ghostbusters, said director Paul Feig.


This app turns the iPhone into a research tool for asthma.

A new ultra-thin Macbook laptop and the Apple Watch were the stars of Apple’s Monday media event in San Francisco. But the company also introduced a suite of apps for the iPhone that could turn the device into a research tool and transform the way researchers study disease.

Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dana-Faber Cancer Institute were among the partners who worked with Apple on the five inaugural research apps. They will track asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease, and were built with Apple’s new tool, ResearchKit.

Users can track their symptoms and share that data with researchers. Apple adds a layer of privacy to protect the identity of patients.

ResearchKit can also tap into the information being collected by Apple’s HealthKit activity logger, an app that allows people to track their health habits.

Apple has open-sourced ResearchKit, which means that researchers anywhere can use the platform to design their own apps. And they can recruit anyone with an iPhone to participate.

“I think it could be a new way to engage people in medical research,” said Stanley Shaw, a researcher at the MGH Center for Systems Biology who was part of the team that designed a GlucoSuccess app to study diabetes using ResearchKit, as one of Apple’s early partners.

GlucoSuccess allows people to enter information about diet and exercise, and their daily blood glucose reading.

Shaw said the tool will give local researchers the ability to expand the reach of their trials.

And there are upsides for participants: “They have the opportunity to look at their data on their phone and derive some insights themselves — that’s a new philosophy of clinical research,” Shaw said.

To maintain privacy, the app allows patients to customize what data will and will not be shared.

As part of its rollout Monday, Apple introduced the Share the Journey app. Developed at Dana-Farber, using ResearchKit, the app aims to track the recovery path of breast cancer survivors. It asks patients about changes in their daily mood, fatigue levels, and signs of cognitive difficulties.

Such information is typically collected on paper surveys a year or two after treatment, said Ann Partridge, director of the Adult Survivorship Program at Dana-Farber and a member of the team that developed the app. The goal is to understand the differences cancer survivors encounter after treatment, and ultimately help them manage those symptoms more effectively.

Partridge said the ability for patients to enter information in real time creates a valuable database.

Her team is aware that using the iPhone as a data source limits participants to people who can afford to buy an iPhone, and probably skews younger. “We have to take that into account as well,” she said.

Summary: Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dana-Faber Cancer Institute were among the partners who worked with Apple on the five inaugural research apps.They will track asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, and were built with Apple’s new tool, ResearchKit.


was as prepared as she could be for her son

birth on April 6 (her birth plan was one of the most extensive her doctor had ever seen, she reveals), she was faced with a labor that had many starts, stops and scary ups and downs.

"I was praying to God to give me strength," Jill, 23, tells PEOPLE exclusively. "I was really scared and nervous, but I was praying."

26, shared the intimate details of their

with PEOPLE exclusively, which began when her water broke in the early hours of Saturday, April 4. The

, 48, and sister, Jana, 25, all pitched in to help her during labor.

"Jill was telling me, 'I don't know when my labor is going to start. I don't know when to think it is labor and when it is Braxton Hicks contractions,' " says Derick. "God answered her prayer with her water breaking because that doesn't always happen and then she knew she was in labor."

Neither of the Dillards had any idea what was in store for them: close to 70 hours of labor with intermittent contractions that sometimes were right on top of one another, within a minute apart.

"What I love about our story is that, at the beginning, my water broke and I was really scared," says Jill, who is a student midwife and has attended over 60 births. "I thought, 'I have seen so many people go through this labor thing, and I know what to expect in that aspect, and I know it is going to be really hard.' I was really scared, really nervous because I was having that early labor freak-out moment. I said to Derick, 'I'm really scared, pray for me.' "

Jill points to miraculous moments in the birth of Israel David on April 6, where she and Derick both share they felt that each part of labor was helping them understand the overall bigger picture outside their control.

"I had been praying for contractions, and when contractions did start, God made me grateful for those contractions," she says. "When they came, even though they were really intense, I was crying, but I was saying, 'Thank you for this contraction, God, this is what I prayed for, thank you for this.' "

Jill and Derick Dillard with baby Israel David on the cover of PEOPLE

As a student midwife, Jill had put together an extensive birth plan in her preparation for having her child at home. When things didn't work out that way, she says her doctor told her that her birth plan – which included contingencies for Pitocin (a hormone to stimulate contractions, which she was given at the hospital before she gave birth) and a Caesarean section (also in her birth plan) – was one of the most extensive he'd ever seen.

"Though we were planning on a home birth, we were grateful to have the option of being in the hospital," Derick says.

Jill says the support of her husband, who attended Bradley birthing classes with Jill in preparation for Israel's arrival, was key in helping her get through her labor.

"Derick had blood blisters on his hands from doing a hip squeeze during labor," Jill says. "No one could do it as well as he did, and when the contractions were intense, I would call him back."

Derick says that, though he was nervous, he pushed that aside and tried to help Jill focus on getting through one contraction at a time.

"I would say, 'Think about being on the beach on our honeymoon, just think about this one contraction, don't think about the future ones,' " Derick says. (The couple spent their honeymoon at

) "I would tell her not to think about the pain right now."

Jill says it helped her through.

"Derick would say, 'You're going to get to see him, you're going to get to see him, the pain won't mean anything, just one contraction at a time,' " Jill says. "He did such a great job."

Fans of TLC's hit show

can see the birth of Israel David on May 5 in advance of Mother's Day.

Summary: Jill opens up about the support she received throughout the long birth of baby Israel David