Riverbed results miss estimates as customers cut spending

(Reuters) - Riverbed Technology Inc reported quarterly results below analysts' estimates due to weak spending by businesses and the U.S. government, sending its shares down 9 percent.

Federal spending has slowed due to automatic cost cuts that came into effect in March after Congress failed to find an alternative plan to reduce expenses, while enterprises have tightened purse strings amid political and economic uncertainty.

Riverbed gets a little more than 10 percent of its revenue from the government.

The weak government spending and soft economy also led rivals Juniper Networks Inc and F5 Networks Inc to give disappointing revenue outlooks for the current quarter.

Riverbed, a market leader in the wide area network (WAN) business with its flagship Steelhead products that can boost data flow speeds by up to 100 times, had been relatively insulated from spending cuts until now.

The company bought Opnet, which makes software to manage traffic on networks, last year to counter the impact of the slowdown in its business. Riverbed's annual revenue growth has fallen to 15 percent from 40 percent over the last three years.

The company's total operating costs more than doubled to $187.9 million in the first quarter ended March 31. Acquisition-related costs were $4.1 million, compared with $556,000 a year earlier.

Net loss was $8.1 million, or 5 cents per share, compared with a profit of $6.9 million, or 4 cents per share.

Excluding items, the company earned 23 cents per share.

Revenue rose 35 percent to $246 million.

Analysts on average had expected adjusted earnings of 24 cents per share on revenue of $261.2 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Riverbed shares, which have fallen about 26 percent in the last three months, were at $13.45 in extended trading. They closed at $14.85 on the Nasdaq on Monday.

(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/riverbed-posts-loss-opnet-acquisition-costs-202248542.html

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Nearest Alien Planet Gets New Name

Correct.
Anybody can claim to be running a contest to name anything, legality not withstanding, however, only the body/organization that is internationally recognized as the valid naming registrar can actually place or change names. In this case, it's the IAU (International Astronomical Union).
Uwing claims they didn't say they were sanctioned to do so by IAU, but then again, they didn't say they weren't, and most people will assume that you had obtained permission to do something you are taking money for unless you say otherwise. To not point out that it is an unofficial name choosing, is the first sign of a scam.

Another thing, if you see anyone wanting money for ANYTHING not within the confines of the Earths Troposphere, it's about 99.999% probably it's a scam. You won't get any property, rights, or official naming of anything. There are international treaties that cover a lot of this stuff, and one of the first rules in that whole thing is if you don't have people their, you definitely have no rights to sell it, period. (Even if you do have people there, you still have lots of limits on what you can do.)

By the way, horrible name choice in my opinion. Nice to honor your grandfather, but still, that name sucks.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/jJwP4NEYLF0/story01.htm

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Will pre-election violence impact Pakistan's elections?

At least eight people were killed and 40 more injured in a suicide bombing on a busy road in the Pakistani city of Peshawar Monday morning. The attack capped off a weekend of election-related violence as the country prepares to go to the polls May 11.

The bomber missed his ostensible target, a local commissioner, instead crashing his motorcycle into a passenger bus, Pakistan?s News International reports. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing, but the Pakistani Taliban have carried out a range of similar attacks against secular political parties over the past several weeks.

Indeed, the explosion came just a day after two Taliban attacks targeting political candidates in northwestern Pakistan killed at least eight and injured dozens more. The Taliban and other groups have been responsible for at least 77 deaths in 44 election-related attacks since the beginning of April, Human Rights Watch told The New York Times.

RECOMMENDED: Pakistan elections: Who's running?

"We are not in favor of democracy. Democracy is for Jews and Christians," Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud said in a recent propaganda video, according to CNN. He implored Pakistanis not to participate in the upcoming elections.

"We want the implementation of Sharia [law], and for that jihad is necessary,? he said.

The May elections will be the first in the country?s checkered political history when one democratically elected government will make way for another, and the uptick in militant violence leading to the historic vote has rattled both domestic and international observers.

But they remain divided on whether or not the spate of attacks will have a significant affect on the election?s outcome at the national level, particularly since neither of the two parties leading in polling over the past three months are among those targeted by the attacks.

As one analyst writing in the Pakistani daily Dawn argues, the violence, though significant, is too sporadic and narrowly targeted to create the kind of chaos necessarily to significantly sway the election?s results.

As for violence making elections impossible, the quantum would have to jump multifold and that too in key urban towns to spread the kind of fear that would result in elections being postponed. The ?threshold rule? applies here: the state has virtually no capacity to prevent targeted violence up to a certain threshold; beyond this, the militants have little chance of carrying out a coordinated campaign of major attacks in city centres in a short time. There is little reason to believe this will be upended over the coming fortnight.

Two of the frontrunners in the national campaign are the center-right Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and the centrist party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Taliban attacks, on the other hand, have largely targeted left-leaning parties, including the ruling Pakistan People?s Party (PPP), the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), and the Awami National Party (ANP).

Local candidates for these parties complain that the violence has forced them to dramatically scale back their campaigning activities, leaving the field open for Islamist candidates to win over voters.

"If you tie my hands, and you want me to fight, I can?t,? Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a local candidate for the ANP in the city of Peshawar, told Dawn.

Overall, however, there is halting optimism in many quarters for Pakistan?s fragile democratic institutions. As the Monitor reported in March, the Pakistani National Assembly recently completed a five-year term for the first time in the country?s history, a signal that the country is finding new and non-militaristic ways to respond to its political grievances.

?These five years we saw many instances of corruption, confrontations with the judiciary, and absence of law and order,? says Rasul Bakhsh Raees, a professor of political science in Lahore, pointing to Karachi and Balochistan. ?But the military decided not to intervene, which shows even their attitude is changing.? ?

?Every phase of democracy in Pakistan has been a battle, but the trend shows it?s [heading] toward improving the overall institutional balance,? [he says].

Violence also cast a shadow over Pakistan?s last election, in 2008. On Dec. 27, 2007, Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister and the head of the PPP ? then the leading opposition party ? was assassinated after a campaign rally. Two months later, however, her party and the PLM-N emerged victorious from the campaign and formed a coalition government. That August, former military leader Pervez Musharraf stepped down as president and went into exile, formally ending his nine-year military rule.

RECOMMENDED: Pakistan elections: Who's running?

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pre-election-violence-impact-pakistans-elections-163008551.html

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Yanks complete four-game sweep of Jays

By RONALD BLUM

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 4:34 p.m. ET April 28, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) - These no-name Yankees are making a name for themselves.

Brennan Boesch and Lyle Overbay homered on knuckleballs from R.A. Dickey, and New York rallied past the Toronto Blue Jays 3-2 Sunday for a four-game sweep.

Despite missing injured All-Stars Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson, the Yankees are 14-5 following a 1-4 start.

"We felt like if we pitched well, we were going to get big contributions from somebody," said Phil Hughes, who pitched well but remained winless in five starts.

They just weren't sure which bodies following a run of injuries.

Boesch homered into the first row of the right-field seats in the second inning. After Toronto took a 2-1 lead on Adam Lind's RBI single in the fourth and Maicer Izturis' run-scoring double off the base of the right-field wall in the sixth, the Yankees overcame a deficit for the fourth straight day.

Overbay hit a two-run homer into the right field bullpen in the seventh inning that was caught on the fly by Yankees reliever David Robertson.

Boesch began the day 1 for 6 against Dickey and Overbay 1 for 14, with both hits singles.

Overbay has three home runs, one more than his total last season. He said then-teammate Matt Stairs changed his mindset on knuckleballers a few years ago.

"His approach was to just try to pull homers. Ever since I did that, I started hitting them a lot better," Overbay said. "You start trying to feel for it, and it ends up beating you. It's just a matter of taking a big, strong, aggressive hack."

New York's batting order included four players added just before or during spring training: Overbay at first base, Boesch in right field, Vernon Wells in left and Travis Hafner at designated hitter - a day after hitting a three-run homer and go-ahead triple. Other starters included Jayson Nix at third, Eduardo Nunez at shortstop and Chris Stewart behind the plate.

"It's a group that has something to prove in a sense, some guys that are older that had some down years or some injury plagued years. some younger guys that are trying to establish themselves," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "You didn't know how the new guys were going to respond, number one. We knew they had been very good players before. We've seen very good players come to New York and take time to adjust. We've seen guys that have injury plagued seasons that continue to have them and you can't shake that. We felt that we were going to have to win a lot of close games."

New York is 9-1 in games decided by two runs or fewer. When spring training began, the Yankees had realized many predicted them to finish at or near last in the AL East.

"It's hard to not notice that. It's talked about so much. First meeting of spring training we talked about that," Hughes said.

"Guys around here have kind of learned to deal with a lot of negative stuff that kinds of swirls around," he said.

Without a win in his first five starts for the first time since 2008, Hughes allowed two runs and seven hits in six innings with a season-high nine strikeouts and one walk. Toronto ran up his pitch count, fouling off 25 of 111 offerings.

Boone Logan (1-1) pitched a one-hit seventh, Robertson threw a 1-2-3 eighth and Mariano Rivera finished with a perfect ninth for his ninth save in nine chances, extending his career record to 617.

Dickey (2-4) pitched in New York for the first time since getting his 20th win for the Mets last September. Dealt to Toronto after going 20-3 and winning the NL Cy Young Award, Dickey already has lost more games this year than in all of 2012.

The 38-year-old allowed three runs and four hits in seven innings, with four strikeouts and a walk. He's been slowed by soreness in his neck and back.

"If I have to battle it for a while, I'll battle it for a while until it goes away," he said. "It gets marginally better between starts. It's just that when I have to start it breaks down again."

Last-place Toronto (9-17) gave up just four hits but was swept in a four-game series in which it led every game for the first time since Sept. 19-21, 1995, at old Yankee Stadium. The Blue Jays were 4 for 24 with runners in scoring position in the series and struck out 37 times, including 13 Sunday.

A favorite to win the division after bulking up its roster, Toronto is eight games under .500 in April for the first time since 2004, according to STATS.

"You want me to go out there and hit or something?" manager John Gibbons said. "I couldn't hit when I played."

NOTES: Yankees 3B-1B Kevin Youkilis was sidelined by a bad back for the sixth time in seven games and will have an MRI Monday. ... Blue Jays bench coach DeMarlo Hale was ejected for arguing in the seventh when New York's Eduardo Nunez was slow to walk to the plate after Overbay's homer. The Yankees said Nunez had something in an eye. ... Yankees CF Brett Gardner was left out of the starting lineup for the first time this season. He entered the game as a defensive replacement in the eighth.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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CSN: Carlos Ruiz returned from a 25-game suspension and Ryan Howard hit a two-run, pinch hit double that gave the Phillies a 5-1 win over the Mets and complete a three-game sweep of New York.

Tulowitzki strains shoulder in Rockies' loss

PHOENIX (AP) - Gerardo Parra tripled and scored twice, and Josh Wilson had a run-scoring double to help lead the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 4-2 win over the Colorado Rockies on Sunday.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/51694803/ns/sports-baseball/

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N.Y.'s Cuomo: Clinton no bearing on 2016 thinking

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) ? Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that he's not talking about running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016 and he's not waiting to see if Hillary Clinton runs.

Over his first two years as governor, Cuomo has repeatedly refused to talk publicly about running for president despite prompting by supporters. He has said such talk would hurt his ability to govern and would create a distraction, as it did for his father, Mario Cuomo, when he was governor.

But Andrew Cuomo has never ruled out a run for president in 2016.

Amid the speculation, HarperCollins announced Monday it had acquired rights to an untitled book by Cuomo, to be published next year, about his life and the "profound moments" of his first term in the governor's office.

A column in Monday's New York Post stated Cuomo has "quietly conceded" to associates he can't run for the presidential nomination if Clinton runs. That has been a widely accepted assumption for years because Cuomo's mentor and biggest political patron is her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Cuomo dismissed the column as "Monday rumors," and he didn't say whether he's conceded the 2016 race to Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and ex-senator from New York.

"Hillary Clinton is going to do whatever Hillary Clinton is going to do and I'm doing what I'm doing," Cuomo said on public radio's "Capitol Pressroom."

"I'm focusing on running this state and doing it the best I can. And that's all there is to that," he said.

"There is no truth to the assertion that I am talking presidential politics and strategy and what Hillary Clinton should do or shouldn't do or what I'm doing presidentially," Cuomo said. "The only discussions I'm having are how to help this state ... and to the extent that I'm focusing on politics, it's my race next year."

Many New Yorkers don't buy it.

An April 22 Siena College poll found New Yorkers split on whether Cuomo was basing his decisions on what he thinks is best for his political future or based on what's best for his constituents. The poll also found 53 percent of New Yorkers would vote to re-elect him, part of a steady drop the poll has tracked since December.

Cuomo has been closely tied to Bill Clinton for decades.

Gov. Mario Cuomo gave an early and important endorsement to Clinton in his first run for president.

Andrew Cuomo later was hired by Clinton, who appointed him housing secretary. Back in New York, with Clinton at his side, the younger Cuomo dropped out of the 2002 race for the Democratic nomination for governor for lack of support.

His office now is decorated with Clinton gifts and memorabilia, and the governor has involved the popular former president in state initiatives.

Cuomo was elected as attorney general in 2006 and turned that into a landslide win in the 2010 governor's race. Today, he has a campaign fund of more than $20 million, which traditionally has been more than enough for a governor's campaign.

Cuomo led New York's effort in legalizing same-sex marriage in 2011. This year, he pushed through the nation's first gun-control law after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre.

The April 22 Siena poll questioned 811 New Yorkers April 14-18 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nys-cuomo-clinton-no-bearing-2016-thinking-160556404.html

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?Teen Mom? Farrah Abraham Sells Sex Tape Rights For Just Under $1 Million

“Teen Mom” Farrah Abraham Sells Sex Tape Rights For Just Under $1 Million

Farrah Abraham, who attempted to play off her sex tape with male porn star James Deen as a “personal tape”, has sold the rights to her XXX tape for almost $1 million. Farrah sold her movie, entitled “Farrah Superstar: Backdoor Teen Mom”, for close to a million dollars in a deal with Vivid Entertainment. The ...

“Teen Mom” Farrah Abraham Sells Sex Tape Rights For Just Under $1 Million Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/04/teen-mom-farrah-abraham-sells-sex-tape-rights-for-just-under-1-million/

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Coming to Grips With Marriage: "This is It??" | Relationships in ...

Many individuals and couples come into therapy with a similar relationship complaint: being married isn?t what they expected. More specifically, the reality of marriage is not aligned with their fantasies of marriage.

It?s nice to have fantasies. They give us goals, the drive to achieve, hope, desire, and more. However, when we expect that reality is going to match our fantasies, disappointment results when the picture we painted in our minds doesn?t come true. If our fantasies are unrealistic, even good, positively-functioning relationships can be experienced as bad, negative, and disappointing.

Jennifer and Todd (identities protected here) had been dating for three years and lived together for a year and a half before they got engaged. They were engaged for another year, and then were married. Two years after they were married, they entered couples therapy. Jennifer?s primary complaint was that marriage just wasn?t what she?d expected, and that nothing special happened after they got married. They went on with their daily lives, after getting married, and since they already were living together, nothing was really different.

Todd?s main complaint was that Jennifer didn?t do enough to make his life easier, as he imagined marriage would bring. Todd was more traditional in the idea that marriage meant that his wife would take care of household work, cooking, etc. Todd was becoming more and more frustrated as Jennifer ?nagged? him to help more, especially since Jennifer and Todd both work full time. In Todd?s fantasy, he was the one who would work while his wife would maintain the home.

It quickly became clear that an issue clouding their relationship was the fantasies they both had surrounding marriage. Regardless of their positively functioning relationship prior to being married, they?d both subconsciously expected that the marriage ceremony would create and carry a magical aura of happiness around them that would stay with them through their lives. There would be no negativity, and it would be exactly as they painted it in their minds.

These fantasies set the environment for disillusionment and disappointment. When negativity inevitably enters the picture, which may not have been part of the fantasy, the sense is that the relationship is failing. Something must be ?wrong? if the marriage isn?t meeting the fantasy at all times.

The reality is, relationships will have negativity at times. There may be mundane moments, and there may be times where you don?t want to be around each other at all. Part of any relationship (whether or not married) is learning to accept that things won?t always be exciting, positive, and romantic.

What keeps a relationship healthy is understanding that a relationship isn?t always positive, so the when negativity, or lack of positivity is present, that it doesn?t necessarily mean the wheels are coming off your relationship. In fact, it is very common for people to futilely jump from relationship to relationship (and marriage to marriage) trying to find the unrealistic fantasy whenever the reality starts to sway from it.

Now, this doesn?t mean that all relationships are good, or that a bad relationship automatically means you have an unrealistic fantasy. If you?re experiencing negativity more than positivity in your relationship, or if you?re overall unfulfilled in your relationship as a whole, then it?s something to look into, either with a therapist for yourself, or a couples therapist (it?s often helpful to be in both ? one for you and one for your relationship together). It?s important to be able to discern between a relationship that?s actually bad for you, versus a fantasy that?s bad for your relationship.

Through their work in couples therapy, Jennifer and Todd began to understand the internal issues that were plaguing their relationship (stemming from childhood and their relationship role models, and other influences). They also realized that their current relationship functions on a decent level, but both were disillusioned by the fact that the fantasy didn?t cone true when they got married.

Learning to except relationships as they are, and making relationships function according to our own efforts? isn?t as easy as it sounds. It?s ego-bruising to realize that we create fantasies in our lives that keep us from realistic happiness (not only in relationships). Some fantasies can come true, if they?re realistic, while others aren?t realistic (such as having a relationship free of all negativity and being exactly as fantasized).

Jennifer and Todd remain in couples therapy, now more accepting of each other and the positives?and negatives that surface at different times in their relationship. They are now working to create a realistic relationship dream that they can achieve together.

????Last reviewed: 29 Apr 2013

APA Reference
Anonymous. (2013). Coming to Grips With Marriage: ?This is It???. Psych Central. Retrieved on April 29, 2013, from http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships-balance/2013/04/29/coming-to-grips-with-marriage-this-is-it/

?

Source: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships-balance/2013/04/29/coming-to-grips-with-marriage-this-is-it/

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From The Hackathon, HangoutLater Helps Find A Good Central Location To? Hang Out Later

After 24 hours of hard work at the Disrupt NY Hackathon, Michael Kolodny, Jingen Lin and Ricardo Falletti demoed us HangoutLater, a nifty hack built on top of the Foursquare API. When you check in and a friend is close to you, it will ask you if you want to hang out later. Then, it will automatically find you a central location to meet. Kolodny and Lin already knew each other before the event. They met Falletti at the Manhattan Center. As they already knew what they wanted to work on, they started developing right away. Over the past 24 hours, the team has not slept a single minute to deliver this hack built in Python using the Django framework. They certainly needed Red Bull and coffee to keep going during the wee hours of the night. Yet, The team had a great time and will certainly take part in other hackathons. When asked whether Kolodny will hang out later with fiends that were not at the hackathon, he said that he wouldn’t use the service this afternoon. It’s time for them to celebrate, or more probably to finally rest. Stage demo coming soon.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/u9FOsEGZx2Q/

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Obama to Nominate Foxx for Transportation Secretary (WSJ)

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Obama With Bangs At White House Correspondents' Dinner 2013 Is Genius (PHOTOS)

At the 2013 White House Correspondents' Dinner, President Obama professed that he's looking to shake things up and improve his image in his second term as president. So it was only natural, POTUS said in his speech, to take a cue from his wife...

... and get bangs.

Cue the awesome Photoshopped photos:

Genius? Super creepy? Both?

The real thing:

• February 13

• February 12 in Jason Wu

• February 15

• February 7

• January 22 in Naeem Khan

• January 21 in Jason Wu

• January 21 in Thom Browne & Reed Krakoff

• January 21 in Thom Browne & J. Crew

• January 20 in Reed Krakoff

• January 19

• January 6

• January 5

• Who Wore It Best: Michelle Obama or Rihanna?

  In this segment's who wore it best, it is for two totally different women who wore similar dresses. So between Michelle Obama and Rihanna, who wore it best?

• December 2012

  (Getty photo)

• December 2012

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• December 2012

  (AFP/Getty photo)

• December 2012

  (AFP/Getty Images)

• December 2012

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• December 2012

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• November 2012

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• November 2012

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• November 2012

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• October 2012

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• October 2012

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• October 2012

  (AFP/Getty photo)

• October 2012

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• October 2012

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• October 2012

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• October 2012

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• October 2012

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• September 2012

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• September 2012

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• September 2012

  (McClatchy Tribune)

• September 2012

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• September 2012

  (AFP/Getty photo)

• September 2012

  (Getty photo)

• September 2012 in Diane Von Furstenberg

  (AFP photo)

• August 2012

  (AP photo)

• August 2012

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• August 2012

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• August 2012 in Barbara Tfank

  (Getty photo)

• August 2012

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• August 2012

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• August 2012 in Bibhu Mohapatra

  (NBC photo)

• August 2012

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• August 2012

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• July 2012

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• July 2012

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• July 2012 in Tracy Reese

  (Twitter photo)

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• July 2012

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Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram at @HuffPostStyle.
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Do you have a style story idea or tip? Email us at stylesubmissions@huffingtonpost.com. (PR pitches sent to this address will be ignored.)

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/27/obama-with-bangs-white-house-correspondents-dinner_n_3171865.html

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'Iron Man 3' Lights It Up At The Foreign Box Office

FROM MTV NEWS "Iron Man 3" is already a hit film, and it hasn't shown on a single screen for U.S. audiences yet. That's because Marvel's follow-up to their mega-hit, "The Avengers," opened early in dozens of foreign markets this past weekend and took in $195 million. To put that sum into perspective, "The Avengers" [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/04/29/iron-man-3-foreign-box-office/

Thor 2 Trailer Administrative Professionals Day After Earth

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei Insists His Company Is ?Completely Transparent? In An Internal Email

An internal email written by Huawei founder Ren Zheng-fei and obtained by Sina Tech (link via Google Translate) sheds light on the secretive Chinese firm's future. In it, Ren downplays his company's reputation for opacity, which has fueled charges that Huawei, the world's second largest maker of telecom equipment, is involved in espionage for the Chinese government. Ren, who is 68 and rumored to be near retirement, also insisted that he will not hand over Huawei's reins to a family member despite reports to the contrary.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/5eknXFcbjNY/

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Leighton Meester & Adam Brody Go On Movie Date With Pals

www.justjared.com:

Leighton Meester and Adam Brody keep low profiles as they leave the ArcLight Cinemas together on Saturday (April 27) in Los Angeles.

Read the whole story at www.justjared.com

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/28/leighton-meester-adam-brody-go-on_n_3174763.html

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Living with Google Glass, Day Three: Security Checkpoint

You might be inclined to think that airport security is not the best place to wear Google Glass. You'd probably be right, but given the amount that I travel it was pretty-well inevitable that I'd cross through some security checkpoint before the course of this testing would be through.

More Info

• Living with Google Glass, Day One: The Reveal
• Living with Google Glass, Day Two: Around the House

I'm honored to be part of the XPRIZE Visioneering conference this week, a gathering of incredible minds putting their considerable brainpower behind the creation of competitions to make the world a better place. But, to take part I'd have to get out to California, and that meant yet another long flight across the country -- and another trip through the full-body scanner. The question is, how would the folks at airport security react to it?

Filed under: Wearables, Google

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Dbje8CQyl-I/

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Individualize Your House With These Home Improvement ...

Smart home owners are usually trying to increase their house. Occasionally the hope listing can be quite a distance very long, although the wallet guide can be a money short! So, just how does one attain the purpose of updating their house on a tight budget? Gain knowledge from what other individuals have found from expertise! You?ll be surprised to find out that home improvements don?t have to be very expensive. Let?s look into a few recommendations for increasing your home within a strict budget.

If you are searching to further improve your house with new home furniture, take into account re-upholstering. Experiencing new household furniture delivered and taking away aged home furniture could be a stressful and dear headache. Just getting new soft cushions and upholstery with an pre-existing couch, even so, is likely to make it look like new for a lot less cash than a new sofa.

Make life easier with a timed sprinkler process set up. When you can?t afford the fee for professional landscaping, you can get a timer in your nearby home remodeling retail store to install to a garden hose and sprinkler. This can instantly h2o your garden, backyard, or any other plants in an established time on a daily basis.

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Source: http://ojoconelsordo.com/?p=5194

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3 killed in French building collapse after blast

REIMS, France (AP) ? A possible gas explosion ripped off the side of a five-story residential building in France's Champagne country on Sunday, killing at least three people and injuring 14 others, officials said.

More than 100 rescue workers, firefighters, sniffer-dog squads and bomb and gas experts were deployed to the gutted building in a subsidized housing complex in the city of Reims, east of Paris, officials said. Heaps of debris spilled out of the building onto a grassy esplanade below.

"The explosion of a residential building in Reims is a terrible drama," the office of French President Francois Hollande said in a statement, conveying his condolences to the victims' relatives.

Michel Bernard, the top government official in Reims, said crews searching for survivors turned up the body of a woman under the rubble Sunday afternoon, raising the death toll to three. He said it was unlikely that the toll would rise any higher.

Through most of the day, authorities had said at least two people had died. One person was hospitalized with serious, but not life-threatening injuries, and another 13 people had minor injuries, officials said. Authorities used backhoes to help clear away the rubble.

"We don't know the cause of the explosion. It was probably due to gas," Reims mayor Adeline Hazan said at the scene. An official investigation was under way to determine the cause, she said. Authorities say the three people known to have died were adults.

Witnesses described a powerful blast.

"The explosion was very strong, like a sonic boom from a fighter plane. We had been playing football on a field about 30 meters (100 feet) away, and ran to the scene," housing project resident Abdel Kader said. "The building had fallen like a house of cards ... 30 seconds after that we saw a man calling for help, he was on a slab. His legs were caught."

"Later, he died," Abdel Kader, a 27-year-old job seeker who declined to provide his family name, said.

Bernard, the government official in Reims, said the building dated to the 1960s. About 10 of the 40 or so apartments were affected on the end of the rectangular building, he said.

The precariousness of some buildings has come to light internationally in recent days following the collapse Wednesday of an eight-story building in a suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where at least 362 people have been confirmed to have died. Officials said three floors of the building, which had housed garment factories, had been built illegally.

___

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this story from Paris.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3-killed-french-building-collapse-blast-190324096.html

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Obama pokes fun at himself at White House Correspondents' Dinner

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama joked Saturday about his plans for a radical second-term evolution from "strapping young Muslim Socialist" to retiree golfer, all with a new hairstyle like first lady Michelle's.

Obama used this year's annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner to poke fun at himself and some of his political adversaries, asking if it was still possible to be brought down a peg after 4? years as commander-in-chief.

Entering to the rap track "All I Do Is Win" by DJ Khaled, Obama joked about how re-election would allow him to unleash a radical agenda. But then he showed a picture of himself golfing on a mock magazine cover of "Senior Leisure."

"I'm not the strapping young Muslim Socialist that I used to be," the president remarked, and then recounted his recent 2-for-22 basketball shooting performance at the White House Easter Egg hunt.

But Obama's most dramatic shift for the next four years appeared to be aesthetic. He presented a montage of shots featuring him with bangs similar to those sometimes sported by his wife.

Obama closed by noting the nation's recent tragedies in Massachusetts and Texas, praising Americans of all stripes from first responders to local journalists for serving the public good.

Saturday night's banquet not far from the White House attracted the usual assortment of stars from Hollywood and beyond. Actors Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Claire Danes, who play government characters on series, were among the attendees, as was Korean entertainer Psy. Several Cabinet members, governors and members of Congress were present.

And despite coming at a somber time, nearly two weeks after the deadly Boston Marathon bombing and 10 days after a devastating fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, the president and political allies and rivals alike took the opportunity to enjoy some humor. Late-night talk-show host Conan O'Brien headlined the event.

Some of Obama's jokes came at his Republican rivals' expense. He asked that the GOP's minority outreach begin with him as a "trial run" and said he'd take his recent charm offensive with Republicans on the road, including to a book-burning event with Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson would have had better success getting Obama out of office if he simply offered the president $100 million to drop out of last year's race, Obama quipped.

And on the 2016 election, the president noted in self-referential irony that potential Republican candidate Sen. Marco Rubio wasn't qualified because he hasn't even served a full term in the Senate. Obama served less than four years of his six-year Senate term before he was elected president in 2008.

The gala also was an opportunity for six journalists, including Associated Press White House Correspondent Julie Pace, to be honored for their coverage of the presidency and national issues.

The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza won the Aldo Beckman Award, which recognizes excellence in the coverage of the presidency.

Pace won the Merriman Smith Award for a print journalist for coverage on deadline.

ABC's Terry Moran was the winner of the broadcast Merriman Smith Award for deadline reporting.

Reporters Jim Morris, Chris Hamby and Ronnie Greene of the Center for Public Integrity won the Edgar A. Poe Award for coverage of issues of national significance.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-jokes-radical-2nd-term-changes-023742499.html

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2 police shot outside Italian premier's office

ROME (AP) ? A prosecutor says Italian politicians were the intended target of a gunman who shot and wounded two policemen in a crowded square outside the premier's office in Rome.

The attack Sunday came just as Italy's new government was being sworn in elsewhere in the city. Italy has suffered political deadlock since an inconclusive February election.

Rome Prosecutor Pierfilippo Laviani told reporters he had questioned the alleged assailant, who was taken to a hospital with bruises after being wrestled to the ground.

Laviani says the "desperate" gunman had "lost work, had lost everything." He said the man "wanted to shoot politicians, but given that he couldn't reach any, he shot the Carabinieri" police at the edge of Chigi Square.

Laviani said the man "confessed everything" and didn't appear mentally unbalanced.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2-police-shot-outside-italian-premiers-office-115304512.html

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Honda recalls nearly 46,000 Fit Sports

DETROIT (AP) ? Honda is recalling nearly 46,000 Fit Sport small cars in the U.S. and Canada to fix a problem with the electronic stability control system.

The recall affects cars from the 2012 and 2013 model years. Honda says the stability control system can let the car tilt too far before it applies the brakes to prevent a crash.

The defect was discovered in government testing of models with a particular type of tires. Honda says it doesn't know of any crashes or injuries from the problem.

Honda dealers will update the system's software free of charge. Owners will be notified starting in mid-May.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/honda-recalls-nearly-46-000-fit-sports-014434400.html

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Militants kill five Iraqi soldiers, Sunni protesters form "army"

By Kamal Naama

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Militants shot dead five Iraqi soldiers in the Sunni Muslim stronghold province of Anbar on Saturday and protesters said they were forming an "army" after four days of unrest that raised fears of a return to widespread sectarian civil conflict.

More than 170 people have been killed since Tuesday when security forces stormed a Sunni protest camp in the town of Hawija, triggering clashes that spread to other Sunni areas in western and northern areas.

Sunnis have been demonstrating since December against the perceived marginalization of their sect under Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim-led government.

A curfew was imposed on the city of Ramadi in Anbar, a western province, on Saturday after militants killed five soldiers who authorities said were returning from holiday to their units. Protesters said they had been sent to attack them.

Protests had eased recently, but the army raid earlier this week in Hawija, near the city of Kirkuk, 170 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad, reignited Sunni discontent and may have given fresh impetus to insurgents.

"In order to keep Anbar a safe place for the Sunnis, we decided to form an army called the Army of Pride and Dignity with 100 volunteers from each tribe to protect our province," said Sheikh Saeed Al-Lafi, a spokesman for the protesters.

Lafi said police and members of the Iraqi army were welcome to join their ranks.

Influential Sunni cleric Sheikh Abdul Malik Al-Saadi, who had previously taken a conciliatory stance and urged restraint, on Saturday congratulated the "honorable Iraqi mujahideen (holy warriors)" on the proclaimed creation of the regional army.

At least four members of a government-backed Sunni "Sahwa" militia were killed when gunmen opened fire at a checkpoint in Awja, outside Tikrit. Police and militants battled in Baiji, a former bastion of Sunni jihadist al Qaeda, about 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad.

In the Abu Ghraib district of Baghdad, four soldiers were killed early on Saturday in clashes with unidentified gunmen.

KURDISH TROOPS DEPLOY

Relations between the central government and ethnic Kurds, who run their own administration in the north, have also been frayed by an ongoing row over land and oil rights.

Kurdish security forces deployed beyond the formal boundary of their autonomous region overnight, a move they said was to protect civilians in the oil-rich territory over which both the Kurds and Baghdad claim jurisdiction.

At the heart of that disputed area is the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk.

"After the incident in Hawija created an unstable situation in the area, especially around Kirkuk city and ... all disputed areas ... military units mobilized from their bases," spokesman Jabbar Yawar said on his Facebook page.

The Iraqi army and Kurdish troops, known as peshmerga, are facing off along their contested internal boundary following a military build-up late last year.

Yawar said the deployment was based on information that "terrorists" were planning to take advantage of the volatile situation to carry out attacks in the area, but said the peshmerga had no plans to enter Kirkuk or any other cities.

"There are no political intentions behind this plan. The sole objective is to protect the lives and possessions of civilians," Yawar said.

(Additional reporting by Raheem Salman and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Ghazwan Hassan in Tikrit, and Isabel Coles in Arbil; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/militants-kill-five-iraq-soldiers-sunni-protesters-form-160738767.html

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Facebook Sees Increase In Parse Signups, Tells Developers ?No Plans To Change How App Data Is Used?

Despite developers grumbling that they would ditch Parse's mobile app backend service now that it's been bought by Facebook, Parse CEO Illya Suhkar tells me signups spiked 9.4x and fewer clients are leaving than before. Meanwhile, to calm fears about Facebook spying on Parse app data, the company issued the statement "We currently have no plans to make any changes to how Parse app data is used."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/cr7GA3OLTaE/

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Parliament's Penal Code Committee to summon ... - Minivan News

Parliament?s committee responsible for the new Penal Code has decided to summon Chair of Adhaalath Party Religious Council and a member of Maldives Fiqh Academy,?Sheikh Ilyas Hussein.

The committee decided to summon Ilyas on the grounds that he had made ??misleading?? comments suggesting that the purpose of the penal code was to ?destroy the religion of Islam?.

The decision was made during last Thursday?s meeting. During the meeting, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Nazim Rashad proposed that the committee summon Ilyas to clarify doubts he may have regarding the Penal Code and to clarify how much the Penal Code incorporated the principles and penalties in Islam.

According to local media, on March 22, Sheikh Ilyas held a religious sermon dubbed ?Purpose of Islamic Shariah? at the Furuqan Mosque after Isha Prayers, and there he swore to God that the Penal Code was made to destroy the religion of Islam.

Speaking to Minivan News today, the Chair of Penal Code Committee MDP MP Ahmed Hamza said the committee had asked the parliament secretariat to send notice to Sheikh Ilyas to produce himself before the committee on Tuesday.

?He has told the public that there are some provisions in the Penal Code that are not in it,? Hamza said. ?We want to bring him in and have a chat and inform him about the provisions that are there in the Penal Code.?

Hamza said the Penal Code included provisions stating that theft and fornication were crimes.

?It also has a provision on flogging,? Hamza added.

Local media reported that during the sermon, Ilyas had declared that the Penal Code did not have penalties for fornication, theft, corruption, forgery or robbery, and if a person commits a crime while intoxicated, the person is not subject to punishment. He also claimed that according to the new penal code, it was not a crime for two people to have?consensual?sex.

Ilyas declared that the Penal Code was ?a trap made by the West? to erase Islam in the name of Muslims, and vowed that he was ready to argue the point even if all the country?s lawyers came out against him.

Source: http://minivannews.com/society/parliaments-penal-code-committee-to-summon-sheikh-ilyas-for-misleading-public-57037

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NBA committee deciding Kings' fate to meet Monday

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) ? The NBA committee deciding whether the Sacramento Kings should be sold and relocated to Seattle will hold a meeting via conference call Monday.

An NBA spokesman confirmed Thursday that the committee, consisting of 12 league owners, will convene on a call instead of in person. Whenever the committee issues a recommendation, NBA owners will have at least seven business days to review the report before a vote can take place.

The Maloof family has had an agreement since January to sell a 65 percent controlling interest in the Kings to a Seattle group led by hedge-fund manager Chris Hansen. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has helped put together a competing counteroffer complete with a new arena plan and an ownership group headed by software tycoon Vivek Ranadive.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-25-BKN-Kings-Sale/id-4e23c929f0b343aca5e3a66d567bf33f

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Google Glass easter egg reveals the team that built it

Google has a long history of doling out easter eggs to amuse and delight the public, so naturally it decided to sneak one in the Explorer Edition of Glass as well. New Glass Explorer Jay Lee discovered that when you select View Licenses under Settings and Device Info, then tap the touchpad nine times (an audible beep increasing in pitch will follow each tap), you'll be able to see the entire Project Glass team in a panoramic shot. Mike LeBeau from the Glass team confirmed that he snuck that easter egg in to pay tribute to his colleagues. Naturally, now we can't help but wonder if shaking your head in tune to the Konami Code (sans A and B button-pushing) will uncover more hidden gems.

Filed under: Wearables, Google

Comments

Via: Living thru Glass, Karthik's Geek Center

Source: Jay Lee (G+)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/25/google-glass-easter-egg/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Amazon reports lower 1Q earnings, higher revenue

NEW YORK (AP) ? Amazon.com Inc.'s net income declined in the first three months of the year even though revenue increased 22 percent, as the online retailer continued to spend heavily on order fulfillment and rights to digital content.

The world's largest online retailer, which also sells the Kindle devices and services, said Thursday that it earned $82 million, or 18 cents per share, in the first quarter. That's down 37 percent from $130 million, or 28 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier. But it's higher than the 7 cents expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue rose 22 percent to $16.07 billion, from $13.19 billion. Analysts expected $16.14 billion.

Amazon's operating expenses rose 22 percent to $15.9 billion, from $13 billion. The company has been investing a lot of its income in enhancing its distribution network, its shopping website and its Kindle business as part of a long-term growth plan. Because of that, and deep discounts it offers customers, Amazon's profit margins have been thin.

For the current quarter, Amazon expects revenue of $14.5 billion to $16.2 billion. The midpoint of the range is lower than the $15.92 billion that analysts had expected, but the company typically gives a conservative forecast.

Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said that a measure called paid unit growth ? 30 percent ? was a bit slower than expected. This figure refers to the physical and digital goods that Amazon and its third-party sellers sell on its sites worldwide, excluding returns and cancellations.

Currency fluctuations, especially a weak yen, are also weighing on Amazon's results, as has been the case for other technology companies. A weak yen translates to fewer dollars on sales in Japan. Excluding the effects of currency rate changes, revenue would have increased 24 percent rather than 22 percent in the first quarter.

Amazon is stretching well beyond online retailing. The Seattle-based company soon plans to debut original TV programming. Amazon is running introductory pilots for 14 TV shows on its website for anyone in the U.S., U.K. and Germany to watch. Viewers will get to help decide which shows get additional episodes.

"The pilots are out in the open where everyone can have a say," Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, said in a statement. "I have my personal picks and so do members of the Amazon Studios team, but the exciting thing about our approach is that our opinions don't matter. Our customers will determine what goes into full-season production."

Amazon's stock slid $6, or 2.2 percent, to $268.70 in extended trading after the results came out. The stock had closed up $5.92, or 2.2 percent, at $274.70.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amazon-reports-lower-1q-earnings-higher-revenue-202944865--finance.html

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Computer scientists suggest new spin on origins of evolvability: Competition to survive not necessary?

Apr. 26, 2013 ? Scientists have long observed that species seem to have become increasingly capable of evolving in response to changes in the environment. But computer science researchers now say that the popular explanation of competition to survive in nature may not actually be necessary for evolvability to increase.

In a paper published this week in PLOS ONE, the researchers report that evolvability can increase over generations regardless of whether species are competing for food, habitat or other factors.

Using a simulated model they designed to mimic how organisms evolve, the researchers saw increasing evolvability even without competitive pressure.

"The explanation is that evolvable organisms separate themselves naturally from less evolvable organisms over time simply by becoming increasingly diverse," said Kenneth O. Stanley, an associate professor at the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida. He co-wrote the paper about the study along with lead author Joel Lehman, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin.

The finding could have implications for the origins of evolvability in many species.

"When new species appear in the future, they are most likely descendants of those that were evolvable in the past," Lehman said. "The result is that evolvable species accumulate over time even without selective pressure."

During the simulations, the team's simulated organisms became more evolvable without any pressure from other organisms out-competing them. The simulations were based on a conceptual algorithm.

"The algorithms used for the simulations are abstractly based on how organisms are evolved, but not on any particular real-life organism," explained Lehman.

The team's hypothesis is unique and is in contrast to most popular theories for why evolvability increases.

"An important implication of this result is that traditional selective and adaptive explanations for phenomena such as increasing evolvability deserve more scrutiny and may turn out unnecessary in some cases," Stanley said.

Stanley is an associate professor at UCF. He has a bachelor's of science in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals. He has over 70 publications in competitive venues and has secured grants worth more than $1 million. His works in artificial intelligence and evolutionary computation have been cited more than 4,000 times.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Central Florida.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Joel Lehman, Kenneth O. Stanley. Evolvability Is Inevitable: Increasing Evolvability without the Pressure to Adapt. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (4): e62186 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0062186

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/computers_math/information_technology/~3/yFudqCEhgpw/130426115612.htm

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Look in the mirror: Just substitute 'Canadian' for 'American child-care ...

An article in the April 29 issue of The New Republic has generated considerable interest in U.S. child care as its content and perspective have been picked up and extended in social media, other magazines, U.S. TV, radio and daily newspapers and even in offshore news media. The hell of American daycare: the barely regulated, unsafe business of looking after our children describes a case of a fire in a family child-care home caring for seven very young children. The case -- prominent in the media for some time -- involved an untrained 23-year-old caregiver/owner who had left the kids alone to go shop at Target, a practice that --? testimony at the trial asserted -- was not new. An oil-filled pot left cooking on the stove caught fire and four children died. Eventually the caregiver who -- it became clear -- had a criminal record -- was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

The article indicts the United States for -- essentially -- child neglect. The author writes that ?despite the fact that work and family life has changed profoundly in recent decades, we lack anything resembling an actual child care system. Excellent day cares are available, of course, if you have the money to pay for them and the luck to secure a spot. But the overall quality is wildly uneven and barely monitored, and at the lower end, it?s Dickensian.?

Jonathan Cohn, the author, reports research that ?deemed the majority of operations to be ?fair? or ?poor? and notes that while ?day care is a bruising financial burden for many families,? ?only minimal assistance is available to offset these expenses. And so many parents put their kids in whatever they can find and whatever they can afford, hoping it will be good enough.? The article chronicles how President Richard Nixon?s presidential veto of a national child-care program back in 1970 had ended movement towards a child-care system in the U.S. ?

Does this all sound familiar? To me, it?s like looking at a mirror image of our own child-care situation. Reading Cohn?s story, I found myself substituting ?Canadian? for ?American,? and expect that others with an interest in early childhood education and child care, young children and social policy in Canada will be doing the same. ?

The article illustrates the absence of a child-care system, which for parents translates to mean that there are few (or no) options, and that securing good child care is in large part, a matter of luck. Cohn?s interview with one of the dead toddlers? mothers, a single mother trying to keep a job to earn a living for herself and her child -- and maybe even advance to a better job -- says it all about what the lack of child-care options to help her and other parents mean. This is not different than what we hear in Canada -- the stories parents tell about the lack of choices available in Canada reflect our equally dismal situation.

The story of ?Jackie?s Daycare? -- the child-care home in which the tragedy occurred -- with its lack of public oversight and unsafe, insalubrious conditions (the home child care in this case was ?registered,? with virtually no requirements and monitored not at all, or minimally, at best) reflect the kinds of perilous conditions in some unregulated (sometimes illegal) child care revealed in a CBC Marketplace story only last month. And while Canada has not experienced a child-care tragedy on the scale of this one in some time, just in the last two weeks, two child death cases in unregulated child care in Mississauga, ON and Port Coquitlam, BC have come back to the criminal courts, though they have received much less media interest in Canada than the ?Jackie?s Daycare? case did in the U.S. ?

There is also a telling parallel (though different methodology) between the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) study that found that most of the child care it studied was ?fair? or ?poor? and the sole national Canadian study of quality, You Bet I Care! (now almost 15 years old) that reported that of the centres it studied, ?the majority provided care that was of minimal to mediocre quality.?

Demand for child care has grown as the labour force participation rate of mothers with young children has continued to rise in both countries (though more steeply and to a higher rate in Canada) while today the child development value of high quality early childhood education and care is well recognized by experts and the general public in both countries.

And ironically, the rejection of a national child-care program by the highest government official in the U.S. and in Canada -- President Richard Nixon in 1971 and Prime Minister Stephan Harper in 2006 -- is unique to the two countries. In 1971, as a very recent immigrant to Canada fresh from working on the American Head Start program, I had been following the successful progress of national legislation to begin building the first U.S. national child-care program through both houses of Congress. I was stunned when Nixon exercised the rarely-used presidential veto to override Congressional assent (his veto message spoke of the threat of ?Sovietizing? the American family and his opposition to coming down on the ?side of communal approaches to child rearing against the family-centered approach") -- just as I was stunned 35 years later when Stephen Harper unilaterally abrogated the hard-won federal-provincial bilateral agreements that were to set the stage for building Canada?s first national child-care program.

Following the end of Canada?s first effort at a national child-care program, in 2008, Canada was ranked lower than the United States (which was among the lower ranking countries studied) in a 25-country UNICEF study of early childhood education and child-care access and quality benchmarks. ?

This year, in his federal budget proposal, Barack Obama included funds to the states for preschool targeted to modest and low income families, as well as increased funds for Head Start -- not quite the comprehensive national early childhood education and care program we envision here in Canada. Still -- it?s a far cry from the contempt for ECEC that Canadians with an interest in child care have been experiencing from the Conservative federal government since 2006 and the ?we can?t afford it? from tax-cutting and books-balancing provincial political parties and governments. Indeed, based on the UNICEF study, it seems that Canada spends even less money on ECEC than does the U.S.

So Canadians who still think that most young families need, and want, the kinds of options for decent quality affordable child care and early childhood education that families in other countries enjoy need to be thinking about their political choices and preparing to join with others in exercising them. Otherwise, our child-care choices for the foreseeable future will remain limited to cross-border examination of our own unsatisfactory reflection in American mirrors.

Source: http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/child-care-canada-now/2013/04/look-mirror-just-substitute-canadian-american-child-car

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RBAF Combat Net Radio System Contract Signing Ceremony ...

The Ministry of Defence Negara Brunei Darussalam (?MINDEF?) signed Supplemental Agreement and Blanket Order Agreement for the supply of Combat Net Radio (CNR) System for the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (?RBAF?) with Harris Corporation, RF Communications Division (?Harris?) from United States of America.

The Contract Signing Ceremony was held at MINDEF?s premises at Bolkiah Garrison on March 29th 2013. Signing on behalf of MINDEF was Hajah Suriyah binti Haji Umar, Permanent Secretary of Administration and Finance and Allan Callaghan, Vice President International Sales and Managing Director Asia Pacific, signing on behalf of Harris.

The CNR Supplemental Agreement is an enhancement contract to the Master Agreement signed in January 2008 in which Harris supplied tactical radios, accessories and other equipment to the RBAF. The New Supplemental Program, to be implemented in five phases over a five-year period, provides the deployment of networked communications delivering secure tactical communications to individual soldiers, and improving situational awareness and force effectiveness. In addition to the Supplemental Agreement, the Blanket Order Agreement provides enhancement to RBAF?s ability to maintain and support the CNR System throughout its expected service life.

The Supplemental Program will enhance RBAF?s C4I (Command, Control, Communication, Computing & Intelligence) Systems, enabling secure voice communication links and wideband data performance allowing for information superiority in today?s battlefield.

Naval Today Staff, April 25, 2013; Image: MINDEF

Source: http://navaltoday.com/2013/04/25/rbaf-combat-net-radio-system-contract-signing-ceremony/

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Watch: Five Presidents Gather to Open the George W. Bush Library

MADRID, April 25 (Reuters) - Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina said the 10-match ban given to his team mate Luis Suarez for biting an opponent was 'absurd' and 'excessive'. Uruguay international Suarez was punished on Wednesday by the English Football Association (FA) after he bit the arm of Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic at the weekend. "He knows he is in the wrong, and that it was a mistake, but the 10-game punishment seems absurd to me, excessive and unfair," Spanish international Reina was quoted as telling radio station Cadena Cope by sports daily AS on Thursday. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/watch-five-presidents-gather-open-george-w-bush-145637884.html

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Latos outduels Samardzija as Reds edge Cubs 1-0

By MARK SCHMETZER

Associated Press

Associated Press Sports

updated 5:15 p.m. ET April 24, 2013

CINCINNATI (AP) - Todd Frazier gave Mat Latos all the run support he needed, and Latos gave the Cincinnati Reds exactly what they needed to finish off a 10-game homestand in style.

Latos retired the first 10 batters and 15 of the first 16 he faced and mostly spared an overworked bullpen, and Frazier hit a long home run and the Reds beat the Chicago Cubs 1-0 Wednesday.

"This is what we wanted so bad," Reds manager Baker said. "This sets us straight for a couple of days."

With one out in the sixth inning of a scoreless tie, Frazier blasted a 2-1 pitch from Jeff Samardzija 480 feet to straightaway center field to increase his team-leading home run total to six. The homer, which bounced high off the batter's eye, is the longest at Great American Ball Park this season and the seventh-longest in the facility's 11-year history.

"I was just trying to get a fastball," said Frazier, who became the first Cincinnati player to homer in a 1-0 win since Sean Casey against St. Louis on Aug. 26, 2004. "I haven't seen too many lately. I got one, and I took advantage of it. I took a couple of steps and figured it was out, but I didn't know how far until I saw it hit the (batter's eye)."

Latos (1-0), the victim of two blown saves among his first four starts this season allowed four hits and a walk with four strikeouts. He had to rely solely on his two- and four-seam fastballs, too.

It turned out not to be a problem.

"In the bullpen, I had a really good slider and changeup," said Latos, who's strung together 11 consecutive scoreless innings. "I don't know what the hell happened. It's tough. Everybody in the big leagues can hit the fastball. I had to focus on hitting spots, keeping the ball down and away and getting them to hit it on the ground."

Jonathan Broxton replaced Latos with two runners on base and nobody out in the eighth. Both runners moved up on Cody Ransom's sacrifice bunt, but pinch-hitter Alfonso Soriano struck out and shortstop Zack Cozart went deep behind second base to flag down David DeJesus's grounder and throw him out to end the inning.

"I was going to throw it regardless, because there were two outs," Cozart said. "I saw out of the corner of my eye that he wasn't too close to the bag. I've been struggling at the plate lately, so to make a play like that makes you feel pretty good."

Cubs manager Dale Sveum said that's just the way it's been going for the Cubs, who are 1-5 on their current road trip.

"That was an unbelievable play in that situation," he said.

Aroldis Chapman pitched the ninth for his fourth save. Latos's effort left Cincinnati's starting pitchers with a combined 5-0 record and 1.54 ERA on the homestand.

Samardzija (1-4) had his fourth consecutive loss after beating Pittsburgh on Opening Day. The right-hander allowed seven hits and three walks with eight strikeouts and a wild pitch.

The Reds had baserunners in each of the first five innings, including the third, which Devin Mesoraco and Latos led off with singles before Samardzija struck out Shin-Soo Choo, Cozart and Joey Votto - the top three batters in Cincinnati's lineup.

The Reds wrapped up the home stand, one of two of 10 games on their schedule this season, with eight wins despite playing two games that lasted 13 innings, another that went 10, a third that was suspended almost 19 hours from one night to the next day by rain, and Wednesday's game, the start of which was delayed 89 minutes by rain. They won eight games on a homestand of 10 or fewer games for just the sixth time in franchise history and the second in two years. They went 8-2 against St. Louis, Arizona and Milwaukee on a homestand last July.

"This was a weird home stand," Cozart said. "It was a battle every game."

NOTES: A sharp one-hopper by Julio Borbon, the second batter in the game, glanced off Latos's right foot. He recovered to grab the ball and throw Borbon out and stayed in the game after a couple of practice tosses in front of manager Dusty Baker and trainer Paul Lessard. ... Samardzija's effort to catch Choo's bouncer in the bottom of the first left him with a slight cut on his pitching hand, but it quickly closed enough to allow him to continue. ... Choo, who went into the game leading the major leagues with a .535 on-base percentage, has reached base at least once in all 21 of the games he's played this season.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Should've, would've, could've...

CSN: Roy Halladay had another strong start and Chase Utley and Ryan Howard both hit solo home runs, but the Phillies' bullpen blew it and squandered chances led to a 5-3 loss to the Pirates

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/51650507/ns/sports-baseball/

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