Fresh iPhone Apps for Dec. 5: AirCassette, AuthenticJobs, McGyro, Sprinkle Junior (Appolicious)

Today?s leading Fresh iPhone App lets you jam to your old-school tunes in an old-school way. AirCassette makes your iPhone look like a tape deck when it plays your music, creating a cassette tape with the name of your track written on it and spools that turn as you use the app?s functions. It?s followed by AuthenticJobs, a job board app that might help IT pros find work in this tough economy. McGyro, a gyroscope-using Western-styled first-person shooter, leads today?s games list, followed by Sprinkle Junior, a kid version of the popular physics game about putting out fires with a giant fire hose rig.

If modern technology just isn?t as cool to you as an ancient magnetic tape cassette, I?m sorry to tell you that you?re sort of out of luck in terms of the progress the world is making. But you can still pretend you spend your days listening to cassette tapes with AirCassette. The app takes music from your iOS devices and plays it, just like your iPhone, iPod or iPad?s iPod functionality already does, but it uses a cassette tape aesthetic on the screen to make you think you?re back in 1988, or 1991, or whenever you wish it was.

The app features animations for when you fast-forward and rewind, making the cassette move, and the tape wheels will roll forward as your tracks play as if you were looking at a tape deck. You can share the images of your favorite cassettes on Facebook and Twitter with your friends, and you can queue up multiple songs, then save those lists for later to create mixtapes. It?s pure retro goofy fun.

Times are tough right now, and finding a job can be tougher. AuthenticJobs tries to give a hand with that issue, providing a targeted jobs board for IT pros filled with opportunities ranging from internships and freelance positions, short-term ?gigs,? contract jobs and full-time positions.

AuthenticJobs? listings are arranged by several job categories, and once you narrow down just what you?re looking for, you can see listings sorted by location, company and several other filters. You can mark jobs as your favorites so you can find them again easily later. Upcoming updates will feature improvements like the addition of push notifications.

McGyro (iPhone, iPad) $0.99

Most of the newest big first-person shooters to hit the iTunes App Store make use of newer iOS devices? internal gyroscope technology. McGyro makes the gyroscope its central feature, putting players in a stationary shooting-range style scenario as an Old West sheriff. You aim your six-shooter by moving your iPhone or iPad around in 3-D space, and as you do so, the gyroscope picks up on the motion and adjusts your aim. Then it?s just a quick tap to take down the outlaws shooting away at you.

The key to McGyro is quick reflexes. Levels are filled with plywood enemies popping up to blast you, and you need to shoot them as if you were on a target range before you take too much damage. More points are awarded for hitting several targets without missing or placing headshots, and some enemies will respond with guns of their own or by throwing tomahawks that you have to shoot down. McGyro features some tight controls and a cool art style, as well as Game Center support for achievements and leaderboards.

A follow-up to Sprinkle, a physics game that tasked players with using a fire truck rig to put out fires in several puzzle levels, Sprinkle Junior takes the same idea and gears the game toward children. It?s much simplified, with levels that have been toned down in difficulty (but are still pretty interesting) and the threat of failure removed, leaving just the joy of spraying things with a hose.

Sprinkle Junior?s levels follow the original?s in that you?ll still use water for a number of things in each puzzle, like pushing objects or getting help to certain fires by ramping it off terrain in certain ways. There are lots of kooky additions, though, like a giant hamburger you have to dismantle with water in order to douse flames. Fun puzzles and a low-pressure gaming set-up should make this as fun for kids as Sprinkle is for older kids/adults.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/appolicious_rss/rss_appolicious_tc/http___www_appolicious_com_articles10376_fresh_iphone_apps_for_dec_5_aircassette_authenticjobs_mcgyro_sprinkle_junior/43807757/SIG=13tbgint7/*http%3A//www.appolicious.com/tech/articles/10376-fresh-iphone-apps-for-dec-5-aircassette-authenticjobs-mcgyro-sprinkle-junior

eric johnson russell pearce russell pearce emergency alert system chelsea handler alexander the great act

Cuts to first-class mail to slow delivery in 2012

FILE - In this March 2, 2010 file photo, letter carrier Kevin Pownall delivers mail in Philadelphia. Facing bankruptcy, the U.S. Postal Service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE - In this March 2, 2010 file photo, letter carrier Kevin Pownall delivers mail in Philadelphia. Facing bankruptcy, the U.S. Postal Service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2011, file photo Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe speaks at a news conference on changes to the Postal Service that could potentially save as much as $3 billion in Washington. The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail on Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the Postal Service to quickly trim costs and avert bankruptcy. While providing short-term relief, the changes could ultimately prove counterproductive, pushing more of America's business onto the Internet.( AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2011, file photo Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe appears before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as the panel examines the economic troubles of the Postal Service, a self-funded federal agency, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Seeing no immediate help from Congress, the cash-strapped service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and eliminate overnight service for the first time in 40 years. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Charts show U.S. Postal Service operating losses and mail volume since

(AP) ? Unprecedented cuts by the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service will slow first-class delivery next spring and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day.

The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail later Monday, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the Postal Service to quickly trim costs and avert bankruptcy. They could slow everything from check payments to Netflix's DVDs-by-mail, add costs to mail-order prescription drugs, and threaten the existence of newspapers and time-sensitive magazines delivered by postal carrier to far-flung suburban and rural communities.

That birthday card mailed first-class to Mom also could arrive a day or two late, if people don't plan ahead.

"It's a potentially major change, but I don't think consumers are focused on it and it won't register until the service goes away," said Jim Corridore, analyst with S&P Capital IQ, who tracks the shipping industry. "Over time, to the extent the customer service experience gets worse, it will only increase the shift away from mail to alternatives. There's almost nothing you can't do online that you can do by mail."

The cuts would close roughly 250 of the nearly 500 mail processing centers across the country as early as next March. Because the consolidations would typically lengthen the distance mail travels from post office to processing center, the agency would also lower delivery standards for first-class mail that have been in place since 1971. Currently, first-class mail is supposed to be delivered to homes and businesses within the continental U.S. in one to three days; that will be lengthened to two to three days, meaning mailers could no longer expect next-day delivery in surrounding communities. Periodicals could take between two and nine days.

The Postal Service already has announced a 1-cent increase in first-class mail to 45 cents beginning Jan. 22.

About 42 percent of first-class mail is now delivered the following day; another 27 percent arrives in two days, about 31 percent in three days and less than 1 percent in four to five days. Following the change next spring, about 51 percent of all first-class mail is expected to arrive in two days, with most of the remainder delivered in three days.

The consolidation of mail processing centers is in addition to the planned closing of about 3,700 local post offices. In all, roughly 100,000 postal employees could be cut as a result of the various closures, resulting in savings of up to $6.5 billion a year.

Expressing urgency to reduce costs, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in an interview that the agency has to act while waiting for Congress to grant it authority to reduce delivery to five days a week, raise stamp prices and reduce health care and other labor costs. The Postal Service, an independent agency of government, does not receive tax money, but is subject to congressional control of large aspects of its operations. The changes in first-class mail delivery can be implemented without permission from Congress.

After five years in the red, the post office faces imminent default this month on a $5.5 billion annual payment to the U.S. Treasury for retiree health benefits; it is projected to have a record loss of $14.1 billion next year amid steady declines in first-class mail volume. Donahoe has said the agency must make cuts of $20 billion by 2015 to be profitable.

"We have a business model that is failing. You can't continue to run red ink and not make changes," Donahoe said. "We know our business, and we listen to our customers. Customers are looking for affordable and consistent mail service, and they do not want us to take tax money."

Separate bills have passed House and Senate committees that would give the post office more authority and liquidity to stave off immediate bankruptcy. But prospects are somewhat dim for final congressional action on those bills anytime soon, especially if the measures are seen in an election year as promoting layoffs and cuts to neighborhood post offices.

The Postal Service initially announced in September it was studying the possibility of closing the processing centers and published a notice in the Federal Register seeking comments. Within 30 days, the plan elicited nearly 4,400 public comments, mostly in opposition.

___

Online:

https://www.usps.com/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-12-05-Postal%20Problems/id-12199ff41d8e4cd2958063dc3df1c483

black hawk down dennis the menace dylan ratigan dylan ratigan occupy occupy midnight madness

Leaders at Americas talks: world economy top worry

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez smiles during a working session of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, summit in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez smiles during a working session of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, summit in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is seen on a large TV screen, flanked by paintings of Latin America Independence heros Simon Bolivar, left, and Antonio Jose de Sucre, while speaking at the second working session of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, summit in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Bolivia's President Evo Morales gestures during a working session of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, summit in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011.(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Uruguay's President Jose Mujica looks on during a working session of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, summit in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011.(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar speaks during a working session of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, summit in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011.(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

(AP) ? Leaders from across Latin America and the Caribbean pledged closer ties to safeguard their economies from the world financial crisis as they formed a new bloc on Saturday including every nation in the hemisphere except the U.S. and Canada.

Several presidents stressed during the two-day summit that they hope to ride out turbulent times by boosting local industries and increasing trade within the region.

"It seems it's a terminal, structural crisis of capitalism," Bolivian President Evo Morales said in a speech Saturday. "I feel we're meeting at a good moment to debate ... the great unity of the countries of America, without the United States."

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and some of his closest allies called the new regional bloc a tool for standing up to U.S. influence. But other leaders focused more on economic concerns and on working together to confront issues such as drug trafficking and the effects of climate change.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said that if the nations are to keep thriving they will need to look more to their neighbors.

"The economic, financial crisis should be at the center of our concerns," Rousseff said Friday night. She said Latin America should "realize that to guarantee its current cycle of development despite the international economic turbulence, it means that every politician must be aware that each one needs the others."

The region has so far weathered the economic woes better than the U.S. or Europe, achieving economic growth of more than 5 percent last year.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said the region has immense potential while "there's a hurricane that's hitting the so-called industrialized economies hard." He said Colombia's current trade with Brazil, for instance, is minimal and could grow significantly.

Chavez read aloud a letter from Chinese President Hu Jintao congratulating the leaders on forming a new 33-nation regional bloc, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Hu pledged to deepen cooperation with the new group.

The U.S. remains the top trading partner of many countries in the region, with exceptions including Brazil and Chile, where China has recently taken the place of the U.S. as the biggest trading partner.

The leaders formally launched the new bloc, known by its Spanish initials CELAC, by approving a declaration of shared principles as well as a clause dealing with democratic norms. Chavez said leaders had not agreed on whether to make decisions by consensus or by vote, and as a result would reach decisions by consensus for the time being and take up the matter again later.

Chavez pounded a gavel on his desk as he read out several statements approved by the leaders, including one opposing the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, a conservative who took over the new group's rotating presidency, touted it a forum to build regional cooperation in spite of political differences. Pinera said the group would hold its next summit in Santiago in 2012.

Venezuela's government celebrated the gathering at a Caracas military base with bursts of fireworks that could be heard from the session. Other events included an orchestral performance led by Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and a post-summit concert headlined by Puerto Rican hip-hop duo Calle 13.

Both Chavez and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said they hope the bloc eventually overshadows the importance of the Washington-based Organization of American States. Unlike the OAS, the new group will have Cuba as a full member and exclude the U.S. and Canada.

"We need a new inter-American system and, more specifically, a new system to guarantee human rights," Correa said Friday, referring to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which has received complaints from Ecuadorean newspapers and television channels that accuse his government of trying to silence critics.

Chavez called the OAS "obsolete." Bolivia's Morales strongly criticized the International Monetary Fund, saying "they've just pillaged us and led us to poverty."

Several other presidents said they see CELAC as a forum to resolve conflicts and build closer ties, but not as an alternative to existing bodies such as the OAS.

On other issues, Morales appealed for strong steps at this month's climate change conference in South Africa, saying it's critical that developed nations renew pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

"If they kill the protocol, they kill the planet," Morales said.

Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, also expressed concerns about changing weather patterns and said nations should work together to better plan for disasters.

Several leaders called for closer cooperation to fight criminals and drug trafficking.

Colombia's Santos said the new bloc could help in re-examining whether current counter-drug efforts are the right approach.

Chavez criticized past U.S. interventions in Latin America, and said the region must "demand respect."

He recalled shaking President Barack Obama's hand at a 2009 summit and giving him a copy of the book "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Eduardo Galeano.

"I think President Obama hasn't had time to read that book," said Chavez, whose relations with Washington have been tense for much of his nearly 13-year-old presidency.

Caribbean leaders including Haitian President Michel Martelly thanked Chavez for selling their nations oil on preferential terms including long-term, low interest loans.

"The people of Haiti love you with all their hearts," Martelly told Chavez during his speech, saying "south-south cooperation" is key to the future of his impoverished country.

Chavez assured leaders he will survive cancer, reiterating that he underwent recent tests in Cuba after finishing chemotherapy and they found no "malignant cells in any part of my body, thanks to God."

Trinidad's prime minister gave Chavez a little bottle of what she described as holy water, and Chavez thanked her saying: "Soon we will have a summit of those of us who've beaten cancer."

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Toothaker contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-03-LT-Venezuela-Summit/id-4d9d593c764242008d20478d334eca92

jon lester mitchel musso bad lip reading gilad shalit gilad shalit santonio holmes john edward psychic

Afghans weary of yet another summit ahead of Bonn Conference

An international conference on Afghanistan's future opens Monday in Bonn, Germany. But on the streets of Kabul, Afghans have low expectations a decade into the western presence here.

As leaders from around the world gather in Bonn, Germany to discuss the future of Afghanistan the stakes could not be higher.?Question marks hover over NATO and Afghan forces' progress against the insurgency, the future of US involvement after its 2014 withdrawal deadline, and which factions in the conflict Pakistan will ultimately support.

Skip to next paragraph

Yet for many Afghans, the second Bonn Conference is little to be excited about. International summits like it have taken place on a nearly annual basis over the past ten years and most Afghans say they?ve seen little change as a result.

?I don?t think these conferences are for the good of Afghanistan. We?ve seen many other conferences where hundreds or even thousands of people came. During conferences here in Afghanistan, they closed the roads and people suffered due to strict security policies or even died in attacks during the conference, but they changed nothing,? says Zmary Sapai, a wholesale food merchant in Kabul. ?These conferences are just throwing dirt in the eyes of the Afghan people.?

On Monday the second Bonn Conference will take place 10 years after the first one gathered shortly after the fall of the Taliban government. A decade ago Afghan and international leaders gathered to create a transitional government and pave the way for a new constitution.

Today the political and security situation in Afghanistan remains far from settled and Afghan leaders at Bonn will likely be looking to secure continued international support for the decade to come as they seek to create lasting stability.

The first Bonn Conference and the years immediately following it were marked with much hope following the ouster of the Taliban government and violence staying at relatively low levels. Within five years, however, the Taliban resurgence was well under way and the promises of reconstruction and peace seemed distant to most Afghans.

?If the coming 10 years are like the last 10 years, it will make the Afghans very concerned. After the first Bonn Conference they were saying that they were bringing democracy to Afghanistan, but they gave the country to warlords and jihadist groups,? says Babrak Shinwari, a former member of Parliament from Nangarhar.

Despite billions of dollars of international investment in Afghanistan?s reconstruction ? more than $70 billion from the US alone ? the nation has seen questionable progress.

Human Rights Watch was one of several organizations to issue a cautionary statement in the days leading up to the conference. The rights organization warned of a situation ?dominated by poor governance, lack of rule of law, impunity for militias and police, laws and policies that harm women, and conflict-related abuses.?

Still, there is hope enough time remains to overcome the mistakes of the last ten years. In addition to time, many say improvement will also require enduring international funding.

The Afghan government currently gets 90 percent of its public spending budget from international donors and the World Bank recently warned that it will depend on billions of dollars in foreign assistance for years to come in order to stay afloat.

?From the Bonn Conference what we hope is that the Afghan government makes their demands and suggestions in a fair way that can convince the international community to keep their political and economic assistance for the long-term and maintain these achievements we?ve made over the last several years with the support of the international community,? says Zaifnoon Safi, a member of parliament from Laghman Province.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/x2uTyZ0AFLI/Afghans-weary-of-yet-another-summit-ahead-of-Bonn-Conference

eric decker eric decker jr martinez dallas cowboys cheerleaders leftover turkey recipes leftover turkey recipes hugo

Jay Cutler: Kristin Cavallari Planning the Whole Wedding

Virginia Tech seeks to block fine in shooting case (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Virginia Tech says it acted appropriately in alerting the campus that bloody spring day in 2007 during what turned out to be the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The government disagrees and has levied $55,000 in fines, contending the school was too slow in notifying students, faculty and staff and therefore in violation of a federal law requiring timely warnings when there are safety threats.

The university gets a chance Wednesday to begin making its case before an Education Department administrative judge, Ernest C. Canellos, in hopes of erasing a fine that isn't hefty but can leave a black mark on an institution's record.

The fines were levied under a law known as the Clery Act, which requires colleges and universities to provide warnings in a timely manner and to report the number of crimes on campus. During the Obama administration, there's been a ramping up in enforcement under the act, which has gotten recent attention because of scandals at Penn State and Syracuse.

Investigators have been on the Penn State campus for a Clery Act investigation into whether the university failed to report incidents of sexual abuse in connection to allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. An Education Department spokesman said the department is also reviewing whether a similar investigation will take place at Syracuse. Three men, including two former ballboys, have accused former assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine of molesting them as minors.

In the Virginia Tech case, the rare hearing is expected to last two or three days. It probably won't end with an immediate ruling and further legal challenges could follow. Virginia Tech hasn't indicated it is backing down even though experts say schools found in violation of the law typically accept a fine and agree to changes or negotiate a settlement.

This has attracted great interest in higher education circles, given the high profile nature of the crime and the chance to learn how the department applies the law. The 1990 law was named after Lehigh University student Jeanne Clery, who was raped and murdered in her dorm room by another student in 1986.

During this administration, the Education Department has conducted more random Clery Act audits and has worked at times with the FBI. Six schools this year alone are facing fines, which is the same number that paid fines in the first 18 years of the law, said S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy at Security on Campus Inc., a Wayne, Pa.,-based organization formed by Clery's parents.

The maximum fine per violation under the law is $27,500. Colleges and universities can also lose the right to offer federal student loans, but that's never happened. In the highest fine issued under the Clery Act, Eastern Michigan University agreed in 2008 to pay $350,000 for covering up the rape and killing of a student in her dorm room by telling reporters and her parents there were no signs of foul play.

In the Virginia Tech case, the university opted to exercise its right for an appeals hearing before an Education Department administrative judge. Larry Hincker, a university spokesman, said in an email that the actions taken by Virginia Tech were well within the practices in effect then on campuses.

Virginia's attorney general, Kenneth Cuccinelli, said in a statement earlier this year that the appeal was filed to compel the department to treat Virginia Tech fairly. The university contends the department is holding it to a higher standard than what was in place at the time of the shootings.

"There are important principles and policies at stake here that affect not just Virginia Tech, but colleges and universities all across the country," Cuccinelli said in the statement.

The university is facing charges of failure to issue a timely warning and failure to follow its own procedures for providing notification.

"This case is about responsibility," the Education Department said in a court filing. "Specifically, it's about an institution's responsibility to provide vital information to its students and employees as required by federal law."

The department said the university violated the law by waiting more than two hours after two students were shot to death in a residence hall before sending out a campus wide warning by email. The department said the email was too vague because it mentioned only a "shooting incident" but did not say anyone had died. By that time, student gunman Seung-Hui Cho was chaining shut the doors to a classroom building where he killed 30 more people and then himself.

At the time the email was sent, the university has argued it was believed the two students were shot in an isolated domestic incident and that the shooter had left the campus. The school also contends it had planned a news conference to discuss the residence hall shootings until the later shootings intervened.

"This case is not one in which Virginia Tech was avoiding its responsibilities, but rather one in which it responded in a variety of ways that are permissible under the applicable regulations," the university said in a court filing.

Some family members of the students killed have called the fines woefully inadequate. Suzanne Grimes, whose son Kevin Sterne, was injured in the shootings, is scheduled to testify. She said in a telephone interview that university officials failed in their duty to warn students.

"The families of the deceased have a lifetime of grief and the survivors like my son, Kevin, have a lifetime of injuries and what the future holds for them, as a mother I'm concerned about," Grimes said.

Peter Lake, an education law professor at Stetson University College of Law, said higher education officials believe that what happened at Virginia Tech could happen on any campus. At the same time, university administrators are aware that enforcement of the Clery Act has increased, he said.

"It will be very interesting to see what the arguments are and how they are perceived," Lake said. "I think the field is very much on high alert. They are trying to figure out what's happening next."

While the Virginia Tech hearing may prove instructive for other schools on the Clery Act, a more applicable example on how such cases work involved a review at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas, Carter said.

The Virginia Tech case focuses on what happened related to a specific incident, while Tarleton State's covered broader issues, which is more typical, Carter said.

The Education Department fined Tarleton State $137,500 in 2009 for allegedly underreporting the number of sexual assaults, burglaries and drug-related crimes on and near the campus between 2002 and 2007. The university appealed.

There wasn't an evidentiary hearing, but after reviewing the evidence, Canellos reduced the fine to $27,500. The case was appealed to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who has not issued a decision.

_____

Kimberly Hefling can be followed at http://twitter.com/khefling

_____

Associated Press writer Dena Potter in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.

_____

Online:

Virginia Tech University: http://www.vt.edu/

VTV Family Outreach Foundation: http://www.vtvfamilyfoundation.org

Clery Act: http://tinyurl.com/82kvc52

Security on Campus: http://www.securityoncampus.org

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111203/ap_on_re_us/us_virginia_tech_shootings

adam savage adam savage mos def jack o lantern jack o lantern dave thomas mean girls

Prep football: Valley hits No. 17 nationally

Valley won the 4-A title vs. Bettendorf

West Des Moines Valley finished the high school football season with national recognition.

The Tigers, who went 14-0 and won the Class 4-A state championship, are ranked 17th in USA Today?s Super 25 high school football rankings.

Valley is the only Iowa team in the top 25. The Tigers won the CIML Iowa Conference title and beat Bettendorf 17-14 in the state final.

The team earned four spots on the Des Moines Sunday Register Elite team: Running back Trey Lewis, offensive linemen Trevor Hanson and Austin Stephens and defensive lineman Sam Raridon.

Tags: Iowa high school football, West Des Moines Valley

Source: http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/12/03/prep-football-valley-hits-no-17-nationally/

berkman berkman new beavis and butthead game 7 anya ayoung chee big east peru earthquake

Quantum Entanglement Links Two Diamonds

News | More Science

Usually a finicky phenomenon limited to tiny, ultracold objects, entanglement has now been achieved for macroscopic diamonds at room temperature


Diamond wafer used in entanglement experimentNOT SO SMALL: One of the diamond wafers used in the entanglement experiment, with a coin for scale. Image: CQT

Diamonds have long been available in pairs?say, mounted in a nice set of earrings. But physicists have now taken that pairing to a new level, linking two diamonds on the quantum level.

A group of researchers report in the December 2 issue of Science that they managed to entangle the quantum states of two diamonds separated by 15 centimeters. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon by which two or more objects share an unseen link bridging the space between them?a hypothetical pair of entangled dice, for instance, would always land on matching numbers, even if they were rolled in different places simultaneously.

But that link is fragile, and it can be disrupted by any number of outside influences. For that reason entanglement experiments on physical systems usually take place in highly controlled laboratory setups?entangling, say, a pair of isolated atoms cooled to nearly absolute zero.

In the new study, researchers from the University of Oxford, the National Research Council of Canada and the National University of Singapore (NUS) showed that entanglement can also be achieved in macroscopic objects at room temperature. "What we have done is demonstrate that it's possible with more standard, everyday objects?if diamond can be considered an everyday object," says study co-author Ian Walmsley, an experimental physicist at Oxford. "It's possible to put them into these quantum states that you often associate with these engineered objects, if you like?these closely managed objects."

To entangle relatively large objects, Walmsley and his colleagues harnessed a collective property of diamonds: the vibrational state of their crystal lattices. By targeting a diamond with an optical pulse, the researchers can induce a vibration in the diamond, creating an excitation called a phonon?a quantum of vibrational energy. Researchers can tell when a diamond contains a phonon by checking the light of the pulse as it exits. Because the pulse has deposited a tiny bit of its energy in the crystal, one of the outbound photons is of lower energy, and hence longer wavelength, than the photons of the incoming pulse.

Walmsley and his colleagues set up an experiment that would attempt to entangle two different diamonds using phonons. They used two squares of synthetically produced diamond, each three millimeters across. A laser pulse, bisected by a beam splitter, passes through the diamonds; any photons that scatter off of the diamond to generate a phonon are funneled into a photon detector. One such photon reaching the detector signals the presence of a phonon in the diamonds.

But because of the experimental design, there is no way of knowing which diamond is vibrating. "We know that somewhere in that apparatus, there is one phonon," Walmsley says. "But we cannot tell, even in principle, whether that came from the left-hand diamond or the right-hand diamond." In quantum-mechanical terms, in fact, the phonon is not confined to either diamond. Instead the two diamonds enter an entangled state in which they share one phonon between them.

To verify the presence of entanglement, the researchers carried out a test to check that the diamonds were not acting independently. In the absence of entanglement, after all, half the laser pulses could set the left-hand diamond vibrating and the other half could act on the right-hand diamond, with no quantum correlation between the two objects. If that were the case, then the phonon would be fully confined to one diamond.

If, on the other hand, the phonon were indeed shared by the two entangled diamonds, then any detectable effect of the phonon could bear the imprint of both objects. So the researchers fired a second optical pulse into the diamonds, with the intent of de-exciting the vibration and producing a signal photon that indicates that the phonon has been removed from the system. The phonon's vibrational energy gives the optical pulse a boost, producing a photon with higher energy, or shorter wavelength, than the incoming photons and eliminating the phonon in the process.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=878109434460a22a82f71945f4af52a4

makana makana gloria cain gloria cain kandi burruss occupy portland occupy portland

Asus eee Pad Transformer Prime

Welcome to the big leagues. The Asus eee Pad Transformer Prime feels like the first laptop-class Android tablet, with its quad-core 1.4Ghz processor, clever add-on keyboard dock, and its support for USB storage and console gamepads. This is easily the most impressive Android tablet ever. But with such startling specs, it's outstripping the weak app selection available for Google's Android Honeycomb OS. Although there are a few standout apps for the platform, the lack of a thriving Android tablet app community makes the Transformer Prime a less sure choice than it should be.

Physical Description and Battery Life
The Asus eee Pad Transformer Prime ($499 for 32GB, $599 for 64GB) is a very long, narrow tablet at 10.4 by 7.1 by .3 inches and 20.6 ounces, but it's very slim at .3 inches. It comes in silver and purple. There's a power/dock connector on the bottom, a MicroUSB slot and MicroSD card slot on the left, a standard 3.5-mm headset jack on the right and a somewhat annoyingly recessed power button on top. The tablet connects to the Internet using Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and it also has Bluetooth.

Turn the tablet on to experience a slightly altered version of Google Android Honeycomb 3.2, with some custom widgets, slightly altered icons, and some exciting new settings when you tap on the lower left corner of the screen. One of the settings boosts the sharp 1280-by-800 IPS LCD screen into an extra-bright 600 nit mode, which takes the screen from slightly dimmer than the Apple iPad 2's ($499, 4.5 stars) to somewhat brighter, albeit at the cost of battery life.

But why are you buying this without the $149 keyboard dock? The dock turns the Prime into a netbook, adding a six-row keyboard whose keys are? 94% as wide as standard laptop keys, and a trackpad below that. The keyboard's top row is all function keys, and there's a separate menu button; many Android features are mapped to keys so you won't always need to touch the screen, although you'll still have to reach forward for things like scrolling Web pages. The keys are comfortable to type on, but the trackpad button is extremely stiff.

Almost as importantly as the keyboard, the dock adds an extra battery and a full-sized USB port so you can plug in flash drives, hard drives or gaming controllers.

Tegra 3's added power doesn't mean shorter battery life. It should mean longer battery life in many cases. In our standard test - screen brightness turned to max, processor speed at normal, playing a video file until the tablet fails - we got a very respectable 7 hours 38 minutes of playback, almost exactly the life of the iPad 2.

With screen brightness at 50 percent and the power profile set to "balanced," Asus and Nvidia say they got about 10 hours of video playback. Plugging in the dock, which adds its extra battery, adds another 5-6 hours of life. This is truly an all-day device.

Performance

This is the fastest, most powerful tablet we've ever tested - and yes, that includes the iPad 2. The secret ingredient is Nvidia's five-core Tegra 3 chipset, including four cores which work together at up to 1.4Ghz each and a "companion core" which runs alone and sips power during more idle moments.

You won't see the blinding speed when you're poking around the main UI or some of Google's apps, as they're occasionally nonresponsive, although screen transitions are a bit more fluid than on other Android tablets. But in an app that's programmed well for this tablet (or in our benchmarks) the power comes out.

The Prime has three "performance modes" that you can set in the status bar. Power saving mode caps the processor cores at between 600Mhz and 1Ghz depending on usage, caps video frame rates at 35 fps and lowers the screen brightness, all to save power. Balanced mode caps the quad-core processor at 1.2Ghz per core. Normal mode goes all out.

In Normal mode, the Prime scored a breathtaking 10,619 on the Antutu system benchmark, roughly doubling the score of even fast devices like the HTC Jetstream ($549, 3 stars), with its 1.5Ghz dual-core Qualcomm processor. Much faster RAM and CPU scores made the difference; the tablet was on par with other recent devices for database access and SD I/O. The processor had less effect on Sunspider and Browsermark browsing benchmarks, although the scores of 17ms at Sunspider and 98324 at Browsermark were among the best we've seen on a tablet. Switching the modes down to Balanced, and then Power Saving had the expected effect - first I lost about 10% of the speed, and then half.

This is a spectacular tablet for gaming. The boat game Riptide GP has more realistic water effects than on the iPad; I also played Zen Pinball and Big Top THD, both with rich, gorgeous, well-lit graphics. Adding the dock lets you plug in real gaming controllers, although it also forces you to play in landscape mode. Playing Riptide with a PlayStation 3 SixAxis controller was the best time I have had playing a game on a mobile device, ever. It's much more responsive than tilting the screen. Zen Pinball is also much more playable with real buttons, though I would have liked to be able to play it in portrait mode. (Asus says the tablet also supports some Bluetooth controllers; I just don't have any.) Touch screens just aren't the natural interface for many games. A good joystick can make all the difference.

Adobe's new PS Touch - an Android version of Photoshop - is another great example (and a potential killer app.) PS Touch lets you do very powerful, complex, multilayered transformations on images. Combine it with Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro, and you have a terrific tablet for artists. The quad-core processor greatly speeds up PS Touch: a filter that makes a photo look like an acrylic painting took 1.4 seconds as opposed to 5.3 on the dual-core Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

I ran into some bugs. The Market app stalled out a lot. The Browsermark benchmark sometimes crashed the browser. Occasionally while typing in office suites, the cursor jumped around for no apparent reason. If you plug a USB stick into the dock too quickly after docking the tablet, the tablet won't recognize any USB memory until a cold boot. Scrubbing through a 7.46GB MKV video file made the video player quit at one point; a reboot solved that, too. ?

There's only one perplexing sore point: it takes at least twice as long to cold boot this tablet as with any other tablet I've tested. The Prime takes about a minute to boot; the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 ($499, 3.5 stars) and Apple iPad 2 take half that time.

Apps, Such As They Are

This is the first tablet review I've actually written on the tablet. That says a lot, but it doesn't say enough.

The Transformer Prime runs Google Android 3.2, just like most other tablets nowadays. An upgrade to Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" is coming soon, Asus pledges. It comes with all the usual Google apps, plus some custom widgets and 8GB of cloud storage from Asus.

The problem is, as always, finding apps that take advantage of the Prime's hardware is much, much harder than it should be. The vast majority of the apps in Google's and Amazon's app stores are designed to work well on small, cheap smartphones, not to show off what a quad-core tablet can do. Google steadfastly refuses to force developers to include the "Max API" flag, an existing tag which could segregate the low-power, low-res phone apps away from tablet users. Nvidia has improved the situation a bit with its Tegra Zone, a free alternative app store which spotlights games designed for its Tegra 2 and 3 devices.

I covered gaming and art apps above. For office work, you have the choice of a few office suites; I tried DocumentsToGo and OfficeSuite Pro. They're functional but quite basic. The keyboard dock works with them to enable popular keyboard shortcuts, though, so you can shift-select and then hit control-X to cut text, for instance. And you'll have to post your document online; as with all Android devices, there's no built-in support for printers.

The Android interface also doesn't have a quick way to easily flip between several windows. You can say the same about iOS, of course. But I have the Prime next to my Windows 7 netbook right now, and I'm missing the fluidity of being able to have two windows on a screen or to flip between tabs of things without poking the multitasking button at the bottom of the Android interface. The Prime's hardware can do a lot of things at once, but the software doesn't spotlight that.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/zc2J8X6cW4g/0,2817,2397083,00.asp

fox 4 adam levine vs fashion show 2011 victoria secret fashion show beverly hills hotel beverly hills hotel rajon rondo

Book of Mages: Players Wanted!

Here is the link to this rp ==> Book of Mages: The Dark Times

In this world, there are six clans, three of fire magic and three of water. The Gifted of those Clans can duel with their powers. In light of the recent rise of the tyrant Black Mage, will you be saving the world with your arts...or suffering it to submit to your dominion?

I'm looking for as many players as I can get. Ideally I'd like six, one from each Clan, but I'd be happy with however many I can get and could cope with more. This is a game in which combat and duels will happen. They'll also probably take a while, so I want to see committed players who can post fairly often and who are willing to follow the Combat System in place.

I can promise challenge and adventure, and lots of interaction with your fellow mages... So please do come and take a look and see if it's something you'd like to play!

Edit: You don't -have- to be a mage either. You could play one of the unGifted, if you were so inclined.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/vs_rQdQbxms/viewtopic.php

drake take care herman cain accuser herman cain accuser election day kawasaki disease joe frazier where do i vote