NBC apologizes to Bachmann for Fallon song choice (AP)

ST. PAUL, Minn. ? GOP Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann received an apology from an NBC executive after an off-color song was played during her appearance on Jimmy Fallon's "Late Night," her spokeswoman said late Wednesday.

The Minnesota congresswoman received a personal letter from NBC's vice president for late night programming, Doug Vaughan, a day after she appeared on the show. As Bachmann walked onstage, the show's band had played a snippet of a 1985 Fishbone song entitled "Lyin' Ass B----."

Vaughan wrote that the incident was "not only unfortunate but also unacceptable," Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart told The Associated Press. She said Vaughn offered his sincerest apologies and said the band had been "severely reprimanded."

Fallon also apologized to Bachmann when they spoke earlier Wednesday, she said. He'd tweeted earlier, saying he was "so sorry about the intro mess."

"He was extremely nice and friendly and offered his apology, and she accepted it," Stewart said, adding that the comedian said he was unaware the band planned to play the song. "It's just unfortunate that someone had to do something so disrespectful."

Bachmann lashed out earlier Wednesday at NBC for not apologizing or taking immediate disciplinary action. In her first comments on the flap, Bachmann said on the Fox News Channel that the Fallon show band displayed sexism and bias by playing the song.

"This is clearly a form of bias on the part of the Hollywood entertainment elite," Bachmann said. She added, "This wouldn't be tolerated if this was Michelle Obama. It shouldn't be tolerated if it's a conservative woman either."

She went further on a national radio conservative radio show hosted by Michael Medved, calling the incident "inappropriate, outrageous and disrespectful."

On Fox, Bachmann expressed surprise that she's heard nothing from the TV network. She suggested that discipline for the show's band, The Roots, was in order. She said she believed Fallon's comments to be sincere.

One of Bachmann's congressional colleagues, New York Democrat Nita Lowey, had called on NBC to apologize for its "insulting and inappropriate" treatment of its guest.

An NBC spokeswoman didn't return a phone message from The Associated Press.

The Roots' bandleader, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, has said the song was a "tongue-in-cheek and spur-of-the-moment decision."

Bachmann, who is lagging in presidential polls, has spent the week promoting her new autobiography in national television interviews.

___

AP Television Writer David Bauder in New York and Associated Press writer Erin Gartner in Chicago contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111124/ap_en_mu/us_bachmann_song_choice

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Architect: Beijing airport damage not design flaw

BEIJING (AP) ? One of the architects behind the busiest airport in Asia said Thursday that substandard materials or installation ? not design flaws ? are likely to blame for wind blowing parts of the roof off Beijing's three-year-old Terminal 3.

The airport is the result of a frenetic Chinese building boom that has produced numerous architectural marvels, though some of the iconic new projects have been hit by quality and safety problems.

State media say passengers reported seeing bits of white and yellow roofing material blowing across runways and through parts of the $2.8 billion terminal on Tuesday. In statements issued earlier this week, the airport said no one was hurt and operations were not affected.

It was the second time in a year that wind damaged the airport.

The Beijing airport handled nearly 74 million passengers in 2010, making it the second-busiest in the world after Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport with 89 million passengers, according to Airports Council International.

"If the products provided by the suppliers were not up to their highest standards, or if the individual items were not installed properly, then this kind of thing could happen," said Shao Weiping, an architect with one of the firms that collaborated on the structure, the Beijing Architectural Design and Research Institute.

Shao said he was "very confident that the design was perfect and involved no mistakes or flaws."

Terminal 3 was one of several high-profile projects commissioned by the Chinese government in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The building was designed by Britain's Norman Foster. The Hong Kong office of Foster & Partners didn't immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

A man with the airport's press office refused to comment on the incident or give his name, and referred to the airport's earlier statements.

China's multi-trillion dollar building boom has produced high-speed trains, smooth new superhighways, cruise terminals and airports. But many of the projects, built quickly to meet deadlines that often appear geared toward political grandstanding, have suffered quality and safety problems.

Two bullet trains crashed on July 23, killing 40 people and injuring 177. In 2009, a blaze at the Beijing construction site of the new headquarters for CCTV, China's main television network, gutted a luxury hotel and killed a fireman.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-24-AS-China-Beijing-Airport/id-8a7c15917f8945698668766e883e989b

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Xbox Live Users Scammed in Phishing Attack (NewsFactor)

Bringing back memories of the Sony PlayStation hack that compromised thousands of gamer accounts, some British Microsoft Xbox Live users have been scammed in a phishing attack. Although Microsoft insists its network has not been hacked, the phishers have nonetheless fooled some gamers into disclosing credit-card information.

The Sun, a paper in the U.K., first reported that online crooks hacked into thousands of Xbox Live accounts to steal millions of dollars. The paper said the average catch was 100 British pounds, or a bit over $150 -- but that many suffered losses of more than 200 pounds.

"Xbox Live has not been hacked. Microsoft can confirm that there has been no breach to the security of our Xbox Live service," Microsoft said in a statement. "In this case, a number of Xbox Live members appear to have recently been victim of malicious 'phishing' scams."

Microsoft's Response

News reports suggest some Xbox Live users received e-mails tricking them into visiting "spoofed" Web sites and entering their personal information, including their credit-card numbers. Microsoft said it consistently takes measures to protect Xbox Live against ever-changing threats, and listed three current initiatives. Those initiatives sound like a lesson in basic Internet security 101.

For example, Microsoft is warning people against opening unsolicited e-mails because the messages may contain spyware or other malware that can access personal information on their computer without their knowledge or permission. Microsoft is also reminding all customers that they should be very careful to keep all personal information secure whenever online and never supply e-mail addresses, passwords or credit card information to strangers.

Finally, Microsoft said it is working closely with Xbox Live users who have been in touch with the company to investigate and/or resolve any unauthorized changes to their accounts resulting from phishing scams.

Back To Internet Basics

"It looks like these phishers convinced gamers that they were visiting an Xbox site and got the users to give up IDs and passwords and their credit card numbers," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group. "The bad guys got enough information to actually charge the credit card, then pulled in small amounts of money over a long period of time."

News reports have suggested the phishers convinced gamers to enter the information in exchange for reward points. Enderle expects most credit card companies will indemnify the victims if they dispute the charges.

"This story points to the typical warning for anyone using the Internet: If someone is representing themselves as the vendor, they already have your password and ID. They don't have to ask you for it," Enderle said. "So it should be a red flag if anybody asks you for both your password or ID. Never provide it, even if the site looks to be safe."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20111122/bs_nf/81096

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Comcast shows off its new 'Barcelona' HD guide upgrade

We've already gotten a large eyeful of Comcast's next-gen Xcalibur guide that's on the way next year with social networking tie ins and apps, but until that arrives, what can we hope for on the existing Scientific Atlanta, Cisco, and Motorola cable boxes? Sr. Director of Video Product Development Ted Hodgins has the answer, dropping in a link to the company's new Barcelona guide that it is already delivering to Anyroom DVR customers in Florida now, and will roll out in more markets before the end of the year. Like the upgraded guides we've seen for FiOS and TiVo, this iteration is built for HDTVs, with 16x9 graphics and far more listings information than was previously available on one screen. Other new features include the option to filter listings down to HD, premium, kids, movies, or sports content, easy jumping between days and saved searches. When we first laid eyes on another version of the software nearly four years ago we were impressed by its slick looks, but while it's still a major upgrade over the current decade-old cable box interfaces, in 2011 it takes more than a simple facelift to impress us. Hit the gallery for a few screenshots or click the source link below to meet the new guide before it rolls out in your area and see if its enough to hold you over for the time being.

[Thanks, cypherstream]

Comcast shows off its new 'Barcelona' HD guide upgrade originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/22/comcast-shows-off-its-new-barcelona-hd-guide-upgrade/

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On the road to plasmonics with silver polyhedral nanocrystals

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 22-Nov-2011
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Contact: Lynn Yarris
lcyarris@lbl.gov
510-486-5375
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Berkeley Lab researchers find new approach to making plasmonic materials

The question of how many polyhedral nanocrystals of silver can be packed into millimeter-sized supercrystals may not be burning on many lips but the answer holds importance for one of today's hottest new high-tech fields plasmonics! Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) may have opened the door to a simpler approach for the fabrication of plasmonic materials by inducing polyhedral-shaped silver nanocrystals to self-assemble into three-dimensional supercrystals of the highest possible density.

Plasmonics is the phenomenon by which a beam of light is confined in ultra-cramped spaces allowing it to be manipulated into doing things a beam of light in open space cannot. This phenomenon holds great promise for superfast computers, microscopes that can see nanoscale objects with visible light, and even the creation of invisibility carpets. A major challenge for developing plasmonic technology, however, is the difficulty of fabricating metamaterials with nano-sized interfaces between noble metals and dielectrics.

Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, led a study in which silver nanocrystals of a variety of polyhedral shapes self-assembled into exotic millimeter-sized superstructures through a simple sedimentation technique based on gravity. This first ever demonstration of forming such large-scale silver supercrystals through sedimentation is described in a paper in the journal Nature Materials titled "Self-assembly of uniform polyhedral silver nanocrystals into densest packings and exotic superlattices." Yang, who also holds appointments with the University of California Berkeley's Chemistry Department and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is the corresponding author.

"We have shown through experiment and computer simulation that a range of highly uniform, nanoscale silver polyhedral crystals can self-assemble into structures that have been calculated to be the densest packings of these shapes," Yang says. "In addition, in the case of octahedra, we showed that controlling polymer concentration allows us to tune between a well-known lattice packing structure and a novel packing structure that featured complex helical motifs."

In the Nature Materials paper Yang and his co-authors describe a polyol synthesis technique that was used to generate silver nanocrystals in various shapes, including cubes, truncated cubes, cuboctahedra, truncated octahedra and octahedra over a range of sizes from 100 to 300 nanometers. These uniform polyhedral nanocrystals were then placed in solution where they assembled themselves into dense supercrystals some 25 square millimeters in size through gravitational sedimentation. While the assembly process could be carried out in bulk solution, having the assembly take place in the reservoirs of microarray channels provided Yang and his collaborators with precise control of the superlattice dimensions.

"In a typical experiment, a dilute solution of nanoparticles was loaded into a reservoir that was then tilted, causing the particles to gradually sediment and assemble at the bottom of the reservoir," Yang says. "More concentrated solutions or higher angles of tilt caused the assemblies to form more quickly."

The assemblies generated by this sedimentation procedure exhibited both translational and rotational order over exceptional length scales. In the cases of cubes, truncated octahedra and octahedra, the structures of the dense supercrystals corresponded precisely to their densest lattice packings. Although sedimentation-driven assembly is not new, Yang says this is the first time the technique has been used to make large-scale assemblies of highly uniform polyhedral particles.

"The key factor in our experiments is particle shape, a feature we have found easier to control," Yang says. "When compared with crystal structures of spherical particles, our dense packings of polyhedra are characterized by higher packing fractions, larger interfaces between particles, and different geometries of voids and gaps, which will determine the electrical and optical properties of these materials."

The silver nanocrystals used by Yang and his colleagues are excellent plasmonic materials for surface-enhanced applications. Packing the nanocrystals into three-dimensional supercrystals allows them to be used as metamaterials with the unique optical properties that make plasmonic technology so intriguing.

"Our self-assembly process for these silver polyhedral nanocrystals may give us access to a wide range of interesting, scalable nanostructured materials with dimensions that are comparable to those of bulk materials," Yang says.

###

Co-authoring the Nature Materials paper with Yang were Joel Henzie, Michael Grnwald, Asaph Widmer-Cooper and Phillip Geissler.

This research was supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and DOE's Office of Science.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 22-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Lynn Yarris
lcyarris@lbl.gov
510-486-5375
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Berkeley Lab researchers find new approach to making plasmonic materials

The question of how many polyhedral nanocrystals of silver can be packed into millimeter-sized supercrystals may not be burning on many lips but the answer holds importance for one of today's hottest new high-tech fields plasmonics! Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) may have opened the door to a simpler approach for the fabrication of plasmonic materials by inducing polyhedral-shaped silver nanocrystals to self-assemble into three-dimensional supercrystals of the highest possible density.

Plasmonics is the phenomenon by which a beam of light is confined in ultra-cramped spaces allowing it to be manipulated into doing things a beam of light in open space cannot. This phenomenon holds great promise for superfast computers, microscopes that can see nanoscale objects with visible light, and even the creation of invisibility carpets. A major challenge for developing plasmonic technology, however, is the difficulty of fabricating metamaterials with nano-sized interfaces between noble metals and dielectrics.

Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, led a study in which silver nanocrystals of a variety of polyhedral shapes self-assembled into exotic millimeter-sized superstructures through a simple sedimentation technique based on gravity. This first ever demonstration of forming such large-scale silver supercrystals through sedimentation is described in a paper in the journal Nature Materials titled "Self-assembly of uniform polyhedral silver nanocrystals into densest packings and exotic superlattices." Yang, who also holds appointments with the University of California Berkeley's Chemistry Department and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is the corresponding author.

"We have shown through experiment and computer simulation that a range of highly uniform, nanoscale silver polyhedral crystals can self-assemble into structures that have been calculated to be the densest packings of these shapes," Yang says. "In addition, in the case of octahedra, we showed that controlling polymer concentration allows us to tune between a well-known lattice packing structure and a novel packing structure that featured complex helical motifs."

In the Nature Materials paper Yang and his co-authors describe a polyol synthesis technique that was used to generate silver nanocrystals in various shapes, including cubes, truncated cubes, cuboctahedra, truncated octahedra and octahedra over a range of sizes from 100 to 300 nanometers. These uniform polyhedral nanocrystals were then placed in solution where they assembled themselves into dense supercrystals some 25 square millimeters in size through gravitational sedimentation. While the assembly process could be carried out in bulk solution, having the assembly take place in the reservoirs of microarray channels provided Yang and his collaborators with precise control of the superlattice dimensions.

"In a typical experiment, a dilute solution of nanoparticles was loaded into a reservoir that was then tilted, causing the particles to gradually sediment and assemble at the bottom of the reservoir," Yang says. "More concentrated solutions or higher angles of tilt caused the assemblies to form more quickly."

The assemblies generated by this sedimentation procedure exhibited both translational and rotational order over exceptional length scales. In the cases of cubes, truncated octahedra and octahedra, the structures of the dense supercrystals corresponded precisely to their densest lattice packings. Although sedimentation-driven assembly is not new, Yang says this is the first time the technique has been used to make large-scale assemblies of highly uniform polyhedral particles.

"The key factor in our experiments is particle shape, a feature we have found easier to control," Yang says. "When compared with crystal structures of spherical particles, our dense packings of polyhedra are characterized by higher packing fractions, larger interfaces between particles, and different geometries of voids and gaps, which will determine the electrical and optical properties of these materials."

The silver nanocrystals used by Yang and his colleagues are excellent plasmonic materials for surface-enhanced applications. Packing the nanocrystals into three-dimensional supercrystals allows them to be used as metamaterials with the unique optical properties that make plasmonic technology so intriguing.

"Our self-assembly process for these silver polyhedral nanocrystals may give us access to a wide range of interesting, scalable nanostructured materials with dimensions that are comparable to those of bulk materials," Yang says.

###

Co-authoring the Nature Materials paper with Yang were Joel Henzie, Michael Grnwald, Asaph Widmer-Cooper and Phillip Geissler.

This research was supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and DOE's Office of Science.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/dbnl-otr112211.php

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Christine Carter, PhD: 3 Ways to Practice Gratitude With Your Family

"Abundance can be had simply by consciously receiving what has already been given." -- Sufi Saying

As a "happiness expert" (as I'm sometimes called), people often ask me, "If you had to pick just one thing that could make me happier right now, what would it be?"

I'm always tempted to make jokes about sex and yoga -- or maybe a glass of wine.

Glib responses aside, those of us who teach happiness for a living have some ready answers to this question. Sonja Lybomirsky, author of "The How of Happiness," picks exercise as the best instant happiness booster. Martin Seligman, author of "Authentic Happiness" and "Flourishing," recommends acts of kindness.

Knowing the research, I'm sold on the happiness-boosting properties of both exercise and kindness. But I have a different No. 1.

2011-11-23-DSC_2409_3.jpg

I believe gratitude is the foundation of personal happiness -- and a community's happiness as well, as the two aren't easily separated.

If we want to be happy, and to raise happy kids, we need to practice gratitude -- deliberately, and consistently, or we may end up feeling more entitled than appreciative.

When we feel entitled, we often stew about unfulfilled expectations. Entitlement makes us more likely to feel disappointed when we don't get what we think we want, rather than grateful when we receive something.

Disappointment is not a happiness habit. Gratitude is.

Habit being the key word: We need to establish rituals and traditions that make feeling and expressing gratitude habitual. Here are three of my favorite gratitude practices.

1. On Thanksgiving, we appreciate each other by writing on our dinner table place cards. The kids make giant construction paper placecards for each guest, and as people arrive and mingle, we each take some time to sit down at the table and write on the inside of each place card something that we love or appreciate about them.

2. Several times a week, I take a photograph of something I find beautiful or inspiring, or something for which I feel grateful. I was inspired to do this by Hailey Bartholomew's film. Often, I just take the photo with my phone, and usually it never gets shared.

3. Everyday, I ask my kids about three good things. They might share good things that happened to them that day, or good things they did themselves, or even something good that hasn't happened yet that they are anticipating. For example: "One good thing today is that in two days we get to go to Chico to see Grammy and Grampa Snuggles and our cousins!" They are counting their blessings.

We do this practice in all different circumstances. Sometimes it's while snuggled in bed. Sometimes, when I have a speaking engagement at night, we do it after school, on the couch. Sometimes it's over the phone if they're at their dad's house. But no matter the situation, their first good thing is always "right now." This reminds me to be present and recognize that this particular "right now" is worthy of great gratitude.

In addition to stirring up feelings of gratitude (while curbing a sense of entitlement), all of these practices evoke the positive emotions that make us feel deeply satisfied with our lives.

The first practice makes us feel loved, and helps us express the love we have for others.

The second makes me feel awe and elevation, because I'm usually photographing something beautiful in nature. I will also often also feel love if there is, say, a child in the picture. And sometimes I just feel awash in contentment and peace -- or creativity and inspiration -- as I take the photograph.

The third practice can evoke a full range of positive emotions: anticipation and excitement (about something coming up); kindness and compassion (for someone they did a "good thing" for); straight-up relived happiness (recounting a fun time at recess).

All of these practices evoke the abundance that is all around us, even in these challenging times. As the Sufi saying above acknowledges, they help us receive the many gifts that are already out there.

What are your family's favorite gratitude practices?

? 2011 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-carter-phd/teaching-kids-gratitude-_b_1109325.html

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